Gargantua and Pantagruel

Francois Rabelais

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  • Introduction.
  • FRANCIS RABELAIS.
    The Etext was produced by Sue Asscher,
    the illustrated HTML version by David Widger

    MASTER FRANCIS RABELAIS

    FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES, HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF

    GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL



    Translated into English by

    Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty

    and

    Peter Antony Motteux



    Illustrated by

    Gustave Dore







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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.





    CONTENTS



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    Introduction


    THE FIRST BOOK.

    J. De la Salle, to the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais.

    Rablophila



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    Introduction.

    Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one would
    ever have imagined the possibility of its production.  It stands outside
    other things—a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of
    childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of
    popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of
    baseness and nobility, of personalities and broad generalization, of the
    comic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar.  Throughout the
    whole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of good
    sense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with the
    greatest; and his peers are not many.  You may like him or not, may attack
    him or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him.  He is of those that
    die hard.  Be as fastidious as you will; make up your mind to recognize
    only those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above all
    others; however few the names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain.

    We may know his work, may know it well, and admire it more every time we
    read it.  After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we may return
    again to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning.  Yet there is
    no possibility of knowing his own life in the same fashion.  In spite of
    all the efforts, often successful, that have been made to throw light on
    it, to bring forward a fresh document, or some obscure mention in a
    forgotten book, to add some little fact, to fix a date more precisely, it
    remains nevertheless full of uncertainty and of gaps.  Besides, it has been
    burdened and sullied by all kinds of wearisome stories and foolish
    anecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out than to add.

    This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the sixteenth century, in
    the furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, who
    seems to have drawn his conclusions concerning the author from the book,
    and, more especially, in the regrettable satirical epitaph of Ronsard,
    piqued, it is said, that the Guises had given him only a little pavillon in
    the Forest of Meudon, whereas the presbytery was close to the chateau.
    From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has completely travestied
    him, till, bit by bit, it has made of him a buffoon, a veritable clown, a
    vagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard.

    The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis.  He has
    been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an
    incorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always
    laughing.  The picture would have surprised his friends no less than
    himself.  There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen many
    such.  They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater number are
    conceived in this jovial and popular style.

    As a matter of fact there is only one portrait of him that counts, that has
    more than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the Chronologie
    collee or coupee.  Under this double name is known and cited a large sheet
    divided by lines and cross lines into little squares, containing about a
    hundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen.  This sheet was stuck on pasteboard
    for hanging on the wall, and was cut in little pieces, so that the
    portraits might be sold separately.  The majority of the portraits are of
    known persons and can therefore be verified.  Now it can be seen that these
    have been selected with care, and taken from the most authentic sources;
    from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass, for the persons of most
    distinction, from earlier engravings for the others.  Moreover, those of
    which no other copies exist, and which are therefore the most valuable,
    have each an individuality very distinct, in the features, the hair, the
    beard, as well as in the costume.  Not one of them is like another.  There
    has been no tampering with them, no forgery.  On the contrary, there is in
    each a difference, a very marked personality.  Leonard Gaultier, who
    published this engraving towards the end of the sixteenth century,
    reproduced a great many portraits besides from chalk drawings, in the style
    of his master, Thomas de Leu.  It must have been such drawings that were
    the originals of those portraits which he alone has issued, and which may
    therefore be as authentic and reliable as the others whose correctness we
    are in a position to verify.

    Now Rabelais has here nothing of the Roger Bontemps of low degree about
    him.  His features are strong, vigorously cut, and furrowed with deep
    wrinkles; his beard is short and scanty; his cheeks are thin and already
    worn-looking.  On his head he wears the square cap of the doctors and the
    clerks, and his dominant expression, somewhat rigid and severe, is that of
    a physician and a scholar.  And this is the only portrait to which we need
    attach any importance.

    This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaustive
    study.  At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to fix
    a few certain dates, to hang some general observations.  The date of
    Rabelais' birth is very doubtful.  For long it was placed as far back as
    1483:  now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495.  The
    reason, a good one, is that all those whom he has mentioned as his friends,
    or in any real sense his contemporaries, were born at the very end of the
    fifteenth century.  And, indeed, it is in the references in his romance to
    names, persons, and places, that the most certain and valuable evidence is
    to be found of his intercourse, his patrons, his friendships, his
    sojournings, and his travels:  his own work is the best and richest mine in
    which to search for the details of his life.

    Like Descartes and Balzac, he was a native of Touraine, and Tours and
    Chinon have only done their duty in each of them erecting in recent years a
    statue to his honour, a twofold homage reflecting credit both on the
    province and on the town.  But the precise facts about his birth are
    nevertheless vague.  Huet speaks of the village of Benais, near Bourgeuil,
    of whose vineyards Rabelais makes mention.  As the little vineyard of La
    Deviniere, near Chinon, and familiar to all his readers, is supposed to
    have belonged to his father, Thomas Rabelais, some would have him born
    there.  It is better to hold to the earlier general opinion that Chinon was
    his native town; Chinon, whose praises he sang with such heartiness and
    affection.  There he might well have been born in the Lamproie house, which
    belonged to his father, who, to judge from this circumstance, must have
    been in easy circumstances, with the position of a well-to-do citizen.  As
    La Lamproie in the seventeenth century was a hostelry, the father of
    Rabelais has been set down as an innkeeper.  More probably he was an
    apothecary, which would fit in with the medical profession adopted by his
    son in after years.  Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself.
    Perhaps because he was the youngest, his father destined him for the
    Church.

    The time he spent while a child with the Benedictine monks at Seuille is
    uncertain.  There he might have made the acquaintance of the prototype of
    his Friar John, a brother of the name of Buinart, afterwards Prior of
    Sermaize.  He was longer at the Abbey of the Cordeliers at La Baumette,
    half a mile from Angers, where he became a novice.  As the brothers Du
    Bellay, who were later his Maecenases, were then studying at the University
    of Angers, where it is certain he was not a student, it is doubtless from
    this youthful period that his acquaintance and alliance with them should
    date.  Voluntarily, or induced by his family, Rabelais now embraced the
    ecclesiastical profession, and entered the monastery of the Franciscan
    Cordeliers at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou, which was honoured by his
    long sojourn at the vital period of his life when his powers were ripening.
    There it was he began to study and to think, and there also began his
    troubles.

    In spite of the wide-spread ignorance among the monks of that age, the
    encyclopaedic movement of the Renaissance was attracting all the lofty
    minds.  Rabelais threw himself into it with enthusiasm, and Latin antiquity
    was not enough for him.  Greek, a study discountenanced by the Church,
    which looked on it as dangerous and tending to freethought and heresy, took
    possession of him.  To it he owed the warm friendship of Pierre Amy and of
    the celebrated Guillaume Bude.  In fact, the Greek letters of the latter
    are the best source of information concerning this period of Rabelais'
    life.  It was at Fontenay-le-Comte also that he became acquainted with the
    Brissons and the great jurist Andre Tiraqueau, whom he never mentions but
    with admiration and deep affection.  Tiraqueau's treatise, De legibus
    connubialibus, published for the first time in 1513, has an important
    bearing on the life of Rabelais.  There we learn that, dissatisfied with
    the incomplete translation of Herodotus by Laurent Valla, Rabelais had
    retranslated into Latin the first book of the History.  That translation
    unfortunately is lost, as so many other of his scattered works.  It is
    probably in this direction that the hazard of fortune has most discoveries
    and surprises in store for the lucky searcher.  Moreover, as in this law
    treatise Tiraqueau attacked women in a merciless fashion, President Amaury
    Bouchard published in 1522 a book in their defence, and Rabelais, who was a
    friend of both the antagonists, took the side of Tiraqueau.  It should be
    observed also in passing, that there are several pages of such audacious
    plain-speaking, that Rabelais, though he did not copy these in his Marriage
    of Panurge, has there been, in his own fashion, as out spoken as Tiraqueau.
    If such freedom of language could be permitted in a grave treatise of law,
    similar liberties were certainly, in the same century, more natural in a
    book which was meant to amuse.

    The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of
    reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness,
    which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value.  La
    Bruyere, in the chapter Des ouvrages de l'esprit, not in the first edition
    of the Caracteres, but in the fifth, that is to say in 1690, at the end of
    the great century, gives us on this subject his own opinion and that of his
    age:

    'Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable in their habit of scattering filth
    about their writings.  Both of them had genius enough and wit enough to do
    without any such expedient, even for the amusement of those persons who
    look more to the laugh to be got out of a book than to what is admirable in
    it.  Rabelais especially is incomprehensible.  His book is an enigma,—one
    may say inexplicable.  It is a Chimera; it is like the face of a lovely
    woman with the feet and the tail of a reptile, or of some creature still
    more loathsome.  It is a monstrous confusion of fine and rare morality with
    filthy corruption.  Where it is bad, it goes beyond the worst; it is the
    delight of the basest of men.  Where it is good, it reaches the exquisite,
    the very best; it ministers to the most delicate tastes.'

    Putting aside the rather slight connection established between two men of
    whom one is of very little importance compared with the other, this is
    otherwise very admirably said, and the judgment is a very just one, except
    with regard to one point—the misunderstanding of the atmosphere in which
    the book was created, and the ignoring of the examples of a similar
    tendency furnished by literature as well as by the popular taste.  Was it
    not the Ancients that began it?  Aristophanes, Catullus, Petronius,
    Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas as well as in the words
    they used, and they dragged after them in this direction not a few of the
    Latin poets of the Renaissance, who believed themselves bound to imitate
    them.  Is Italy without fault in this respect?  Her story-tellers in prose
    lie open to easy accusation.  Her Capitoli in verse go to incredible
    lengths; and the astonishing success of Aretino must not be forgotten, nor
    the licence of the whole Italian comic theatre of the sixteenth century.
    The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards a Cardinal, and the Mandragola
    of Machiavelli, are evidence enough, and these were played before Popes,
    who were not a whit embarrassed.  Even in England the drama went very far
    for a time, and the comic authors of the reign of Charles II., evidently
    from a reaction, and to shake off the excess and the wearisomeness of
    Puritan prudery and affectation, which sent them to the opposite extreme,
    are not exactly noted for their reserve.  But we need not go beyond France.
    Slight indications, very easily verified, are all that may be set down
    here; a formal and detailed proof would be altogether too dangerous.

    Thus, for instance, the old Fabliaux—the Farces of the fifteenth century,
    the story-tellers of the sixteenth—reveal one of the sides, one of the
    veins, so to speak, of our literature.  The art that addresses itself to
    the eye had likewise its share of this coarseness.  Think of the sculptures
    on the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of
    certain painted windows of the fifteenth century.  Queen Anne was, without
    any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world.  Yet she used to go
    up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes were not offended at
    seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent carving of a monk and a
    nun.  Neither did she tear out of her book of Hours the large miniature of
    the winter month, in which, careless of her neighbours' eyes, the mistress
    of the house, sitting before her great fireplace, warms herself in a
    fashion which it is not advisable that dames of our age should imitate.
    The statue of Cybele by the Tribolo, executed for Francis I., and placed,
    not against a wall, but in the middle of Queen Claude's chamber at
    Fontainebleau, has behind it an attribute which would have been more in
    place on a statue of Priapus, and which was the symbol of generativeness.
    The tone of the conversations was ordinarily of a surprising coarseness,
    and the Precieuses, in spite of their absurdities, did a very good work in
    setting themselves in opposition to it.  The worthy Chevalier de La-Tour-
    Landry, in his Instructions to his own daughters, without a thought of
    harm, gives examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's translation
    these are not omitted.  The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed at Bruges by
    Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers that they were
    the little society diversions of the Duchesses of Burgundy and of the great
    ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the French court,
    which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis XI.  Rabelais'
    pleasantry about the woman folle a la messe is exactly in the style of the
    Adevineaux.

    A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept in
    mind—for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated into
    French—as also the Dames Galantes of Brantome.  Read the Journal of
    Heroard, that honest doctor, who day by day wrote down the details
    concerning the health of Louis XIII. from his birth, and you will
    understand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV.  The jokes at a
    country wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness.  Le Moyen
    de Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the too
    celebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII., could be
    written, printed, and read.  The collection of songs formed by Clairambault
    shows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no purer than the
    sixteenth.  Some of the most ribald songs are actually the work of
    Princesses of the royal House.

    It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, to
    charge him alone with the sins of everybody else.  He spoke as those of his
    time used to speak; when amusing them he used their language to make
    himself understood, and to slip in his asides, which without this sauce
    would never have been accepted, would have found neither eyes nor ears.
    Let us blame not him, therefore, but the manners of his time.

    Besides, his gaiety, however coarse it may appear to us—and how rare a
    thing is gaiety!—has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it; and this is
    too often overlooked.  Where does he tempt one to stray from duty?  Where,
    even indirectly, does he give pernicious advice?  Whom has he led to evil
    ways?  Does he ever inspire feelings that breed misconduct and vice, or is
    he ever the apologist of these?  Many poets and romance writers, under
    cover of a fastidious style, without one coarse expression, have been
    really and actively hurtful; and of that it is impossible to accuse
    Rabelais.  Women in particular quickly revolt from him, and turn away
    repulsed at once by the archaic form of the language and by the
    outspokenness of the words.  But if he be read aloud to them, omitting the
    rougher parts and modernizing the pronunciation, it will be seen that they
    too are impressed by his lively wit as by the loftiness of his thought.  It
    would be possible, too, to extract, for young persons, without
    modification, admirable passages of incomparable force.  But those who have
    brought out expurgated editions of him, or who have thought to improve him
    by trying to rewrite him in modern French, have been fools for their pains,
    and their insulting attempts have had, and always will have, the success
    they deserve.

    His dedications prove to what extent his whole work was accepted.  Not to
    speak of his epistolary relations with Bude, with the Cardinal d'Armagnac
    and with Pellissier, the ambassador of Francis I. and Bishop of Maguelonne,
    or of his dedication to Tiraqueau of his Lyons edition of the Epistolae
    Medicinales of Giovanni Manardi of Ferrara, of the one addressed to the
    President Amaury Bouchard of the two legal texts which he believed antique,
    there is still the evidence of his other and more important dedications.
    In 1532 he dedicated his Hippocrates and his Galen to Geoffroy d'Estissac,
    Bishop of Maillezais, to whom in 1535 and 1536 he addressed from Rome the
    three news letters, which alone have been preserved; and in 1534 he
    dedicated from Lyons his edition of the Latin book of Marliani on the
    topography of Rome to Jean du Bellay (at that time Bishop of Paris) who was
    raised to the Cardinalate in 1535.  Beside these dedications we must set
    the privilege of Francis I. of September, 1545, and the new privilege
    granted by Henry II. on August 6th, 1550, Cardinal de Chatillon present,
    for the third book, which was dedicated, in an eight-lined stanza, to the
    Spirit of the Queen of Navarre.  These privileges, from the praises and
    eulogies they express in terms very personal and very exceptional, are as
    important in Rabelais' life as were, in connection with other matters, the
    Apostolic Pastorals in his favour.  Of course, in these the popes had not
    to introduce his books of diversions, which, nevertheless, would have
    seemed in their eyes but very venial sins.  The Sciomachie of 1549, an
    account of the festivities arranged at Rome by Cardinal du Bellay in honour
    of the birth of the second son of Henry II., was addressed to Cardinal de
    Guise, and in 1552 the fourth book was dedicated, in a new prologue, to
    Cardinal de Chatillon, the brother of Admiral de Coligny.

    These are no unknown or insignificant personages, but the greatest lords
    and princes of the Church.  They loved and admired and protected Rabelais,
    and put no restrictions in his way.  Why should we be more fastidious and
    severe than they were?  Their high contemporary appreciation gives much
    food for thought.

    There are few translations of Rabelais in foreign tongues; and certainly
    the task is no light one, and demands more than a familiarity with ordinary
    French.  It would have been easier in Italy than anywhere else.  Italian,
    from its flexibility and its analogy to French, would have lent itself
    admirably to the purpose; the instrument was ready, but the hand was not
    forthcoming.  Neither is there any Spanish translation, a fact which can be
    more easily understood.  The Inquisition would have been a far more serious
    opponent than the Paris' Sorbonne, and no one ventured on the experiment.
    Yet Rabelais forces comparison with Cervantes, whose precursor he was in
    reality, though the two books and the two minds are very different.  They
    have only one point in common, their attack and ridicule of the romances of
    chivalry and of the wildly improbable adventures of knight-errants.  But in
    Don Quixote there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes
    knew Rabelais' book or owed anything to it whatsoever, even the starting-
    point of his subject.  Perhaps it was better he should not have been
    influenced by him, in however slight a degree; his originality is the more
    intact and the more genial.

    On the other hand, Rabelais has been several times translated into German.
    In the present century Regis published at Leipsic, from 1831 to 1841, with
    copious notes, a close and faithful translation.  The first one cannot be
    so described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz or Strasburg, who
    died in 1614.  He was a Protestant controversialist, and a satirist of
    fantastic and abundant imagination.  In 1575 appeared his translation of
    Rabelais' first book, and in 1590 he published the comic catalogue of the
    library of Saint Victor, borrowed from the second book.  It is not a
    translation, but a recast in the boldest style, full of alterations and of
    exaggerations, both as regards the coarse expressions which he took upon
    himself to develop and to add to, and in the attacks on the Roman Catholic
    Church.  According to Jean Paul Richter, Fischart is much superior to
    Rabelais in style and in the fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal in
    erudition and in the invention of new expressions after the manner of
    Aristophanes.  He is sure that his work was successful, because it was
    often reprinted during his lifetime; but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul would
    hardly carry conviction in France.  Who treads in another's footprints must
    follow in the rear.  Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator.  Those
    who take the ideas of others to modify them, and make of them creations of
    their own, like Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France,
    may be superior to those who have served them with suggestions; but then
    the new works must be altogether different, must exist by themselves.
    Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to have
    destroyed their models.  These copyists, if we call them so, created such
    works of genius that the only pity is they are so rare.  This is not the
    case with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some one
    thoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at least,
    by long extracts from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German taste
    when it thought it could do better than Rabelais.  It is dangerous to
    tamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk of
    burning his fingers.

    England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have brought
    her success.  But, before speaking of Urquhart's translation, it is but
    right to mention the English-French Dictionary of Randle Cotgrave, the
    first edition of which dates from 1611.  It is in every way exceedingly
    valuable, and superior to that of Nicot, because instead of keeping to the
    plane of classic and Latin French, it showed an acquaintance with and
    mastery of the popular tongue as well as of the written and learned
    language.  As a foreigner, Cotgrave is a little behind in his information.
    He is not aware of all the changes and novelties of the passing fashion.
    The Pleiad School he evidently knew nothing of, but kept to the writers of
    the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century.  Thus words out
    of Rabelais, which he always translates with admirable skill, are frequent,
    and he attaches to them their author's name.  So Rabelais had already
    crossed the Channel, and was read in his own tongue.  Somewhat later,
    during the full sway of the Commonwealth—and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier must
    have been a surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity—Captain
    Urquhart undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely in
    England.

    Thomas Urquhart belonged to a very old family of good standing in the North
    of Scotland.  After studying in Aberdeen he travelled in France, Spain, and
    Italy, where his sword was as active as that intelligent curiosity of his
    which is evidenced by his familiarity with three languages and the large
    library which he brought back, according to his own account, from sixteen
    countries he had visited.

    On his return to England he entered the service of Charles I., who knighted
    him in 1641.  Next year, after the death of his father, he went to Scotland
    to set his family affairs in order, and to redeem his house in Cromarty.
    But, in spite of another sojourn in foreign lands, his efforts to free
    himself from pecuniary embarrassments were unavailing.  At the king's death
    his Scottish loyalty caused him to side with those who opposed the
    Parliament.  Formally proscribed in 1649, taken prisoner at the defeat of
    Worcester in 1651, stripped of all his belongings, he was brought to
    London, but was released on parole at Cromwell's recommendation.  After
    receiving permission to spend five months in Scotland to try once more to
    settle his affairs, he came back to London to escape from his creditors.
    And there he must have died, though the date of his death is unknown.  It
    probably took place after 1653, the date of the publication of the two
    first books, and after having written the translation of the third, which
    was not printed from his manuscript till the end of the seventeenth
    century.

    His life was therefore not without its troubles, and literary activity must
    have been almost his only consolation.  His writings reveal him as the
    strangest character, fantastic, and full of a naive vanity, which, even at
    the time he was translating the genealogy of Gargantua—surely well
    calculated to cure any pondering on his own—caused him to trace his
    unbroken descent from Adam, and to state that his family name was derived
    from his ancestor Esormon, Prince of Achaia, 2139 B.C., who was surnamed
    Ourochartos, that is to say the Fortunate and the Well-beloved.  A Gascon
    could not have surpassed this.

    Gifted as he was, learned in many directions, an enthusiastic
    mathematician, master of several languages, occasionally full of wit and
    humour, and even good sense, yet he gave his books the strangest titles,
    and his ideas were no less whimsical.  His style is mystic, fastidious, and
    too often of a wearisome length and obscurity; his verses rhyme anyhow, or
    not at all; but vivacity, force and heat are never lacking, and the
    Maitland Club did well in reprinting, in 1834, his various works, which are
    very rare.  Yet, in spite of their curious interest, he owes his real
    distinction and the survival of his name to his translation of Rabelais.

    The first two books appeared in 1653.  The original edition, exceedingly
    scarce, was carefully reprinted in 1838, only a hundred copies being
    issued, by an English bibliophile T(heodore) M(artin), whose interesting
    preface I regret to sum up so cursorily.  At the end of the seventeenth
    century, in 1693, a French refugee, Peter Antony Motteux, whose English
    verses and whose plays are not without value, published in a little octavo
    volume a reprint, very incorrect as to the text, of the first two books, to
    which he added the third, from the manuscript found amongst Urquhart's
    papers.  The success which attended this venture suggested to Motteux the
    idea of completing the work, and a second edition, in two volumes, appeared
    in 1708, with the translation of the fourth and fifth books, and notes.
    Nineteen years after his death, John Ozell, translator on a large scale of
    French, Italian, and Spanish authors, revised Motteux's edition, which he
    published in five volumes in 1737, adding Le Duchat's notes; and this
    version has often been reprinted since.

    The continuation by Motteux, who was also the translator of Don Quixote,
    has merits of its own.  It is precise, elegant, and very faithful.
    Urquhart's, without taking liberties with Rabelais like Fischart, is not
    always so closely literal and exact.  Nevertheless, it is much superior to
    Motteux's.  If Urquhart does not constantly adhere to the form of the
    expression, if he makes a few slight additions, not only has he an
    understanding of the original, but he feels it, and renders the sense with
    a force and a vivacity full of warmth and brilliancy.  His own learning
    made the comprehension of the work easy to him, and his anglicization of
    words fabricated by Rabelais is particularly successful.  The necessity of
    keeping to his text prevented his indulgence in the convolutions and
    divagations dictated by his exuberant fancy when writing on his own
    account.  His style, always full of life and vigour, is here balanced,
    lucid, and picturesque.  Never elsewhere did he write so well.  And thus
    the translation reproduces the very accent of the original, besides
    possessing a very remarkable character of its own.  Such a literary tone
    and such literary qualities are rarely found in a translation.  Urquhart's,
    very useful for the interpretation of obscure passages, may, and indeed
    should be read as a whole, both for Rabelais and for its own merits.

    Holland, too, possesses a translation of Rabelais.  They knew French in
    that country in the seventeenth century better than they do to-day, and
    there Rabelais' works were reprinted when no editions were appearing in
    France.  This Dutch translation was published at Amsterdam in 1682, by J.
    Tenhoorn.  The name attached to it, Claudio Gallitalo (Claudius French-
    Italian) must certainly be a pseudonym.  Only a Dutch scholar could
    identify the translator, and state the value to be assigned to his work.

    Rabelais' style has many different sources.  Besides its force and
    brilliancy, its gaiety, wit, and dignity, its abundant richness is no less
    remarkable.  It would be impossible and useless to compile a glossary of
    Voltaire's words.  No French writer has used so few, and all of them are of
    the simplest.  There is not one of them that is not part of the common
    speech, or which demands a note or an explanation.  Rabelais' vocabulary,
    on the other hand, is of an astonishing variety.  Where does it all come
    from?  As a fact, he had at his command something like three languages,
    which he used in turn, or which he mixed according to the effect he wished
    to produce.

    First of all, of course, he had ready to his hand the whole speech of his
    time, which had no secrets for him.  Provincials have been too eager to
    appropriate him, to make of him a local author, the pride of some village,
    in order that their district might have the merit of being one of the
    causes, one of the factors of his genius.  Every neighbourhood where he
    ever lived has declared that his distinction was due to his knowledge of
    its popular speech.  But these dialect-patriots have fallen out among
    themselves.  To which dialect was he indebted?  Was it that of Touraine, or
    Berri, or Poitou, or Paris?  It is too often forgotten, in regard to French
    patois—leaving out of count the languages of the South—that the words or
    expressions that are no longer in use to-day are but a survival, a still
    living trace of the tongue and the pronunciation of other days.  Rabelais,
    more than any other writer, took advantage of the happy chances and the
    richness of the popular speech, but he wrote in French, and nothing but
    French.  That is why he remains so forcible, so lucid, and so living, more
    living even—speaking only of his style out of charity to the others—than
    any of his contemporaries.

    It has been said that great French prose is solely the work of the
    seventeenth century.  There were nevertheless, before that, two men,
    certainly very different and even hostile, who were its initiators and its
    masters, Calvin on the one hand, on the other Rabelais.

    Rabelais had a wonderful knowledge of the prose and the verse of the
    fifteenth century:  he was familiar with Villon, Pathelin, the Quinze Joies
    de Mariage, the Cent Nouvelles, the chronicles and the romances, and even
    earlier works, too, such as the Roman de la Rose.  Their words, their turns
    of expression came naturally to his pen, and added a piquancy and, as it
    were, a kind of gloss of antique novelty to his work.  He fabricated words,
    too, on Greek and Latin models, with great ease, sometimes audaciously and
    with needless frequency.  These were for him so many means, so many
    elements of variety.  Sometimes he did this in mockery, as in the humorous
    discourse of the Limousin scholar, for which he is not a little indebted to
    Geoffroy Tory in the Champfleury; sometimes, on the contrary, seriously,
    from a habit acquired in dealing with classical tongues.

    Again, another reason of the richness of his vocabulary was that he
    invented and forged words for himself.  Following the example of
    Aristophanes, he coined an enormous number of interminable words, droll
    expressions, sudden and surprising constructions.  What had made Greece and
    the Athenians laugh was worth transporting to Paris.

    With an instrument so rich, resources so endless, and the skill to use
    them, it is no wonder that he could give voice to anything, be as humorous
    as he could be serious, as comic as he could be grave, that he could
    express himself and everybody else, from the lowest to the highest.  He had
    every colour on his palette, and such skill was in his fingers that he
    could depict every variety of light and shade.

    We have evidence that Rabelais did not always write in the same fashion.
    The Chronique Gargantuaine is uniform in style and quite simple, but cannot
    with certainty be attributed to him.  His letters are bombastic and thin;
    his few attempts at verse are heavy, lumbering, and obscure, altogether
    lacking in harmony, and quite as bad as those of his friend, Jean Bouchet.
    He had no gift of poetic form, as indeed is evident even from his prose.
    And his letters from Rome to the Bishop of Maillezais, interesting as they
    are in regard to the matter, are as dull, bare, flat, and dry in style as
    possible.  Without his signature no one would possibly have thought of
    attributing them to him.  He is only a literary artist when he wishes to be
    such; and in his romance he changes the style completely every other
    moment:  it has no constant character or uniform manner, and therefore
    unity is almost entirely wanting in his work, while his endeavours after
    contrast are unceasing.  There is throughout the whole the evidence of
    careful and conscious elaboration.

    Hence, however lucid and free be the style of his romance, and though its
    flexibility and ease seem at first sight to have cost no trouble at all,
    yet its merit lies precisely in the fact that it succeeds in concealing the
    toil, in hiding the seams.  He could not have reached this perfection at a
    first attempt.  He must have worked long at the task, revised it again and
    again, corrected much, and added rather than cut away.  The aptness of form
    and expression has been arrived at by deliberate means, and owes nothing to
    chance.  Apart from the toning down of certain bold passages, to soften
    their effect, and appease the storm—for these were not literary
    alterations, but were imposed on him by prudence—one can see how numerous
    are the variations in his text, how necessary it is to take account of
    them, and to collect them.  A good edition, of course, would make no
    attempt at amalgamating these.  That would give a false impression and end
    in confusion; but it should note them all, and show them all, not combined,
    but simply as variations.

    After Le Duchat, all the editions, in their care that nothing should be
    lost, made the mistake of collecting and placing side by side things which
    had no connection with each other, which had even been substituted for each
    other.  The result was a fabricated text, full of contradictions naturally.
    But since the edition issued by M. Jannet, the well-known publisher of the
    Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, who was the first to get rid of this patchwork,
    this mosaic, Rabelais' latest text has been given, accompanied by all the
    earlier variations, to show the changes he made, as well as his
    suppressions and additions.  It would also be possible to reverse the
    method.  It would be interesting to take his first text as the basis,
    noting the later modifications.  This would be quite as instructive and
    really worth doing.  Perhaps one might then see more clearly with what care
    he made his revisions, after what fashion he corrected, and especially what
    were the additions he made.

    No more striking instance can be quoted than the admirable chapter about
    the shipwreck.  It was not always so long as Rabelais made it in the end:
    it was much shorter at first.  As a rule, when an author recasts some
    passage that he wishes to revise, he does so by rewriting the whole, or at
    least by interpolating passages at one stroke, so to speak.  Nothing of the
    kind is seen here.  Rabelais suppressed nothing, modified nothing; he did
    not change his plan at all.  What he did was to make insertions, to slip in
    between two clauses a new one.  He expressed his meaning in a lengthier
    way, and the former clause is found in its integrity along with the
    additional one, of which it forms, as it were, the warp.  It was by this
    method of touching up the smallest details, by making here and there such
    little noticeable additions, that he succeeded in heightening the effect
    without either change or loss.  In the end it looks as if he had altered
    nothing, added nothing new, as if it had always been so from the first, and
    had never been meddled with.

    The comparison is most instructive, showing us to what an extent Rabelais'
    admirable style was due to conscious effort, care, and elaboration, a fact
    which is generally too much overlooked, and how instead of leaving any
    trace which would reveal toil and study, it has on the contrary a
    marvellous cohesion, precision, and brilliancy.  It was modelled and
    remodelled, repaired, touched up, and yet it has all the appearance of
    having been created at a single stroke, or of having been run like molten
    wax into its final form.

    Something should be said here of the sources from which Rabelais borrowed.
    He was not the first in France to satirize the romances of chivalry.  The
    romance in verse by Baudouin de Sebourc, printed in recent years, was a
    parody of the Chansons de Geste.  In the Moniage Guillaume, and especially
    in the Moniage Rainouart, in which there is a kind of giant, and
    occasionally a comic giant, there are situations and scenes which remind us
    of Rabelais.  The kind of Fabliaux in mono-rhyme quatrains of the old
    Aubery anticipate his coarse and popular jests.  But all that is beside the
    question; Rabelais did not know these.  Nothing is of direct interest save
    what was known to him, what fell under his eyes, what lay to his hand—as
    the Facetiae of Poggio, and the last sermonnaires.  In the course of one's
    reading one may often enough come across the origin of some of Rabelais'
    witticisms; here and there we may discover how he has developed a
    situation.  While gathering his materials wherever he could find them, he
    was nevertheless profoundly original.

    On this point much research and investigation might be employed.  But there
    is no need why these researches should be extended to the region of fancy.
    Gargantua has been proved by some to be of Celtic origin.  Very often he is
    a solar myth, and the statement that Rabelais only collected popular
    traditions and gave new life to ancient legends is said to be proved by the
    large number of megalithic monuments to which is attached the name of
    Gargantua.  It was, of course, quite right to make a list of these, to draw
    up, as it were, a chart of them, but the conclusion is not justified.  The
    name, instead of being earlier, is really later, and is a witness, not to
    the origin, but to the success and rapid popularity of his novel.  No one
    has ever yet produced a written passage or any ancient testimony to prove
    the existence of the name before Rabelais.  To place such a tradition on a
    sure basis, positive traces must be forthcoming; and they cannot be adduced
    even for the most celebrated of these monuments, since he mentions himself
    the great menhir near Poitiers, which he christened by the name of
    Passelourdin.  That there is something in the theory is possible.  Perrault
    found the subjects of his stories in the tales told by mothers and nurses.
    He fixed them finally by writing them down.  Floating about vaguely as they
    were, he seized them, worked them up, gave them shape, and yet of scarcely
    any of them is there to be found before his time a single trace.  So we
    must resign ourselves to know just as little of what Gargantua and
    Pantagruel were before the sixteenth century.

    In a book of a contemporary of Rabelais, the Legende de Pierre Faifeu by
    the Angevin, Charles de Bourdigne, the first edition of which dates from
    1526 and the second 1531—both so rare and so forgotten that the work is
    only known since the eighteenth century by the reprint of Custelier—in the
    introductory ballad which recommends this book to readers, occur these
    lines in the list of popular books which Faifeu would desire to replace:

      'Laissez ester Caillette le folastre,
      Les quatre filz Aymon vestuz de bleu,
      Gargantua qui a cheveux de plastre.'

    He has not 'cheveux de plastre' in Rabelais.  If the rhyme had not
    suggested the phrase—and the exigencies of the strict form of the ballade
    and its forced repetitions often imposed an idea which had its whole origin
    in the rhyme—we might here see a dramatic trace found nowhere else.  The
    name of Pantagruel is mentioned too, incidentally, in a Mystery of the
    fifteenth century.  These are the only references to the names which up
    till now have been discovered, and they are, as one sees, of but little
    account.

    On the other hand, the influence of Aristophanes and of Lucian, his
    intimate acquaintance with nearly all the writers of antiquity, Greek as
    well as Latin, with whom Rabelais is more permeated even than Montaigne,
    were a mine of inspiration.  The proof of it is everywhere.  Pliny
    especially was his encyclopaedia, his constant companion.  All he says of
    the Pantagruelian herb, though he amply developed it for himself, is taken
    from Pliny's chapter on flax.  And there is a great deal more of this kind
    to be discovered, for Rabelais does not always give it as quotation.  On
    the other hand, when he writes, 'Such an one says,' it would be difficult
    enough to find who is meant, for the 'such an one' is a fictitious writer.
    The method is amusing, but it is curious to account of it.

    The question of the Chronique Gargantuaine is still undecided.  Is it by
    Rabelais or by someone else?  Both theories are defensible, and can be
    supported by good reasons.  In the Chronique everything is heavy,
    occasionally meaningless, and nearly always insipid.  Can the same man have
    written the Chronique and Gargantua, replaced a book really commonplace by
    a masterpiece, changed the facts and incidents, transformed a heavy icy
    pleasantry into a work glowing with wit and life, made it no longer a mass
    of laborious trifling and cold-blooded exaggerations but a satire on human
    life of the highest genius?  Still there are points common to the two.
    Besides, Rabelais wrote other things; and it is only in his romance that he
    shows literary skill.  The conception of it would have entered his mind
    first only in a bare and summary fashion.  It would have been taken up
    again, expanded, developed, metamorphosed.  That is possible, and, for my
    part, I am of those who, like Brunet and Nodier, are inclined to think that
    the Chronique, in spite of its inferiority, is really a first attempt,
    condemned as soon as the idea was conceived in another form.  As its
    earlier date is incontestable, we must conclude that if the Chronique is
    not by him, his Gargantua and its continuation would not have existed
    without it.  This would be a great obligation to stand under to some
    unknown author, and in that case it is astonishing that his enemies did not
    reproach him during his lifetime with being merely an imitator and a
    plagiarist.  So there are reasons for and against his authorship of it, and
    it would be dangerous to make too bold an assertion.

    One fact which is absolutely certain and beyond all controversy, is that
    Rabelais owed much to one of his contemporaries, an Italian, to the
    Histoire Macaronique of Merlin Coccaie.  Its author, Theophilus Folengo,
    who was also a monk, was born in 1491, and died only a short time before
    Rabelais, in 1544.  But his burlesque poem was published in 1517.  It was
    in Latin verse, written in an elaborately fabricated style.  It is not dog
    Latin, but Latin ingeniously italianized, or rather Italian, even Mantuan,
    latinized.  The contrast between the modern form of the word and its Roman
    garb produces the most amusing effect.  In the original it is sometimes
    difficult to read, for Folengo has no objection to using the most
    colloquial words and phrases.

    The subject is quite different.  It is the adventures of Baldo, son of Guy
    de Montauban, the very lively history of his youth, his trial, imprisonment
    and deliverance, his journey in search of his father, during which he
    visits the Planets and Hell.  The narration is constantly interrupted by
    incidental adventures.  Occasionally they are what would be called to-day
    very naturalistic, and sometimes they are madly extravagant.

    But Fracasso, Baldo's friend, is a giant; another friend, Cingar, who
    delivers him, is Panurge exactly, and quite as much given to practical
    joking.  The women in the senile amour of the old Tognazzo, the judges, and
    the poor sergeants, are no more gently dealt with by Folengo than by the
    monk of the Iles d'Hyeres.  If Dindenaut's name does not occur, there are
    the sheep.  The tempest is there, and the invocation to all the saints.
    Rabelais improves all he borrows, but it is from Folengo he starts.  He
    does not reproduce the words, but, like the Italian, he revels in drinking
    scenes, junkettings, gormandizing, battles, scuffles, wounds and corpses,
    magic, witches, speeches, repeated enumerations, lengthiness, and a
    solemnly minute precision of impossible dates and numbers.  The atmosphere,
    the tone, the methods are the same, and to know Rabelais well, you must
    know Folengo well too.

    Detailed proof of this would be too lengthy a matter; one would have to
    quote too many passages, but on this question of sources nothing is more
    interesting than a perusal of the Opus Macaronicorum.  It was translated
    into French only in 1606—Paris, Gilley Robinot.  This translation of
    course cannot reproduce all the many amusing forms of words, but it is
    useful, nevertheless, in showing more clearly the points of resemblance
    between the two works,—how far in form, ideas, details, and phrases
    Rabelais was permeated by Folengo.  The anonymous translator saw this quite
    well, and said so in his title, 'Histoire macaronique de Merlin Coccaie,
    prototype of Rabelais.'  It is nothing but the truth, and Rabelais, who
    does not hide it from himself, on more than one occasion mentions the name
    of Merlin Coccaie.

    Besides, Rabelais was fed on the Italians of his time as on the Greeks and
    Romans.  Panurge, who owes much to Cingar, is also not free from
    obligations to the miscreant Margutte in the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci.
    Had Rabelais in his mind the tale from the Florentine Chronicles, how in
    the Savonarola riots, when the Piagnoni and the Arrabiati came to blows in
    the church of the Dominican convent of San-Marco, Fra Pietro in the scuffle
    broke the heads of the assailants with the bronze crucifix he had taken
    from the altar?  A well-handled cross could so readily be used as a weapon,
    that probably it has served as such more than once, and other and even
    quite modern instances might be quoted.

    But other Italian sources are absolutely certain.  There are few more
    wonderful chapters in Rabelais than the one about the drinkers.  It is not
    a dialogue:  those short exclamations exploding from every side, all
    referring to the same thing, never repeating themselves, and yet always
    varying the same theme.  At the end of the Novelle of Gentile Sermini of
    Siena, there is a chapter called Il Giuoco della pugna, the Game of Battle.
    Here are the first lines of it:  'Apre, apre, apre.  Chi gioca, chi gioca—
    uh, uh!—A Porrione, a Porrione.—Viela, viela; date a ognuno.—Alle
    mantella, alle mantella.—Oltre di corsa; non vi fermate.—Voltate qui;
    ecco costoro; fate veli innanzi.—Viela, viela; date costi.—Chi la fa?
    Io—Ed io.—Dagli; ah, ah, buona fu.—Or cosi; alla mascella, al fianco.—
    Dagli basso; di punta, di punta.—Ah, ah, buon gioco, buon gioco.'

    And thus it goes on with fire and animation for pages.  Rabelais probably
    translated or directly imitated it.  He changed the scene; there was no
    giuooco della pugna in France.  He transferred to a drinking-bout this
    clatter of exclamations which go off by themselves, which cross each other
    and get no answer.  He made a wonderful thing of it.  But though he did not
    copy Sermini, yet Sermini's work provided him with the form of the subject,
    and was the theme for Rabelais' marvellous variations.

    Who does not remember the fantastic quarrel of the cook with the poor devil
    who had flavoured his dry bread with the smoke of the roast, and the
    judgment of Seyny John, truly worthy of Solomon?  It comes from the Cento
    Novelle Antiche, rewritten from tales older than Boccaccio, and moreover of
    an extreme brevity and dryness.  They are only the framework, the notes,
    the skeleton of tales.  The subject is often wonderful, but nothing is made
    of it:  it is left unshaped.  Rabelais wrote a version of one, the ninth.
    The scene takes place, not at Paris, but at Alexandria in Egypt among the
    Saracens, and the cook is called Fabrac.  But the surprise at the end, the
    sagacious judgment by which the sound of a piece of money was made the
    price of the smoke, is the same.  Now the first dated edition of the Cento
    Novelle (which were frequently reprinted) appeared at Bologna in 1525, and
    it is certain that Rabelais had read the tales.  And there would be much
    else of the same kind to learn if we knew Rabelais' library.

    A still stranger fact of this sort may be given to show how nothing came
    amiss to him.  He must have known, and even copied the Latin Chronicle of
    the Counts of Anjou.  It is accepted, and rightly so, as an historical
    document, but that is no reason for thinking that the truth may not have
    been manipulated and adorned.  The Counts of Anjou were not saints.  They
    were proud, quarrelsome, violent, rapacious, and extravagant, as greedy as
    they were charitable to the Church, treacherous and cruel.  Yet their
    anonymous panegyrist has made them patterns of all the virtues.  In reality
    it is both a history and in some sort a romance; especially is it a
    collection of examples worthy of being followed, in the style of the
    Cyropaedia, our Juvenal of the fifteenth century, and a little like
    Fenelon's Telemaque.  Now in it there occurs the address of one of the
    counts to those who rebelled against him and who were at his mercy.
    Rabelais must have known it, for he has copied it, or rather, literally
    translated whole lines of it in the wonderful speech of Gargantua to the
    vanquished.  His contemporaries, who approved of his borrowing from
    antiquity, could not detect this one, because the book was not printed till
    much later.  But Rabelais lived in Maine.  In Anjou, which often figures
    among the localities he names, he must have met with and read the
    Chronicles of the Counts in manuscript, probably in some monastery library,
    whether at Fontenay-le-Comte or elsewhere it matters little.  There is not
    only a likeness in the ideas and tone, but in the words too, which cannot
    be a mere matter of chance.  He must have known the Chronicles of the
    Counts of Anjou, and they inspired one of his finest pages.  One sees,
    therefore, how varied were the sources whence he drew, and how many of them
    must probably always escape us.

    When, as has been done for Moliere, a critical bibliography of the works
    relating to Rabelais is drawn up—which, by the bye, will entail a very
    great amount of labour—the easiest part will certainly be the bibliography
    of the old editions.  That is the section that has been most satisfactorily
    and most completely worked out.  M. Brunet said the last word on the
    subject in his Researches in 1852, and in the important article in the
    fifth edition of his Manuel du Libraire (iv., 1863, pp. 1037-1071).

    The facts about the fifth book cannot be summed up briefly.  It was printed
    as a whole at first, without the name of the place, in 1564, and next year
    at Lyons by Jean Martin.  It has given, and even still gives rise to two
    contradictory opinions.  Is it Rabelais' or not?

    First of all, if he had left it complete, would sixteen years have gone by
    before it was printed?  Then, does it bear evident marks of his
    workmanship?  Is the hand of the master visible throughout?  Antoine Du
    Verdier in the 1605 edition of his Prosopographie writes: '(Rabelais')
    misfortune has been that everybody has wished to “pantagruelize!” and
    several books have appeared under his name, and have been added to his
    works, which are not by him, as, for instance, l'Ile Sonnante, written by a
    certain scholar of Valence and others.'

    The scholar of Valence might be Guillaume des Autels, to whom with more
    certainty can be ascribed the authorship of a dull imitation of Rabelais,
    the History of Fanfreluche and Gaudichon, published in 1578, which, to say
    the least of it, is very much inferior to the fifth book.

    Louis Guyon, in his Diverses Lecons, is still more positive:  'As to the
    last book which has been included in his works, entitled l'Ile Sonnante,
    the object of which seems to be to find fault with and laugh at the members
    and the authorities of the Catholic Church, I protest that he did not
    compose it, for it was written long after his death.  I was at Paris when
    it was written, and I know quite well who was its author; he was not a
    doctor.'  That is very emphatic, and it is impossible to ignore it.

    Yet everyone must recognize that there is a great deal of Rabelais in the
    fifth book.  He must have planned it and begun it.  Remembering that in
    1548 he had published, not as an experiment, but rather as a bait and as an
    announcement, the first eleven chapters of the fourth book, we may conclude
    that the first sixteen chapters of the fifth book published by themselves
    nine years after his death, in 1562, represent the remainder of his
    definitely finished work.  This is the more certain because these first
    chapters, which contain the Apologue of the Horse and the Ass and the
    terrible Furred Law-cats, are markedly better than what follows them.  They
    are not the only ones where the master's hand may be traced, but they are
    the only ones where no other hand could possibly have interfered.

    In the remainder the sentiment is distinctly Protestant.  Rabelais was much
    struck by the vices of the clergy and did not spare them.  Whether we are
    unable to forgive his criticisms because they were conceived in a spirit of
    raillery, or whether, on the other hand, we feel admiration for him on this
    point, yet Rabelais was not in the least a sectary.  If he strongly desired
    a moral reform, indirectly pointing out the need of it in his mocking
    fashion, he was not favourable to a political reform.  Those who would make
    of him a Protestant altogether forget that the Protestants of his time were
    not for him, but against him.  Henri Estienne, for instance, Ramus,
    Theodore de Beze, and especially Calvin, should know how he was to be
    regarded.  Rabelais belonged to what may be called the early reformation,
    to that band of honest men in the beginning of the sixteenth century,
    precursors of the later one perhaps, but, like Erasmus, between the two
    extremes.  He was neither Lutheran nor Calvinist, neither German nor
    Genevese, and it is quite natural that his work was not reprinted in
    Switzerland, which would certainly have happened had the Protestants looked
    on him as one of themselves.

    That Rabelais collected the materials for the fifth book, had begun it, and
    got on some way, there can be no doubt:  the excellence of a large number
    of passages prove it, but—taken as a whole—the fifth book has not the
    value, the verve, and the variety of the others.  The style is quite
    different, less rich, briefer, less elaborate, drier, in parts even
    wearisome.  In the first four books Rabelais seldom repeats himself.  The
    fifth book contains from the point of view of the vocabulary really the
    least novelty.  On the contrary, it is full of words and expressions
    already met with, which is very natural in an imitation, in a copy, forced
    to keep to a similar tone, and to show by such reminders and likenesses
    that it is really by the same pen.  A very striking point is the profound
    difference in the use of anatomical terms.  In the other books they are
    most frequently used in a humorous sense, and nonsensically, with a quite
    other meaning than their own; in the fifth they are applied correctly.  It
    was necessary to include such terms to keep up the practice, but the writer
    has not thought of using them to add to the comic effect:  one cannot
    always think of everything.  Trouble has been taken, of course, to include
    enumerations, but there are much fewer fabricated and fantastic words.  In
    short, the hand of the maker is far from showing the same suppleness and
    strength.

    A eulogistic quatrain is signed Nature quite, which, it is generally
    agreed, is an anagram of Jean Turquet.  Did the adapter of the fifth book
    sign his work in this indirect fashion?  He might be of the Genevese family
    to whom Louis Turquet and his son Theodore belonged, both well-known, and
    both strong Protestants.  The obscurity relating to this matter is far from
    being cleared up, and perhaps never will be.

    It fell to my lot—here, unfortunately, I am forced to speak of a personal
    matter—to print for the first time the manuscript of the fifth book.  At
    first it was hoped it might be in Rabelais' own hand; afterwards that it
    might be at least a copy of his unfinished work.  The task was a difficult
    one, for the writing, extremely flowing and rapid, is execrable, and most
    difficult to decipher and to transcribe accurately.  Besides, it often
    happens in the sixteenth and the end of the fifteenth century, that
    manuscripts are much less correct than the printed versions, even when they
    have not been copied by clumsy and ignorant hands.  In this case, it is the
    writing of a clerk executed as quickly as possible.  The farther it goes
    the more incorrect it becomes, as if the writer were in haste to finish.

    What is really the origin of it?  It has less the appearance of notes or
    fragments prepared by Rabelais than of a first attempt at revision.  It is
    not an author's rough draft; still less is it his manuscript.  If I had not
    printed this enigmatical text with scrupulous and painful fidelity, I would
    do it now.  It was necessary to do it so as to clear the way.  But as the
    thing is done, and accessible to those who may be interested, and who wish
    to critically examine it, there is no further need of reprinting it.  All
    the editions of Rabelais continue, and rightly, to reproduce the edition of
    1564.  It is not the real Rabelais, but however open to criticism it may
    be, it was under that form that the fifth book appeared in the sixteenth
    century, under that form it was accepted.  Consequently it is convenient
    and even necessary to follow and keep to the original edition.

    The first sixteen chapters may, and really must be, the text of Rabelais,
    in the final form as left by him, and found after his death; the framework,
    and a number of the passages in the continuation, the best ones, of course,
    are his, but have been patched up and tampered with.  Nothing can have been
    suppressed of what existed; it was evidently thought that everything should
    be admitted with the final revision; but the tone was changed, additions
    were made, and 'improvements.'  Adapters are always strangely vain.

    In the seventeenth century, the French printing-press, save for an edition
    issued at Troyes in 1613, gave up publishing Rabelais, and the work passed
    to foreign countries.  Jean Fuet reprinted him at Antwerp in 1602.  After
    the Amsterdam edition of 1659, where for the first time appears 'The
    Alphabet of the French Author,' comes the Elzevire edition of 1663.  The
    type, an imitation of what made the reputation of the little volumes of the
    Gryphes of Lyons, is charming, the printing is perfect, and the paper,
    which is French—the development of paper-making in Holland and England did
    not take place till after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes—is
    excellent.  They are pretty volumes to the eye, but, as in all the reprints
    of the seventeenth century, the text is full of faults and most
    untrustworthy.

    France, through a representative in a foreign land, however, comes into
    line again in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in a really
    serious fashion, thanks to the very considerable learning of a French
    refugee, Jacob Le Duchat, who died in 1748.  He had a most thorough
    knowledge of the French prose-writers of the sixteenth century, and he made
    them accessible by his editions of the Quinze Joies du Mariage, of Henri
    Estienne, of Agrippa d'Aubigne, of L'Etoile, and of the Satyre Menippee.
    In 1711 he published an edition of Rabelais at Amsterdam, through Henry
    Bordesius, in five duodecimo volumes.  The reprint in quarto which he
    issued in 1741, seven years before his death, is, with its engravings by
    Bernard Picot, a fine library edition.  Le Duchat's is the first of the
    critical editions.  It takes account of differences in the texts, and
    begins to point out the variations.  His very numerous notes are
    remarkable, and are still worthy of most serious consideration.  He was the
    first to offer useful elucidations, and these have been repeated after him,
    and with good reason will continue to be so.  The Abbe de Massy's edition
    of 1752, also an Amsterdam production, has made use of Le Duchat's but does
    not take its place.  Finally, at the end of the century, Cazin printed
    Rabelais in his little volume, in 1782, and Bartiers issued two editions
    (of no importance) at Paris in 1782 and 1798.  Fortunately the nineteenth
    century has occupied itself with the great 'Satyrique' in a more competent
    and useful fashion.

    In 1820 L'Aulnaye published through Desoer his three little volumes,
    printed in exquisite style, and which have other merits besides.  His
    volume of annotations, in which, that nothing might be lost of his own
    notes, he has included many things not directly relating to Rabelais, is
    full of observations and curious remarks which are very useful additions to
    Le Duchat.  One fault to be found with him is his further complication of
    the spelling.  This he did in accordance with a principle that the words
    should be referred to their real etymology.  Learned though he was,
    Rabelais had little care to be so etymological, and it is not his theories
    but those of the modern scholar that have been ventilated.

    Somewhat later, from 1823 to 1826, Esmangart and Johanneau issued a
    variorum edition in nine volumes, in which the text is often encumbered by
    notes which are really too numerous, and, above all, too long.  The work
    was an enormous one, but the best part of it is Le Duchat's, and what is
    not his is too often absolutely hypothetical and beside the truth.  Le
    Duchat had already given too much importance to the false historical
    explanation.  Here it is constantly coming in, and it rests on no evidence.
    In reality, there is no need of the key to Rabelais by which to discover
    the meaning of subtle allusions.  He is neither so complicated nor so full
    of riddles.  We know how he has scattered the names of contemporaries about
    his work, sometimes of friends, sometimes of enemies, and without
    disguising them under any mask.  He is no more Panurge than Louis XII. is
    Gargantua or Francis I. Pantagruel.  Rabelais says what he wants, all he
    wants, and in the way he wants.  There are no mysteries below the surface,
    and it is a waste of time to look for knots in a bulrush.  All the
    historical explanations are purely imaginary, utterly without proof, and
    should the more emphatically be looked on as baseless and dismissed.  They
    are radically false, and therefore both worthless and harmful.

    In 1840 there appeared in the Bibliotheque Charpentier the Rabelais in a
    single duodecimo volume, begun by Charles Labiche, and, after his death,
    completed by M. Paul Lacroix, whose share is the larger.  The text is that
    of L'Aulnaye; the short footnotes, with all their brevity, contain useful
    explanations of difficult words.  Amongst the editions of Rabelais this is
    one of the most important, because it brought him many readers and
    admirers.  No other has made him so well and so widely known as this
    portable volume, which has been constantly reprinted.  No other has been so
    widely circulated, and the sale still goes on.  It was, and must still be
    looked on as a most serviceable edition.

    The edition published by Didot in 1857 has an altogether special character.
    In the biographical notice M. Rathery for the first time treated as they
    deserve the foolish prejudices which have made Rabelais misunderstood, and
    M. Burgaud des Marets set the text on a quite new base.  Having proved,
    what of course is very evident, that in the original editions the spelling,
    and the language too, were of the simplest and clearest, and were not
    bristling with the nonsensical and superfluous consonants which have given
    rise to the idea that Rabelais is difficult to read, he took the trouble
    first of all to note the spelling of each word.  Whenever in a single
    instance he found it in accordance with modern spelling, he made it the
    same throughout.  The task was a hard one, and Rabelais certainly gained in
    clearness, but over-zeal is often fatal to a reform.  In respect to its
    precision and the value of its notes, which are short and very judicious,
    Burgaud des Marets' edition is valuable, and is amongst those which should
    be known and taken into account.

    Since Le Duchat all the editions have a common fault.  They are not exactly
    guilty of fabricating, but they set up an artificial text in the sense
    that, in order to lose as little as possible, they have collected and
    united what originally were variations—the revisions, in short, of the
    original editions.  Guided by the wise counsels given by Brunet in 1852 in
    his Researches on the old editions of Rabelais, Pierre Jannet published the
    first three books in 1858; then, when the publication of the Bibliotheque
    Elzevirienne was discontinued, he took up the work again and finished the
    edition in Picard's blue library, in little volumes, each book quite
    distinct.  It was M. Jannet who in our days first restored the pure and
    exact text of Rabelais, not only without retouching it, but without making
    additions or insertions, or juxtaposition of things that were not formerly
    found together.  For each of the books he has followed the last edition
    issued by Rabelais, and all the earlier differences he gives as variations.
    It is astonishing that a thing so simple and so fitting should not have
    been done before, and the result is that this absolutely exact fidelity has
    restored a lucidity which was not wanting in Rabelais's time, but which had
    since been obscured.  All who have come after Jannet have followed in his
    path, and there is no reason for straying from it.







    FRANCIS RABELAIS.



    THE FIRST BOOK.


    To the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais.

    Rabelais, whose wit prodigiously was made,
    All men, professions, actions to invade,
    With so much furious vigour, as if it
    Had lived o'er each of them, and each had quit,
    Yet with such happy sleight and careless skill,
    As, like the serpent, doth with laughter kill,
    So that although his noble leaves appear
    Antic and Gottish, and dull souls forbear
    To turn them o'er, lest they should only find
    Nothing but savage monsters of a mind,—
    No shapen beauteous thoughts; yet when the wise
    Seriously strip him of his wild disguise,
    Melt down his dross, refine his massy ore,
    And polish that which seem'd rough-cast before,
    Search his deep sense, unveil his hidden mirth,
    And make that fiery which before seem'd earth
    (Conquering those things of highest consequence,
    What's difficult of language or of sense),
    He will appear some noble table writ
    In the old Egyptian hieroglyphic wit;
    Where, though you monsters and grotescoes see,
    You meet all mysteries of philosophy.
    For he was wise and sovereignly bred
    To know what mankind is, how 't may be led:
    He stoop'd unto them, like that wise man, who
    Rid on a stick, when 's children would do so.
    For we are easy sullen things, and must
    Be laugh'd aright, and cheated into trust;
    Whilst a black piece of phlegm, that lays about
    Dull menaces, and terrifies the rout,
    And cajoles it, with all its peevish strength
    Piteously stretch'd and botch'd up into length,
    Whilst the tired rabble sleepily obey
    Such opiate talk, and snore away the day,
    By all his noise as much their minds relieves,
    As caterwauling of wild cats frights thieves.
      But Rabelais was another thing, a man
    Made up of all that art and nature can
    Form from a fiery genius,—he was one
    Whose soul so universally was thrown
    Through all the arts of life, who understood
    Each stratagem by which we stray from good;
    So that he best might solid virtue teach,
    As some 'gainst sins of their own bosoms preach:
    He from wise choice did the true means prefer,
    In the fool's coat acting th' philosopher.
      Thus hoary Aesop's beasts did mildly tame
    Fierce man, and moralize him into shame;
    Thus brave romances, while they seem to lay
    Great trains of lust, platonic love display;
    Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chance
    Show'd a drunk slave, teach children temperance;
    Thus did the later poets nobly bring
    The scene to height, making the fool the king.
      And, noble sir, you vigorously have trod
    In this hard path, unknown, un-understood
    By its own countrymen, 'tis you appear
    Our full enjoyment which was our despair,
    Scattering his mists, cheering his cynic frowns
    (For radiant brightness now dark Rabelais crowns),
    Leaving your brave heroic cares, which must
    Make better mankind and embalm your dust,
    So undeceiving us, that now we see
    All wit in Gascon and in Cromarty,
    Besides that Rabelais is convey'd to us,
    And that our Scotland is not barbarous.

                                          J. De la Salle.


    Rablophila.

    The First Decade.

    The Commendation.

    Musa! canas nostrorum in testimonium Amorum,
      Et Gargantueas perpetuato faces,
    Utque homini tali resultet nobilis Eccho:
      Quicquid Fama canit, Pantagruelis erit.

    The Argument.

      Here I intend mysteriously to sing
        With a pen pluck'd from Fame's own wing,
    Of Gargantua that learn'd breech-wiping king.

    Decade the First.

       I.

      Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blaze
        Benumbs me!  I must sound the praise
    Of him hath turn'd this crabbed work in such heroic phrase.

       II.

      What wit would not court martyrdom to hold
        Upon his head a laurel of gold,
    Where for each rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told:

       III.

      And such a one is this, art's masterpiece,
        A thing ne'er equall'd by old Greece:
    A thing ne'er match'd as yet, a real Golden Fleece.

       IV.

      Vice is a soldier fights against mankind;
        Which you may look but never find:
    For 'tis an envious thing, with cunning interlined.

       V.

      And thus he rails at drinking all before 'em,
        And for lewd women does be-whore 'em,
    And brings their painted faces and black patches to th' quorum.

       VI.

      To drink he was a furious enemy
        Contented with a six-penny—
    (with diamond hatband, silver spurs, six horses.) pie—

       VII.

      And for tobacco's pate-rotunding smoke,
        Much had he said, and much more spoke,
    But 'twas not then found out, so the design was broke.

       VIII.

      Muse! Fancy! Faith! come now arise aloud,
        Assembled in a blue-vein'd cloud,
    And this tall infant in angelic arms now shroud.

       IX.

      To praise it further I would now begin
        Were 't now a thoroughfare and inn,
    It harbours vice, though 't be to catch it in a gin.

       X.

      Therefore, my Muse, draw up thy flowing sail,
        And acclamate a gentle hail
    With all thy art and metaphors, which must prevail.

    Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri.
      Imparibus restat danda secunda modis.
    Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam,
      Cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais.

                                                 Malevolus.


    (Reader, the Errata, which in this book are not a few, are casually lost;
    and therefore the Translator, not having leisure to collect them again,
    craves thy pardon for such as thou may'st meet with.)


    The Author's Prologue to the First Book.



    prologue1.jpg (129K)

    Most noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice precious pockified
    blades (for to you, and none else, do I dedicate my writings), Alcibiades,
    in that dialogue of Plato's, which is entitled The Banquet, whilst he was
    setting forth the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates (without all
    question the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that
    purpose, said that he resembled the Silenes.  Silenes of old were little
    boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on
    the outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese,
    horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such-
    like counterfeited pictures at discretion, to excite people unto laughter,
    as Silenus himself, who was the foster-father of good Bacchus, was wont to
    do; but within those capricious caskets were carefully preserved and kept
    many rich jewels and fine drugs, such as balm, ambergris, amomon, musk,
    civet, with several kinds of precious stones, and other things of great
    price.  Just such another thing was Socrates.  For to have eyed his
    outside, and esteemed of him by his exterior appearance, you would not have
    given the peel of an onion for him, so deformed he was in body, and
    ridiculous in his gesture.  He had a sharp pointed nose, with the look of a
    bull, and countenance of a fool:  he was in his carriage simple, boorish in
    his apparel, in fortune poor, unhappy in his wives, unfit for all offices
    in the commonwealth, always laughing, tippling, and merrily carousing to
    everyone, with continual gibes and jeers, the better by those means to
    conceal his divine knowledge.  Now, opening this box you would have found
    within it a heavenly and inestimable drug, a more than human understanding,
    an admirable virtue, matchless learning, invincible courage, unimitable
    sobriety, certain contentment of mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible
    misregard of all that for which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail,
    fight, travel, toil and turmoil themselves.

    Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble tend?
    For so much as you, my good disciples, and some other jolly fools of ease
    and leisure, reading the pleasant titles of some books of our invention, as
    Gargantua, Pantagruel, Whippot (Fessepinte.), the Dignity of Codpieces, of
    Pease and Bacon with a Commentary, &c., are too ready to judge that there
    is nothing in them but jests, mockeries, lascivious discourse, and
    recreative lies; because the outside (which is the title) is usually,
    without any farther inquiry, entertained with scoffing and derision.  But
    truly it is very unbeseeming to make so slight account of the works of men,
    seeing yourselves avouch that it is not the habit makes the monk, many
    being monasterially accoutred, who inwardly are nothing less than monachal,
    and that there are of those that wear Spanish capes, who have but little of
    the valour of Spaniards in them.  Therefore is it, that you must open the
    book, and seriously consider of the matter treated in it.  Then shall you
    find that it containeth things of far higher value than the box did
    promise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so foolish as by
    the title at the first sight it would appear to be.

    And put the case, that in the literal sense you meet with purposes merry
    and solacious enough, and consequently very correspondent to their
    inscriptions, yet must not you stop there as at the melody of the charming
    syrens, but endeavour to interpret that in a sublimer sense which possibly
    you intended to have spoken in the jollity of your heart.  Did you ever
    pick the lock of a cupboard to steal a bottle of wine out of it?  Tell me
    truly, and, if you did, call to mind the countenance which then you had.
    Or, did you ever see a dog with a marrowbone in his mouth,—the beast of
    all other, says Plato, lib. 2, de Republica, the most philosophical?  If
    you have seen him, you might have remarked with what devotion and
    circumspectness he wards and watcheth it:  with what care he keeps it:  how
    fervently he holds it:  how prudently he gobbets it:  with what affection
    he breaks it:  and with what diligence he sucks it.  To what end all this?
    What moveth him to take all these pains?  What are the hopes of his labour?
    What doth he expect to reap thereby?  Nothing but a little marrow.  True it
    is, that this little is more savoury and delicious than the great
    quantities of other sorts of meat, because the marrow (as Galen testifieth,
    5. facult. nat. & 11. de usu partium) is a nourishment most perfectly
    elaboured by nature.

    In imitation of this dog, it becomes you to be wise, to smell, feel and
    have in estimation these fair goodly books, stuffed with high conceptions,
    which, though seemingly easy in the pursuit, are in the cope and encounter
    somewhat difficult.  And then, like him, you must, by a sedulous lecture,
    and frequent meditation, break the bone, and suck out the marrow,—that is,
    my allegorical sense, or the things I to myself propose to be signified by
    these Pythagorical symbols, with assured hope, that in so doing you will at
    last attain to be both well-advised and valiant by the reading of them:
    for in the perusal of this treatise you shall find another kind of taste,
    and a doctrine of a more profound and abstruse consideration, which will
    disclose unto you the most glorious sacraments and dreadful mysteries, as
    well in what concerneth your religion, as matters of the public state, and
    life economical.

    Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was a-couching
    his Iliads and Odysses, had any thought upon those allegories, which
    Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Cornutus squeezed out of him,
    and which Politian filched again from them?  If you trust it, with neither
    hand nor foot do you come near to my opinion, which judgeth them to have
    been as little dreamed of by Homer, as the Gospel sacraments were by Ovid
    in his Metamorphoses, though a certain gulligut friar (Frere Lubin
    croquelardon.) and true bacon-picker would have undertaken to prove it, if
    perhaps he had met with as very fools as himself, (and as the proverb says)
    a lid worthy of such a kettle.

    If you give no credit thereto, why do not you the same in these jovial new
    chronicles of mine?  Albeit when I did dictate them, I thought upon no more
    than you, who possibly were drinking the whilst as I was.  For in the
    composing of this lordly book, I never lost nor bestowed any more, nor any
    other time than what was appointed to serve me for taking of my bodily
    refection, that is, whilst I was eating and drinking.  And indeed that is
    the fittest and most proper hour wherein to write these high matters and
    deep sciences:  as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologues,
    and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, although a
    certain sneaking jobernol alleged that his verses smelled more of the wine
    than oil.

    So saith a turlupin or a new start-up grub of my books, but a turd for him.
    The fragrant odour of the wine, O how much more dainty, pleasant, laughing
    (Riant, priant, friant.), celestial and delicious it is, than that smell of
    oil!  And I will glory as much when it is said of me, that I have spent
    more on wine than oil, as did Demosthenes, when it was told him, that his
    expense on oil was greater than on wine.  I truly hold it for an honour and
    praise to be called and reputed a Frolic Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow;
    for under this name am I welcome in all choice companies of Pantagruelists.
    It was upbraided to Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his
    Orations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy oil-
    vessel.  For this cause interpret you all my deeds and sayings in the
    perfectest sense; reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with these
    fair billevezees and trifling jollities, and do what lies in you to keep me
    always merry.  Be frolic now, my lads, cheer up your hearts, and joyfully
    read the rest, with all the ease of your body and profit of your reins.
    But hearken, joltheads, you viedazes, or dickens take ye, remember to drink
    a health to me for the like favour again, and I will pledge you instantly,
    Tout ares-metys.


    Rabelais to the Reader.

    Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book,
    Be not offended, whilst on it you look:
    Denude yourselves of all depraved affection,
    For it contains no badness, nor infection:
    'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth
    Of any value, but in point of mirth;
    Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind
    Consume, I could no apter subject find;
    One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;
    Because to laugh is proper to the man.

    Chapter Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua.

    I must refer you to the great chronicle of Pantagruel for the knowledge of
    that genealogy and antiquity of race by which Gargantua is come unto us.
    In it you may understand more at large how the giants were born in this
    world, and how from them by a direct line issued Gargantua, the father of
    Pantagruel:  and do not take it ill, if for this time I pass by it,
    although the subject be such, that the oftener it were remembered, the more
    it would please your worshipful Seniorias; according to which you have the
    authority of Plato in Philebo and Gorgias; and of Flaccus, who says that
    there are some kinds of purposes (such as these are without doubt), which,
    the frequentlier they be repeated, still prove the more delectable.

    Would to God everyone had as certain knowledge of his genealogy since the
    time of the ark of Noah until this age.  I think many are at this day
    emperors, kings, dukes, princes, and popes on the earth, whose extraction
    is from some porters and pardon-pedlars; as, on the contrary, many are now
    poor wandering beggars, wretched and miserable, who are descended of the
    blood and lineage of great kings and emperors, occasioned, as I conceive
    it, by the transport and revolution of kingdoms and empires, from the
    Assyrians to the Medes, from the Medes to the Persians, from the Persians
    to the Macedonians, from the Macedonians to the Romans, from the Romans to
    the Greeks, from the Greeks to the French.

    And to give you some hint concerning myself, who speaks unto you, I cannot
    think but I am come of the race of some rich king or prince in former
    times; for never yet saw you any man that had a greater desire to be a
    king, and to be rich, than I have, and that only that I may make good
    cheer, do nothing, nor care for anything, and plentifully enrich my
    friends, and all honest and learned men.  But herein do I comfort myself,
    that in the other world I shall be so, yea and greater too than at this
    present I dare wish.  As for you, with the same or a better conceit
    consolate yourselves in your distresses, and drink fresh if you can come by
    it.

    To return to our wethers, I say that by the sovereign gift of heaven, the
    antiquity and genealogy of Gargantua hath been reserved for our use more
    full and perfect than any other except that of the Messias, whereof I mean
    not to speak; for it belongs not unto my purpose, and the devils, that is
    to say, the false accusers and dissembled gospellers, will therein oppose
    me.  This genealogy was found by John Andrew in a meadow, which he had near
    the pole-arch, under the olive-tree, as you go to Narsay:  where, as he was
    making cast up some ditches, the diggers with their mattocks struck against
    a great brazen tomb, and unmeasurably long, for they could never find the
    end thereof, by reason that it entered too far within the sluices of
    Vienne.  Opening this tomb in a certain place thereof, sealed on the top
    with the mark of a goblet, about which was written in Etrurian letters Hic
    Bibitur, they found nine flagons set in such order as they use to rank
    their kyles in Gascony, of which that which was placed in the middle had
    under it a big, fat, great, grey, pretty, small, mouldy, little pamphlet,
    smelling stronger, but no better than roses.  In that book the said
    genealogy was found written all at length, in a chancery hand, not in
    paper, not in parchment, nor in wax, but in the bark of an elm-tree, yet so
    worn with the long tract of time, that hardly could three letters together
    be there perfectly discerned.

    I (though unworthy) was sent for thither, and with much help of those
    spectacles, whereby the art of reading dim writings, and letters that do
    not clearly appear to the sight, is practised, as Aristotle teacheth it,
    did translate the book as you may see in your Pantagruelizing, that is to
    say, in drinking stiffly to your own heart's desire, and reading the
    dreadful and horrific acts of Pantagruel.  At the end of the book there was
    a little treatise entitled the Antidoted Fanfreluches, or a Galimatia of
    extravagant conceits.  The rats and moths, or (that I may not lie) other
    wicked beasts, had nibbled off the beginning:  the rest I have hereto
    subjoined, for the reverence I bear to antiquity.

    Chapter 1.II. The Antidoted Fanfreluches:  or, a Galimatia of extravagant Conceits found
    in an ancient Monument.

    No sooner did the Cymbrians' overcomer
    Pass through the air to shun the dew of summer,
    But at his coming straight great tubs were fill'd,
    With pure fresh butter down in showers distill'd:
    Wherewith when water'd was his grandam, Hey,
    Aloud he cried, Fish it, sir, I pray y';
    Because his beard is almost all beray'd;
    Or, that he would hold to 'm a scale, he pray'd.

    To lick his slipper, some told was much better,
    Than to gain pardons, and the merit greater.
    In th' interim a crafty chuff approaches,
    From the depth issued, where they fish for roaches;
    Who said, Good sirs, some of them let us save,
    The eel is here, and in this hollow cave
    You'll find, if that our looks on it demur,
    A great waste in the bottom of his fur.

    To read this chapter when he did begin,
    Nothing but a calf's horns were found therein;
    I feel, quoth he, the mitre which doth hold
    My head so chill, it makes my brains take cold.
    Being with the perfume of a turnip warm'd,
    To stay by chimney hearths himself he arm'd,
    Provided that a new thill-horse they made
    Of every person of a hair-brain'd head.

    They talked of the bunghole of Saint Knowles,
    Of Gilbathar and thousand other holes,
    If they might be reduced t' a scarry stuff,
    Such as might not be subject to the cough:
    Since ev'ry man unseemly did it find,
    To see them gaping thus at ev'ry wind:
    For, if perhaps they handsomely were closed,
    For pledges they to men might be exposed.

    In this arrest by Hercules the raven
    Was flayed at her (his) return from Lybia haven.
    Why am not I, said Minos, there invited?
    Unless it be myself, not one's omitted:
    And then it is their mind, I do no more
    Of frogs and oysters send them any store:
    In case they spare my life and prove but civil,
    I give their sale of distaffs to the devil.

    To quell him comes Q.B., who limping frets
    At the safe pass of tricksy crackarets:
    The boulter, the grand Cyclops' cousin, those
    Did massacre, whilst each one wiped his nose:
    Few ingles in this fallow ground are bred,
    But on a tanner's mill are winnowed.
    Run thither all of you, th' alarms sound clear,
    You shall have more than you had the last year.

    Short while thereafter was the bird of Jove
    Resolved to speak, though dismal it should prove;
    Yet was afraid, when he saw them in ire,
    They should o'erthrow quite flat down dead th' empire.
    He rather choosed the fire from heaven to steal,
    To boats where were red herrings put to sale;
    Than to be calm 'gainst those, who strive to brave us,
    And to the Massorets' fond words enslave us.

    All this at last concluded gallantly,
    In spite of Ate and her hern-like thigh,
    Who, sitting, saw Penthesilea ta'en,
    In her old age, for a cress-selling quean.
    Each one cried out, Thou filthy collier toad,
    Doth it become thee to be found abroad?
    Thou hast the Roman standard filch'd away,
    Which they in rags of parchment did display.

    Juno was born, who, under the rainbow,
    Was a-bird-catching with her duck below:
    When her with such a grievous trick they plied
    That she had almost been bethwacked by it.
    The bargain was, that, of that throatful, she
    Should of Proserpina have two eggs free;
    And if that she thereafter should be found,
    She to a hawthorn hill should be fast bound.

    Seven months thereafter, lacking twenty-two,
    He, that of old did Carthage town undo,
    Did bravely midst them all himself advance,
    Requiring of them his inheritance;
    Although they justly made up the division,
    According to the shoe-welt-law's decision,
    By distributing store of brews and beef
    To these poor fellows that did pen the brief.

    But th' year will come, sign of a Turkish bow,
    Five spindles yarn'd, and three pot-bottoms too,
    Wherein of a discourteous king the dock
    Shall pepper'd be under an hermit's frock.
    Ah! that for one she hypocrite you must
    Permit so many acres to be lost!
    Cease, cease, this vizard may become another,
    Withdraw yourselves unto the serpent's brother.

    'Tis in times past, that he who is shall reign
    With his good friends in peace now and again.
    No rash nor heady prince shall then rule crave,
    Each good will its arbitrement shall have;
    And the joy, promised of old as doom
    To the heaven's guests, shall in its beacon come.
    Then shall the breeding mares, that benumb'd were,
    Like royal palfreys ride triumphant there.

    And this continue shall from time to time,
    Till Mars be fetter'd for an unknown crime;
    Then shall one come, who others will surpass,
    Delightful, pleasing, matchless, full of grace.
    Cheer up your hearts, approach to this repast,
    All trusty friends of mine; for he's deceased,
    Who would not for a world return again,
    So highly shall time past be cried up then.

    He who was made of wax shall lodge each member
    Close by the hinges of a block of timber.
    We then no more shall Master, master, whoot,
    The swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out;
    Could one seize on the dagger which he bears,
    Heads would be free from tingling in the ears,
    To baffle the whole storehouse of abuses.
    The thus farewell Apollo and the Muses.

    Chapter 1.III. How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly.

    Grangousier was a good fellow in his time, and notable jester; he loved to
    drink neat, as much as any man that then was in the world, and would
    willingly eat salt meat.  To this intent he was ordinarily well furnished
    with gammons of bacon, both of Westphalia, Mayence and Bayonne, with store
    of dried neat's tongues, plenty of links, chitterlings and puddings in
    their season; together with salt beef and mustard, a good deal of hard roes
    of powdered mullet called botargos, great provision of sausages, not of
    Bolonia (for he feared the Lombard Boccone), but of Bigorre, Longaulnay,
    Brene, and Rouargue.  In the vigour of his age he married Gargamelle,
    daughter to the King of the Parpaillons, a jolly pug, and well-mouthed
    wench.  These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully
    rubbing and frotting their bacon 'gainst one another, in so far, that at
    last she became great with child of a fair son, and went with him unto the
    eleventh month; for so long, yea longer, may a woman carry her great belly,
    especially when it is some masterpiece of nature, and a person
    predestinated to the performance, in his due time, of great exploits.  As
    Homer says, that the child, which Neptune begot upon the nymph, was born a
    whole year after the conception, that is, in the twelfth month.  For, as
    Aulus Gellius saith, lib. 3, this long time was suitable to the majesty of
    Neptune, that in it the child might receive his perfect form.  For the like
    reason Jupiter made the night, wherein he lay with Alcmena, last forty-
    eight hours, a shorter time not being sufficient for the forging of
    Hercules, who cleansed the world of the monsters and tyrants wherewith it
    was suppressed.  My masters, the ancient Pantagruelists, have confirmed
    that which I say, and withal declared it to be not only possible, but also
    maintained the lawful birth and legitimation of the infant born of a woman
    in the eleventh month after the decease of her husband.  Hypocrates, lib.
    de alimento.  Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 5.  Plautus, in his Cistelleria.
    Marcus Varro, in his satire inscribed The Testament, alleging to this
    purpose the authority of Aristotle.  Censorinus, lib. de die natali.
    Arist. lib. 7, cap. 3 & 4, de natura animalium.  Gellius, lib. 3, cap. 16.
    Servius, in his exposition upon this verse of Virgil's eclogues, Matri
    longa decem, &c., and a thousand other fools, whose number hath been
    increased by the lawyers ff. de suis, et legit l. intestato. paragrapho.
    fin. and in Auth. de restitut. et ea quae parit in xi mense.  Moreover upon
    these grounds they have foisted in their Robidilardic, or Lapiturolive law.
    Gallus ff. de lib. et posth. l. sept. ff. de stat. hom., and some other
    laws, which at this time I dare not name.  By means whereof the honest
    widows may without danger play at the close buttock game with might and
    main, and as hard as they can, for the space of the first two months after
    the decease of their husbands.  I pray you, my good lusty springal lads, if
    you find any of these females, that are worth the pains of untying the
    codpiece-point, get up, ride upon them, and bring them to me; for, if they
    happen within the third month to conceive, the child should be heir to the
    deceased, if, before he died, he had no other children, and the mother
    shall pass for an honest woman.

    When she is known to have conceived, thrust forward boldly, spare her not,
    whatever betide you, seeing the paunch is full.  As Julia, the daughter of
    the Emperor Octavian, never prostituted herself to her belly-bumpers, but
    when she found herself with child, after the manner of ships, that receive
    not their steersman till they have their ballast and lading.  And if any
    blame them for this their rataconniculation, and reiterated lechery upon
    their pregnancy and big-belliedness, seeing beasts, in the like exigent of
    their fulness, will never suffer the male-masculant to encroach them, their
    answer will be, that those are beasts, but they are women, very well
    skilled in the pretty vales and small fees of the pleasant trade and
    mysteries of superfetation:  as Populia heretofore answered, according to
    the relation of Macrobius, lib. 2. Saturnal.  If the devil will not have
    them to bag, he must wring hard the spigot, and stop the bung-hole.

    Chapter 1.IV. How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of tripes.

    The occasion and manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and delivered of
    her child, was thus:  and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut
    fall out and make an escapade.  Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped
    her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at
    dinner too many godebillios.  Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros.
    Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls, or in the fresh
    guimo meadows.  Guimo meadows are those that for their fruitfulness may be
    mowed twice a year.  Of those fat beeves they had killed three hundred
    sixty-seven thousand and fourteen, to be salted at Shrovetide, that in the
    entering of the spring they might have plenty of powdered beef, wherewith
    to season their mouths at the beginning of their meals, and to taste their
    wine the better.

    They had abundance of tripes, as you have heard, and they were so
    delicious, that everyone licked his fingers.  But the mischief was this,
    that, for all men could do, there was no possibility to keep them long in
    that relish; for in a very short while they would have stunk, which had
    been an undecent thing.  It was therefore concluded, that they should be
    all of them gulched up, without losing anything.  To this effect they
    invited all the burghers of Sainais, of Suille, of the Roche-Clermaud, of
    Vaugaudry, without omitting the Coudray, Monpensier, the Gue de Vede, and
    other their neighbours, all stiff drinkers, brave fellows, and good players
    at the kyles.  The good man Grangousier took great pleasure in their
    company, and commanded there should be no want nor pinching for anything.
    Nevertheless he bade his wife eat sparingly, because she was near her time,
    and that these tripes were no very commendable meat.  They would fain, said
    he, be at the chewing of ordure, that would eat the case wherein it was.
    Notwithstanding these admonitions, she did eat sixteen quarters, two
    bushels, three pecks and a pipkin full.  O the fair fecality wherewith she
    swelled, by the ingrediency of such shitten stuff!

    After dinner they all went out in a hurl to the grove of the willows,
    where, on the green grass, to the sound of the merry flutes and pleasant
    bagpipes, they danced so gallantly, that it was a sweet and heavenly sport
    to see them so frolic.

    Chapter 1.V. The Discourse of the Drinkers.

    1-05-006.jpg (143K)

    Then did they fall upon the chat of victuals and some belly furniture to be
    snatched at in the very same place.  Which purpose was no sooner mentioned,
    but forthwith began flagons to go, gammons to trot, goblets to fly, great
    bowls to ting, glasses to ring.  Draw, reach, fill, mix, give it me without
    water.  So, my friend, so, whip me off this glass neatly, bring me hither
    some claret, a full weeping glass till it run over.  A cessation and truce
    with thirst.  Ha, thou false fever, wilt thou not be gone?  By my figgins,
    godmother, I cannot as yet enter in the humour of being merry, nor drink so
    currently as I would.  You have catched a cold, gammer?  Yea, forsooth,
    sir.  By the belly of Sanct Buff, let us talk of our drink:  I never drink
    but at my hours, like the Pope's mule.  And I never drink but in my
    breviary, like a fair father guardian.  Which was first, thirst or
    drinking?  Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would have drunk
    without being athirst?  Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatio
    praesupponit habitum.  I am learned, you see:  Foecundi calices quem non
    fecere disertum?  We poor innocents drink but too much without thirst.  Not
    I truly, who am a sinner, for I never drink without thirst, either present
    or future.  To prevent it, as you know, I drink for the thirst to come.  I
    drink eternally.  This is to me an eternity of drinking, and drinking of
    eternity.  Let us sing, let us drink, and tune up our roundelays.  Where is
    my funnel?  What, it seems I do not drink but by an attorney?  Do you wet
    yourselves to dry, or do you dry to wet you?  Pish, I understand not the
    rhetoric (theoric, I should say), but I help myself somewhat by the
    practice.  Baste! enough!  I sup, I wet, I humect, I moisten my gullet, I
    drink, and all for fear of dying.  Drink always and you shall never die.
    If I drink not, I am a-ground, dry, gravelled and spent.  I am stark dead
    without drink, and my soul ready to fly into some marsh amongst frogs; the
    soul never dwells in a dry place, drouth kills it.  O you butlers, creators
    of new forms, make me of no drinker a drinker, a perennity and
    everlastingness of sprinkling and bedewing me through these my parched and
    sinewy bowels.  He drinks in vain that feels not the pleasure of it.  This
    entereth into my veins,—the pissing tools and urinal vessels shall have
    nothing of it.  I would willingly wash the tripes of the calf which I
    apparelled this morning.  I have pretty well now ballasted my stomach and
    stuffed my paunch.  If the papers of my bonds and bills could drink as well
    as I do, my creditors would not want for wine when they come to see me, or
    when they are to make any formal exhibition of their rights to what of me
    they can demand.  This hand of yours spoils your nose.  O how many other
    such will enter here before this go out!  What, drink so shallow?  It is
    enough to break both girds and petrel.  This is called a cup of
    dissimulation, or flagonal hypocrisy.

    What difference is there between a bottle and a flagon.  Great difference;
    for the bottle is stopped and shut up with a stopple, but the flagon with a
    vice (La bouteille est fermee a bouchon, et le flaccon a vis.).  Bravely
    and well played upon the words!  Our fathers drank lustily, and emptied
    their cans.  Well cacked, well sung!  Come, let us drink:  will you send
    nothing to the river?  Here is one going to wash the tripes.  I drink no
    more than a sponge.  I drink like a Templar knight.  And I, tanquam
    sponsus.  And I, sicut terra sine aqua.  Give me a synonymon for a gammon
    of bacon.  It is the compulsory of drinkers:  it is a pulley.  By a pulley-
    rope wine is let down into a cellar, and by a gammon into the stomach.
    Hey! now, boys, hither, some drink, some drink.  There is no trouble in it.
    Respice personam, pone pro duos, bus non est in usu.  If I could get up as
    well as I can swallow down, I had been long ere now very high in the air.

    Thus became Tom Tosspot rich,—thus went in the tailor's stitch.  Thus did
    Bacchus conquer th' Inde—thus Philosophy, Melinde.  A little rain allays a
    great deal of wind:  long tippling breaks the thunder.  But if there came
    such liquor from my ballock, would you not willingly thereafter suck the
    udder whence it issued?  Here, page, fill!  I prithee, forget me not when
    it comes to my turn, and I will enter the election I have made of thee into
    the very register of my heart.  Sup, Guillot, and spare not, there is
    somewhat in the pot.  I appeal from thirst, and disclaim its jurisdiction.
    Page, sue out my appeal in form.  This remnant in the bottom of the glass
    must follow its leader.  I was wont heretofore to drink out all, but now I
    leave nothing.  Let us not make too much haste; it is requisite we carry
    all along with us.  Heyday, here are tripes fit for our sport, and, in
    earnest, excellent godebillios of the dun ox (you know) with the black
    streak.  O, for God's sake, let us lash them soundly, yet thriftily.
    Drink, or I will,—No, no, drink, I beseech you (Ou je vous, je vous
    prie.).  Sparrows will not eat unless you bob them on the tail, nor can I
    drink if I be not fairly spoke to.  The concavities of my body are like
    another Hell for their capacity.  Lagonaedatera (lagon lateris cavitas:
    aides orcus: and eteros alter.).  There is not a corner, nor coney-burrow in
    all my body, where this wine doth not ferret out my thirst.  Ho, this will
    bang it soundly.  But this shall banish it utterly.  Let us wind our horns
    by the sound of flagons and bottles, and cry aloud, that whoever hath lost
    his thirst come not hither to seek it.  Long clysters of drinking are to be
    voided without doors.  The great God made the planets, and we make the
    platters neat.  I have the word of the gospel in my mouth, Sitio.  The
    stone called asbestos is not more unquenchable than the thirst of my
    paternity.  Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston, but the thirst goes
    away with drinking.  I have a remedy against thirst, quite contrary to that
    which is good against the biting of a mad dog.  Keep running after a dog,
    and he will never bite you; drink always before the thirst, and it will
    never come upon you.  There I catch you, I awake you.  Argus had a hundred
    eyes for his sight, a butler should have (like Briareus) a hundred hands
    wherewith to fill us wine indefatigably.  Hey now, lads, let us moisten
    ourselves, it will be time to dry hereafter.  White wine here, wine, boys!
    Pour out all in the name of Lucifer, fill here, you, fill and fill
    (peascods on you) till it be full.  My tongue peels.  Lans trinque; to
    thee, countryman, I drink to thee, good fellow, comrade to thee, lusty,
    lively!  Ha, la, la, that was drunk to some purpose, and bravely gulped
    over.  O lachryma Christi, it is of the best grape!  I'faith, pure Greek,
    Greek!  O the fine white wine! upon my conscience, it is a kind of taffetas
    wine,—hin, hin, it is of one ear, well wrought, and of good wool.
    Courage, comrade, up thy heart, billy!  We will not be beasted at this
    bout, for I have got one trick.  Ex hoc in hoc.  There is no enchantment
    nor charm there, every one of you hath seen it.  My 'prenticeship is out, I
    am a free man at this trade.  I am prester mast (Prestre mace, maistre
    passe.), Prish, Brum!  I should say, master past.  O the drinkers, those
    that are a-dry, O poor thirsty souls!  Good page, my friend, fill me here
    some, and crown the wine, I pray thee.  Like a cardinal!  Natura abhorret
    vacuum.  Would you say that a fly could drink in this?  This is after the
    fashion of Switzerland.  Clear off, neat, supernaculum!  Come, therefore,
    blades, to this divine liquor and celestial juice, swill it over heartily,
    and spare not!  It is a decoction of nectar and ambrosia.

    Chapter 1.VI. How Gargantua was born in a strange manner.

    Whilst they were on this discourse and pleasant tattle of drinking,
    Gargamelle began to be a little unwell in her lower parts; whereupon
    Grangousier arose from off the grass, and fell to comfort her very honestly
    and kindly, suspecting that she was in travail, and told her that it was
    best for her to sit down upon the grass under the willows, because she was
    like very shortly to see young feet, and that therefore it was convenient
    she should pluck up her spirits, and take a good heart of new at the fresh
    arrival of her baby; saying to her withal, that although the pain was
    somewhat grievous to her, it would be but of short continuance, and that
    the succeeding joy would quickly remove that sorrow, in such sort that she
    should not so much as remember it.  On, with a sheep's courage! quoth he.
    Despatch this boy, and we will speedily fall to work for the making of
    another.  Ha! said she, so well as you speak at your own ease, you that are
    men!  Well, then, in the name of God, I'll do my best, seeing that you will
    have it so, but would to God that it were cut off from you!  What? said
    Grangousier.  Ha, said she, you are a good man indeed, you understand it
    well enough.  What, my member? said he.  By the goat's blood, if it please
    you, that shall be done instantly; cause bring hither a knife.  Alas, said
    she, the Lord forbid, and pray Jesus to forgive me!  I did not say it from
    my heart, therefore let it alone, and do not do it neither more nor less
    any kind of harm for my speaking so to you.  But I am like to have work
    enough to do to-day and all for your member, yet God bless you and it.

    Courage, courage, said he, take you no care of the matter, let the four
    foremost oxen do the work.  I will yet go drink one whiff more, and if in
    the mean time anything befall you that may require my presence, I will be
    so near to you, that, at the first whistling in your fist, I shall be with
    you forthwith.  A little while after she began to groan, lament and cry.
    Then suddenly came the midwives from all quarters, who groping her below,
    found some peloderies, which was a certain filthy stuff, and of a taste
    truly bad enough.  This they thought had been the child, but it was her
    fundament, that was slipped out with the mollification of her straight
    entrail, which you call the bum-gut, and that merely by eating of too many
    tripes, as we have showed you before.  Whereupon an old ugly trot in the
    company, who had the repute of an expert she-physician, and was come from
    Brisepaille, near to Saint Genou, three score years before, made her so
    horrible a restrictive and binding medicine, and whereby all her larris,
    arse-pipes, and conduits were so oppilated, stopped, obstructed, and
    contracted, that you could hardly have opened and enlarged them with your
    teeth, which is a terrible thing to think upon; seeing the Devil at the
    mass at Saint Martin's was puzzled with the like task, when with his teeth
    he had lengthened out the parchment whereon he wrote the tittle-tattle of
    two young mangy whores.  By this inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrix
    were presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped, and
    so, entering into the hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even above
    her shoulders, where the vein divides itself into two, and from thence
    taking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear.  As
    soon as he was born, he cried not as other babes use to do, Miez, miez,
    miez, miez, but with a high, sturdy, and big voice shouted about, Some
    drink, some drink, some drink, as inviting all the world to drink with him.
    The noise hereof was so extremely great, that it was heard in both the
    countries at once of Beauce and Bibarois.  I doubt me, that you do not
    thoroughly believe the truth of this strange nativity.  Though you believe
    it not, I care not much:  but an honest man, and of good judgment,
    believeth still what is told him, and that which he finds written.

    Is this beyond our law or our faith—against reason or the holy Scripture?
    For my part, I find nothing in the sacred Bible that is against it.  But
    tell me, if it had been the will of God, would you say that he could not do
    it?  Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock or inpulregafize
    your spirits with these vain thoughts and idle conceits; for I tell you, it
    is not impossible with God, and, if he pleased, all women henceforth should
    bring forth their children at the ear.  Was not Bacchus engendered out of
    the very thigh of Jupiter?  Did not Roquetaillade come out at his mother's
    heel, and Crocmoush from the slipper of his nurse?  Was not Minerva born of
    the brain, even through the ear of Jove?  Adonis, of the bark of a myrrh
    tree; and Castor and Pollux of the doupe of that egg which was laid and
    hatched by Leda?  But you would wonder more, and with far greater
    amazement, if I should now present you with that chapter of Plinius,
    wherein he treateth of strange births, and contrary to nature, and yet am
    not I so impudent a liar as he was.  Read the seventh book of his Natural
    History, chap.3, and trouble not my head any more about this.

    Chapter 1.VII. After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled,
    bibbed, and curried the can.

    1-07-018.jpg (139K)

    The good man Grangousier, drinking and making merry with the rest, heard
    the horrible noise which his son had made as he entered into the light of
    this world, when he cried out, Some drink, some drink, some drink;
    whereupon he said in French, Que grand tu as et souple le gousier! that is
    to say, How great and nimble a throat thou hast.  Which the company
    hearing, said that verily the child ought to be called Gargantua; because
    it was the first word that after his birth his father had spoke, in
    imitation, and at the example of the ancient Hebrews; whereunto he
    condescended, and his mother was very well pleased therewith.  In the
    meanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a tirelaregot, that
    is, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he carried to the
    font, and there baptized, according to the manner of good Christians.

    Immediately thereafter were appointed for him seventeen thousand, nine
    hundred, and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and Brehemond, to
    furnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible to find a nurse
    sufficient for him in all the country, considering the great quantity of
    milk that was requisite for his nourishment; although there were not
    wanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who affirmed that his own
    mother gave him suck, and that she could draw out of her breasts one
    thousand, four hundred, two pipes, and nine pails of milk at every time.

    Which indeed is not probable, and this point hath been found duggishly
    scandalous and offensive to tender ears, for that it savoured a little of
    heresy.  Thus was he handled for one year and ten months; after which time,
    by the advice of physicians, they began to carry him, and then was made for
    him a fine little cart drawn with oxen, of the invention of Jan Denio,
    wherein they led him hither and thither with great joy; and he was worth
    the seeing, for he was a fine boy, had a burly physiognomy, and almost ten
    chins.  He cried very little, but beshit himself every hour:  for, to speak
    truly of him, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors, both by
    reason of his natural complexion and the accidental disposition which had
    befallen him by his too much quaffing of the Septembral juice.  Yet without
    a cause did not he sup one drop; for if he happened to be vexed, angry,
    displeased, or sorry, if he did fret, if he did weep, if he did cry, and
    what grievous quarter soever he kept, in bringing him some drink, he would
    be instantly pacified, reseated in his own temper, in a good humour again,
    and as still and quiet as ever.  One of his governesses told me (swearing
    by her fig), how he was so accustomed to this kind of way, that, at the
    sound of pints and flagons, he would on a sudden fall into an ecstasy, as
    if he had then tasted of the joys of paradise; so that they, upon
    consideration of this, his divine complexion, would every morning, to cheer
    him up, play with a knife upon the glasses, on the bottles with their
    stopples, and on the pottle-pots with their lids and covers, at the sound
    whereof he became gay, did leap for joy, would loll and rock himself in the
    cradle, then nod with his head, monochordizing with his fingers, and
    barytonizing with his tail.

    Chapter 1.VIII. How they apparelled Gargantua.

    Being of this age, his father ordained to have clothes made to him in his
    own livery, which was white and blue.  To work then went the tailors, and
    with great expedition were those clothes made, cut, and sewed, according to
    the fashion that was then in request.  I find by the ancient records or
    pancarts, to be seen in the chamber of accounts, or court of the exchequer
    at Montsoreau, that he was accoutred in manner as followeth.  To make him
    every shirt of his were taken up nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud linen,
    and two hundred for the gussets, in manner of cushions, which they put
    under his armpits.  His shirt was not gathered nor plaited, for the
    plaiting of shirts was not found out till the seamstresses (when the point
    of their needle (Besongner du cul, Englished The eye of the needle.) was
    broken) began to work and occupy with the tail.  There were taken up for
    his doublet, eight hundred and thirteen ells of white satin, and for his
    points fifteen hundred and nine dogs' skins and a half.  Then was it that
    men began to tie their breeches to their doublets, and not their doublets
    to their breeches:  for it is against nature, as hath most amply been
    showed by Ockham upon the exponibles of Master Haultechaussade.

    For his breeches were taken up eleven hundred and five ells and a third of
    white broadcloth.  They were cut in the form of pillars, chamfered,
    channelled and pinked behind that they might not over-heat his reins:  and
    were, within the panes, puffed out with the lining of as much blue damask
    as was needful:  and remark, that he had very good leg-harness,
    proportionable to the rest of his stature.

    For his codpiece were used sixteen ells and a quarter of the same cloth,
    and it was fashioned on the top like unto a triumphant arch, most gallantly
    fastened with two enamelled clasps, in each of which was set a great
    emerald, as big as an orange; for, as says Orpheus, lib. de lapidibus, and
    Plinius, libro ultimo, it hath an erective virtue and comfortative of the
    natural member.  The exiture, outjecting or outstanding, of his codpiece
    was of the length of a yard, jagged and pinked, and withal bagging, and
    strutting out with the blue damask lining, after the manner of his
    breeches.  But had you seen the fair embroidery of the small needlework
    purl, and the curiously interlaced knots, by the goldsmith's art set out
    and trimmed with rich diamonds, precious rubies, fine turquoises, costly
    emeralds, and Persian pearls, you would have compared it to a fair
    cornucopia, or horn of abundance, such as you see in antiques, or as Rhea
    gave to the two nymphs, Amalthea and Ida, the nurses of Jupiter.

    And, like to that horn of abundance, it was still gallant, succulent,
    droppy, sappy, pithy, lively, always flourishing, always fructifying, full
    of juice, full of flower, full of fruit, and all manner of delight.  I avow
    God, it would have done one good to have seen him, but I will tell you more
    of him in the book which I have made of the dignity of codpieces.  One
    thing I will tell you, that as it was both long and large, so was it well
    furnished and victualled within, nothing like unto the hypocritical
    codpieces of some fond wooers and wench-courtiers, which are stuffed only
    with wind, to the great prejudice of the female sex.

    For his shoes were taken up four hundred and six ells of blue crimson-
    velvet, and were very neatly cut by parallel lines, joined in uniform
    cylinders.  For the soling of them were made use of eleven hundred hides of
    brown cows, shapen like the tail of a keeling.

    For his coat were taken up eighteen hundred ells of blue velvet, dyed in
    grain, embroidered in its borders with fair gilliflowers, in the middle
    decked with silver purl, intermixed with plates of gold and store of
    pearls, hereby showing that in his time he would prove an especial good
    fellow and singular whipcan.

    His girdle was made of three hundred ells and a half of silken serge, half
    white and half blue, if I mistake it not.  His sword was not of Valentia,
    nor his dagger of Saragossa, for his father could not endure these hidalgos
    borrachos maranisados como diablos:  but he had a fair sword made of wood,
    and the dagger of boiled leather, as well painted and gilded as any man
    could wish.

    His purse was made of the cod of an elephant, which was given him by Herr
    Pracontal, proconsul of Lybia.

    For his gown were employed nine thousand six hundred ells, wanting two-
    thirds, of blue velvet, as before, all so diagonally purled, that by true
    perspective issued thence an unnamed colour, like that you see in the necks
    of turtle-doves or turkey-cocks, which wonderfully rejoiced the eyes of the
    beholders.  For his bonnet or cap were taken up three hundred, two ells and
    a quarter of white velvet, and the form thereof was wide and round, of the
    bigness of his head; for his father said that the caps of the Marrabaise
    fashion, made like the cover of a pasty, would one time or other bring a
    mischief on those that wore them.  For his plume, he wore a fair great blue
    feather, plucked from an onocrotal of the country of Hircania the wild,
    very prettily hanging down over his right ear.  For the jewel or brooch
    which in his cap he carried, he had in a cake of gold, weighing three score
    and eight marks, a fair piece enamelled, wherein was portrayed a man's body
    with two heads, looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, two
    arses, such as Plato, in Symposio, says was the mystical beginning of man's
    nature; and about it was written in Ionic letters, Agame ou zetei ta
    eautes, or rather, Aner kai gune zugada anthrotos idiaitata,
    that is, Vir et mulier junctim propriissime homo.  To wear about his neck,
    he had a golden chain, weighing twenty-five thousand and sixty-three marks
    of gold, the links thereof being made after the manner of great berries,
    amongst which were set in work green jaspers engraven and cut dragon-like,
    all environed with beams and sparks, as king Nicepsos of old was wont to
    wear them:  and it reached down to the very bust of the rising of his
    belly, whereby he reaped great benefit all his life long, as the Greek
    physicians know well enough.  For his gloves were put in work sixteen
    otters' skins, and three of the loupgarous, or men-eating wolves, for the
    bordering of them:  and of this stuff were they made, by the appointment of
    the Cabalists of Sanlouand.  As for the rings which his father would have
    him to wear, to renew the ancient mark of nobility, he had on the
    forefinger of his left hand a carbuncle as big as an ostrich's egg,
    enchased very daintily in gold of the fineness of a Turkey seraph.  Upon
    the middle finger of the same hand he had a ring made of four metals
    together, of the strangest fashion that ever was seen; so that the steel
    did not crash against the gold, nor the silver crush the copper.  All this
    was made by Captain Chappuys, and Alcofribas his good agent.  On the
    medical finger of his right hand he had a ring made spire-wise, wherein was
    set a perfect Balas ruby, a pointed diamond, and a Physon emerald, of an
    inestimable value.  For Hans Carvel, the king of Melinda's jeweller,
    esteemed them at the rate of threescore nine millions, eight hundred
    ninety-four thousand, and eighteen French crowns of Berry, and at so much
    did the Foucres of Augsburg prize them.

    Chapter 1.IX. The colours and liveries of Gargantua.

    Gargantua's colours were white and blue, as I have showed you before, by
    which his father would give us to understand that his son to him was a
    heavenly joy; for the white did signify gladness, pleasure, delight, and
    rejoicing, and the blue, celestial things.  I know well enough that, in
    reading this, you laugh at the old drinker, and hold this exposition of
    colours to be very extravagant, and utterly disagreeable to reason, because
    white is said to signify faith, and blue constancy.  But without moving,
    vexing, heating, or putting you in a chafe (for the weather is dangerous),
    answer me, if it please you; for no other compulsory way of arguing will I
    use towards you, or any else; only now and then I will mention a word or
    two of my bottle.  What is it that induceth you, what stirs you up to
    believe, or who told you that white signifieth faith, and blue constancy?
    An old paltry book, say you, sold by the hawking pedlars and balladmongers,
    entitled The Blason of Colours.  Who made it?  Whoever it was, he was wise
    in that he did not set his name to it.  But, besides, I know not what I
    should rather admire in him, his presumption or his sottishness.  His
    presumption and overweening, for that he should without reason, without
    cause, or without any appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by his
    private authority, what things should be denotated and signified by the
    colour:  which is the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bear
    sway in stead of equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with the
    evidence of reason satisfy their readers.  His sottishness and want of
    spirit, in that he thought that, without any other demonstration or
    sufficient argument, the world would be pleased to make his blockish and
    ridiculous impositions the rule of their devices.  In effect, according to
    the proverb, To a shitten tail fails never ordure, he hath found, it seems,
    some simple ninny in those rude times of old, when the wearing of high
    round bonnets was in fashion, who gave some trust to his writings,
    according to which they carved and engraved their apophthegms and mottoes,
    trapped and caparisoned their mules and sumpter-horses, apparelled their
    pages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves, fringed the
    curtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns, composed songs,
    and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jugglings and unworthy base
    tricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest matrons and most reverend
    sciences.  In the like darkness and mist of ignorance are wrapped up these
    vain-glorious courtiers and name-transposers, who, going about in their
    impresas to signify esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere—and
    birds' pennes for pains—l'ancholie (which is the flower colombine) for
    melancholy—a waning moon or crescent, to show the increasing or rising of
    one's fortune—a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt—non and a
    corslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabit, it shall not last), un
    lit sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, a
    graduated person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; which
    are equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that a
    fox's tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of a
    cowsherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after the
    restitution of learning, to make use of any such fopperies in France.

    By the same reasons (if reasons I should call them, and not ravings rather,
    and idle triflings about words), might I cause paint a pannier, to signify
    that I am in pain—a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much for't—one
    pissing upwards for a bishop—the bottom of a pair of breeches for a vessel
    full of fart-hings—a codpiece for the office of the clerks of the
    sentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English bears it, for
    the tail of a codfish—and a dog's turd for the dainty turret wherein lies
    the love of my sweetheart.  Far otherwise did heretofore the sages of
    Egypt, when they wrote by letters, which they called hieroglyphics, which
    none understood who were not skilled in the virtue, property, and nature of
    the things represented by them.  Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greek
    composed two books, and Polyphilus, in his Dream of Love, set down more.
    In France you have a taste of them in the device or impresa of my Lord
    Admiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus.  But my
    little skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no
    further, therefore must I return to the port from whence I came.  Yet do I
    hope one day to write more at large of these things, and to show both by
    philosophical arguments and authorities, received and approved of by and
    from all antiquity, what, and how many colours there are in nature, and
    what may be signified by every one of them, if God save the mould of my
    cap, which is my best wine-pot, as my grandam said.

    Chapter 1.X. Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.

    The white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness, and that not at
    random, but upon just and very good grounds:  which you may perceive to be
    true, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give ear to
    what presently I shall expound unto you.

    Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as good
    and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure and
    pain, joy and grief,—and so of others,—if you couple them in such manner
    that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the contrary of the
    other, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary must answer to
    the remanent opposite to that wherewith it is conferred.  As, for example,
    virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so are good and evil.  If one of
    the contraries of the first kind be consonant to one of those of the
    second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue is good, so
    shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice, have the same
    connection, for vice is evil.

    This logical rule being understood, take these two contraries, joy and
    sadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are physically
    contrary.  If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by good reason then
    should white import joy.  Nor is this signification instituted by human
    imposition, but by the universal consent of the world received, which
    philosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an uncontrollable
    right of force in all countries whatsoever.  For you know well enough that
    all people, and all languages and nations, except the ancient Syracusans
    and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when they mean
    outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and all mourning
    is done with black.  Which general consent is not without some argument and
    reason in nature, the which every man may by himself very suddenly
    comprehend, without the instruction of any—and this we call the law of
    nature.  By virtue of the same natural instinct we know that by white all
    the world hath understood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight.  In
    former times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, and
    fortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunate
    ones with black.  Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic?  It is
    black and dark by the privation of light.  Doth not the light comfort all
    the world?  And it is more white than anything else.  Which to prove, I
    could direct you to the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but an
    evangelical testimony I hope will content you.  Matth. 17 it is said that,
    at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut
    lux, his apparel was made white like the light.  By which lightsome
    whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure of
    the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to the
    word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, was
    wont to say, Bona lux.  And Tobit, chap.5, after he had lost his sight,
    when Raphael saluted him, answered, What joy can I have, that do not see
    the light of Heaven?  In that colour did the angels testify the joy of the
    whole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20, and at his
    ascension, Acts 1.  With the like colour of vesture did St. John the
    Evangelist, Apoc. 4.7, see the faithful clothed in the heavenly and blessed
    Jerusalem.

    Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories, and you shall find that
    the town of Alba (the first pattern of Rome) was founded and so named by
    reason of a white sow that was seen there.  You shall likewise find in
    those stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished his enemies, was
    by decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he usually rode in
    a chariot drawn by white horses:  which in the ovation triumph was also the
    custom; for by no sign or colour would they so significantly express the
    joy of their coming as by the white.  You shall there also find, how
    Pericles, the general of the Athenians, would needs have that part of his
    army unto whose lot befell the white beans, to spend the whole day in
    mirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were a-fighting.  A thousand
    other examples and places could I allege to this purpose, but that it is
    not here where I should do it.

    By understanding hereof, you may resolve one problem, which Alexander
    Aphrodiseus hath accounted unanswerable:  why the lion, who with his only
    cry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth only a white cock?
    For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the
    presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of all
    terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white
    cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical
    quality, than with a lion.  He saith, furthermore, that devils have been
    often seen in the shape of lions, which at the sight of a white cock have
    presently vanished.  This is the cause why Galli or Gallices (so are the
    Frenchmen called, because they are naturally white as milk, which the
    Greeks call Gala,) do willingly wear in their caps white feathers, for by
    nature they are of a candid disposition, merry, kind, gracious, and well-
    beloved, and for their cognizance and arms have the whitest flower of any,
    the Flower de luce or Lily.

    If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand joy and
    gladness, I answer, that the analogy and uniformity is thus.  For, as the
    white doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the sight, whereby
    the optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the opinion of
    Aristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you may likewise
    perceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered with snow, how
    you will complain that you cannot see well; as Xenophon writes to have
    happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth, lib. 10, de usu
    partium:  just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, and
    suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so far
    on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence
    of life itself, by this perichary or extremity of gladness, as Galen saith,
    lib. 12, method, lib. 5, de locis affectis, and lib. 2, de symptomatum
    causis.  And as it hath come to pass in former times, witness Marcus
    Tullius, lib. 1, Quaest. Tuscul., Verrius, Aristotle, Titus Livius, in his
    relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32 and 34, A.
    Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers,—to Diagoras the Rhodian,
    Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, Philippides, Philemon,
    Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others who died with joy.  And as
    Avicen speaketh, in 2 canon et lib. de virib. cordis, of the saffron, that
    it doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of it excessively, it will
    by a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it altogether of life.
    Here peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. 1, Probl., cap. 19, and that for a
    cause.  But what?  It seems I am entered further into this point than I
    intended at the first.  Here, therefore, will I strike sail, referring the
    rest to that book of mine which handleth this matter to the full.
    Meanwhile, in a word I will tell you, that blue doth certainly signify
    heaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and symbols that white
    signifieth joy and pleasure.

    Chapter 1.XI. Of the youthful age of Gargantua.

    1-11-026.jpg (171K)

    Gargantua, from three years upwards unto five, was brought up and
    instructed in all convenient discipline by the commandment of his father;
    and spent that time like the other little children of the country, that is,
    in drinking, eating, and sleeping:  in eating, sleeping, and drinking:  and
    in sleeping, drinking, and eating.  Still he wallowed and rolled up and
    down himself in the mire and dirt—he blurred and sullied his nose with
    filth—he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of scurvy stuff—he
    trod down his shoes in the heel—at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and
    ran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to his
    father.  He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his nose on
    his sleeve—he did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage, and
    dabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere—he would drink in his slipper,
    and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier.  He sharpened his teeth
    with a top, washed his hands with his broth, and combed his head with a
    bowl.  He would sit down betwixt two stools, and his arse to the ground—
    would cover himself with a wet sack, and drink in eating of his soup.  He
    did eat his cake sometimes without bread, would bite in laughing, and laugh
    in biting.  Oftentimes did he spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, piss
    against the sun, and hide himself in the water for fear of rain.  He would
    strike out of the cold iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggle
    it.  He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep,
    and turn the hogs to the hay.  He would beat the dogs before the lion, put
    the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch.  He would pump
    one to draw somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast nothing,
    and always eat his white bread first.  He shoed the geese, kept a self-
    tickling to make himself laugh, and was very steadable in the kitchen:
    made a mock at the gods, would cause sing Magnificat at matins, and found
    it very convenient so to do.  He would eat cabbage, and shite beets,—knew
    flies in a dish of milk, and would make them lose their feet.  He would
    scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away as hard as he could.  He would
    pull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then reckon without his
    host.  He would beat the bushes without catching the birds, thought the
    moon was made of green cheese, and that bladders are lanterns.  Out of one
    sack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass's
    part to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet.  He took the
    cranes at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made link
    after link.  He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from the
    cock to the ass, and put one ripe between two green.  By robbing Peter he
    paid Paul, he kept the moon from the wolves, and hoped to catch larks if
    ever the heavens should fall.  He did make of necessity virtue, of such
    bread such pottage, and cared as little for the peeled as for the shaven.
    Every morning he did cast up his gorge, and his father's little dogs eat
    out of the dish with him, and he with them.  He would bite their ears, and
    they would scratch his nose—he would blow in their arses, and they would
    lick his chaps.

    But hearken, good fellows, the spigot ill betake you, and whirl round your
    brains, if you do not give ear!  This little lecher was always groping his
    nurses and governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsyturvy, harri
    bourriquet, with a Yacco haick, hyck gio! handling them very rudely in
    jumbling and tumbling them to keep them going; for he had already begun to
    exercise the tools, and put his codpiece in practice.  Which codpiece, or
    braguette, his governesses did every day deck up and adorn with fair
    nosegays, curious rubies, sweet flowers, and fine silken tufts, and very
    pleasantly would pass their time in taking you know what between their
    fingers, and dandling it, till it did revive and creep up to the bulk and
    stiffness of a suppository, or street magdaleon, which is a hard rolled-up
    salve spread upon leather.  Then did they burst out in laughing, when they
    saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them.  One of them would
    call it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin,
    her dandilolly.  Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her
    membretoon, her quickset imp:  another again, her branch of coral, her
    female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for
    ladies.  And some of the other women would give it these names,—my
    bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my pretty
    borer, my coney-burrow-ferret, my little piercer, my augretine, my dangling
    hangers, down right to it, stiff and stout, in and to, my pusher, dresser,
    pouting stick, my honey pipe, my pretty pillicock, linky pinky, futilletie,
    my lusty andouille, and crimson chitterling, my little couille bredouille,
    my pretty rogue, and so forth.  It belongs to me, said one.  It is mine,
    said the other.  What, quoth a third, shall I have no share in it?  By my
    faith, I will cut it then.  Ha, to cut it, said the other, would hurt him.
    Madam, do you cut little children's things?  Were his cut off, he would be
    then Monsieur sans queue, the curtailed master.  And that he might play and
    sport himself after the manner of the other little children of the country,
    they made him a fair weather whirl-jack of the wings of the windmill of
    Myrebalais.

    Chapter 1.XII. Of Gargantua's wooden horses.

    1-12-028.jpg (150K)

    Afterwards, that he might be all his lifetime a good rider, they made to
    him a fair great horse of wood, which he did make leap, curvet, jerk out
    behind, and skip forward, all at a time:  to pace, trot, rack, gallop,
    amble, to play the hobby, the hackney-gelding:  go the gait of the camel,
    and of the wild ass.  He made him also change his colour of hair, as the
    monks of Coultibo (according to the variety of their holidays) use to do
    their clothes, from bay brown, to sorrel, dapple-grey, mouse-dun, deer-
    colour, roan, cow-colour, gingioline, skewed colour, piebald, and the
    colour of the savage elk.

    Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily
    service of the beam of a vinepress:  and of a great oak made up a mule,
    with a footcloth, for his chamber.  Besides this, he had ten or twelve
    spare horses, and seven horses for post; and all these were lodged in his
    own chamber, close by his bedside.  One day the Lord of Breadinbag
    (Painensac.) came to visit his father in great bravery, and with a gallant
    train:  and, at the same time, to see him came likewise the Duke of
    Freemeal (Francrepas.) and the Earl of Wetgullet (Mouillevent.).  The house
    truly for so many guests at once was somewhat narrow, but especially the
    stables; whereupon the steward and harbinger of the said Lord Breadinbag,
    to know if there were any other empty stable in the house, came to
    Gargantua, a little young lad, and secretly asked him where the stables of
    the great horses were, thinking that children would be ready to tell all.
    Then he led them up along the stairs of the castle, passing by the second
    hall unto a broad great gallery, by which they entered into a large tower,
    and as they were going up at another pair of stairs, said the harbinger to
    the steward, This child deceives us, for the stables are never on the top
    of the house.  You may be mistaken, said the steward, for I know some
    places at Lyons, at the Basmette, at Chaisnon, and elsewhere, which have
    their stables at the very tops of the houses:  so it may be that behind the
    house there is a way to come to this ascent.  But I will question with him
    further.  Then said he to Gargantua, My pretty little boy, whither do you
    lead us?  To the stable, said he, of my great horses.  We are almost come
    to it; we have but these stairs to go up at.  Then leading them alongst
    another great hall, he brought them into his chamber, and, opening the
    door, said unto them, This is the stable you ask for; this is my jennet;
    this is my gelding; this is my courser, and this is my hackney, and laid on
    them with a great lever.  I will bestow upon you, said he, this Friesland
    horse; I had him from Frankfort, yet will I give him you; for he is a
    pretty little nag, and will go very well, with a tessel of goshawks, half a
    dozen of spaniels, and a brace of greyhounds:  thus are you king of the
    hares and partridges for all this winter.  By St. John, said they, now we
    are paid, he hath gleeked us to some purpose, bobbed we are now for ever.
    I deny it, said he,—he was not here above three days.  Judge you now,
    whether they had most cause, either to hide their heads for shame, or to
    laugh at the jest.  As they were going down again thus amazed, he asked
    them, Will you have a whimwham (Aubeliere.)?  What is that, said they?  It
    is, said he, five turds to make you a muzzle.  To-day, said the steward,
    though we happen to be roasted, we shall not be burnt, for we are pretty
    well quipped and larded, in my opinion.  O my jolly dapper boy, thou hast
    given us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die.  I think so, said
    he, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay a
    perfect papelard, that is, dissembler.  Well, well, said the harbinger.
    But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother's
    smock.  Sixteen, quoth the harbinger.  You do not speak gospel, said
    Gargantua, for there is cent before, and cent behind, and you did not
    reckon them ill, considering the two under holes.  When? said the
    harbinger.  Even then, said Gargantua, when they made a shovel of your nose
    to take up a quarter of dirt, and of your throat a funnel, wherewith to put
    it into another vessel, because the bottom of the old one was out.
    Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater.  Farewell, master
    tattler, God keep you, so goodly are the words which you come out with, and
    so fresh in your mouth, that it had need to be salted.

    Thus going down in great haste, under the arch of the stairs they let fall
    the great lever, which he had put upon their backs; whereupon Gargantua
    said, What a devil! you are, it seems, but bad horsemen, that suffer your
    bilder to fail you when you need him most.  If you were to go from hence to
    Cahusac, whether had you rather, ride on a gosling or lead a sow in a
    leash?  I had rather drink, said the harbinger.  With this they entered
    into the lower hall, where the company was, and relating to them this new
    story, they made them laugh like a swarm of flies.

    Chapter 1.XIII. How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father
    Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech.

    About the end of the fifth year, Grangousier returning from the conquest of
    the Canarians, went by the way to see his son Gargantua.  There was he
    filled with joy, as such a father might be at the sight of such a child of
    his:  and whilst he kissed and embraced him, he asked many childish
    questions of him about divers matters, and drank very freely with him and
    with his governesses, of whom in great earnest he asked, amongst other
    things, whether they had been careful to keep him clean and sweet.  To this
    Gargantua answered, that he had taken such a course for that himself, that
    in all the country there was not to be found a cleanlier boy than he.  How
    is that? said Grangousier.  I have, answered Gargantua, by a long and
    curious experience, found out a means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the
    most excellent, and the most convenient that ever was seen.  What is that?
    said Grangousier, how is it?  I will tell you by-and-by, said Gargantua.
    Once I did wipe me with a gentle-woman's velvet mask, and found it to be
    good; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my
    fundament.  Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that
    was comfortable.  At another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after that
    I wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but there
    was such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a pox
    take them) that they fetched away all the skin of my tail with a vengeance.
    Now I wish St. Antony's fire burn the bum-gut of the goldsmith that made
    them, and of her that wore them!  This hurt I cured by wiping myself with a
    page's cap, garnished with a feather after the Switzers' fashion.

    Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it I
    wiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched and
    exulcerated all my perinee.  Of this I recovered the next morning
    thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most excellent
    perfume and scent of the Arabian Benin.  After that I wiped me with sage,
    with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with gourd-leaves, with
    beets, with colewort, with leaves of the vine-tree, with mallows, wool-
    blade, which is a tail-scarlet, with lettuce, and with spinach leaves.  All
    this did very great good to my leg.  Then with mercury, with parsley, with
    nettles, with comfrey, but that gave me the bloody flux of Lombardy, which
    I healed by wiping me with my braguette.  Then I wiped my tail in the
    sheets, in the coverlet, in the curtains, with a cushion, with arras
    hangings, with a green carpet, with a table-cloth, with a napkin, with a
    handkerchief, with a combing-cloth; in all which I found more pleasure than
    do the mangy dogs when you rub them.  Yea, but, said Grangousier, which
    torchecul did you find to be the best?  I was coming to it, said Gargantua,
    and by-and-by shall you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and
    knot of the matter.  I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with thatch-
    rushes, with flax, with wool, with paper, but,

    Who his foul tail with paper wipes,
    Shall at his ballocks leave some chips.

    What, said Grangousier, my little rogue, hast thou been at the pot, that
    thou dost rhyme already?  Yes, yes, my lord the king, answered Gargantua, I
    can rhyme gallantly, and rhyme till I become hoarse with rheum.  Hark, what
    our privy says to the skiters:

    Shittard,
    Squirtard,
    Crackard,
       Turdous,
    Thy bung
    Hath flung
    Some dung
       On us:
    Filthard,
    Cackard,
    Stinkard,
       St. Antony's fire seize on thy toane (bone?),
    If thy
    Dirty
    Dounby
       Thou do not wipe, ere thou be gone.

    Will you have any more of it?  Yes, yes, answered Grangousier.  Then, said
    Gargantua,

    A Roundelay.

    In shitting yes'day I did know
    The sess I to my arse did owe:
    The smell was such came from that slunk,
    That I was with it all bestunk:
    O had but then some brave Signor
    Brought her to me I waited for,
       In shitting!

    I would have cleft her watergap,
    And join'd it close to my flipflap,
    Whilst she had with her fingers guarded
    My foul nockandrow, all bemerded
       In shitting.

    Now say that I can do nothing!  By the Merdi, they are not of my making,
    but I heard them of this good old grandam, that you see here, and ever
    since have retained them in the budget of my memory.

    Let us return to our purpose, said Grangousier.  What, said Gargantua, to
    skite?  No, said Grangousier, but to wipe our tail.  But, said Gargantua,
    will not you be content to pay a puncheon of Breton wine, if I do not blank
    and gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus?  Yes, truly, said
    Grangousier.

    There is no need of wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is foul;
    foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we must
    before we wipe our tails.  O my pretty little waggish boy, said
    Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast?  I will make thee very
    shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, by
    G—, for thou hast more wit than age.  Now, I prithee, go on in this
    torcheculative, or wipe-bummatory discourse, and by my beard I swear, for
    one puncheon, thou shalt have threescore pipes, I mean of the good Breton
    wine, not that which grows in Britain, but in the good country of Verron.
    Afterwards I wiped my bum, said Gargantua, with a kerchief, with a pillow,
    with a pantoufle, with a pouch, with a pannier, but that was a wicked and
    unpleasant torchecul; then with a hat.  Of hats, note that some are shorn,
    and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered with taffeties, and others
    with satin.  The best of all these is the shaggy hat, for it makes a very
    neat abstersion of the fecal matter.

    Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a
    calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an
    attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure.  But,
    to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps,
    bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is
    none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed,
    if you hold her head betwixt your legs.  And believe me therein upon mine
    honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful
    pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the
    temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut
    and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of
    the heart and brains.  And think not that the felicity of the heroes and
    demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel,
    ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but in this,
    according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the neck of a
    goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of
    Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.

    Chapter 1.XIV. How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister.

    The good man Grangousier having heard this discourse, was ravished with
    admiration, considering the high reach and marvellous understanding of his
    son Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip, king of Macedon, knew
    the great wit of his son Alexander by his skilful managing of a horse; for
    his horse Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventure
    to ride him, after that he had given to his riders such devilish falls,
    breaking the neck of this man, the other man's leg, braining one, and
    putting another out of his jawbone.  This by Alexander being considered,
    one day in the hippodrome (which was a place appointed for the breaking and
    managing of great horses), he perceived that the fury of the horse
    proceeded merely from the fear he had of his own shadow, whereupon getting
    on his back, he run him against the sun, so that the shadow fell behind,
    and by that means tamed the horse and brought him to his hand.  Whereby his
    father, knowing the divine judgment that was in him, caused him most
    carefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highly
    renowned above all the philosophers of Greece.  After the same manner I
    tell you, that by this only discourse, which now I have here had before you
    with my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth participate of
    some divinity, and that, if he be well taught, and have that education
    which is fitting, he will attain to a supreme degree of wisdom.  Therefore
    will I commit him to some learned man, to have him indoctrinated according
    to his capacity, and will spare no cost.  Presently they appointed him a
    great sophister-doctor, called Master Tubal Holofernes, who taught him his
    ABC so well, that he could say it by heart backwards; and about this he was
    five years and three months.  Then read he to him Donat, Le Facet,
    Theodolet, and Alanus in parabolis.  About this he was thirteen years, six
    months, and two weeks.  But you must remark that in the mean time he did
    learn to write in Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books—for
    the art of printing was not then in use—and did ordinarily carry a great
    pen and inkhorn, weighing about seven thousand quintals (that is, 700,000
    pound weight), the penner whereof was as big and as long as the great
    pillars of Enay, and the horn was hanging to it in great iron chains, it
    being of the wideness of a tun of merchant ware.  After that he read unto
    him the book de modis significandi, with the commentaries of Hurtbise, of
    Fasquin, of Tropdieux, of Gualhaut, of John Calf, of Billonio, of
    Berlinguandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more than
    eighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that, to try
    masteries in school disputes with his condisciples, he would recite it by
    heart backwards, and did sometimes prove on his finger-ends to his mother,
    quod de modis significandi non erat scientia.  Then did he read to him the
    compost for knowing the age of the moon, the seasons of the year, and tides
    of the sea, on which he spent sixteen years and two months, and that justly
    at the time that his said preceptor died of the French pox, which was in
    the year one thousand four hundred and twenty.  Afterwards he got an old
    coughing fellow to teach him, named Master Jobelin Bride, or muzzled dolt,
    who read unto him Hugutio, Hebrard('s) Grecism, the Doctrinal, the Parts,
    the Quid est, the Supplementum, Marmotretus, De moribus in mensa servandis,
    Seneca de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus, Passavantus cum commento, and
    Dormi secure for the holidays, and some other of such like mealy stuff, by
    reading whereof he became as wise as any we ever since baked in an oven.

    Chapter 1.XV. How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters.

    At the last his father perceived that indeed he studied hard, and that,
    although he spent all his time in it, he did nevertheless profit nothing,
    but which is worse, grew thereby foolish, simple, doted, and blockish,
    whereof making a heavy regret to Don Philip of Marays, Viceroy or Depute
    King of Papeligosse, he found that it were better for him to learn nothing
    at all, than to be taught such-like books, under such schoolmasters;
    because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness, and their wisdom but
    blunt foppish toys, serving only to bastardize good and noble spirits, and
    to corrupt all the flower of youth.  That it is so, take, said he, any
    young boy of this time who hath only studied two years,—if he have not a
    better judgment, a better discourse, and that expressed in better terms
    than your son, with a completer carriage and civility to all manner of
    persons, account me for ever hereafter a very clounch and bacon-slicer of
    Brene.  This pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that it should
    be done.  At night at supper, the said Des Marays brought in a young page
    of his, of Ville-gouges, called Eudemon, so neat, so trim, so handsome in
    his apparel, so spruce, with his hair in so good order, and so sweet and
    comely in his behaviour, that he had the resemblance of a little angel more
    than of a human creature.  Then he said to Grangousier, Do you see this
    young boy?  He is not as yet full twelve years old.  Let us try, if it
    please you, what difference there is betwixt the knowledge of the doting
    Mateologians of old time and the young lads that are now.  The trial
    pleased Grangousier, and he commanded the page to begin.  Then Eudemon,
    asking leave of the vice-king his master so to do, with his cap in his
    hand, a clear and open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes
    steady, and his looks fixed upon Gargantua with a youthful modesty,
    standing up straight on his feet, began very gracefully to commend him;
    first, for his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge,
    thirdly, for his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily accomplishments; and,
    in the fifth place, most sweetly exhorted him to reverence his father with
    all due observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up.  In the
    end he prayed him, that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst the
    least of his servants; for other favour at that time desired he none of
    heaven, but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service.  All
    this was by him delivered with such proper gestures, such distinct
    pronunciation, so pleasant a delivery, in such exquisite fine terms, and so
    good Latin, that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an Aemilius of the
    time past, than a youth of this age.  But all the countenance that
    Gargantua kept was, that he fell to crying like a cow, and cast down his
    face, hiding it with his cap, nor could they possibly draw one word from
    him, no more than a fart from a dead ass.  Whereat his father was so
    grievously vexed that he would have killed Master Jobelin, but the said Des
    Marays withheld him from it by fair persuasions, so that at length he
    pacified his wrath.  Then Grangousier commanded he should be paid his
    wages, that they should whittle him up soundly, like a sophister, with good
    drink, and then give him leave to go to all the devils in hell.  At least,
    said he, today shall it not cost his host much if by chance he should die
    as drunk as a Switzer.  Master Jobelin being gone out of the house,
    Grangousier consulted with the Viceroy what schoolmaster they should choose
    for him, and it was betwixt them resolved that Ponocrates, the tutor of
    Eudemon, should have the charge, and that they should go altogether to
    Paris, to know what was the study of the young men of France at that time.

    Chapter 1.XVI. >
    1-16-036.jpg (153K)

    How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rode
    on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce.

    In the same season Fayoles, the fourth King of Numidia, sent out of the
    country of Africa to Grangousier the most hideously great mare that ever
    was seen, and of the strangest form, for you know well enough how it is
    said that Africa always is productive of some new thing.  She was as big as
    six elephants, and had her feet cloven into fingers, like Julius Caesar's
    horse, with slouch-hanging ears, like the goats in Languedoc, and a little
    horn on her buttock.  She was of a burnt sorrel hue, with a little mixture
    of dapple-grey spots, but above all she had a horrible tail; for it was
    little more or less than every whit as great as the steeple-pillar of St.
    Mark beside Langes:  and squared as that is, with tuffs and ennicroches or
    hair-plaits wrought within one another, no otherwise than as the beards are
    upon the ears of corn.

    If you wonder at this, wonder rather at the tails of the Scythian rams,
    which weighed above thirty pounds each; and of the Surian sheep, who need,
    if Tenaud say true, a little cart at their heels to bear up their tail, it
    is so long and heavy.  You female lechers in the plain countries have no
    such tails.  And she was brought by sea in three carricks and a brigantine
    unto the harbour of Olone in Thalmondois.  When Grangousier saw her, Here
    is, said he, what is fit to carry my son to Paris.  So now, in the name of
    God, all will be well.  He will in times coming be a great scholar.  If it
    were not, my masters, for the beasts, we should live like clerks.  The next
    morning—after they had drunk, you must understand—they took their
    journey; Gargantua, his pedagogue Ponocrates, and his train, and with them
    Eudemon, the young page.  And because the weather was fair and temperate,
    his father caused to be made for him a pair of dun boots,—Babin calls them
    buskins.  Thus did they merrily pass their time in travelling on their high
    way, always making good cheer, and were very pleasant till they came a
    little above Orleans, in which place there was a forest of five-and-thirty
    leagues long, and seventeen in breadth, or thereabouts.  This forest was
    most horribly fertile and copious in dorflies, hornets, and wasps, so that
    it was a very purgatory for the poor mares, asses, and horses.  But
    Gargantua's mare did avenge herself handsomely of all the outrages therein
    committed upon beasts of her kind, and that by a trick whereof they had no
    suspicion.  For as soon as ever they were entered into the said forest, and
    that the wasps had given the assault, she drew out and unsheathed her tail,
    and therewith skirmishing, did so sweep them that she overthrew all the
    wood alongst and athwart, here and there, this way and that way, longwise
    and sidewise, over and under, and felled everywhere the wood with as much
    ease as a mower doth the grass, in such sort that never since hath there
    been there neither wood nor dorflies:  for all the country was thereby
    reduced to a plain champaign field.  Which Gargantua took great pleasure to
    behold, and said to his company no more but this:  Je trouve beau ce (I
    find this pretty); whereupon that country hath been ever since that time
    called Beauce.  But all the breakfast the mare got that day was but a
    little yawning and gaping, in memory whereof the gentlemen of Beauce do as
    yet to this day break their fast with gaping, which they find to be very
    good, and do spit the better for it.  At last they came to Paris, where
    Gargantua refreshed himself two or three days, making very merry with his
    folks, and inquiring what men of learning there were then in the city, and
    what wine they drunk there.

    Chapter 1.XVII. >
    1-17-038.jpg (150K)

    How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away the
    great bells of Our Lady's Church.

    Some few days after that they had refreshed themselves, he went to see the
    city, and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for the
    people of Paris are so sottish, so badot, so foolish and fond by nature,
    that a juggler, a carrier of indulgences, a sumpter-horse, or mule with
    cymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross lane,
    shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an evangelical
    preacher.  And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to
    rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church.  At which place, seeing
    so many about him, he said with a loud voice, I believe that these buzzards
    will have me to pay them here my welcome hither, and my Proficiat.  It is
    but good reason.  I will now give them their wine, but it shall be only in
    sport.  Then smiling, he untied his fair braguette, and drawing out his
    mentul into the open air, he so bitterly all-to-bepissed them, that he
    drowned two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen, besides
    the women and little children.  Some, nevertheless, of the company escaped
    this piss-flood by mere speed of foot, who, when they were at the higher
    end of the university, sweating, coughing, spitting, and out of breath,
    they began to swear and curse, some in good hot earnest, and others in
    jest.  Carimari, carimara:  golynoly, golynolo.  By my sweet Sanctess, we
    are washed in sport, a sport truly to laugh at;—in French, Par ris, for
    which that city hath been ever since called Paris; whose name formerly was
    Leucotia, as Strabo testifieth, lib. quarto, from the Greek word leukotes,
    whiteness,—because of the white thighs of the ladies of that place.  And
    forasmuch as, at this imposition of a new name, all the people that were
    there swore everyone by the Sancts of his parish, the Parisians, which are
    patched up of all nations and all pieces of countries, are by nature both
    good jurors and good jurists, and somewhat overweening; whereupon Joanninus
    de Barrauco, libro de copiositate reverentiarum, thinks that they are
    called Parisians from the Greek word parresia, which signifies boldness and
    liberty in speech.  This done, he considered the great bells, which were in
    the said towers, and made them sound very harmoniously.  Which whilst he
    was doing, it came into his mind that they would serve very well for
    tingling tantans and ringing campanels to hang about his mare's neck when
    she should be sent back to his father, as he intended to do, loaded with
    Brie cheese and fresh herring.  And indeed he forthwith carried them to his
    lodging.  In the meanwhile there came a master beggar of the friars of St.
    Anthony to demand in his canting way the usual benevolence of some hoggish
    stuff, who, that he might be heard afar off, and to make the bacon he was
    in quest of shake in the very chimneys, made account to filch them away
    privily.  Nevertheless, he left them behind very honestly, not for that
    they were too hot, but that they were somewhat too heavy for his carriage.
    This was not he of Bourg, for he was too good a friend of mine.  All the
    city was risen up in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight
    occasion, so ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations
    wonder at the patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice
    restrain them from such tumultuous courses, seeing the manifold
    inconveniences which thence arise from day to day.  Would to God I knew the
    shop wherein are forged these divisions and factious combinations, that I
    might bring them to light in the confraternities of my parish!  Believe for
    a truth, that the place wherein the people gathered together, were thus
    sulphured, hopurymated, moiled, and bepissed, was called Nesle, where then
    was, but now is no more, the oracle of Leucotia.  There was the case
    proposed, and the inconvenience showed of the transporting of the bells.
    After they had well ergoted pro and con, they concluded in baralipton, that
    they should send the oldest and most sufficient of the faculty unto
    Gargantua, to signify unto him the great and horrible prejudice they
    sustain by the want of those bells.  And notwithstanding the good reasons
    given in by some of the university why this charge was fitter for an orator
    than a sophister, there was chosen for this purpose our Master Janotus de
    Bragmardo.

    Chapter 1.XVIII. How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells.

    Master Janotus, with his hair cut round like a dish a la Caesarine, in his
    most antique accoutrement liripipionated with a graduate's hood, and having
    sufficiently antidoted his stomach with oven-marmalades, that is, bread and
    holy water of the cellar, transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua,
    driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragging after him five
    or six artless masters, all thoroughly bedaggled with the mire of the
    streets.  At their entry Ponocrates met them, who was afraid, seeing them
    so disguised, and thought they had been some masquers out of their wits,
    which moved him to inquire of one of the said artless masters of the
    company what this mummery meant.  It was answered him, that they desired to
    have their bells restored to them.  As soon as Ponocrates heard that, he
    ran in all haste to carry the news unto Gargantua, that he might be ready
    to answer them, and speedily resolve what was to be done.  Gargantua being
    advertised hereof, called apart his schoolmaster Ponocrates, Philotimus,
    steward of his house, Gymnastes, his esquire, and Eudemon, and very
    summarily conferred with them, both of what he should do and what answer he
    should give.  They were all of opinion that they should bring them unto the
    goblet-office, which is the buttery, and there make them drink like
    roysters and line their jackets soundly.  And that this cougher might not
    be puffed up with vain-glory by thinking the bells were restored at his
    request, they sent, whilst he was chopining and plying the pot, for the
    mayor of the city, the rector of the faculty, and the vicar of the church,
    unto whom they resolved to deliver the bells before the sophister had
    propounded his commission.  After that, in their hearing, he should
    pronounce his gallant oration, which was done; and they being come, the
    sophister was brought in full hall, and began as followeth, in coughing.

    Chapter 1.XIX. The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.

    Hem, hem, gud-day, sirs, gud-day.  Et vobis, my masters.  It were but
    reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of
    them.  Hem, hem, aihfuhash.  We have oftentimes heretofore refused good
    money for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux in
    Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific quality of the
    elementary complexion, which is intronificated in the terrestreity of their
    quidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists and whirlwinds upon
    our vines, indeed not ours, but these round about us.  For if we lose the
    piot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both sense and law.  If you
    restore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by it six basketfuls of
    sausages and a fine pair of breeches, which will do my legs a great deal of
    good, or else they will not keep their promise to me.  Ho by gob, Domine, a
    pair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non abhorrebit eam.  Ha, ha, a
    pair of breeches is not so easily got; I have experience of it myself.
    Consider, Domine, I have been these eighteen days in matagrabolizing this
    brave speech.  Reddite quae sunt Caesaris, Caesari, et quae sunt Dei, Deo.
    Ibi jacet lepus.  By my faith, Domine, if you will sup with me in cameris,
    by cox body, charitatis, nos faciemus bonum cherubin.  Ego occiditunum
    porcum, et ego habet bonum vino:  but of good wine we cannot make bad
    Latin.  Well, de parte Dei date nobis bellas nostras.  Hold, I give you in
    the name of the faculty a Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give us
    our bells.  Vultis etiam pardonos?  Per diem vos habebitis, et nihil
    payabitis.  O, sir, Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily, est bonum vobis.
    They are useful to everybody.  If they fit your mare well, so do they do
    our faculty; quae comparata est jumentis insipientibus, et similis facta
    est eis, Psalmo nescio quo.  Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et est
    unum bonum Achilles, a good defending argument.  Hem, hem, hem, haikhash!
    For I prove unto you, that you should give me them.  Ego sic argumentor.
    Omnis bella bellabilis in bellerio bellando, bellans, bellativo, bellare
    facit, bellabiliter bellantes.  Parisius habet bellas.  Ergo gluc, Ha, ha,
    ha.  This is spoken to some purpose.  It is in tertio primae, in Darii, or
    elsewhere.  By my soul, I have seen the time that I could play the devil in
    arguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward want nothing but a cup
    of good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire, my belly to the table, and a
    good deep dish.  Hei, Domine, I beseech you, in nomine Patris, Filii, et
    Spiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us our bells:  and God keep you from
    evil, and our Lady from health, qui vivit et regnat per omnia secula
    seculorum, Amen.  Hem, hashchehhawksash, qzrchremhemhash.

    Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio procul.  Edepol, quoniam, ita certe,
    medius fidius; a town without bells is like a blind man without a staff, an
    ass without a crupper, and a cow without cymbals.  Therefore be assured,
    until you have restored them unto us, we will never leave crying after you,
    like a blind man that hath lost his staff, braying like an ass without a
    crupper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals.  A certain
    latinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said since, producing the
    authority of one Taponnus,—I lie, it was one Pontanus the secular poet,—
    who wished those bells had been made of feathers, and the clapper of a
    foxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the bowels of his
    brain, when he was about the composing of his carminiformal lines.  But nac
    petetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot kipipur kipipot put pantse
    malf, he was declared an heretic.  We make them as of wax.  And no more
    saith the deponent.  Valete et plaudite.  Calepinus recensui.

    Chapter 1.XX. How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law
    against the other masters.

    The sophister had no sooner ended, but Ponocrates and Eudemon burst out in
    a laughing so heartily, that they had almost split with it, and given up
    the ghost, in rendering their souls to God:  even just as Crassus did,
    seeing a lubberly ass eat thistles; and as Philemon, who, for seeing an ass
    eat those figs which were provided for his own dinner, died with force of
    laughing.  Together with them Master Janotus fell a-laughing too as fast as
    he could, in which mood of laughing they continued so long, that their eyes
    did water by the vehement concussion of the substance of the brain, by
    which these lachrymal humidities, being pressed out, glided through the
    optic nerves, and so to the full represented Democritus Heraclitizing and
    Heraclitus Democritizing.

    When they had done laughing, Gargantua consulted with the prime of his
    retinue what should be done.  There Ponocrates was of opinion that they
    should make this fair orator drink again; and seeing he had showed them
    more pastime, and made them laugh more than a natural soul could have done,
    that they should give him ten baskets full of sausages, mentioned in his
    pleasant speech, with a pair of hose, three hundred great billets of
    logwood, five-and-twenty hogsheads of wine, a good large down-bed, and a
    deep capacious dish, which he said were necessary for his old age.  All
    this was done as they did appoint:  only Gargantua, doubting that they
    could not quickly find out breeches fit for his wearing, because he knew
    not what fashion would best become the said orator, whether the martingale
    fashion of breeches, wherein is a spunghole with a drawbridge for the more
    easy caguing:  or the fashion of the mariners, for the greater solace and
    comfort of his kidneys:  or that of the Switzers, which keeps warm the
    bedondaine or belly-tabret:  or round breeches with straight cannions,
    having in the seat a piece like a cod's tail, for fear of over-heating his
    reins:—all which considered, he caused to be given him seven ells of white
    cloth for the linings.  The wood was carried by the porters, the masters of
    arts carried the sausages and the dishes, and Master Janotus himself would
    carry the cloth.  One of the said masters, called Jousse Bandouille, showed
    him that it was not seemly nor decent for one of his condition to do so,
    and that therefore he should deliver it to one of them.  Ha, said Janotus,
    baudet, baudet, or blockhead, blockhead, thou dost not conclude in modo et
    figura.  For lo, to this end serve the suppositions and parva logicalia.
    Pannus, pro quo supponit?  Confuse, said Bandouille, et distributive.  I do
    not ask thee, said Janotus, blockhead, quomodo supponit, but pro quo?  It
    is, blockhead, pro tibiis meis, and therefore I will carry it, Egomet,
    sicut suppositum portat appositum.  So did he carry it away very close and
    covertly, as Patelin the buffoon did his cloth.  The best was, that when
    this cougher, in a full act or assembly held at the Mathurins, had with
    great confidence required his breeches and sausages, and that they were
    flatly denied him, because he had them of Gargantua, according to the
    informations thereupon made, he showed them that this was gratis, and out
    of his liberality, by which they were not in any sort quit of their
    promises.  Notwithstanding this, it was answered him that he should be
    content with reason, without expectation of any other bribe there.  Reason?
    said Janotus.  We use none of it here.  Unlucky traitors, you are not worth
    the hanging.  The earth beareth not more arrant villains than you are.  I
    know it well enough; halt not before the lame.  I have practised wickedness
    with you.  By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abuses
    that are forged here and carried underhand by you, and let me be a leper,
    if he do not burn you alive like sodomites, traitors, heretics and
    seducers, enemies to God and virtue.

    Upon these words they framed articles against him:  he on the other side
    warned them to appear.  In sum, the process was retained by the court, and
    is there as yet.  Hereupon the magisters made a vow never to decrott
    themselves in rubbing off the dirt of either their shoes or clothes:
    Master Janotus with his adherents vowed never to blow or snuff their noses,
    until judgment were given by a definitive sentence.

    By these vows do they continue unto this time both dirty and snotty; for
    the court hath not garbled, sifted, and fully looked into all the pieces as
    yet.  The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the next
    Greek kalends, that is, never.  As you know that they do more than nature,
    and contrary to their own articles.  The articles of Paris maintain that to
    God alone belongs infinity, and nature produceth nothing that is immortal;
    for she putteth an end and period to all things by her engendered,
    according to the saying, Omnia orta cadunt, &c.  But these thick mist-
    swallowers make the suits in law depending before them both infinite and
    immortal.  In doing whereof, they have given occasion to, and verified the
    saying of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, consecrated to the oracle at Delphos,
    that misery is the inseparable companion of law-debates; and that pleaders
    are miserable; for sooner shall they attain to the end of their lives, than
    to the final decision of their pretended rights.

    Chapter 1.XXI. The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmasters
    the Sophisters.

    The first day being thus spent, and the bells put up again in their own
    place, the citizens of Paris, in acknowledgment of this courtesy, offered
    to maintain and feed his mare as long as he pleased, which Gargantua took
    in good part, and they sent her to graze in the forest of Biere.  I think
    she is not there now.  This done, he with all his heart submitted his study
    to the discretion of Ponocrates; who for the beginning appointed that he
    should do as he was accustomed, to the end he might understand by what
    means, in so long time, his old masters had made him so sottish and
    ignorant.  He disposed therefore of his time in such fashion, that
    ordinarily he did awake betwixt eight and nine o'clock, whether it was day
    or not, for so had his ancient governors ordained, alleging that which
    David saith, Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere.  Then did he tumble and
    toss, wag his legs, and wallow in the bed some time, the better to stir up
    and rouse his vital spirits, and apparelled himself according to the
    season:  but willingly he would wear a great long gown of thick frieze,
    furred with fox-skins.  Afterwards he combed his head with an Almain comb,
    which is the four fingers and the thumb.  For his preceptor said that to
    comb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat, was to lose time in
    this world.  Then he dunged, pissed, spewed, belched, cracked, yawned,
    spitted, coughed, yexed, sneezed and snotted himself like an archdeacon,
    and, to suppress the dew and bad air, went to breakfast, having some good
    fried tripes, fair rashers on the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, store
    of fine minced meat, and a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fat
    of the beef-pot, laid upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewed
    together.  Ponocrates showed him that he ought not to eat so soon after
    rising out of his bed, unless he had performed some exercise beforehand.
    Gargantua answered, What! have not I sufficiently well exercised myself?  I
    have wallowed and rolled myself six or seven turns in my bed before I rose.
    Is not that enough?  Pope Alexander did so, by the advice of a Jew his
    physician, and lived till his dying day in despite of his enemies.  My
    first masters have used me to it, saying that to breakfast made a good
    memory, and therefore they drank first.  I am very well after it, and dine
    but the better.  And Master Tubal, who was the first licenciate at Paris,
    told me that it was not enough to run apace, but to set forth betimes:  so
    doth not the total welfare of our humanity depend upon perpetual drinking
    in a ribble rabble, like ducks, but on drinking early in the morning; unde
    versus,

      To rise betimes is no good hour,
      To drink betimes is better sure.

    After that he had thoroughly broke his fast, he went to church, and they
    carried to him, in a great basket, a huge impantoufled or thick-covered
    breviary, weighing, what in grease, clasps, parchment and cover, little
    more or less than eleven hundred and six pounds.  There he heard six-and-
    twenty or thirty masses.  This while, to the same place came his orison-
    mutterer impaletocked, or lapped up about the chin like a tufted whoop, and
    his breath pretty well antidoted with store of the vine-tree-syrup.  With
    him he mumbled all his kiriels and dunsical breborions, which he so
    curiously thumbed and fingered, that there fell not so much as one grain to
    the ground.  As he went from the church, they brought him, upon a dray
    drawn with oxen, a confused heap of paternosters and aves of St. Claude,
    every one of them being of the bigness of a hat-block; and thus walking
    through the cloisters, galleries, or garden, he said more in turning them
    over than sixteen hermits would have done.  Then did he study some paltry
    half-hour with his eyes fixed upon his book; but, as the comic saith, his
    mind was in the kitchen.  Pissing then a full urinal, he sat down at table;
    and because he was naturally phlegmatic, he began his meal with some dozens
    of gammons, dried neat's tongues, hard roes of mullet, called botargos,
    andouilles or sausages, and such other forerunners of wine.  In the
    meanwhile, four of his folks did cast into his mouth one after another
    continually mustard by whole shovelfuls.  Immediately after that, he drank
    a horrible draught of white wine for the ease of his kidneys.  When that
    was done, he ate according to the season meat agreeable to his appetite,
    and then left off eating when his belly began to strout, and was like to
    crack for fulness.  As for his drinking, he had in that neither end nor
    rule.  For he was wont to say, That the limits and bounds of drinking were,
    when the cork of the shoes of him that drinketh swelleth up half a foot
    high.

    Chapter 1.XXII. The games of Gargantua.

    Then blockishly mumbling with a set on countenance a piece of scurvy grace,
    he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a hog,
    and talked jovially with his attendants.  Then the carpet being spread,
    they brought plenty of cards, many dice, with great store and abundance of
    chequers and chessboards.

    There he played.

    At flush.                            At love.
    At primero.                          At the chess.
    At the beast.                        At Reynard the fox.
    At the rifle.                        At the squares.
    At trump.                            At the cows.
    At the prick and spare not.          At the lottery.
    At the hundred.                      At the chance or mumchance.
    At the peeny.                        At three dice or maniest bleaks.
    At the unfortunate woman.            At the tables.
    At the fib.                          At nivinivinack.
    At the pass ten.                     At the lurch.
    At one-and-thirty.                   At doublets or queen's game.
    At post and pair, or even and        At the faily.
      sequence.                          At the French trictrac.
    At three hundred.                    At the long tables or ferkeering.
    At the unlucky man.                  At feldown.
    At the last couple in hell.          At tod's body.
    At the hock.                         At needs must.
    At the surly.                        At the dames or draughts.
    At the lansquenet.                   At bob and mow.
    At the cuckoo.                       At primus secundus.
    At puff, or let him speak that       At mark-knife.
      hath it.                           At the keys.
    At take nothing and throw out.       At span-counter.
    At the marriage.                     At even or odd.
    At the frolic or jackdaw.            At cross or pile.
    At the opinion.                      At ball and huckle-bones.
    At who doth the one, doth the        At ivory balls.
      other.                             At the billiards.
    At the sequences.                    At bob and hit.
    At the ivory bundles.                At the owl.
    At the tarots.                       At the charming of the hare.
    At losing load him.                  At pull yet a little.
    At he's gulled and esto.             At trudgepig.
    At the torture.                      At the magatapies.
    At the handruff.                     At the horn.
    At the click.                        At the flowered or Shrovetide ox.
    At honours.                          At the madge-owlet.
    At pinch without laughing.           At tilt at weeky.
    At prickle me tickle me.             At ninepins.
    At the unshoeing of the ass.         At the cock quintin.
    At the cocksess.                     At tip and hurl.
    At hari hohi.                        At the flat bowls.
    At I set me down.                    At the veer and turn.
    At earl beardy.                      At rogue and ruffian.
    At the old mode.                     At bumbatch touch.
    At draw the spit.                    At the mysterious trough.
    At put out.                          At the short bowls.
    At gossip lend me your sack.         At the dapple-grey.
    At the ramcod ball.                  At cock and crank it.
    At thrust out the harlot.            At break-pot.
    At Marseilles figs.                  At my desire.
    At nicknamry.                        At twirly whirlytrill.
    At stick and hole.                   At the rush bundles.
    At boke or him, or flaying the fox.  At the short staff.
    At the branching it.                 At the whirling gig.
    At trill madam, or grapple my lady.  At hide and seek, or are you all
    At the cat selling.                    hid?
    At blow the coal.                    At the picket.
    At the re-wedding.                   At the blank.
    At the quick and dead judge.         At the pilferers.
    At unoven the iron.                  At the caveson.
    At the false clown.                  At prison bars.
    At the flints, or at the nine stones.At have at the nuts.
    At to the crutch hulch back.         At cherry-pit.
    At the Sanct is found.               At rub and rice.
    At hinch, pinch and laugh not.       At whiptop.
    At the leek.                         At the casting top.
    At bumdockdousse.                    At the hobgoblins.
    At the loose gig.                    At the O wonderful.
    At the hoop.                         At the soily smutchy.
    At the sow.                          At fast and loose.
    At belly to belly.                   At scutchbreech.
    At the dales or straths.             At the broom-besom.
    At the twigs.                        At St. Cosme, I come to adore
    At the quoits.                         thee.
    At I'm for that.                     At the lusty brown boy.
    At I take you napping.               At greedy glutton.
    At fair and softly passeth Lent.     At the morris dance.
    At the forked oak.                   At feeby.
    At truss.                            At the whole frisk and gambol.
    At the wolf's tail.                  At battabum, or riding of the
    At bum to buss, or nose in breech.     wild mare.
    At Geordie, give me my lance.        At Hind the ploughman.
    At swaggy, waggy or shoggyshou.      At the good mawkin.
    At stook and rook, shear and         At the dead beast.
      threave.                           At climb the ladder, Billy.
    At the birch.                        At the dying hog.
    At the muss.                         At the salt doup.
    At the dilly dilly darling.          At the pretty pigeon.
    At ox moudy.                         At barley break.
    At purpose in purpose.               At the bavine.
    At nine less.                        At the bush leap.
    At blind-man-buff.                   At crossing.
    At the fallen bridges.               At bo-peep.
    At bridled nick.                     At the hardit arsepursy.
    At the white at butts.               At the harrower's nest.
    At thwack swinge him.                At forward hey.
    At apple, pear, plum.                At the fig.
    At mumgi.                            At gunshot crack.
    At the toad.                         At mustard peel.
    At cricket.                          At the gome.
    At the pounding stick.               At the relapse.
    At jack and the box.                 At jog breech, or prick him for-
    At the queens.                         ward.
    At the trades.                       At knockpate.
    At heads and points.                 At the Cornish c(h)ough.
    At the vine-tree hug.                At the crane-dance.
    At black be thy fall.                At slash and cut.
    At ho the distaff.                   At bobbing, or flirt on the
    At Joan Thomson.                       nose.
    At the bolting cloth.                At the larks.
    At the oat's seed.                   At fillipping.
    
    

    After he had thus well played, revelled, past and spent his time, it was
    thought fit to drink a little, and that was eleven glassfuls the man, and,
    immediately after making good cheer again, he would stretch himself upon a
    fair bench, or a good large bed, and there sleep two or three hours
    together, without thinking or speaking any hurt.  After he was awakened he
    would shake his ears a little.  In the mean time they brought him fresh
    wine.  There he drank better than ever.  Ponocrates showed him that it was
    an ill diet to drink so after sleeping.  It is, answered Gargantua, the
    very life of the patriarchs and holy fathers; for naturally I sleep salt,
    and my sleep hath been to me in stead of so many gammons of bacon.  Then
    began he to study a little, and out came the paternosters or rosary of
    beads, which the better and more formally to despatch, he got upon an old
    mule, which had served nine kings, and so mumbling with his mouth, nodding
    and doddling his head, would go see a coney ferreted or caught in a gin.
    At his return he went into the kitchen to know what roast meat was on the
    spit, and what otherwise was to be dressed for supper.  And supped very
    well, upon my conscience, and commonly did invite some of his neighbours
    that were good drinkers, with whom carousing and drinking merrily, they
    told stories of all sorts from the old to the new.  Amongst others he had
    for domestics the Lords of Fou, of Gourville, of Griniot, and of Marigny.
    After supper were brought in upon the place the fair wooden gospels and the
    books of the four kings, that is to say, many pairs of tables and cards—or
    the fair flush, one, two, three—or at all, to make short work; or else
    they went to see the wenches thereabouts, with little small banquets,
    intermixed with collations and rear-suppers.  Then did he sleep, without
    unbridling, until eight o'clock in the next morning.

    Chapter 1.XXIII. >
    1-23-048.jpg (76K)

    How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, and in such sort disciplinated,
    that he lost not one hour of the day.

    When Ponocrates knew Gargantua's vicious manner of living, he resolved to
    bring him up in another kind; but for a while he bore with him, considering
    that nature cannot endure a sudden change, without great violence.
    Therefore, to begin his work the better, he requested a learned physician
    of that time, called Master Theodorus, seriously to perpend, if it were
    possible, how to bring Gargantua into a better course.  The said physician
    purged him canonically with Anticyrian hellebore, by which medicine he
    cleansed all the alteration and perverse habitude of his brain.  By this
    means also Ponocrates made him forget all that he had learned under his
    ancient preceptors, as Timotheus did to his disciples, who had been
    instructed under other musicians.  To do this the better, they brought him
    into the company of learned men, which were there, in whose imitation he
    had a great desire and affection to study otherwise, and to improve his
    parts.  Afterwards he put himself into such a road and way of studying,
    that he lost not any one hour in the day, but employed all his time in
    learning and honest knowledge.  Gargantua awaked, then, about four o'clock
    in the morning.  Whilst they were in rubbing of him, there was read unto
    him some chapter of the holy Scripture aloud and clearly, with a
    pronunciation fit for the matter, and hereunto was appointed a young page
    born in Basche, named Anagnostes.  According to the purpose and argument of
    that lesson, he oftentimes gave himself to worship, adore, pray, and send
    up his supplications to that good God, whose Word did show his majesty and
    marvellous judgment.  Then went he unto the secret places to make excretion
    of his natural digestions.  There his master repeated what had been read,
    expounding unto him the most obscure and difficult points.  In returning,
    they considered the face of the sky, if it was such as they had observed it
    the night before, and into what signs the sun was entering, as also the
    moon for that day.  This done, he was apparelled, combed, curled, trimmed,
    and perfumed, during which time they repeated to him the lessons of the day
    before.  He himself said them by heart, and upon them would ground some
    practical cases concerning the estate of man, which he would prosecute
    sometimes two or three hours, but ordinarily they ceased as soon as he was
    fully clothed.  Then for three good hours he had a lecture read unto him.
    This done they went forth, still conferring of the substance of the
    lecture, either unto a field near the university called the Brack, or unto
    the meadows, where they played at the ball, the long-tennis, and at the
    piletrigone (which is a play wherein we throw a triangular piece of iron at
    a ring, to pass it), most gallantly exercising their bodies, as formerly
    they had done their minds.  All their play was but in liberty, for they
    left off when they pleased, and that was commonly when they did sweat over
    all their body, or were otherwise weary.  Then were they very well wiped
    and rubbed, shifted their shirts, and, walking soberly, went to see if
    dinner was ready.  Whilst they stayed for that, they did clearly and
    eloquently pronounce some sentences that they had retained of the lecture.
    In the meantime Master Appetite came, and then very orderly sat they down
    at table.  At the beginning of the meal there was read some pleasant
    history of the warlike actions of former times, until he had taken a glass
    of wine.  Then, if they thought good, they continued reading, or began to
    discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety,
    efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at the table; of bread, of
    wine, of water, of salt, of fleshes, fishes, fruits, herbs, roots, and of
    their dressing.  By means whereof he learned in a little time all the
    passages competent for this that were to be found in Pliny, Athenaeus,
    Dioscorides, Julius Pollux, Galen, Porphyry, Oppian, Polybius, Heliodore,
    Aristotle, Aelian, and others.  Whilst they talked of these things, many
    times, to be the more certain, they caused the very books to be brought to
    the table, and so well and perfectly did he in his memory retain the things
    above said, that in that time there was not a physician that knew half so
    much as he did.  Afterwards they conferred of the lessons read in the
    morning, and, ending their repast with some conserve or marmalade of
    quinces, he picked his teeth with mastic tooth-pickers, washed his hands
    and eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some fine
    cantiques, made in praise of the divine bounty and munificence.  This done,
    they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks
    and new inventions, which were all grounded upon arithmetic.  By this means
    he fell in love with that numerical science, and every day after dinner and
    supper he passed his time in it as pleasantly as he was wont to do at cards
    and dice; so that at last he understood so well both the theory and
    practical part thereof, that Tunstall the Englishman, who had written very
    largely of that purpose, confessed that verily in comparison of him he had
    no skill at all.  And not only in that, but in the other mathematical
    sciences, as geometry, astronomy, music, &c.  For in waiting on the
    concoction and attending the digestion of his food, they made a thousand
    pretty instruments and geometrical figures, and did in some measure
    practise the astronomical canons.

    After this they recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or
    five parts, or upon a set theme or ground at random, as it best pleased
    them.  In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play upon the lute,
    the virginals, the harp, the Almain flute with nine holes, the viol, and
    the sackbut.  This hour thus spent, and digestion finished, he did purge
    his body of natural excrements, then betook himself to his principal study
    for three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal lectures
    as to proceed in the book wherein he was, as also to write handsomely, to
    draw and form the antique and Roman letters.  This being done, they went
    out of their house, and with them a young gentleman of Touraine, named the
    Esquire Gymnast, who taught him the art of riding.  Changing then his
    clothes, he rode a Naples courser, a Dutch roussin, a Spanish jennet, a
    barded or trapped steed, then a light fleet horse, unto whom he gave a
    hundred carieres, made him go the high saults, bounding in the air, free
    the ditch with a skip, leap over a stile or pale, turn short in a ring both
    to the right and left hand.  There he broke not his lance; for it is the
    greatest foolery in the world to say, I have broken ten lances at tilts or
    in fight.  A carpenter can do even as much.  But it is a glorious and
    praise-worthy action with one lance to break and overthrow ten enemies.
    Therefore, with a sharp, stiff, strong, and well-steeled lance would he
    usually force up a door, pierce a harness, beat down a tree, carry away the
    ring, lift up a cuirassier saddle, with the mail-coat and gauntlet.  All
    this he did in complete arms from head to foot.  As for the prancing
    flourishes and smacking popisms for the better cherishing of the horse,
    commonly used in riding, none did them better than he.  The cavallerize of
    Ferrara was but as an ape compared to him.  He was singularly skilful in
    leaping nimbly from one horse to another without putting foot to ground,
    and these horses were called desultories.  He could likewise from either
    side, with a lance in his hand, leap on horseback without stirrups, and
    rule the horse at his pleasure without a bridle, for such things are useful
    in military engagements.  Another day he exercised the battle-axe, which he
    so dexterously wielded, both in the nimble, strong, and smooth management
    of that weapon, and that in all the feats practicable by it, that he passed
    knight of arms in the field, and at all essays.

    Then tossed he the pike, played with the two-handed sword, with the
    backsword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, with
    a buckler, with a cloak, with a target.  Then would he hunt the hart, the
    roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant,
    the partridge, and the bustard.  He played at the balloon, and made it
    bound in the air, both with fist and foot.  He wrestled, ran, jumped—not
    at three steps and a leap, called the hops, nor at clochepied, called the
    hare's leap, nor yet at the Almains; for, said Gymnast, these jumps are for
    the wars altogether unprofitable, and of no use—but at one leap he would
    skip over a ditch, spring over a hedge, mount six paces upon a wall, ramp
    and grapple after this fashion up against a window of the full height of a
    lance.  He did swim in deep waters on his belly, on his back, sideways,
    with all his body, with his feet only, with one hand in the air, wherein he
    held a book, crossing thus the breadth of the river of Seine without
    wetting it, and dragged along his cloak with his teeth, as did Julius
    Caesar; then with the help of one hand he entered forcibly into a boat,
    from whence he cast himself again headlong into the water, sounded the
    depths, hollowed the rocks, and plunged into the pits and gulfs.  Then
    turned he the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or slowly with the
    stream and against the stream, stopped it in his course, guided it with one
    hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoisted
    the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the edge of the
    decks, set the compass in order, tackled the bowlines, and steered the
    helm.  Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, and
    with the same alacrity and swiftness ran down again.  He climbed up at
    trees like a cat, and leaped from the one to the other like a squirrel.  He
    did pull down the great boughs and branches like another Milo; then with
    two sharp well-steeled daggers and two tried bodkins would he run up by the
    wall to the very top of a house like a rat; then suddenly came down from
    the top to the bottom, with such an even composition of members that by the
    fall he would catch no harm.

    He did cast the dart, throw the bar, put the stone, practise the javelin,
    the boar-spear or partisan, and the halbert.  He broke the strongest bows
    in drawing, bended against his breast the greatest crossbows of steel, took
    his aim by the eye with the hand-gun, and shot well, traversed and planted
    the cannon, shot at butt-marks, at the papgay from below upwards, or to a
    height from above downwards, or to a descent; then before him, sideways,
    and behind him, like the Parthians.  They tied a cable-rope to the top of a
    high tower, by one end whereof hanging near the ground he wrought himself
    with his hands to the very top; then upon the same track came down so
    sturdily and firm that you could not on a plain meadow have run with more
    assurance.  They set up a great pole fixed upon two trees.  There would he
    hang by his hands, and with them alone, his feet touching at nothing, would
    go back and fore along the foresaid rope with so great swiftness that
    hardly could one overtake him with running; and then, to exercise his
    breast and lungs, he would shout like all the devils in hell.  I heard him
    once call Eudemon from St. Victor's gate to Montmartre.  Stentor had never
    such a voice at the siege of Troy.  Then for the strengthening of his
    nerves or sinews they made him two great sows of lead, each of them
    weighing eight thousand and seven hundred quintals, which they called
    alteres.  Those he took up from the ground, in each hand one, then lifted
    them up over his head, and held them so without stirring three quarters of
    an hour and more, which was an inimitable force.  He fought at barriers
    with the stoutest and most vigorous champions; and when it came to the
    cope, he stood so sturdily on his feet that he abandoned himself unto the
    strongest, in case they could remove him from his place, as Milo was wont
    to do of old.  In whose imitation, likewise, he held a pomegranate in his
    hand, to give it unto him that could take it from him.  The time being thus
    bestowed, and himself rubbed, cleansed, wiped, and refreshed with other
    clothes, he returned fair and softly; and passing through certain meadows,
    or other grassy places, beheld the trees and plants, comparing them with
    what is written of them in the books of the ancients, such as Theophrast,
    Dioscorides, Marinus, Pliny, Nicander, Macer, and Galen, and carried home
    to the house great handfuls of them, whereof a young page called Rizotomos
    had charge; together with little mattocks, pickaxes, grubbing-hooks,
    cabbies, pruning-knives, and other instruments requisite for herborizing.
    Being come to their lodging, whilst supper was making ready, they repeated
    certain passages of that which hath been read, and sat down to table.  Here
    remark, that his dinner was sober and thrifty, for he did then eat only to
    prevent the gnawings of his stomach, but his supper was copious and large,
    for he took then as much as was fit to maintain and nourish him; which,
    indeed, is the true diet prescribed by the art of good and sound physic,
    although a rabble of loggerheaded physicians, nuzzeled in the brabbling
    shop of sophisters, counsel the contrary.  During that repast was continued
    the lesson read at dinner as long as they thought good; the rest was spent
    in good discourse, learned and profitable.  After that they had given
    thanks, he set himself to sing vocally, and play upon harmonious
    instruments, or otherwise passed his time at some pretty sports, made with
    cards or dice, or in practising the feats of legerdemain with cups and
    balls.  There they stayed some nights in frolicking thus, and making
    themselves merry till it was time to go to bed; and on other nights they
    would go make visits unto learned men, or to such as had been travellers in
    strange and remote countries.  When it was full night before they retired
    themselves, they went unto the most open place of the house to see the face
    of the sky, and there beheld the comets, if any were, as likewise the
    figures, situations, aspects, oppositions, and conjunctions of both the
    fixed stars and planets.

    Then with his master did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of the
    Pythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done, and understood
    in the whole course of that day.

    Then prayed they unto God the Creator, in falling down before him, and
    strengthening their faith towards him, and glorifying him for his boundless
    bounty; and, giving thanks unto him for the time that was past, they
    recommended themselves to his divine clemency for the future.  Which being
    done, they went to bed, and betook themselves to their repose and rest.

    Chapter 1.XXIV. How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather.

    If it happened that the weather were anything cloudy, foul, and rainy, all
    the forenoon was employed, as before specified, according to custom, with
    this difference only, that they had a good clear fire lighted to correct
    the distempers of the air.  But after dinner, instead of their wonted
    exercitations, they did abide within, and, by way of apotherapy (that is, a
    making the body healthful by exercise), did recreate themselves in bottling
    up of hay, in cleaving and sawing of wood, and in threshing sheaves of corn
    at the barn.  Then they studied the art of painting or carving; or brought
    into use the antique play of tables, as Leonicus hath written of it, and as
    our good friend Lascaris playeth at it.  In playing they examined the
    passages of ancient authors wherein the said play is mentioned or any
    metaphor drawn from it.  They went likewise to see the drawing of metals,
    or the casting of great ordnance; how the lapidaries did work; as also the
    goldsmiths and cutters of precious stones.  Nor did they omit to visit the
    alchemists, money-coiners, upholsterers, weavers, velvet-workers,
    watchmakers, looking-glass framers, printers, organists, and other such
    kind of artificers, and, everywhere giving them somewhat to drink, did
    learn and consider the industry and invention of the trades.  They went
    also to hear the public lectures, the solemn commencements, the
    repetitions, the acclamations, the pleadings of the gentle lawyers, and
    sermons of evangelical preachers.  He went through the halls and places
    appointed for fencing, and there played against the masters themselves at
    all weapons, and showed them by experience that he knew as much in it as,
    yea, more than, they.  And, instead of herborizing, they visited the shops
    of druggists, herbalists, and apothecaries, and diligently considered the
    fruits, roots, leaves, gums, seeds, the grease and ointments of some
    foreign parts, as also how they did adulterate them.  He went to see the
    jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered their
    cunning, their shifts, their somersaults and smooth tongue, especially of
    those of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great praters, and brave
    givers of fibs, in matter of green apes.

    At their return they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times,
    and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate
    moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive,
    might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive any
    prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily exercise.  Thus was Gargantua
    governed, and kept on in this course of education, from day to day
    profiting, as you may understand such a young man of his age may, of a
    pregnant judgment, with good discipline well continued.  Which, although at
    the beginning it seemed difficult, became a little after so sweet, so easy,
    and so delightful, that it seemed rather the recreation of a king than the
    study of a scholar.  Nevertheless Ponocrates, to divert him from this
    vehement intension of the spirits, thought fit, once in a month, upon some
    fair and clear day, to go out of the city betimes in the morning, either
    towards Gentilly, or Boulogne, or to Montrouge, or Charanton bridge, or to
    Vanves, or St. Clou, and there spend all the day long in making the
    greatest cheer that could be devised, sporting, making merry, drinking
    healths, playing, singing, dancing, tumbling in some fair meadow,
    unnestling of sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crabs.
    But although that day was passed without books or lecture, yet was it not
    spent without profit; for in the said meadows they usually repeated certain
    pleasant verses of Virgil's agriculture, of Hesiod and of Politian's
    husbandry, would set a-broach some witty Latin epigrams, then immediately
    turned them into roundelays and songs for dancing in the French language.
    In their feasting they would sometimes separate the water from the wine
    that was therewith mixed, as Cato teacheth, De re rustica, and Pliny with
    an ivy cup would wash the wine in a basinful of water, then take it out
    again with a funnel as pure as ever.  They made the water go from one glass
    to another, and contrived a thousand little automatory engines, that is to
    say, moving of themselves.  

    Chapter 1.XXV. How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the cake-bakers of
    Lerne, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon were waged great wars.

    At that time, which was the season of vintage, in the beginning of harvest,
    when the country shepherds were set to keep the vines, and hinder the
    starlings from eating up the grapes, as some cake-bakers of Lerne happened
    to pass along in the broad highway, driving into the city ten or twelve
    horses loaded with cakes, the said shepherds courteously entreated them to
    give them some for their money, as the price then ruled in the market.  For
    here it is to be remarked, that it is a celestial food to eat for breakfast
    hot fresh cakes with grapes, especially the frail clusters, the great red
    grapes, the muscadine, the verjuice grape, and the laskard, for those that
    are costive in their belly, because it will make them gush out, and squirt
    the length of a hunter's staff, like the very tap of a barrel; and
    oftentimes, thinking to let a squib, they did all-to-besquatter and
    conskite themselves, whereupon they are commonly called the vintage
    thinkers.  The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to
    their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously,
    calling them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy
    rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy
    loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts,
    cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets,
    drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns,
    forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base
    loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks,
    blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish
    loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels,
    gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer
    flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other
    suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to
    eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with the
    coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf.  To
    which provoking words, one amongst them, called Forgier, an honest fellow
    of his person and a notable springal, made answer very calmly thus:  How
    long is it since you have got horns, that you are become so proud?  Indeed
    formerly you were wont to give us some freely, and will you not now let us
    have any for our money?  This is not the part of good neighbours, neither
    do we serve you thus when you come hither to buy our good corn, whereof you
    make your cakes and buns.  Besides that, we would have given you to the
    bargain some of our grapes, but, by his zounds, you may chance to repent
    it, and possibly have need of us at another time, when we shall use you
    after the like manner, and therefore remember it.  Then Marquet, a prime
    man in the confraternity of the cake-bakers, said unto him, Yea, sir, thou
    art pretty well crest-risen this morning, thou didst eat yesternight too
    much millet and bolymong.  Come hither, sirrah, come hither, I will give
    thee some cakes.  Whereupon Forgier, dreading no harm, in all simplicity
    went towards him, and drew a sixpence out of his leather satchel, thinking
    that Marquet would have sold him some of his cakes.  But, instead of cakes,
    he gave him with his whip such a rude lash overthwart the legs, that the
    marks of the whipcord knots were apparent in them, then would have fled
    away; but Forgier cried out as loud as he could, O, murder, murder, help,
    help, help! and in the meantime threw a great cudgel after him, which he
    carried under his arm, wherewith he hit him in the coronal joint of his
    head, upon the crotaphic artery of the right side thereof, so forcibly,
    that Marquet fell down from his mare more like a dead than living man.
    Meanwhile the farmers and country swains, that were watching their walnuts
    near to that place, came running with their great poles and long staves,
    and laid such load on these cake-bakers, as if they had been to thresh upon
    green rye.  The other shepherds and shepherdesses, hearing the lamentable
    shout of Forgier, came with their slings and slackies following them, and
    throwing great stones at them, as thick as if it had been hail.  At last
    they overtook them, and took from them about four or five dozen of their
    cakes.  Nevertheless they paid for them the ordinary price, and gave them
    over and above one hundred eggs and three baskets full of mulberries.  Then
    did the cake-bakers help to get up to his mare Marquet, who was most
    shrewdly wounded, and forthwith returned to Lerne, changing the resolution
    they had to go to Pareille, threatening very sharp and boisterously the
    cowherds, shepherds, and farmers of Seville and Sinays.  This done, the
    shepherds and shepherdesses made merry with these cakes and fine grapes,
    and sported themselves together at the sound of the pretty small pipe,
    scoffing and laughing at those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day
    met with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the
    morning.  Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red
    medicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed it and bound it up that he was
    quickly cured.

    Chapter 1.XXVI. How the inhabitants of Lerne, by the commandment of Picrochole their king,
    assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua unexpectedly and on a sudden.

    The cake-bakers, being returned to Lerne, went presently, before they did
    either eat or drink, to the Capitol, and there before their king, called
    Picrochole, the third of that name, made their complaint, showing their
    panniers broken, their caps all crumpled, their coats torn, their cakes
    taken away, but, above all, Marquet most enormously wounded, saying that
    all that mischief was done by the shepherds and herdsmen of Grangousier,
    near the broad highway beyond Seville.  Picrochole incontinent grew angry
    and furious; and, without asking any further what, how, why, or wherefore,
    commanded the ban and arriere ban to be sounded throughout all his country,
    that all his vassals of what condition soever should, upon pain of the
    halter, come, in the best arms they could, unto the great place before the
    castle, at the hour of noon, and, the better to strengthen his design, he
    caused the drum to be beat about the town.  Himself, whilst his dinner was
    making ready, went to see his artillery mounted upon the carriage, to
    display his colours, and set up the great royal standard, and loaded wains
    with store of ammunition both for the field and the belly, arms and
    victuals.  At dinner he despatched his commissions, and by his express
    edict my Lord Shagrag was appointed to command the vanguard, wherein were
    numbered sixteen thousand and fourteen arquebusiers or firelocks, together
    with thirty thousand and eleven volunteer adventurers.  The great
    Touquedillon, master of the horse, had the charge of the ordnance, wherein
    were reckoned nine hundred and fourteen brazen pieces, in cannons, double
    cannons, basilisks, serpentines, culverins, bombards or murderers, falcons,
    bases or passevolins, spirols, and other sorts of great guns.  The
    rearguard was committed to the Duke of Scrapegood.  In the main battle was
    the king and the princes of his kingdom.  Thus being hastily furnished,
    before they would set forward, they sent three hundred light horsemen,
    under the conduct of Captain Swillwind, to discover the country, clear the
    avenues, and see whether there was any ambush laid for them.  But, after
    they had made diligent search, they found all the land round about in peace
    and quiet, without any meeting or convention at all; which Picrochole
    understanding, commanded that everyone should march speedily under his
    colours.  Then immediately in all disorder, without keeping either rank or
    file, they took the fields one amongst another, wasting, spoiling,
    destroying, and making havoc of all wherever they went, not sparing poor
    nor rich, privileged or unprivileged places, church nor laity, drove away
    oxen and cows, bulls, calves, heifers, wethers, ewes, lambs, goats, kids,
    hens, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, goslings, hogs, swine, pigs, and
    such like; beating down the walnuts, plucking the grapes, tearing the
    hedges, shaking the fruit-trees, and committing such incomparable abuses,
    that the like abomination was never heard of.  Nevertheless, they met with
    none to resist them, for everyone submitted to their mercy, beseeching them
    that they might be dealt with courteously in regard that they had always
    carried themselves as became good and loving neighbours, and that they had
    never been guilty of any wrong or outrage done upon them, to be thus
    suddenly surprised, troubled, and disquieted, and that, if they would not
    desist, God would punish them very shortly.  To which expostulations and
    remonstrances no other answer was made, but that they would teach them to
    eat cakes.

    Chapter 1.XXVII. >
    1-27-060.jpg (164K)

    How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being ransacked by
    the enemy.

    So much they did, and so far they went pillaging and stealing, that at last
    they came to Seville, where they robbed both men and women, and took all
    they could catch:  nothing was either too hot or too heavy for them.
    Although the plague was there in the most part of all the houses, they
    nevertheless entered everywhere, then plundered and carried away all that
    was within, and yet for all this not one of them took any hurt, which is a
    most wonderful case.  For the curates, vicars, preachers, physicians,
    chirurgeons, and apothecaries, who went to visit, to dress, to cure, to
    heal, to preach unto and admonish those that were sick, were all dead of
    the infection, and these devilish robbers and murderers caught never any
    harm at all.  Whence comes this to pass, my masters?  I beseech you think
    upon it.  The town being thus pillaged, they went unto the abbey with a
    horrible noise and tumult, but they found it shut and made fast against
    them.  Whereupon the body of the army marched forward towards a pass or
    ford called the Gue de Vede, except seven companies of foot and two hundred
    lancers, who, staying there, broke down the walls of the close, to waste,
    spoil, and make havoc of all the vines and vintage within that place.  The
    monks (poor devils) knew not in that extremity to which of all their sancts
    they should vow themselves.  Nevertheless, at all adventures they rang the
    bells ad capitulum capitulantes.  There it was decreed that they should
    make a fair procession, stuffed with good lectures, prayers, and litanies
    contra hostium insidias, and jolly responses pro pace.

    There was then in the abbey a claustral monk, called Friar John of the
    funnels and gobbets, in French des entoumeures, young, gallant, frisk,
    lusty, nimble, quick, active, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, lean,
    wide-mouthed, long-nosed, a fair despatcher of morning prayers, unbridler
    of masses, and runner over of vigils; and, to conclude summarily in a word,
    a right monk, if ever there was any, since the monking world monked a
    monkery:  for the rest, a clerk even to the teeth in matter of breviary.
    This monk, hearing the noise that the enemy made within the enclosure of
    the vineyard, went out to see what they were doing; and perceiving that
    they were cutting and gathering  the grapes, whereon was grounded the
    foundation of all their next year's wine, returned unto the choir of the
    church where the other monks were, all amazed and astonished like so many
    bell-melters.  Whom when he heard sing, im, nim, pe, ne, ne, ne, ne, nene,
    tum, ne, num, num, ini, i mi, co, o, no, o, o, neno, ne, no, no, no, rum,
    nenum, num:  It is well shit, well sung, said he.  By the virtue of God,
    why do not you sing, Panniers, farewell, vintage is done?  The devil snatch
    me, if they be not already within the middle of our close, and cut so well
    both vines and grapes, that, by Cod's body, there will not be found for
    these four years to come so much as a gleaning in it.  By the belly of
    Sanct James, what shall we poor devils drink the while?  Lord God! da mihi
    potum.  Then said the prior of the convent:  What should this drunken
    fellow do here? let him be carried to prison for troubling the divine
    service.  Nay, said the monk, the wine service, let us behave ourselves so
    that it be not troubled; for you yourself, my lord prior, love to drink of
    the best, and so doth every honest man.  Never yet did a man of worth
    dislike good wine, it is a monastical apophthegm.  But these responses that
    you chant here, by G—, are not in season.  Wherefore is it, that our
    devotions were instituted to be short in the time of harvest and vintage,
    and long in the advent, and all the winter?  The late friar, Massepelosse,
    of good memory, a true zealous man, or else I give myself to the devil, of
    our religion, told me, and I remember it well, how the reason was, that in
    this season we might press and make the wine, and in winter whiff it up.
    Hark you, my masters, you that love the wine, Cop's body, follow me; for
    Sanct Anthony burn me as freely as a faggot, if they get leave to taste one
    drop of the liquor that will not now come and fight for relief of the vine.
    Hog's belly, the goods of the church!  Ha, no, no.  What the devil, Sanct
    Thomas of England was well content to die for them; if I died in the same
    cause, should not I be a sanct likewise?  Yes.  Yet shall not I die there
    for all this, for it is I that must do it to others and send them
    a-packing.

    As he spake this he threw off his great monk's habit, and laid hold upon
    the staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of a sorbapple-tree, it
    being of the length of a lance, round, of a full grip, and a little
    powdered with lilies called flower de luce, the workmanship whereof was
    almost all defaced and worn out.  Thus went he out in a fair long-skirted
    jacket, putting his frock scarfwise athwart his breast, and in this
    equipage, with his staff, shaft or truncheon of the cross, laid on so
    lustily, brisk, and fiercely upon his enemies, who, without any order, or
    ensign, or trumpet, or drum, were busied in gathering the grapes of the
    vineyard.  For the cornets, guidons, and ensign-bearers had laid down their
    standards, banners, and colours by the wall sides:  the drummers had
    knocked out the heads of their drums on one end to fill them with grapes:
    the trumpeters were loaded with great bundles of bunches and huge knots of
    clusters:  in sum, everyone of them was out of array, and all in disorder.
    He hurried, therefore, upon them so rudely, without crying gare or beware,
    that he overthrew them like hogs, tumbled them over like swine, striking
    athwart and alongst, and by one means or other laid so about him, after the
    old fashion of fencing, that to some he beat out their brains, to others he
    crushed their arms, battered their legs, and bethwacked their sides till
    their ribs cracked with it.  To others again he unjointed the spondyles or
    knuckles of the neck, disfigured their chaps, gashed their faces, made
    their cheeks hang flapping on their chin, and so swinged and balammed them
    that they fell down before him like hay before a mower.  To some others he
    spoiled the frame of their kidneys, marred their backs, broke their thigh-
    bones, pashed in their noses, poached out their eyes, cleft their
    mandibles, tore their jaws, dung in their teeth into their throat, shook
    asunder their omoplates or shoulder-blades, sphacelated their shins,
    mortified their shanks, inflamed their ankles, heaved off of the hinges
    their ishies, their sciatica or hip-gout, dislocated the joints of their
    knees, squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs, and
    so thumped, mauled and belaboured them everywhere, that never was corn so
    thick and threefold threshed upon by ploughmen's flails as were the
    pitifully disjointed members of their mangled bodies under the merciless
    baton of the cross.  If any offered to hide himself amongst the thickest of
    the vines, he laid him squat as a flounder, bruised the ridge of his back,
    and dashed his reins like a dog.  If any thought by flight to escape, he
    made his head to fly in pieces by the lamboidal commissure, which is a seam
    in the hinder part of the skull.  If anyone did scramble up into a tree,
    thinking there to be safe, he rent up his perinee, and impaled him in at
    the fundament.  If any of his old acquaintance happened to cry out, Ha,
    Friar John, my friend Friar John, quarter, quarter, I yield myself to you,
    to you I render myself!  So thou shalt, said he, and must, whether thou
    wouldst or no, and withal render and yield up thy soul to all the devils in
    hell; then suddenly gave them dronos, that is, so many knocks, thumps,
    raps, dints, thwacks, and bangs, as sufficed to warn Pluto of their coming
    and despatch them a-going.  If any was so rash and full of temerity as to
    resist him to his face, then was it he did show the strength of his
    muscles, for without more ado he did transpierce him, by running him in at
    the breast, through the mediastine and the heart.  Others, again, he so
    quashed and bebumped, that, with a sound bounce under the hollow of their
    short ribs, he overturned their stomachs so that they died immediately.  To
    some, with a smart souse on the epigaster, he would make their midriff
    swag, then, redoubling the blow, gave them such a homepush on the navel
    that he made their puddings to gush out.  To others through their ballocks
    he pierced their bumgut, and left not bowel, tripe, nor entrail in their
    body that had not felt the impetuosity, fierceness, and fury of his
    violence.  Believe, that it was the most horrible spectacle that ever one
    saw.  Some cried unto Sanct Barbe, others to St. George.  O the holy Lady
    Nytouch, said one, the good Sanctess; O our Lady of Succours, said another,
    help, help!  Others cried, Our Lady of Cunaut, of Loretto, of Good Tidings,
    on the other side of the water St. Mary Over.  Some vowed a pilgrimage to
    St. James, and others to the holy handkerchief at Chamberry, which three
    months after that burnt so well in the fire that they could not get one
    thread of it saved.  Others sent up their vows to St. Cadouin, others to
    St. John d'Angely, and to St. Eutropius of Xaintes.  Others again invoked
    St. Mesmes of Chinon, St. Martin of Candes, St. Clouaud of Sinays, the holy
    relics of Laurezay, with a thousand other jolly little sancts and santrels.
    Some died without speaking, others spoke without dying; some died in
    speaking, others spoke in dying.  Others shouted as loud as they could
    Confession, Confession, Confiteor, Miserere, In manus!  So great was the
    cry of the wounded, that the prior of the abbey with all his monks came
    forth, who, when they saw these poor wretches so slain amongst the vines,
    and wounded to death, confessed some of them.  But whilst the priests were
    busied in confessing them, the little monkies ran all to the place where
    Friar John was, and asked him wherein he would be pleased to require their
    assistance.  To which he answered that they should cut the throats of those
    he had thrown down upon the ground.  They presently, leaving their outer
    habits and cowls upon the rails, began to throttle and make an end of those
    whom he had already crushed.  Can you tell with what instruments they did
    it?  With fair gullies, which are little hulchbacked demi-knives, the iron
    tool whereof is two inches long, and the wooden handle one inch thick, and
    three inches in length, wherewith the little boys in our country cut ripe
    walnuts in two while they are yet in the shell, and pick out the kernel,
    and they found them very fit for the expediting of that weasand-slitting
    exploit.  In the meantime Friar John, with his formidable baton of the
    cross, got to the breach which the enemies had made, and there stood to
    snatch up those that endeavoured to escape.  Some of the monkitos carried
    the standards, banners, ensigns, guidons, and colours into their cells and
    chambers to make garters of them.  But when those that had been shriven
    would have gone out at the gap of the said breach, the sturdy monk quashed
    and felled them down with blows, saying, These men have had confession and
    are penitent souls; they have got their absolution and gained the pardons;
    they go into paradise as straight as a sickle, or as the way is to Faye
    (like Crooked-Lane at Eastcheap).  Thus by his prowess and valour were
    discomfited all those of the army that entered into the close of the abbey,
    unto the number of thirteen thousand, six hundred, twenty and two, besides
    the women and little children, which is always to be understood.  Never did
    Maugis the Hermit bear himself more valiantly with his bourdon or pilgrim's
    staff against the Saracens, of whom is written in the Acts of the four sons
    of Aymon, than did this monk against his enemies with the staff of the
    cross.

    Chapter 1.XXVIII. How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock Clermond, and of
    Grangousier's unwillingness and aversion from the undertaking of war.

    Whilst the monk did thus skirmish, as we have said, against those which
    were entered within the close, Picrochole in great haste passed the ford of
    Vede—a very especial pass—with all his soldiers, and set upon the rock
    Clermond, where there was made him no resistance at all; and, because it
    was already night, he resolved to quarter himself and his army in that
    town, and to refresh himself of his pugnative choler.  In the morning he
    stormed and took the bulwarks and castle, which afterwards he fortified
    with rampiers, and furnished with all ammunition requisite, intending to
    make his retreat there, if he should happen to be otherwise worsted; for it
    was a strong place, both by art and nature, in regard of the stance and
    situation of it.  But let us leave them there, and return to our good
    Gargantua, who is at Paris very assiduous and earnest at the study of good
    letters and athletical exercitations, and to the good old man Grangousier
    his father, who after supper warmeth his ballocks by a good, clear, great
    fire, and, waiting upon the broiling of some chestnuts, is very serious in
    drawing scratches on the hearth, with a stick burnt at the one end,
    wherewith they did stir up the fire, telling to his wife and the rest of
    the family pleasant old stories and tales of former times.

    Whilst he was thus employed, one of the shepherds which did keep the vines,
    named Pillot, came towards him, and to the full related the enormous abuses
    which were committed, and the excessive spoil that was made by Picrochole,
    King of Lerne, upon his lands and territories, and how he had pillaged,
    wasted, and ransacked all the country, except the enclosure at Seville,
    which Friar John des Entoumeures to his great honour had preserved; and
    that at the same present time the said king was in the rock Clermond, and
    there, with great industry and circumspection, was strengthening himself
    and his whole army.  Halas, halas, alas! said Grangousier, what is this,
    good people?  Do I dream, or is it true that they tell me?  Picrochole, my
    ancient friend of old time, of my own kindred and alliance, comes he to
    invade me?  What moves him?  What provokes him?  What sets him on?  What
    drives him to it?  Who hath given him this counsel?  Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, my
    God, my Saviour, help me, inspire me, and advise me what I shall do!  I
    protest, I swear before thee, so be thou favourable to me, if ever I did
    him or his subjects any damage or displeasure, or committed any the least
    robbery in his country; but, on the contrary, I have succoured and supplied
    him with men, money, friendship, and counsel, upon any occasion wherein I
    could be steadable for the improvement of his good.  That he hath therefore
    at this nick of time so outraged and wronged me, it cannot be but by the
    malevolent and wicked spirit.  Good God, thou knowest my courage, for
    nothing can be hidden from thee.  If perhaps he be grown mad, and that thou
    hast sent him hither to me for the better recovery and re-establishment of
    his brain, grant me power and wisdom to bring him to the yoke of thy holy
    will by good discipline.  Ho, ho, ho, ho, my good people, my friends and my
    faithful servants, must I hinder you from helping me?  Alas, my old age
    required hence-forward nothing else but rest, and all the days of my life I
    have laboured for nothing so much as peace; but now I must, I see it well,
    load with arms my poor, weary, and feeble shoulders, and take in my
    trembling hand the lance and horseman's mace, to succour and protect my
    honest subjects.  Reason will have it so; for by their labour am I
    entertained, and with their sweat am I nourished, I, my children and my
    family.  This notwithstanding, I will not undertake war, until I have first
    tried all the ways and means of peace:  that I resolve upon.

    Then assembled he his council, and proposed the matter as it was indeed.
    Whereupon it was concluded that they should send some discreet man unto
    Picrochole, to know wherefore he had thus suddenly broken the peace and
    invaded those lands unto which he had no right nor title.  Furthermore,
    that they should send for Gargantua, and those under his command, for the
    preservation of the country, and defence thereof now at need.  All this
    pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that so it should be done.
    Presently therefore he sent the Basque his lackey to fetch Gargantua with
    all diligence, and wrote him as followeth.

    Chapter 1.XXIX. The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to his son Gargantua.

    The fervency of thy studies did require that I should not in a long time
    recall thee from that philosophical rest thou now enjoyest, if the
    confidence reposed in our friends and ancient confederates had not at this
    present disappointed the assurance of my old age.  But seeing such is my
    fatal destiny, that I should be now disquieted by those in whom I trusted
    most, I am forced to call thee back to help the people and goods which by
    the right of nature belong unto thee.  For even as arms are weak abroad, if
    there be not counsel at home, so is that study vain and counsel
    unprofitable which in a due and convenient time is not by virtue executed
    and put in effect.  My deliberation is not to provoke, but to appease—not
    to assault, but to defend—not to conquer, but to preserve my faithful
    subjects and hereditary dominions, into which Picrochole is entered in a
    hostile manner without any ground or cause, and from day to day pursueth
    his furious enterprise with that height of insolence that is intolerable to
    freeborn spirits.  I have endeavoured to moderate his tyrannical choler,
    offering him all that which I thought might give him satisfaction; and
    oftentimes have I sent lovingly unto him to understand wherein, by whom,
    and how he found himself to be wronged.  But of him could I obtain no other
    answer but a mere defiance, and that in my lands he did pretend only to the
    right of a civil correspondency and good behaviour, whereby I knew that the
    eternal God hath left him to the disposure of his own free will and sensual
    appetite—which cannot choose but be wicked, if by divine grace it be not
    continually guided—and to contain him within his duty, and bring him to
    know himself, hath sent him hither to me by a grievous token.  Therefore,
    my beloved son, as soon as thou canst, upon sight of these letters, repair
    hither with all diligence, to succour not me so much, which nevertheless by
    natural piety thou oughtest to do, as thine own people, which by reason
    thou mayest save and preserve.  The exploit shall be done with as little
    effusion of blood as may be.  And, if possible, by means far more
    expedient, such as military policy, devices, and stratagems of war, we
    shall save all the souls, and send them home as merry as crickets unto
    their own houses.  My dearest son, the peace of Jesus Christ our Redeemer
    be with thee.  Salute from me Ponocrates, Gymnastes, and Eudemon.  The
    twentieth of September.
    Thy Father Grangousier.

    Chapter 1.XXX. How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole.

    The letters being dictated, signed, and sealed, Grangousier ordained that
    Ulric Gallet, master of the requests, a very wise and discreet man, of
    whose prudence and sound judgment he had made trial in several difficult
    and debateful matters, (should) go unto Picrochole, to show what had been
    decreed amongst them.  At the same hour departed the good man Gallet, and
    having passed the ford, asked at the miller that dwelt there in what
    condition Picrochole was:  who answered him that his soldiers had left him
    neither cock nor hen, that they were retired and shut up into the rock
    Clermond, and that he would not advise him to go any further for fear of
    the scouts, because they were enormously furious.  Which he easily
    believed, and therefore lodged that night with the miller.

    The next morning he went with a trumpeter to the gate of the castle, and
    required the guards he might be admitted to speak with the king of somewhat
    that concerned him.  These words being told unto the king, he would by no
    means consent that they should open the gate; but, getting upon the top of
    the bulwark, said unto the ambassador, What is the news, what have you to
    say?  Then the ambassador began to speak as followeth.

    Chapter 1.XXXI. The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole.

    There cannot arise amongst men a juster cause of grief than when they
    receive hurt and damage where they may justly expect for favour and good
    will; and not without cause, though without reason, have many, after they
    had fallen into such a calamitous accident, esteemed this indignity less
    supportable than the loss of their own lives, in such sort that, if they
    have not been able by force of arms nor any other means, by reach of wit or
    subtlety, to stop them in their course and restrain their fury, they have
    fallen into desperation, and utterly deprived themselves of this light.  It
    is therefore no wonder if King Grangousier, my master, be full of high
    displeasure and much disquieted in mind upon thy outrageous and hostile
    coming; but truly it would be a marvel if he were not sensible of and moved
    with the incomparable abuses and injuries perpetrated by thee and thine
    upon those of his country, towards whom there hath been no example of
    inhumanity omitted.  Which in itself is to him so grievous, for the cordial
    affection wherewith he hath always cherished his subjects, that more it
    cannot be to any mortal man; yet in this, above human apprehension, is it
    to him the more grievous that these wrongs and sad offences have been
    committed by thee and thine, who, time out of mind, from all antiquity,
    thou and thy predecessors have been in a continual league and amity with
    him and all his ancestors; which, even until this time, you have as sacred
    together inviolably preserved, kept, and entertained, so well, that not he
    and his only, but the very barbarous nations of the Poictevins, Bretons,
    Manceaux, and those that dwell beyond the isles of the Canaries, and that
    of Isabella, have thought it as easy to pull down the firmament, and to set
    up the depths above the clouds, as to make a breach in your alliance; and
    have been so afraid of it in their enterprises that they have never dared
    to provoke, incense, or endamage the one for fear of the other.  Nay, which
    is more, this sacred league hath so filled the world, that there are few
    nations at this day inhabiting throughout all the continent and isles of
    the ocean, who have not ambitiously aspired to be received into it, upon
    your own covenants and conditions, holding your joint confederacy in as
    high esteem as their own territories and dominions, in such sort, that from
    the memory of man there hath not been either prince or league so wild and
    proud that durst have offered to invade, I say not your countries, but not
    so much as those of your confederates.  And if, by rash and heady counsel,
    they have attempted any new design against them, as soon as they heard the
    name and title of your alliance, they have suddenly desisted from their
    enterprises.  What rage and madness, therefore, doth now incite thee, all
    old alliance infringed, all amity trod under foot, and all right violated,
    thus in a hostile manner to invade his country, without having been by him
    or his in anything prejudiced, wronged, or provoked?  Where is faith?
    Where is law?  Where is reason?  Where is humanity?  Where is the fear of
    God?  Dost thou think that these atrocious abuses are hidden from the
    eternal spirit and the supreme God who is the just rewarder of all our
    undertakings?  If thou so think, thou deceivest thyself; for all things
    shall come to pass as in his incomprehensible judgment he hath appointed.
    Is it thy fatal destiny, or influences of the stars, that would put an end
    to thy so long enjoyed ease and rest?  For that all things have their end
    and period, so as that, when they are come to the superlative point of
    their greatest height, they are in a trice tumbled down again, as not being
    able to abide long in that state.  This is the conclusion and end of those
    who cannot by reason and temperance moderate their fortunes and
    prosperities.  But if it be predestinated that thy happiness and ease must
    now come to an end, must it needs be by wronging my king,—him by whom thou
    wert established?  If thy house must come to ruin, should it therefore in
    its fall crush the heels of him that set it up?  The matter is so
    unreasonable, and so dissonant from common sense, that hardly can it be
    conceived by human understanding, and altogether incredible unto strangers,
    till by the certain and undoubted effects thereof it be made apparent that
    nothing is either sacred or holy to those who, having emancipated
    themselves from God and reason, do merely follow the perverse affections of
    their own depraved nature.  If any wrong had been done by us to thy
    subjects and dominions—if we had favoured thy ill-willers—if we had not
    assisted thee in thy need—if thy name and reputation had been wounded by
    us—or, to speak more truly, if the calumniating spirit, tempting to induce
    thee to evil, had, by false illusions and deceitful fantasies, put into thy
    conceit the impression of a thought that we had done unto thee anything
    unworthy of our ancient correspondence and friendship, thou oughtest first
    to have inquired out the truth, and afterwards by a seasonable warning to
    admonish us thereof; and we should have so satisfied thee, according to
    thine own heart's desire, that thou shouldst have had occasion to be
    contented.  But, O eternal God, what is thy enterprise?  Wouldst thou, like
    a perfidious tyrant, thus spoil and lay waste my master's kingdom?  Hast
    thou found him so silly and blockish, that he would not—or so destitute of
    men and money, of counsel and skill in military discipline, that he cannot
    withstand thy unjust invasion?  March hence presently, and to-morrow, some
    time of the day, retreat unto thine own country, without doing any kind of
    violence or disorderly act by the way; and pay withal a thousand besans of
    gold (which, in English money, amounteth to five thousand pounds), for
    reparation of the damages thou hast done in this country.  Half thou shalt
    pay to-morrow, and the other half at the ides of May next coming, leaving
    with us in the mean time, for hostages, the Dukes of Turnbank, Lowbuttock,
    and Smalltrash, together with the Prince of Itches and Viscount of
    Snatchbit (Tournemoule, Bas-de-fesses, Menuail, Gratelles, Morpiaille.).

    Chapter 1.XXXII. How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be restored.

    With that the good man Gallet held his peace, but Picrochole to all his
    discourse answered nothing but Come and fetch them, come and fetch them,—
    they have ballocks fair and soft,—they will knead and provide some cakes
    for you.  Then returned he to Grangousier, whom he found upon his knees
    bareheaded, crouching in a little corner of his cabinet, and humbly praying
    unto God that he would vouchsafe to assuage the choler of Picrochole, and
    bring him to the rule of reason without proceeding by force.  When the good
    man came back, he asked him, Ha, my friend, what news do you bring me?
    There is neither hope nor remedy, said Gallet; the man is quite out of his
    wits, and forsaken of God.  Yea, but, said Grangousier, my friend, what
    cause doth he pretend for his outrages?  He did not show me any cause at
    all, said Gallet, only that in a great anger he spoke some words of cakes.
    I cannot tell if they have done any wrong to his cake-bakers.  I will know,
    said Grangousier, the matter thoroughly, before I resolve any more upon
    what is to be done.  Then sent he to learn concerning that business, and
    found by true information that his men had taken violently some cakes from
    Picrochole's people, and that Marquet's head was broken with a slacky or
    short cudgel; that, nevertheless, all was well paid, and that the said
    Marquet had first hurt Forgier with a stroke of his whip athwart the legs.
    And it seemed good to his whole council, that he should defend himself with
    all his might.  Notwithstanding all this, said Grangousier, seeing the
    question is but about a few cakes, I will labour to content him; for I am
    very unwilling to wage war against him.  He inquired then what quantity of
    cakes they had taken away, and understanding that it was but some four or
    five dozen, he commanded five cartloads of them to be baked that same
    night; and that there should be one full of cakes made with fine butter,
    fine yolks of eggs, fine saffron, and fine spice, to be bestowed upon
    Marquet, unto whom likewise he directed to be given seven hundred thousand
    and three Philips (that is, at three shillings the piece, one hundred five
    thousand pounds and nine shillings of English money), for reparation of his
    losses and hindrances, and for satisfaction of the chirurgeon that had
    dressed his wound; and furthermore settled upon him and his for ever in
    freehold the apple-orchard called La Pomardiere.  For the conveyance and
    passing of all which was sent Gallet, who by the way as they went made them
    gather near the willow-trees great store of boughs, canes, and reeds,
    wherewith all the carriers were enjoined to garnish and deck their carts,
    and each of them to carry one in his hand, as himself likewise did, thereby
    to give all men to understand that they demanded but peace, and that they
    came to buy it.

    Being come to the gate, they required to speak with Picrochole from
    Grangousier.  Picrochole would not so much as let them in, nor go to speak
    with them, but sent them word that he was busy, and that they should
    deliver their mind to Captain Touquedillon, who was then planting a piece
    of ordnance upon the wall.  Then said the good man unto him, My lord, to
    ease you of all this labour, and to take away all excuses why you may not
    return unto our former alliance, we do here presently restore unto you the
    cakes upon which the quarrel arose.  Five dozen did our people take away:
    they were well paid for:  we love peace so well that we restore unto you
    five cartloads, of which this cart shall be for Marquet, who doth most
    complain.  Besides, to content him entirely, here are seven hundred
    thousand and three Philips, which I deliver to him, and, for the losses he
    may pretend to have sustained, I resign for ever the farm of the
    Pomardiere, to be possessed in fee-simple by him and his for ever, without
    the payment of any duty, or acknowledgement of homage, fealty, fine, or
    service whatsoever, and here is the tenour of the deed.  And, for God's
    sake, let us live henceforward in peace, and withdraw yourselves merrily
    into your own country from within this place, unto which you have no right
    at all, as yourselves must needs confess, and let us be good friends as
    before.  Touquedillon related all this to Picrochole, and more and more
    exasperated his courage, saying to him, These clowns are afraid to some
    purpose.  By G—, Grangousier conskites himself for fear, the poor drinker.
    He is not skilled in warfare, nor hath he any stomach for it.  He knows
    better how to empty the flagons,—that is his art.  I am of opinion that it
    is fit we send back the carts and the money, and, for the rest, that very
    speedily we fortify ourselves here, then prosecute our fortune.  But what!
    Do they think to have to do with a ninnywhoop, to feed you thus with cakes?
    You may see what it is.  The good usage and great familiarity which you
    have had with them heretofore hath made you contemptible in their eyes.
    Anoint a villain, he will prick you:  prick a villain, and he will anoint
    you (Ungentem pungit, pungentem rusticus ungit.).

    Sa, sa, sa, said Picrochole, by St. James you have given a true character
    of them.  One thing I will advise you, said Touquedillon.  We are here but
    badly victualled, and furnished with mouth-harness very slenderly.  If
    Grangousier should come to besiege us, I would go presently, and pluck out
    of all your soldiers' heads and mine own all the teeth, except three to
    each of us, and with them alone we should make an end of our provision but
    too soon.  We shall have, said Picrochole, but too much sustenance and
    feeding-stuff.  Came we hither to eat or to fight?  To fight, indeed, said
    Touquedillon; yet from the paunch comes the dance, and where famine rules
    force is exiled.  Leave off your prating, said Picrochole, and forthwith
    seize upon what they have brought.  Then took they money and cakes, oxen
    and carts, and sent them away without speaking one word, only that they
    would come no more so near, for a reason that they would give them the
    morrow after.  Thus, without doing anything, returned they to Grangousier,
    and related the whole matter unto him, subjoining that there was no hope
    left to draw them to peace but by sharp and fierce wars.

    Chapter 1.XXXIII. How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrained counsel, put him in
    extreme danger.

    The carts being unloaded, and the money and cakes secured, there came
    before Picrochole the Duke of Smalltrash, the Earl Swashbuckler, and
    Captain Dirt-tail (Menuail, Spadassin, Merdaille.), who said unto him, Sir,
    this day we make you the happiest, the most warlike and chivalrous prince
    that ever was since the death of Alexander of Macedonia.  Be covered, be
    covered, said Picrochole.  Gramercy, said they, we do but our duty.  The
    manner is thus.  You shall leave some captain here to have the charge of
    this garrison, with a party competent for keeping of the place, which,
    besides its natural strength, is made stronger by the rampiers and
    fortresses of your devising.  Your army you are to divide into two parts,
    as you know very well how to do.  One part thereof shall fall upon
    Grangousier and his forces.  By it shall he be easily at the very first
    shock routed, and then shall you get money by heaps, for the clown hath
    store of ready coin.  Clown we call him, because a noble and generous
    prince hath never a penny, and that to hoard up treasure is but a clownish
    trick.  The other part of the army, in the meantime, shall draw towards
    Onys, Xaintonge, Angomois, and Gascony.  Then march to Perigot, Medoc, and
    Elanes, taking wherever you come, without resistance, towns, castles, and
    forts; afterwards to Bayonne, St. John de Luc, to Fontarabia, where you
    shall seize upon all the ships, and coasting along Galicia and Portugal,
    shall pillage all the maritime places, even unto Lisbon, where you shall be
    supplied with all necessaries befitting a conqueror.  By copsody, Spain
    will yield, for they are but a race of loobies.  Then are you to pass by
    the Straits of Gibraltar, where you shall erect two pillars more stately
    than those of Hercules, to the perpetual memory of your name, and the
    narrow entrance there shall be called the Picrocholinal sea.

    Having passed the Picrocholinal sea, behold, Barbarossa yields himself your
    slave.  I will, said Picrochole, give him fair quarter and spare his life.
    Yea, said they, so that he be content to be christened.  And you shall
    conquer the kingdoms of Tunis, of Hippo, Argier, Bomine (Bona), Corone,
    yea, all Barbary.  Furthermore, you shall take into your hands Majorca,
    Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, with the other islands of the Ligustic and
    Balearian seas.  Going alongst on the left hand, you shall rule all Gallia
    Narbonensis, Provence, the Allobrogians, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, and then
    God b'w'ye, Rome.  (Our poor Monsieur the Pope dies now for fear.)  By my
    faith, said Picrochole, I will not then kiss his pantoufle.

    Italy being thus taken, behold Naples, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily, all
    ransacked, and Malta too.  I wish the pleasant Knights of the Rhodes
    heretofore would but come to resist you, that we might see their urine.  I
    would, said Picrochole, very willingly go to Loretto.  No, no, said they,
    that shall be at our return.  From thence we will sail eastwards, and take
    Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclade Islands, and set upon (the) Morea.
    It is ours, by St. Trenian.  The Lord preserve Jerusalem; for the great
    Soldan is not comparable to you in power.  I will then, said he, cause
    Solomon's temple to be built.  No, said they, not yet, have a little
    patience, stay awhile, be never too sudden in your enterprises.  Can you
    tell what Octavian Augustus said?  Festina lente.  It is requisite that you
    first have the Lesser Asia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphilia, Cilicia, Lydia,
    Phrygia, Mysia, Bithynia, Carazia, Satalia, Samagaria, Castamena, Luga,
    Savasta, even unto Euphrates.  Shall we see, said Picrochole, Babylon and
    Mount Sinai?  There is no need, said they, at this time.  Have we not
    hurried up and down, travelled and toiled enough, in having transfretted
    and passed over the Hircanian sea, marched alongst the two Armenias and the
    three Arabias?  Ay, by my faith, said he, we have played the fools, and are
    undone.  Ha, poor souls!  What's the matter? said they.  What shall we
    have, said he, to drink in these deserts?  For Julian Augustus with his
    whole army died there for thirst, as they say.  We have already, said they,
    given order for that.  In the Syriac sea you have nine thousand and
    fourteen great ships laden with the best wines in the world.  They arrived
    at Port Joppa.  There they found two-and-twenty thousand camels and sixteen
    hundred elephants, which you shall have taken at one hunting about
    Sigelmes, when you entered into Lybia; and, besides this, you had all the
    Mecca caravan.  Did not they furnish you sufficiently with wine?  Yes, but,
    said he, we did not drink it fresh.  By the virtue, said they, not of a
    fish, a valiant man, a conqueror, who pretends and aspires to the monarchy
    of the world, cannot always have his ease.  God be thanked that you and
    your men are come safe and sound unto the banks of the river Tigris.  But,
    said he, what doth that part of our army in the meantime which overthrows
    that unworthy swillpot Grangousier?  They are not idle, said they.  We
    shall meet with them by-and-by.  They shall have won you Brittany,
    Normandy, Flanders, Hainault, Brabant, Artois, Holland, Zealand; they have
    passed the Rhine over the bellies of the Switzers and lansquenets, and a
    party of these hath subdued Luxembourg, Lorraine, Champagne, and Savoy,
    even to Lyons, in which place they have met with your forces returning from
    the naval conquests of the Mediterranean sea; and have rallied again in
    Bohemia, after they had plundered and sacked Suevia, Wittemberg, Bavaria,
    Austria, Moravia, and Styria.  Then they set fiercely together upon Lubeck,
    Norway, Swedeland, Rie, Denmark, Gitland, Greenland, the Sterlins, even
    unto the frozen sea.  This done, they conquered the Isles of Orkney and
    subdued Scotland, England, and Ireland.  From thence sailing through the
    sandy sea and by the Sarmates, they have vanquished and overcome Prussia,
    Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Wallachia, Transylvania, Hungary, Bulgaria,
    Turkeyland, and are now at Constantinople.  Come, said Picrochole, let us
    go join with them quickly, for I will be Emperor of Trebizond also.  Shall
    we not kill all these dogs, Turks and Mahometans?  What a devil should we
    do else? said they.  And you shall give their goods and lands to such as
    shall have served you honestly.  Reason, said he, will have it so, that is
    but just.  I give unto you the Caramania, Suria, and all the Palestine.
    Ha, sir, said they, it is out of your goodness; gramercy, we thank you.
    God grant you may always prosper.  There was there present at that time an
    old gentleman well experienced in the wars, a stern soldier, and who had
    been in many great hazards, named Echephron, who, hearing this discourse,
    said, I do greatly doubt that all this enterprise will be like the tale or
    interlude of the pitcher full of milk wherewith a shoemaker made himself
    rich in conceit; but, when the pitcher was broken, he had not whereupon to
    dine.  What do you pretend by these large conquests?  What shall be the end
    of so many labours and crosses?  Thus it shall be, said Picrochole, that
    when we are returned we shall sit down, rest, and be merry.  But, said
    Echephron, if by chance you should never come back, for the voyage is long
    and dangerous, were it not better for us to take our rest now, than
    unnecessarily to expose ourselves to so many dangers?  O, said
    Swashbuckler, by G—, here is a good dotard; come, let us go hide ourselves
    in the corner of a chimney, and there spend the whole time of our life
    amongst ladies, in threading of pearls, or spinning, like Sardanapalus.  He
    that nothing ventures hath neither horse nor mule, says Solomon.  He who
    adventureth too much, said Echephron, loseth both horse and mule, answered
    Malchon.  Enough, said Picrochole, go forward.  I fear nothing but that
    these devilish legions of Grangousier, whilst we are in Mesopotamia, will
    come on our backs and charge up our rear.  What course shall we then take?
    What shall be our remedy?  A very good one, said Dirt-tail; a pretty little
    commission, which you must send unto the Muscovites, shall bring you into
    the field in an instant four hundred and fifty thousand choice men of war.
    Oh that you would but make me your lieutenant-general, I should for the
    lightest faults of any inflict great punishments.  I fret, I charge, I
    strike, I take, I kill, I slay, I play the devil.  On, on, said Picrochole,
    make haste, my lads, and let him that loves me follow me.

    Chapter 1.XXXIV. How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour his country, and how
    Gymnast encountered with the enemy.

    In this same very hour Gargantua, who was gone out of Paris as soon as he
    had read his father's letters, coming upon his great mare, had already
    passed the Nunnery-bridge, himself, Ponocrates, Gymnast, and Eudemon, who
    all three, the better to enable them to go along with him, took post-
    horses.  The rest of his train came after him by even journeys at a slower
    pace, bringing with them all his books and philosophical instruments.  As
    soon as he had alighted at Parille, he was informed by a farmer of Gouguet
    how Picrochole had fortified himself within the rock Clermond, and had sent
    Captain Tripet with a great army to set upon the wood of Vede and
    Vaugaudry, and that they had already plundered the whole country, not
    leaving cock nor hen, even as far as to the winepress of Billard.  These
    strange and almost incredible news of the enormous abuses thus committed
    over all the land, so affrighted Gargantua that he knew not what to say nor
    do.  But Ponocrates counselled him to go unto the Lord of Vauguyon, who at
    all times had been their friend and confederate, and that by him they
    should be better advised in their business.  Which they did incontinently,
    and found him very willing and fully resolved to assist them, and therefore
    was of opinion that they should send some one of his company to scout along
    and discover the country, to learn in what condition and posture the enemy
    was, that they might take counsel, and proceed according to the present
    occasion.  Gymnast offered himself to go.  Whereupon it was concluded, that
    for his safety and the better expedition, he should have with him someone
    that knew the ways, avenues, turnings, windings, and rivers thereabout.
    Then away went he and Prelingot, the equerry or gentleman of Vauguyon's
    horse, who scouted and espied as narrowly as they could upon all quarters
    without any fear.  In the meantime Gargantua took a little refreshment, ate
    somewhat himself, the like did those who were with him, and caused to give
    to his mare a picotine of oats, that is, three score and fourteen quarters
    and three bushels.  Gymnast and his comrade rode so long, that at last they
    met with the enemy's forces, all scattered and out of order, plundering,
    stealing, robbing, and pillaging all they could lay their hands on.  And,
    as far off as they could perceive him, they ran thronging upon the back of
    one another in all haste towards him, to unload him of his money, and
    untruss his portmantles.  Then cried he out unto them, My masters, I am a
    poor devil, I desire you to spare me.  I have yet one crown left.  Come, we
    must drink it, for it is aurum potabile, and this horse here shall be sold
    to pay my welcome.  Afterwards take me for one of your own, for never yet
    was there any man that knew better how to take, lard, roast, and dress,
    yea, by G—, to tear asunder and devour a hen, than I that am here:  and
    for my proficiat I drink to all good fellows.  With that he unscrewed his
    borracho (which was a great Dutch leathern bottle), and without putting in
    his nose drank very honestly.  The maroufle rogues looked upon him, opening
    their throats a foot wide, and putting out their tongues like greyhounds,
    in hopes to drink after him; but Captain Tripet, in the very nick of that
    their expectation, came running to him to see who it was.  To him Gymnast
    offered his bottle, saying, Hold, captain, drink boldly and spare not; I
    have been thy taster, it is wine of La Faye Monjau.  What! said Tripet,
    this fellow gibes and flouts us?  Who art thou? said Tripet.  I am, said
    Gymnast, a poor devil (pauvre diable).  Ha, said Tripet, seeing thou art a
    poor devil, it is reason that thou shouldst be permitted to go
    whithersoever thou wilt, for all poor devils pass everywhere without toll
    or tax.  But it is not the custom of poor devils to be so well mounted;
    therefore, sir devil, come down, and let me have your horse, and if he do
    not carry me well, you, master devil, must do it:  for I love a life that
    such a devil as you should carry me away.

    Chapter 1.XXXV. How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain Tripet and others of
    Picrochole's men.

    When they heard these words, some amongst them began to be afraid, and
    blessed themselves with both hands, thinking indeed that he had been a
    devil disguised, insomuch that one of them, named Good John, captain of the
    trained bands of the country bumpkins, took his psalter out of his
    codpiece, and cried out aloud, Hagios ho theos.  If thou be of God, speak;
    if thou be of the other spirit, avoid hence, and get thee going.  Yet he
    went not away.  Which words being heard by all the soldiers that were
    there, divers of them being a little inwardly terrified, departed from the
    place.  All this did Gymnast very well remark and consider, and therefore
    making as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poising
    himself on the mounting side, he most nimbly, with his short sword by his
    thigh, shifting his foot in the stirrup, performed the stirrup-leather
    feat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwith
    launched himself aloft in the air, and placed both his feet together on the
    saddle, standing upright with his back turned towards the horse's head.
    Now, said he, my case goes backward.  Then suddenly in the same very
    posture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and, turning to
    the left hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into its
    former stance, without missing one jot.  Ha, said Tripet, I will not do
    that at this time, and not without cause.  Well, said Gymnast, I have
    failed, I will undo this leap.  Then with a marvellous strength and
    agility, turning towards the right hand, he fetched another frisking gambol
    as before, which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the hind-bow of the
    saddle, raised himself up, and sprung in the air, poising and upholding his
    whole body upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned and
    whirled himself about three times.  At the fourth, reversing his body, and
    overturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching anything,
    he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, springing with all his
    body into the air, upon the thumb of his left hand, and in that posture,
    turning like a windmill, did most actively do that trick which is called
    the miller's pass.  After this, clapping his right hand flat upon the
    middle of the saddle, he gave himself such a jerking swing that he thereby
    seated himself upon the crupper, after the manner of gentlewomen sitting on
    horseback.  This done, he easily passed his right leg over the saddle, and
    placed himself like one that rides in croup.  But, said he, it were better
    for me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands upon
    the crupper before him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the only
    supporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air,
    and straight found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a good
    settlement.  Then with a somersault springing into the air again, he fell
    to stand with both his feet close together upon the saddle, and there made
    above a hundred frisks, turns, and demipommads, with his arms held out
    across, and in so doing cried out aloud, I rage, I rage, devils, I am stark
    mad, devils, I am mad, hold me, devils, hold me, hold, devils, hold, hold!

    Whilst he was thus vaulting, the rogues in great astonishment said to one
    another, By cock's death, he is a goblin or a devil thus disguised.  Ab
    hoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as if they
    had been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog that carrieth
    away a goose-wing in his mouth.  Then Gymnast, spying his advantage,
    alighted from his horse, drew his sword, and laid on great blows upon the
    thickset and highest crested among them, and overthrew them in great heaps,
    hurt, wounded, and bruised, being resisted by nobody, they thinking he had
    been a starved devil, as well in regard of his wonderful feats in vaulting,
    which they had seen, as for the talk Tripet had with him, calling him poor
    devil.  Only Tripet would have traitorously cleft his head with his
    horseman's sword, or lance-knight falchion; but he was well armed, and felt
    nothing of the blow but the weight of the stroke.  Whereupon, turning
    suddenly about, he gave Tripet a home-thrust, and upon the back of that,
    whilst he was about to ward his head from a slash, he ran him in at the
    breast with a hit, which at once cut his stomach, the fifth gut called the
    colon, and the half of his liver, wherewith he fell to the ground, and in
    falling gushed forth above four pottles of pottage, and his soul mingled
    with the pottage.

    This done, Gymnast withdrew himself, very wisely considering that a case of
    great adventure and hazard should not be pursued unto its utmost period,
    and that it becomes all cavaliers modestly to use their good fortune,
    without troubling or stretching it too far.  Wherefore, getting to horse,
    he gave him the spur, taking the right way unto Vauguyon, and Prelinguand
    with him.

    Chapter 1.XXXVI. >
    1-36-076.jpg (166K)

    How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how they
    passed the ford.

    As soon as he came, he related the estate and condition wherein they had
    found the enemy, and the stratagem which he alone had used against all
    their multitude, affirming that they were but rascally rogues, plunderers,
    thieves, and robbers, ignorant of all military discipline, and that they
    might boldly set forward unto the field; it being an easy matter to fell
    and strike them down like beasts.  Then Gargantua mounted his great mare,
    accompanied as we have said before, and finding in his way a high and great
    tree, which commonly was called by the name of St. Martin's tree, because
    heretofore St. Martin planted a pilgrim's staff there, which in tract of
    time grew to that height and greatness, said, This is that which I lacked;
    this tree shall serve me both for a staff and lance.  With that he pulled
    it up easily, plucked off the boughs, and trimmed it at his pleasure.  In
    the meantime his mare pissed to ease her belly, but it was in such
    abundance that it did overflow the country seven leagues, and all the piss
    of that urinal flood ran glib away towards the ford of Vede, wherewith the
    water was so swollen that all the forces the enemy had there were with
    great horror drowned, except some who had taken the way on the left hand
    towards the hills.  Gargantua, being come to the place of the wood of Vede,
    was informed by Eudemon that there was some remainder of the enemy within
    the castle, which to know, Gargantua cried out as loud as he was able, Are
    you there, or are you not there?  If you be there, be there no more; and if
    you are not there, I have no more to say.  But a ruffian gunner, whose
    charge was to attend the portcullis over the gate, let fly a cannon-ball at
    him, and hit him with that shot most furiously on the right temple of his
    head, yet did him no more hurt than if he had but cast a prune or kernel of
    a wine-grape at him.  What is this? said Gargantua; do you throw at us
    grape-kernels here?  The vintage shall cost you dear; thinking indeed that
    the bullet had been the kernel of a grape, or raisin-kernel.

    Those who were within the castle, being till then busy at the pillage, when
    they heard this noise ran to the towers and fortresses, from whence they
    shot at him above nine thousand and five-and-twenty falconshot and
    arquebusades, aiming all at his head, and so thick did they shoot at him
    that he cried out, Ponocrates, my friend, these flies here are like to put
    out mine eyes; give me a branch of those willow-trees to drive them away,
    thinking that the bullets and stones shot out of the great ordnance had
    been but dunflies.  Ponocrates looked and saw that there were no other
    flies but great shot which they had shot from the castle.  Then was it that
    he rushed with his great tree against the castle, and with mighty blows
    overthrew both towers and fortresses, and laid all level with the ground,
    by which means all that were within were slain and broken in pieces.  Going
    from thence, they came to the bridge at the mill, where they found all the
    ford covered with dead bodies, so thick that they had choked up the mill
    and stopped the current of its water, and these were those that were
    destroyed in the urinal deluge of the mare.  There they were at a stand,
    consulting how they might pass without hindrance by these dead carcasses.
    But Gymnast said, If the devils have passed there, I will pass well enough.
    The devils have passed there, said Eudemon, to carry away the damned souls.
    By St. Treignan! said Ponocrates, then by necessary consequence he shall
    pass there.  Yes, yes, said Gymnastes, or I shall stick in the way.  Then
    setting spurs to his horse, he passed through freely, his horse not fearing
    nor being anything affrighted at the sight of the dead bodies; for he had
    accustomed him, according to the doctrine of Aelian, not to fear armour,
    nor the carcasses of dead men; and that not by killing men as Diomedes did
    the Thracians, or as Ulysses did in throwing the corpses of his enemies at
    his horse's feet, as Homer saith, but by putting a Jack-a-lent amongst his
    hay, and making him go over it ordinarily when he gave him his oats.  The
    other three followed him very close, except Eudemon only, whose horse's
    fore-right or far forefoot sank up to the knee in the paunch of a great fat
    chuff who lay there upon his back drowned, and could not get it out.  There
    was he pestered, until Gargantua, with the end of his staff, thrust down
    the rest of the villain's tripes into the water whilst the horse pulled out
    his foot; and, which is a wonderful thing in hippiatry, the said horse was
    thoroughly cured of a ringbone which he had in that foot by this touch of
    the burst guts of that great looby.

    Chapter 1.XXXVII. How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of
    his hair.

    Being come out of the river of Vede, they came very shortly after to
    Grangousier's castle, who waited for them with great longing.  At their
    coming they were entertained with many congees, and cherished with
    embraces.  Never was seen a more joyful company, for Supplementum
    Supplementi Chronicorum saith that Gargamelle died there with joy; for my
    part, truly I cannot tell, neither do I care very much for her, nor for
    anybody else.  The truth was, that Gargantua, in shifting his clothes, and
    combing his head with a comb, which was nine hundred foot long of the
    Jewish cane measure, and whereof the teeth were great tusks of elephants,
    whole and entire, he made fall at every rake above seven balls of bullets,
    at a dozen the ball, that stuck in his hair at the razing of the castle of
    the wood of Vede.  Which his father Grangousier seeing, thought they had
    been lice, and said unto him, What, my dear son, hast thou brought us this
    far some short-winged hawks of the college of Montague?  I did not mean
    that thou shouldst reside there.  Then answered Ponocrates, My sovereign
    lord, think not that I have placed him in that lousy college which they
    call Montague; I had rather have put him amongst the grave-diggers of Sanct
    Innocent, so enormous is the cruelty and villainy that I have known there:
    for the galley-slaves are far better used amongst the Moors and Tartars,
    the murderers in the criminal dungeons, yea, the very dogs in your house,
    than are the poor wretched students in the aforesaid college.  And if I
    were King of Paris, the devil take me if I would not set it on fire, and
    burn both principal and regents, for suffering this inhumanity to be
    exercised before their eyes.  Then, taking up one of these bullets, he
    said, These are cannon-shot, which your son Gargantua hath lately received
    by the treachery of your enemies, as he was passing before the wood of
    Vede.

    But they have been so rewarded, that they are all destroyed in the ruin of
    the castle, as were the Philistines by the policy of Samson, and those whom
    the tower of Silohim slew, as it is written in the thirteenth of Luke.  My
    opinion is, that we pursue them whilst the luck is on our side; for
    occasion hath all her hair on her forehead; when she is passed, you may not
    recall her,—she hath no tuft whereby you can lay hold on her, for she is
    bald in the hind-part of her head, and never returneth again.  Truly, said
    Grangousier, it shall not be at this time; for I will make you a feast
    this night, and bid you welcome.

    This said, they made ready supper, and, of extraordinary besides his daily
    fare, were roasted sixteen oxen, three heifers, two and thirty calves,
    three score and three fat kids, four score and fifteen wethers, three
    hundred farrow pigs or sheats soused in sweet wine or must, eleven score
    partridges, seven hundred snipes and woodcocks, four hundred Loudun and
    Cornwall capons, six thousand pullets, and as many pigeons, six hundred
    crammed hens, fourteen hundred leverets, or young hares and rabbits, three
    hundred and three buzzards, and one thousand and seven hundred cockerels.
    For venison, they could not so suddenly come by it, only eleven wild boars,
    which the Abbot of Turpenay sent, and eighteen fallow deer which the Lord
    of Gramount bestowed; together with seven score pheasants, which were sent
    by the Lord of Essars; and some dozens of queests, coushats, ringdoves, and
    woodculvers; river-fowl, teals and awteals, bitterns, courtes, plovers,
    francolins, briganders, tyrasons, young lapwings, tame ducks, shovellers,
    woodlanders, herons, moorhens, criels, storks, canepetiers, oranges,
    flamans, which are phaenicopters, or crimson-winged sea-fowls, terrigoles,
    turkeys, arbens, coots, solan-geese, curlews, termagants, and water-
    wagtails, with a great deal of cream, curds, and fresh cheese, and store of
    soup, pottages, and brewis with great variety.  Without doubt there was
    meat enough, and it was handsomely dressed by Snapsauce, Hotchpot, and
    Brayverjuice, Grangousier's cooks.  Jenkin Trudgeapace and Cleanglass were
    very careful to fill them drink.

    Chapter 1.XXXVIII. How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad.

    The story requireth that we relate that which happened unto six pilgrims
    who came from Sebastian near to Nantes, and who for shelter that night,
    being afraid of the enemy, had hid themselves in the garden upon the
    chichling peas, among the cabbages and lettuces.  Gargantua finding himself
    somewhat dry, asked whether they could get any lettuce to make him a salad;
    and hearing that there were the greatest and fairest in the country, for
    they were as great as plum-trees or as walnut-trees, he would go thither
    himself, and brought thence in his hand what he thought good, and withal
    carried away the six pilgrims, who were in so great fear that they did not
    dare to speak nor cough.

    Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one to
    another softly, What shall we do?  We are almost drowned here amongst these
    lettuce, shall we speak?  But if we speak, he will kill us for spies.  And,
    as they were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua put them with the
    lettuce into a platter of the house, as large as the huge tun of the White
    Friars of the Cistercian order; which done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, he
    ate them up, to refresh himself a little before supper, and had already
    swallowed up five of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totally
    hid under a lettuce, except his bourdon or staff that appeared, and nothing
    else.  Which Grangousier seeing, said to Gargantua, I think that is the
    horn of a shell-snail, do not eat it.  Why not? said Gargantua, they are
    good all this month:  which he no sooner said, but, drawing up the staff,
    and therewith taking up the pilgrim, he ate him very well, then drank a
    terrible draught of excellent white wine.  The pilgrims, thus devoured,
    made shift to save themselves as well as they could, by withdrawing their
    bodies out of the reach of the grinders of his teeth, but could not escape
    from thinking they had been put in the lowest dungeon of a prison.  And
    when Gargantua whiffed the great draught, they thought to have been drowned
    in his mouth, and the flood of wine had almost carried them away into the
    gulf of his stomach.  Nevertheless, skipping with their bourdons, as St.
    Michael's palmers use to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger of
    that inundation under the banks of his teeth.  But one of them by chance,
    groping or sounding the country with his staff, to try whether they were in
    safety or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the
    mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very great
    pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt.  To ease himself
    therefore of his smarting ache, he called for his toothpicker, and rubbing
    towards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you my
    gentlemen pilgrims.

    For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, another by the pocket,
    another by the scarf, another by the band of the breeches, and the poor
    fellow that had hurt him with the bourdon, him he hooked to him by the
    codpiece, which snatch nevertheless did him a great deal of good, for it
    pierced unto him a pocky botch he had in the groin, which grievously
    tormented him ever since they were past Ancenis.  The pilgrims, thus
    dislodged, ran away athwart the plain a pretty fast pace, and the pain
    ceased, even just at the time when by Eudemon he was called to supper, for
    all was ready.  I will go then, said he, and piss away my misfortune; which
    he did do in such a copious measure, that the urine taking away the feet
    from the pilgrims, they were carried along with the stream unto the bank of
    a tuft of trees.  Upon which, as soon as they had taken footing, and that
    for their self-preservation they had run a little out of the road, they on
    a sudden fell all six, except Fourniller, into a trap that had been made to
    take wolves by a train, out of which, nevertheless, they escaped by the
    industry of the said Fourniller, who broke all the snares and ropes.  Being
    gone from thence, they lay all the rest of that night in a lodge near unto
    Coudray, where they were comforted in their miseries by the gracious words
    of one of their company, called Sweer-to-go, who showed them that this
    adventure had been foretold by the prophet David, Psalm.  Quum exsurgerent
    homines in nos, forte vivos deglutissent nos; when we were eaten in the
    salad, with salt, oil, and vinegar.  Quum irasceretur furor eorum in nos,
    forsitan aqua absorbuisset nos; when he drank the great draught.  Torrentem
    pertransivit anima nostra; when the stream of his water carried us to the
    thicket.  Forsitan pertransisset anima nostra aquam intolerabilem; that is,
    the water of his urine, the flood whereof, cutting our way, took our feet
    from us.  Benedictus Dominus qui non dedit nos in captionem dentibus eorum.
    Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est de laqueo venantium; when we fell in
    the trap.  Laqueus contritus est, by Fourniller, et nos liberati sumus.
    Adjutorium nostrum, &c.  

    Chapter 1.XXXIX. How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial discourse they had
    at supper.

    When Gargantua was set down at table, after all of them had somewhat stayed
    their stomachs by a snatch or two of the first bits eaten heartily,
    Grangousier began to relate the source and cause of the war raised between
    him and Picrochole; and came to tell how Friar John of the Funnels had
    triumphed at the defence of the close of the abbey, and extolled him for
    his valour above Camillus, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar, and Themistocles.  Then
    Gargantua desired that he might be presently sent for, to the end that with
    him they might consult of what was to be done.  Whereupon, by a joint
    consent, his steward went for him, and brought him along merrily, with his
    staff of the cross, upon Grangousier's mule.  When he was come, a thousand
    huggings, a thousand embracements, a thousand good days were given.  Ha,
    Friar John, my friend Friar John, my brave cousin Friar John from the
    devil!  Let me clip thee, my heart, about the neck; to me an armful.  I
    must grip thee, my ballock, till thy back crack with it.  Come, my cod, let
    me coll thee till I kill thee.  And Friar John, the gladdest man in the
    world, never was man made welcomer, never was any more courteously and
    graciously received than Friar John.  Come, come, said Gargantua, a stool
    here close by me at this end.  I am content, said the monk, seeing you will
    have it so.  Some water, page; fill, my boy, fill; it is to refresh my
    liver.  Give me some, child, to gargle my throat withal.  Deposita cappa,
    said Gymnast, let us pull off this frock.  Ho, by G—, gentlemen, said the
    monk, there is a chapter in Statutis Ordinis which opposeth my laying of it
    down.  Pish! said Gymnast, a fig for your chapter!  This frock breaks both
    your shoulders, put it off.  My friend, said the monk, let me alone with
    it; for, by G—, I'll drink the better that it is on.  It makes all my body
    jocund.  If I should lay it aside, the waggish pages would cut to
    themselves garters out of it, as I was once served at Coulaines.  And,
    which is worse, I shall lose my appetite.  But if in this habit I sit down
    at table, I will drink, by G—, both to thee and to thy horse, and so
    courage, frolic, God save the company!  I have already supped, yet will I
    eat never a whit the less for that; for I have a paved stomach, as hollow
    as a butt of malvoisie or St. Benedictus' boot (butt), and always open like
    a lawyer's pouch.  Of all fishes but the tench take the wing of a partridge
    or the thigh of a nun.  Doth not he die like a good fellow that dies with a
    stiff catso?  Our prior loves exceedingly the white of a capon.  In that,
    said Gymnast, he doth not resemble the foxes; for of the capons, hens, and
    pullets which they carry away they never eat the white.  Why? said the
    monk.  Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, if
    they be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; the
    redness of meats being a token that they have not got enough of the fire,
    whether by boiling, roasting, or otherwise, except the shrimps, lobsters,
    crabs, and crayfishes, which are cardinalized with boiling.  By God's
    feast-gazers, said the monk, the porter of our abbey then hath not his head
    well boiled, for his eyes are as red as a mazer made of an alder-tree.  The
    thigh of this leveret is good for those that have the gout.  To the purpose
    of the truel,—what is the reason that the thighs of a gentlewoman are
    always fresh and cool?  This problem, said Gargantua, is neither in
    Aristotle, in Alexander Aphrodiseus, nor in Plutarch.  There are three
    causes, said the monk, by which that place is naturally refreshed.  Primo,
    because the water runs all along by it.  Secundo, because it is a shady
    place, obscure and dark, upon which the sun never shines.  And thirdly,
    because it is continually flabbelled, blown upon, and aired by the north
    winds of the hole arstick, the fan of the smock, and flipflap of the
    codpiece.  And lusty, my lads.  Some bousing liquor, page!  So! crack,
    crack, crack.  O how good is God, that gives us of this excellent juice!  I
    call him to witness, if I had been in the time of Jesus Christ, I would
    have kept him from being taken by the Jews in the garden of Olivet.  And
    the devil fail me, if I should have failed to cut off the hams of these
    gentlemen apostles who ran away so basely after they had well supped, and
    left their good master in the lurch.  I hate that man worse than poison
    that offers to run away when he should fight and lay stoutly about him.  Oh
    that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years!  By G—, I
    should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia.  A plague take them;
    why did they not choose rather to die there than to leave their good prince
    in that pinch and necessity?  Is it not better and more honourable to
    perish in fighting valiantly than to live in disgrace by a cowardly running
    away?  We are like to eat no great store of goslings this year; therefore,
    friend, reach me some of that roasted pig there.

    Diavolo, is there no more must?  No more sweet wine?  Germinavit radix
    Jesse.  Je renie ma vie, je meurs de soif; I renounce my life, I rage for
    thirst.  This wine is none of the worst.  What wine drink you at Paris?  I
    give myself to the devil, if I did not once keep open house at Paris for
    all comers six months together.  Do you know Friar Claude of the high
    kilderkins?  Oh the good fellow that he is!  But I do not know what fly
    hath stung him of late, he is become so hard a student.  For my part, I
    study not at all.  In our abbey we never study for fear of the mumps, which
    disease in horses is called the mourning in the chine.  Our late abbot was
    wont to say that it is a monstrous thing to see a learned monk.  By G—,
    master, my friend, Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes.
    You never saw so many hares as there are this year.  I could not anywhere
    come by a goshawk nor tassel of falcon.  My Lord Belloniere promised me a
    lanner, but he wrote to me not long ago that he was become pursy.  The
    partridges will so multiply henceforth, that they will go near to eat up
    our ears.  I take no delight in the stalking-horse, for I catch such cold
    that I am like to founder myself at that sport.  If I do not run, toil,
    travel, and trot about, I am not well at ease.  True it is that in leaping
    over the hedges and bushes my frock leaves always some of its wool behind
    it.  I have recovered a dainty greyhound; I give him to the devil, if he
    suffer a hare to escape him.  A groom was leading him to my Lord
    Huntlittle, and I robbed him of him.  Did I ill?  No, Friar John, said
    Gymnast, no, by all the devils that are, no!  So, said the monk, do I
    attest these same devils so long as they last, or rather, virtue (of) G—,
    what could that gouty limpard have done with so fine a dog?  By the body of
    G—, he is better pleased when one presents him with a good yoke of oxen.
    How now, said Ponocrates, you swear, Friar John.  It is only, said the
    monk, but to grace and adorn my speech.  They are colours of a Ciceronian
    rhetoric.

    Chapter 1.XL. Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some have bigger
    noses than others.

    By the faith of a Christian, said Eudemon, I do wonderfully dote and enter
    in a great ecstasy when I consider the honesty and good fellowship of this
    monk, for he makes us here all merry.  How is it, then, that they exclude
    the monks from all good companies, calling them feast-troublers, marrers of
    mirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation, as the bees drive away the
    drones from their hives?  Ignavum fucos pecus, said Maro, a praesepibus
    arcent.  Hereunto, answered Gargantua, there is nothing so true as that the
    frock and cowl draw unto itself the opprobries, injuries, and maledictions
    of the world, just as the wind called Cecias attracts the clouds.  The
    peremptory reason is, because they eat the ordure and excrements of the
    world, that is to say, the sins of the people, and, like dung-chewers and
    excrementitious eaters, they are cast into the privies and secessive
    places, that is, the convents and abbeys, separated from political
    conversation, as the jakes and retreats of a house are.  But if you
    conceive how an ape in a family is always mocked and provokingly incensed,
    you shall easily apprehend how monks are shunned of all men, both young and
    old.  The ape keeps not the house as a dog doth, he draws not in the plough
    as the ox, he yields neither milk nor wool as the sheep, he carrieth no
    burden as a horse doth.  That which he doth, is only to conskite, spoil,
    and defile all, which is the cause wherefore he hath of all men mocks,
    frumperies, and bastinadoes.

    After the same manner a monk—I mean those lither, idle, lazy monks—doth
    not labour and work, as do the peasant and artificer; doth not ward and
    defend the country, as doth the man of war; cureth not the sick and
    diseased, as the physician doth; doth neither preach nor teach, as do the
    evangelical doctors and schoolmasters; doth not import commodities and
    things necessary for the commonwealth, as the merchant doth.  Therefore is
    it that by and of all men they are hooted at, hated, and abhorred.  Yea,
    but, said Grangousier, they pray to God for us.  Nothing less, answered
    Gargantua.  True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they
    trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them.  Right, said the
    monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said.  They mumble out
    great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say
    many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or
    apprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which truly I call mocking
    of God, and not prayers.  But so help them God, as they pray for us, and
    not for being afraid to lose their victuals, their manchots, and good fat
    pottage.  All true Christians, of all estates and conditions, in all places
    and at all times, send up their prayers to God, and the Mediator prayeth
    and intercedeth for them, and God is gracious to them.  Now such a one is
    our good Friar John; therefore every man desireth to have him in his
    company.  He is no bigot or hypocrite; he is not torn and divided betwixt
    reality and appearance; no wretch of a rugged and peevish disposition, but
    honest, jovial, resolute, and a good fellow.  He travels, he labours, he
    defends the oppressed, comforts the afflicted, helps the needy, and keeps
    the close of the abbey.  Nay, said the monk, I do a great deal more than
    that; for whilst we are in despatching our matins and anniversaries in the
    choir, I make withal some crossbow-strings, polish glass bottles and bolts,
    I twist lines and weave purse nets wherein to catch coneys.  I am never
    idle.  But now, hither come, some drink, some drink here!  Bring the fruit.
    These chestnuts are of the wood of Estrox, and with good new wine are able
    to make you a fine cracker and composer of bum-sonnets.  You are not as
    yet, it seems, well moistened in this house with the sweet wine and must.
    By G—, I drink to all men freely, and at all fords, like a proctor or
    promoter's horse.  Friar John, said Gymnast, take away the snot that hangs
    at your nose.  Ha, ha, said the monk, am not I in danger of drowning,
    seeing I am in water even to the nose?  No, no, Quare?  Quia, though some
    water come out from thence, there never goes in any; for it is well
    antidoted with pot-proof armour and syrup of the vine-leaf.

    Oh, my friend, he that hath winter-boots made of such leather may boldly
    fish for oysters, for they will never take water.  What is the cause, said
    Gargantua, that Friar John hath such a fair nose?  Because, said
    Grangousier, that God would have it so, who frameth us in such form and for
    such end as is most agreeable with his divine will, even as a potter
    fashioneth his vessels.  Because, said Ponocrates, he came with the first
    to the fair of noses, and therefore made choice of the fairest and the
    greatest.  Pish, said the monk, that is not the reason of it, but,
    according to the true monastical philosophy, it is because my nurse had
    soft teats, by virtue whereof, whilst she gave me suck, my nose did sink in
    as in so much butter.  The hard breasts of nurses make children short-
    nosed.  But hey, gay, Ad formam nasi cognoscitur ad te levavi.  I never eat
    any confections, page, whilst I am at the bibbery.  Item, bring me rather
    some toasts.

    Chapter 1.XLI. How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.

    Supper being ended, they consulted of the business in hand, and concluded
    that about midnight they should fall unawares upon the enemy, to know what
    manner of watch and ward they kept, and that in the meanwhile they should
    take a little rest the better to refresh themselves.  But Gargantua could
    not sleep by any means, on which side soever he turned himself.  Whereupon
    the monk said to him, I never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or
    prayers.  Let us therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms,
    to try whether you shall not quickly fall asleep.  The conceit pleased
    Gargantua very well, and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as
    they came to the words Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the
    other.  But the monk, for his being formerly accustomed to the hour of
    claustral matins, failed not to awake a little before midnight, and, being
    up himself, awaked all the rest, in singing aloud, and with a full clear
    voice, the song:

      Awake, O Reinian, ho, awake!
        Awake, O Reinian, ho!
      Get up, you no more sleep must take;
        Get up, for we must go.

    When they were all roused and up, he said, My masters, it is a usual
    saying, that we begin matins with coughing and supper with drinking.  Let
    us now, in doing clean contrarily, begin our matins with drinking, and at
    night before supper we shall cough as hard as we can.  What, said
    Gargantua, to drink so soon after sleep?  This is not to live according to
    the diet and prescript rule of the physicians, for you ought first to scour
    and cleanse your stomach of all its superfluities and excrements.  Oh, well
    physicked, said the monk; a hundred devils leap into my body, if there be
    not more old drunkards than old physicians!  I have made this paction and
    covenant with my appetite, that it always lieth down and goes to bed with
    myself, for to that I every day give very good order; then the next morning
    it also riseth with me and gets up when I am awake.  Mind you your charges,
    gentlemen, or tend your cures as much as you will.  I will get me to my
    drawer; in terms of falconry, my tiring.  What drawer or tiring do you
    mean? said Gargantua.  My breviary, said the monk, for just as the
    falconers, before they feed their hawks, do make them draw at a hen's leg
    to purge their brains of phlegm and sharpen them to a good appetite, so, by
    taking this merry little breviary in the morning, I scour all my lungs and
    am presently ready to drink.

    After what manner, said Gargantua, do you say these fair hours and prayers
    of yours?  After the manner of Whipfield (Fessecamp, and corruptly Fecan.),
    said the monk, by three psalms and three lessons, or nothing at all, he
    that will.  I never tie myself to hours, prayers, and sacraments; for they
    are made for the man and not the man for them.  Therefore is it that I make
    my prayers in fashion of stirrup-leathers; I shorten or lengthen them when
    I think good.  Brevis oratio penetrat caelos et longa potatio evacuat
    scyphos.  Where is that written?  By my faith, said Ponocrates, I cannot
    tell, my pillicock, but thou art more worth than gold.  Therein, said the
    monk, I am like you; but, venite, apotemus.  Then made they ready store of
    carbonadoes, or rashers on the coals, and good fat soups, or brewis with
    sippets; and the monk drank what he pleased.  Some kept him company, and
    the rest did forbear, for their stomachs were not as yet opened.
    Afterwards every man began to arm and befit himself for the field. And they
    armed the monk against his will; for he desired no other armour for back
    and breast but his frock, nor any other weapon in his hand but the staff of
    the cross.  Yet at their pleasure was he completely armed cap-a-pie, and
    mounted upon one of the best horses in the kingdom, with a good slashing
    shable by his side, together with Gargantua, Ponocrates, Gymnast, Eudemon,
    and five-and-twenty more of the most resolute and adventurous of
    Grangousier's house, all armed at proof with their lances in their hands,
    mounted like St. George, and everyone of them having an arquebusier behind
    him.

    Chapter 1.XLII. How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon a
    tree.

    1-42-086.jpg (170K)

    Thus went out those valiant champions on their adventure, in full
    resolution to know what enterprise they should undertake, and what to take
    heed of and look well to in the day of the great and horrible battle.  And
    the monk encouraged them, saying, My children, do not fear nor doubt, I
    will conduct you safely.  God and Sanct Benedict be with us!  If I had
    strength answerable to my courage, by's death, I would plume them for you
    like ducks.  I fear nothing but the great ordnance; yet I know of a charm
    by way of prayer, which the subsexton of our abbey taught me, that will
    preserve a man from the violence of guns and all manner of fire-weapons and
    engines; but it will do me no good, because I do not believe it.
    Nevertheless, I hope my staff of the cross shall this day play devilish
    pranks amongst them.  By G—, whoever of our party shall offer to play the
    duck, and shrink when blows are a-dealing, I give myself to the devil, if I
    do not make a monk of him in my stead, and hamper him within my frock,
    which is a sovereign cure against cowardice.  Did you never hear of my Lord
    Meurles his greyhound, which was not worth a straw in the fields?  He put a
    frock about his neck:  by the body of G—, there was neither hare nor fox
    that could escape him, and, which is more, he lined all the bitches in the
    country, though before that he was feeble-reined and ex frigidis et
    maleficiatis.

    The monk uttering these words in choler, as he passed under a walnut-tree,
    in his way towards the causey, he broached the vizor of his helmet on the
    stump of a great branch of the said tree.  Nevertheless, he set his spurs
    so fiercely to the horse, who was full of mettle and quick on the spur,
    that he bounded forwards, and the monk going about to ungrapple his vizor,
    let go his hold of the bridle, and so hanged by his hand upon the bough,
    whilst his horse stole away from under him.  By this means was the monk
    left hanging on the walnut-tree, and crying for help, murder, murder,
    swearing also that he was betrayed.  Eudemon perceived him first, and
    calling Gargantua said, Sir, come and see Absalom hanging.  Gargantua,
    being come, considered the countenance of the monk, and in what posture he
    hanged; wherefore he said to Eudemon, You were mistaken in comparing him to
    Absalom; for Absalom hung by his hair, but this shaveling monk hangeth by
    the ears.  Help me, said the monk, in the devil's name; is this a time for
    you to prate?  You seem to me to be like the decretalist preachers, who say
    that whosoever shall see his neighbour in the danger of death, ought, upon
    pain of trisulk excommunication, rather choose to admonish him to make his
    confession to a priest, and put his conscience in the state of peace, than
    otherwise to help and relieve him.

    And therefore when I shall see them fallen into a river, and ready to be
    drowned, I shall make them a fair long sermon de contemptu mundi, et fuga
    seculi; and when they are stark dead, shall then go to their aid and
    succour in fishing after them.  Be quiet, said Gymnast, and stir not, my
    minion.  I am now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom, for
    thou art a pretty little gentle monachus.  Monachus in claustro non valet
    ova duo; sed quando est extra, bene valet triginta.  I have seen above five
    hundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better countenance in his
    dangling and pendilatory swagging.  Truly, if I had so good a one, I would
    willingly hang thus all my lifetime.  What, said the monk, have you almost
    done preaching?  Help me, in the name of God, seeing you will not in the
    name of the other spirit, or, by the habit which I wear, you shall repent
    it, tempore et loco praelibatis.

    Then Gymnast alighted from his horse, and, climbing up the walnut-tree,
    lifted up the monk with one hand by the gussets of his armour under the
    armpits, and with the other undid his vizor from the stump of the broken
    branch; which done, he let him fall to the ground and himself after.  As
    soon as the monk was down, he put off all his armour, and threw away one
    piece after another about the field, and, taking to him again his staff of
    the cross, remounted up to his horse, which Eudemon had caught in his
    running away.  Then went they on merrily, riding along on the highway.

    Chapter 1.XLIII. >
    1-43-088.jpg (165K)

    How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gargantua, and
    how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth (Tirevant.), and then was taken
    prisoner by his enemies.

    Picrochole, at the relation of those who had escaped out of the broil and
    defeat wherein Tripet was untriped, grew very angry that the devils should
    have so run upon his men, and held all that night a counsel of war, at
    which Rashcalf and Touchfaucet (Hastiveau, Touquedillon.), concluded his
    power to be such that he was able to defeat all the devils of hell if they
    should come to jostle with his forces.  This Picrochole did not fully
    believe, though he doubted not much of it.  Therefore sent he under the
    command and conduct of the Count Drawforth, for discovering of the country,
    the number of sixteen hundred horsemen, all well mounted upon light horses
    for skirmish and thoroughly besprinkled with holy water; and everyone for
    their field-mark or cognizance had the sign of a star in his scarf, to
    serve at all adventures in case they should happen to encounter with
    devils, that by the virtue, as well of that Gregorian water as of the stars
    which they wore, they might make them disappear and evanish.

    In this equipage they made an excursion upon the country till they came
    near to the Vauguyon, which is the valley of Guyon, and to the spital, but
    could never find anybody to speak unto; whereupon they returned a little
    back, and took occasion to pass above the aforesaid hospital to try what
    intelligence they could come by in those parts.  In which resolution riding
    on, and by chance in a pastoral lodge or shepherd's cottage near to Coudray
    hitting upon the five pilgrims, they carried them way-bound and manacled,
    as if they had been spies, for all the exclamations, adjurations, and
    requests that they could make.  Being come down from thence towards
    Seville, they were heard by Gargantua, who said then unto those that were
    with him, Comrades and fellow-soldiers, we have here met with an encounter,
    and they are ten times in number more than we.  Shall we charge them or no?
    What a devil, said the monk, shall we do else?  Do you esteem men by their
    number rather than by their valour and prowess?  With this he cried out,
    Charge, devils, charge!  Which when the enemies heard, they thought
    certainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began all
    of them to run away as hard as they could drive, Drawforth only excepted,
    who immediately settled his lance on its rest, and therewith hit the monk
    with all his force on the very middle of his breast, but, coming against
    his horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the blow either broke
    off or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you had struck against
    an anvil with a little wax-candle.

    Then did the monk with his staff of the cross give him such a sturdy thump
    and whirret betwixt his neck and shoulders, upon the acromion bone, that he
    made him lose both sense and motion and fall down stone dead at his horse's
    feet; and, seeing the sign of the star which he wore scarfwise, he said
    unto Gargantua, These men are but priests, which is but the beginning of a
    monk; by St. John, I am a perfect monk, I will kill them to you like flies.
    Then ran he after them at a swift and full gallop till he overtook the
    rear, and felled them down like tree-leaves, striking athwart and alongst
    and every way.  Gymnast presently asked Gargantua if they should pursue
    them.  To whom Gargantua answered, By no means; for, according to right
    military discipline, you must never drive your enemy unto despair, for that
    such a strait doth multiply his force and increase his courage, which was
    before broken and cast down; neither is there any better help or outrage of
    relief for men that are amazed, out of heart, toiled, and spent, than to
    hope for no favour at all.  How many victories have been taken out of the
    hands of the victors by the vanquished, when they would not rest satisfied
    with reason, but attempt to put all to the sword, and totally to destroy
    their enemies, without leaving so much as one to carry home news of the
    defeat of his fellows.  Open, therefore, unto your enemies all the gates
    and ways, and make to them a bridge of silver rather than fail, that you
    may be rid of them.  Yea, but, said Gymnast, they have the monk.  Have they
    the monk? said Gargantua.  Upon mine honour, then, it will prove to their
    cost.  But to prevent all dangers, let us not yet retreat, but halt here
    quietly as in an ambush; for I think I do already understand the policy and
    judgment of our enemies.  They are truly more directed by chance and mere
    fortune than by good advice and counsel.  In the meanwhile, whilst these
    made a stop under the walnut-trees, the monk pursued on the chase, charging
    all he overtook, and giving quarter to none, until he met with a trooper
    who carried behind him one of the poor pilgrims, and there would have
    rifled him.  The pilgrim, in hope of relief at the sight of the monk, cried
    out, Ha, my lord prior, my good friend, my lord prior, save me, I beseech
    you, save me!  Which words being heard by those that rode in the van, they
    instantly faced about, and seeing there was nobody but the monk that made
    this great havoc and slaughter among them, they loaded him with blows as
    thick as they use to do an ass with wood.  But of all this he felt nothing,
    especially when they struck upon his frock, his skin was so hard.  Then
    they committed him to two of the marshal's men to keep, and, looking about,
    saw nobody coming against them, whereupon they thought that Gargantua and
    his party were fled.  Then was it that they rode as hard as they could
    towards the walnut-trees to meet with them, and left the monk there all
    alone, with his two foresaid men to guard him.  Gargantua heard the noise
    and neighing of the horses, and said to his men, Comrades, I hear the track
    and beating of the enemy's horse-feet, and withal perceive that some of
    them come in a troop and full body against us.  Let us rally and close
    here, then set forward in order, and by this means we shall be able to
    receive their charge to their loss and our honour.

    Chapter 1.XLIV. How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's forlorn hope
    was defeated.

    The monk, seeing them break off thus without order, conjectured that they
    were to set upon Gargantua and those that were with him, and was
    wonderfully grieved that he could not succour them.  Then considered he the
    countenance of the two keepers in whose custody he was, who would have
    willingly run after the troops to get some booty and plunder, and were
    always looking towards the valley unto which they were going.  Farther, he
    syllogized, saying, These men are but badly skilled in matters of war, for
    they have not required my parole, neither have they taken my sword from me.
    Suddenly hereafter he drew his brackmard or horseman's sword, wherewith he
    gave the keeper which held him on the right side such a sound slash that he
    cut clean through the jugulary veins and the sphagitid or transparent
    arteries of the neck, with the fore-part of the throat called the
    gargareon, even unto the two adenes, which are throat kernels; and,
    redoubling the blow, he opened the spinal marrow betwixt the second and
    third vertebrae.  There fell down that keeper stark dead to the ground.
    Then the monk, reining his horse to the left, ran upon the other, who,
    seeing his fellow dead, and the monk to have the advantage of him, cried
    with a loud voice, Ha, my lord prior, quarter; I yield, my lord prior,
    quarter; quarter, my good friend, my lord prior.  And the monk cried
    likewise, My lord posterior, my friend, my lord posterior, you shall have
    it upon your posteriorums.  Ha, said the keeper, my lord prior, my minion,
    my gentle lord prior, I pray God make you an abbot.  By the habit, said the
    monk, which I wear, I will here make you a cardinal.  What! do you use to
    pay ransoms to religious men?  You shall therefore have by-and-by a red hat
    of my giving.  And the fellow cried, Ha, my lord prior, my lord prior, my
    lord abbot that shall be, my lord cardinal, my lord all!  Ha, ha, hes, no,
    my lord prior, my good little lord the prior, I yield, render and deliver
    myself up to you.  And I deliver thee, said the monk, to all the devils in
    hell.  Then at one stroke he cut off his head, cutting his scalp upon the
    temple-bones, and lifting up in the upper part of the skull the two
    triangulary bones called sincipital, or the two bones bregmatis, together
    with the sagittal commissure or dartlike seam which distinguisheth the
    right side of the head from the left, as also a great part of the coronal
    or forehead bone, by which terrible blow likewise he cut the two meninges
    or films which enwrap the brain, and made a deep wound in the brain's two
    posterior ventricles, and the cranium or skull abode hanging upon his
    shoulders by the skin of the pericranium behind, in form of a doctor's
    bonnet, black without and red within.  Thus fell he down also to the ground
    stark dead.

    And presently the monk gave his horse the spur, and kept the way that the
    enemy held, who had met with Gargantua and his companions in the broad
    highway, and were so diminished of their number for the enormous slaughter
    that Gargantua had made with his great tree amongst them, as also Gymnast,
    Ponocrates, Eudemon, and the rest, that they began to retreat disorderly
    and in great haste, as men altogether affrighted and troubled in both sense
    and understanding, and as if they had seen the very proper species and form
    of death before their eyes; or rather, as when you see an ass with a brizze
    or gadbee under his tail, or fly that stings him, run hither and thither
    without keeping any path or way, throwing down his load to the ground,
    breaking his bridle and reins, and taking no breath nor rest, and no man
    can tell what ails him, for they see not anything touch him.  So fled these
    people destitute of wit, without knowing any cause of flying, only pursued
    by a panic terror which in their minds they had conceived.  The monk,
    perceiving that their whole intent was to betake themselves to their heels,
    alighted from his horse and got upon a big large rock which was in the way,
    and with his great brackmard sword laid such load upon those runaways, and
    with main strength fetching a compass with his arm without feigning or
    sparing, slew and overthrew so many that his sword broke in two pieces.
    Then thought he within himself that he had slain and killed sufficiently,
    and that the rest should escape to carry news.  Therefore he took up a
    battle-axe of those that lay there dead, and got upon the rock again,
    passing his time to see the enemy thus flying and to tumble himself amongst
    the dead bodies, only that he suffered none to carry pike, sword, lance,
    nor gun with him, and those who carried the pilgrims bound he made to
    alight, and gave their horses unto the said pilgrims, keeping them there
    with him under the hedge, and also Touchfaucet, who was then his prisoner.

    Chapter 1.XLV. How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good words
    that Grangousier gave them.

    This skirmish being ended, Gargantua retreated with his men, excepting the
    monk, and about the dawning of the day they came unto Grangousier, who in
    his bed was praying unto God for their safety and victory.  And seeing them
    all safe and sound, he embraced them lovingly, and asked what was become of
    the monk.  Gargantua answered him that without doubt the enemies had the
    monk.  Then have they mischief and ill luck, said Grangousier; which was
    very true.  Therefore is it a common proverb to this day, to give a man the
    monk, or, as in French, lui bailler le moine, when they would express the
    doing unto one a mischief.  Then commanded he a good breakfast to be
    provided for their refreshment.  When all was ready, they called Gargantua,
    but he was so aggrieved that the monk was not to be heard of that he would
    neither eat nor drink.  In the meanwhile the monk comes, and from the gate
    of the outer court cries out aloud, Fresh wine, fresh wine, Gymnast my
    friend!  Gymnast went out and saw that it was Friar John, who brought along
    with him five pilgrims and Touchfaucet prisoners; whereupon Gargantua
    likewise went forth to meet him, and all of them made him the best welcome
    that possibly they could, and brought him before Grangousier, who asked him
    of all his adventures.  The monk told him all, both how he was taken, how
    he rid himself of his keepers, of the slaughter he had made by the way, and
    how he had rescued the pilgrims and brought along with him Captain
    Touchfaucet.  Then did they altogether fall to banqueting most merrily.  In
    the meantime Grangousier asked the pilgrims what countrymen they were,
    whence they came, and whither they went.  Sweer-to-go in the name of the
    rest answered, My sovereign lord, I am of Saint Genou in Berry, this man is
    of Palvau, this other is of Onzay, this of Argy, this of St. Nazarand, and
    this man of Villebrenin.  We come from Saint Sebastian near Nantes, and are
    now returning, as we best may, by easy journeys.  Yea, but, said
    Grangousier, what went you to do at Saint Sebastian?  We went, said Sweer-
    to-go, to offer up unto that sanct our vows against the plague.  Ah, poor
    men! said Grangousier, do you think that the plague comes from Saint
    Sebastian?  Yes, truly, answered Sweer-to-go, our preachers tell us so
    indeed.  But is it so, said Grangousier, do the false prophets teach you
    such abuses?  Do they thus blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as to
    make them like unto the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind,—as
    Homer writeth, that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks by
    Apollo, and as the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievous
    gods.  So did a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay,
    that Saint Anthony sent the fire into men's legs, that Saint Eutropius made
    men hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish.
    But I punished him so exemplarily, though he called me heretic for it, that
    since that time no such hypocritical rogue durst set his foot within my
    territories.  And truly I wonder that your king should suffer them in their
    sermons to publish such scandalous doctrine in his dominions; for they
    deserve to be chastised with greater severity than those who, by magical
    art, or any other device, have brought the pestilence into a country.  The
    pest killeth but the bodies, but such abominable imposters empoison our
    very souls.  As he spake these words, in came the monk very resolute, and
    asked them, Whence are you, you poor wretches?  Of Saint Genou, said they.
    And how, said the monk, does the Abbot Gulligut, the good drinker,—and the
    monks, what cheer make they?  By G— body, they'll have a fling at your
    wives, and breast them to some purpose, whilst you are upon your roaming
    rant and gadding pilgrimage.  Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraid
    of mine, for he that shall see her by day will never break his neck to come
    to her in the night-time.  Yea, marry, said the monk, now you have hit it.
    Let her be as ugly as ever was Proserpina, she will once, by the Lord G—,
    be overturned, and get her skin-coat shaken, if there dwell any monks near
    to her; for a good carpenter will make use of any kind of timber.  Let me
    be peppered with the pox, if you find not all your wives with child at your
    return; for the very shadow of the steeple of an abbey is fruitful.  It is,
    said Gargantua, like the water of Nilus in Egypt, if you believe Strabo and
    Pliny, Lib. 7, cap. 3.  What virtue will there be then, said the monk, in
    their bullets of concupiscence, their habits and their bodies?

    Then, said Grangousier, go your ways, poor men, in the name of God the
    Creator, to whom I pray to guide you perpetually, and henceforward be not
    so ready to undertake these idle and unprofitable journeys.  Look to your
    families, labour every man in his vocation, instruct your children, and
    live as the good apostle St. Paul directeth you; in doing whereof, God, his
    angels and sancts, will guard and protect you, and no evil or plague at any
    time shall befall you.  Then Gargantua led them into the hall to take their
    refection; but the pilgrims did nothing but sigh, and said to Gargantua, O
    how happy is that land which hath such a man for their lord!  We have been
    more edified and instructed by the talk which he had with us, than by all
    the sermons that ever were preached in our town.  This is, said Gargantua,
    that which Plato saith, Lib. 5 de Republ., that those commonwealths are
    happy, whose rulers philosophate, and whose philosophers rule.  Then caused
    he their wallets to be filled with victuals and their bottles with wine,
    and gave unto each of them a horse to ease them upon the way, together with
    some pence to live by.

    Chapter 1.XLVI. How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner.

    Touchfaucet was presented unto Grangousier, and by him examined upon the
    enterprise and attempt of Picrochole, what it was he could pretend to, or
    aim at, by the rustling stir and tumultuary coil of this his sudden
    invasion.  Whereunto he answered, that his end and purpose was to conquer
    all the country, if he could, for the injury done to his cake-bakers.  It
    is too great an undertaking, said Grangousier; and, as the proverb is, He
    that grips too much, holds fast but little.  The time is not now as
    formerly, to conquer the kingdoms of our neighbour princes, and to build up
    our own greatness upon the loss of our nearest Christian Brother.  This
    imitation of the ancient Herculeses, Alexanders, Hannibals, Scipios,
    Caesars, and other such heroes, is quite contrary to the profession of the
    gospel of Christ, by which we are commanded to preserve, keep, rule, and
    govern every man his own country and lands, and not in a hostile manner to
    invade others; and that which heretofore the Barbars and Saracens called
    prowess and valour, we do now call robbing, thievery, and wickedness.  It
    would have been more commendable in him to have contained himself within
    the bounds of his own territories, royally governing them, than to insult
    and domineer in mine, pillaging and plundering everywhere like a most
    unmerciful enemy; for, by ruling his own with discretion, he might have
    increased his greatness, but by robbing me he cannot escape destruction.
    Go your ways in the name of God, prosecute good enterprises, show your king
    what is amiss, and never counsel him with regard unto your own particular
    profit, for the public loss will swallow up the private benefit.  As for
    your ransom, I do freely remit it to you, and will that your arms and horse
    be restored to you; so should good neighbours do, and ancient friends,
    seeing this our difference is not properly war.  As Plato, Lib. 5 de
    Repub., would not have it called war, but sedition, when the Greeks took up
    arms against one another, and that therefore, when such combustions should
    arise amongst them, his advice was to behave themselves in the managing of
    them with all discretion and modesty.  Although you call it war, it is but
    superficial; it entereth not into the closet and inmost cabinet of our
    hearts.  For neither of us hath been wronged in his honour, nor is there
    any question betwixt us in the main, but only how to redress, by the bye,
    some petty faults committed by our men,—I mean, both yours and ours,
    which, although you knew, you ought to let pass; for these quarrelsome
    persons deserve rather to be contemned than mentioned, especially seeing I
    offered them satisfaction according to the wrong.  God shall be the just
    judge of our variances, whom I beseech by death rather to take me out of
    this life, and to permit my goods to perish and be destroyed before mine
    eyes, than that by me or mine he should in any sort be wronged.  These
    words uttered, he called the monk, and before them all thus spoke unto him,
    Friar John, my good friend, it is you that took prisoner the Captain
    Touchfaucet here present?  Sir, said the monk, seeing himself is here, and
    that he is of the years of discretion, I had rather you should know it by
    his confession than by any words of mine.  Then said Touchfaucet, My
    sovereign lord it is he indeed that took me, and I do therefore most freely
    yield myself his prisoner.  Have you put him to any ransom? said
    Grangousier to the monk.  No, said the monk, of that I take no care.  How
    much would you have for having taken him?  Nothing, nothing, said the monk;
    I am not swayed by that, nor do I regard it.  Then Grangousier commanded
    that, in presence of Touchfaucet, should be delivered to the monk for
    taking him the sum of three score and two thousand saluts (in English
    money, fifteen thousand and five hundred pounds), which was done, whilst
    they made a collation or little banquet to the said Touchfaucet, of whom
    Grangousier asked if he would stay with him, or if he loved rather to
    return to his king.  Touchfaucet answered that he was content to take
    whatever course he would advise him to.  Then, said Grangousier, return
    unto your king, and God be with you.

    Then he gave him an excellent sword of a Vienne blade, with a golden
    scabbard wrought with vine-branch-like flourishes, of fair goldsmith's
    work, and a collar or neck-chain of gold, weighing seven hundred and two
    thousand marks (at eight ounces each), garnished with precious stones of
    the finest sort, esteemed at a hundred and sixty thousand ducats, and ten
    thousand crowns more, as an honourable donative, by way of present.

    After this talk Touchfaucet got to his horse, and Gargantua for his safety
    allowed him the guard of thirty men-at-arms and six score archers to attend
    him, under the conduct of Gymnast, to bring him even unto the gate of the
    rock Clermond, if there were need.  As soon as he was gone, the monk
    restored unto Grangousier the three score and two thousand saluts which he
    had received, saying, Sir, it is not as yet the time for you to give such
    gifts; stay till this war be at an end, for none can tell what accidents
    may occur, and war begun without good provision of money beforehand for
    going through with it, is but as a breathing of strength, and blast that
    will quickly pass away.  Coin is the sinews of war.  Well then, said
    Grangousier, at the end I will content you by some honest recompense, as
    also all those who shall do me good service.

    Chapter 1.XLVII. How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucet slew Rashcalf,
    and was afterwards executed by the command of Picrochole.

    About this same time those of Besse, of the Old Market, of St. James'
    Bourg, of the Draggage, of Parille, of the Rivers, of the rocks St. Pol, of
    the Vaubreton, of Pautille, of the Brehemont, of Clainbridge, of Cravant,
    of Grammont, of the town at the Badgerholes, of Huymes, of Segre, of Husse,
    of St. Lovant, of Panzoust, of the Coldraux, of Verron, of Coulaines, of
    Chose, of Varenes, of Bourgueil, of the Bouchard Island, of the Croullay,
    of Narsay, of Cande, of Montsoreau, and other bordering places, sent
    ambassadors unto Grangousier, to tell him that they were advised of the
    great wrongs which Picrochole had done him, and, in regard of their ancient
    confederacy, offered him what assistance they could afford, both in men,
    money, victuals, and ammunition, and other necessaries for war.  The money
    which by the joint agreement of them all was sent unto him, amounted to six
    score and fourteen millions, two crowns and a half of pure gold.  The
    forces wherewith they did assist him did consist in fifteen thousand
    cuirassiers, two-and-thirty thousand light horsemen, four score and nine
    thousand dragoons, and a hundred-and-forty thousand volunteer adventurers.
    These had with them eleven thousand and two hundred cannons, double
    cannons, long pieces of artillery called basilisks, and smaller sized ones
    known by the name of spirols, besides the mortar-pieces and grenadoes.  Of
    pioneers they had seven-and-forty thousand, all victualled and paid for six
    months and four days of advance.  Which offer Gargantua did not altogether
    refuse, nor wholly accept of; but, giving them hearty thanks, said that he
    would compose and order the war by such a device, that there should not be
    found great need to put so many honest men to trouble in the managing of
    it; and therefore was content at that time to give order only for bringing
    along the legions which he maintained in his ordinary garrison towns of the
    Deviniere, of Chavigny, of Gravot, and of the Quinquenais, amounting to the
    number of two thousand cuirassiers, three score and six thousand foot-
    soldiers, six-and-twenty thousand dragoons, attended by two hundred pieces
    of great ordnance, two-and-twenty thousand pioneers, and six thousand light
    horsemen, all drawn up in troops, so well befitted and accommodated with
    their commissaries, sutlers, farriers, harness-makers, and other such like
    necessary members in a military camp, so fully instructed in the art of
    warfare, so perfectly knowing and following their colours, so ready to hear
    and obey their captains, so nimble to run, so strong at their charging, so
    prudent in their adventures, and every day so well disciplined, that they
    seemed rather to be a concert of organ-pipes, or mutual concord of the
    wheels of a clock, than an infantry and cavalry, or army of soldiers.

    Touchfaucet immediately after his return presented himself before
    Picrochole, and related unto him at large all that he had done and seen,
    and at last endeavoured to persuade him with strong and forcible arguments
    to capitulate and make an agreement with Grangousier, whom he found to be
    the honestest man in the world; saying further, that it was neither right
    nor reason thus to trouble his neighbours, of whom they had never received
    anything but good.  And in regard of the main point, that they should never
    be able to go through stitch with that war, but to their great damage and
    mischief; for the forces of Picrochole were not so considerable but that
    Grangousier could easily overthrow them.

    He had not well done speaking when Rashcalf said out aloud, Unhappy is that
    prince which is by such men served, who are so easily corrupted, as I know
    Touchfaucet is.  For I see his courage so changed that he had willingly
    joined with our enemies to fight against us and betray us, if they would
    have received him; but as virtue is of all, both friends and foes, praised
    and esteemed, so is wickedness soon known and suspected, and although it
    happen the enemies to make use thereof for their profit, yet have they
    always the wicked and the traitors in abomination.

    Touchfaucet being at these words very impatient, drew out his sword, and
    therewith ran Rashcalf through the body, a little under the nipple of his
    left side, whereof he died presently, and pulling back his sword out of his
    body said boldly, So let him perish that shall a faithful servant blame.
    Picrochole incontinently grew furious, and seeing Touchfaucet's new sword
    and his scabbard so richly diapered with flourishes of most excellent
    workmanship, said, Did they give thee this weapon so feloniously therewith
    to kill before my face my so good friend Rashcalf?  Then immediately
    commanded he his guard to hew him in pieces, which was instantly done, and
    that so cruelly that the chamber was all dyed with blood.  Afterwards he
    appointed the corpse of Rashcalf to be honourably buried, and that of
    Touchfaucet to be cast over the walls into the ditch.

    The news of these excessive violences were quickly spread through all the
    army; whereupon many began to murmur against Picrochole, in so far that
    Pinchpenny said to him, My sovereign lord, I know not what the issue of
    this enterprise will be.  I see your men much dejected, and not well
    resolved in their minds, by considering that we are here very ill provided
    of victual, and that our number is already much diminished by three or four
    sallies.  Furthermore, great supplies and recruits come daily in to your
    enemies; but we so moulder away that, if we be once besieged, I do not see
    how we can escape a total destruction.  Tush, pish, said Picrochole, you
    are like the Melun eels, you cry before they come to you.  Let them come,
    let them come, if they dare.

    Chapter 1.XLVIII. How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rock Clermond, and utterly
    defeated the army of the said Picrochole.

    Gargantua had the charge of the whole army, and his father Grangousier
    stayed in his castle, who, encouraging them with good words, promised great
    rewards unto those that should do any notable service.  Having thus set
    forward, as soon as they had gained the pass at the ford of Vede, with
    boats and bridges speedily made they passed over in a trice.  Then
    considering the situation of the town, which was on a high and advantageous
    place, Gargantua thought fit to call his council, and pass that night in
    deliberation upon what was to be done.  But Gymnast said unto him, My
    sovereign lord, such is the nature and complexion of the French, that they
    are worth nothing but at the first push.  Then are they more fierce than
    devils.  But if they linger a little and be wearied with delays, they'll
    prove more faint and remiss than women.  My opinion is, therefore, that now
    presently, after your men have taken breath and some small refection, you
    give order for a resolute assault, and that we storm them instantly.  His
    advice was found very good, and for effectuating thereof he brought forth
    his army into the plain field, and placed the reserves on the skirt or
    rising of a little hill.  The monk took along with him six companies of
    foot and two hundred horsemen well armed, and with great diligence crossed
    the marsh, and valiantly got upon the top of the green hillock even unto
    the highway which leads to Loudun.  Whilst the assault was thus begun,
    Picrochole's men could not tell well what was best, to issue out and
    receive the assailants, or keep within the town and not to stir.  Himself
    in the mean time, without deliberation, sallied forth in a rage with the
    cavalry of his guard, who were forthwith received and royally entertained
    with great cannon-shot that fell upon them like hail from the high grounds
    on which the artillery was planted.  Whereupon the Gargantuists betook
    themselves unto the valleys, to give the ordnance leave to play and range
    with the larger scope.

    Those of the town defended themselves as well as they could, but their shot
    passed over us without doing us any hurt at all.  Some of Picrochole's men
    that had escaped our artillery set most fiercely upon our soldiers, but
    prevailed little; for they were all let in betwixt the files, and there
    knocked down to the ground, which their fellow-soldiers seeing, they would
    have retreated, but the monk having seized upon the pass by the which they
    were to return, they ran away and fled in all the disorder and confusion
    that could be imagined.

    Some would have pursued after them and followed the chase, but the monk
    withheld them, apprehending that in their pursuit the pursuers might lose
    their ranks, and so give occasion to the besieged to sally out of the town
    upon them.  Then staying there some space and none coming against him, he
    sent the Duke Phrontist to advise Gargantua to advance towards the hill
    upon the left hand, to hinder Picrochole's retreat at that gate; which
    Gargantua did with all expedition, and sent thither four brigades under the
    conduct of Sebast, which had no sooner reached the top of the hill, but
    they met Picrochole in the teeth, and those that were with him scattered.

    Then charged they upon them stoutly, yet were they much endamaged by those
    that were upon the walls, who galled them with all manner of shot, both
    from the great ordnance, small guns, and bows.  Which Gargantua perceiving,
    he went with a strong party to their relief, and with his artillery began
    to thunder so terribly upon that canton of the wall, and so long, that all
    the strength within the town, to maintain and fill up the breach, was drawn
    thither.  The monk seeing that quarter which he kept besieged void of men
    and competent guards, and in a manner altogether naked and abandoned, did
    most magnanimously on a sudden lead up his men towards the fort, and never
    left it till he had got up upon it, knowing that such as come to the
    reserve in a conflict bring with them always more fear and terror than
    those that deal about them with they hands in the fight.

    Nevertheless, he gave no alarm till all his soldiers had got within the
    wall, except the two hundred horsemen, whom he left without to secure his
    entry.  Then did he give a most horrible shout, so did all these who were
    with him, and immediately thereafter, without resistance, putting to the
    edge of the sword the guard that was at that gate, they opened it to the
    horsemen, with whom most furiously they altogether ran towards the east
    gate, where all the hurlyburly was, and coming close upon them in the rear
    overthrew all their forces.

    The besieged, seeing that the Gargantuists had won the town upon them, and
    that they were like to be secure in no corner of it, submitted themselves
    unto the mercy of the monk, and asked for quarter, which the monk very
    nobly granted to them, yet made them lay down their arms; then, shutting
    them up within churches, gave order to seize upon all the staves of the
    crosses, and placed men at the doors to keep them from coming forth.  Then
    opening that east gate, he issued out to succour and assist Gargantua.  But
    Picrochole, thinking it had been some relief coming to him from the town,
    adventured more forwardly than before, and was upon the giving of a most
    desperate home-charge, when Gargantua cried out, Ha, Friar John, my friend
    Friar John, you are come in a good hour.  Which unexpected accident so
    affrighted Picrochole and his men, that, giving all for lost, they betook
    themselves to their heels, and fled on all hands.  Gargantua chased them
    till they came near to Vaugaudry, killing and slaying all the way, and then
    sounded the retreat.

    Chapter 1.XLIX. How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and what
    Gargantua did after the battle.

    Picrochole thus in despair fled towards the Bouchard Island, and in the way
    to Riviere his horse stumbled and fell down, whereat he on a sudden was so
    incensed, that he with his sword without more ado killed him in his choler;
    then, not finding any that would remount him, he was about to have taken an
    ass at the mill that was thereby; but the miller's men did so baste his
    bones and so soundly bethwack him that they made him both black and blue
    with strokes; then stripping him of all his clothes, gave him a scurvy old
    canvas jacket wherewith to cover his nakedness.  Thus went along this poor
    choleric wretch, who, passing the water at Port-Huaulx, and relating his
    misadventurous disasters, was foretold by an old Lourpidon hag that his
    kingdom should be restored to him at the coming of the Cocklicranes, which
    she called Coquecigrues.  What is become of him since we cannot certainly
    tell, yet was I told that he is now a porter at Lyons, as testy and pettish
    in humour as ever he was before, and would be always with great lamentation
    inquiring at all strangers of the coming of the Cocklicranes, expecting
    assuredly, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at their coming he
    shall be re-established in his kingdom.  The first thing Gargantua did
    after his return into the town was to call the muster-roll of his men,
    which when he had done, he found that there were very few either killed or
    wounded, only some few foot of Captain Tolmere's company, and Ponocrates,
    who was shot with a musket-ball through the doublet.  Then he caused them
    all at and in their several posts and divisions to take a little
    refreshment, which was very plenteously provided for them in the best drink
    and victuals that could be had for money, and gave order to the treasurers
    and commissaries of the army to pay for and defray that repast, and that
    there should be no outrage at all nor abuse committed in the town, seeing
    it was his own.  And furthermore commanded, that immediately after the
    soldiers had done with eating and drinking for that time sufficiently and
    to their own hearts' desire, a gathering should be beaten for bringing them
    altogether, to be drawn up on the piazza before the castle, there to
    receive six months' pay completely.  All which was done.  After this, by
    his direction, were brought before him in the said place all those that
    remained of Picrochole's party, unto whom, in the presence of the princes,
    nobles, and officers of his court and army, he spoke as followeth.

    Chapter 1.L. Gargantua's speech to the vanquished.

    Our forefathers and ancestors of all times have been of this nature and
    disposition, that, upon the winning of a battle, they have chosen rather,
    for a sign and memorial of their triumphs and victories, to erect trophies
    and monuments in the hearts of the vanquished by clemency than by
    architecture in the lands which they had conquered.  For they did hold in
    greater estimation the lively remembrance of men purchased by liberality
    than the dumb inscription of arches, pillars, and pyramids, subject to the
    injury of storms and tempests, and to the envy of everyone.  You may very
    well remember of the courtesy which by them was used towards the Bretons in
    the battle of St. Aubin of Cormier and at the demolishing of Partenay.  You
    have heard, and hearing admire, their gentle comportment towards those at
    the barriers (the barbarians) of Spaniola, who had plundered, wasted, and
    ransacked the maritime borders of Olone and Thalmondois.  All this
    hemisphere of the world was filled with the praises and congratulations
    which yourselves and your fathers made, when Alpharbal, King of Canarre,
    not satisfied with his own fortunes, did most furiously invade the land of
    Onyx, and with cruel piracies molest all the Armoric Islands and confine
    regions of Britany.  Yet was he in a set naval fight justly taken and
    vanquished by my father, whom God preserve and protect.  But what?  Whereas
    other kings and emperors, yea, those who entitle themselves Catholics,
    would have dealt roughly with him, kept him a close prisoner, and put him
    to an extreme high ransom, he entreated him very courteously, lodged him
    kindly with himself in his own palace, and out of his incredible mildness
    and gentle disposition sent him back with a safe conduct, laden with gifts,
    laden with favours, laden with all offices of friendship.  What fell out
    upon it?  Being returned into his country, he called a parliament, where
    all the princes and states of his kingdom being assembled, he showed them
    the humanity which he had found in us, and therefore wished them to take
    such course by way of compensation therein as that the whole world might be
    edified by the example, as well of their honest graciousness to us as of
    our gracious honesty towards them.  The result hereof was, that it was
    voted and decreed by an unanimous consent, that they should offer up
    entirely their lands, dominions, and kingdoms, to be disposed of by us
    according to our pleasure.

    Alpharbal in his own person presently returned with nine thousand and
    thirty-eight great ships of burden, bringing with him the treasures, not
    only of his house and royal lineage, but almost of all the country besides.
    For he embarking himself, to set sail with a west-north-east wind, everyone
    in heaps did cast into the ship gold, silver, rings, jewels, spices, drugs,
    and aromatical perfumes, parrots, pelicans, monkeys, civet-cats, black-
    spotted weasels, porcupines, &c.  He was accounted no good mother's son
    that did not cast in all the rare and precious things he had.

    Being safely arrived, he came to my said father, and would have kissed his
    feet.  That action was found too submissively low, and therefore was not
    permitted, but in exchange he was most cordially embraced.  He offered his
    presents; they were not received, because they were too excessive:  he
    yielded himself voluntarily a servant and vassal, and was content his whole
    posterity should be liable to the same bondage; this was not accepted of,
    because it seemed not equitable:  he surrendered, by virtue of the decree
    of his great parliamentary council, his whole countries and kingdoms to
    him, offering the deed and conveyance, signed, sealed, and ratified by all
    those that were concerned in it; this was altogether refused, and the
    parchments cast into the fire.  In end, this free goodwill and simple
    meaning of the Canarians wrought such tenderness in my father's heart that
    he could not abstain from shedding tears, and wept most profusely; then, by
    choice words very congruously adapted, strove in what he could to diminish
    the estimation of the good offices which he had done them, saying, that any
    courtesy he had conferred upon them was not worth a rush, and what favour
    soever he had showed them he was bound to do it.  But so much the more did
    Alpharbal augment the repute thereof.  What was the issue?  Whereas for his
    ransom, in the greatest extremity of rigour and most tyrannical dealing,
    could not have been exacted above twenty times a hundred thousand crowns,
    and his eldest sons detained as hostages till that sum had been paid, they
    made themselves perpetual tributaries, and obliged to give us every year
    two millions of gold at four-and-twenty carats fine.  The first year we
    received the whole sum of two millions; the second year of their own accord
    they paid freely to us three-and-twenty hundred thousand crowns; the third
    year, six-and-twenty hundred thousand; the fourth year, three millions, and
    do so increase it always out of their own goodwill that we shall be
    constrained to forbid them to bring us any more.  This is the nature of
    gratitude and true thankfulness.  For time, which gnaws and diminisheth all
    things else, augments and increaseth benefits; because a noble action of
    liberality, done to a man of reason, doth grow continually by his generous
    thinking of it and remembering it.

    Being unwilling therefore any way to degenerate from the hereditary
    mildness and clemency of my parents, I do now forgive you, deliver you from
    all fines and imprisonments, fully release you, set you at liberty, and
    every way make you as frank and free as ever you were before.  Moreover, at
    your going out of the gate, you shall have every one of you three months'
    pay to bring you home into your houses and families, and shall have a safe
    convoy of six hundred cuirassiers and eight thousand foot under the conduct
    of Alexander, esquire of my body, that the clubmen of the country may not
    do you any injury.  God be with you!  I am sorry from my heart that
    Picrochole is not here; for I would have given him to understand that this
    war was undertaken against my will and without any hope to increase either
    my goods or renown.  But seeing he is lost, and that no man can tell where
    nor how he went away, it is my will that his kingdom remain entire to his
    son; who, because he is too young, he not being yet full five years old,
    shall be brought up and instructed by the ancient princes and learned men
    of the kingdom.  And because a realm thus desolate may easily come to ruin,
    if the covetousness and avarice of those who by their places are obliged to
    administer justice in it be not curbed and restrained, I ordain and will
    have it so, that Ponocrates be overseer and superintendent above all his
    governors, with whatever power and authority is requisite thereto, and that
    he be continually with the child until he find him able and capable to rule
    and govern by himself.

    Now I must tell you, that you are to understand how a too feeble and
    dissolute facility in pardoning evildoers giveth them occasion to commit
    wickedness afterwards more readily, upon this pernicious confidence of
    receiving favour.  I consider that Moses, the meekest man that was in his
    time upon the earth, did severely punish the mutinous and seditious people
    of Israel.  I consider likewise that Julius Caesar, who was so gracious an
    emperor that Cicero said of him that his fortune had nothing more excellent
    than that he could, and his virtue nothing better than that he would always
    save and pardon every man—he, notwithstanding all this, did in certain
    places most rigorously punish the authors of rebellion.  After the example
    of these good men, it is my will and pleasure that you deliver over unto me
    before you depart hence, first, that fine fellow Marquet, who was the prime
    cause, origin, and groundwork of this war by his vain presumption and
    overweening; secondly, his fellow cake-bakers, who were neglective in
    checking and reprehending his idle hairbrained humour in the instant time;
    and lastly, all the councillors, captains, officers, and domestics of
    Picrochole, who had been incendiaries or fomenters of the war by provoking,
    praising, or counselling him to come out of his limits thus to trouble us.

    Chapter 1.LI. How the victorious Gargantuists were recompensed after the battle.

    When Gargantua had finished his speech, the seditious men whom he required
    were delivered up unto him, except Swashbuckler, Dirt-tail, and Smalltrash,
    who ran away six hours before the battle—one of them as far as to Lainiel-
    neck at one course, another to the valley of Vire, and the third even unto
    Logroine, without looking back or taking breath by the way—and two of the
    cake-bakers who were slain in the fight.  Gargantua did them no other hurt
    but that he appointed them to pull at the presses of his printing-house
    which he had newly set up.  Then those who died there he caused to be
    honourably buried in Black-soile valley and Burn-hag field, and gave order
    that the wounded should be dressed and had care of in his great hospital or
    nosocome.  After this, considering the great prejudice done to the town and
    its inhabitants, he reimbursed their charges and repaired all the losses
    that by their confession upon oath could appear they had sustained; and,
    for their better defence and security in times coming against all sudden
    uproars and invasions, commanded a strong citadel to be built there with a
    competent garrison to maintain it.  At his departure he did very graciously
    thank all the soldiers of the brigades that had been at this overthrow, and
    sent them back to their winter-quarters in their several stations and
    garrisons; the decumane legion only excepted, whom in the field on that day
    he saw do some great exploit, and their captains also, whom he brought
    along with himself unto Grangousier.

    At the sight and coming of them, the good man was so joyful, that it is not
    possible fully to describe it.  He made them a feast the most magnificent,
    plentiful, and delicious that ever was seen since the time of the king
    Ahasuerus.  At the taking up of the table he distributed amongst them his
    whole cupboard of plate, which weighed eight hundred thousand and fourteen
    bezants (Each bezant is worth five pounds English money.) of gold, in great
    antique vessels, huge pots, large basins, big tasses, cups, goblets,
    candlesticks, comfit-boxes, and other such plate, all of pure massy gold,
    besides the precious stones, enamelling, and workmanship, which by all
    men's estimation was more worth than the matter of the gold.  Then unto
    every one of them out of his coffers caused he to be given the sum of
    twelve hundred thousand crowns ready money.  And, further, he gave to each
    of them for ever and in perpetuity, unless he should happen to decease
    without heirs, such castles and neighbouring lands of his as were most
    commodious for them.  To Ponocrates he gave the rock Clermond; to Gymnast,
    the Coudray; to Eudemon, Montpensier; Rivau, to Tolmere, to Ithibolle,
    Montsoreau; to Acamas, Cande; Varenes, to Chironacte; Gravot, to Sebast;
    Quinquenais, to Alexander; Legre, to Sophrone, and so of his other places.

    Chapter 1.LII. How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey of Theleme.

    There was left only the monk to provide for, whom Gargantua would have made
    Abbot of Seville, but he refused it.  He would have given him the Abbey of
    Bourgueil, or of Sanct Florent, which was better, or both, if it pleased
    him; but the monk gave him a very peremptory answer, that he would never
    take upon him the charge nor government of monks.  For how shall I be able,
    said he, to rule over others, that have not full power and command of
    myself?  If you think I have done you, or may hereafter do any acceptable
    service, give me leave to found an abbey after my own mind and fancy.  The
    motion pleased Gargantua very well, who thereupon offered him all the
    country of Theleme by the river of Loire till within two leagues of the
    great forest of Port-Huaulx.  The monk then requested Gargantua to
    institute his religious order contrary to all others.  First, then, said
    Gargantua, you must not build a wall about your convent, for all other
    abbeys are strongly walled and mured about.  See, said the monk, and not
    without cause (seeing wall and mur signify but one and the same thing);
    where there is mur before and mur behind, there is store of murmur, envy,
    and mutual conspiracy.  Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in the
    world whereof the custom is, if any woman come in, I mean chaste and honest
    women, they immediately sweep the ground which they have trod upon;
    therefore was it ordained, that if any man or woman entered into religious
    orders should by chance come within this new abbey, all the rooms should be
    thoroughly washed and cleansed through which they had passed.  And because
    in all other monasteries and nunneries all is compassed, limited, and
    regulated by hours, it was decreed that in this new structure there should
    be neither clock nor dial, but that according to the opportunities and
    incident occasions all their hours should be disposed of; for, said
    Gargantua, the greatest loss of time that I know is to count the hours.
    What good comes of it?  Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world
    than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and
    not by his own judgment and discretion.

    Item, Because at that time they put no women into nunneries but such as
    were either purblind, blinkards, lame, crooked, ill-favoured, misshapen,
    fools, senseless, spoiled, or corrupt; nor encloistered any men but those
    that were either sickly, subject to defluxions, ill-bred louts, simple
    sots, or peevish trouble-houses.  But to the purpose, said the monk.  A
    woman that is neither fair nor good, to what use serves she?  To make a nun
    of, said Gargantua.  Yea, said the monk, and to make shirts and smocks.
    Therefore was it ordained that into this religious order should be admitted
    no women that were not fair, well-featured, and of a sweet disposition; nor
    men that were not comely, personable, and well conditioned.

    Item, Because in the convents of women men come not but underhand, privily,
    and by stealth, it was therefore enacted that in this house there shall be
    no women in case there be not men, nor men in case there be not women.

    Item, Because both men and women that are received into religious orders
    after the expiring of their noviciate or probation year were constrained
    and forced perpetually to stay there all the days of their life, it was
    therefore ordered that all whatever, men or women, admitted within this
    abbey, should have full leave to depart with peace and contentment
    whensoever it should seem good to them so to do.

    Item, for that the religious men and women did ordinarily make three vows,
    to wit, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience, it was therefore
    constituted and appointed that in this convent they might be honourably
    married, that they might be rich, and live at liberty.  In regard of the
    legitimate time of the persons to be initiated, and years under and above
    which they were not capable of reception, the women were to be admitted
    from ten till fifteen, and the men from twelve till eighteen.

    Chapter 1.LIII. How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed.

    For the fabric and furniture of the abbey Gargantua caused to be delivered
    out in ready money seven-and-twenty hundred thousand, eight hundred and
    one-and-thirty of those golden rams of Berry which have a sheep stamped on
    the one side and a flowered cross on the other; and for every year, until
    the whole work were completed, he allotted threescore nine thousand crowns
    of the sun, and as many of the seven stars, to be charged all upon the
    receipt of the custom.  For the foundation and maintenance thereof for
    ever, he settled a perpetual fee-farm-rent of three-and-twenty hundred,
    three score and nine thousand, five hundred and fourteen rose nobles,
    exempted from all homage, fealty, service, or burden whatsoever, and
    payable every year at the gate of the abbey; and of this by letters patent
    passed a very good grant.  The architecture was in a figure hexagonal, and
    in such a fashion that in every one of the six corners there was built a
    great round tower of threescore foot in diameter, and were all of a like
    form and bigness.  Upon the north side ran along the river of Loire, on the
    bank whereof was situated the tower called Arctic.  Going towards the east,
    there was another called Calaer,—the next following Anatole,—the next
    Mesembrine,—the next Hesperia, and the last Criere.  Every tower was
    distant from other the space of three hundred and twelve paces.  The whole
    edifice was everywhere six storeys high, reckoning the cellars underground
    for one.  The second was arched after the fashion of a basket-handle; the
    rest were ceiled with pure wainscot, flourished with Flanders fretwork, in
    the form of the foot of a lamp, and covered above with fine slates, with an
    endorsement of lead, carrying the antique figures of little puppets and
    animals of all sorts, notably well suited to one another, and gilt,
    together with the gutters, which, jutting without the walls from betwixt
    the crossbars in a diagonal figure, painted with gold and azure, reached to
    the very ground, where they ended into great conduit-pipes, which carried
    all away unto the river from under the house.

    This same building was a hundred times more sumptuous and magnificent than
    ever was Bonnivet, Chambourg, or Chantilly; for there were in it nine
    thousand, three hundred and two-and-thirty chambers, every one whereof had
    a withdrawing-room, a handsome closet, a wardrobe, an oratory, and neat
    passage, leading into a great and spacious hall.  Between every tower in
    the midst of the said body of building there was a pair of winding, such as
    we now call lantern stairs, whereof the steps were part of porphyry, which
    is a dark red marble spotted with white, part of Numidian stone, which is a
    kind of yellowishly-streaked marble upon various colours, and part of
    serpentine marble, with light spots on a dark green ground, each of those
    steps being two-and-twenty foot in length and three fingers thick, and the
    just number of twelve betwixt every rest, or, as we now term it, landing-
    place.  In every resting-place were two fair antique arches where the light
    came in:  and by those they went into a cabinet, made even with and of the
    breadth of the said winding, and the reascending above the roofs of the
    house ended conically in a pavilion.  By that vise or winding they entered
    on every side into a great hall, and from the halls into the chambers.
    From the Arctic tower unto the Criere were the fair great libraries in
    Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish, respectively
    distributed in their several cantons, according to the diversity of these
    languages.  In the midst there was a wonderful scalier or winding-stair,
    the entry whereof was without the house, in a vault or arch six fathom
    broad.  It was made in such symmetry and largeness that six men-at-arms
    with their lances in their rests might together in a breast ride all up to
    the very top of all the palace.  From the tower Anatole to the Mesembrine
    were fair spacious galleries, all coloured over and painted with the
    ancient prowesses, histories, and descriptions of the world.  In the midst
    thereof there was likewise such another ascent and gate as we said there
    was on the river-side.  Upon that gate was written in great antique letters
    that which followeth.

    Chapter 1.LIV. The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme.

    Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites,
    Externally devoted apes, base snites,
    Puffed-up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns,
    Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons:
    Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets, seeming sancts,
    Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants,
    Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls,
    Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls,
    Fomenters of divisions and debates,
    Elsewhere, not here, make sale of your deceits.

      Your filthy trumperies
      Stuffed with pernicious lies
        (Not worth a bubble),
        Would do but trouble
      Our earthly paradise,
      Your filthy trumperies.

    Here enter not attorneys, barristers,
    Nor bridle-champing law-practitioners:
    Clerks, commissaries, scribes, nor pharisees,
    Wilful disturbers of the people's ease:
    Judges, destroyers, with an unjust breath,
    Of honest men, like dogs, even unto death.
    Your salary is at the gibbet-foot:
    Go drink there! for we do not here fly out
    On those excessive courses, which may draw
    A waiting on your courts by suits in law.

      Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling
      Hence are exiled, and jangling.
        Here we are very
        Frolic and merry,
      And free from all entangling,
      Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling.

    Here enter not base pinching usurers,
    Pelf-lickers, everlasting gatherers,
    Gold-graspers, coin-gripers, gulpers of mists,
    Niggish deformed sots, who, though your chests
    Vast sums of money should to you afford,
    Would ne'ertheless add more unto that hoard,
    And yet not be content,—you clunchfist dastards,
    Insatiable fiends, and Pluto's bastards,
    Greedy devourers, chichy sneakbill rogues,
    Hell-mastiffs gnaw your bones, you ravenous dogs.

      You beastly-looking fellows,
      Reason doth plainly tell us
        That we should not
        To you allot
      Room here, but at the gallows,
      You beastly-looking fellows.

    Here enter not fond makers of demurs
    In love adventures, peevish, jealous curs,
    Sad pensive dotards, raisers of garboils,
    Hags, goblins, ghosts, firebrands of household broils,
    Nor drunkards, liars, cowards, cheaters, clowns,
    Thieves, cannibals, faces o'ercast with frowns,
    Nor lazy slugs, envious, covetous,
    Nor blockish, cruel, nor too credulous,—
    Here mangy, pocky folks shall have no place,
    No ugly lusks, nor persons of disgrace.

      Grace, honour, praise, delight,
      Here sojourn day and night.
        Sound bodies lined
        With a good mind,
      Do here pursue with might
      Grace, honour, praise, delight.

    Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts,
    All noble sparks, endowed with gallant parts.
    This is the glorious place, which bravely shall
    Afford wherewith to entertain you all.
    Were you a thousand, here you shall not want
    For anything; for what you'll ask we'll grant.
    Stay here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk,
    Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful, merry, frisk,
    Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades,
    And, in a word, all worthy gentle blades.

      Blades of heroic breasts
      Shall taste here of the feasts,
        Both privily
        And civilly
      Of the celestial guests,
      Blades of heroic breasts.

    Here enter you, pure, honest, faithful, true
    Expounders of the Scriptures old and new.
    Whose glosses do not blind our reason, but
    Make it to see the clearer, and who shut
    Its passages from hatred, avarice,
    Pride, factions, covenants, and all sort of vice.
    Come, settle here a charitable faith,
    Which neighbourly affection nourisheth.
    And whose light chaseth all corrupters hence,
    Of the blest word, from the aforesaid sense.

      The holy sacred Word,
      May it always afford
        T' us all in common,
        Both man and woman,
      A spiritual shield and sword,
      The holy sacred Word.

    Here enter you all ladies of high birth,
    Delicious, stately, charming, full of mirth,
    Ingenious, lovely, miniard, proper, fair,
    Magnetic, graceful, splendid, pleasant, rare,
    Obliging, sprightly, virtuous, young, solacious,
    Kind, neat, quick, feat, bright, compt, ripe, choice, dear, precious.
    Alluring, courtly, comely, fine, complete,
    Wise, personable, ravishing, and sweet,
    Come joys enjoy.  The Lord celestial
    Hath given enough wherewith to please us all.

      Gold give us, God forgive us,
      And from all woes relieve us;
        That we the treasure
        May reap of pleasure,
      And shun whate'er is grievous,
      Gold give us, God forgive us.

    Chapter 1.LV. What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had.

    In the middle of the lower court there was a stately fountain of fair
    alabaster.  Upon the top thereof stood the three Graces, with their
    cornucopias, or horns of abundance, and did jet out the water at their
    breasts, mouth, ears, eyes, and other open passages of the body.  The
    inside of the buildings in this lower court stood upon great pillars of
    chalcedony stone and porphyry marble made archways after a goodly antique
    fashion.  Within those were spacious galleries, long and large, adorned
    with curious pictures, the horns of bucks and unicorns:  with rhinoceroses,
    water-horses called hippopotames, the teeth and tusks of elephants, and
    other things well worth the beholding.  The lodging of the ladies, for so
    we may call those gallant women, took up all from the tower Arctic unto the
    gate Mesembrine.  The men possessed the rest.  Before the said lodging of
    the ladies, that they might have their recreation, between the two first
    towers, on the outside, were placed the tiltyard, the barriers or lists for
    tournaments, the hippodrome or riding-court, the theatre or public
    playhouse, and natatory or place to swim in, with most admirable baths in
    three stages, situated above one another, well furnished with all necessary
    accommodation, and store of myrtle-water.  By the river-side was the fair
    garden of pleasure, and in the midst of that the glorious labyrinth.
    Between the two other towers were the courts for the tennis and the
    balloon.  Towards the tower Criere stood the orchard full of all fruit-
    trees, set and ranged in a quincuncial order.  At the end of that was the
    great park, abounding with all sort of venison.  Betwixt the third couple
    of towers were the butts and marks for shooting with a snapwork gun, an
    ordinary bow for common archery, or with a crossbow.  The office-houses
    were without the tower Hesperia, of one storey high.  The stables were
    beyond the offices, and before them stood the falconry, managed by ostrich-
    keepers and falconers very expert in the art, and it was yearly supplied
    and furnished by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmates, now called Muscoviters,
    with all sorts of most excellent hawks, eagles, gerfalcons, goshawks,
    sacres, lanners, falcons, sparrowhawks, marlins, and other kinds of them,
    so gentle and perfectly well manned, that, flying of themselves sometimes
    from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail to catch
    whatever they encountered.  The venery, where the beagles and hounds were
    kept, was a little farther off, drawing towards the park.

    All the halls, chambers, and closets or cabinets were richly hung with
    tapestry and hangings of divers sorts, according to the variety of the
    seasons of the year.  All the pavements and floors were covered with green
    cloth.  The beds were all embroidered.  In every back-chamber or
    withdrawing-room there was a looking-glass of pure crystal set in a frame
    of fine gold, garnished all about with pearls, and was of such greatness
    that it would represent to the full the whole lineaments and proportion of
    the person that stood before it.  At the going out of the halls which
    belong to the ladies' lodgings were the perfumers and trimmers through
    whose hands the gallants passed when they were to visit the ladies.  Those
    sweet artificers did every morning furnish the ladies' chambers with the
    spirit of roses, orange-flower-water, and angelica; and to each of them
    gave a little precious casket vapouring forth the most odoriferous
    exhalations of the choicest aromatical scents.

    Chapter 1.LVI. How the men and women of the religious order of Theleme were apparelled.

    The ladies at the foundation of this order were apparelled after their own
    pleasure and liking; but, since that of their own accord and free will they
    have reformed themselves, their accoutrement is in manner as followeth.
    They wore stockings of scarlet crimson, or ingrained purple dye, which
    reached just three inches above the knee, having a list beautified with
    exquisite embroideries and rare incisions of the cutter's art.  Their
    garters were of the colour of their bracelets, and circled the knee a
    little both over and under.  Their shoes, pumps, and slippers were either
    of red, violet, or crimson-velvet, pinked and jagged like lobster waddles.

    Next to their smock they put on the pretty kirtle or vasquin of pure silk
    camlet:  above that went the taffety or tabby farthingale, of white, red,
    tawny, grey, or of any other colour.  Above this taffety petticoat they had
    another of cloth of tissue or brocade, embroidered with fine gold and
    interlaced with needlework, or as they thought good, and according to the
    temperature and disposition of the weather had their upper coats of satin,
    damask, or velvet, and those either orange, tawny, green, ash-coloured,
    blue, yellow, bright red, crimson, or white, and so forth; or had them of
    cloth of gold, cloth of silver, or some other choice stuff, enriched with
    purl, or embroidered according to the dignity of the festival days and
    times wherein they wore them.

    Their gowns, being still correspondent to the season, were either of cloth
    of gold frizzled with a silver-raised work; of red satin, covered with gold
    purl; of tabby, or taffety, white, blue, black, tawny, &c., of silk serge,
    silk camlet, velvet, cloth of silver, silver tissue, cloth of gold, gold
    wire, figured velvet, or figured satin tinselled and overcast with golden
    threads, in divers variously purfled draughts.

    In the summer some days instead of gowns they wore light handsome mantles,
    made either of the stuff of the aforesaid attire, or like Moresco rugs, of
    violet velvet frizzled, with a raised work of gold upon silver purl, or
    with a knotted cord-work of gold embroidery, everywhere garnished with
    little Indian pearls.  They always carried a fair panache, or plume of
    feathers, of the colour of their muff, bravely adorned and tricked out with
    glistering spangles of gold.  In the winter time they had their taffety
    gowns of all colours, as above-named, and those lined with the rich
    furrings of hind-wolves, or speckled lynxes, black-spotted weasels, martlet
    skins of Calabria, sables, and other costly furs of an inestimable value.
    Their beads, rings, bracelets, collars, carcanets, and neck-chains were all
    of precious stones, such as carbuncles, rubies, baleus, diamonds,
    sapphires, emeralds, turquoises, garnets, agates, beryls, and excellent
    margarites.  Their head-dressing also varied with the season of the year,
    according to which they decked themselves.  In winter it was of the French
    fashion; in the spring, of the Spanish; in summer, of the fashion of
    Tuscany, except only upon the holy days and Sundays, at which times they
    were accoutred in the French mode, because they accounted it more
    honourable and better befitting the garb of a matronal pudicity.

    The men were apparelled after their fashion.  Their stockings were of
    tamine or of cloth serge, of white, black, scarlet, or some other ingrained
    colour.  Their breeches were of velvet, of the same colour with their
    stockings, or very near, embroidered and cut according to their fancy.
    Their doublet was of cloth of gold, of cloth of silver, of velvet, satin,
    damask, taffeties, &c., of the same colours, cut, embroidered, and suitably
    trimmed up in perfection.  The points were of silk of the same colours; the
    tags were of gold well enamelled.  Their coats and jerkins were of cloth of
    gold, cloth of silver, gold, tissue or velvet embroidered, as they thought
    fit.  Their gowns were every whit as costly as those of the ladies.  Their
    girdles were of silks, of the colour of their doublets.  Every one had a
    gallant sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and the
    scabbard of velvet, of the colour of his breeches, with a chape of gold,
    and pure goldsmith's work.  The dagger was of the same.  Their caps or
    bonnets were of black velvet, adorned with jewels and buttons of gold.
    Upon that they wore a white plume, most prettily and minion-like parted by
    so many rows of gold spangles, at the end whereof hung dangling in a more
    sparkling resplendency fair rubies, emeralds, diamonds, &c., but there was
    such a sympathy betwixt the gallants and the ladies, that every day they
    were apparelled in the same livery.  And that they might not miss, there
    were certain gentlemen appointed to tell the youths every morning what
    vestments the ladies would on that day wear:  for all was done according to
    the pleasure of the ladies.  In these so handsome clothes, and habiliments
    so rich, think not that either one or other of either sex did waste any
    time at all; for the masters of the wardrobes had all their raiments and
    apparel so ready for every morning, and the chamber-ladies so well skilled,
    that in a trice they would be dressed and completely in their clothes from
    head to foot.  And to have those accoutrements with the more conveniency,
    there was about the wood of Theleme a row of houses of the extent of half a
    league, very neat and cleanly, wherein dwelt the goldsmiths, lapidaries,
    jewellers, embroiderers, tailors, gold-drawers, velvet-weavers, tapestry-
    makers and upholsterers, who wrought there every one in his own trade, and
    all for the aforesaid jolly friars and nuns of the new stamp.  They were
    furnished with matter and stuff from the hands of the Lord Nausiclete, who
    every year brought them seven ships from the Perlas and Cannibal Islands,
    laden with ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls and precious stones.
    And if any margarites, called unions, began to grow old and lose somewhat
    of their natural whiteness and lustre, those with their art they did renew
    by tendering them to eat to some pretty cocks, as they use to give casting
    unto hawks.

    Chapter 1.LVII. How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living.

    All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to
    their own free will and pleasure.  They rose out of their beds when they
    thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to
    it and were disposed for it.  None did awake them, none did offer to
    constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had
    Gargantua established it.  In all their rule and strictest tie of their
    order there was but this one clause to be observed,

    Do What Thou Wilt;

    because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest
    companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto
    virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.
    Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought
    under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they
    formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of
    servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable
    with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is
    denied us.

    By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation to do all of
    them what they saw did please one.  If any of the gallants or ladies should
    say, Let us drink, they would all drink.  If any one of them said, Let us
    play, they all played.  If one said, Let us go a-walking into the fields
    they went all.  If it were to go a-hawking or a-hunting, the ladies mounted
    upon dainty well-paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle, carried on
    their lovely fists, miniardly begloved every one of them, either a
    sparrowhawk or a laneret or a marlin, and the young gallants carried the
    other kinds of hawks.  So nobly were they taught, that there was neither he
    nor she amongst them but could read, write, sing, play upon several musical
    instruments, speak five or six several languages, and compose in them all
    very quaintly, both in verse and prose.  Never were seen so valiant
    knights, so noble and worthy, so dexterous and skilful both on foot and
    a-horse-back, more brisk and lively, more nimble and quick, or better
    handling all manner of weapons than were there.  Never were seen ladies so
    proper and handsome, so miniard and dainty, less froward, or more ready
    with their hand and with their needle in every honest and free action
    belonging to that sex, than were there.  For this reason, when the time
    came that any man of the said abbey, either at the request of his parents,
    or for some other cause, had a mind to go out of it, he carried along with
    him one of the ladies, namely, her whom he had before that chosen for his
    mistress, and (they) were married together.  And if they had formerly in
    Theleme lived in good devotion and amity, they did continue therein and
    increase it to a greater height in their state of matrimony; and did
    entertain that mutual love till the very last day of their life, in no less
    vigour and fervency than at the very day of their wedding.  Here must not I
    forget to set down unto you a riddle which was found under the ground as
    they were laying the foundation of the abbey, engraven in a copper plate,
    and it was thus as followeth.

    Chapter 1.LVIII. A prophetical Riddle.

    Poor mortals, who wait for a happy day,
    Cheer up your hearts, and hear what I shall say:
    If it be lawful firmly to believe
    That the celestial bodies can us give
    Wisdom to judge of things that are not yet;
    Or if from heaven such wisdom we may get
    As may with confidence make us discourse
    Of years to come, their destiny and course;
    I to my hearers give to understand
    That this next winter, though it be at hand,
    Yea and before, there shall appear a race
    Of men who, loth to sit still in one place,
    Shall boldly go before all people's eyes,
    Suborning men of divers qualities
    To draw them unto covenants and sides,
    In such a manner that, whate'er betides,
    They'll move you, if you give them ear, no doubt,
    With both your friends and kindred to fall out.
    They'll make a vassal to gain-stand his lord,
    And children their own parents; in a word,
    All reverence shall then be banished,
    No true respect to other shall be had.
    They'll say that every man should have his turn,
    Both in his going forth and his return;
    And hereupon there shall arise such woes,
    Such jarrings, and confused to's and fro's,
    That never were in history such coils
    Set down as yet, such tumults and garboils.
    Then shall you many gallant men see by
    Valour stirr'd up, and youthful fervency,
    Who, trusting too much in their hopeful time,
    Live but a while, and perish in their prime.
    Neither shall any, who this course shall run,
    Leave off the race which he hath once begun,
    Till they the heavens with noise by their contention
    Have fill'd, and with their steps the earth's dimension.
    Then those shall have no less authority,
    That have no faith, than those that will not lie;
    For all shall be governed by a rude,
    Base, ignorant, and foolish multitude;
    The veriest lout of all shall be their judge,
    O horrible and dangerous deluge!
    Deluge I call it, and that for good reason,
    For this shall be omitted in no season;
    Nor shall the earth of this foul stir be free,
    Till suddenly you in great store shall see
    The waters issue out, with whose streams the
    Most moderate of all shall moistened be,
    And justly too; because they did not spare
    The flocks of beasts that innocentest are,
    But did their sinews and their bowels take,
    Not to the gods a sacrifice to make,
    But usually to serve themselves for sport:
    And now consider, I do you exhort,
    In such commotions so continual,
    What rest can take the globe terrestrial?
    Most happy then are they, that can it hold,
    And use it carefully as precious gold,
    By keeping it in gaol, whence it shall have  
    No help but him who being to it gave.
    And to increase his mournful accident,
    The sun, before it set in th' occident,
    Shall cease to dart upon it any light,
    More than in an eclipse, or in the night,—
    So that at once its favour shall be gone,
    And liberty with it be left alone.
    And yet, before it come to ruin thus,
    Its quaking shall be as impetuous
    As Aetna's was when Titan's sons lay under,
    And yield, when lost, a fearful sound like thunder.
    Inarime did not more quickly move,
    When Typheus did the vast huge hills remove,
    And for despite into the sea them threw.
      Thus shall it then be lost by ways not few,
    And changed suddenly, when those that have it
    To other men that after come shall leave it.
    Then shall it be high time to cease from this
    So long, so great, so tedious exercise;
    For the great waters told you now by me,
    Will make each think where his retreat shall be;
    And yet, before that they be clean disperst,
    You may behold in th' air, where nought was erst,
    The burning heat of a great flame to rise,
    Lick up the water, and the enterprise.
      It resteth after those things to declare,
    That those shall sit content who chosen are,
    With all good things, and with celestial man (ne,)
    And richly recompensed every man:
    The others at the last all stripp'd shall be,
    That after this great work all men may see,
    How each shall have his due.  This is their lot;
    O he is worthy praise that shrinketh not!

    No sooner was this enigmatical monument read over, but Gargantua, fetching
    a very deep sigh, said unto those that stood by, It is not now only, I
    perceive, that people called to the faith of the gospel, and convinced with
    the certainty of evangelical truths, are persecuted.  But happy is that man
    that shall not be scandalized, but shall always continue to the end in
    aiming at that mark which God by his dear Son hath set before us, without
    being distracted or diverted by his carnal affections and depraved nature.

    The monk then said, What do you think in your conscience is meant and
    signified by this riddle?  What? said Gargantua,—the progress and carrying
    on of the divine truth.  By St. Goderan, said the monk, that is not my
    exposition.  It is the style of the prophet Merlin.  Make upon it as many
    grave allegories and glosses as you will, and dote upon it you and the rest
    of the world as long as you please; for my part, I can conceive no other
    meaning in it but a description of a set at tennis in dark and obscure
    terms.  The suborners of men are the makers of matches, which are commonly
    friends.  After the two chases are made, he that was in the upper end of
    the tennis-court goeth out, and the other cometh in.  They believe the
    first that saith the ball was over or under the line.  The waters are the
    heats that the players take till they sweat again.  The cords of the
    rackets are made of the guts of sheep or goats.  The globe terrestrial is
    the tennis-ball.  After playing, when the game is done, they refresh
    themselves before a clear fire, and change their shirts; and very willingly
    they make all good cheer, but most merrily those that have gained.  And so,
    farewell!

    End book 1



    THE SECOND BOOK.



    For the Reader.

    The Reader here may be pleased to take notice that the copy of verses by
    the title of 'Rablophila', premised to the first book of this translation,
    being but a kind of mock poem, in imitation of somewhat lately published
    (as to any indifferent observer will easily appear, by the false quantities
    in the Latin, the abusive strain of the English, and extravagant
    subscription to both), and as such, by a friend of the translator's, at the
    desire of some frolic gentlemen of his acquaintance, more for a trial of
    skill than prejudicacy to any, composed in his jollity to please their
    fancies, was only ordained to be prefixed to a dozen of books, and no more,
    thereby to save the labour of transcribing so many as were requisite for
    satisfying the curiosity of a company of just that number; and that,
    therefore, the charging of the whole impression with it is merely to be
    imputed to the negligence of the pressmen, who, receiving it about the
    latter end of the night, were so eager before the next morning to afford
    complete books, that, as they began, they went on, without animadverting
    what was recommended to their discretion.  This is hoped will suffice to
    assure the ingenuous Reader that in no treatise of the translator's,
    whether original or translatitious, shall willingly be offered the meanest
    rub to the reputation of any worthy gentleman, and that, however providence
    dispose of him, no misfortune shall be able to induce his mind to any
    complacency in the disparagement of another.

    Again.

    The Pentateuch of Rabelais mentioned in the title-page of the first book of
    this translation being written originally in the French tongue (as it
    comprehendeth some of its brusquest dialects), with so much ingeniosity and
    wit, that more impressions have been sold thereof in that language than of
    any other book that hath been set forth at any time within these fifteen
    hundred years; so difficult nevertheless to be turned into any other speech
    that many prime spirits in most of the nations of Europe, since the year
    1573, which was fourscore years ago, after having attempted it, were
    constrained with no small regret to give it over as a thing impossible to
    be done, is now in its translation thus far advanced, and the remainder
    faithfully undertaken with the same hand to be rendered into English by a
    person of quality, who (though his lands be sequestered, his house
    garrisoned, his other goods sold, and himself detained a prisoner of war at
    London, for his having been at Worcester fight) hath, at the most earnest
    entreaty of some of his especial friends well acquainted with his
    inclination to the performance of conducible singularities, promised,
    besides his version of these two already published, very speedily to offer
    up unto this Isle of Britain the virginity of the translation of the other
    three most admirable books of the aforesaid author; provided that by the
    plurality of judicious and understanding men it be not declared he hath
    already proceeded too far, or that the continuation of the rigour whereby
    he is dispossessed of all his both real and personal estate, by pressing
    too hard upon him, be not an impediment thereto, and to other more eminent
    undertakings of his, as hath been oftentimes very fully mentioned by the
    said translator in several original treatises of his own penning, lately by
    him so numerously dispersed that there is scarce any, who being skilful in
    the English idiom, or curious of any new ingenious invention, hath not
    either read them or heard of them.


    Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais.

    If profit mixed with pleasure may suffice
    T' extol an author's worth above the skies,
    Thou certainly for both must praised be:
    I know it; for thy judgment hath in the
    Contexture of this book set down such high
    Contentments, mingled with utility,
    That (as I think) I see Democritus
    Laughing at men as things ridiculous.
        Insist in thy design; for, though we prove
        Ungrate on earth, thy merit is above.


    The Author's Prologue.

    Most illustrious and thrice valorous champions, gentlemen and others, who
    willingly apply your minds to the entertainment of pretty conceits and
    honest harmless knacks of wit; you have not long ago seen, read, and
    understood the great and inestimable Chronicle of the huge and mighty giant
    Gargantua, and, like upright faithfullists, have firmly believed all to be
    true that is contained in them, and have very often passed your time with
    them amongst honourable ladies and gentlewomen, telling them fair long
    stories, when you were out of all other talk, for which you are worthy of
    great praise and sempiternal memory.  And I do heartily wish that every man
    would lay aside his own business, meddle no more with his profession nor
    trade, and throw all affairs concerning himself behind his back, to attend
    this wholly, without distracting or troubling his mind with anything else,
    until he have learned them without book; that if by chance the art of
    printing should cease, or in case that in time to come all books should
    perish, every man might truly teach them unto his children, and deliver
    them over to his successors and survivors from hand to hand as a religious
    cabal; for there is in it more profit than a rabble of great pocky
    loggerheads are able to discern, who surely understand far less in these
    little merriments than the fool Raclet did in the Institutions of
    Justinian.

    I have known great and mighty lords, and of those not a few, who, going
    a-deer-hunting, or a-hawking after wild ducks, when the chase had not
    encountered with the blinks that were cast in her way to retard her course,
    or that the hawk did but plain and smoothly fly without moving her wings,
    perceiving the prey by force of flight to have gained bounds of her, have
    been much chafed and vexed, as you understand well enough; but the comfort
    unto which they had refuge, and that they might not take cold, was to
    relate the inestimable deeds of the said Gargantua.  There are others in
    the world—these are no flimflam stories, nor tales of a tub—who, being
    much troubled with the toothache, after they had spent their goods upon
    physicians without receiving at all any ease of their pain, have found no
    more ready remedy than to put the said Chronicles betwixt two pieces of
    linen cloth made somewhat hot, and so apply them to the place that
    smarteth, sinapizing them with a little powder of projection, otherwise
    called doribus.

    But what shall I say of those poor men that are plagued with the pox and
    the gout?  O how often have we seen them, even immediately after they were
    anointed and thoroughly greased, till their faces did glister like the
    keyhole of a powdering tub, their teeth dance like the jacks of a pair of
    little organs or virginals when they are played upon, and that they foamed
    from their very throats like a boar which the mongrel mastiff-hounds have
    driven in and overthrown amongst the toils,—what did they then?  All their
    consolation was to have some page of the said jolly book read unto them.
    And we have seen those who have given themselves to a hundred puncheons of
    old devils, in case that they did not feel a manifest ease and assuagement
    of pain at the hearing of the said book read, even when they were kept in a
    purgatory of torment; no more nor less than women in travail use to find
    their sorrow abated when the life of St. Margaret is read unto them.  Is
    this nothing?  Find me a book in any language, in any faculty or science
    whatsoever, that hath such virtues, properties, and prerogatives, and I
    will be content to pay you a quart of tripes.  No, my masters, no; it is
    peerless, incomparable, and not to be matched; and this am I resolved for
    ever to maintain even unto the fire exclusive.  And those that will
    pertinaciously hold the contrary opinion, let them be accounted abusers,
    predestinators, impostors, and seducers of the people.  It is very true
    that there are found in some gallant and stately books, worthy of high
    estimation, certain occult and hid properties; in the number of which are
    reckoned Whippot, Orlando Furioso, Robert the Devil, Fierabras, William
    without Fear, Huon of Bordeaux, Monteville, and Matabrune: but they are not
    comparable to that which we speak of, and the world hath well known by
    infallible experience the great emolument and utility which it hath
    received by this Gargantuine Chronicle, for the printers have sold more of
    them in two months' time than there will be bought of Bibles in nine years.

    I therefore, your humble slave, being very willing to increase your solace
    and recreation yet a little more, do offer you for a present another book
    of the same stamp, only that it is a little more reasonable and worthy of
    credit than the other was.  For think not, unless you wilfully will err
    against your knowledge, that I speak of it as the Jews do of the Law.  I
    was not born under such a planet, neither did it ever befall me to lie, or
    affirm a thing for true that was not.  I speak of it like a lusty frolic
    onocrotary (Onocratal is a bird not much unlike a swan, which sings like an
    ass's braying.), I should say crotenotary (Crotenotaire or notaire crotte,
    croquenotaire or notaire croque are but allusions in derision of
    protonotaire, which signifieth a pregnotary.) of the martyrized lovers, and
    croquenotary of love.  Quod vidimus, testamur.  It is of the horrible and
    dreadful feats and prowesses of Pantagruel, whose menial servant I have
    been ever since I was a page, till this hour that by his leave I am
    permitted to visit my cow-country, and to know if any of my kindred there
    be alive.

    And therefore, to make an end of this Prologue, even as I give myself to a
    hundred panniersful of fair devils, body and soul, tripes and guts, in case
    that I lie so much as one single word in this whole history; after the like
    manner, St. Anthony's fire burn you, Mahoom's disease whirl you, the
    squinance with a stitch in your side and the wolf in your stomach truss
    you, the bloody flux seize upon you, the cursed sharp inflammations of
    wild-fire, as slender and thin as cow's hair strengthened with quicksilver,
    enter into your fundament, and, like those of Sodom and Gomorrah, may you
    fall into sulphur, fire, and bottomless pits, in case you do not firmly
    believe all that I shall relate unto you in this present Chronicle.


    THE SECOND BOOK.

    Chapter 2.I.

    Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel.

    It will not be an idle nor unprofitable thing, seeing we are at leisure, to
    put you in mind of the fountain and original source whence is derived unto
    us the good Pantagruel.  For I see that all good historiographers have thus
    handled their chronicles, not only the Arabians, Barbarians, and Latins,
    but also the gentle Greeks, who were eternal drinkers.  You must therefore
    remark that at the beginning of the world—I speak of a long time; it is
    above forty quarantains, or forty times forty nights, according to the
    supputation of the ancient Druids—a little after that Abel was killed by
    his brother Cain, the earth, imbrued with the blood of the just, was one
    year so exceeding fertile in all those fruits which it usually produceth to
    us, and especially in medlars, that ever since throughout all ages it hath
    been called the year of the great medlars; for three of them did fill a
    bushel.  In it the kalends were found by the Grecian almanacks.  There was
    that year nothing of the month of March in the time of Lent, and the middle
    of August was in May.  In the month of October, as I take it, or at least
    September, that I may not err, for I will carefully take heed of that, was
    the week so famous in the annals, which they call the week of the three
    Thursdays; for it had three of them by means of their irregular leap-years,
    called Bissextiles, occasioned by the sun's having tripped and stumbled a
    little towards the left hand, like a debtor afraid of sergeants, coming
    right upon him to arrest him:  and the moon varied from her course above
    five fathom, and there was manifestly seen the motion of trepidation in the
    firmament of the fixed stars, called Aplanes, so that the middle Pleiade,
    leaving her fellows, declined towards the equinoctial, and the star named
    Spica left the constellation of the Virgin to withdraw herself towards the
    Balance, known by the name of Libra, which are cases very terrible, and
    matters so hard and difficult that astrologians cannot set their teeth in
    them; and indeed their teeth had been pretty long if they could have
    reached thither.

    However, account you it for a truth that everybody then did most heartily
    eat of these medlars, for they were fair to the eye and in taste delicious.
    But even as Noah, that holy man, to whom we are so much beholding, bound,
    and obliged, for that he planted to us the vine, from whence we have that
    nectarian, delicious, precious, heavenly, joyful, and deific liquor which
    they call the piot or tiplage, was deceived in the drinking of it, for he
    was ignorant of the great virtue and power thereof; so likewise the men and
    women of that time did delight much in the eating of that fair great fruit,
    but divers and very different accidents did ensue thereupon; for there fell
    upon them all in their bodies a most terrible swelling, but not upon all in
    the same place, for some were swollen in the belly, and their belly
    strouted out big like a great tun, of whom it is written, Ventrem
    omnipotentem, who were all very honest men, and merry blades.  And of this
    race came St. Fatgulch and Shrove Tuesday (Pansart, Mardigras.).  Others
    did swell at the shoulders, who in that place were so crump and knobby that
    they were therefore called Montifers, which is as much to say as Hill-
    carriers, of whom you see some yet in the world, of divers sexes and
    degrees.  Of this race came Aesop, some of whose excellent words and deeds
    you have in writing.  Some other puffs did swell in length by the member
    which they call the labourer of nature, in such sort that it grew
    marvellous long, fat, great, lusty, stirring, and crest-risen, in the
    antique fashion, so that they made use of it as of a girdle, winding it
    five or six times about their waist:  but if it happened the foresaid
    member to be in good case, spooming with a full sail bunt fair before the
    wind, then to have seen those strouting champions, you would have taken
    them for men that had their lances settled on their rest to run at the ring
    or tilting whintam (quintain).  Of these, believe me, the race is utterly
    lost and quite extinct, as the women say; for they do lament continually
    that there are none extant now of those great, &c.  You know the rest of
    the song.  Others did grow in matter of ballocks so enormously that three
    of them would well fill a sack able to contain five quarters of wheat.
    From them are descended the ballocks of Lorraine, which never dwell in
    codpieces, but fall down to the bottom of the breeches.  Others grew in the
    legs, and to see them you would have said they had been cranes, or the
    reddish-long-billed-storklike-scrank-legged sea-fowls called flamans, or
    else men walking upon stilts or scatches.  The little grammar-school boys,
    known by the name of Grimos, called those leg-grown slangams Jambus, in
    allusion to the French word jambe, which signifieth a leg.  In others,
    their nose did grow so, that it seemed to be the beak of a limbeck, in
    every part thereof most variously diapered with the twinkling sparkles of
    crimson blisters budding forth, and purpled with pimples all enamelled with
    thickset wheals of a sanguine colour, bordered with gules; and such have
    you seen the Canon or Prebend Panzoult, and Woodenfoot, the physician of
    Angiers.  Of which race there were few that looked the ptisane, but all of
    them were perfect lovers of the pure Septembral juice.  Naso and Ovid had
    their extraction from thence, and all those of whom it is written, Ne
    reminiscaris.  Others grew in ears, which they had so big that out of one
    would have been stuff enough got to make a doublet, a pair of breeches, and
    a jacket, whilst with the other they might have covered themselves as with
    a Spanish cloak:  and they say that in Bourbonnois this race remaineth yet.
    Others grew in length of body, and of those came the Giants, and of them
    Pantagruel.

    And the first was Chalbroth,
    Who begat Sarabroth,
    Who begat Faribroth,
    Who begat Hurtali, that was a brave eater of pottage, and reigned
      in the time of the flood;
    Who begat Nembroth,
    Who begat Atlas, that with his shoulders kept the sky from falling;
    Who begat Goliah,
    Who begat Erix, that invented the hocus pocus plays of legerdemain;
    Who begat Titius,
    Who begat Eryon,
    Who begat Polyphemus,
    Who begat Cacus,
    Who begat Etion, the first man that ever had the pox, for not drinking
      fresh in summer, as Bartachin witnesseth;
    Who begat Enceladus,
    Who begat Ceus,
    Who begat Tiphaeus,
    Who begat Alaeus,
    Who begat Othus,
    Who begat Aegeon,
    Who begat Briareus, that had a hundred hands;
    Who begat Porphyrio,
    Who begat Adamastor,
    Who begat Anteus,
    Who begat Agatho,
    Who begat Porus, against whom fought Alexander the Great;
    Who begat Aranthas,
    Who begat Gabbara, that was the first inventor of the drinking of
      healths;
    Who begat Goliah of Secondille,
    Who begat Offot, that was terribly well nosed for drinking at the
      barrel-head;
    Who begat Artachaeus,
    Who begat Oromedon,
    Who begat Gemmagog, the first inventor of Poulan shoes, which are
      open on the foot and tied over the instep with a lachet;
    Who begat Sisyphus,
    Who begat the Titans, of whom Hercules was born;
    Who begat Enay, the most skilful man that ever was in matter of
      taking the little worms (called cirons) out of the hands;
    Who begat Fierabras, that was vanquished by Oliver, peer of France
      and Roland's comrade;
    Who begat Morgan, the first in the world that played at dice with
      spectacles;
    Who begat Fracassus, of whom Merlin Coccaius hath written, and of
      him was born Ferragus,
    Who begat Hapmouche, the first that ever invented the drying of
      neat's tongues in the chimney; for, before that, people salted
      them as they do now gammons of bacon;
    Who begat Bolivorax,
    Who begat Longis,
    Who begat Gayoffo, whose ballocks were of poplar, and his pr... of
      the service or sorb-apple-tree;
    Who begat Maschefain,
    Who begat Bruslefer,
    Who begat Angoulevent,
    Who begat Galehaut, the inventor of flagons;
    Who begat Mirelangaut,
    Who begat Gallaffre,
    Who begat Falourdin,
    Who begat Roboast,
    Who begat Sortibrant of Conimbres,
    Who begat Brushant of Mommiere,
    Who begat Bruyer that was overcome by Ogier the Dane, peer of
      France;
    Who begat Mabrun,
    Who begat Foutasnon,
    Who begat Haquelebac,
    Who begat Vitdegrain,
    Who begat Grangousier,
    Who begat Gargantua,
    Who begat the noble Pantagruel, my master.

    I know that, reading this passage, you will make a doubt within yourselves,
    and that grounded upon very good reason, which is this—how it is possible
    that this relation can be true, seeing at the time of the flood all the
    world was destroyed, except Noah and seven persons more with him in the
    ark, into whose number Hurtali is not admitted.  Doubtless the demand is
    well made and very apparent, but the answer shall satisfy you, or my wit is
    not rightly caulked.  And because I was not at that time to tell you
    anything of my own fancy, I will bring unto you the authority of the
    Massorets, good honest fellows, true ballockeering blades and exact
    Hebraical bagpipers, who affirm that verily the said Hurtali was not within
    the ark of Noah, neither could he get in, for he was too big, but he sat
    astride upon it, with one leg on the one side and another on the other, as
    little children use to do upon their wooden horses; or as the great bull of
    Berne, which was killed at Marinian, did ride for his hackney the great
    murdering piece called the canon-pevier, a pretty beast of a fair and
    pleasant amble without all question.

    In that posture, he, after God, saved the said ark from danger, for with
    his legs he gave it the brangle that was needful, and with his foot turned
    it whither he pleased, as a ship answereth her rudder.  Those that were
    within sent him up victuals in abundance by a chimney, as people very
    thankfully acknowledging the good that he did them.  And sometimes they did
    talk together as Icaromenippus did to Jupiter, according to the report of
    Lucian.  Have you understood all this well?  Drink then one good draught
    without water, for if you believe it not,—no truly do I not, quoth she.

    Chapter 2.II. Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel.

    Gargantua at the age of four hundred fourscore forty and four years begat
    his son Pantagruel, upon his wife named Badebec, daughter to the king of
    the Amaurots in Utopia, who died in childbirth; for he was so wonderfully
    great and lumpish that he could not possibly come forth into the light of
    the world without thus suffocating his mother.  But that we may fully
    understand the cause and reason of the name of Pantagruel which at his
    baptism was given him, you are to remark that in that year there was so
    great drought over all the country of Africa that there passed thirty and
    six months, three weeks, four days, thirteen hours and a little more
    without rain, but with a heat so vehement that the whole earth was parched
    and withered by it.  Neither was it more scorched and dried up with heat in
    the days of Elijah than it was at that time; for there was not a tree to be
    seen that had either leaf or bloom upon it.  The grass was without verdure
    or greenness, the rivers were drained, the fountains dried up, the poor
    fishes, abandoned and forsaken by their proper element, wandering and
    crying upon the ground most horribly.  The birds did fall down from the air
    for want of moisture and dew wherewith to refresh them.  The wolves, foxes,
    harts, wild boars, fallow deer, hares, coneys, weasels, brocks, badgers,
    and other such beasts, were found dead in the fields with their mouths
    open.  In respect of men, there was the pity, you should have seen them lay
    out their tongues like hares that have been run six hours.  Many did throw
    themselves into the wells.  Others entered within a cow's belly to be in
    the shade; those Homer calls Alibants.  All the country was idle, and could
    do no virtue.  It was a most lamentable case to have seen the labour of
    mortals in defending themselves from the vehemency of this horrific
    drought; for they had work enough to do to save the holy water in the
    churches from being wasted; but there was such order taken by the counsel
    of my lords the cardinals and of our holy Father, that none did dare to
    take above one lick.  Yet when anyone came into the church, you should have
    seen above twenty poor thirsty fellows hang upon him that was the
    distributor of the water, and that with a wide open throat, gaping for some
    little drop, like the rich glutton in Luke, that might fall by, lest
    anything should be lost.  O how happy was he in that year who had a cool
    cellar under ground, well plenished with fresh wine!

    The philosopher reports, in moving the question, Wherefore it is that the
    sea-water is salt, that at the time when Phoebus gave the government of his
    resplendent chariot to his son Phaeton, the said Phaeton, unskilful in the
    art, and not knowing how to keep the ecliptic line betwixt the two tropics
    of the latitude of the sun's course, strayed out of his way, and came so
    near the earth that he dried up all the countries that were under it,
    burning a great part of the heavens which the philosophers call Via lactea,
    and the huffsnuffs St. James's way; although the most coped, lofty, and
    high-crested poets affirm that to be the place where Juno's milk fell when
    she gave suck to Hercules.  The earth at that time was so excessively
    heated that it fell into an enormous sweat, yea, such a one as made it
    sweat out the sea, which is therefore salt, because all sweat is salt; and
    this you cannot but confess to be true if you will taste of your own, or of
    those that have the pox, when they are put into sweating, it is all one to
    me.

    Just such another case fell out this same year:  for on a certain Friday,
    when the whole people were bent upon their devotions, and had made goodly
    processions, with store of litanies, and fair preachings, and beseechings
    of God Almighty to look down with his eye of mercy upon their miserable and
    disconsolate condition, there was even then visibly seen issue out of the
    ground great drops of water, such as fall from a puff-bagged man in a top
    sweat, and the poor hoidens began to rejoice as if it had been a thing very
    profitable unto them; for some said that there was not one drop of moisture
    in the air whence they might have any rain, and that the earth did supply
    the default of that.  Other learned men said that it was a shower of the
    antipodes, as Seneca saith in his fourth book Quaestionum naturalium,
    speaking of the source and spring of Nilus.  But they were deceived, for,
    the procession being ended, when everyone went about to gather of this dew,
    and to drink of it with full bowls, they found that it was nothing but
    pickle and the very brine of salt, more brackish in taste than the saltest
    water of the sea.  And because in that very day Pantagruel was born, his
    father gave him that name; for Panta in Greek is as much to say as all, and
    Gruel in the Hagarene language doth signify thirsty, inferring hereby that
    at his birth the whole world was a-dry and thirsty, as likewise foreseeing
    that he would be some day supreme lord and sovereign of the thirsty
    Ethrappels, which was shown to him at that very same hour by a more evident
    sign.  For when his mother Badebec was in the bringing of him forth, and
    that the midwives did wait to receive him, there came first out of her
    belly three score and eight tregeneers, that is, salt-sellers, every one of
    them leading in a halter a mule heavy laden with salt; after whom issued
    forth nine dromedaries, with great loads of gammons of bacon and dried
    neat's tongues on their backs.  Then followed seven camels loaded with
    links and chitterlings, hogs' puddings, and sausages.  After them came out
    five great wains, full of leeks, garlic, onions, and chibots, drawn with
    five-and-thirty strong cart-horses, which was six for every one, besides
    the thiller.  At the sight hereof the said midwives were much amazed, yet
    some of them said, Lo, here is good provision, and indeed we need it; for
    we drink but lazily, as if our tongues walked on crutches, and not lustily
    like Lansman Dutches.  Truly this is a good sign; there is nothing here but
    what is fit for us; these are the spurs of wine, that set it a-going.  As
    they were tattling thus together after their own manner of chat, behold!
    out comes Pantagruel all hairy like a bear, whereupon one of them, inspired
    with a prophetical spirit, said, This will be a terrible fellow; he is born
    with all his hair; he is undoubtedly to do wonderful things, and if he live
    he shall have age.

    Chapter 2.III. Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wife
    Badebec.

    When Pantagruel was born, there was none more astonished and perplexed than
    was his father Gargantua; for of the one side seeing his wife Badebec dead,
    and on the other side his son Pantagruel born, so fair and so great, he
    knew not what to say nor what to do.  And the doubt that troubled his brain
    was to know whether he should cry for the death of his wife or laugh for
    the joy of his son.  He was hinc inde choked with sophistical arguments,
    for he framed them very well in modo et figura, but he could not resolve
    them, remaining pestered and entangled by this means, like a mouse caught
    in a trap or kite snared in a gin.  Shall I weep? said he.  Yes, for why?
    My so good wife is dead, who was the most this, the most that, that ever
    was in the world.  Never shall I see her, never shall I recover such
    another; it is unto me an inestimable loss!  O my good God, what had I done
    that thou shouldest thus punish me?  Why didst thou not take me away before
    her, seeing for me to live without her is but to languish?  Ah, Badebec,
    Badebec, my minion, my dear heart, my sugar, my sweeting, my honey, my
    little c— (yet it had in circumference full six acres, three rods, five
    poles, four yards, two foot, one inch and a half of good woodland measure),
    my tender peggy, my codpiece darling, my bob and hit, my slipshoe-lovey,
    never shall I see thee!  Ah, poor Pantagruel, thou hast lost thy good
    mother, thy sweet nurse, thy well-beloved lady!  O false death, how
    injurious and despiteful hast thou been to me!  How malicious and
    outrageous have I found thee in taking her from me, my well-beloved wife,
    to whom immortality did of right belong!

    With these words he did cry like a cow, but on a sudden fell a-laughing
    like a calf, when Pantagruel came into his mind.  Ha, my little son, said
    he, my childilolly, fedlifondy, dandlichucky, my ballocky, my pretty rogue!
    O how jolly thou art, and how much am I bound to my gracious God, that hath
    been pleased to bestow on me a son so fair, so spriteful, so lively, so
    smiling, so pleasant, and so gentle!  Ho, ho, ho, ho, how glad I am!  Let
    us drink, ho, and put away melancholy!  Bring of the best, rinse the
    glasses, lay the cloth, drive out these dogs, blow this fire, light
    candles, shut that door there, cut this bread in sippets for brewis, send
    away these poor folks in giving them what they ask, hold my gown.  I will
    strip myself into my doublet (en cuerpo), to make the gossips merry, and
    keep them company.

    As he spake this, he heard the litanies and the mementos of the priests
    that carried his wife to be buried, upon which he left the good purpose he
    was in, and was suddenly ravished another way, saying, Lord God! must I
    again contrist myself?  This grieves me.  I am no longer young, I grow old,
    the weather is dangerous; I may perhaps take an ague, then shall I be
    foiled, if not quite undone.  By the faith of a gentleman, it were better
    to cry less, and drink more.  My wife is dead, well, by G—! (da jurandi) I
    shall not raise her again by my crying:  she is well, she is in paradise at
    least, if she be no higher:  she prayeth to God for us, she is happy, she
    is above the sense of our miseries, nor can our calamities reach her.  What
    though she be dead, must not we also die?  The same debt which she hath
    paid hangs over our heads; nature will require it of us, and we must all of
    us some day taste of the same sauce.  Let her pass then, and the Lord
    preserve the survivors; for I must now cast about how to get another wife.
    But I will tell you what you shall do, said he to the midwives, in France
    called wise women (where be they, good folks?  I cannot see them):  Go you
    to my wife's interment, and I will the while rock my son; for I find myself
    somewhat altered and distempered, and should otherwise be in danger of
    falling sick; but drink one good draught first, you will be the better for
    it.  And believe me, upon mine honour, they at his request went to her
    burial and funeral obsequies.  In the meanwhile, poor Gargantua staying at
    home, and willing to have somewhat in remembrance of her to be engraven
    upon her tomb, made this epitaph in the manner as followeth.

      Dead is the noble Badebec,
      Who had a face like a rebeck;
      A Spanish body, and a belly
      Of Switzerland; she died, I tell ye,
      In childbirth.  Pray to God, that her
      He pardon wherein she did err.
      Here lies her body, which did live
      Free from all vice, as I believe,
        And did decease at my bedside,
        The year and day in which she died.

    Chapter 2.IV. Of the infancy of Pantagruel.

    I find by the ancient historiographers and poets that divers have been born
    in this world after very strange manners, which would be too long to
    repeat; read therefore the seventh chapter of Pliny, if you have so much
    leisure.  Yet have you never heard of any so wonderful as that of
    Pantagruel; for it is a very difficult matter to believe, how in the little
    time he was in his mother's belly he grew both in body and strength.  That
    which Hercules did was nothing, when in his cradle he slew two serpents,
    for those serpents were but little and weak, but Pantagruel, being yet in
    the cradle, did far more admirable things, and more to be amazed at.  I
    pass by here the relation of how at every one of his meals he supped up the
    milk of four thousand and six hundred cows, and how, to make him a skillet
    to boil his milk in, there were set a-work all the braziers of Somure in
    Anjou, of Villedieu in Normandy, and of Bramont in Lorraine.  And they
    served in this whitepot-meat to him in a huge great bell, which is yet to
    be seen in the city of Bourges in Berry, near the palace, but his teeth
    were already so well grown, and so strengthened with vigour, that of the
    said bell he bit off a great morsel, as very plainly doth appear till this
    hour.

    One day in the morning, when they would have made him suck one of his cows
    —for he never had any other nurse, as the history tells us—he got one of
    his arms loose from the swaddling bands wherewith he was kept fast in the
    cradle, laid hold on the said cow under the left foreham, and grasping her
    to him ate up her udder and half of her paunch, with the liver and the
    kidneys, and had devoured all up if she had not cried out most horribly, as
    if the wolves had held her by the legs, at which noise company came in and
    took away the said cow from Pantagruel.  Yet could they not so well do it
    but that the quarter whereby he caught her was left in his hand, of which
    quarter he gulped up the flesh in a trice, even with as much ease as you
    would eat a sausage, and that so greedily with desire of more, that, when
    they would have taken away the bone from him, he swallowed it down whole,
    as a cormorant would do a little fish; and afterwards began fumblingly to
    say, Good, good, good—for he could not yet speak plain—giving them to
    understand thereby that he had found it very good, and that he did lack but
    so much more.  Which when they saw that attended him, they bound him with
    great cable-ropes, like those that are made at Tain for the carriage of
    salt to Lyons, or such as those are whereby the great French ship rides at
    anchor in the road of Newhaven in Normandy.  But, on a certain time, a
    great bear, which his father had bred, got loose, came towards him, began
    to lick his face, for his nurses had not thoroughly wiped his chaps, at
    which unexpected approach being on a sudden offended, he as lightly rid
    himself of those great cables as Samson did of the hawser ropes wherewith
    the Philistines had tied him, and, by your leave, takes me up my lord the
    bear, and tears him to you in pieces like a pullet, which served him for a
    gorgeful or good warm bit for that meal.

    Whereupon Gargantua, fearing lest the child should hurt himself, caused
    four great chains of iron to be made to bind him, and so many strong wooden
    arches unto his cradle, most firmly stocked and morticed in huge frames.
    Of those chains you have one at Rochelle, which they draw up at night
    betwixt the two great towers of the haven.  Another is at Lyons,—a third
    at Angiers,—and the fourth was carried away by the devils to bind Lucifer,
    who broke his chains in those days by reason of a colic that did
    extraordinarily torment him, taken with eating a sergeant's soul fried for
    his breakfast.  And therefore you may believe that which Nicholas de Lyra
    saith upon that place of the Psalter where it is written, Et Og Regem
    Basan, that the said Og, being yet little, was so strong and robustious,
    that they were fain to bind him with chains of iron in his cradle.  Thus
    continued Pantagruel for a while very calm and quiet, for he was not able
    so easily to break those chains, especially having no room in the cradle to
    give a swing with his arms.  But see what happened once upon a great
    holiday that his father Gargantua made a sumptuous banquet to all the
    princes of his court.  I am apt to believe that the menial officers of the
    house were so embusied in waiting each on his proper service at the feast,
    that nobody took care of poor Pantagruel, who was left a reculorum,
    behindhand, all alone, and as forsaken.  What did he?  Hark what he did,
    good people.  He strove and essayed to break the chains of the cradle with
    his arms, but could not, for they were too strong for him.  Then did he
    keep with his feet such a stamping stir, and so long, that at last he beat
    out the lower end of his cradle, which notwithstanding was made of a great
    post five foot in square; and as soon as he had gotten out his feet, he
    slid down as well as he could till he had got his soles to the ground, and
    then with a mighty force he rose up, carrying his cradle upon his back,
    bound to him like a tortoise that crawls up against a wall; and to have
    seen him, you would have thought it had been a great carrick of five
    hundred tons upon one end.  In this manner he entered into the great hall
    where they were banqueting, and that very boldly, which did much affright
    the company; yet, because his arms were tied in, he could not reach
    anything to eat, but with great pain stooped now and then a little to take
    with the whole flat of his tongue some lick, good bit, or morsel.  Which
    when his father saw, he knew well enough that they had left him without
    giving him anything to eat, and therefore commanded that he should be
    loosed from the said chains, by the counsel of the princes and lords there
    present.  Besides that also the physicians of Gargantua said that, if they
    did thus keep him in the cradle, he would be all his lifetime subject to
    the stone.  When he was unchained, they made him to sit down, where, after
    he had fed very well, he took his cradle and broke it into more than five
    hundred thousand pieces with one blow of his fist that he struck in the
    midst of it, swearing that he would never come into it again.

    Chapter 2.V. Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age.

    Thus grew Pantagruel from day to day, and to everyone's eye waxed more and
    more in all his dimensions, which made his father to rejoice by a natural
    affection.  Therefore caused he to be made for him, whilst he was yet
    little, a pretty crossbow wherewith to shoot at small birds, which now they
    call the great crossbow at Chantelle.  Then he sent him to the school to
    learn, and to spend his youth in virtue.  In the prosecution of which
    design he came first to Poictiers, where, as he studied and profited very
    much, he saw that the scholars were oftentimes at leisure and knew not how
    to bestow their time, which moved him to take such compassion on them, that
    one day he took from a long ledge of rocks, called there Passelourdin, a
    huge great stone, of about twelve fathom square and fourteen handfuls
    thick, and with great ease set it upon four pillars in the midst of a
    field, to no other end but that the said scholars, when they had nothing
    else to do, might pass their time in getting up on that stone, and feast it
    with store of gammons, pasties, and flagons, and carve their names upon it
    with a knife, in token of which deed till this hour the stone is called the
    lifted stone.  And in remembrance hereof there is none entered into the
    register and matricular book of the said university, or accounted capable
    of taking any degree therein, till he have first drunk in the caballine
    fountain of Croustelles, passed at Passelourdin, and got up upon the lifted
    stone.

    Afterwards, reading the delectable chronicles of his ancestors, he found
    that Geoffrey of Lusignan, called Geoffrey with the great tooth,
    grandfather to the cousin-in-law of the eldest sister of the aunt of the
    son-in-law of the uncle of the good daughter of his stepmother, was
    interred at Maillezais; therefore one day he took campos (which is a little
    vacation from study to play a while), that he might give him a visit as
    unto an honest man.  And going from Poictiers with some of his companions,
    they passed by the Guge (Leguge), visiting the noble Abbot Ardillon; then
    by Lusignan, by Sansay, by Celles, by Coolonges, by Fontenay-le-Comte,
    saluting the learned Tiraqueau, and from thence arrived at Maillezais,
    where he went to see the sepulchre of the said Geoffrey with the great
    tooth; which made him somewhat afraid, looking upon the picture, whose
    lively draughts did set him forth in the representation of a man in an
    extreme fury, drawing his great Malchus falchion half way out of his
    scabbard.  When the reason hereof was demanded, the canons of the said
    place told him that there was no other cause of it but that Pictoribus
    atque Poetis, &c., that is to say, that painters and poets have liberty to
    paint and devise what they list after their own fancy.  But he was not
    satisfied with their answer, and said, He is not thus painted without a
    cause, and I suspect that at his death there was some wrong done him,
    whereof he requireth his kindred to take revenge.  I will inquire further
    into it, and then do what shall be reasonable.  Then he returned not to
    Poictiers, but would take a view of the other universities of France.
    Therefore, going to Rochelle, he took shipping and arrived at Bordeaux,
    where he found no great exercise, only now and then he would see some
    mariners and lightermen a-wrestling on the quay or strand by the river-
    side.  From thence he came to Toulouse, where he learned to dance very
    well, and to play with the two-handed sword, as the fashion of the scholars
    of the said university is to bestir themselves in games whereof they may
    have their hands full; but he stayed not long there when he saw that they
    did cause burn their regents alive like red herring, saying, Now God forbid
    that I should die this death! for I am by nature sufficiently dry already,
    without heating myself any further.

    He went then to Montpellier, where he met with the good wives of Mirevaux,
    and good jovial company withal, and thought to have set himself to the
    study of physic; but he considered that that calling was too troublesome
    and melancholic, and that physicians did smell of glisters like old devils.
    Therefore he resolved he would study the laws; but seeing that there were
    but three scald- and one bald-pated legist in that place, he departed from
    thence, and in his way made the bridge of Guard and the amphitheatre of
    Nimes in less than three hours, which, nevertheless, seems to be a more
    divine than human work.  After that he came to Avignon, where he was not
    above three days before he fell in love; for the women there take great
    delight in playing at the close-buttock game, because it is papal ground.
    Which his tutor and pedagogue Epistemon perceiving, he drew him out of that
    place, and brought him to Valence in the Dauphiny, where he saw no great
    matter of recreation, only that the lubbers of the town did beat the
    scholars, which so incensed him with anger, that when, upon a certain very
    fair Sunday, the people being at their public dancing in the streets, and
    one of the scholars offering to put himself into the ring to partake of
    that sport, the foresaid lubberly fellows would not permit him the
    admittance into their society, he, taking the scholar's part, so belaboured
    them with blows, and laid such load upon them, that he drove them all
    before him, even to the brink of the river Rhone, and would have there
    drowned them, but that they did squat to the ground, and there lay close a
    full half-league under the river.  The hole is to be seen there yet.

    After that he departed from thence, and in three strides and one leap came
    to Angiers, where he found himself very well, and would have continued
    there some space, but that the plague drove them away.  So from thence he
    came to Bourges, where he studied a good long time, and profited very much
    in the faculty of the laws, and would sometimes say that the books of the
    civil law were like unto a wonderfully precious, royal, and triumphant robe
    of cloth of gold edged with dirt; for in the world are no goodlier books to
    be seen, more ornate, nor more eloquent than the texts of the Pandects, but
    the bordering of them, that is to say, the gloss of Accursius, is so
    scurvy, vile, base, and unsavoury, that it is nothing but filthiness and
    villainy.

    Going from Bourges, he came to Orleans, where he found store of swaggering
    scholars that made him great entertainment at his coming, and with whom he
    learned to play at tennis so well that he was a master at that game.  For
    the students of the said place make a prime exercise of it; and sometimes
    they carried him unto Cupid's houses of commerce (in that city termed
    islands, because of their being most ordinarily environed with other
    houses, and not contiguous to any), there to recreate his person at the
    sport of poussavant, which the wenches of London call the ferkers in and
    in.  As for breaking his head with over-much study, he had an especial care
    not to do it in any case, for fear of spoiling his eyes.  Which he the
    rather observed, for that it was told him by one of his teachers, there
    called regents, that the pain of the eyes was the most hurtful thing of any
    to the sight.  For this cause, when he one day was made a licentiate, or
    graduate in law, one of the scholars of his acquaintance, who of learning
    had not much more than his burden, though instead of that he could dance
    very well and play at tennis, made the blazon and device of the licentiates
    in the said university, saying,

      So you have in your hand a racket,
      A tennis-ball in your cod-placket,
      A Pandect law in your cap's tippet,
      And that you have the skill to trip it
      In a low dance, you will b' allowed
      The grant of the licentiate's hood.

    Chapter 2.VI. How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affectedly did counterfeit the
    French language.

    Upon a certain day, I know not when, Pantagruel walking after supper with
    some of his fellow-students without that gate of the city through which we
    enter on the road to Paris, encountered with a young spruce-like scholar
    that was coming upon the same very way, and, after they had saluted one
    another, asked him thus, My friend, from whence comest thou now?  The
    scholar answered him, From the alme, inclyte, and celebrate academy, which
    is vocitated Lutetia.  What is the meaning of this? said Pantagruel to one
    of his men.  It is, answered he, from Paris.  Thou comest from Paris then,
    said Pantagruel; and how do you spend your time there, you my masters the
    students of Paris?  The scholar answered, We transfretate the Sequan at the
    dilucul and crepuscul; we deambulate by the compites and quadrives of the
    urb; we despumate the Latial verbocination; and, like verisimilary
    amorabons, we captat the benevolence of the omnijugal, omniform and
    omnigenal feminine sex.  Upon certain diecules we invisat the lupanares,
    and in a venerian ecstasy inculcate our veretres into the penitissime
    recesses of the pudends of these amicabilissim meretricules.  Then do we
    cauponisate in the meritory taberns of the Pineapple, the Castle, the
    Magdalene, and the Mule, goodly vervecine spatules perforaminated with
    petrocile.  And if by fortune there be rarity or penury of pecune in our
    marsupies, and that they be exhausted of ferruginean metal, for the shot we
    dimit our codices and oppignerat our vestments, whilst we prestolate the
    coming of the tabellaries from the Penates and patriotic Lares.  To which
    Pantagruel answered, What devilish language is this?  By the Lord, I think
    thou art some kind of heretick.  My lord, no, said the scholar; for
    libentissimally, as soon as it illucesceth any minutule slice of the day, I
    demigrate into one of these so well architected minsters, and there,
    irrorating myself with fair lustral water, I mumble off little parcels of
    some missic precation of our sacrificuls, and, submurmurating my horary
    precules, I elevate and absterge my anime from its nocturnal inquinations.
    I revere the Olympicols.  I latrially venere the supernal Astripotent.  I
    dilige and redame my proxims.  I observe the decalogical precepts, and,
    according to the facultatule of my vires, I do not discede from them one
    late unguicule.  Nevertheless, it is veriform, that because Mammona doth
    not supergurgitate anything in my loculs, that I am somewhat rare and lent
    to supererogate the elemosynes to those egents that hostially queritate
    their stipe.

    Prut, tut, said Pantagruel, what doth this fool mean to say?  I think he is
    upon the forging of some diabolical tongue, and that enchanter-like he
    would charm us.  To whom one of his men said, Without doubt, sir, this
    fellow would counterfeit the language of the Parisians, but he doth only
    flay the Latin, imagining by so doing that he doth highly Pindarize it in
    most eloquent terms, and strongly conceiteth himself to be therefore a
    great orator in the French, because he disdaineth the common manner of
    speaking.  To which Pantagruel said, Is it true?  The scholar answered, My
    worshipful lord, my genie is not apt nate to that which this flagitious
    nebulon saith, to excoriate the cut(ic)ule of our vernacular Gallic, but
    vice-versally I gnave opere, and by veles and rames enite to locupletate it
    with the Latinicome redundance.  By G—, said Pantagruel, I will teach you
    to speak.  But first come hither, and tell me whence thou art.  To this the
    scholar answered, The primeval origin of my aves and ataves was indigenary
    of the Lemovic regions, where requiesceth the corpor of the hagiotat St.
    Martial.  I understand thee very well, said Pantagruel.  When all comes to
    all, thou art a Limousin, and thou wilt here by thy affected speech
    counterfeit the Parisians.  Well now, come hither, I must show thee a new
    trick, and handsomely give thee the combfeat.  With this he took him by the
    throat, saying to him, Thou flayest the Latin; by St. John, I will make
    thee flay the fox, for I will now flay thee alive.  Then began the poor
    Limousin to cry, Haw, gwid maaster! haw, Laord, my halp, and St. Marshaw!
    haw, I'm worried.  Haw, my thropple, the bean of my cragg is bruck!  Haw,
    for gauad's seck lawt my lean, mawster; waw, waw, waw.  Now, said
    Pantagruel, thou speakest naturally, and so let him go, for the poor
    Limousin had totally bewrayed and thoroughly conshit his breeches, which
    were not deep and large enough, but round straight cannioned gregs, having
    in the seat a piece like a keeling's tail, and therefore in French called,
    de chausses a queue de merlus.  Then, said Pantagruel, St. Alipantin, what
    civet?  Fie! to the devil with this turnip-eater, as he stinks! and so let
    him go.  But this hug of Pantagruel's was such a terror to him all the days
    of his life, and took such deep impression in his fancy, that very often,
    distracted with sudden affrightments, he would startle and say that
    Pantagruel held him by the neck.  Besides that, it procured him a continual
    drought and desire to drink, so that after some few years he died of the
    death Roland, in plain English called thirst, a work of divine vengeance,
    showing us that which saith the philosopher and Aulus Gellius, that it
    becometh us to speak according to the common language; and that we should,
    as said Octavian Augustus, strive to shun all strange and unknown terms
    with as much heedfulness and circumspection as pilots of ships use to avoid
    the rocks and banks in the sea.

    Chapter 2.VII. How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library of St.
    Victor.

    After that Pantagruel had studied very well at Orleans, he resolved to see
    the great University at Paris; but, before his departure, he was informed
    that there was a huge big bell at St. Anian in the said town of Orleans,
    under the ground, which had been there above two hundred and fourteen
    years, for it was so great that they could not by any device get it so much
    as above the ground, although they used all the means that are found in
    Vitruvius de Architectura, Albertus de Re Aedificatoria, Euclid, Theon,
    Archimedes, and Hero de Ingeniis; for all that was to no purpose.
    Wherefore, condescending heartily to the humble request of the citizens and
    inhabitants of the said town, he determined to remove it to the tower that
    was erected for it.  With that he came to the place where it was, and
    lifted it out of the ground with his little finger as easily as you would
    have done a hawk's bell or bellwether's tingle-tangle; but, before he would
    carry it to the foresaid tower or steeple appointed for it, he would needs
    make some music with it about the town, and ring it alongst all the streets
    as he carried it in his hand, wherewith all the people were very glad.  But
    there happened one great inconveniency, for with carrying it so, and
    ringing it about the streets, all the good Orleans wine turned instantly,
    waxed flat and was spoiled, which nobody there did perceive till the night
    following; for every man found himself so altered and a-dry with drinking
    these flat wines, that they did nothing but spit, and that as white as
    Malta cotton, saying, We have of the Pantagruel, and our very throats are
    salted.  This done, he came to Paris with his retinue.  And at his entry
    everyone came out to see him—as you know well enough that the people of
    Paris is sottish by nature, by B flat and B sharp—and beheld him with
    great astonishment, mixed with no less fear that he would carry away the
    palace into some other country, a remotis, and far from them, as his father
    formerly had done the great peal of bells at Our Lady's Church to tie about
    his mare's neck.  Now after he had stayed there a pretty space, and studied
    very well in all the seven liberal arts, he said it was a good town to live
    in, but not to die; for that the grave-digging rogues of St. Innocent used
    in frosty nights to warm their bums with dead men's bones.  In his abode
    there he found the library of St. Victor a very stately and magnific one,
    especially in some books which were there, of which followeth the Repertory
    and Catalogue, Et primo,

    The for Godsake of Salvation.
    The Codpiece of the Law.
    The Slipshoe of the Decretals.
    The Pomegranate of Vice.
    The Clew-bottom of Theology.
    The Duster or Foxtail-flap of Preachers, composed by Turlupin.
    The Churning Ballock of the Valiant.
    The Henbane of the Bishops.
    Marmotretus de baboonis et apis, cum Commento Dorbellis.
    Decretum Universitatis Parisiensis super gorgiasitate muliercularum
      ad placitum.
    The Apparition of Sancte Geltrude to a Nun of Poissy, being in
      travail at the bringing forth of a child.
    Ars honeste fartandi in societate, per Marcum Corvinum (Ortuinum).
    The Mustard-pot of Penance.
    The Gamashes, alias the Boots of Patience.
    Formicarium artium.
    De brodiorum usu, et honestate quartandi, per Sylvestrem Prioratem
      Jacobinum.
    The Cosened or Gulled in Court.
    The Frail of the Scriveners.
    The Marriage-packet.
    The Cruizy or Crucible of Contemplation.
    The Flimflams of the Law.
    The Prickle of Wine.
    The Spur of Cheese.
    Ruboffatorium (Decrotatorium) scholarium.
    Tartaretus de modo cacandi.
    The Bravades of Rome.
    Bricot de Differentiis Browsarum.
    The Tailpiece-Cushion, or Close-breech of Discipline.
    The Cobbled Shoe of Humility.
    The Trivet of good Thoughts.
    The Kettle of Magnanimity.
    The Cavilling Entanglements of Confessors.
    The Snatchfare of the Curates.
    Reverendi patris fratris Lubini, provincialis Bavardiae, de gulpendis
      lardslicionibus libri tres.
    Pasquilli Doctoris Marmorei, de capreolis cum artichoketa comedendis,
      tempore Papali ab Ecclesia interdicto.
    The Invention of the Holy Cross, personated by six wily Priests.
    The Spectacles of Pilgrims bound for Rome.
    Majoris de modo faciendi puddinos.
    The Bagpipe of the Prelates.
    Beda de optimitate triparum.
    The Complaint of the Barristers upon the Reformation of Comfits.
    The Furred Cat of the Solicitors and Attorneys.
    Of Peas and Bacon, cum Commento.
    The Small Vales or Drinking Money of the Indulgences.
    Praeclarissimi juris utriusque Doctoris Maistre Pilloti, &c.,
      Scrap-farthingi de botchandis glossae Accursianae Triflis repetitio
      enucidi-luculidissima.
    Stratagemata Francharchiaeri de Baniolet.
    Carlbumpkinus de Re Militari cum Figuris Tevoti.
    De usu et utilitate flayandi equos et equas, authore Magistro nostro
      de Quebecu.
    The Sauciness of Country-Stewards.
    M.N. Rostocostojambedanesse de mustarda post prandium servienda,
      libri quatuordecim, apostillati per M. Vaurillonis.
    The Covillage or Wench-tribute of Promoters.
    (Jabolenus de Cosmographia Purgatorii.)
    Quaestio subtilissima, utrum Chimaera in vacuo bonbinans possit
      comedere secundas intentiones; et fuit debatuta per decem
      hebdomadas in Consilio Constantiensi.
    The Bridle-champer of the Advocates.
    Smutchudlamenta Scoti.
    The Rasping and Hard-scraping of the Cardinals.
    De calcaribus removendis, Decades undecim, per M. Albericum de Rosata.
    Ejusdem de castramentandis criminibus libri tres.
    The Entrance of Anthony de Leve into the Territories of Brazil.
    (Marforii, bacalarii cubantis Romae) de peelandis aut unskinnandis
      blurrandisque Cardinalium mulis.
    The said Author's Apology against those who allege that the Pope's
      mule doth eat but at set times.
    Prognosticatio quae incipit, Silvii Triquebille, balata per M.N., the
      deep-dreaming gull Sion.
    Boudarini Episcopi de emulgentiarum profectibus Aeneades novem,
      cum privilegio Papali ad triennium et postea non.
    The Shitabranna of the Maids.
    The Bald Arse or Peeled Breech of the Widows.
    The Cowl or Capouch of the Monks.
    The Mumbling Devotion of the Celestine Friars.
    The Passage-toll of Beggarliness.
    The Teeth-chatter or Gum-didder of Lubberly Lusks.
    The Paring-shovel of the Theologues.
    The Drench-horn of the Masters of Arts.
    The Scullions of Olcam, the uninitiated Clerk.
    Magistri N. Lickdishetis, de garbellisiftationibus horarum canonicarum,
      libri quadriginta.
    Arsiversitatorium confratriarum, incerto authore.
    The Gulsgoatony or Rasher of Cormorants and Ravenous Feeders.
    The Rammishness of the Spaniards supergivuregondigaded by Friar Inigo.
    The Muttering of Pitiful Wretches.
    Dastardismus rerum Italicarum, authore Magistro Burnegad.
    R. Lullius de Batisfolagiis Principum.
    Calibistratorium caffardiae, authore M. Jacobo Hocstraten hereticometra.
    Codtickler de Magistro nostrandorum Magistro nostratorumque beuvetis,
      libri octo galantissimi.
    The Crackarades of Balists or stone-throwing Engines, Contrepate
      Clerks, Scriveners, Brief-writers, Rapporters, and Papal
      Bull-despatchers lately compiled by Regis.
    A perpetual Almanack for those that have the gout and the pox.
    Manera sweepandi fornacellos per Mag. Eccium.
    The Shable or Scimetar of Merchants.
    The Pleasures of the Monachal Life.
    The Hotchpot of Hypocrites.
    The History of the Hobgoblins.
    The Ragamuffinism of the pensionary maimed Soldiers.
    The Gulling Fibs and Counterfeit shows of Commissaries.
    The Litter of Treasurers.
    The Juglingatorium of Sophisters.
    Antipericatametanaparbeugedamphicribrationes Toordicantium.
    The Periwinkle of Ballad-makers.
    The Push-forward of the Alchemists.
    The Niddy-noddy of the Satchel-loaded Seekers, by Friar Bindfastatis.
    The Shackles of Religion.
    The Racket of Swag-waggers.
    The Leaning-stock of old Age.
    The Muzzle of Nobility.
    The Ape's Paternoster.
    The Crickets and Hawk's-bells of Devotion.
    The Pot of the Ember-weeks.
    The Mortar of the Politic Life.
    The Flap of the Hermits.
    The Riding-hood or Monterg of the Penitentiaries.
    The Trictrac of the Knocking Friars.
    Blockheadodus, de vita et honestate bragadochiorum.
    Lyrippii Sorbonici Moralisationes, per M. Lupoldum.
    The Carrier-horse-bells of Travellers.
    The Bibbings of the tippling Bishops.
    Dolloporediones Doctorum Coloniensium adversus Reuclin.
    The Cymbals of Ladies.
    The Dunger's Martingale.
    Whirlingfriskorum Chasemarkerorum per Fratrem Crackwoodloguetis.
    The Clouted Patches of a Stout Heart.
    The Mummery of the Racket-keeping Robin-goodfellows.
    Gerson, de auferibilitate Papae ab Ecclesia.
    The Catalogue of the Nominated and Graduated Persons.
    Jo. Dytebrodii, terribilitate excommunicationis libellus acephalos.
    Ingeniositas invocandi diabolos et diabolas, per M. Guingolphum.
    The Hotchpotch or Gallimaufry of the perpetually begging Friars.
    The Morris-dance of the Heretics.
    The Whinings of Cajetan.
    Muddisnout Doctoris Cherubici, de origine Roughfootedarum, et
      Wryneckedorum ritibus, libri septem.
    Sixty-nine fat Breviaries.
    The Nightmare of the five Orders of Beggars.
    The Skinnery of the new Start-ups extracted out of the fallow-butt,
      incornifistibulated and plodded upon in the angelic sum.
    The Raver and idle Talker in cases of Conscience.
    The Fat Belly of the Presidents.
    The Baffling Flouter of the Abbots.
    Sutoris adversus eum qui vocaverat eum Slabsauceatorem, et quod
      Slabsauceatores non sunt damnati ab Ecclesia.
    Cacatorium medicorum.
    The Chimney-sweeper of Astrology.
    Campi clysteriorum per paragraph C.
    The Bumsquibcracker of Apothecaries.
    The Kissbreech of Chirurgery.
    Justinianus de Whiteleperotis tollendis.
    Antidotarium animae.
    Merlinus Coccaius, de patria diabolorum.
    The Practice of Iniquity, by Cleuraunes Sadden.
    The Mirror of Baseness, by Radnecu Waldenses.
    The Engrained Rogue, by Dwarsencas Eldenu.
    The Merciless Cormorant, by Hoxinidno the Jew.

    Of which library some books are already printed, and the rest are now at
    the press in this noble city of Tubingen.

    Chapter 2.VIII. How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father Gargantua,
    and the copy of them.

    Pantagruel studied very hard, as you may well conceive, and profited
    accordingly; for he had an excellent understanding and notable wit,
    together with a capacity in memory equal to the measure of twelve oil
    budgets or butts of olives.  And, as he was there abiding one day, he
    received a letter from his father in manner as followeth.

    Most dear Son,—Amongst the gifts, graces, and prerogatives, with which the
    sovereign plasmator God Almighty hath endowed and adorned human nature at
    the beginning, that seems to me most singular and excellent by which we may
    in a mortal state attain to a kind of immortality, and in the course of
    this transitory life perpetuate our name and seed, which is done by a
    progeny issued from us in the lawful bonds of matrimony.  Whereby that in
    some measure is restored unto us which was taken from us by the sin of our
    first parents, to whom it was said that, because they had not obeyed the
    commandment of God their Creator, they should die, and by death should be
    brought to nought that so stately frame and plasmature wherein the man at
    first had been created.

    But by this means of seminal propagation there (“Which continueth” in the
    old copy.) continueth in the children what was lost in the parents, and in
    the grandchildren that which perished in their fathers, and so successively
    until the day of the last judgment, when Jesus Christ shall have rendered
    up to God the Father his kingdom in a peaceable condition, out of all
    danger and contamination of sin; for then shall cease all generations and
    corruptions, and the elements leave off their continual transmutations,
    seeing the so much desired peace shall be attained unto and enjoyed, and
    that all things shall be brought to their end and period.  And, therefore,
    not without just and reasonable cause do I give thanks to God my Saviour
    and Preserver, for that he hath enabled me to see my bald old age
    reflourish in thy youth; for when, at his good pleasure, who rules and
    governs all things, my soul shall leave this mortal habitation, I shall not
    account myself wholly to die, but to pass from one place unto another,
    considering that, in and by that, I continue in my visible image living in
    the world, visiting and conversing with people of honour, and other my good
    friends, as I was wont to do.  Which conversation of mine, although it was
    not without sin, because we are all of us trespassers, and therefore ought
    continually to beseech his divine majesty to blot our transgressions out of
    his memory, yet was it, by the help and grace of God, without all manner of
    reproach before men.

    Wherefore, if those qualities of the mind but shine in thee wherewith I am
    endowed, as in thee remaineth the perfect image of my body, thou wilt be
    esteemed by all men to be the perfect guardian and treasure of the
    immortality of our name.  But, if otherwise, I shall truly take but small
    pleasure to see it, considering that the lesser part of me, which is the
    body, would abide in thee, and the best, to wit, that which is the soul,
    and by which our name continues blessed amongst men, would be degenerate
    and abastardized.  This I do not speak out of any distrust that I have of
    thy virtue, which I have heretofore already tried, but to encourage thee
    yet more earnestly to proceed from good to better.  And that which I now
    write unto thee is not so much that thou shouldst live in this virtuous
    course, as that thou shouldst rejoice in so living and having lived, and
    cheer up thyself with the like resolution in time to come; to the
    prosecution and accomplishment of which enterprise and generous undertaking
    thou mayst easily remember how that I have spared nothing, but have so
    helped thee, as if I had had no other treasure in this world but to see
    thee once in my life completely well-bred and accomplished, as well in
    virtue, honesty, and valour, as in all liberal knowledge and civility, and
    so to leave thee after my death as a mirror representing the person of me
    thy father, and if not so excellent, and such in deed as I do wish thee,
    yet such in my desire.

    But although my deceased father of happy memory, Grangousier, had bent his
    best endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and political
    knowledge, and that my labour and study was fully correspondent to, yea,
    went beyond his desire, nevertheless, as thou mayest well understand, the
    time then was not so proper and fit for learning as it is at present,
    neither had I plenty of such good masters as thou hast had.  For that time
    was darksome, obscured with clouds of ignorance, and savouring a little of
    the infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had, wherever they set
    footing, destroyed all good literature, which in my age hath by the divine
    goodness been restored unto its former light and dignity, and that with
    such amendment and increase of the knowledge, that now hardly should I be
    admitted unto the first form of the little grammar-schoolboys—I say, I,
    who in my youthful days was, and that justly, reputed the most learned of
    that age.  Which I do not speak in vain boasting, although I might lawfully
    do it in writing unto thee—in verification whereof thou hast the authority
    of Marcus Tullius in his book of old age, and the sentence of Plutarch in
    the book entitled How a man may praise himself without envy—but to give
    thee an emulous encouragement to strive yet further.

    Now is it that the minds of men are qualified with all manner of
    discipline, and the old sciences revived which for many ages were extinct.
    Now it is that the learned languages are to their pristine purity restored,
    viz., Greek, without which a man may be ashamed to account himself a
    scholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaean, and Latin.  Printing likewise is now in
    use, so elegant and so correct that better cannot be imagined, although it
    was found out but in my time by divine inspiration, as by a diabolical
    suggestion on the other side was the invention of ordnance.  All the world
    is full of knowing men, of most learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries;
    and it appears to me as a truth, that neither in Plato's time, nor
    Cicero's, nor Papinian's, there was ever such conveniency for studying as
    we see at this day there is.  Nor must any adventure henceforward to come
    in public, or present himself in company, that hath not been pretty well
    polished in the shop of Minerva.  I see robbers, hangmen, freebooters,
    tapsters, ostlers, and such like, of the very rubbish of the people, more
    learned now than the doctors and preachers were in my time.

    What shall I say?  The very women and children have aspired to this praise
    and celestial manner of good learning.  Yet so it is that, in the age I am
    now of, I have been constrained to learn the Greek tongue—which I
    contemned not like Cato, but had not the leisure in my younger years to
    attend the study of it—and take much delight in the reading of Plutarch's
    Morals, the pleasant Dialogues of Plato, the Monuments of Pausanias, and
    the Antiquities of Athenaeus, in waiting on the hour wherein God my Creator
    shall call me and command me to depart from this earth and transitory
    pilgrimage.  Wherefore, my son, I admonish thee to employ thy youth to
    profit as well as thou canst, both in thy studies and in virtue.  Thou art
    at Paris, where the laudable examples of many brave men may stir up thy
    mind to gallant actions, and hast likewise for thy tutor and pedagogue the
    learned Epistemon, who by his lively and vocal documents may instruct thee
    in the arts and sciences.

    I intend, and will have it so, that thou learn the languages perfectly;
    first of all the Greek, as Quintilian will have it; secondly, the Latin;
    and then the Hebrew, for the Holy Scripture sake; and then the Chaldee and
    Arabic likewise, and that thou frame thy style in Greek in imitation of
    Plato, and for the Latin after Cicero.  Let there be no history which thou
    shalt not have ready in thy memory; unto the prosecuting of which design,
    books of cosmography will be very conducible and help thee much.  Of the
    liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave thee some taste
    when thou wert yet little, and not above five or six years old.  Proceed
    further in them, and learn the remainder if thou canst.  As for astronomy,
    study all the rules thereof.  Let pass, nevertheless, the divining and
    judicial astrology, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plain
    abuses and vanities.  As for the civil law, of that I would have thee to
    know the texts by heart, and then to confer them with philosophy.

    Now, in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would have thee
    to study that exactly, and that so there be no sea, river, nor fountain, of
    which thou dost not know the fishes; all the fowls of the air; all the
    several kinds of shrubs and trees, whether in forests or orchards; all the
    sorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground; all the various
    metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth; together with all the
    diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and south
    parts of the world.  Let nothing of all these be hidden from thee.  Then
    fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and
    Latin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and by
    frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the other world,
    called the microcosm, which is man.  And at some hours of the day apply thy
    mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first in Greek, the New
    Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament in
    Hebrew.  In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of
    knowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man,
    thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learn
    chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby to
    defend my house and our friends, and to succour and protect them at all
    their needs against the invasion and assaults of evildoers.

    Furthermore, I will that very shortly thou try how much thou hast profited,
    which thou canst not better do than by maintaining publicly theses and
    conclusions in all arts against all persons whatsoever, and by haunting the
    company of learned men, both at Paris and otherwhere.  But because, as the
    wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and that
    knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, it behoveth thee
    to serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to cast all thy thoughts and all
    thy hope, and by faith formed in charity to cleave unto him, so that thou
    mayst never be separated from him by thy sins.  Suspect the abuses of the
    world.  Set not thy heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory, but the
    Word of the Lord endureth for ever.  Be serviceable to all thy neighbours,
    and love them as thyself.  Reverence thy preceptors:  shun the conversation
    of those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the
    graces which God hath bestowed upon thee.  And, when thou shalt see that
    thou hast attained to all the knowledge that is to be acquired in that
    part, return unto me, that I may see thee and give thee my blessing before
    I die.  My son, the peace and grace of our Lord be with thee.  Amen.

        Thy father Gargantua.

      From Utopia the 17th day of the month of March.

    These letters being received and read, Pantagruel plucked up his heart,
    took a fresh courage to him, and was inflamed with a desire to profit in
    his studies more than ever, so that if you had seen him, how he took pains,
    and how he advanced in learning, you would have said that the vivacity of
    his spirit amidst the books was like a great fire amongst dry wood, so
    active it was, vigorous and indefatigable.

    Chapter 2.IX. How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime.

    One day, as Pantagruel was taking a walk without the city, towards St.
    Anthony's abbey, discoursing and philosophating with his own servants and
    some other scholars, (he) met with a young man of very comely stature and
    surpassing handsome in all the lineaments of his body, but in several parts
    thereof most pitifully wounded; in such bad equipage in matter of his
    apparel, which was but tatters and rags, and every way so far out of order
    that he seemed to have been a-fighting with mastiff-dogs, from whose fury
    he had made an escape; or to say better, he looked, in the condition
    wherein he then was, like an apple-gatherer of the country of Perche.

    As far off as Pantagruel saw him, he said to those that stood by, Do you
    see that man there, who is a-coming hither upon the road from Charenton
    bridge?  By my faith, he is only poor in fortune; for I may assure you that
    by his physiognomy it appeareth that nature hath extracted him from some
    rich and noble race, and that too much curiosity hath thrown him upon
    adventures which possibly have reduced him to this indigence, want, and
    penury.  Now as he was just amongst them, Pantagruel said unto him, Let me
    entreat you, friend, that you may be pleased to stop here a little and
    answer me to that which I shall ask you, and I am confident you will not
    think your time ill bestowed; for I have an extreme desire, according to my
    ability, to give you some supply in this distress wherein I see you are;
    because I do very much commiserate your case, which truly moves me to great
    pity.  Therefore, my friend, tell me who you are; whence you come; whither
    you go; what you desire; and what your name is.  The companion answered him
    in the German (The first edition reads “Dutch.”) tongue, thus:

    'Junker, Gott geb euch gluck und heil.  Furwahr, lieber Junker, ich lasz
    euch wissen, das da ihr mich von fragt, ist ein arm und erbarmlich Ding,
    und wer viel darvon zu sagen, welches euch verdrussig zu horen, und mir zu
    erzelen wer, wiewol die Poeten und Oratorn vorzeiten haben gesagt in ihren
    Spruchen und Sentenzen, dasz die gedechtniss des Elends und Armuth
    vorlangst erlitten ist eine grosse Lust.'  My friend, said Pantagruel, I
    have no skill in that gibberish of yours; therefore, if you would have us
    to understand you, speak to us in some other language.  Then did the droll
    answer him thus:

    'Albarildim gotfano dechmin brin alabo dordio falbroth ringuam albaras.
    Nin portzadikin almucatin milko prin alelmin en thoth dalheben ensouim;
    kuthim al dum alkatim nim broth dechoth porth min michais im endoth, pruch
    dalmaisoulum hol moth danfrihim lupaldas in voldemoth.  Nin hur diavosth
    mnarbotim dalgousch palfrapin duch im scoth pruch galeth dal chinon, min
    foulchrich al conin brutathen doth dal prin.'  Do you understand none of
    this? said Pantagruel to the company.  I believe, said Epistemon, that this
    is the language of the Antipodes, and such a hard one that the devil
    himself knows not what to make of it.  Then said Pantagruel, Gossip, I know
    not if the walls do comprehend the meaning of your words, but none of us
    here doth so much as understand one syllable of them.  Then said my blade
    again:

    'Signor mio, voi vedete per essempio, che la cornamusa non suona mai,
    s'ella non ha il ventre pieno.  Cosi io parimente non vi saprei contare le
    mie fortune, se prima il tribulato ventre non ha la solita refettione.  Al
    quale e adviso che le mani et li denti habbiano perso il loro ordine
    naturale et del tutto annichilati.'  To which Epistemon answered, As much
    of the one as of the other, and nothing of either.  Then said Panurge:

    'Lord, if you be so virtuous of intelligence as you be naturally relieved
    to the body, you should have pity of me.  For nature hath made us equal,
    but fortune hath some exalted and others deprived; nevertheless is virtue
    often deprived and the virtuous men despised; for before the last end none
    is good.'  (The following is the passage as it stands in the first edition.
    Urquhart seems to have rendered Rabelais' indifferent English into worse
    Scotch, and this, with probably the use of contractions in his MS., or 'the
    oddness' of handwriting which he owns to in his Logopandecteision (p.419,
    Mait. Club. Edit.), has led to a chaotic jumble, which it is nearly
    impossible to reduce to order.—Instead of any attempt to do so, it is here
    given verbatim: 'Lard gestholb besua virtuisbe intelligence:  ass yi body
    scalbisbe natural reloth cholb suld osme pety have; for natur hass visse
    equaly maide bot fortune sum exaiti hesse andoyis deprevit:  non yeless
    iviss mou virtiuss deprevit, and virtuiss men decreviss for anen ye
    ladeniss non quid.'  Here is a morsel for critical ingenuity to fix its
    teeth in.—M.)  Yet less, said Pantagruel.  Then said my jolly Panurge:

    'Jona andie guaussa goussy etan beharda er remedio beharde versela ysser
    landa.  Anbat es otoy y es nausu ey nessassust gourray proposian ordine
    den.  Non yssena bayta facheria egabe gen herassy badia sadassu noura
    assia.  Aran hondavan gualde cydassu naydassuna.  Estou oussyc eg vinan
    soury hien er darstura eguy harm.  Genicoa plasar vadu.'  Are you there,
    said Eudemon, Genicoa?  To this said Carpalim, St. Trinian's rammer
    unstitch your bum, for I had almost understood it.  Then answered Panurge:

    'Prust frest frinst sorgdmand strochdi drhds pag brlelang Gravot Chavigny
    Pomardiere rusth pkaldracg Deviniere pres Nays.  Couille kalmuch monach
    drupp del meupplist rincq drlnd dodelb up drent loch minc stz rinq jald de
    vins ders cordelis bur jocst stzampenards.'  Do you speak Christian, said
    Epistemon, or the buffoon language, otherwise called Patelinois?  Nay, it
    is the puzlatory tongue, said another, which some call Lanternois.  Then
    said Panurge:

    'Heere, ik en spreeke anders geen taele dan kersten taele:  my dunkt
    noghtans, al en seg ik u niet een wordt, mynen noot verklaert genoegh wat
    ik begeere:  geeft my uyt bermhertigheit yets waar van ik gevoet magh zyn.'
    To which answered Pantagruel, As much of that.  Then said Panurge:

    'Sennor, de tanto hablar yo soy cansado, porque yo suplico a vuestra
    reverentia que mire a los preceptos evangelicos, para que ellos movan
    vuestra reverentia a lo que es de conscientia; y si ellos non bastaren,
    para mouer vuestra reverentia a piedad, yo suplico que mire a la piedad
    natural, la qual yo creo que le movera como es de razon: y con esso non
    digo mas.'  Truly, my friend, (said Pantagruel,) I doubt not but you can
    speak divers languages; but tell us that which you would have us to do for
    you in some tongue which you conceive we may understand.  Then said the
    companion:

    'Min Herre, endog ieg med ingen tunge talede, ligesom baern, oc uskellige
    creatuure:  Mine klaedebon oc mit legoms magerhed uduiser alligeuel klarlig
    huad ting mig best behof gioris, som er sandelig mad oc dricke:  Huorfor
    forbarme dig ofuer mig, oc befal at giue mig noguet, af huilcket ieg kand
    slyre min giaeendis mage, ligeruiis som mand Cerbero en suppe forsetter:
    Saa skalt du lefue laenge oc lycksalig.'  I think really, said Eusthenes,
    that the Goths spoke thus of old, and that, if it pleased God, we would all
    of us speak so with our tails.  Then again said Panurge:

    'Adon, scalom lecha:  im ischar harob hal hebdeca bimeherah thithen li
    kikar lehem:  chanchat ub laah al Adonai cho nen ral.'  To which answered
    Epistemon, At this time have I understood him very well; for it is the
    Hebrew tongue most rhetorically pronounced.  Then again said the gallant:

    'Despota tinyn panagathe, diati sy mi ouk artodotis? horas gar limo
    analiscomenon eme athlion, ke en to metaxy me ouk eleis oudamos, zetis de
    par emou ha ou chre.  Ke homos philologi pantes homologousi tote logous te
    ke remata peritta hyparchin, hopote pragma afto pasi delon esti.  Entha gar
    anankei monon logi isin, hina pragmata (hon peri amphisbetoumen), me
    prosphoros epiphenete.'  What?  Said Carpalim, Pantagruel's footman, It is
    Greek, I have understood him.  And how? hast thou dwelt any while in
    Greece?  Then said the droll again:

    'Agonou dont oussys vous desdagnez algorou:  nou den farou zamist vous
    mariston ulbrou, fousques voubrol tant bredaguez moupreton dengoulhoust,
    daguez daguez non cropys fost pardonnoflist nougrou.  Agou paston tol
    nalprissys hourtou los echatonous, prou dhouquys brol pany gou den bascrou
    noudous caguons goulfren goul oustaroppassou.'  (In this and the preceding
    speeches of Panurge, the Paris Variorum Edition of 1823 has been followed
    in correcting Urquhart's text, which is full of inaccuracies.—M.)
    Methinks I understand him, said Pantagruel; for either it is the language
    of my country of Utopia, or sounds very like it.  And, as he was about to
    have begun some purpose, the companion said:

    'Jam toties vos per sacra, perque deos deasque omnes obtestatus sum, ut si
    quae vos pietas permovet, egestatem meam solaremini, nec hilum proficio
    clamans et ejulans.  Sinite, quaeso, sinite, viri impii, quo me fata vocant
    abire; nec ultra vanis vestris interpellationibus obtundatis, memores
    veteris illius adagii, quo venter famelicus auriculis carere dicitur.'
    Well, my friend, said Pantagruel, but cannot you speak French?  That I can
    do, sir, very well, said the companion, God be thanked.  It is my natural
    language and mother tongue, for I was born and bred in my younger years in
    the garden of France, to wit, Touraine.  Then, said Pantagruel, tell us
    what is your name, and from whence you are come; for, by my faith, I have
    already stamped in my mind such a deep impression of love towards you,
    that, if you will condescend unto my will, you shall not depart out of my
    company, and you and I shall make up another couple of friends such as
    Aeneas and Achates were.  Sir, said the companion, my true and proper
    Christian name is Panurge, and now I come out of Turkey, to which country I
    was carried away prisoner at that time when they went to Metelin with a
    mischief.  And willingly would I relate unto you my fortunes, which are
    more wonderful than those of Ulysses were; but, seeing that it pleaseth you
    to retain me with you, I most heartily accept of the offer, protesting
    never to leave you should you go to all the devils in hell.  We shall have
    therefore more leisure at another time, and a fitter opportunity wherein to
    report them; for at this present I am in a very urgent necessity to feed;
    my teeth are sharp, my belly empty, my throat dry, and my stomach fierce
    and burning, all is ready.  If you will but set me to work, it will be as
    good as a balsamum for sore eyes to see me gulch and raven it.  For God's
    sake, give order for it.  Then Pantagruel commanded that they should carry
    him home and provide him good store of victuals; which being done, he ate
    very well that evening, and, capon-like, went early to bed; then slept
    until dinner-time the next day, so that he made but three steps and one
    leap from the bed to the board.

    Chapter 2.X. How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was wonderfully
    obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree therein, he was
    reputed to have a most admirable judgment.

    Pantagruel, very well remembering his father's letter and admonitions,
    would one day make trial of his knowledge.  Thereupon, in all the
    carrefours, that is, throughout all the four quarters, streets, and corners
    of the city, he set up conclusions to the number of nine thousand seven
    hundred sixty and four, in all manner of learning, touching in them the
    hardest doubts that are in any science.  And first of all, in the Fodder
    Street he held dispute against all the regents or fellows of colleges,
    artists or masters of arts, and orators, and did so gallantly that he
    overthrew them and set them all upon their tails.  He went afterwards to
    the Sorbonne, where he maintained argument against all the theologians or
    divines, for the space of six weeks, from four o'clock in the morning until
    six in the evening, except an interval of two hours to refresh themselves
    and take their repast.  And at this were present the greatest part of the
    lords of the court, the masters of requests, presidents, counsellors, those
    of the accompts, secretaries, advocates, and others; as also the sheriffs
    of the said town, with the physicians and professors of the canon law.
    Amongst which, it is to be remarked, that the greatest part were stubborn
    jades, and in their opinions obstinate; but he took such course with them
    that, for all their ergoes and fallacies, he put their backs to the wall,
    gravelled them in the deepest questions, and made it visibly appear to the
    world that, compared to him, they were but monkeys and a knot of muffled
    calves.  Whereupon everybody began to keep a bustling noise and talk of his
    so marvellous knowledge, through all degrees of persons of both sexes, even
    to the very laundresses, brokers, roast-meat sellers, penknife makers, and
    others, who, when he passed along in the street, would say, This is he! in
    which he took delight, as Demosthenes, the prince of Greek orators, did,
    when an old crouching wife, pointing at him with her fingers, said, That is
    the man.

    Now at this same very time there was a process or suit in law depending in
    court between two great lords, of which one was called my Lord Kissbreech,
    plaintiff of one side, and the other my Lord Suckfist, defendant of the
    other; whose controversy was so high and difficult in law that the court of
    parliament could make nothing of it.  And therefore, by the commandment of
    the king, there were assembled four of the greatest and most learned of all
    the parliaments of France, together with the great council, and all the
    principal regents of the universities, not only of France, but of England
    also and Italy, such as Jason, Philippus Decius, Petrus de Petronibus, and
    a rabble of other old Rabbinists.  Who being thus met together, after they
    had thereupon consulted for the space of six-and-forty weeks, finding that
    they could not fasten their teeth in it, nor with such clearness understand
    the case as that they might in any manner of way be able to right it, or
    take up the difference betwixt the two aforesaid parties, it did so
    grievously vex them that they most villainously conshit themselves for
    shame.  In this great extremity one amongst them, named Du Douhet, the
    learnedest of all, and more expert and prudent than any of the rest, whilst
    one day they were thus at their wits' end, all-to-be-dunced and
    philogrobolized in their brains, said unto them, We have been here, my
    masters, a good long space, without doing anything else than trifle away
    both our time and money, and can nevertheless find neither brim nor bottom
    in this matter, for the more we study about it the less we understand
    therein, which is a great shame and disgrace to us, and a heavy burden to
    our consciences; yea, such that in my opinion we shall not rid ourselves of
    it without dishonour, unless we take some other course; for we do nothing
    but dote in our consultations.

    See, therefore, what I have thought upon.  You have heard much talking of
    that worthy personage named Master Pantagruel, who hath been found to be
    learned above the capacity of this present age, by the proofs he gave in
    those great disputations which he held publicly against all men.  My
    opinion is, that we send for him to confer with him about this business;
    for never any man will encompass the bringing of it to an end if he do it
    not.

    Hereunto all the counsellors and doctors willingly agreed, and according to
    that their result having instantly sent for him, they entreated him to be
    pleased to canvass the process and sift it thoroughly, that, after a deep
    search and narrow examination of all the points thereof, he might forthwith
    make the report unto them such as he shall think good in true and legal
    knowledge.  To this effect they delivered into his hands the bags wherein
    were the writs and pancarts concerning that suit, which for bulk and weight
    were almost enough to lade four great couillard or stoned asses. But
    Pantagruel said unto them, Are the two lords between whom this debate and
    process is yet living?  It was answered him, Yes.  To what a devil, then,
    said he, serve so many paltry heaps and bundles of papers and copies which
    you give me?  Is it not better to hear their controversy from their own
    mouths whilst they are face to face before us, than to read these vile
    fopperies, which are nothing but trumperies, deceits, diabolical cozenages
    of Cepola, pernicious slights and subversions of equity?  For I am sure
    that you, and all those through whose hands this process has passed, have
    by your devices added what you could to it pro et contra in such sort that,
    although their difference perhaps was clear and easy enough to determine at
    first, you have obscured it and made it more intricate by the frivolous,
    sottish, unreasonable, and foolish reasons and opinions of Accursius,
    Baldus, Bartolus, de Castro, de Imola, Hippolytus, Panormo, Bertachin,
    Alexander, Curtius, and those other old mastiffs, who never understood the
    least law of the Pandects, they being but mere blockheads and great tithe
    calves, ignorant of all that which was needful for the understanding of the
    laws; for, as it is most certain, they had not the knowledge either of the
    Greek or Latin tongue, but only of the Gothic and barbarian.  The laws,
    nevertheless, were first taken from the Greeks, according to the testimony
    of Ulpian, L. poster. de origine juris, which we likewise may perceive by
    that all the laws are full of Greek words and sentences.  And then we find
    that they are reduced into a Latin style the most elegant and ornate that
    whole language is able to afford, without excepting that of any that ever
    wrote therein, nay, not of Sallust, Varro, Cicero, Seneca, Titus Livius,
    nor Quintilian.  How then could these old dotards be able to understand
    aright the text of the laws who never in their time had looked upon a good
    Latin book, as doth evidently enough appear by the rudeness of their style,
    which is fitter for a chimney-sweeper, or for a cook or a scullion, than
    for a jurisconsult and doctor in the laws?

    Furthermore, seeing the laws are excerpted out of the middle of moral and
    natural philosophy, how should these fools have understood it, that have,
    by G—, studied less in philosophy than my mule?  In respect of human
    learning and the knowledge of antiquities and history they were truly laden
    with those faculties as a toad is with feathers.  And yet of all this the
    laws are so full that without it they cannot be understood, as I intend
    more fully to show unto you in a peculiar treatise which on that purpose I
    am about to publish.  Therefore, if you will that I take any meddling in
    this process, first cause all these papers to be burnt; secondly, make the
    two gentlemen come personally before me, and afterwards, when I shall have
    heard them, I will tell you my opinion freely without any feignedness or
    dissimulation whatsoever.

    Some amongst them did contradict this motion, as you know that in all
    companies there are more fools than wise men, and that the greater part
    always surmounts the better, as saith Titus Livius in speaking of the
    Carthaginians.  But the foresaid Du Douhet held the contrary opinion,
    maintaining that Pantagruel had said well, and what was right, in affirming
    that these records, bills of inquest, replies, rejoinders, exceptions,
    depositions, and other such diableries of truth-entangling writs, were but
    engines wherewith to overthrow justice and unnecessarily to prolong such
    suits as did depend before them; and that, therefore, the devil would carry
    them all away to hell if they did not take another course and proceeded not
    in times coming according to the prescripts of evangelical and
    philosophical equity.  In fine, all the papers were burnt, and the two
    gentlemen summoned and personally convented.  At whose appearance before
    the court Pantagruel said unto them, Are you they that have this great
    difference betwixt you?  Yes, my lord, said they.  Which of you, said
    Pantagruel, is the plaintiff?  It is I, said my Lord Kissbreech.  Go to,
    then, my friend, said he, and relate your matter unto me from point to
    point, according to the real truth, or else, by cock's body, if I find you
    to lie so much as in one word, I will make you shorter by the head, and
    take it from off your shoulders to show others by your example that in
    justice and judgment men ought to speak nothing but the truth.  Therefore
    take heed you do not add nor impair anything in the narration of your case.
    Begin.

    Chapter 2.XI. How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel
    without an attorney.

    Then began Kissbreech in manner as followeth.  My lord, it is true that a
    good woman of my house carried eggs to the market to sell.  Be covered,
    Kissbreech, said Pantagruel.  Thanks to you, my lord, said the Lord
    Kissbreech; but to the purpose.  There passed betwixt the two tropics the
    sum of threepence towards the zenith and a halfpenny, forasmuch as the
    Riphaean mountains had been that year oppressed with a great sterility of
    counterfeit gudgeons and shows without substance, by means of the babbling
    tattle and fond fibs seditiously raised between the gibblegabblers and
    Accursian gibberish-mongers for the rebellion of the Switzers, who had
    assembled themselves to the full number of the bumbees and myrmidons to go
    a-handsel-getting on the first day of the new year, at that very time when
    they give brewis to the oxen and deliver the key of the coals to the
    country-girls for serving in of the oats to the dogs.  All the night long
    they did nothing else, keeping their hands still upon the pot, but
    despatch, both on foot and horseback, leaden-sealed writs or letters, to
    wit, papal commissions commonly called bulls, to stop the boats; for the
    tailors and seamsters would have made of the stolen shreds and clippings a
    goodly sagbut to cover the face of the ocean, which then was great with
    child of a potful of cabbage, according to the opinion of the hay-bundle-
    makers.  But the physicians said that by the urine they could discern no
    manifest sign of the bustard's pace, nor how to eat double-tongued mattocks
    with mustard, unless the lords and gentlemen of the court should be pleased
    to give by B.mol express command to the pox not to run about any longer in
    gleaning up of coppersmiths and tinkers; for the jobbernolls had already a
    pretty good beginning in their dance of the British jig called the
    estrindore, to a perfect diapason, with one foot in the fire, and their
    head in the middle, as goodman Ragot was wont to say.

    Ha, my masters, God moderates all things, and disposeth of them at his
    pleasure, so that against unlucky fortune a carter broke his frisking whip,
    which was all the wind-instrument he had.  This was done at his return from
    the little paltry town, even then when Master Antitus of Cressplots was
    licentiated, and had passed his degrees in all dullery and blockishness,
    according to this sentence of the canonists, Beati Dunces, quoniam ipsi
    stumblaverunt.  But that which makes Lent to be so high, by St. Fiacre of
    Bry, is for nothing else but that the Pentecost never comes but to my cost;
    yet, on afore there, ho! a little rain stills a great wind, and we must
    think so, seeing that the sergeant hath propounded the matter so far above
    my reach, that the clerks and secondaries could not with the benefit
    thereof lick their fingers, feathered with ganders, so orbicularly as they
    were wont in other things to do.  And we do manifestly see that everyone
    acknowledgeth himself to be in the error wherewith another hath been
    charged, reserving only those cases whereby we are obliged to take an
    ocular inspection in a perspective glass of these things towards the place
    in the chimney where hangeth the sign of the wine of forty girths, which
    have been always accounted very necessary for the number of twenty pannels
    and pack-saddles of the bankrupt protectionaries of five years' respite.
    Howsoever, at least, he that would not let fly the fowl before the
    cheesecakes ought in law to have discovered his reason why not, for the
    memory is often lost with a wayward shoeing.  Well, God keep Theobald
    Mitain from all danger!  Then said Pantagruel, Hold there!  Ho, my friend,
    soft and fair, speak at leisure and soberly without putting yourself in
    choler.  I understand the case,—go on.  Now then, my lord, said
    Kissbreech, the foresaid good woman saying her gaudez and audi nos, could
    not cover herself with a treacherous backblow, ascending by the wounds and
    passions of the privileges of the universities, unless by the virtue of a
    warming-pan she had angelically fomented every part of her body in covering
    them with a hedge of garden-beds; then giving in a swift unavoidable thirst
    (thrust) very near to the place where they sell the old rags whereof the
    painters of Flanders make great use when they are about neatly to clap on
    shoes on grasshoppers, locusts, cigals, and such like fly-fowls, so strange
    to us that I am wonderfully astonished why the world doth not lay, seeing
    it is so good to hatch.

    Here the Lord of Suckfist would have interrupted him and spoken somewhat,
    whereupon Pantagruel said unto him, St! by St. Anthony's belly, doth it
    become thee to speak without command?  I sweat here with the extremity of
    labour and exceeding toil I take to understand the proceeding of your
    mutual difference, and yet thou comest to trouble and disquiet me.  Peace,
    in the devil's name, peace.  Thou shalt be permitted to speak thy bellyful
    when this man hath done, and no sooner.  Go on, said he to Kissbreech;
    speak calmly, and do not overheat yourself with too much haste.

    I perceiving, then, said Kissbreech, that the Pragmatical Sanction did make
    no mention of it, and that the holy Pope to everyone gave liberty to fart
    at his own ease, if that the blankets had no streaks wherein the liars were
    to be crossed with a ruffian-like crew, and, the rainbow being newly
    sharpened at Milan to bring forth larks, gave his full consent that the
    good woman should tread down the heel of the hip-gut pangs, by virtue of a
    solemn protestation put in by the little testiculated or codsted fishes,
    which, to tell the truth, were at that time very necessary for
    understanding the syntax and construction of old boots.  Therefore John
    Calf, her cousin gervais once removed with a log from the woodstack, very
    seriously advised her not to put herself into the hazard of quagswagging in
    the lee, to be scoured with a buck of linen clothes till first she had
    kindled the paper.  This counsel she laid hold on, because he desired her
    to take nothing and throw out, for Non de ponte vadit, qui cum sapientia
    cadit.  Matters thus standing, seeing the masters of the chamber of
    accompts or members of that committee did not fully agree amongst
    themselves in casting up the number of the Almany whistles, whereof were
    framed those spectacles for princes which have been lately printed at
    Antwerp, I must needs think that it makes a bad return of the writ, and
    that the adverse party is not to be believed, in sacer verbo dotis.  For
    that, having a great desire to obey the pleasure of the king, I armed
    myself from toe to top with belly furniture, of the soles of good venison-
    pasties, to go see how my grape-gatherers and vintagers had pinked and cut
    full of small holes their high-coped caps, to lecher it the better, and
    play at in and in.  And indeed the time was very dangerous in coming from
    the fair, in so far that many trained bowmen were cast at the muster and
    quite rejected, although the chimney-tops were high enough, according to
    the proportion of the windgalls in the legs of horses, or of the malanders,
    which in the esteem of expert farriers is no better disease, or else the
    story of Ronypatifam or Lamibaudichon, interpreted by some to be the tale
    of a tub or of a roasted horse, savours of apocrypha, and is not an
    authentic history.  And by this means there was that year great abundance,
    throughout all the country of Artois, of tawny buzzing beetles, to the no
    small profit of the gentlemen-great-stick-faggot-carriers, when they did
    eat without disdaining the cocklicranes, till their belly was like to crack
    with it again.  As for my own part, such is my Christian charity towards my
    neighbours, that I could wish from my heart everyone had as good a voice;
    it would make us play the better at the tennis and the balloon.  And truly,
    my lord, to express the real truth without dissimulation, I cannot but say
    that those petty subtle devices which are found out in the etymologizing of
    pattens would descend more easily into the river of Seine, to serve for
    ever at the millers' bridge upon the said water, as it was heretofore
    decreed by the king of the Canarians, according to the sentence or judgment
    given thereupon, which is to be seen in the registry and records within the
    clerk's office of this house.

    And, therefore, my lord, I do most humbly require, that by your lordship
    there may be said and declared upon the case what is reasonable, with
    costs, damages, and interests.  Then said Pantagruel, My friend, is this
    all you have to say?  Kissbreech answered, Yes, my lord, for I have told
    all the tu autem, and have not varied at all upon mine honour in so much as
    one single word.  You then, said Pantagruel, my Lord of Suckfist, say what
    you will, and be brief, without omitting, nevertheless, anything that may
    serve to the purpose.

    Chapter 2.XII. How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel.

    Then began the Lord Suckfist in manner as followeth.  My lord, and you my
    masters, if the iniquity of men were as easily seen in categorical judgment
    as we can discern flies in a milkpot, the world's four oxen had not been so
    eaten up with rats, nor had so many ears upon the earth been nibbled away
    so scurvily.  For although all that my adversary hath spoken be of a very
    soft and downy truth, in so much as concerns the letter and history of the
    factum, yet nevertheless the crafty slights, cunning subtleties, sly
    cozenages, and little troubling entanglements are hid under the rosepot,
    the common cloak and cover of all fraudulent deceits.

    Should I endure that, when I am eating my pottage equal with the best, and
    that without either thinking or speaking any manner of ill, they rudely
    come to vex, trouble, and perplex my brains with that antique proverb which
    saith,

      Who in his pottage-eating drinks will not,
      When he is dead and buried, see one jot.

    And, good lady, how many great captains have we seen in the day of battle,
    when in open field the sacrament was distributed in luncheons of the
    sanctified bread of the confraternity, the more honestly to nod their
    heads, play on the lute, and crack with their tails, to make pretty little
    platform leaps in keeping level by the ground?  But now the world is
    unshackled from the corners of the packs of Leicester.  One flies out
    lewdly and becomes debauched; another, likewise, five, four, and two, and
    that at such random that, if the court take not some course therein, it
    will make as bad a season in matter of gleaning this year as ever it made,
    or it will make goblets.  If any poor creature go to the stoves to
    illuminate his muzzle with a cowsherd or to buy winter-boots, and that the
    sergeants passing by, or those of the watch, happen to receive the
    decoction of a clyster or the fecal matter of a close-stool upon their
    rustling-wrangling-clutter-keeping masterships, should any because of that
    make bold to clip the shillings and testers and fry the wooden dishes?
    Sometimes, when we think one thing, God does another; and when the sun is
    wholly set all beasts are in the shade.  Let me never be believed again, if
    I do not gallantly prove it by several people who have seen the light of
    the day.

    In the year thirty and six, buying a Dutch curtail, which was a middle-
    sized horse, both high and short, of a wool good enough and dyed in grain,
    as the goldsmiths assured me, although the notary put an &c. in it, I told
    really that I was not a clerk of so much learning as to snatch at the moon
    with my teeth; but, as for the butter-firkin where Vulcanian deeds and
    evidences were sealed, the rumour was, and the report thereof went current,
    that salt-beef will make one find the way to the wine without a candle,
    though it were hid in the bottom of a collier's sack, and that with his
    drawers on he were mounted on a barbed horse furnished with a fronstal, and
    such arms, thighs, and leg-pieces as are requisite for the well frying and
    broiling of a swaggering sauciness.  Here is a sheep's head, and it is well
    they make a proverb of this, that it is good to see black cows in burnt
    wood when one attains to the enjoyment of his love.  I had a consultation
    upon this point with my masters the clerks, who for resolution concluded in
    frisesomorum that there is nothing like to mowing in the summer, and
    sweeping clean away in water, well garnished with paper, ink, pens, and
    penknives, of Lyons upon the river of Rhone, dolopym dolopof, tarabin
    tarabas, tut, prut, pish; for, incontinently after that armour begins to
    smell of garlic, the rust will go near to eat the liver, not of him that
    wears it, and then do they nothing else but withstand others' courses, and
    wryneckedly set up their bristles 'gainst one another, in lightly passing
    over their afternoon's sleep, and this is that which maketh salt so dear.
    My lords, believe not when the said good woman had with birdlime caught the
    shoveler fowl, the better before a sergeant's witness to deliver the
    younger son's portion to him, that the sheep's pluck or hog's haslet did
    dodge and shrink back in the usurers' purses, or that there could be
    anything better to preserve one from the cannibals than to take a rope of
    onions, knit with three hundred turnips, and a little of a calf's chaldern
    of the best allay that the alchemists have provided, (and) that they daub
    and do over with clay, as also calcinate and burn to dust these pantoufles,
    muff in muff out, mouflin mouflard, with the fine sauce of the juice of the
    rabble rout, whilst they hide themselves in some petty mouldwarphole,
    saving always the little slices of bacon.  Now, if the dice will not favour
    you with any other throw but ambes-ace and the chance of three at the great
    end, mark well the ace, then take me your dame, settle her in a corner of
    the bed, and whisk me her up drilletrille, there, there, toureloura la la;
    which when you have done, take a hearty draught of the best, despicando
    grenovillibus, in despite of the frogs, whose fair coarse bebuskined
    stockings shall be set apart for the little green geese or mewed goslings,
    which, fattened in a coop, take delight to sport themselves at the wagtail
    game, waiting for the beating of the metal and heating of the wax by the
    slavering drivellers of consolation.

    Very true it is, that the four oxen which are in debate, and whereof
    mention was made, were somewhat short in memory.  Nevertheless, to
    understand the game aright, they feared neither the cormorant nor mallard
    of Savoy, which put the good people of my country in great hope that their
    children some time should become very skilful in algorism.  Therefore is
    it, that by a law rubric and special sentence thereof, that we cannot fail
    to take the wolf if we make our hedges higher than the windmill, whereof
    somewhat was spoken by the plaintiff.  But the great devil did envy it, and
    by that means put the High Dutches far behind, who played the devils in
    swilling down and tippling at the good liquor, trink, mein herr, trink,
    trink, by two of my table-men in the corner-point I have gained the lurch.
    For it is not probable, nor is there any appearance of truth in this
    saying, that at Paris upon a little bridge the hen is proportionable, and
    were they as copped and high-crested as marsh whoops, if veritably they did
    not sacrifice the printer's pumpet-balls at Moreb, with a new edge set upon
    them by text letters or those of a swift-writing hand, it is all one to me,
    so that the headband of the book breed not moths or worms in it.  And put
    the case that, at the coupling together of the buckhounds, the little
    puppies shall have waxed proud before the notary could have given an
    account of the serving of his writ by the cabalistic art, it will
    necessarily follow, under correction of the better judgment of the court,
    that six acres of meadow ground of the greatest breadth will make three
    butts of fine ink, without paying ready money; considering that, at the
    funeral of King Charles, we might have had the fathom in open market for
    one and two, that is, deuce ace.  This I may affirm with a safe conscience,
    upon my oath of wool.

    And I see ordinarily in all good bagpipes, that, when they go to the
    counterfeiting of the chirping of small birds, by swinging a broom three
    times about a chimney, and putting his name upon record, they do nothing
    but bend a crossbow backwards, and wind a horn, if perhaps it be too hot,
    and that, by making it fast to a rope he was to draw, immediately after the
    sight of the letters, the cows were restored to him.  Such another sentence
    after the homeliest manner was pronounced in the seventeenth year, because
    of the bad government of Louzefougarouse, whereunto it may please the court
    to have regard.  I desire to be rightly understood; for truly, I say not
    but that in all equity, and with an upright conscience, those may very well
    be dispossessed who drink holy water as one would do a weaver's shuttle,
    whereof suppositories are made to those that will not resign, but on the
    terms of ell and tell and giving of one thing for another.  Tunc, my lords,
    quid juris pro minoribus?  For the common custom of the Salic law is such,
    that the first incendiary or firebrand of sedition that flays the cow and
    wipes his nose in a full concert of music without blowing in the cobbler's
    stitches, should in the time of the nightmare sublimate the penury of his
    member by moss gathered when people are like to founder themselves at the
    mess at midnight, to give the estrapade to these white wines of Anjou that
    do the fear of the leg in lifting it by horsemen called the gambetta, and
    that neck to neck after the fashion of Brittany, concluding as before with
    costs, damages, and interests.

    After that the Lord of Suckfist had ended, Pantagruel said to the Lord of
    Kissbreech, My friend, have you a mind to make any reply to what is said?
    No, my lord, answered Kissbreech; for I have spoke all I intended, and
    nothing but the truth.  Therefore, put an end for God's sake to our
    difference, for we are here at great charge.

    Chapter 2.XIII. How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords.

    2-13-159.jpg (166K)

    Then Pantagruel, rising up, assembled all the presidents, counsellors, and
    doctors that were there, and said unto them, Come now, my masters, you have
    heard vivae vocis oraculo, the controversy that is in question; what do you
    think of it?  They answered him, We have indeed heard it, but have not
    understood the devil so much as one circumstance of the case; and therefore
    we beseech you, una voce, and in courtesy request you that you would give
    sentence as you think good, and, ex nunc prout ex tunc, we are satisfied
    with it, and do ratify it with our full consents.  Well, my masters, said
    Pantagruel, seeing you are so pleased, I will do it; but I do not truly
    find the case so difficult as you make it.  Your paragraph Caton, the law
    Frater, the law Gallus, the law Quinque pedum, the law Vinum, the law Si
    Dominus, the law Mater, the law Mulier bona, to the law Si quis, the law
    Pomponius, the law Fundi, the law Emptor, the law Praetor, the law
    Venditor, and a great many others, are far more intricate in my opinion.
    After he had spoke this, he walked a turn or two about the hall, plodding
    very profoundly, as one may think; for he did groan like an ass whilst they
    girth him too hard, with the very intensiveness of considering how he was
    bound in conscience to do right to both parties, without varying or
    accepting of persons.  Then he returned, sat down, and began to pronounce
    sentence as followeth.

    Having seen, heard, calculated, and well considered of the difference
    between the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist, the court saith unto them,
    that in regard of the sudden quaking, shivering, and hoariness of the
    flickermouse, bravely declining from the estival solstice, to attempt by
    private means the surprisal of toyish trifles in those who are a little
    unwell for having taken a draught too much, through the lewd demeanour and
    vexation of the beetles that inhabit the diarodal (diarhomal) climate of an
    hypocritical ape on horseback, bending a crossbow backwards, the plaintiff
    truly had just cause to calfet, or with oakum to stop the chinks of the
    galleon which the good woman blew up with wind, having one foot shod and
    the other bare, reimbursing and restoring to him, low and stiff in his
    conscience, as many bladder-nuts and wild pistaches as there is of hair in
    eighteen cows, with as much for the embroiderer, and so much for that.  He
    is likewise declared innocent of the case privileged from the knapdardies,
    into the danger whereof it was thought he had incurred; because he could
    not jocundly and with fulness of freedom untruss and dung, by the decision
    of a pair of gloves perfumed with the scent of bum-gunshot at the walnut-
    tree taper, as is usual in his country of Mirebalais.  Slacking, therefore,
    the topsail, and letting go the bowline with the brazen bullets, wherewith
    the mariners did by way of protestation bake in pastemeat great store of
    pulse interquilted with the dormouse, whose hawk's-bells were made with a
    puntinaria, after the manner of Hungary or Flanders lace, and which his
    brother-in-law carried in a pannier, lying near to three chevrons or
    bordered gules, whilst he was clean out of heart, drooping and crestfallen
    by the too narrow sifting, canvassing, and curious examining of the matter
    in the angularly doghole of nasty scoundrels, from whence we shoot at the
    vermiformal popinjay with the flap made of a foxtail.

    But in that he chargeth the defendant that he was a botcher, cheese-eater,
    and trimmer of man's flesh embalmed, which in the arsiversy swagfall tumble
    was not found true, as by the defendant was very well discussed.

    The court, therefore, doth condemn and amerce him in three porringers of
    curds, well cemented and closed together, shining like pearls, and
    codpieced after the fashion of the country, to be paid unto the said
    defendant about the middle of August in May.  But, on the other part, the
    defendant shall be bound to furnish him with hay and stubble for stopping
    the caltrops of his throat, troubled and impulregafized, with gabardines
    garbled shufflingly, and friends as before, without costs and for cause.

    Which sentence being pronounced, the two parties departed both contented
    with the decree, which was a thing almost incredible.  For it never came to
    pass since the great rain, nor shall the like occur in thirteen jubilees
    hereafter, that two parties contradictorily contending in judgment be
    equally satisfied and well pleased with the definitive sentence.  As for
    the counsellors and other doctors in the law that were there present, they
    were all so ravished with admiration at the more than human wisdom of
    Pantagruel, which they did most clearly perceive to be in him by his so
    accurate decision of this so difficult and thorny cause, that their spirits
    with the extremity of the rapture being elevated above the pitch of
    actuating the organs of the body, they fell into a trance and sudden
    ecstasy, wherein they stayed for the space of three long hours, and had
    been so as yet in that condition had not some good people fetched store of
    vinegar and rose-water to bring them again unto their former sense and
    understanding, for the which God be praised everywhere.  And so be it.

    Chapter 2.XIV. How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the hands of the
    Turks.

    2-14-164.jpg (159K)

    The great wit and judgment of Pantagruel was immediately after this made
    known unto all the world by setting forth his praises in print, and putting
    upon record this late wonderful proof he hath given thereof amongst the
    rolls of the crown and registers of the palace, in such sort that everybody
    began to say that Solomon, who by a probable guess only, without any
    further certainty, caused the child to be delivered to its own mother,
    showed never in his time such a masterpiece of wisdom as the good
    Pantagruel hath done.  Happy are we, therefore, that have him in our
    country.  And indeed they would have made him thereupon master of the
    requests and president in the court; but he refused all, very graciously
    thanking them for their offer.  For, said he, there is too much slavery in
    these offices, and very hardly can they be saved that do exercise them,
    considering the great corruption that is amongst men.  Which makes me
    believe, if the empty seats of angels be not filled with other kind of
    people than those, we shall not have the final judgment these seven
    thousand, sixty and seven jubilees yet to come, and so Cusanus will be
    deceived in his conjecture.  Remember that I have told you of it, and given
    you fair advertisement in time and place convenient.

    But if you have any hogsheads of good wine, I willingly will accept of a
    present of that.  Which they very heartily did do, in sending him of the
    best that was in the city, and he drank reasonably well, but poor Panurge
    bibbed and boused of it most villainously, for he was as dry as a red-
    herring, as lean as a rake, and, like a poor, lank, slender cat, walked
    gingerly as if he had trod upon eggs.  So that by someone being admonished,
    in the midst of his draught of a large deep bowl full of excellent claret
    with these words—Fair and softly, gossip, you suck up as if you were mad—
    I give thee to the devil, said he; thou hast not found here thy little
    tippling sippers of Paris, that drink no more than the little bird called a
    spink or chaffinch, and never take in their beakful of liquor till they be
    bobbed on the tails after the manner of the sparrows.  O companion! if I
    could mount up as well as I can get down, I had been long ere this above
    the sphere of the moon with Empedocles.  But I cannot tell what a devil
    this means.  This wine is so good and delicious, that the more I drink
    thereof the more I am athirst.  I believe that the shadow of my master
    Pantagruel engendereth the altered and thirsty men, as the moon doth the
    catarrhs and defluxions.  At which word the company began to laugh, which
    Pantagruel perceiving, said, Panurge, what is that which moves you to laugh
    so?  Sir, said he, I was telling them that these devilish Turks are very
    unhappy in that they never drink one drop of wine, and that though there
    were no other harm in all Mahomet's Alcoran, yet for this one base point of
    abstinence from wine which therein is commanded, I would not submit myself
    unto their law.  But now tell me, said Pantagruel, how you escaped out of
    their hands. By G—, sir, said Panurge, I will not lie to you in one word.

    The rascally Turks had broached me upon a spit all larded like a rabbit,
    for I was so dry and meagre that otherwise of my flesh they would have made
    but very bad meat, and in this manner began to roast me alive.  As they
    were thus roasting me, I recommended myself unto the divine grace, having
    in my mind the good St. Lawrence, and always hoped in God that he would
    deliver me out of this torment.  Which came to pass, and that very
    strangely.  For as I did commit myself with all my heart unto God, crying,
    Lord God, help me!  Lord God, save me!  Lord God, take me out of this pain
    and hellish torture, wherein these traitorous dogs detain me for my
    sincerity in the maintenance of thy law!  The roaster or turnspit fell
    asleep by the divine will, or else by the virtue of some good Mercury, who
    cunningly brought Argus into a sleep for all his hundred eyes.  When I saw
    that he did no longer turn me in roasting, I looked upon him, and perceived
    that he was fast asleep.  Then took I up in my teeth a firebrand by the end
    where it was not burnt, and cast it into the lap of my roaster, and another
    did I throw as well as I could under a field-couch that was placed near to
    the chimney, wherein was the straw-bed of my master turnspit.  Presently
    the fire took hold in the straw, and from the straw to the bed, and from
    the bed to the loft, which was planked and ceiled with fir, after the
    fashion of the foot of a lamp.  But the best was, that the fire which I had
    cast into the lap of my paltry roaster burnt all his groin, and was
    beginning to cease (seize) upon his cullions, when he became sensible of
    the danger, for his smelling was not so bad but that he felt it sooner than
    he could have seen daylight.  Then suddenly getting up, and in a great
    amazement running to the window, he cried out to the streets as high as he
    could, Dal baroth, dal baroth, dal baroth, which is as much to say as Fire,
    fire, fire.  Incontinently turning about, he came straight towards me to
    throw me quite into the fire, and to that effect had already cut the ropes
    wherewith my hands were tied, and was undoing the cords from off my feet,
    when the master of the house hearing him cry Fire, and smelling the smoke
    from the very street where he was walking with some other Bashaws and
    Mustaphas, ran with all the speed he had to save what he could, and to
    carry away his jewels.  Yet such was his rage, before he could well resolve
    how to go about it, that he caught the broach whereon I was spitted and
    therewith killed my roaster stark dead, of which wound he died there for
    want of government or otherwise; for he ran him in with the spit a little
    above the navel, towards the right flank, till he pierced the third lappet
    of his liver, and the blow slanting upwards from the midriff or diaphragm,
    through which it had made penetration, the spit passed athwart the
    pericardium or capsule of his heart, and came out above at his shoulders,
    betwixt the spondyls or turning joints of the chine of the back and the
    left homoplat, which we call the shoulder-blade.

    True it is, for I will not lie, that, in drawing the spit out of my body I
    fell to the ground near unto the andirons, and so by the fall took some
    hurt, which indeed had been greater, but that the lardons, or little slices
    of bacon wherewith I was stuck, kept off the blow.  My Bashaw then seeing
    the case to be desperate, his house burnt without remission, and all his
    goods lost, gave himself over unto all the devils in hell, calling upon
    some of them by their names, Grilgoth, Astaroth, Rappalus, and Gribouillis,
    nine several times.  Which when I saw, I had above sixpence' worth of fear,
    dreading that the devils would come even then to carry away this fool, and,
    seeing me so near him, would perhaps snatch me up to.  I am already,
    thought I, half roasted, and my lardons will be the cause of my mischief;
    for these devils are very liquorous of lardons, according to the authority
    which you have of the philosopher Jamblicus, and Murmault, in the Apology
    of Bossutis, adulterated pro magistros nostros.  But for my better security
    I made the sign of the cross, crying, Hageos, athanatos, ho theos, and none
    came.  At which my rogue Bashaw being very much aggrieved would, in
    transpiercing his heart with my spit, have killed himself, and to that
    purpose had set it against his breast, but it could not enter, because it
    was not sharp enough.  Whereupon I perceiving that he was not like to work
    upon his body the effect which he intended, although he did not spare all
    the force he had to thrust it forward, came up to him and said, Master
    Bugrino, thou dost here but trifle away thy time, or rashly lose it, for
    thou wilt never kill thyself thus as thou doest.  Well, thou mayst hurt or
    bruise somewhat within thee, so as to make thee languish all thy lifetime
    most pitifully amongst the hands of the chirurgeons; but if thou wilt be
    counselled by me, I will kill thee clear outright, so that thou shalt not
    so much as feel it, and trust me, for I have killed a great many others,
    who have found themselves very well after it.  Ha, my friend, said he, I
    prithee do so, and for thy pains I will give thee my codpiece (budget);
    take, here it is, there are six hundred seraphs in it, and some fine
    diamonds and most excellent rubies.  And where are they? said Epistemon.
    By St. John, said Panurge, they are a good way hence, if they always keep
    going.  But where is the last year's snow?  This was the greatest care that
    Villon the Parisian poet took.  Make an end, said Pantagruel, that we may
    know how thou didst dress thy Bashaw.  By the faith of an honest man, said
    Panurge, I do not lie in one word.  I swaddled him in a scurvy swathel-
    binding which I found lying there half burnt, and with my cords tied him
    roister-like both hand and foot, in such sort that he was not able to
    wince; then passed my spit through his throat, and hanged him thereon,
    fastening the end thereof at two great hooks or crampirons, upon which they
    did hang their halberds; and then, kindling a fair fire under him, did
    flame you up my Milourt, as they use to do dry herrings in a chimney.  With
    this, taking his budget and a little javelin that was upon the foresaid
    hooks, I ran away a fair gallop-rake, and God he knows how I did smell my
    shoulder of mutton.

    When I was come down into the street, I found everybody come to put out the
    fire with store of water, and seeing me so half-roasted, they did naturally
    pity my case, and threw all their water upon me, which, by a most joyful
    refreshing of me, did me very much good.  Then did they present me with
    some victuals, but I could not eat much, because they gave me nothing to
    drink but water after their fashion.  Other hurt they did me none, only one
    little villainous Turkey knobbreasted rogue came thiefteously to snatch
    away some of my lardons, but I gave him such a sturdy thump and sound rap
    on the fingers with all the weight of my javelin, that he came no more the
    second time.  Shortly after this there came towards me a pretty young
    Corinthian wench, who brought me a boxful of conserves, of round Mirabolan
    plums, called emblicks, and looked upon my poor robin with an eye of great
    compassion, as it was flea-bitten and pinked with the sparkles of the fire
    from whence it came, for it reached no farther in length, believe me, than
    my knees.  But note that this roasting cured me entirely of a sciatica,
    whereunto I had been subject above seven years before, upon that side which
    my roaster by falling asleep suffered to be burnt.

    Now, whilst they were thus busy about me, the fire triumphed, never ask
    how?  For it took hold on above two thousand houses, which one of them
    espying cried out, saying, By Mahoom's belly, all the city is on fire, and
    we do nevertheless stand gazing here, without offering to make any relief.
    Upon this everyone ran to save his own; for my part, I took my way towards
    the gate.  When I was got upon the knap of a little hillock not far off, I
    turned me about as did Lot's wife, and, looking back, saw all the city
    burning in a fair fire, whereat I was so glad that I had almost beshit
    myself for joy.  But God punished me well for it.  How? said Pantagruel.
    Thus, said Panurge; for when with pleasure I beheld this jolly fire,
    jesting with myself, and saying—Ha! poor flies, ha! poor mice, you will
    have a bad winter of it this year; the fire is in your reeks, it is in your
    bed-straw—out come more than six, yea, more than thirteen hundred and
    eleven dogs, great and small, altogether out of the town, flying away from
    the fire.  At the first approach they ran all upon me, being carried on by
    the scent of my lecherous half-roasted flesh, and had even then devoured me
    in a trice, if my good angel had not well inspired me with the instruction
    of a remedy very sovereign against the toothache.  And wherefore, said
    Pantagruel, wert thou afraid of the toothache or pain of the teeth?  Wert
    thou not cured of thy rheums?  By Palm Sunday, said Panurge, is there any
    greater pain of the teeth than when the dogs have you by the legs?  But on
    a sudden, as my good angel directed me, I thought upon my lardons, and
    threw them into the midst of the field amongst them.  Then did the dogs
    run, and fight with one another at fair teeth which should have the
    lardons.  By this means they left me, and I left them also bustling with
    and hairing one another.  Thus did I escape frolic and lively, gramercy
    roastmeat and cookery.

    Chapter 2.XV. How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris.

    Pantagruel one day, to refresh himself of his study, went a-walking towards
    St. Marcel's suburbs, to see the extravagancy of the Gobeline building, and
    to taste of their spiced bread.  Panurge was with him, having always a
    flagon under his gown and a good slice of a gammon of bacon; for without
    this he never went, saying that it was as a yeoman of the guard to him, to
    preserve his body from harm.  Other sword carried he none; and, when
    Pantagruel would have given him one, he answered that he needed none, for
    that it would but heat his milt.  Yea but, said Epistemon, if thou shouldst
    be set upon, how wouldst thou defend thyself?  With great buskinades or
    brodkin blows, answered he, provided thrusts were forbidden.  At their
    return, Panurge considered the walls of the city of Paris, and in derision
    said to Pantagruel, See what fair walls here are!  O how strong they are,
    and well fitted to keep geese in a mew or coop to fatten them!  By my
    beard, they are competently scurvy for such a city as this is; for a cow
    with one fart would go near to overthrow above six fathoms of them.  O my
    friend, said Pantagruel, dost thou know what Agesilaus said when he was
    asked why the great city of Lacedaemon was not enclosed with walls?  Lo
    here, said he, the walls of the city! in showing them the inhabitants and
    citizens thereof, so strong, so well armed, and so expert in military
    discipline; signifying thereby that there is no wall but of bones, and that
    towns and cities cannot have a surer wall nor better fortification than the
    prowess and virtue of the citizens and inhabitants.  So is this city so
    strong, by the great number of warlike people that are in it, that they
    care not for making any other walls.  Besides, whosoever would go about to
    wall it, as Strasbourg, Orleans, or Ferrara, would find it almost
    impossible, the cost and charges would be so excessive.  Yea but, said
    Panurge, it is good, nevertheless, to have an outside of stone when we are
    invaded by our enemies, were it but to ask, Who is below there?  As for the
    enormous expense which you say would be needful for undertaking the great
    work of walling this city about, if the gentlemen of the town will be
    pleased to give me a good rough cup of wine, I will show them a pretty,
    strange, and new way, how they may build them good cheap.  How? said
    Pantagruel.  Do not speak of it then, answered Panurge, and I will tell it
    you.  I see that the sine quo nons, kallibistris, or contrapunctums of the
    women of this country are better cheap than stones.  Of them should the
    walls be built, ranging them in good symmetry by the rules of architecture,
    and placing the largest in the first ranks, then sloping downwards ridge-
    wise, like the back of an ass.  The middle-sized ones must be ranked next,
    and last of all the least and smallest.  This done, there must be a fine
    little interlacing of them, like points of diamonds, as is to be seen in
    the great tower of Bourges, with a like number of the nudinnudos,
    nilnisistandos, and stiff bracmards, that dwell in amongst the claustral
    codpieces.  What devil were able to overthrow such walls?  There is no
    metal like it to resist blows, in so far that, if culverin-shot should come
    to graze upon it, you would incontinently see distil from thence the
    blessed fruit of the great pox as small as rain.  Beware, in the name of
    the devils, and hold off.  Furthermore, no thunderbolt or lightning would
    fall upon it.  For why?  They are all either blest or consecrated.  I see
    but one inconveniency in it.  Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha! said Pantagruel, and what
    is that?  It is, that the flies would be so liquorish of them that you
    would wonder, and would quickly gather there together, and there leave
    their ordure and excretions, and so all the work would be spoiled.  But see
    how that might be remedied:  they must be wiped and made rid of the flies
    with fair foxtails, or great good viedazes, which are ass-pizzles, of
    Provence.  And to this purpose I will tell you, as we go to supper, a brave
    example set down by Frater Lubinus, Libro de compotationibus mendicantium.

    In the time that the beasts did speak, which is not yet three days since, a
    poor lion, walking through the forest of Bieure, and saying his own little
    private devotions, passed under a tree where there was a roguish collier
    gotten up to cut down wood, who, seeing the lion, cast his hatchet at him
    and wounded him enormously in one of his legs; whereupon the lion halting,
    he so long toiled and turmoiled himself in roaming up and down the forest
    to find help, that at last he met with a carpenter, who willingly looked
    upon his wound, cleansed it as well as he could, and filled it with moss,
    telling him that he must wipe his wound well that the flies might not do
    their excrements in it, whilst he should go search for some yarrow or
    millefoil, commonly called the carpenter's herb.  The lion, being thus
    healed, walked along in the forest at what time a sempiternous crone and
    old hag was picking up and gathering some sticks in the said forest, who,
    seeing the lion coming towards her, for fear fell down backwards, in such
    sort that the wind blew up her gown, coats, and smock, even as far as above
    her shoulders; which the lion perceiving, for pity ran to see whether she
    had taken any hurt by the fall, and thereupon considering her how do you
    call it, said, O poor woman, who hath thus wounded thee?  Which words when
    he had spoken, he espied a fox, whom he called to come to him saying,
    Gossip Reynard, hau, hither, hither, and for cause!  When the fox was come,
    he said unto him, My gossip and friend, they have hurt this good woman here
    between the legs most villainously, and there is a manifest solution of
    continuity.  See how great a wound it is, even from the tail up to the
    navel, in measure four, nay full five handfuls and a half.  This is the
    blow of a hatchet, I doubt me; it is an old wound, and therefore, that the
    flies may not get into it, wipe it lustily well and hard, I prithee, both
    within and without; thou hast a good tail, and long.  Wipe, my friend,
    wipe, I beseech thee, and in the meanwhile I will go get some moss to put
    into it; for thus ought we to succour and help one another.  Wipe it hard,
    thus, my friend; wipe it well, for this wound must be often wiped,
    otherwise the party cannot be at ease.  Go to, wipe well, my little gossip,
    wipe; God hath furnished thee with a tail; thou hast a long one, and of a
    bigness proportionable; wipe hard, and be not weary.  A good wiper, who, in
    wiping continually, wipeth with his wipard, by wasps shall never be
    wounded.  Wipe, my pretty minion; wipe, my little bully; I will not stay
    long.  Then went he to get store of moss; and when he was a little way off,
    he cried out in speaking to the fox thus, Wipe well still, gossip, wipe,
    and let it never grieve thee to wipe well, my little gossip; I will put
    thee into service to be wiper to Don Pedro de Castile; wipe, only wipe, and
    no more.  The poor fox wiped as hard as he could, here and there, within
    and without; but the false old trot did so fizzle and fist that she stunk
    like a hundred devils, which put the poor fox to a great deal of ill ease,
    for he knew not to what side to turn himself to escape the unsavoury
    perfume of this old woman's postern blasts.  And whilst to that effect he
    was shifting hither and thither, without knowing how to shun the annoyance
    of those unwholesome gusts, he saw that behind there was yet another hole,
    not so great as that which he did wipe, out of which came this filthy and
    infectious air.  The lion at last returned, bringing with him of moss more
    than eighteen packs would hold, and began to put into the wound with a
    staff which he had provided for that purpose, and had already put in full
    sixteen packs and a half, at which he was amazed.  What a devil! said he,
    this wound is very deep; it would hold above two cartloads of moss.  The
    fox, perceiving this, said unto the lion, O gossip lion, my friend, I pray
    thee do not put in all thy moss there; keep somewhat, for there is yet here
    another little hole, that stinks like five hundred devils; I am almost
    choked with the smell thereof, it is so pestiferous and empoisoning.

    Thus must these walls be kept from the flies, and wages allowed to some for
    wiping of them.  Then said Pantagruel, How dost thou know that the privy
    parts of women are at such a cheap rate?  For in this city there are many
    virtuous, honest, and chaste women besides the maids.  Et ubi prenus? said
    Panurge.  I will give you my opinion of it, and that upon certain and
    assured knowledge.  I do not brag that I have bumbasted four hundred and
    seventeen since I came into this city, though it be but nine days ago; but
    this very morning I met with a good fellow, who, in a wallet such as
    Aesop's was, carried two little girls of two or three years old at the
    most, one before and the other behind.  He demanded alms of me, but I made
    him answer that I had more cods than pence.  Afterwards I asked him, Good
    man, these two girls, are they maids?  Brother, said he, I have carried
    them thus these two years, and in regard of her that is before, whom I see
    continually, in my opinion she is a virgin, nevertheless I will not put my
    finger in the fire for it; as for her that is behind, doubtless I can say
    nothing.

    Indeed, said Pantagruel, thou art a gentle companion; I will have thee to
    be apparelled in my livery.  And therefore caused him to be clothed most
    gallantly according to the fashion that then was, only that Panurge would
    have the codpiece of his breeches three foot long, and in shape square, not
    round; which was done, and was well worth the seeing.  Oftentimes was he
    wont to say, that the world had not yet known the emolument and utility
    that is in wearing great codpieces; but time would one day teach it them,
    as all things have been invented in time.  God keep from hurt, said he, the
    good fellow whose long codpiece or braguet hath saved his life!  God keep
    from hurt him whose long braguet hath been worth to him in one day one
    hundred threescore thousand and nine crowns!  God keep from hurt him who by
    his long braguet hath saved a whole city from dying by famine!  And, by G-,
    I will make a book of the commodity of long braguets when I shall have more
    leisure.  And indeed he composed a fair great book with figures, but it is
    not printed as yet that I know of.

    Chapter 2.XVI. Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge.

    2-16-168.jpg (169K)

    Panurge was of a middle stature, not too high nor too low, and had somewhat
    an aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor.  He was at that time
    five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leaden
    dagger—for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher—he was a very
    gallant and proper man of his person, only that he was a little lecherous,
    and naturally subject to a kind of disease which at that time they called
    lack of money—it is an incomparable grief, yet, notwithstanding, he had
    three score and three tricks to come by it at his need, of which the most
    honourable and most ordinary was in manner of thieving, secret purloining
    and filching, for he was a wicked lewd rogue, a cozener, drinker, roister,
    rover, and a very dissolute and debauched fellow, if there were any in
    Paris; otherwise, and in all matters else, the best and most virtuous man
    in the world; and he was still contriving some plot, and devising mischief
    against the sergeants and the watch.

    At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and roaring
    boys, made them in the evening drink like Templars, afterwards led them
    till they came under St. Genevieve, or about the college of Navarre, and,
    at the hour that the watch was coming up that way—which he knew by putting
    his sword upon the pavement, and his ear by it, and, when he heard his
    sword shake, it was an infallible sign that the watch was near at that
    instant—then he and his companions took a tumbrel or dung-cart, and gave
    it the brangle, hurling it with all their force down the hill, and so
    overthrew all the poor watchmen like pigs, and then ran away upon the other
    side; for in less than two days he knew all the streets, lanes, and
    turnings in Paris as well as his Deus det.

    At another time he made in some fair place, where the said watch was to
    pass, a train of gunpowder, and, at the very instant that they went along,
    set fire to it, and then made himself sport to see what good grace they had
    in running away, thinking that St. Anthony's fire had caught them by the
    legs.  As for the poor masters of arts, he did persecute them above all
    others.  When he encountered with any of them upon the street, he would not
    never fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bit
    of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on little
    foxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank.  One
    day that they were appointed all to meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne),
    he made a Borbonesa tart, or filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of
    garlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, of dogs' turds very warm, which he
    steeped, tempered, and liquefied in the corrupt matter of pocky boils and
    pestiferous botches; and, very early in the morning therewith anointed all
    the pavement, in such sort that the devil could not have endured it, which
    made all these good people there to lay up their gorges, and vomit what was
    upon their stomachs before all the world, as if they had flayed the fox;
    and ten or twelve of them died of the plague, fourteen became lepers,
    eighteen grew lousy, and about seven and twenty had the pox, but he did not
    care a button for it.  He commonly carried a whip under his gown, wherewith
    he whipped without remission the pages whom he found carrying wine to their
    masters, to make them mend their pace.  In his coat he had above six and
    twenty little fobs and pockets always full; one with some lead-water, and a
    little knife as sharp as a glover's needle, wherewith he used to cut
    purses; another with some kind of bitter stuff, which he threw into the
    eyes of those he met; another with clotburrs, penned with little geese' or
    capon's feathers, which he cast upon the gowns and caps of honest people,
    and often made them fair horns, which they wore about all the city,
    sometimes all their life.  Very often, also, upon the women's French hoods
    would he stick in the hind part somewhat made in the shape of a man's
    member.  In another, he had a great many little horns full of fleas and
    lice, which he borrowed from the beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them
    with small canes or quills to write with into the necks of the daintiest
    gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church, for he never
    seated himself above in the choir, but always sat in the body of the church
    amongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and at sermon.  In another, he
    used to have good store of hooks and buckles, wherewith he would couple men
    and women together that sat in company close to one another, but especially
    those that wore gowns of crimson taffeties, that, when they were about to
    go away, they might rend all their gowns.  In another, he had a squib
    furnished with tinder, matches, stones to strike fire, and all other
    tackling necessary for it.  In another, two or three burning glasses,
    wherewith he made both men and women sometimes mad, and in the church put
    them quite out of countenance; for he said that there was but an
    antistrophe, or little more difference than of a literal inversion, between
    a woman folle a la messe and molle a la fesse, that is, foolish at the mass
    and of a pliant buttock.

    In another, he had a good deal of needles and thread, wherewith he did a
    thousand little devilish pranks.  One time, at the entry of the palace unto
    the great hall, where a certain grey friar or cordelier was to say mass to
    the counsellors, he did help to apparel him and put on his vestments, but
    in the accoutring of him he sewed on his alb, surplice, or stole, to his
    gown and shirt, and then withdrew himself when the said lords of the court
    or counsellors came to hear the said mass; but when it came to the Ite,
    missa est, that the poor frater would have laid by his stole or surplice,
    as the fashion then was, he plucked off withal both his frock and shirt,
    which were well sewed together, and thereby stripping himself up to the
    very shoulders showed his bel vedere to all the world, together with his
    Don Cypriano, which was no small one, as you may imagine.  And the friar
    still kept haling, but so much the more did he discover himself and lay
    open his back parts, till one of the lords of the court said, How now!
    what's the matter?  Will this fair father make us here an offering of his
    tail to kiss it?  Nay, St. Anthony's fire kiss it for us!  From thenceforth
    it was ordained that the poor fathers should never disrobe themselves any
    more before the world, but in their vestry-room, or sextry, as they call
    it; especially in the presence of women, lest it should tempt them to the
    sin of longing and disordinate desire.  The people then asked why it was
    the friars had so long and large genitories?  The said Panurge resolved the
    problem very neatly, saying, That which makes asses to have such great ears
    is that their dams did put no biggins on their heads, as Alliaco mentioneth
    in his Suppositions.  By the like reason, that which makes the genitories
    or generation-tools of those so fair fraters so long is, for that they wear
    no bottomed breeches, and therefore their jolly member, having no
    impediment, hangeth dangling at liberty as far as it can reach, with a
    wiggle-waggle down to their knees, as women carry their paternoster beads.
    and the cause wherefore they have it so correspondently great is, that in
    this constant wig-wagging the humours of the body descend into the said
    member.  For, according to the Legists, agitation and continual motion is
    cause of attraction.

    Item, he had another pocket full of itching powder, called stone-alum,
    whereof he would cast some into the backs of those women whom he judged to
    be most beautiful and stately, which did so ticklishly gall them, that some
    would strip themselves in the open view of the world, and others dance like
    a cock upon hot embers, or a drumstick on a tabor.  Others, again, ran
    about the streets, and he would run after them.  To such as were in the
    stripping vein he would very civilly come to offer his attendance, and
    cover them with his cloak, like a courteous and very gracious man.

    Item, in another he had a little leather bottle full of old oil, wherewith,
    when he saw any man or woman in a rich new handsome suit, he would grease,
    smutch, and spoil all the best parts of it under colour and pretence of
    touching them, saying, This is good cloth; this is good satin; good
    taffeties!  Madam, God give you all that your noble heart desireth!  You
    have a new suit, pretty sir;—and you a new gown, sweet mistress;—God give
    you joy of it, and maintain you in all prosperity!  And with this would lay
    his hand upon their shoulder, at which touch such a villainous spot was
    left behind, so enormously engraven to perpetuity in the very soul, body,
    and reputation, that the devil himself could never have taken it away.
    Then, upon his departing, he would say, Madam, take heed you do not fall,
    for there is a filthy great hole before you, whereinto if you put your
    foot, you will quite spoil yourself.

    Another he had all full of euphorbium, very finely pulverized.  In that
    powder did he lay a fair handkerchief curiously wrought, which he had
    stolen from a pretty seamstress of the palace, in taking away a louse from
    off her bosom which he had put there himself, and, when he came into the
    company of some good ladies, he would trifle them into a discourse of some
    fine workmanship of bone-lace, then immediately put his hand into their
    bosom, asking them, And this work, is it of Flanders, or of Hainault? and
    then drew out his handkerchief, and said, Hold, hold, look what work here
    is, it is of Foutignan or of Fontarabia, and shaking it hard at their nose,
    made them sneeze for four hours without ceasing.  In the meanwhile he would
    fart like a horse, and the women would laugh and say, How now, do you fart,
    Panurge?  No, no, madam, said he, I do but tune my tail to the plain song
    of the music which you make with your nose.  In another he had a picklock,
    a pelican, a crampiron, a crook, and some other iron tools, wherewith there
    was no door nor coffer which he would not pick open.  He had another full
    of little cups, wherewith he played very artificially, for he had his
    fingers made to his hand, like those of Minerva or Arachne, and had
    heretofore cried treacle.  And when he changed a teston, cardecu, or any
    other piece of money, the changer had been more subtle than a fox if
    Panurge had not at every time made five or six sols (that is, some six or
    seven pence,) vanish away invisibly, openly, and manifestly, without making
    any hurt or lesion, whereof the changer should have felt nothing but the
    wind.

    Chapter 2.XVII. How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suit
    in law which he had at Paris.

    One day I found Panurge very much out of countenance, melancholic, and
    silent; which made me suspect that he had no money; whereupon I said unto
    him, Panurge, you are sick, as I do very well perceive by your physiognomy,
    and I know the disease.  You have a flux in your purse; but take no care.
    I have yet sevenpence halfpenny that never saw father nor mother, which
    shall not be wanting, no more than the pox, in your necessity.  Whereunto
    he answered me, Well, well; for money one day I shall have but too much,
    for I have a philosopher's stone which attracts money out of men's purses
    as the adamant doth iron.  But will you go with me to gain the pardons?
    said he.  By my faith, said I, I am no great pardon-taker in this world—if
    I shall be any such in the other, I cannot tell; yet let us go, in God's
    name; it is but one farthing more or less; But, said he, lend me then a
    farthing upon interest.  No, no, said I; I will give it you freely, and
    from my heart.  Grates vobis dominos, said he.

    So we went along, beginning at St. Gervase, and I got the pardons at the
    first box only, for in those matters very little contenteth me.  Then did I
    say my small suffrages and the prayers of St. Brigid; but he gained them
    all at the boxes, and always gave money to everyone of the pardoners.  From
    thence we went to Our Lady's Church, to St. John's, to St. Anthony's, and
    so to the other churches, where there was a banquet (bank) of pardons.  For
    my part, I gained no more of them, but he at all the boxes kissed the
    relics, and gave at everyone.  To be brief, when we were returned, he
    brought me to drink at the castle-tavern, and there showed me ten or twelve
    of his little bags full of money, at which I blessed myself, and made the
    sign of the cross, saying, Where have you recovered so much money in so
    little time?  Unto which he answered me that he had taken it out of the
    basins of the pardons.  For in giving them the first farthing, said he, I
    put it in with such sleight of hand and so dexterously that it appeared to
    be a threepence; thus with one hand I took threepence, ninepence, or
    sixpence at the least, and with the other as much, and so through all the
    churches where we have been.  Yea but, said I, you damn yourself like a
    snake, and are withal a thief and sacrilegious person.  True, said he, in
    your opinion, but I am not of that mind; for the pardoners do give me it,
    when they say unto me in presenting the relics to kiss, Centuplum accipies,
    that is, that for one penny I should take a hundred; for accipies is spoken
    according to the manner of the Hebrews, who use the future tense instead of
    the imperative, as you have in the law, Diliges Dominum, that is, Dilige.
    Even so, when the pardon-bearer says to me, Centuplum accipies, his meaning
    is, Centuplum accipe; and so doth Rabbi Kimy and Rabbi Aben Ezra expound
    it, and all the Massorets, et ibi Bartholus.  Moreover, Pope Sixtus gave me
    fifteen hundred francs of yearly pension, which in English money is a
    hundred and fifty pounds, upon his ecclesiastical revenues and treasure,
    for having cured him of a cankerous botch, which did so torment him that he
    thought to have been a cripple by it all his life.  Thus I do pay myself at
    my own hand, for otherwise I get nothing upon the said ecclesiastical
    treasure.  Ho, my friend! said he, if thou didst know what advantage I
    made, and how well I feathered my nest, by the Pope's bull of the crusade,
    thou wouldst wonder exceedingly.  It was worth to me above six thousand
    florins, in English coin six hundred pounds.  And what a devil is become of
    them? said I; for of that money thou hast not one halfpenny.  They returned
    from whence they came, said he; they did no more but change their master.

    But I employed at least three thousand of them, that is, three hundred
    pounds English, in marrying—not young virgins, for they find but too many
    husbands—but great old sempiternous trots which had not so much as one
    tooth in their heads; and that out of the consideration I had that these
    good old women had very well spent the time of their youth in playing at
    the close-buttock game to all comers, serving the foremost first, till no
    man would have any more dealing with them.  And, by G—, I will have their
    skin-coat shaken once yet before they die.  By this means, to one I gave a
    hundred florins, to another six score, to another three hundred, according
    to that they were infamous, detestable, and abominable.  For, by how much
    the more horrible and execrable they were, so much the more must I needs
    have given them, otherwise the devil would not have jummed them.  Presently
    I went to some great and fat wood-porter, or such like, and did myself make
    the match.  But, before I did show him the old hags, I made a fair muster
    to him of the crowns, saying, Good fellow, see what I will give thee if
    thou wilt but condescend to duffle, dinfredaille, or lecher it one good
    time.  Then began the poor rogues to gape like old mules, and I caused to
    be provided for them a banquet, with drink of the best, and store of
    spiceries, to put the old women in rut and heat of lust.  To be short, they
    occupied all, like good souls; only, to those that were horribly ugly and
    ill-favoured, I caused their head to be put within a bag, to hide their
    face.

    Besides all this, I have lost a great deal in suits of law.  And what
    lawsuits couldst thou have? said I; thou hast neither house nor lands.  My
    friend, said he, the gentlewomen of this city had found out, by the
    instigation of the devil of hell, a manner of high-mounted bands and
    neckerchiefs for women, which did so closely cover their bosoms that men
    could no more put their hands under.  For they had put the slit behind, and
    those neckcloths were wholly shut before, whereat the poor sad
    contemplative lovers were much discontented.  Upon a fair Tuesday I
    presented a petition to the court, making myself a party against the said
    gentlewomen, and showing the great interest that I pretended therein,
    protesting that by the same reason I would cause the codpiece of my
    breeches to be sewed behind, if the court would not take order for it.  In
    sum, the gentlewomen put in their defences, showing the grounds they went
    upon, and constituted their attorney for the prosecuting of the cause.  But
    I pursued them so vigorously, that by a sentence of the court it was
    decreed those high neckcloths should be no longer worn if they were not a
    little cleft and open before; but it cost me a good sum of money.  I had
    another very filthy and beastly process against the dung-farmer called
    Master Fifi and his deputies, that they should no more read privily the
    pipe, puncheon, nor quart of sentences, but in fair full day, and that in
    the Fodder schools, in face of the Arrian (Artitian) sophisters, where I
    was ordained to pay the charges, by reason of some clause mistaken in the
    relation of the sergeant.  Another time I framed a complaint to the court
    against the mules of the presidents, counsellors, and others, tending to
    this purpose, that, when in the lower court of the palace they left them to
    champ on their bridles, some bibs were made for them (by the counsellors'
    wives), that with their drivelling they might not spoil the pavement; to
    the end that the pages of the palace what play upon it with their dice, or
    at the game of coxbody, at their own ease, without spoiling their breeches
    at the knees.  And for this I had a fair decree, but it cost me dear.  Now
    reckon up what expense I was at in little banquets which from day to day I
    made to the pages of the palace.  And to what end? said I.  My friend, said
    he, thou hast no pastime at all in this world.  I have more than the king,
    and if thou wilt join thyself with me, we will do the devil together.  No,
    no, said I; by St. Adauras, that will I not, for thou wilt be hanged one
    time or another.  And thou, said he, wilt be interred some time or other.
    Now which is most honourable, the air or the earth?  Ho, grosse pecore!

    Whilst the pages are at their banqueting, I keep their mules, and to
    someone I cut the stirrup-leather of the mounting side till it hang but by
    a thin strap or thread, that when the great puffguts of the counsellor or
    some other hath taken his swing to get up, he may fall flat on his side
    like a pork, and so furnish the spectators with more than a hundred francs'
    worth of laughter.  But I laugh yet further to think how at his home-coming
    the master-page is to be whipped like green rye, which makes me not to
    repent what I have bestowed in feasting them.  In brief, he had, as I said
    before, three score and three ways to acquire money, but he had two hundred
    and fourteen to spend it, besides his drinking.

    Chapter 2.XVIII. How a great scholar of England would have argued against Pantagruel, and
    was overcome by Panurge.

    In that same time a certain learned man named Thaumast, hearing the fame
    and renown of Pantagruel's incomparable knowledge, came out of his own
    country of England with an intent only to see him, to try thereby and prove
    whether his knowledge in effect was so great as it was reported to be.  In
    this resolution being arrived at Paris, he went forthwith unto the house of
    the said Pantagruel, who was lodged in the palace of St. Denis, and was
    then walking in the garden thereof with Panurge, philosophizing after the
    fashion of the Peripatetics.  At his first entrance he startled, and was
    almost out of his wits for fear, seeing him so great and so tall.  Then did
    he salute him courteously as the manner is, and said unto him, Very true it
    is, saith Plato the prince of philosophers, that if the image and knowledge
    of wisdom were corporeal and visible to the eyes of mortals, it would stir
    up all the world to admire her.  Which we may the rather believe that the
    very bare report thereof, scattered in the air, if it happen to be received
    into the ears of men, who, for being studious and lovers of virtuous things
    are called philosophers, doth not suffer them to sleep nor rest in quiet,
    but so pricketh them up and sets them on fire to run unto the place where
    the person is, in whom the said knowledge is said to have built her temple
    and uttered her oracles.  As it was manifestly shown unto us in the Queen
    of Sheba, who came from the utmost borders of the East and Persian Sea, to
    see the order of Solomon's house and to hear his wisdom; in Anacharsis, who
    came out of Scythia, even unto Athens, to see Solon; in Pythagoras, who
    travelled far to visit the memphitical vaticinators; in Plato, who went a
    great way off to see the magicians of Egypt, and Architus of Tarentum; in
    Apollonius Tyaneus, who went as far as unto Mount Caucasus, passed along
    the Scythians, the Massagetes, the Indians, and sailed over the great river
    Phison, even to the Brachmans to see Hiarchus; as likewise unto Babylon,
    Chaldea, Media, Assyria, Parthia, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Palestina, and
    Alexandria, even unto Aethiopia, to see the Gymnosophists.  The like
    example have we of Titus Livius, whom to see and hear divers studious
    persons came to Rome from the confines of France and Spain.  I dare not
    reckon myself in the number of those so excellent persons, but well would
    be called studious, and a lover, not only of learning, but of learned men
    also.  And indeed, having heard the report of your so inestimable
    knowledge, I have left my country, my friends, my kindred, and my house,
    and am come thus far, valuing at nothing the length of the way, the
    tediousness of the sea, nor strangeness of the land, and that only to see
    you and to confer with you about some passages in philosophy, of geomancy,
    and of the cabalistic art, whereof I am doubtful and cannot satisfy my
    mind; which if you can resolve, I yield myself unto you for a slave
    henceforward, together with all my posterity, for other gift have I none
    that I can esteem a recompense sufficient for so great a favour.  I will
    reduce them into writing, and to-morrow publish them to all the learned men
    in the city, that we may dispute publicly before them.

    But see in what manner I mean that we shall dispute.  I will not argue pro
    et contra, as do the sottish sophisters of this town and other places.
    Likewise I will not dispute after the manner of the Academics by
    declamation; nor yet by numbers, as Pythagoras was wont to do, and as Picus
    de la Mirandula did of late at Rome.  But I will dispute by signs only
    without speaking, for the matters are so abstruse, hard, and arduous, that
    words proceeding from the mouth of man will never be sufficient for
    unfolding of them to my liking.  May it, therefore, please your
    magnificence to be there; it shall be at the great hall of Navarre at seven
    o'clock in the morning.  When he had spoken these words, Pantagruel very
    honourably said unto him:  Sir, of the graces that God hath bestowed upon
    me, I would not deny to communicate unto any man to my power.  For whatever
    comes from him is good, and his pleasure is that it should be increased
    when we come amongst men worthy and fit to receive this celestial manna of
    honest literature.  In which number, because that in this time, as I do
    already very plainly perceive, thou holdest the first rank, I give thee
    notice that at all hours thou shalt find me ready to condescend to every
    one of thy requests according to my poor ability; although I ought rather
    to learn of thee than thou of me.  But, as thou hast protested, we will
    confer of these doubts together, and will seek out the resolution, even
    unto the bottom of that undrainable well where Heraclitus says the truth
    lies hidden.  And I do highly commend the manner of arguing which thou hast
    proposed, to wit, by signs without speaking; for by this means thou and I
    shall understand one another well enough, and yet shall be free from this
    clapping of hands which these blockish sophisters make when any of the
    arguers hath gotten the better of the argument.  Now to-morrow I will not
    fail to meet thee at the place and hour that thou hast appointed, but let
    me entreat thee that there be not any strife or uproar between us, and that
    we seek not the honour and applause of men, but the truth only.  To which
    Thaumast answered:  The Lord God maintain you in his favour and grace, and,
    instead of my thankfulness to you, pour down his blessings upon you, for
    that your highness and magnificent greatness hath not disdained to descend
    to the grant of the request of my poor baseness.  So farewell till
    to-morrow!  Farewell, said Pantagruel.

    Gentlemen, you that read this present discourse, think not that ever men
    were more elevated and transported in their thoughts than all this night
    were both Thaumast and Pantagruel; for the said Thaumast said to the keeper
    of the house of Cluny, where he was lodged, that in all his life he had
    never known himself so dry as he was that night.  I think, said he, that
    Pantagruel held me by the throat.  Give order, I pray you, that we may have
    some drink, and see that some fresh water be brought to us, to gargle my
    palate.  On the other side, Pantagruel stretched his wits as high as he
    could, entering into very deep and serious meditations, and did nothing all
    that night but dote upon and turn over the book of Beda, De numeris et
    signis; Plotin's book, De inenarrabilibus; the book of Proclus, De magia;
    the book of Artemidorus peri Oneirokritikon; of Anaxagoras, peri Zemeion;
    Dinarius, peri Aphaton; the books of Philiston; Hipponax, peri
    Anekphoneton, and a rabble of others, so long, that Panurge said unto him:

    My lord, leave all these thoughts and go to bed; for I perceive your
    spirits to be so troubled by a too intensive bending of them, that you may
    easily fall into some quotidian fever with this so excessive thinking and
    plodding.  But, having first drunk five and twenty or thirty good draughts,
    retire yourself and sleep your fill, for in the morning I will argue
    against and answer my master the Englishman, and if I drive him not ad
    metam non loqui, then call me knave.  Yea but, said he, my friend Panurge,
    he is marvellously learned; how wilt thou be able to answer him?  Very
    well, answered Panurge; I pray you talk no more of it, but let me alone.
    Is any man so learned as the devils are?  No, indeed, said Pantagruel,
    without God's especial grace.  Yet for all that, said Panurge, I have
    argued against them, gravelled and blanked them in disputation, and laid
    them so squat upon their tails that I have made them look like monkeys.
    Therefore be assured that to-morrow I will make this vain-glorious
    Englishman to skite vinegar before all the world.  So Panurge spent the
    night with tippling amongst the pages, and played away all the points of
    his breeches at primus secundus and at peck point, in French called La
    Vergette.  Yet, when the condescended on time was come, he failed not to
    conduct his master Pantagruel to the appointed place, unto which, believe
    me, there was neither great nor small in Paris but came, thinking with
    themselves that this devilish Pantagruel, who had overthrown and vanquished
    in dispute all these doting fresh-water sophisters, would now get full
    payment and be tickled to some purpose.  For this Englishman is a terrible
    bustler and horrible coil-keeper.  We will see who will be conqueror, for
    he never met with his match before.

    Thus all being assembled, Thaumast stayed for them, and then, when
    Pantagruel and Panurge came into the hall, all the schoolboys, professors
    of arts, senior sophisters, and bachelors began to clap their hands, as
    their scurvy custom is.  But Pantagruel cried out with a loud voice, as if
    it had been the sound of a double cannon, saying, Peace, with a devil to
    you, peace!  By G—, you rogues, if you trouble me here, I will cut off the
    heads of everyone of you.  At which words they remained all daunted and
    astonished like so many ducks, and durst not do so much as cough, although
    they had swallowed fifteen pounds of feathers.  Withal they grew so dry
    with this only voice, that they laid out their tongues a full half foot
    beyond their mouths, as if Pantagruel had salted all their throats.  Then
    began Panurge to speak, saying to the Englishman, Sir, are you come hither
    to dispute contentiously in those propositions you have set down, or,
    otherwise, but to learn and know the truth?  To which answered Thaumast,
    Sir, no other thing brought me hither but the great desire I had to learn
    and to know that of which I have doubted all my life long, and have neither
    found book nor man able to content me in the resolution of those doubts
    which I have proposed.  And, as for disputing contentiously, I will not do
    it, for it is too base a thing, and therefore leave it to those sottish
    sophisters who in their disputes do not search for the truth, but for
    contradiction only and debate.  Then said Panurge, If I, who am but a mean
    and inconsiderable disciple of my master my lord Pantagruel, content and
    satisfy you in all and everything, it were a thing below my said master
    wherewith to trouble him.  Therefore is it fitter that he be chairman, and
    sit as a judge and moderator of our discourse and purpose, and give you
    satisfaction in many things wherein perhaps I shall be wanting to your
    expectation.  Truly, said Thaumast, it is very well said; begin then.  Now
    you must note that Panurge had set at the end of his long codpiece a pretty
    tuft of red silk, as also of white, green, and blue, and within it had put
    a fair orange.

    Chapter 2.XIX. How Panurge put to a nonplus the Englishman that argued by signs.

    Everybody then taking heed, and hearkening with great silence, the
    Englishman lift up on high into the air his two hands severally, clunching
    in all the tops of his fingers together, after the manner which, a la
    Chinonnese, they call the hen's arse, and struck the one hand on the other
    by the nails four several times.  Then he, opening them, struck the one
    with the flat of the other till it yielded a clashing noise, and that only
    once.  Again, in joining them as before, he struck twice, and afterwards
    four times in opening them.  Then did he lay them joined, and extended the
    one towards the other, as if he had been devoutly to send up his prayers
    unto God.  Panurge suddenly lifted up in the air his right hand, and put
    the thumb thereof into the nostril of the same side, holding his four
    fingers straight out, and closed orderly in a parallel line to the point of
    his nose, shutting the left eye wholly, and making the other wink with a
    profound depression of the eyebrows and eyelids.  Then lifted he up his
    left hand, with hard wringing and stretching forth his four fingers and
    elevating his thumb, which he held in a line directly correspondent to the
    situation of his right hand, with the distance of a cubit and a half
    between them.  This done, in the same form he abased towards the ground
    about the one and the other hand.  Lastly, he held them in the midst, as
    aiming right at the Englishman's nose.  And if Mercury,—said the
    Englishman.  There Panurge interrupted him, and said, You have spoken,
    Mask.

    Then made the Englishman this sign.  His left hand all open he lifted up
    into the air, then instantly shut into his fist the four fingers thereof,
    and his thumb extended at length he placed upon the gristle of his nose.
    Presently after, he lifted up his right hand all open, and all open abased
    and bent it downwards, putting the thumb thereof in the very place where
    the little finger of the left hand did close in the fist, and the four
    right-hand fingers he softly moved in the air.  Then contrarily he did with
    the right hand what he had done with the left, and with the left what he
    had done with the right.

    Panurge, being not a whit amazed at this, drew out into the air his
    trismegist codpiece with the left hand, and with his right drew forth a
    truncheon of a white ox-rib, and two pieces of wood of a like form, one of
    black ebony and the other of incarnation brasil, and put them betwixt the
    fingers of that hand in good symmetry; then, knocking them together, made
    such a noise as the lepers of Brittany use to do with their clappering
    clickets, yet better resounding and far more harmonious, and with his
    tongue contracted in his mouth did very merrily warble it, always looking
    fixedly upon the Englishman.  The divines, physicians, and chirurgeons that
    were there thought that by this sign he would have inferred that the
    Englishman was a leper.  The counsellors, lawyers, and decretalists
    conceived that by doing this he would have concluded some kind of mortal
    felicity to consist in leprosy, as the Lord maintained heretofore.

    The Englishman for all this was nothing daunted, but holding up his two
    hands in the air, kept them in such form that he closed the three master-
    fingers in his fist, and passing his thumbs through his indical or foremost
    and middle fingers, his auriculary or little fingers remained extended and
    stretched out, and so presented he them to Panurge.  Then joined he them so
    that the right thumb touched the left, and the left little finger touched
    the right.  Hereat Panurge, without speaking one word, lift up his hands
    and made this sign.

    He put the nail of the forefinger of his left hand to the nail of the thumb
    of the same, making in the middle of the distance as it were a buckle, and
    of his right hand shut up all the fingers into his fist, except the
    forefinger, which he often thrust in and out through the said two others of
    the left hand.  Then stretched he out the forefinger and middle finger or
    medical of his right hand, holding them asunder as much as he could, and
    thrusting them towards Thaumast.  Then did he put the thumb of his left
    hand upon the corner of his left eye, stretching out all his hand like the
    wing of a bird or the fin of a fish, and moving it very daintily this way
    and that way, he did as much with his right hand upon the corner of his
    right eye.  Thaumast began then to wax somewhat pale, and to tremble, and
    made him this sign.

    With the middle finger of his right hand he struck against the muscle of
    the palm or pulp which is under the thumb.  Then put he the forefinger of
    the right hand in the like buckle of the left, but he put it under, and not
    over, as Panurge did.  Then Panurge knocked one hand against another, and
    blowed in his palm, and put again the forefinger of his right hand into the
    overture or mouth of the left, pulling it often in and out.  Then held he
    out his chin, most intentively looking upon Thaumast.  The people there,
    which understood nothing in the other signs, knew very well that therein he
    demanded, without speaking a word to Thaumast, What do you mean by that?
    In effect, Thaumast then began to sweat great drops, and seemed to all the
    spectators a man strangely ravished in high contemplation.  Then he
    bethought himself, and put all the nails of his left hand against those of
    his right, opening his fingers as if they had been semicircles, and with
    this sign lift up his hands as high as he could.  Whereupon Panurge
    presently put the thumb of his right hand under his jaws, and the little
    finger thereof in the mouth of the left hand, and in this posture made his
    teeth to sound very melodiously, the upper against the lower.  With this
    Thaumast, with great toil and vexation of spirit, rose up, but in rising
    let a great baker's fart, for the bran came after, and pissing withal very
    strong vinegar, stunk like all the devils in hell.  The company began to
    stop their noses; for he had conskited himself with mere anguish and
    perplexity.  Then lifted he up his right hand, clunching it in such sort
    that he brought the ends of all his fingers to meet together, and his left
    hand he laid flat upon his breast.  Whereat Panurge drew out his long
    codpiece with his tuff, and stretched it forth a cubit and a half, holding
    it in the air with his right hand, and with his left took out his orange,
    and, casting it up into the air seven times, at the eighth he hid it in the
    fist of his right hand, holding it steadily up on high, and then began to
    shake his fair codpiece, showing it to Thaumast.

    After that, Thaumast began to puff up his two cheeks like a player on a
    bagpipe, and blew as if he had been to puff up a pig's bladder.  Whereupon
    Panurge put one finger of his left hand in his nockandrow, by some called
    St. Patrick's hole, and with his mouth sucked in the air, in such a manner
    as when one eats oysters in the shell, or when we sup up our broth.  This
    done, he opened his mouth somewhat, and struck his right hand flat upon it,
    making therewith a great and a deep sound, as if it came from the
    superficies of the midriff through the trachiartery or pipe of the lungs,
    and this he did for sixteen times; but Thaumast did always keep blowing
    like a goose.  Then Panurge put the forefinger of his right hand into his
    mouth, pressing it very hard to the muscles thereof; then he drew it out,
    and withal made a great noise, as when little boys shoot pellets out of the
    pot-cannons made of the hollow sticks of the branch of an alder-tree, and
    he did it nine times.

    Then Thaumast cried out, Ha, my masters, a great secret!  With this he put
    in his hand up to the elbow, then drew out a dagger that he had, holding it
    by the point downwards.  Whereat Panurge took his long codpiece, and shook
    it as hard as he could against his thighs; then put his two hands entwined
    in manner of a comb upon his head, laying out his tongue as far as he was
    able, and turning his eyes in his head like a goat that is ready to die.
    Ha, I understand, said Thaumast, but what? making such a sign that he put
    the haft of his dagger against his breast, and upon the point thereof the
    flat of his hand, turning in a little the ends of his fingers.  Whereat
    Panurge held down his head on the left side, and put his middle finger into
    his right ear, holding up his thumb bolt upright.  Then he crossed his two
    arms upon his breast and coughed five times, and at the fifth time he
    struck his right foot against the ground.  Then he lift up his left arm,
    and closing all his fingers into his fist, held his thumb against his
    forehead, striking with his right hand six times against his breast.  But
    Thaumast, as not content therewith, put the thumb of his left hand upon the
    top of his nose, shutting the rest of his said hand, whereupon Panurge set
    his two master-fingers upon each side of his mouth, drawing it as much as
    he was able, and widening it so that he showed all his teeth, and with his
    two thumbs plucked down his two eyelids very low, making therewith a very
    ill-favoured countenance, as it seemed to the company.

    Chapter 2.XX. How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge.

    Then Panurge rose up, and, putting off his cap, did very kindly thank the
    said Panurge, and with a loud voice said unto all the people that were
    there:  My lords, gentlemen, and others, at this time may I to some good
    purpose speak that evangelical word, Et ecce plus quam Salomon hic!  You
    have here in your presence an incomparable treasure, that is, my lord
    Pantagruel, whose great renown hath brought me hither, out of the very
    heart of England, to confer with him about the insoluble problems, both in
    magic, alchemy, the cabal, geomancy, astrology, and philosophy, which I had
    in my mind.  But at present I am angry even with fame itself, which I think
    was envious to him, for that it did not declare the thousandth part of the
    worth that indeed is in him.  You have seen how his disciple only hath
    satisfied me, and hath told me more than I asked of him.  Besides, he hath
    opened unto me, and resolved other inestimable doubts, wherein I can assure
    you he hath to me discovered the very true well, fountain, and abyss of the
    encyclopaedia of learning; yea, in such a sort that I did not think I
    should ever have found a man that could have made his skill appear in so
    much as the first elements of that concerning which we disputed by signs,
    without speaking either word or half word.  But, in fine, I will reduce
    into writing that which we have said and concluded, that the world may not
    take them to be fooleries, and will thereafter cause them to be printed,
    that everyone may learn as I have done.  Judge, then, what the master had
    been able to say, seeing the disciple hath done so valiantly; for, Non est
    discipulus super magistrum.  Howsoever, God be praised! and I do very
    humbly thank you for the honour that you have done us at this act.  God
    reward you for it eternally!  The like thanks gave Pantagruel to all the
    company, and, going from thence, he carried Thaumast to dinner with him,
    and believe that they drank as much as their skins could hold, or, as the
    phrase is, with unbuttoned bellies (for in that age they made fast their
    bellies with buttons, as we do now the collars of our doublets or jerkins),
    even till they neither knew where they were nor whence they came.  Blessed
    Lady, how they did carouse it, and pluck, as we say, at the kid's leather!
    And flagons to trot, and they to toot, Draw; give, page, some wine here;
    reach hither; fill with a devil, so!  There was not one but did drink five
    and twenty or thirty pipes.  Can you tell how?  Even sicut terra sine aqua;
    for the weather was hot, and, besides that, they were very dry.  In matter
    of the exposition of the propositions set down by Thaumast, and the
    signification of the signs which they used in their disputation, I would
    have set them down for you according to their own relation, but I have been
    told that Thaumast made a great book of it, imprinted at London, wherein he
    hath set down all, without omitting anything, and therefore at this time I
    do pass by it.

    Chapter 2.XXI. How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris.

    2-21-184.jpg (149K)

    Panurge began to be in great reputation in the city of Paris by means of
    this disputation wherein he prevailed against the Englishman, and from
    thenceforth made his codpiece to be very useful to him.  To which effect he
    had it pinked with pretty little embroideries after the Romanesca fashion.
    And the world did praise him publicly, in so far that there was a song made
    of him, which little children did use to sing when they were to fetch
    mustard.  He was withal made welcome in all companies of ladies and
    gentlewomen, so that at last he became presumptuous, and went about to
    bring to his lure one of the greatest ladies in the city.  And, indeed,
    leaving a rabble of long prologues and protestations, which ordinarily
    these dolent contemplative lent-lovers make who never meddle with the
    flesh, one day he said unto her, Madam, it would be a very great benefit to
    the commonwealth, delightful to you, honourable to your progeny, and
    necessary for me, that I cover you for the propagating of my race, and
    believe it, for experience will teach it you.  The lady at this word thrust
    him back above a hundred leagues, saying, You mischievous fool, is it for
    you to talk thus unto me?  Whom do you think you have in hand?  Begone,
    never to come in my sight again; for, if one thing were not, I would have
    your legs and arms cut off.  Well, said he, that were all one to me, to
    want both legs and arms, provided you and I had but one merry bout together
    at the brangle-buttock game; for herewithin is—in showing her his long
    codpiece—Master John Thursday, who will play you such an antic that you
    shall feel the sweetness thereof even to the very marrow of your bones.  He
    is a gallant, and doth so well know how to find out all the corners,
    creeks, and ingrained inmates in your carnal trap, that after him there
    needs no broom, he'll sweep so well before, and leave nothing to his
    followers to work upon.  Whereunto the lady answered, Go, villain, go.  If
    you speak to me one such word more, I will cry out and make you to be
    knocked down with blows.  Ha, said he, you are not so bad as you say—no,
    or else I am deceived in your physiognomy.  For sooner shall the earth
    mount up unto the heavens, and the highest heavens descend unto the hells,
    and all the course of nature be quite perverted, than that in so great
    beauty and neatness as in you is there should be one drop of gall or
    malice.  They say, indeed, that hardly shall a man ever see a fair woman
    that is not also stubborn.  Yet that is spoke only of those vulgar
    beauties; but yours is so excellent, so singular, and so heavenly, that I
    believe nature hath given it you as a paragon and masterpiece of her art,
    to make us know what she can do when she will employ all her skill and all
    her power.  There is nothing in you but honey, but sugar, but a sweet and
    celestial manna.  To you it was to whom Paris ought to have adjudged the
    golden apple, not to Venus, no, nor to Juno, nor to Minerva, for never was
    there so much magnificence in Juno, so much wisdom in Minerva, nor so much
    comeliness in Venus as there is in you.  O heavenly gods and goddesses!
    How happy shall that man be to whom you will grant the favour to embrace
    her, to kiss her, and to rub his bacon with hers!  By G—, that shall be I,
    I know it well; for she loves me already her bellyful, I am sure of it, and
    so was I predestinated to it by the fairies.  And therefore, that we lose
    no time, put on, thrust out your gammons!—and would have embraced her, but
    she made as if she would put out her head at the window to call her
    neighbours for help.  Then Panurge on a sudden ran out, and in his running
    away said, Madam, stay here till I come again; I will go call them myself;
    do not you take so much pains.  Thus went he away, not much caring for the
    repulse he had got, nor made he any whit the worse cheer for it.  The next
    day he came to the church at the time she went to mass.  At the door he
    gave her some of the holy water, bowing himself very low before her.
    Afterwards he kneeled down by her very familiarly and said unto her, Madam,
    know that I am so amorous of you that I can neither piss nor dung for love.
    I do not know, lady, what you mean, but if I should take any hurt by it,
    how much you would be to blame!  Go, said she, go!  I do not care; let me
    alone to say my prayers.  Ay but, said he, equivocate upon this:  a beau
    mont le viconte, or, to fair mount the prick-cunts.  I cannot, said she.
    It is, said he, a beau con le vit monte, or to a fair c. . .the pr. .
    .mounts.  And upon this, pray to God to give you that which your noble
    heart desireth, and I pray you give me these paternosters.  Take them, said
    she, and trouble me no longer.  This done, she would have taken off her
    paternosters, which were made of a kind of yellow stone called cestrin, and
    adorned with great spots of gold, but Panurge nimbly drew out one of his
    knives, wherewith he cut them off very handsomely, and whilst he was going
    away to carry them to the brokers, he said to her, Will you have my knife?
    No, no, said she.  But, said he, to the purpose.  I am at your commandment,
    body and goods, tripes and bowels.

    In the meantime the lady was not very well content with the want of her
    paternosters, for they were one of her implements to keep her countenance
    by in the church; then thought with herself, This bold flouting roister is
    some giddy, fantastical, light-headed fool of a strange country.  I shall
    never recover my paternosters again.  What will my husband say?  He will no
    doubt be angry with me.  But I will tell him that a thief hath cut them off
    from my hands in the church, which he will easily believe, seeing the end
    of the ribbon left at my girdle.  After dinner Panurge went to see her,
    carrying in his sleeve a great purse full of palace-crowns, called
    counters, and began to say unto her, Which of us two loveth other best, you
    me, or I you?  Whereunto she answered, As for me, I do not hate you; for,
    as God commands, I love all the world.  But to the purpose, said he; are
    not you in love with me?  I have, said she, told you so many times already
    that you should talk so no more to me, and if you speak of it again I will
    teach you that I am not one to be talked unto dishonestly.  Get you hence
    packing, and deliver me my paternosters, that my husband may not ask me for
    them.

    How now, madam, said he, your paternosters?  Nay, by mine oath, I will not
    do so, but I will give you others.  Had you rather have them of gold well
    enamelled in great round knobs, or after the manner of love-knots, or,
    otherwise, all massive, like great ingots, or if you had rather have them
    of ebony, of jacinth, or of grained gold, with the marks of fine
    turquoises, or of fair topazes, marked with fine sapphires, or of baleu
    rubies, with great marks of diamonds of eight and twenty squares?  No, no,
    all this is too little.  I know a fair bracelet of fine emeralds, marked
    with spotted ambergris, and at the buckle a Persian pearl as big as an
    orange.  It will not cost above five and twenty thousand ducats.  I will
    make you a present of it, for I have ready coin enough,—and withal he made
    a noise with his counters, as if they had been French crowns.

    Will you have a piece of velvet, either of the violet colour or of crimson
    dyed in grain, or a piece of broached or crimson satin?  Will you have
    chains, gold, tablets, rings?  You need no more but say, Yes; so far as
    fifty thousand ducats may reach, it is but as nothing to me.  By the virtue
    of which words he made the water come in her mouth; but she said unto him,
    No, I thank you, I will have nothing of you.  By G—, said he, but I will
    have somewhat of you; yet shall it be that which shall cost you nothing,
    neither shall you have a jot the less when you have given it.  Hold!—
    showing his long codpiece—this is Master John Goodfellow, that asks for
    lodging!—and with that would have embraced her; but she began to cry out,
    yet not very loud.  Then Panurge put off his counterfeit garb, changed his
    false visage, and said unto her, You will not then otherwise let me do a
    little?  A turd for you!  You do not deserve so much good, nor so much
    honour; but, by G—, I will make the dogs ride you;—and with this he ran
    away as fast as he could, for fear of blows, whereof he was naturally
    fearful.

    Chapter 2.XXII. How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleased her not very well.

    Now you must note that the next day was the great festival of Corpus
    Christi, called the Sacre, wherein all women put on their best apparel, and
    on that day the said lady was clothed in a rich gown of crimson satin,
    under which she wore a very costly white velvet petticoat.

    The day of the eve, called the vigil, Panurge searched so long of one side
    and another that he found a hot or salt bitch, which, when he had tied her
    with his girdle, he led to his chamber and fed her very well all that day
    and night.  In the morning thereafter he killed her, and took that part of
    her which the Greek geomancers know, and cut it into several small pieces
    as small as he could.  Then, carrying it away as close as might be, he went
    to the place where the lady was to come along to follow the procession, as
    the custom is upon the said holy day; and when she came in Panurge
    sprinkled some holy water on her, saluting her very courteously.  Then, a
    little while after she had said her petty devotions, he sat down close by
    her upon the same bench, and gave her this roundelay in writing, in manner
    as followeth.

      A Roundelay.

      For this one time, that I to you my love
      Discovered, you did too cruel prove,
      To send me packing, hopeless, and so soon,
      Who never any wrong to you had done,
      In any kind of action, word, or thought:
      So that, if my suit liked you not, you ought
      T' have spoke more civilly, and to this sense,
      My friend, be pleased to depart from hence,
        For this one time.

      What hurt do I, to wish you to remark,
      With favour and compassion, how a spark
      Of your great beauty hath inflamed my heart
      With deep affection, and that, for my part,
      I only ask that you with me would dance
      The brangle gay in feats of dalliance,
        For this one time?

    And, as she was opening this paper to see what it was, Panurge very
    promptly and lightly scattered the drug that he had upon her in divers
    places, but especially in the plaits of her sleeves and of her gown.  Then
    said he unto her, Madam, the poor lovers are not always at ease.  As for
    me, I hope that those heavy nights, those pains and troubles, which I
    suffer for love of you, shall be a deduction to me of so much pain in
    purgatory; yet, at the least, pray to God to give me patience in my misery.
    Panurge had no sooner spoke this but all the dogs that were in the church
    came running to this lady with the smell of the drugs that he had strewed
    upon her, both small and great, big and little, all came, laying out their
    member, smelling to her, and pissing everywhere upon her—it was the
    greatest villainy in the world.  Panurge made the fashion of driving them
    away; then took his leave of her and withdrew himself into some chapel or
    oratory of the said church to see the sport; for these villainous dogs did
    compiss all her habiliments, and left none of her attire unbesprinkled with
    their staling; insomuch that a tall greyhound pissed upon her head, others
    in her sleeves, others on her crupper-piece, and the little ones pissed
    upon her pataines; so that all the women that were round about her had much
    ado to save her.  Whereat Panurge very heartily laughing, he said to one of
    the lords of the city, I believe that same lady is hot, or else that some
    greyhound hath covered her lately.  And when he saw that all the dogs were
    flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their access to her, and
    every way keeping such a coil with her as they are wont to do about a proud
    or salt bitch, he forthwith departed from thence, and went to call
    Pantagruel, not forgetting in his way alongst the streets through which he
    went, where he found any dogs to give them a bang with his foot, saying,
    Will you not go with your fellows to the wedding?  Away, hence, avant,
    avant, with a devil avant!  And being come home, he said to Pantagruel,
    Master, I pray you come and see all the dogs of the country, how they are
    assembled about a lady, the fairest in the city, and would duffle and line
    her.  Whereunto Pantagruel willingly condescended, and saw the mystery,
    which he found very pretty and strange.  But the best was at the
    procession, in which were seen above six hundred thousand and fourteen dogs
    about her, which did very much trouble and molest her, and whithersoever
    she passed, those dogs that came afresh, tracing her footsteps, followed
    her at the heels, and pissed in the way where her gown had touched.  All
    the world stood gazing at this spectacle, considering the countenance of
    those dogs, who, leaping up, got about her neck and spoiled all her
    gorgeous accoutrements, for the which she could find no remedy but to
    retire unto her house, which was a palace.  Thither she went, and the dogs
    after her; she ran to hide herself, but the chambermaids could not abstain
    from laughing.  When she was entered into the house and had shut the door
    upon herself, all the dogs came running of half a league round, and did so
    well bepiss the gate of her house that there they made a stream with their
    urine wherein a duck might have very well swimmed, and it is the same
    current that now runs at St. Victor, in which Gobelin dyeth scarlet, for
    the specifical virtue of these piss-dogs, as our master Doribus did
    heretofore preach publicly.  So may God help you, a mill would have ground
    corn with it.  Yet not so much as those of Basacle at Toulouse.

    Chapter 2.XXIII. How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that the Dipsodes had
    invaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause wherefore the leagues are
    so short in France.

    A little while after Pantagruel heard news that his father Gargantua had
    been translated into the land of the fairies by Morgue, as heretofore were
    Ogier and Arthur; as also, (In the original edition it stands 'together,
    and that.'—M.) that the report of his translation being spread abroad, the
    Dipsodes had issued out beyond their borders, with inroads had wasted a
    great part of Utopia, and at that very time had besieged the great city of
    the Amaurots.  Whereupon departing from Paris without bidding any man
    farewell, for the business required diligence, he came to Rouen.

    Now Pantagruel in his journey seeing that the leagues of that little
    territory about Paris called France were very short in regard of those of
    other countries, demanded the cause and reason of it from Panurge, who told
    him a story which Marotus of the Lac, monachus, set down in the Acts of the
    Kings of Canarre, saying that in old times countries were not distinguished
    into leagues, miles, furlongs, nor parasangs, until that King Pharamond
    divided them, which was done in manner as followeth.  The said king chose
    at Paris a hundred fair, gallant, lusty, brisk young men, all resolute and
    bold adventurers in Cupid's duels, together with a hundred comely, pretty,
    handsome, lovely and well-complexioned wenches of Picardy, all which he
    caused to be well entertained and highly fed for the space of eight days.
    Then having called for them, he delivered to every one of the young men his
    wench, with store of money to defray their charges, and this injunction
    besides, to go unto divers places here and there.  And wheresoever they
    should biscot and thrum their wenches, that, they setting a stone there, it
    should be accounted for a league.  Thus went away those brave fellows and
    sprightly blades most merrily, and because they were fresh and had been at
    rest, they very often jummed and fanfreluched almost at every field's end,
    and this is the cause why the leagues about Paris are so short.  But when
    they had gone a great way, and were now as weary as poor devils, all the
    oil in their lamps being almost spent, they did not chink and duffle so
    often, but contented themselves (I mean for the men's part) with one scurvy
    paltry bout in a day, and this is that which makes the leagues in Brittany,
    Delanes, Germany, and other more remote countries so long.  Other men give
    other reasons for it, but this seems to me of all other the best.  To which
    Pantagruel willingly adhered.  Parting from Rouen, they arrived at
    Honfleur, where they took shipping, Pantagruel, Panurge, Epistemon,
    Eusthenes, and Carpalin.

    In which place, waiting for a favourable wind, and caulking their ship, he
    received from a lady of Paris, which I (he) had formerly kept and
    entertained a good long time, a letter directed on the outside thus,—To
    the best beloved of the fair women, and least loyal of the valiant men—
    P.N.T.G.R.L.

    Chapter 2.XXIV. A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady of Paris,
    together with the exposition of a posy written in a gold ring.

    When Pantagruel had read the superscription he was much amazed, and
    therefore demanded of the said messenger the name of her that had sent it.
    Then opened he the letter, and found nothing written in it, nor otherwise
    enclosed, but only a gold ring, with a square table diamond.  Wondering at
    this, he called Panurge to him, and showed him the case.  Whereupon Panurge
    told him that the leaf of paper was written upon, but with such cunning and
    artifice that no man could see the writing at the first sight. Therefore,
    to find it out, he set it by the fire to see if it was made with sal
    ammoniac soaked in water.  Then put he it into the water, to see if the
    letter was written with the juice of tithymalle.  After that he held it up
    against the candle, to see if it was written with the juice of white
    onions.

    Then he rubbed one part of it with oil of nuts, to see if it were not
    written with the lee of a fig-tree, and another part of it with the milk of
    a woman giving suck to her eldest daughter, to see if it was written with
    the blood of red toads or green earth-frogs.  Afterwards he rubbed one
    corner with the ashes of a swallow's nest, to see if it were not written
    with the dew that is found within the herb alcakengy, called the winter-
    cherry.  He rubbed, after that, one end with ear-wax, to see if it were not
    written with the gall of a raven.  Then did he dip it into vinegar, to try
    if it was not written with the juice of the garden spurge.  After that he
    greased it with the fat of a bat or flittermouse, to see if it was not
    written with the sperm of a whale, which some call ambergris.  Then put it
    very fairly into a basinful of fresh water, and forthwith took it out, to
    see whether it were written with stone-alum.  But after all experiments,
    when he perceived that he could find out nothing, he called the messenger
    and asked him, Good fellow, the lady that sent thee hither, did she not
    give thee a staff to bring with thee? thinking that it had been according
    to the conceit whereof Aulus Gellius maketh mention.  And the messenger
    answered him, No, sir.  Then Panurge would have caused his head to be
    shaven, to see whether the lady had written upon his bald pate, with the
    hard lye whereof soap is made, that which she meant; but, perceiving that
    his hair was very long, he forbore, considering that it could not have
    grown to so great a length in so short a time.

    Then he said to Pantagruel, Master, by the virtue of G—, I cannot tell
    what to do nor say in it.  For, to know whether there be anything written
    upon this or no, I have made use of a good part of that which Master
    Francisco di Nianto, the Tuscan, sets down, who hath written the manner of
    reading letters that do not appear; that which Zoroastes published, Peri
    grammaton acriton; and Calphurnius Bassus, De literis illegibilibus.  But I
    can see nothing, nor do I believe that there is anything else in it than
    the ring.  Let us, therefore, look upon it.  Which when they had done, they
    found this in Hebrew written within, Lamach saba(ch)thani; whereupon they
    called Epistemon, and asked him what that meant.  To which he answered that
    they were Hebrew words, signifying, Wherefore hast thou forsaken me?  Upon
    that Panurge suddenly replied, I know the mystery.  Do you see this
    diamond?  It is a false one.  This, then, is the exposition of that which
    the lady means, Diamant faux, that is, false lover, why hast thou forsaken
    me?  Which interpretation Pantagruel presently understood, and withal
    remembering that at his departure he had not bid the lady farewell, he was
    very sorry, and would fain have returned to Paris to make his peace with
    her.  But Epistemon put him in mind of Aeneas's departure from Dido, and
    the saying of Heraclitus of Tarentum, That the ship being at anchor, when
    need requireth we must cut the cable rather than lose time about untying of
    it,—and that he should lay aside all other thoughts to succour the city of
    his nativity, which was then in danger.  And, indeed, within an hour after
    that the wind arose at the north-north-west, wherewith they hoist sail, and
    put out, even into the main sea, so that within few days, passing by Porto
    Sancto and by the Madeiras, they went ashore in the Canary Islands.
    Parting from thence, they passed by Capobianco, by Senege, by Capoverde, by
    Gambre, by Sagres, by Melli, by the Cap di Buona Speranza, and set ashore
    again in the kingdom of Melinda.  Parting from thence, they sailed away
    with a tramontane or northerly wind, passing by Meden, by Uti, by Uden, by
    Gelasim, by the Isles of the Fairies, and alongst the kingdom of Achorie,
    till at last they arrived at the port of Utopia, distant from the city of
    the Amaurots three leagues and somewhat more.

    When they were ashore, and pretty well refreshed, Pantagruel said,
    Gentlemen, the city is not far from hence; therefore, were it not amiss,
    before we set forward, to advise well what is to be done, that we be not
    like the Athenians, who never took counsel until after the fact?  Are you
    resolved to live and die with me?  Yes, sir, said they all, and be as
    confident of us as of your own fingers.  Well, said he, there is but one
    thing that keeps my mind in great doubt and suspense, which is this, that I
    know not in what order nor of what number the enemy is that layeth siege to
    the city; for, if I were certain of that, I should go forward and set on
    with the better assurance.  Let us therefore consult together, and bethink
    ourselves by what means we may come to this intelligence.  Whereunto they
    all said, Let us go thither and see, and stay you here for us; for this
    very day, without further respite, do we make account to bring you a
    certain report thereof.

    Myself, said Panurge, will undertake to enter into their camp, within the
    very midst of their guards, unespied by their watch, and merrily feast and
    lecher it at their cost, without being known of any, to see the artillery
    and the tents of all the captains, and thrust myself in with a grave and
    magnific carriage amongst all their troops and companies, without being
    discovered.  The devil would not be able to peck me out with all his
    circumventions, for I am of the race of Zopyrus.

    And I, said Epistemon, know all the plots and strategems of the valiant
    captains and warlike champions of former ages, together with all the tricks
    and subtleties of the art of war.  I will go, and, though I be detected and
    revealed, I will escape by making them believe of you whatever I please,
    for I am of the race of Sinon.

    I, said Eusthenes, will enter and set upon them in their trenches, in spite
    of their sentries and all their guards; for I will tread upon their bellies
    and break their legs and arms, yea, though they were every whit as strong
    as the devil himself, for I am of the race of Hercules.

    And I, said Carpalin, will get in there if the birds can enter, for I am so
    nimble of body, and light withal, that I shall have leaped over their
    trenches, and ran clean through all their camp, before that they perceive
    me; neither do I fear shot, nor arrow, nor horse, how swift soever, were he
    the Pegasus of Perseus or Pacolet, being assured that I shall be able to
    make a safe and sound escape before them all without any hurt.  I will
    undertake to walk upon the ears of corn or grass in the meadows, without
    making either of them do so much as bow under me, for I am of the race of
    Camilla the Amazon.

    Chapter 2.XXV. How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the gentlemen attendants
    of Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six hundred and threescore
    horsemen very cunningly.

    2-25-192.jpg (166K)

    As he was speaking this, they perceived six hundred and threescore light
    horsemen, gallantly mounted, who made an outroad thither to see what ship
    it was that was newly arrived in the harbour, and came in a full gallop to
    take them if they had been able.  Then said Pantagruel, My lads, retire
    yourselves unto the ship; here are some of our enemies coming apace, but I
    will kill them here before you like beasts, although they were ten times so
    many; in the meantime, withdraw yourselves, and take your sport at it.
    Then answered Panurge, No, sir; there is no reason that you should do so,
    but, on the contrary, retire you unto the ship, both you and the rest, for
    I alone will here discomfit them; but we must not linger; come, set
    forward.  Whereunto the others said, It is well advised, sir; withdraw
    yourself, and we will help Panurge here, so shall you know what we are able
    to do.  Then said Pantagruel, Well, I am content; but, if that you be too
    weak, I will not fail to come to your assistance.  With this Panurge took
    two great cables of the ship and tied them to the kemstock or capstan which
    was on the deck towards the hatches, and fastened them in the ground,
    making a long circuit, the one further off, the other within that.  Then
    said he to Epistemon, Go aboard the ship, and, when I give you a call, turn
    about the capstan upon the orlop diligently, drawing unto you the two
    cable-ropes; and said to Eusthenes and to Carpalin, My bullies, stay you
    here, and offer yourselves freely to your enemies.  Do as they bid you, and
    make as if you would yield unto them, but take heed you come not within the
    compass of the ropes—be sure to keep yourselves free of them.  And
    presently he went aboard the ship, and took a bundle of straw and a barrel
    of gunpowder, strewed it round about the compass of the cords, and stood by
    with a brand of fire or match lighted in his hand.  Presently came the
    horsemen with great fury, and the foremost ran almost home to the ship,
    and, by reason of the slipperiness of the bank, they fell, they and their
    horses, to the number of four and forty; which the rest seeing, came on,
    thinking that resistance had been made them at their arrival.  But Panurge
    said unto them, My masters, I believe that you have hurt yourselves; I pray
    you pardon us, for it is not our fault, but the slipperiness of the sea-
    water that is always flowing; we submit ourselves to your good pleasure.
    So said likewise his two other fellows, and Epistemon that was upon the
    deck.  In the meantime Panurge withdrew himself, and seeing that they were
    all within the compass of the cables, and that his two companions were
    retired, making room for all those horses which came in a crowd, thronging
    upon the neck of one another to see the ship and such as were in it, cried
    out on a sudden to Epistemon, Draw, draw!  Then began Epistemon to wind
    about the capstan, by doing whereof the two cables so entangled and
    empestered the legs of the horses, that they were all of them thrown down
    to the ground easily, together with their riders.  But they, seeing that,
    drew their swords, and would have cut them; whereupon Panurge set fire to
    the train, and there burnt them up all like damned souls, both men and
    horses, not one escaping save one alone, who being mounted on a fleet
    Turkey courser, by mere speed in flight got himself out of the circle of
    the ropes.  But when Carpalin perceived him, he ran after him with such
    nimbleness and celerity that he overtook him in less than a hundred paces;
    then, leaping close behind him upon the crupper of his horse, clasped him
    in his arms, and brought him back to the ship.

    This exploit being ended, Pantagruel was very jovial, and wondrously
    commended the industry of these gentlemen, whom he called his fellow-
    soldiers, and made them refresh themselves and feed well and merrily upon
    the seashore, and drink heartily with their bellies upon the ground, and
    their prisoner with them, whom they admitted to that familiarity; only that
    the poor devil was somewhat afraid that Pantagruel would have eaten him up
    whole, which, considering the wideness of his mouth and capacity of his
    throat was no great matter for him to have done; for he could have done it
    as easily as you would eat a small comfit, he showing no more in his throat
    than would a grain of millet-seed in the mouth of an ass.

    Chapter 2.XXVI. How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating still salt meats; and
    how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison.

    Thus as they talked and chatted together, Carpalin said, And, by the belly
    of St. Quenet, shall we never eat any venison?  This salt meat makes me
    horribly dry.  I will go fetch you a quarter of one of those horses which
    we have burnt; it is well roasted already.  As he was rising up to go about
    it, he perceived under the side of a wood a fair great roebuck, which was
    come out of his fort, as I conceive, at the sight of Panurge's fire.  Him
    did he pursue and run after with as much vigour and swiftness as if it had
    been a bolt out of a crossbow, and caught him in a moment; and whilst he
    was in his course he with his hands took in the air four great bustards,
    seven bitterns, six and twenty grey partridges, two and thirty red-legged
    ones, sixteen pheasants, nine woodcocks, nineteen herons, two and thirty
    cushats and ringdoves; and with his feet killed ten or twelve hares and
    rabbits, which were then at relief and pretty big withal, eighteen rails in
    a knot together, with fifteen young wild-boars, two little beavers, and
    three great foxes.  So, striking the kid with his falchion athwart the
    head, he killed him, and, bearing him on his back, he in his return took up
    his hares, rails, and young wild-boars, and, as far off as he could be
    heard, cried out and said, Panurge, my friend, vinegar, vinegar!  Then the
    good Pantagruel, thinking he had fainted, commanded them to provide him
    some vinegar; but Panurge knew well that there was some good prey in hands,
    and forthwith showed unto noble Pantagruel how he was bearing upon his back
    a fair roebuck, and all his girdle bordered with hares.  Then immediately
    did Epistemon make, in the name of the nine Muses, nine antique wooden
    spits.  Eusthenes did help to flay, and Panurge placed two great cuirassier
    saddles in such sort that they served for andirons, and making their
    prisoner to be their cook, they roasted their venison by the fire wherein
    the horsemen were burnt; and making great cheer with a good deal of
    vinegar, the devil a one of them did forbear from his victuals—it was a
    triumphant and incomparable spectacle to see how they ravened and devoured.
    Then said Pantagruel, Would to God every one of you had two pairs of little
    anthem or sacring bells hanging at your chin, and that I had at mine the
    great clocks of Rennes, of Poictiers, of Tours, and of Cambray, to see what
    a peal they would ring with the wagging of our chaps.  But, said Panurge,
    it were better we thought a little upon our business, and by what means we
    might get the upper hand of our enemies.  That is well remembered, said
    Pantagruel.  Therefore spoke he thus to the prisoner, My friend, tell us
    here the truth, and do not lie to us at all, if thou wouldst not be flayed
    alive, for it is I that eat the little children.  Relate unto us at full
    the order, the number, and the strength of the army.  To which the prisoner
    answered, Sir, know for a truth that in the army there are three hundred
    giants, all armed with armour of proof, and wonderful great.  Nevertheless,
    not fully so great as you, except one that is their head, named Loupgarou,
    who is armed from head to foot with cyclopical anvils.  Furthermore, one
    hundred three score and three thousand foot, all armed with the skins of
    hobgoblins, strong and valiant men; eleven thousand four hundred men-at-
    arms or cuirassiers; three thousand six hundred double cannons, and
    arquebusiers without number; four score and fourteen thousand pioneers; one
    hundred and fifty thousand whores, fair like goddesses—(That is for me,
    said Panurge)—whereof some are Amazons, some Lionnoises, others
    Parisiennes, Taurangelles, Angevines, Poictevines, Normandes, and High
    Dutch—there are of them of all countries and all languages.

    Yea but, said Pantagruel, is the king there?  Yes, sir, said the prisoner;
    he is there in person, and we call him Anarchus, king of the Dipsodes,
    which is as much to say as thirsty people, for you never saw men more
    thirsty, nor more willing to drink, and his tent is guarded by the giants.
    It is enough, said Pantagruel.  Come, brave boys, are you resolved to go
    with me?  To which Panurge answered, God confound him that leaves you!  I
    have already bethought myself how I will kill them all like pigs, and so
    the devil one leg of them shall escape.  But I am somewhat troubled about
    one thing.  And what is that? said Pantagruel.  It is, said Panurge, how I
    shall be able to set forward to the justling and bragmardizing of all the
    whores that be there this afternoon, in such sort that there escape not one
    unbumped by me, breasted and jummed after the ordinary fashion of man and
    women in the Venetian conflict.  Ha, ha, ha, ha, said Pantagruel.

    And Carpalin said:  The devil take these sink-holes, if, by G—, I do not
    bumbaste some one of them.  Then said Eusthenes:  What! shall not I have
    any, whose paces, since we came from Rouen, were never so well winded up as
    that my needle could mount to ten or eleven o'clock, till now that I have
    it hard, stiff, and strong, like a hundred devils?  Truly, said Panurge,
    thou shalt have of the fattest, and of those that are most plump and in the
    best case.

    How now! said Epistemon; everyone shall ride, and I must lead the ass?  The
    devil take him that will do so.  We will make use of the right of war, Qui
    potest capere, capiat.  No, no, said Panurge, but tie thine ass to a crook,
    and ride as the world doth.  And the good Pantagruel laughed at all this,
    and said unto them, You reckon without your host.  I am much afraid that,
    before it be night, I shall see you in such taking that you will have no
    great stomach to ride, but more like to be rode upon with sound blows of
    pike and lance.  Baste, said Epistemon, enough of that!  I will not fail to
    bring them to you, either to roast or boil, to fry or put in paste.  They
    are not so many in number as were in the army of Xerxes, for he had thirty
    hundred thousand fighting-men, if you will believe Herodotus and Trogus
    Pompeius, and yet Themistocles with a few men overthrew them all.  For
    God's sake, take you no care for that.  Cobsminny, cobsminny, said Panurge;
    my codpiece alone shall suffice to overthrow all the men; and my St.
    Sweephole, that dwells within it, shall lay all the women squat upon their
    backs.  Up then, my lads, said Pantagruel, and let us march along.

    Chapter 2.XXVII. How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of their valour, and Panurge
    another in remembrance of the hares.  How Pantagruel likewise with his
    farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women; and how Panurge
    broke a great staff over two glasses.

    Before we depart hence, said Pantagruel, in remembrance of the exploit that
    you have now performed I will in this place erect a fair trophy.  Then
    every man amongst them, with great joy and fine little country songs, set
    up a huge big post, whereunto they hanged a great cuirassier saddle, the
    fronstal of a barbed horse, bridle-bosses, pulley-pieces for the knees,
    stirrup-leathers, spurs, stirrups, a coat of mail, a corslet tempered with
    steel, a battle-axe, a strong, short, and sharp horseman's sword, a
    gauntlet, a horseman's mace, gushet-armour for the armpits, leg-harness,
    and a gorget, with all other furniture needful for the decorement of a
    triumphant arch, in sign of a trophy.  And then Pantagruel, for an eternal
    memorial, wrote this victorial ditton, as followeth:—

      Here was the prowess made apparent of
      Four brave and valiant champions of proof,
      Who, without any arms but wit, at once,
      Like Fabius, or the two Scipions,
      Burnt in a fire six hundred and threescore
      Crablice, strong rogues ne'er vanquished before.
      By this each king may learn, rook, pawn, and knight,
      That sleight is much more prevalent than might.

        For victory,
        As all men see,
        Hangs on the ditty
        Of that committee
        Where the great God
        Hath his abode.

      Nor doth he it to strong and great men give,
      But to his elect, as we must believe;
      Therefore shall he obtain wealth and esteem,
      Who thorough faith doth put his trust in him.

    Whilst Pantagruel was writing these foresaid verses, Panurge halved and
    fixed upon a great stake the horns of a roebuck, together with the skin and
    the right forefoot thereof, the ears of three leverets, the chine of a
    coney, the jaws of a hare, the wings of two bustards, the feet of four
    queest-doves, a bottle or borracho full of vinegar, a horn wherein to put
    salt, a wooden spit, a larding stick, a scurvy kettle full of holes, a
    dripping-pan to make sauce in, an earthen salt-cellar, and a goblet of
    Beauvais.  Then, in imitation of Pantagruel's verses and trophy, wrote that
    which followeth:—

      Here was it that four jovial blades sat down
      To a profound carousing, and to crown
      Their banquet with those wines which please best great
      Bacchus, the monarch of their drinking state.
      Then were the reins and furch of a young hare,
      With salt and vinegar, displayed there,
      Of which to snatch a bit or two at once
      They all fell on like hungry scorpions.

        For th' Inventories
        Of Defensories
        Say that in heat
        We must drink neat
        All out, and of
        The choicest stuff.

      But it is bad to eat of young hare's flesh,
      Unless with vinegar we it refresh.
      Receive this tenet, then, without control,
      That vinegar of that meat is the soul.

    Then said Pantagruel, Come, my lads, let us begone! we have stayed here too
    long about our victuals; for very seldom doth it fall out that the greatest
    eaters do the most martial exploits.  There is no shadow like that of
    flying colours, no smoke like that of horses, no clattering like that of
    armour.  At this Epistemon began to smile, and said, There is no shadow
    like that of the kitchen, no smoke like that of pasties, and no clattering
    like that of goblets.  Unto which answered Panurge, There is no shadow like
    that of curtains, no smoke like that of women's breasts, and no clattering
    like that of ballocks.  Then forthwith rising up he gave a fart, a leap,
    and a whistle, and most joyfully cried out aloud, Ever live Pantagruel!
    When Pantagruel saw that, he would have done as much; but with the fart
    that he let the earth trembled nine leagues about, wherewith and with the
    corrupted air he begot above three and fifty thousand little men, ill-
    favoured dwarfs, and with one fisg that he let he made as many little
    women, crouching down, as you shall see in divers places, which never grow
    but like cow's tails, downwards, or, like the Limosin radishes, round.  How
    now! said Panurge, are your farts so fertile and fruitful?  By G—, here be
    brave farted men and fisgued women; let them be married together; they will
    beget fine hornets and dorflies.  So did Pantagruel, and called them
    pigmies.  Those he sent to live in an island thereby, where since that time
    they are increased mightily.  But the cranes make war with them
    continually, against which they do most courageously defend themselves; for
    these little ends of men and dandiprats (whom in Scotland they call
    whiphandles and knots of a tar-barrel) are commonly very testy and
    choleric; the physical reason whereof is, because their heart is near their
    spleen.

    At this same time Panurge took two drinking glasses that were there, both
    of one bigness, and filled them with water up to the brim, and set one of
    them upon one stool and the other upon another, placing them about one foot
    from one another.  Then he took the staff of a javelin, about five foot and
    a half long, and put it upon the two glasses, so that the two ends of the
    staff did come just to the brims of the glasses.  This done, he took a
    great stake or billet of wood, and said to Pantagruel and to the rest, My
    masters, behold how easily we shall have the victory over our enemies; for
    just as I shall break this staff here upon these glasses, without either
    breaking or crazing of them, nay, which is more, without spilling one drop
    of the water that is within them, even so shall we break the heads of our
    Dipsodes without receiving any of us any wound or loss in our person or
    goods.  But, that you may not think there is any witchcraft in this, hold!
    said he to Eusthenes, strike upon the midst as hard as thou canst with this
    log.  Eusthenes did so, and the staff broke in two pieces, and not one drop
    of the water fell out of the glasses.  Then said he, I know a great many
    such other tricks; let us now therefore march boldly and with assurance.

    Chapter 2.XXVIII. How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over the Dipsodes and the
    Giants.

    After all this talk, Pantagruel took the prisoner to him and sent him away,
    saying, Go thou unto thy king in his camp, and tell him tidings of what
    thou hast seen, and let him resolve to feast me to-morrow about noon; for,
    as soon as my galleys shall come, which will be to-morrow at furthest, I
    will prove unto him by eighteen hundred thousand fighting-men and seven
    thousand giants, all of them greater than I am, that he hath done foolishly
    and against reason thus to invade my country.  Wherein Pantagruel feigned
    that he had an army at sea.  But the prisoner answered that he would yield
    himself to be his slave, and that he was content never to return to his own
    people, but rather with Pantagruel to fight against them, and for God's
    sake besought him that he might be permitted so to do.  Whereunto
    Pantagruel would not give consent, but commanded him to depart thence
    speedily and begone as he had told him, and to that effect gave him a
    boxful of euphorbium, together with some grains of the black chameleon
    thistle, steeped into aqua vitae, and made up into the condiment of a wet
    sucket, commanding him to carry it to his king, and to say unto him, that
    if he were able to eat one ounce of that without drinking after it, he
    might then be able to resist him without any fear or apprehension of
    danger.

    The prisoner then besought him with joined hands that in the hour of the
    battle he would have compassion upon him.  Whereat Pantagruel said unto
    him, After that thou hast delivered all unto the king, put thy whole
    confidence in God, and he will not forsake thee; because, although for my
    part I be mighty, as thou mayst see, and have an infinite number of men in
    arms, I do nevertheless trust neither in my force nor in mine industry, but
    all my confidence is in God my protector, who doth never forsake those that
    in him do put their trust and confidence.  This done, the prisoner
    requested him that he would afford him some reasonable composition for his
    ransom.  To which Pantagruel answered, that his end was not to rob nor
    ransom men, but to enrich them and reduce them to total liberty.  Go thy
    way, said he, in the peace of the living God, and never follow evil
    company, lest some mischief befall thee.  The prisoner being gone,
    Pantagruel said to his men, Gentlemen, I have made this prisoner believe
    that we have an army at sea; as also that we will not assault them till
    to-morrow at noon, to the end that they, doubting of the great arrival of
    our men, may spend this night in providing and strengthening themselves,
    but in the meantime my intention is that we charge them about the hour
    of the first sleep.

    Let us leave Pantagruel here with his apostles, and speak of King Anarchus
    and his army.  When the prisoner was come he went unto the king and told
    him how there was a great giant come, called Pantagruel, who had overthrown
    and made to be cruelly roasted all the six hundred and nine and fifty
    horsemen, and he alone escaped to bring the news.  Besides that, he was
    charged by the said giant to tell him that the next day, about noon, he
    must make a dinner ready for him, for at that hour he was resolved to set
    upon him.  Then did he give him that box wherein were those confitures.
    But as soon as he had swallowed down one spoonful of them, he was taken
    with such a heat in the throat, together with an ulceration in the flap of
    the top of the windpipe, that his tongue peeled with it in such sort that,
    for all they could do unto him, he found no ease at all but by drinking
    only without cessation; for as soon as ever he took the goblet from his
    head, his tongue was on a fire, and therefore they did nothing but still
    pour in wine into his throat with a funnel.  Which when his captains,
    bashaws, and guard of his body did see, they tasted of the same drugs to
    try whether they were so thirst-procuring and alterative or no.  But it so
    befell them as it had done their king, and they plied the flagon so well
    that the noise ran throughout all the camp, how the prisoner was returned;
    that the next day they were to have an assault; that the king and his
    captains did already prepare themselves for it, together with his guards,
    and that with carousing lustily and quaffing as hard as they could.  Every
    man, therefore, in the army began to tipple, ply the pot, swill and guzzle
    it as fast as they could.  In sum, they drunk so much, and so long, that
    they fell asleep like pigs, all out of order throughout the whole camp.

    Let us now return to the good Pantagruel, and relate how he carried himself
    in this business.  Departing from the place of the trophies, he took the
    mast of their ship in his hand like a pilgrim's staff, and put within the
    top of it two hundred and seven and thirty puncheons of white wine of
    Anjou, the rest was of Rouen, and tied up to his girdle the bark all full
    of salt, as easily as the lansquenets carry their little panniers, and so
    set onward on his way with his fellow-soldiers.  When he was come near to
    the enemy's camp, Panurge said unto him, Sir, if you would do well, let
    down this white wine of Anjou from the scuttle of the mast of the ship,
    that we may all drink thereof, like Bretons.

    Hereunto Pantagruel very willingly consented, and they drank so neat that
    there was not so much as one poor drop left of two hundred and seven and
    thirty puncheons, except one boracho or leathern bottle of Tours which
    Panurge filled for himself, for he called that his vademecum, and some
    scurvy lees of wine in the bottom, which served him instead of vinegar.
    After they had whittled and curried the can pretty handsomely, Panurge gave
    Pantagruel to eat some devilish drugs compounded of lithotripton, which is
    a stone-dissolving ingredient, nephrocatarticon, that purgeth the reins,
    the marmalade of quinces, called codiniac, a confection of cantharides,
    which are green flies breeding on the tops of olive-trees, and other kinds
    of diuretic or piss-procuring simples.  This done, Pantagruel said to
    Carpalin, Go into the city, scrambling like a cat against the wall, as you
    can well do, and tell them that now presently they come out and charge
    their enemies as rudely as they can, and having said so, come down, taking
    a lighted torch with you, wherewith you shall set on fire all the tents and
    pavilions in the camp; then cry as loud as you are able with your great
    voice, and then come away from thence.  Yea but, said Carpalin, were it not
    good to cloy all their ordnance?  No, no, said Pantagruel, only blow up all
    their powder.  Carpalin, obeying him, departed suddenly and did as he was
    appointed by Pantagruel, and all the combatants came forth that were in the
    city, and when he had set fire in the tents and pavilions, he passed so
    lightly through them, and so highly and profoundly did they snort and
    sleep, that they never perceived him.  He came to the place where their
    artillery was, and set their munition on fire.  But here was the danger.
    The fire was so sudden that poor Carpalin had almost been burnt.  And had
    it not been for his wonderful agility he had been fried like a roasting
    pig.  But he departed away so speedily that a bolt or arrow out of a
    crossbow could not have had a swifter motion.  When he was clear of their
    trenches, he shouted aloud, and cried out so dreadfully, and with such
    amazement to the hearers, that it seemed all the devils of hell had been
    let loose.  At which noise the enemies awaked, but can you tell how?  Even
    no less astonished than are monks at the ringing of the first peal to
    matins, which in Lusonnois is called rub-ballock.

    In the meantime Pantagruel began to sow the salt that he had in his bark,
    and because they slept with an open gaping mouth, he filled all their
    throats with it, so that those poor wretches were by it made to cough like
    foxes.  Ha, Pantagruel, how thou addest greater heat to the firebrand that
    is in us!  Suddenly Pantagruel had will to piss, by means of the drugs
    which Panurge had given him, and pissed amidst the camp so well and so
    copiously that he drowned them all, and there was a particular deluge ten
    leagues round about, of such considerable depth that the history saith, if
    his father's great mare had been there, and pissed likewise, it would
    undoubtedly have been a more enormous deluge than that of Deucalion; for
    she did never piss but she made a river greater than is either the Rhone or
    the Danube.  Which those that were come out of the city seeing, said, They
    are all cruelly slain; see how the blood runs along.  But they were
    deceived in thinking Pantagruel's urine had been the blood of their
    enemies, for they could not see but by the light of the fire of the
    pavilions and some small light of the moon.

    The enemies, after that they were awaked, seeing on one side the fire in
    the camp, and on the other the inundation of the urinal deluge, could not
    tell what to say nor what to think.  Some said that it was the end of the
    world and the final judgment, which ought to be by fire.  Others again
    thought that the sea-gods, Neptune, Proteus, Triton, and the rest of them,
    did persecute them, for that indeed they found it to be like sea-water and
    salt.

    O who were able now condignly to relate how Pantagruel did demean himself
    against the three hundred giants!  O my Muse, my Calliope, my Thalia,
    inspire me at this time, restore unto me my spirits; for this is the
    logical bridge of asses!  Here is the pitfall, here is the difficulty, to
    have ability enough to express the horrible battle that was fought.  Ah,
    would to God that I had now a bottle of the best wine that ever those drank
    who shall read this so veridical history!

    Chapter 2.XXIX. How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed with free-stone,
    and Loupgarou their captain.

    2-29-204.jpg (142K)

    The giants, seeing all their camp drowned, carried away their king Anarchus
    upon their backs as well as they could out of the fort, as Aeneas did to
    his father Anchises, in the time of the conflagration of Troy.  When
    Panurge perceived them, he said to Pantagruel, Sir, yonder are the giants
    coming forth against you; lay on them with your mast gallantly, like an old
    fencer; for now is the time that you must show yourself a brave man and an
    honest.  And for our part we will not fail you.  I myself will kill to you
    a good many boldly enough; for why, David killed Goliath very easily; and
    then this great lecher, Eusthenes, who is stronger than four oxen, will not
    spare himself.  Be of good courage, therefore, and valiant; charge amongst
    them with point and edge, and by all manner of means.  Well, said
    Pantagruel, of courage I have more than for fifty francs, but let us be
    wise, for Hercules first never undertook against two.  That is well cacked,
    well scummered, said Panurge; do you compare yourself with Hercules?  You
    have, by G—, more strength in your teeth, and more scent in your bum, than
    ever Hercules had in all his body and soul.  So much is a man worth as he
    esteems himself.  Whilst they spake those words, behold! Loupgarou was come
    with all his giants, who, seeing Pantagruel in a manner alone, was carried
    away with temerity and presumption, for hopes that he had to kill the good
    man.  Whereupon he said to his companions the giants, You wenchers of the
    low country, by Mahoom! if any of you undertake to fight against these men
    here, I will put you cruelly to death.  It is my will that you let me fight
    single.  In the meantime you shall have good sport to look upon us.

    Then all the other giants retired with their king to the place where the
    flagons stood, and Panurge and his comrades with them, who counterfeited
    those that have had the pox, for he wreathed about his mouth, shrunk up his
    fingers, and with a harsh and hoarse voice said unto them, I forsake—od,
    fellow-soldiers, if I would have it to be believed that we make any war at
    all.  Give us somewhat to eat with you whilest our masters fight against
    one another.  To this the king and giants jointly condescended, and
    accordingly made them to banquet with them.  In the meantime Panurge told
    them the follies of Turpin, the examples of St. Nicholas, and the tale of a
    tub.  Loupgarou then set forward towards Pantagruel, with a mace all of
    steel, and that of the best sort, weighing nine thousand seven hundred
    quintals and two quarterons, at the end whereof were thirteen pointed
    diamonds, the least whereof was as big as the greatest bell of Our Lady's
    Church at Paris—there might want perhaps the thickness of a nail, or at
    most, that I may not lie, of the back of those knives which they call
    cutlugs or earcutters, but for a little off or on, more or less, it is no
    matter—and it was enchanted in such sort that it could never break, but,
    contrarily, all that it did touch did break immediately.  Thus, then, as he
    approached with great fierceness and pride of heart, Pantagruel, casting up
    his eyes to heaven, recommended himself to God with all his soul, making
    such a vow as followeth.

    O thou Lord God, who hast always been my protector and my saviour! thou
    seest the distress wherein I am at this time.  Nothing brings me hither but
    a natural zeal, which thou hast permitted unto mortals, to keep and defend
    themselves, their wives and children, country and family, in case thy own
    proper cause were not in question, which is the faith; for in such a
    business thou wilt have no coadjutors, only a catholic confession and
    service of thy word, and hast forbidden us all arming and defence.  For
    thou art the Almighty, who in thine own cause, and where thine own business
    is taken to heart, canst defend it far beyond all that we can conceive,
    thou who hast thousand thousands of hundreds of millions of legions of
    angels, the least of which is able to kill all mortal men, and turn about
    the heavens and earth at his pleasure, as heretofore it very plainly
    appeared in the army of Sennacherib.  If it may please thee, therefore, at
    this time to assist me, as my whole trust and confidence is in thee alone,
    I vow unto thee, that in all countries whatsoever wherein I shall have any
    power or authority, whether in this of Utopia or elsewhere, I will cause
    thy holy gospel to be purely, simply, and entirely preached, so that the
    abuses of a rabble of hypocrites and false prophets, who by human
    constitutions and depraved inventions have empoisoned all the world, shall
    be quite exterminated from about me.

    This vow was no sooner made, but there was heard a voice from heaven
    saying, Hoc fac et vinces; that is to say, Do this, and thou shalt
    overcome.  Then Pantagruel, seeing that Loupgarou with his mouth wide open
    was drawing near to him, went against him boldly, and cried out as loud as
    he was able, Thou diest, villain, thou diest! purposing by his horrible cry
    to make him afraid, according to the discipline of the Lacedaemonians.
    Withal, he immediately cast at him out of his bark, which he wore at his
    girdle, eighteen cags and four bushels of salt, wherewith he filled both
    his mouth, throat, nose, and eyes.  At this Loupgarou was so highly
    incensed that, most fiercely setting upon him, he thought even then with a
    blow of his mace to have beat out his brains.  But Pantagruel was very
    nimble, and had always a quick foot and a quick eye, and therefore with his
    left foot did he step back one pace, yet not so nimbly but that the blow,
    falling upon the bark, broke it in four thousand four score and six pieces,
    and threw all the rest of the salt about the ground.  Pantagruel, seeing
    that, most gallantly displayed the vigour of his arms, and, according to
    the art of the axe, gave him with the great end of his mast a homethrust a
    little above the breast; then, bringing along the blow to the left side,
    with a slash struck him between the neck and shoulders.  After that,
    advancing his right foot, he gave him a push upon the couillons with the
    upper end of his said mast, wherewith breaking the scuttle on the top
    thereof, he spilt three or four puncheons of wine that were left therein.

    Upon that Loupgarou thought that he had pierced his bladder, and that the
    wine that came forth had been his urine.  Pantagruel, being not content
    with this, would have doubled it by a side-blow; but Loupgarou, lifting
    up his mace, advanced one step upon him, and with all his force would
    have dashed it upon Pantagruel, wherein, to speak the truth, he so
    sprightfully carried himself, that, if God had not succoured the good
    Pantagruel, he had been cloven from the top of his head to the bottom of
    his milt.  But the blow glanced to the right side by the brisk nimbleness
    of Pantagruel, and his mace sank into the ground above threescore and
    thirteen foot, through a huge rock, out of which the fire did issue greater
    than nine thousand and six tons.  Pantagruel, seeing him busy about
    plucking out his mace, which stuck in the ground between the rocks, ran
    upon him, and would have clean cut off his head, if by mischance his mast
    had not touched a little against the stock of Loupgarou's mace, which was
    enchanted, as we have said before.  By this means his mast broke off about
    three handfuls above his hand, whereat he stood amazed like a bell-founder,
    and cried out, Ah, Panurge, where art thou?  Panurge, seeing that, said to
    the king and the giants, By G—, they will hurt one another if they be not
    parted.  But the giants were as merry as if they had been at a wedding.
    Then Carpalin would have risen from thence to help his master; but one of
    the giants said unto him, By Golfarin, the nephew of Mahoom, if thou stir
    hence I will put thee in the bottom of my breeches instead of a
    suppository, which cannot choose but do me good.  For in my belly I am very
    costive, and cannot well cagar without gnashing my teeth and making many
    filthy faces.  Then Pantagruel, thus destitute of a staff, took up the end
    of his mast, striking athwart and alongst upon the giant, but he did him no
    more hurt than you would do with a fillip upon a smith's anvil.  In the
    (mean) time Loupgarou was drawing his mace out of the ground, and, having
    already plucked it out, was ready therewith to have struck Pantagruel, who,
    being very quick in turning, avoided all his blows in taking only the
    defensive part in hand, until on a sudden he saw that Loupgarou did
    threaten him with these words, saying, Now, villain, will not I fail to
    chop thee as small as minced meat, and keep thee henceforth from ever
    making any more poor men athirst!  For then, without any more ado,
    Pantagruel struck him such a blow with his foot against the belly that he
    made him fall backwards, his heels over his head, and dragged him thus
    along at flay-buttock above a flight-shot.  Then Loupgarou cried out,
    bleeding at the throat, Mahoom, Mahoom, Mahoom! at which noise all the
    giants arose to succour him.  But Panurge said unto them, Gentlemen, do not
    go, if will believe me, for our master is mad, and strikes athwart and
    alongst, he cares not where; he will do you a mischief.  But the giants
    made no account of it, seeing that Pantagruel had never a staff.

    And when Pantagruel saw those giants approach very near unto him, he took
    Loupgarou by the two feet, and lift up his body like a pike in the air,
    wherewith, it being harnessed with anvils, he laid such heavy load amongst
    those giants armed with free-stone, that, striking them down as a mason
    doth little knobs of stones, there was not one of them that stood before
    him whom he threw not flat to the ground.  And by the breaking of this
    stony armour there was made such a horrible rumble as put me in mind of the
    fall of the butter-tower of St. Stephen's at Bourges when it melted before
    the sun.  Panurge, with Carpalin and Eusthenes, did cut in the mean time
    the throats of those that were struck down, in such sort that there escaped
    not one.  Pantagruel to any man's sight was like a mower, who with his
    scythe, which was Loupgarou, cut down the meadow grass, to wit, the giants;
    but with this fencing of Pantagruel's Loupgarou lost his head, which
    happened when Pantagruel struck down one whose name was Riflandouille, or
    Pudding-plunderer, who was armed cap-a-pie with Grison stones, one chip
    whereof splintering abroad cut off Epistemon's neck clean and fair.  For
    otherwise the most part of them were but lightly armed with a kind of sandy
    brittle stone, and the rest with slates.  At last, when he saw that they
    were all dead, he threw the body of Loupgarou as hard as he could against
    the city, where falling like a frog upon his belly in the great Piazza
    thereof, he with the said fall killed a singed he-cat, a wet she-cat, a
    farting duck, and a bridled goose.

    Chapter 2.XXX. How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healed by Panurge, and
    of the news which he brought from the devils, and of the damned people in
    hell.

    2-30-208.jpg (175K)

    This gigantal victory being ended, Pantagruel withdrew himself to the place
    of the flagons, and called for Panurge and the rest, who came unto him safe
    and sound, except Eusthenes, whom one of the giants had scratched a little
    in the face whilst he was about the cutting of his throat, and Epistemon,
    who appeared not at all.  Whereat Pantagruel was so aggrieved that he would
    have killed himself.  But Panurge said unto him, Nay, sir, stay a while,
    and we will search for him amongst the dead, and find out the truth of all.
    Thus as they went seeking after him, they found him stark dead, with his
    head between his arms all bloody.  Then Eusthenes cried out, Ah, cruel
    death! hast thou taken from me the perfectest amongst men?  At which words
    Pantagruel rose up with the greatest grief that ever any man did see, and
    said to Panurge, Ha, my friend! the prophecy of your two glasses and the
    javelin staff was a great deal too deceitful.  But Panurge answered, My
    dear bullies all, weep not one drop more, for, he being yet all hot, I will
    make him as sound as ever he was.  In saying this, he took the head and
    held it warm foregainst his codpiece, that the wind might not enter into
    it.  Eusthenes and Carpalin carried the body to the place where they had
    banqueted, not out of any hope that ever he would recover, but that
    Pantagruel might see it.

    Nevertheless Panurge gave him very good comfort, saying, If I do not heal
    him, I will be content to lose my head, which is a fool's wager.  Leave
    off, therefore, crying, and help me.  Then cleansed he his neck very well
    with pure white wine, and, after that, took his head, and into it synapised
    some powder of diamerdis, which he always carried about him in one of his
    bags.  Afterwards he anointed it with I know not what ointment, and set it
    on very just, vein against vein, sinew against sinew, and spondyle against
    spondyle, that he might not be wry-necked—for such people he mortally
    hated.  This done, he gave it round about some fifteen or sixteen stitches
    with a needle that it might not fall off again; then, on all sides and
    everywhere, he put a little ointment on it, which he called resuscitative.

    Suddenly Epistemon began to breathe, then opened his eyes, yawned, sneezed,
    and afterwards let a great household fart.  Whereupon Panurge said, Now,
    certainly, he is healed,—and therefore gave him to drink a large full
    glass of strong white wine, with a sugared toast.  In this fashion was
    Epistemon finely healed, only that he was somewhat hoarse for above three
    weeks together, and had a dry cough of which he could not be rid but by the
    force of continual drinking.  And now he began to speak, and said that he
    had seen the devil, had spoken with Lucifer familiarly, and had been very
    merry in hell and in the Elysian fields, affirming very seriously before
    them all that the devils were boon companions and merry fellows.  But, in
    respect of the damned, he said he was very sorry that Panurge had so soon
    called him back into this world again; for, said he, I took wonderful
    delight to see them.  How so? said Pantagruel.  Because they do not use
    them there, said Epistemon, so badly as you think they do.  Their estate
    and condition of living is but only changed after a very strange manner;
    for I saw Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts upon
    old breeches and stockings, whereby he got but a very poor living.

    Xerxes was a crier of mustard.
    Romulus, a salter and patcher of pattens.
    Numa, a nailsmith.
    Tarquin, a porter.
    Piso, a clownish swain.
    Sylla, a ferryman.
    Cyrus, a cowherd.
    Themistocles, a glass-maker.
    Epaminondas, a maker of mirrors or looking-glasses.
    Brutus and Cassius, surveyors or measurers of land.
    Demosthenes, a vine-dresser.
    Cicero, a fire-kindler.
    Fabius, a threader of beads.
    Artaxerxes, a rope-maker.
    Aeneas, a miller.
    Achilles was a scaldpated maker of hay-bundles.
    Agamemnon, a lick-box.
    Ulysses, a hay-mower.
    Nestor, a door-keeper or forester.
    Darius, a gold-finder or jakes-farmer.
    Ancus Martius, a ship-trimmer.
    Camillus, a foot-post.
    Marcellus, a sheller of beans.
    Drusus, a taker of money at the doors of playhouses.
    Scipio Africanus, a crier of lee in a wooden slipper.
    Asdrubal, a lantern-maker.
    Hannibal, a kettlemaker and seller of eggshells.
    Priamus, a seller of old clouts.
    Lancelot of the Lake was a flayer of dead horses.

    All the Knights of the Round Table were poor day-labourers, employed to row
    over the rivers of Cocytus, Phlegeton, Styx, Acheron, and Lethe, when my
    lords the devils had a mind to recreate themselves upon the water, as in
    the like occasion are hired the boatmen at Lyons, the gondoliers of Venice,
    and oars at London.  But with this difference, that these poor knights have
    only for their fare a bob or flirt on the nose, and in the evening a morsel
    of coarse mouldy bread.

    Trajan was a fisher of frogs.
    Antoninus, a lackey.
    Commodus, a jet-maker.
    Pertinax, a peeler of walnuts.
    Lucullus, a maker of rattles and hawks'-bells.
    Justinian, a pedlar.
    Hector, a snap-sauce scullion.
    Paris was a poor beggar.
    Cambyses, a mule-driver.

    Nero, a base blind fiddler, or player on that instrument which is called a
    windbroach.  Fierabras was his serving-man, who did him a thousand
    mischievous tricks, and would make him eat of the brown bread and drink of
    the turned wine when himself did both eat and drink of the best.

    Julius Caesar and Pompey were boat-wrights and tighters of ships.

    Valentine and Orson did serve in the stoves of hell, and were sweat-rubbers
    in hot houses.

    Giglan and Govian (Gauvin) were poor swineherds.

    Geoffrey with the great tooth was a tinder-maker and seller of matches.

    Godfrey de Bouillon, a hood-maker.
    Jason was a bracelet-maker.
    Don Pietro de Castille, a carrier of indulgences.
    Morgan, a beer-brewer.
    Huon of Bordeaux, a hooper of barrels.
    Pyrrhus, a kitchen-scullion.
    Antiochus, a chimney-sweeper.
    Octavian, a scraper of parchment.
    Nerva, a mariner.

    Pope Julius was a crier of pudding-pies, but he left off wearing there his
    great buggerly beard.

    John of Paris was a greaser of boots.
    Arthur of Britain, an ungreaser of caps.
    Perce-Forest, a carrier of faggots.
    Pope Boniface the Eighth, a scummer of pots.
    Pope Nicholas the Third, a maker of paper.
    Pope Alexander, a ratcatcher.
    Pope Sixtus, an anointer of those that have the pox.

    What, said Pantagruel, have they the pox there too?  Surely, said
    Epistemon, I never saw so many:  there are there, I think, above a hundred
    millions; for believe, that those who have not had the pox in this world
    must have it in the other.

    Cotsbody, said Panurge, then I am free; for I have been as far as the hole
    of Gibraltar, reached unto the outmost bounds of Hercules, and gathered of
    the ripest.

    Ogier the Dane was a furbisher of armour.
    The King Tigranes, a mender of thatched houses.
    Galien Restored, a taker of moldwarps.
    The four sons of Aymon were all toothdrawers.
    Pope Calixtus was a barber of a woman's sine qua non.
    Pope Urban, a bacon-picker.
    Melusina was a kitchen drudge-wench.
    Matabrune, a laundress.
    Cleopatra, a crier of onions.
    Helen, a broker for chambermaids.
    Semiramis, the beggars' lice-killer.
    Dido did sell mushrooms.
    Penthesilea sold cresses.
    Lucretia was an alehouse-keeper.
    Hortensia, a spinstress.
    Livia, a grater of verdigris.

    After this manner, those that had been great lords and ladies here, got but
    a poor scurvy wretched living there below.  And, on the contrary, the
    philosophers and others, who in this world had been altogether indigent and
    wanting, were great lords there in their turn.  I saw Diogenes there strut
    it out most pompously, and in great magnificence, with a rich purple gown
    on him, and a golden sceptre in his right hand.  And, which is more, he
    would now and then make Alexander the Great mad, so enormously would he
    abuse him when he had not well patched his breeches; for he used to pay his
    skin with sound bastinadoes.  I saw Epictetus there, most gallantly
    apparelled after the French fashion, sitting under a pleasant arbour, with
    store of handsome gentlewomen, frolicking, drinking, dancing, and making
    good cheer, with abundance of crowns of the sun.  Above the lattice were
    written these verses for his device:

      To leap and dance, to sport and play,
        And drink good wine both white and brown,
      Or nothing else do all the day
        But tell bags full of many a crown.

    When he saw me, he invited me to drink with him very courteously, and I
    being willing to be entreated, we tippled and chopined together most
    theologically.  In the meantime came Cyrus to beg one farthing of him for
    the honour of Mercury, therewith to buy a few onions for his supper.  No,
    no, said Epictetus, I do not use in my almsgiving to bestow farthings.
    Hold, thou varlet, there's a crown for thee; be an honest man.  Cyrus was
    exceeding glad to have met with such a booty; but the other poor rogues,
    the kings that are there below, as Alexander, Darius, and others, stole it
    away from him by night.  I saw Pathelin, the treasurer of Rhadamanthus,
    who, in cheapening the pudding-pies that Pope Julius cried, asked him how
    much a dozen.  Three blanks, said the Pope.  Nay, said Pathelin, three
    blows with a cudgel.  Lay them down here, you rascal, and go fetch more.
    The poor Pope went away weeping, who, when he came to his master, the pie-
    maker, told him that they had taken away his pudding-pies.  Whereupon his
    master gave him such a sound lash with an eel-skin, that his own would have
    been worth nothing to make bag-pipe-bags of.  I saw Master John Le Maire
    there personate the Pope in such fashion that he made all the poor kings
    and popes of this world kiss his feet, and, taking great state upon him,
    gave them his benediction, saying, Get the pardons, rogues, get the
    pardons; they are good cheap.  I absolve you of bread and pottage, and
    dispense with you to be never good for anything.  Then, calling Caillet and
    Triboulet to him, he spoke these words, My lords the cardinals, despatch
    their bulls, to wit, to each of them a blow with a cudgel upon the reins.
    Which accordingly was forthwith performed.  I heard Master Francis Villon
    ask Xerxes, How much the mess of mustard?  A farthing, said Xerxes.  To
    which the said Villon answered, The pox take thee for a villain!  As much
    of square-eared wheat is not worth half that price, and now thou offerest
    to enhance the price of victuals.  With this he pissed in his pot, as the
    mustard-makers of Paris used to do.  I saw the trained bowman of the
    bathing tub, known by the name of the Francarcher de Baignolet, who, being
    one of the trustees of the Inquisition, when he saw Perce-Forest making
    water against a wall in which was painted the fire of St. Anthony, declared
    him heretic, and would have caused him to be burnt alive had it not been
    for Morgant, who, for his proficiat and other small fees, gave him nine
    tuns of beer.

    Well, said Pantagruel, reserve all these fair stories for another time,
    only tell us how the usurers are there handled.  I saw them, said
    Epistemon, all very busily employed in seeking of rusty pins and old nails
    in the kennels of the streets, as you see poor wretched rogues do in this
    world.  But the quintal, or hundredweight, of this old ironware is there
    valued but at the price of a cantle of bread, and yet they have but a very
    bad despatch and riddance in the sale of it.  Thus the poor misers are
    sometimes three whole weeks without eating one morsel or crumb of bread,
    and yet work both day and night, looking for the fair to come.
    Nevertheless, of all this labour, toil, and misery, they reckon nothing, so
    cursedly active they are in the prosecution of that their base calling, in
    hopes, at the end of the year, to earn some scurvy penny by it.

    Come, said Pantagruel, let us now make ourselves merry one bout, and drink,
    my lads, I beseech you, for it is very good drinking all this month.  Then
    did they uncase their flagons by heaps and dozens, and with their leaguer-
    provision made excellent good cheer.  But the poor King Anarchus could not
    all this while settle himself towards any fit of mirth; whereupon Panurge
    said, Of what trade shall we make my lord the king here, that he may be
    skilful in the art when he goes thither to sojourn amongst all the devils
    of hell?  Indeed, said Pantagruel, that was well advised of thee.  Do with
    him what thou wilt, I give him to thee.  Gramercy, said Panurge, the
    present is not to be refused, and I love it from you.

    Chapter 2.XXXI. How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how Panurge
    married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and made him a crier
    of green sauce.

    After this wonderful victory, Pantagruel sent Carpalin unto the city of the
    Amaurots to declare and signify unto them how the King Anarchus was taken
    prisoner and all the enemies of the city overthrown.  Which news when they
    heard all the inhabitants of the city came forth to meet him in good order,
    and with a great triumphant pomp, conducting him with a heavenly joy into
    the city, where innumerable bonfires were set on through all the parts
    thereof, and fair round tables, which were furnished with store of good
    victuals, set out in the middle of the streets.  This was a renewing of the
    golden age in the time of Saturn, so good was the cheer which then they
    made.

    But Pantagruel, having assembled the whole senate and common councilmen of
    the town, said, My masters, we must now strike the iron whilst it is hot.
    It is therefore my will that, before we frolic it any longer, we advise how
    to assault and take the whole kingdom of the Dipsodes.  To which effect let
    those that will go with me provide themselves against to-morrow after
    drinking, for then will I begin to march.  Not that I need any more men
    than I have to help me to conquer it, for I could make it as sure that way
    as if I had it already; but I see this city is so full of inhabitants that
    they scarce can turn in the streets.  I will, therefore, carry them as a
    colony into Dipsody, and will give them all that country, which is fair,
    wealthy, fruitful, and pleasant, above all other countries in the world, as
    many of you can tell who have been there heretofore.  Everyone of you,
    therefore, that will go along, let him provide himself as I have said.
    This counsel and resolution being published in the city, the next morning
    there assembled in the piazza before the palace to the number of eighteen
    hundred fifty-six thousand and eleven, besides women and little children.
    Thus began they to march straight into Dipsody, in such good order as did
    the people of Israel when they departed out of Egypt to pass over the Red
    Sea.

    But before we proceed any further in this purpose, I will tell you how
    Panurge handled his prisoner the King Anarchus; for, having remembered that
    which Epistemon had related, how the kings and rich men in this world were
    used in the Elysian fields, and how they got their living there by base and
    ignoble trades, he, therefore, one day apparelled his king in a pretty
    little canvas doublet, all jagged and pinked like the tippet of a light
    horseman's cap, together with a pair of large mariner's breeches, and
    stockings without shoes,—For, said he, they would but spoil his sight,—
    and a little peach-coloured bonnet with a great capon's feather in it—I
    lie, for I think he had two—and a very handsome girdle of a sky-colour and
    green (in French called pers et vert), saying that such a livery did become
    him well, for that he had always been perverse, and in this plight bringing
    him before Pantagruel, said unto him, Do you know this roister?  No,
    indeed, said Pantagruel.  It is, said Panurge, my lord the king of the
    three batches, or threadbare sovereign.  I intend to make him an honest
    man.  These devilish kings which we have here are but as so many calves;
    they know nothing and are good for nothing but to do a thousand mischiefs
    to their poor subjects, and to trouble all the world with war for their
    unjust and detestable pleasure.  I will put him to a trade, and make him a
    crier of green sauce.  Go to, begin and cry, Do you lack any green sauce?
    and the poor devil cried.  That is too low, said Panurge; then took him by
    the ear, saying, Sing higher in Ge, sol, re, ut.  So, so poor devil, thou
    hast a good throat; thou wert never so happy as to be no longer king.  And
    Pantagruel made himself merry with all this; for I dare boldly say that he
    was the best little gaffer that was to be seen between this and the end of
    a staff.  Thus was Anarchus made a good crier of green sauce.  Two days
    thereafter Panurge married him with an old lantern-carrying hag, and he
    himself made the wedding with fine sheep's heads, brave haslets with
    mustard, gallant salligots with garlic, of which he sent five horseloads
    unto Pantagruel, which he ate up all, he found them so appetizing.  And for
    their drink they had a kind of small well-watered wine, and some sorbapple-
    cider.  And, to make them dance, he hired a blind man that made music to
    them with a wind-broach.

    After dinner he led them to the palace and showed them to Pantagruel, and
    said, pointing to the married woman, You need not fear that she will crack.
    Why? said Pantagruel.  Because, said Panurge, she is well slit and broke up
    already.  What do you mean by that? said Pantagruel.  Do not you see, said
    Panurge, that the chestnuts which are roasted in the fire, if they be whole
    they crack as if they were mad, and, to keep them from cracking, they make
    an incision in them and slit them?  So this new bride is in her lower parts
    well slit before, and therefore will not crack behind.

    Pantagruel gave them a little lodge near the lower street and a mortar of
    stone wherein to bray and pound their sauce, and in this manner did they do
    their little business, he being as pretty a crier of green sauce as ever
    was seen in the country of Utopia.  But I have been told since that his
    wife doth beat him like plaister, and the poor sot dare not defend himself,
    he is so simple.

    Chapter 2.XXXII. How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and what the author
    saw in his mouth.

    Thus, as Pantagruel with all his army had entered into the country of the
    Dipsodes, everyone was glad of it, and incontinently rendered themselves
    unto him, bringing him out of their own good wills the keys of all the
    cities where he went, the Almirods only excepted, who, being resolved to
    hold out against him, made answer to his heralds that they would not yield
    but upon very honourable and good conditions.

    What! said Pantagruel, do they ask any better terms than the hand at the
    pot and the glass in their fist?  Come, let us go sack them, and put them
    all to the sword.  Then did they put themselves in good order, as being
    fully determined to give an assault, but by the way, passing through a
    large field, they were overtaken with a great shower of rain, whereat they
    began to shiver and tremble, to crowd, press, and thrust close to one
    another.  When Pantagruel saw that, he made their captains tell them that
    it was nothing, and that he saw well above the clouds that it would be
    nothing but a little dew; but, howsoever, that they should put themselves
    in order, and he would cover them.  Then did they put themselves in a close
    order, and stood as near to (each) other as they could, and Pantagruel drew
    out his tongue only half-way and covered them all, as a hen doth her
    chickens.  In the meantime, I, who relate to you these so veritable
    stories, hid myself under a burdock-leaf, which was not much less in
    largeness than the arch of the bridge of Montrible, but when I saw them
    thus covered, I went towards them to shelter myself likewise; which I could
    not do, for that they were so, as the saying is, At the yard's end there is
    no cloth left.  Then, as well as I could, I got upon it, and went along
    full two leagues upon his tongue, and so long marched that at last I came
    into his mouth.  But, O gods and goddesses! what did I see there?  Jupiter
    confound me with his trisulc lightning if I lie!  I walked there as they do
    in Sophia (at) Constantinople, and saw there great rocks, like the
    mountains in Denmark—I believe that those were his teeth.  I saw also fair
    meadows, large forests, great and strong cities not a jot less than Lyons
    or Poictiers.  The first man I met with there was a good honest fellow
    planting coleworts, whereat being very much amazed, I asked him, My friend,
    what dost thou make here?  I plant coleworts, said he.  But how, and
    wherewith? said I.  Ha, sir, said he, everyone cannot have his ballocks as
    heavy as a mortar, neither can we be all rich.  Thus do I get my poor
    living, and carry them to the market to sell in the city which is here
    behind.  Jesus! said I, is there here a new world?  Sure, said he, it is
    never a jot new, but it is commonly reported that, without this, there is
    an earth, whereof the inhabitants enjoy the light of a sun and a moon, and
    that it is full of and replenished with very good commodities; but yet this
    is more ancient than that.  Yea but, said I, my friend, what is the name of
    that city whither thou carriest thy coleworts to sell?  It is called
    Aspharage, said he, and all the indwellers are Christians, very honest men,
    and will make you good cheer.  To be brief, I resolved to go thither.  Now,
    in my way, I met with a fellow that was lying in wait to catch pigeons, of
    whom I asked, My friend, from whence come these pigeons?  Sir, said he,
    they come from the other world.  Then I thought that, when Pantagruel
    yawned, the pigeons went into his mouth in whole flocks, thinking that it
    had been a pigeon-house.

    Then I went into the city, which I found fair, very strong, and seated in a
    good air; but at my entry the guard demanded of me my pass or ticket.
    Whereat I was much astonished, and asked them, My masters, is there any
    danger of the plague here?  O Lord! said they, they die hard by here so
    fast that the cart runs about the streets.  Good God! said I, and where?
    Whereunto they answered that it was in Larynx and Pharynx, which are two
    great cities such as Rouen and Nantes, rich and of great trading.  And the
    cause of the plague was by a stinking and infectious exhalation which
    lately vapoured out of the abysms, whereof there have died above two and
    twenty hundred and threescore thousand and sixteen persons within this
    sevennight.  Then I considered, calculated, and found that it was a rank
    and unsavoury breathing which came out of Pantagruel's stomach when he did
    eat so much garlic, as we have aforesaid.

    Parting from thence, I passed amongst the rocks, which were his teeth, and
    never left walking till I got up on one of them; and there I found the
    pleasantest places in the world, great large tennis-courts, fair galleries,
    sweet meadows, store of vines, and an infinite number of banqueting summer
    outhouses in the fields, after the Italian fashion, full of pleasure and
    delight, where I stayed full four months, and never made better cheer in my
    life as then.  After that I went down by the hinder teeth to come to the
    chaps.  But in the way I was robbed by thieves in a great forest that is in
    the territory towards the ears.  Then, after a little further travelling, I
    fell upon a pretty petty village—truly I have forgot the name of it—where
    I was yet merrier than ever, and got some certain money to live by.  Can
    you tell how?  By sleeping.  For there they hire men by the day to sleep,
    and they get by it sixpence a day, but they that can snort hard get at
    least ninepence.  How I had been robbed in the valley I informed the
    senators, who told me that, in very truth, the people of that side were bad
    livers and naturally thievish, whereby I perceived well that, as we have
    with us the countries Cisalpine and Transalpine, that is, behither and
    beyond the mountains, so have they there the countries Cidentine and
    Tradentine, that is, behither and beyond the teeth.  But it is far better
    living on this side, and the air is purer.  Then I began to think that it
    is very true which is commonly said, that the one half of the world knoweth
    not how the other half liveth; seeing none before myself had ever written
    of that country, wherein are above five-and-twenty kingdoms inhabited,
    besides deserts, and a great arm of the sea.  Concerning which purpose I
    have composed a great book, entitled, The History of the Throttias, because
    they dwell in the throat of my master Pantagruel.

    At last I was willing to return, and, passing by his beard, I cast myself
    upon his shoulders, and from thence slid down to the ground, and fell
    before him.  As soon as I was perceived by him, he asked me, Whence comest
    thou, Alcofribas?  I answered him, Out of your mouth, my lord.  And how
    long hast thou been there? said he.  Since the time, said I, that you went
    against the Almirods.  That is about six months ago, said he.  And
    wherewith didst thou live?  What didst thou drink?  I answered, My lord, of
    the same that you did, and of the daintiest morsels that passed through
    your throat I took toll.  Yea but, said he, where didst thou shite?  In
    your throat, my lord, said I.  Ha, ha! thou art a merry fellow, said he.
    We have with the help of God conquered all the land of the Dipsodes; I will
    give thee the Chastelleine, or Lairdship of Salmigondin.  Gramercy, my
    lord, said I, you gratify me beyond all that I have deserved of you.

    Chapter 2.XXXIII. How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was recovered.

    A while after this the good Pantagruel fell sick, and had such an
    obstruction in his stomach that he could neither eat nor drink; and,
    because mischief seldom comes alone, a hot piss seized on him, which
    tormented him more than you would believe.  His physicians nevertheless
    helped him very well, and with store of lenitives and diuretic drugs made
    him piss away his pain.  His urine was so hot that since that time it is
    not yet cold, and you have of it in divers places of France, according to
    the course that it took, and they are called the hot baths, as—

        At Coderets.
        At Limous.
        At Dast.
        At Ballervie (Balleruc).
        At Neric.
      At Bourbonansie, and elsewhere in Italy.
        At Mongros.
        At Appone.
      At Sancto Petro de Padua.
        At St. Helen.
        At Casa Nuova.
      At St. Bartholomew, in the county of Boulogne.
      At the Porrette, and a thousand other places.

    And I wonder much at a rabble of foolish philosophers and physicians, who
    spend their time in disputing whence the heat of the said waters cometh,
    whether it be by reason of borax, or sulphur, or alum, or saltpetre, that
    is within the mine.  For they do nothing but dote, and better were it for
    them to rub their arse against a thistle than to waste away their time thus
    in disputing of that whereof they know not the original; for the resolution
    is easy, neither need we to inquire any further than that the said baths
    came by a hot piss of the good Pantagruel.

    Now to tell you after what manner he was cured of his principal disease.  I
    let pass how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred pound
    weight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen cartloads of cassia,
    an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight of rhubarb, besides other
    confuse jumblings of sundry drugs.  You must understand that by the advice
    of the physicians it was ordained that what did offend his stomach should
    be taken away; and therefore they made seventeen great balls of copper,
    each whereof was bigger than that which is to be seen on the top of St.
    Peter's needle at Rome, and in such sort that they did open in the midst
    and shut with a spring.  Into one of them entered one of his men carrying a
    lantern and a torch lighted, and so Pantagruel swallowed him down like a
    little pill.  Into seven others went seven country-fellows, having every
    one of them a shovel on his neck.  Into nine others entered nine wood-
    carriers, having each of them a basket hung at his neck, and so were they
    swallowed down like pills.  When they were in his stomach, every one undid
    his spring, and came out of their cabins.  The first whereof was he that
    carried the lantern, and so they fell more than half a league into a most
    horrible gulf, more stinking and infectious than ever was Mephitis, or the
    marshes of the Camerina, or the abominably unsavoury lake of Sorbona,
    whereof Strabo maketh mention.  And had it not been that they had very well
    antidoted their stomach, heart, and wine-pot, which is called the noddle,
    they had been altogether suffocated and choked with these detestable
    vapours.  O what a perfume!  O what an evaporation wherewith to bewray the
    masks or mufflers of young mangy queans.  After that, with groping and
    smelling they came near to the faecal matter and the corrupted humours.
    Finally, they found a montjoy or heap of ordure and filth.  Then fell the
    pioneers to work to dig it up, and the rest with their shovels filled the
    baskets; and when all was cleansed every one retired himself into his ball.

    This done, Pantagruel enforcing himself to vomit, very easily brought them
    out, and they made no more show in his mouth than a fart in yours.  But,
    when they came merrily out of their pills, I thought upon the Grecians
    coming out of the Trojan horse.  By this means was he healed and brought
    unto his former state and convalescence; and of these brazen pills, or
    rather copper balls, you have one at Orleans, upon the steeple of the Holy
    Cross Church.

    Chapter 2.XXXIV. The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author.

    Now, my masters, you have heard a beginning of the horrific history of my
    lord and master Pantagruel.  Here will I make an end of the first book.  My
    head aches a little, and I perceive that the registers of my brain are
    somewhat jumbled and disordered with this Septembral juice.  You shall have
    the rest of the history at Frankfort mart next coming, and there shall you
    see how Panurge was married and made a cuckold within a month after his
    wedding; how Pantagruel found out the philosopher's stone, the manner how
    he found it, and the way how to use it; how he passed over the Caspian
    mountains, and how he sailed through the Atlantic sea, defeated the
    Cannibals, and conquered the isles of Pearls; how he married the daughter
    of the King of India, called Presthan; how he fought against the devil and
    burnt up five chambers of hell, ransacked the great black chamber, threw
    Proserpina into the fire, broke five teeth to Lucifer, and the horn that
    was in his arse; how he visited the regions of the moon to know whether
    indeed the moon were not entire and whole, or if the women had three
    quarters of it in their heads, and a thousand other little merriments all
    veritable.  These are brave things truly.  Good night, gentlemen.
    Perdonate mi, and think not so much upon my faults that you forget your
    own.

    If you say to me, Master, it would seem that you were not very wise in
    writing to us these flimflam stories and pleasant fooleries; I answer you,
    that you are not much wiser to spend your time in reading them.
    Nevertheless, if you read them to make yourselves merry, as in manner of
    pastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon than a
    great rabble of squint-minded fellows, dissembling and counterfeit saints,
    demure lookers, hypocrites, pretended zealots, tough friars, buskin-monks,
    and other such sects of men, who disguise themselves like masquers to
    deceive the world.  For, whilst they give the common people to understand
    that they are busied about nothing but contemplation and devotion in
    fastings and maceration of their sensuality—and that only to sustain and
    aliment the small frailty of their humanity—it is so far otherwise that,
    on the contrary, God knows what cheer they make; Et Curios simulant, sed
    Bacchanalia vivunt.  You may read it in great letters in the colouring of
    their red snouts, and gulching bellies as big as a tun, unless it be when
    they perfume themselves with sulphur.  As for their study, it is wholly
    taken up in reading of Pantagruelian books, not so much to pass the time
    merrily as to hurt someone or other mischievously, to wit, in articling,
    sole-articling, wry-neckifying, buttock-stirring, ballocking, and
    diabliculating, that is, calumniating.  Wherein they are like unto the poor
    rogues of a village that are busy in stirring up and scraping in the ordure
    and filth of little children, in the season of cherries and guinds, and
    that only to find the kernels, that they may sell them to the druggists to
    make thereof pomander oil.  Fly from these men, abhor and hate them as much
    as I do, and upon my faith you will find yourselves the better for it.  And
    if you desire to be good Pantagruelists, that is to say, to live in peace,
    joy, health, making yourselves always merry, never trust those men that
    always peep out at one hole.

    End of Book II.



    THE THIRD BOOK.


    Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre.

      Abstracted soul, ravished with ecstasies,
      Gone back, and now familiar in the skies,
      Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite,
      Which to obey thee always took delight,—
      Obsequious, ready,—now from motion free,
      Senseless, and as it were in apathy,
      Wouldst thou not issue forth for a short space,
      From that divine, eternal, heavenly place,
      To see the third part, in this earthy cell,
      Of the brave acts of good Pantagruel?


    The Author's Prologue.

    Good people, most illustrious drinkers, and you, thrice precious gouty
    gentlemen, did you ever see Diogenes, and cynic philosopher?  If you have
    seen him, you then had your eyes in your head, or I am very much out of my
    understanding and logical sense.  It is a gallant thing to see the
    clearness of (wine, gold,) the sun.  I'll be judged by the blind born so
    renowned in the sacred Scriptures, who, having at his choice to ask
    whatever he would from him who is Almighty, and whose word in an instant is
    effectually performed, asked nothing else but that he might see.  Item, you
    are not young, which is a competent quality for you to philosophate more
    than physically in wine, not in vain, and henceforwards to be of the
    Bacchic Council; to the end that, opining there, you may give your opinion
    faithfully of the substance, colour, excellent odour, eminency, propriety,
    faculty, virtue, and effectual dignity of the said blessed and desired
    liquor.

    If you have not seen him, as I am easily induced to believe that you have
    not, at least you have heard some talk of him.  For through the air, and
    the whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report and
    fame, even until this present time, remained very memorable and renowned.
    Then all of you are derived from the Phrygian blood, if I be not deceived.
    If you have not so many crowns as Midas had, yet have you something, I know
    not what, of him, which the Persians of old esteemed more of in all their
    otacusts, and which was more desired by the Emperor Antonine, and gave
    occasion thereafter to the Basilico at Rohan to be surnamed Goodly Ears.
    If you have not heard of him, I will presently tell you a story to make
    your wine relish.  Drink then,—so, to the purpose.  Hearken now whilst I
    give you notice, to the end that you may not, like infidels, be by your
    simplicity abused, that in his time he was a rare philosopher and the
    cheerfullest of a thousand.  If he had some imperfection, so have you, so
    have we; for there is nothing, but God, that is perfect.  Yet so it was,
    that by Alexander the Great, although he had Aristotle for his instructor
    and domestic, was he held in such estimation, that he wished, if he had not
    been Alexander, to have been Diogenes the Sinopian.

    When Philip, King of Macedon, enterprised the siege and ruin of Corinth,
    the Corinthians having received certain intelligence by their spies that he
    with a numerous army in battle-rank was coming against them, were all of
    them, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and therefore were not
    neglective of their duty in doing their best endeavours to put themselves
    in a fit posture to resist his hostile approach and defend their own city.

    Some from the fields brought into the fortified places their movables,
    bestial, corn, wine, fruit, victuals, and other necessary provision.

    Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses,
    bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced
    themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded
    the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps,
    plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticed
    barbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques,
    and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol.  Everyone
    did watch and ward, and not one was exempted from carrying the basket.
    Some polished corslets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned the
    headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks,
    gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons,
    shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs.  Others made
    ready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls,
    firebrands, balists, scorpions, and other such warlike engines expugnatory
    and destructive to the Hellepolides.  They sharpened and prepared spears,
    staves, pikes, brown bills, halberds, long hooks, lances, zagayes,
    quarterstaves, eelspears, partisans, troutstaves, clubs, battle-axes,
    maces, darts, dartlets, glaives, javelins, javelots, and truncheons.  They
    set edges upon scimitars, cutlasses, badelairs, backswords, tucks, rapiers,
    bayonets, arrow-heads, dags, daggers, mandousians, poniards, whinyards,
    knives, skeans, shables, chipping knives, and raillons.

    Every man exercised his weapon, every man scoured off the rust from his
    natural hanger; nor was there a woman amongst them, though never so
    reserved or old, who made not her harness to be well furbished; as you know
    the Corinthian women of old were reputed very courageous combatants.

    Diogenes seeing them all so warm at work, and himself not employed by the
    magistrates in any business whatsoever, he did very seriously, for many
    days together, without speaking one word, consider and contemplate the
    countenance of his fellow-citizens.

    Then on a sudden, as if he had been roused up and inspired by a martial
    spirit, he girded his cloak scarfwise about his left arm, tucked up his
    sleeves to the elbow, trussed himself like a clown gathering apples, and,
    giving to one of his old acquaintance his wallet, books, and opistographs,
    away went he out of town towards a little hill or promontory of Corinth
    called (the) Cranie; and there on the strand, a pretty level place, did he
    roll his jolly tub, which served him for a house to shelter him from the
    injuries of the weather:  there, I say, in a great vehemency of spirit, did
    he turn it, veer it, wheel it, whirl it, frisk it, jumble it, shuffle it,
    huddle it, tumble it, hurry it, jolt it, justle it, overthrow it, evert it,
    invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it, bump it, batter it,
    knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock it, shake it, toss it, throw
    it, overthrow it, upside down, topsy-turvy, arsiturvy, tread it, trample
    it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it,
    resound it, stop it, shut it, unbung it, close it, unstopple it.  And then
    again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled
    it, wayed it, darted it, hurled it, staggered it, reeled it, swinged it,
    brangled it, tottered it, lifted it, heaved it, transformed it,
    transfigured it, transposed it, transplaced it, reared it, raised it,
    hoised it, washed it, dighted it, cleansed it, rinsed it, nailed it,
    settled it, fastened it, shackled it, fettered it, levelled it, blocked it,
    tugged it, tewed it, carried it, bedashed it, bewrayed it, parched it,
    mounted it, broached it, nicked it, notched it, bespattered it, decked it,
    adorned it, trimmed it, garnished it, gauged it, furnished it, bored it,
    pierced it, trapped it, rumbled it, slid it down the hill, and precipitated
    it from the very height of the Cranie; then from the foot to the top (like
    another Sisyphus with his stone) bore it up again, and every way so banged
    it and belaboured it that it was ten thousand to one he had not struck the
    bottom of it out.

    Which when one of his friends had seen, and asked him why he did so toil
    his body, perplex his spirit, and torment his tub, the philosopher's answer
    was that, not being employed in any other charge by the Republic, he
    thought it expedient to thunder and storm it so tempestuously upon his tub,
    that amongst a people so fervently busy and earnest at work he alone might
    not seem a loitering slug and lazy fellow.  To the same purpose may I say
    of myself,

      Though I be rid from fear,
      I am not void of care.

    For, perceiving no account to be made of me towards the discharge of a
    trust of any great concernment, and considering that through all the parts
    of this most noble kingdom of France, both on this and on the other side of
    the mountains, everyone is most diligently exercised and busied, some in
    the fortifying of their own native country for its defence, others in the
    repulsing of their enemies by an offensive war; and all this with a policy
    so excellent and such admirable order, so manifestly profitable for the
    future, whereby France shall have its frontiers most magnifically enlarged,
    and the French assured of a long and well-grounded peace, that very little
    withholds me from the opinion of good Heraclitus, which affirmeth war to be
    the father of all good things; and therefore do I believe that war is in
    Latin called bellum, not by antiphrasis, as some patchers of old rusty
    Latin would have us to think, because in war there is little beauty to be
    seen, but absolutely and simply; for that in war appeareth all that is good
    and graceful, and that by the wars is purged out all manner of wickedness
    and deformity.  For proof whereof the wise and pacific Solomon could no
    better represent the unspeakable perfection of the divine wisdom, than by
    comparing it to the due disposure and ranking of an army in battle array,
    well provided and ordered.

    Therefore, by reason of my weakness and inability, being reputed by my
    compatriots unfit for the offensive part of warfare; and on the other side,
    being no way employed in matter of the defensive, although it had been but
    to carry burthens, fill ditches, or break clods, either whereof had been to
    me indifferent, I held it not a little disgraceful to be only an idle
    spectator of so many valorous, eloquent, and warlike persons, who in the
    view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragi-comedy,
    and not make some effort towards the performance of this, nothing at all
    remains for me to be done ('And not exert myself, and contribute thereto
    this nothing, my all, which remained for me to do.'—Ozell.).  In my
    opinion, little honour is due to such as are mere lookers-on, liberal of
    their eyes, and of their crowns, and hide their silver; scratching their
    head with one finger like grumbling puppies, gaping at the flies like tithe
    calves; clapping down their ears like Arcadian asses at the melody of
    musicians, who with their very countenances in the depth of silence express
    their consent to the prosopopoeia.  Having made this choice and election,
    it seemed to me that my exercise therein would be neither unprofitable nor
    troublesome to any, whilst I should thus set a-going my Diogenical tub,
    which is all that is left me safe from the shipwreck of my former
    misfortunes.

    At this dingle dangle wagging of my tub, what would you have me to do?  By
    the Virgin that tucks up her sleeve, I know not as yet.  Stay a little,
    till I suck up a draught of this bottle; it is my true and only Helicon; it
    is my Caballine fountain; it is my sole enthusiasm.  Drinking thus, I
    meditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude.  After that the epilogue is
    made, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again.  Ennius drinking wrote,
    and writing drank.  Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his Symposiacs merit any
    faith, drank composing, and drinking composed.  Homer never wrote fasting,
    and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk.  These passages I have
    brought before you to the end you may not say that I lived without the
    example of men well praised and better prized.  It is good and fresh
    enough, even as if you would say it is entering upon the second degree.
    God, the good God Sabaoth, that is to say, the God of armies, be praised
    for it eternally!  If you after the same manner would take one great
    draught, or two little ones, whilst you have your gown about you, I truly
    find no kind of inconveniency in it, provided you send up to God for all
    some small scantling of thanks.

    Since then my luck or destiny is such as you have heard—for it is not for
    everybody to go to Corinth—I am fully resolved to be so little idle and
    unprofitable, that I will set myself to serve the one and the other sort of
    people.  Amongst the diggers, pioneers, and rampire-builders, I will do as
    did Neptune and Apollo at Troy under Laomedon, or as did Renault of
    Montauban in his latter days:  I will serve the masons, I'll set on the pot
    to boil for the bricklayers; and, whilst the minced meat is making ready at
    the sound of my small pipe, I'll measure the muzzle of the musing dotards.
    Thus did Amphion with the melody of his harp found, build, and finish the
    great and renowned city of Thebes.

    For the use of the warriors I am about to broach of new my barrel to give
    them a taste (which by two former volumes of mine, if by the deceitfulness
    and falsehood of printers they had not been jumbled, marred, and spoiled,
    you would have very well relished), and draw unto them, of the growth of
    our own trippery pastimes, a gallant third part of a gallon, and
    consequently a jolly cheerful quart of Pantagruelic sentences, which you
    may lawfully call, if you please, Diogenical:  and shall have me, seeing I
    cannot be their fellow-soldier, for their faithful butler, refreshing and
    cheering, according to my little power, their return from the alarms of the
    enemy; as also for an indefatigable extoller of their martial exploits and
    glorious achievements.  I shall not fail therein, par lapathium acutum de
    dieu; if Mars fail not in Lent, which the cunning lecher, I warrant you,
    will be loth to do.

    I remember nevertheless to have read, that Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, one
    day, amongst the many spoils and booties which by his victories he had
    acquired, presenting to the Egyptians, in the open view of the people, a
    Bactrian camel all black, and a party-coloured slave, in such sort as that
    the one half of his body was black and the other white, not in partition of
    breadth by the diaphragma, as was that woman consecrated to the Indian
    Venus whom the Tyanean philosopher did see between the river Hydaspes and
    Mount Caucasus, but in a perpendicular dimension of altitude; which were
    things never before that seen in Egypt.  He expected by the show of these
    novelties to win the love of the people.  But what happened thereupon?  At
    the production of the camel they were all affrighted, and offended at the
    sight of the party-coloured man—some scoffed at him as a detestable
    monster brought forth by the error of nature; in a word, of the hope which
    he had to please these Egyptians, and by such means to increase the
    affection which they naturally bore him, he was altogether frustrate and
    disappointed; understanding fully by their deportments that they took more
    pleasure and delight in things that were proper, handsome, and perfect,
    than in misshapen, monstrous, and ridiculous creatures.  Since which time
    he had both the slave and the camel in such dislike, that very shortly
    thereafter, either through negligence, or for want of ordinary sustenance,
    they did exchange their life with death.

    This example putteth me in a suspense between hope and fear, misdoubting
    that, for the contentment which I aim at, I will but reap what shall be
    most distasteful to me:  my cake will be dough, and for my Venus I shall
    have but some deformed puppy:  instead of serving them, I shall but vex
    them, and offend them whom I purpose to exhilarate; resembling in this
    dubious adventure Euclion's cook, so renowned by Plautus in his Pot, and by
    Ausonius in his Griphon, and by divers others; which cook, for having by
    his scraping discovered a treasure, had his hide well curried.  Put the
    case I get no anger by it, though formerly such things fell out, and the
    like may occur again.  Yet, by Hercules! it will not.  So I perceive in
    them all one and the same specifical form, and the like individual
    properties, which our ancestors called Pantagruelism; by virtue whereof
    they will bear with anything that floweth from a good, free, and loyal
    heart.  I have seen them ordinarily take goodwill in part of payment, and
    remain satisfied therewith when one was not able to do better.  Having
    despatched this point, I return to my barrel.

    Up, my lads, to this wine, spare it not!  Drink, boys, and trowl it off at
    full bowls!  If you do not think it good, let it alone.  I am not like
    those officious and importunate sots, who by force, outrage, and violence,
    constrain an easy good-natured fellow to whiffle, quaff, carouse, and what
    is worse.  All honest tipplers, all honest gouty men, all such as are
    a-dry, coming to this little barrel of mine, need not drink thereof if it
    please them not; but if they have a mind to it, and that the wine prove
    agreeable to the tastes of their worshipful worships, let them drink,
    frankly, freely, and boldly, without paying anything, and welcome.  This is
    my decree, my statute and ordinance.

    And let none fear there shall be any want of wine, as at the marriage of
    Cana in Galilee; for how much soever you shall draw forth at the faucet, so
    much shall I tun in at the bung.  Thus shall the barrel remain
    inexhaustible; it hath a lively spring and perpetual current.  Such was the
    beverage contained within the cup of Tantalus, which was figuratively
    represented amongst the Brachman sages.  Such was in Iberia the mountain of
    salt so highly written of by Cato.  Such was the branch of gold consecrated
    to the subterranean goddess, which Virgil treats of so sublimely.  It is a
    true cornucopia of merriment and raillery.  If at any time it seem to you
    to be emptied to the very lees, yet shall it not for all that be drawn
    wholly dry.  Good hope remains there at the bottom, as in Pandora's bottle;
    and not despair, as in the puncheon of the Danaids.  Remark well what I
    have said, and what manner of people they be whom I do invite; for, to the
    end that none be deceived, I, in imitation of Lucilius, who did protest
    that he wrote only to his own Tarentines and Consentines, have not pierced
    this vessel for any else but you honest men, who are drinkers of the first
    edition, and gouty blades of the highest degree.  The great dorophages,
    bribe-mongers, have on their hands occupation enough, and enough on the
    hooks for their venison.  There may they follow their prey; here is no
    garbage for them.  You pettifoggers, garblers, and masters of chicanery,
    speak not to me, I beseech you, in the name of, and for the reverence you
    bear to the four hips that engendered you and to the quickening peg which
    at that time conjoined them.  As for hypocrites, much less; although they
    were all of them unsound in body, pockified, scurvy, furnished with
    unquenchable thirst and insatiable eating.  (And wherefore?)  Because
    indeed they are not of good but of evil, and of that evil from which we
    daily pray to God to deliver us.  And albeit we see them sometimes
    counterfeit devotion, yet never did old ape make pretty moppet.  Hence,
    mastiffs; dogs in a doublet, get you behind; aloof, villains, out of my
    sunshine; curs, to the devil!  Do you jog hither, wagging your tails, to
    pant at my wine, and bepiss my barrel?  Look, here is the cudgel which
    Diogenes, in his last will, ordained to be set by him after his death, for
    beating away, crushing the reins, and breaking the backs of these bustuary
    hobgoblins and Cerberian hellhounds.  Pack you hence, therefore, you
    hypocrites, to your sheep-dogs; get you gone, you dissemblers, to the
    devil!  Hay!  What, are you there yet?  I renounce my part of Papimanie, if
    I snatch you, Grr, Grrr, Grrrrrr.  Avaunt, avaunt!  Will you not be gone?
    May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, never
    piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise warmed than by the bastinado.


    THE THIRD BOOK.

    Chapter 3.I.

    How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody.

    Pantagruel, having wholly subdued the land of Dipsody, transported
    thereunto a colony of Utopians, to the number of 9,876,543,210 men, besides
    the women and little children, artificers of all trades, and professors of
    all sciences, to people, cultivate, and improve that country, which
    otherwise was ill inhabited, and in the greatest part thereof but a mere
    desert and wilderness; and did transport them (not) so much for the
    excessive multitude of men and women, which were in Utopia multiplied, for
    number, like grasshoppers upon the face of the land.  You understand well
    enough, nor is it needful further to explain it to you, that the Utopian
    men had so rank and fruitful genitories, and that the Utopian women carried
    matrixes so ample, so gluttonous, so tenaciously retentive, and so
    architectonically cellulated, that at the end of every ninth month seven
    children at the least, what male what female, were brought forth by every
    married woman, in imitation of the people of Israel in Egypt, if Anthony
    (Nicholas) de Lyra be to be trusted.  Nor yet was this transplantation made
    so much for the fertility of the soil, the wholesomeness of the air, or
    commodity of the country of Dipsody, as to retain that rebellious people
    within the bounds of their duty and obedience, by this new transport of his
    ancient and most faithful subjects, who, from all time out of mind, never
    knew, acknowledged, owned, or served any other sovereign lord but him; and
    who likewise, from the very instant of their birth, as soon as they were
    entered into this world, had, with the milk of their mothers and nurses,
    sucked in the sweetness, humanity, and mildness of his government, to which
    they were all of them so nourished and habituated, that there was nothing
    surer than that they would sooner abandon their lives than swerve from this
    singular and primitive obedience naturally due to their prince,
    whithersoever they should be dispersed or removed.

    And not only should they, and their children successively descending from
    their blood, be such, but also would keep and maintain in this same fealty
    and obsequious observance all the nations lately annexed to his empire;
    which so truly came to pass that therein he was not disappointed of his
    intent.  For if the Utopians were before their transplantation thither
    dutiful and faithful subjects, the Dipsodes, after some few days conversing
    with them, were every whit as, if not more, loyal than they; and that by
    virtue of I know not what natural fervency incident to all human creatures
    at the beginning of any labour wherein they take delight:  solemnly
    attesting the heavens and supreme intelligences of their being only sorry
    that no sooner unto their knowledge had arrived the great renown of the
    good Pantagruel.

    Remark therefore here, honest drinkers, that the manner of preserving and
    retaining countries newly conquered in obedience is not, as hath been the
    erroneous opinion of some tyrannical spirits to their own detriment and
    dishonour, to pillage, plunder, force, spoil, trouble, oppress, vex,
    disquiet, ruin and destroy the people, ruling, governing and keeping them
    in awe with rods of iron; and, in a word, eating and devouring them, after
    the fashion that Homer calls an unjust and wicked king, Demoboron, that is
    to say, a devourer of his people.

    I will not bring you to this purpose the testimony of ancient writers.  It
    shall suffice to put you in mind of what your fathers have seen thereof,
    and yourselves too, if you be not very babes.  Newborn, they must be given
    suck to, rocked in a cradle, and dandled.  Trees newly planted must be
    supported, underpropped, strengthened and defended against all tempests,
    mischiefs, injuries, and calamities.  And one lately saved from a long and
    dangerous sickness, and new upon his recovery, must be forborn, spared, and
    cherished, in such sort that they may harbour in their own breasts this
    opinion, that there is not in the world a king or a prince who does not
    desire fewer enemies and more friends.  Thus Osiris, the great king of the
    Egyptians, conquered almost the whole earth, not so much by force of arms
    as by easing the people of their troubles, teaching them how to live well,
    and honestly giving them good laws, and using them with all possible
    affability, courtesy, gentleness, and liberality.  Therefore was he by all
    men deservedly entitled the Great King Euergetes, that is to say,
    Benefactor, which style he obtained by virtue of the command of Jupiter to
    (one) Pamyla.

    And in effect, Hesiod, in his Hierarchy, placed the good demons (call them
    angels if you will, or geniuses,) as intercessors and mediators betwixt the
    gods and men, they being of a degree inferior to the gods, but superior to
    men.  And for that through their hands the riches and benefits we get from
    heaven are dealt to us, and that they are continually doing us good and
    still protecting us from evil, he saith that they exercise the offices of
    kings; because to do always good, and never ill, is an act most singularly
    royal.

    Just such another was the emperor of the universe, Alexander the
    Macedonian.  After this manner was Hercules sovereign possessor of the
    whole continent, relieving men from monstrous oppressions, exactions, and
    tyrannies; governing them with discretion, maintaining them in equity and
    justice, instructing them with seasonable policies and wholesome laws,
    convenient for and suitable to the soil, climate, and disposition of the
    country, supplying what was wanting, abating what was superfluous, and
    pardoning all that was past, with a sempiternal forgetfulness of all
    preceding offences, as was the amnesty of the Athenians, when by the
    prowess, valour, and industry of Thrasybulus the tyrants were
    exterminated; afterwards at Rome by Cicero exposed, and renewed under the
    Emperor Aurelian.  These are the philtres, allurements, iynges,
    inveiglements, baits, and enticements of love, by the means whereof that
    may be peaceably revived which was painfully acquired.  Nor can a
    conqueror reign more happily, whether he be a monarch, emperor, king,
    prince, or philosopher, than by making his justice to second his valour.
    His valour shows itself in victory and conquest; his justice will appear
    in the goodwill and affection of the people, when he maketh laws,
    publisheth ordinances, establisheth religion, and doth what is right to
    everyone, as the noble poet Virgil writes of Octavian Augustus:

        Victorque volentes
      Per populos dat jura.

    Therefore is it that Homer in his Iliads calleth a good prince and great
    king Kosmetora laon, that is, the ornament of the people.

    Such was the consideration of Numa Pompilius, the second king of the
    Romans, a just politician and wise philosopher, when he ordained that to
    god Terminus, on the day of his festival called Terminales, nothing should
    be sacrificed that had died; teaching us thereby that the bounds, limits,
    and frontiers of kingdoms should be guarded, and preserved in peace, amity,
    and meekness, without polluting our hands with blood and robbery.  Who doth
    otherwise, shall not only lose what he hath gained, but also be loaded with
    this scandal and reproach, that he is an unjust and wicked purchaser, and
    his acquests perish with him; Juxta illud, male parta, male dilabuntur.
    And although during his whole lifetime he should have peaceable possession
    thereof, yet if what hath been so acquired moulder away in the hands of his
    heirs, the same opprobry, scandal, and imputation will be charged upon the
    defunct, and his memory remain accursed for his unjust and unwarrantable
    conquest; Juxta illud, de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres.

    Remark, likewise, gentlemen, you gouty feoffees, in this main point worthy
    of your observation, how by these means Pantagruel of one angel made two,
    which was a contingency opposite to the counsel of Charlemagne, who made
    two devils of one when he transplanted the Saxons into Flanders and the
    Flemings into Saxony.  For, not being able to keep in such subjection the
    Saxons, whose dominion he had joined to the empire, but that ever and anon
    they would break forth into open rebellion if he should casually be drawn
    into Spain or other remote kingdoms, he caused them to be brought unto his
    own country of Flanders, the inhabitants whereof did naturally obey him,
    and transported the Hainaults and Flemings, his ancient loving subjects,
    into Saxony, not mistrusting their loyalty now that they were transplanted
    into a strange land.  But it happened that the Saxons persisted in their
    rebellion and primitive obstinacy, and the Flemings dwelling in Saxony did
    imbibe the stubborn manners and conditions of the Saxons.

    Chapter 3.II. How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did waste his
    revenue before it came in.

    Whilst Pantagruel was giving order for the government of all Dipsody, he
    assigned to Panurge the lairdship of Salmigondin, which was yearly worth
    6,789,106,789 reals of certain rent, besides the uncertain revenue of the
    locusts and periwinkles, amounting, one year with another, to the value of
    435,768, or 2,435,769 French crowns of Berry.  Sometimes it did amount to
    1,230,554,321 seraphs, when it was a good year, and that locusts and
    periwinkles were in request; but that was not every year.

    Now his worship, the new laird, husbanded this his estate so providently
    well and prudently, that in less than fourteen days he wasted and
    dilapidated all the certain and uncertain revenue of his lairdship for
    three whole years.  Yet did not he properly dilapidate it, as you might
    say, in founding of monasteries, building of churches, erecting of
    colleges, and setting up of hospitals, or casting his bacon-flitches to the
    dogs; but spent it in a thousand little banquets and jolly collations,
    keeping open house for all comers and goers; yea, to all good fellows,
    young girls, and pretty wenches; felling timber, burning great logs for the
    sale of the ashes, borrowing money beforehand, buying dear, selling cheap,
    and eating his corn, as it were, whilst it was but grass.

    Pantagruel, being advertised of this his lavishness, was in good sooth no
    way offended at the matter, angry nor sorry; for I once told you, and again
    tell it you, that he was the best, little, great goodman that ever girded a
    sword to his side.  He took all things in good part, and interpreted every
    action to the best sense.  He never vexed nor disquieted himself with the
    least pretence of dislike to anything, because he knew that he must have
    most grossly abandoned the divine mansion of reason if he had permitted his
    mind to be never so little grieved, afflicted, or altered at any occasion
    whatsoever.  For all the goods that the heaven covereth, and that the earth
    containeth, in all their dimensions of height, depth, breadth, and length,
    are not of so much worth as that we should for them disturb or disorder our
    affections, trouble or perplex our senses or spirits.

    He drew only Panurge aside, and then, making to him a sweet remonstrance
    and mild admonition, very gently represented before him in strong
    arguments, that, if he should continue in such an unthrifty course of
    living, and not become a better mesnagier, it would prove altogether
    impossible for him, or at least hugely difficult, at any time to make him
    rich.  Rich! answered Panurge; have you fixed your thoughts there?  Have
    you undertaken the task to enrich me in this world?  Set your mind to live
    merrily, in the name of God and good folks; let no other cark nor care be
    harboured within the sacrosanctified domicile of your celestial brain.  May
    the calmness and tranquillity thereof be never incommodated with, or
    overshadowed by any frowning clouds of sullen imaginations and displeasing
    annoyance!  For if you live joyful, merry, jocund, and glad, I cannot be
    but rich enough.  Everybody cries up thrift, thrift, and good husbandry.
    But many speak of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow, and talk of that
    virtue of mesnagery who know not what belongs to it.  It is by me that they
    must be advised.  From me, therefore, take this advertisement and
    information, that what is imputed to me for a vice hath been done in
    imitation of the university and parliament of Paris, places in which is to
    be found the true spring and source of the lively idea of Pantheology and
    all manner of justice.  Let him be counted a heretic that doubteth thereof,
    and doth not firmly believe it.  Yet they in one day eat up their bishop,
    or the revenue of the bishopric—is it not all one?—for a whole year, yea,
    sometimes for two.  This is done on the day he makes his entry, and is
    installed.  Nor is there any place for an excuse; for he cannot avoid it,
    unless he would be hooted at and stoned for his parsimony.

    It hath been also esteemed an act flowing from the habit of the four
    cardinal virtues.  Of prudence in borrowing money beforehand; for none
    knows what may fall out.  Who is able to tell if the world shall last yet
    three years?  But although it should continue longer, is there any man so
    foolish as to have the confidence to promise himself three years?

      What fool so confident to say,
      That he shall live one other day?

    Of commutative justice, in buying dear, I say, upon trust, and selling
    goods cheap, that is, for ready money.  What says Cato in his Book of
    Husbandry to this purpose?  The father of a family, says he, must be a
    perpetual seller; by which means it is impossible but that at last he shall
    become rich, if he have of vendible ware enough still ready for sale.

    Of distributive justice it doth partake, in giving entertainment to good—
    remark, good—and gentle fellows, whom fortune had shipwrecked, like
    Ulysses, upon the rock of a hungry stomach without provision of sustenance;
    and likewise to the good—remark, the good—and young wenches.  For,
    according to the sentence of Hippocrates, Youth is impatient of hunger,
    chiefly if it be vigorous, lively, frolic, brisk, stirring, and bouncing.
    Which wanton lasses willingly and heartily devote themselves to the
    pleasure of honest men; and are in so far both Platonic and Ciceronian,
    that they do acknowledge their being born into this world not to be for
    themselves alone, but that in their proper persons their acquaintance may
    claim one share, and their friends another.

    The virtue of fortitude appears therein by the cutting down and
    overthrowing of the great trees, like a second Milo making havoc of the
    dark forest, which did serve only to furnish dens, caves, and shelter to
    wolves, wild boars, and foxes, and afford receptacles, withdrawing corners,
    and refuges to robbers, thieves, and murderers, lurking holes and skulking
    places for cutthroat assassinators, secret obscure shops for coiners of
    false money, and safe retreats for heretics, laying them even and level
    with the plain champaign fields and pleasant heathy ground, at the sound of
    the hautboys and bagpipes playing reeks with the high and stately timber,
    and preparing seats and benches for the eve of the dreadful day of
    judgment.

    I gave thereby proof of my temperance in eating my corn whilst it was but
    grass, like a hermit feeding upon salads and roots, that, so affranchising
    myself from the yoke of sensual appetites to the utter disclaiming of their
    sovereignty, I might the better reserve somewhat in store for the relief of
    the lame, blind, crippled, maimed, needy, poor, and wanting wretches.

    In taking this course I save the expense of the weed-grubbers, who gain
    money,—of the reapers in harvest-time, who drink lustily, and without
    water,—of gleaners, who will expect their cakes and bannocks,—of
    threshers, who leave no garlic, scallions, leeks, nor onions in our
    gardens, by the authority of Thestilis in Virgil,—and of the millers, who
    are generally thieves,—and of the bakers, who are little better.  Is this
    small saving or frugality?  Besides the mischief and damage of the field-
    mice, the decay of barns, and the destruction usually made by weasels and
    other vermin.

    Of corn in the blade you may make good green sauce of a light concoction
    and easy digestion, which recreates the brain and exhilarates the animal
    spirits, rejoiceth the sight, openeth the appetite, delighteth the taste,
    comforteth the heart, tickleth the tongue, cheereth the countenance,
    striking a fresh and lively colour, strengthening the muscles, tempers the
    blood, disburdens the midriff, refresheth the liver, disobstructs the
    spleen, easeth the kidneys, suppleth the reins, quickens the joints of the
    back, cleanseth the urine-conduits, dilates the spermatic vessels, shortens
    the cremasters, purgeth the bladder, puffeth up the genitories, correcteth
    the prepuce, hardens the nut, and rectifies the member.  It will make you
    have a current belly to trot, fart, dung, piss, sneeze, cough, spit, belch,
    spew, yawn, snuff, blow, breathe, snort, sweat, and set taut your Robin,
    with a thousand other rare advantages.  I understand you very well, says
    Pantagruel; you would thereby infer that those of a mean spirit and shallow
    capacity have not the skill to spend much in a short time.  You are not the
    first in whose conceit that heresy hath entered.  Nero maintained it, and
    above all mortals admired most his uncle Caius Caligula, for having in a
    few days, by a most wonderfully pregnant invention, totally spent all the
    goods and patrimony which Tiberius had left him.

    But, instead of observing the sumptuous supper-curbing laws of the Romans—
    to wit, the Orchia, the Fannia, the Didia, the Licinia, the Cornelia, the
    Lepidiana, the Antia, and of the Corinthians—by the which they were
    inhibited, under pain of great punishment, not to spend more in one year
    than their annual revenue did amount to, you have offered up the oblation
    of Protervia, which was with the Romans such a sacrifice as the paschal
    lamb was amongst the Jews, wherein all that was eatable was to be eaten,
    and the remainder to be thrown into the fire, without reserving anything
    for the next day.  I may very justly say of you, as Cato did of Albidius,
    who after that he had by a most extravagant expense wasted all the means
    and possessions he had to one only house, he fairly set it on fire, that he
    might the better say, Consummatum est.  Even just as since his time St.
    Thomas Aquinas did, when he had eaten up the whole lamprey, although there
    was no necessity in it.

    Chapter 3.III. How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers.

    But, quoth Pantagruel, when will you be out of debt?  At the next ensuing
    term of the Greek kalends, answered Panurge, when all the world shall be
    content, and that it be your fate to become your own heir.  The Lord forbid
    that I should be out of debt, as if, indeed, I could not be trusted.  Who
    leaves not some leaven over night, will hardly have paste the next morning.

    Be still indebted to somebody or other, that there may be somebody always
    to pray for you, that the giver of all good things may grant unto you a
    blessed, long, and prosperous life; fearing, if fortune should deal crossly
    with you, that it might be his chance to come short of being paid by you,
    he will always speak good of you in every company, ever and anon purchase
    new creditors unto you; to the end, that through their means you may make a
    shift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and with other folk's earth fill
    up his ditch.  When of old, in the region of the Gauls, by the institution
    of the Druids, the servants, slaves, and bondmen were burnt quick at the
    funerals and obsequies of their lords and masters, had not they fear
    enough, think you, that their lords and masters should die?  For, perforce,
    they were to die with them for company.  Did not they incessantly send up
    their supplications to their great god Mercury, as likewise unto Dis, the
    father of wealth, to lengthen out their days, and to preserve them long in
    health?  Were not they very careful to entertain them well, punctually to
    look unto them, and to attend them faithfully and circumspectly?  For by
    those means were they to live together at least until the hour of death.
    Believe me, your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseech
    Almighty God to prolong your life, they being of nothing more afraid than
    that you should die; for that they are more concerned for the sleeve than
    the arm, and love silver better than their own lives.  As it evidently
    appeareth by the usurers of Landerousse, who not long since hanged
    themselves because the price of the corn and wines was fallen by the return
    of a gracious season.  To this Pantagruel answering nothing, Panurge went
    on in his discourse, saying, Truly and in good sooth, sir, when I ponder my
    destiny aright, and think well upon it, you put me shrewdly to my plunges,
    and have me at a bay in twitting me with the reproach of my debts and
    creditors.  And yet did I, in this only respect and consideration of being
    a debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable.  For against
    the opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth nothing, yet,
    without having bottomed on so much as that which is called the First
    Matter, did I out of nothing become such (a) maker and creator, that I have
    created—what?—a gay number of fair and jolly creditors.  Nay, creditors,
    I will maintain it, even to the very fire itself exclusively, are fair and
    goodly creatures.  Who lendeth nothing is an ugly and wicked creature, and
    an accursed imp of the infernal Old Nick.  And there is made—what?  Debts.
    A thing most precious and dainty, of great use and antiquity.  Debts, I
    say, surmounting the number of syllables which may result from the
    combinations of all the consonants, with each of the vowels heretofore
    projected, reckoned, and calculated by the noble Xenocrates.  To judge of
    the perfection of debtors by the numerosity of their creditors is the
    readiest way for entering into the mysteries of practical arithmetic.

    You can hardly imagine how glad I am, when every morning I perceive myself
    environed and surrounded with brigades of creditors—humble, fawning, and
    full of their reverences.  And whilst I remark that, as I look more
    favourably upon and give a cheerfuller countenance to one than to another,
    the fellow thereupon buildeth a conceit that he shall be the first
    despatched and the foremost in the date of payment, and he valueth my
    smiles at the rate of ready money, it seemeth unto me that I then act and
    personate the god of the passion of Saumure, accompanied with his angels
    and cherubims.

    These are my flatterers, my soothers, my clawbacks, my smoothers, my
    parasites, my saluters, my givers of good-morrows, and perpetual orators;
    which makes me verily think that the supremest height of heroic virtue
    described by Hesiod consisteth in being a debtor, wherein I held the first
    degree in my commencement.  Which dignity, though all human creatures seem
    to aim at and aspire thereto, few nevertheless, because of the difficulties
    in the way and encumbrances of hard passages, are able to reach it, as is
    easily perceivable by the ardent desire and vehement longing harboured in
    the breast of everyone to be still creating more debts and new creditors.

    Yet doth it not lie in the power of everyone to be a debtor.  To acquire
    creditors is not at the disposure of each man's arbitrament.  You
    nevertheless would deprive me of this sublime felicity.  You ask me when I
    will be out of debt.  Well, to go yet further on, and possibly worse in
    your conceit, may Saint Bablin, the good saint, snatch me, if I have not
    all my lifetime held debt to be as a union or conjunction of the heavens
    with the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of mankind is kept
    together; yea, of such virtue and efficacy that, I say, the whole progeny
    of Adam would very suddenly perish without it.  Therefore, perhaps, I do
    not think amiss, when I repute it to be the great soul of the universe,
    which, according to the opinion of the Academics, vivifieth all manner of
    things.  In confirmation whereof, that you may the better believe it to be
    so, represent unto yourself, without any prejudicacy of spirit, in a clear
    and serene fancy, the idea and form of some other world than this; take, if
    you please, and lay hold on the thirtieth of those which the philosopher
    Metrodorus did enumerate, wherein it is to be supposed there is no debtor
    or creditor, that is to say, a world without debts.

    There amongst the planets will be no regular course, all will be in
    disorder.  Jupiter, reckoning himself to be nothing indebted unto Saturn,
    will go near to detrude him out of his sphere, and with the Homeric chain
    will be like to hang up the intelligences, gods, heavens, demons, heroes,
    devils, earth and sea, together with the other elements.  Saturn, no doubt,
    combining with Mars will reduce that so disturbed world into a chaos of
    confusion.

    Mercury then would be no more subjected to the other planets; he would
    scorn to be any longer their Camillus, as he was of old termed in the
    Etrurian tongue.  For it is to be imagined that he is no way a debtor to
    them.

    Venus will be no more venerable, because she shall have lent nothing.  The
    moon will remain bloody and obscure.  For to what end should the sun impart
    unto her any of his light?  He owed her nothing.  Nor yet will the sun
    shine upon the earth, nor the stars send down any good influence, because
    the terrestrial globe hath desisted from sending up their wonted
    nourishment by vapours and exhalations, wherewith Heraclitus said, the
    Stoics proved, Cicero maintained, they were cherished and alimented.  There
    would likewise be in such a world no manner of symbolization, alteration,
    nor transmutation amongst the elements; for the one will not esteem itself
    obliged to the other, as having borrowed nothing at all from it.  Earth
    then will not become water, water will not be changed into air, of air will
    be made no fire, and fire will afford no heat unto the earth; the earth
    will produce nothing but monsters, Titans, giants; no rain will descend
    upon it, nor light shine thereon; no wind will blow there, nor will there
    be in it any summer or harvest.  Lucifer will break loose, and issuing
    forth of the depth of hell, accompanied with his furies, fiends, and horned
    devils, will go about to unnestle and drive out of heaven all the gods, as
    well of the greater as of the lesser nations.  Such a world without lending
    will be no better than a dog-kennel, a place of contention and wrangling,
    more unruly and irregular than that of the rector of Paris; a devil of an
    hurlyburly, and more disordered confusion than that of the plagues of
    Douay.  Men will not then salute one another; it will be but lost labour to
    expect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murder, for none
    will put to their helping hand.  Why?  He lent no money, there is nothing
    due to him.  Nobody is concerned in his burning, in his shipwreck, in his
    ruin, or in his death; and that because he hitherto had lent nothing, and
    would never thereafter have lent anything.  In short, Faith, Hope, and
    Charity would be quite banished from such a world—for men are born to
    relieve and assist one another; and in their stead should succeed and be
    introduced Defiance, Disdain, and Rancour, with the most execrable troop of
    all evils, all imprecations, and all miseries.  Whereupon you will think,
    and that not amiss, that Pandora had there spilt her unlucky bottle.  Men
    unto men will be wolves, hobthrushers, and goblins (as were Lycaon,
    Bellerophon, Nebuchodonosor), plunderers, highway robbers, cutthroats,
    rapparees, murderers, poisoners, assassinators, lewd, wicked, malevolent,
    pernicious haters, set against everybody, like to Ishmael, Metabus, or
    Timon the Athenian, who for that cause was named Misanthropos, in such
    sort that it would prove much more easy in nature to have fish entertained
    in the air and bullocks fed in the bottom of the ocean, than to support or
    tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend.  These fellows, I
    vow, do I hate with a perfect hatred; and if, conform to the pattern of
    this grievous, peevish, and perverse world which lendeth nothing, you
    figure and liken the little world, which is man, you will find in him a
    terrible justling coil and clutter.  The head will not lend the sight of
    his eyes to guide the feet and hands; the legs will refuse to bear up the
    body; the hands will leave off working any more for the rest of the
    members; the heart will be weary of its continual motion for the beating of
    the pulse, and will no longer lend his assistance; the lungs will withdraw
    the use of their bellows; the liver will desist from convoying any more
    blood through the veins for the good of the whole; the bladder will not be
    indebted to the kidneys, so that the urine thereby will be totally stopped.
    The brains, in the interim, considering this unnatural course, will fall
    into a raving dotage, and withhold all feeling from the sinews and motion
    from the muscles.  Briefly, in such a world without order and array, owing
    nothing, lending nothing, and borrowing nothing, you would see a more
    dangerous conspiration than that which Aesop exposed in his Apologue.  Such
    a world will perish undoubtedly; and not only perish, but perish very
    quickly.  Were it Aesculapius himself, his body would immediately rot, and
    the chafing soul, full of indignation, take its flight to all the devils of
    hell after my money.

    Chapter 3.IV. Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and lenders.

    On the contrary, be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world,
    wherein everyone lendeth and everyone oweth, all are debtors and all
    creditors.  O how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby result
    from the regular motions of the heavens!  Methinks I hear it every whit as
    well as ever Plato did.  What sympathy will there be amongst the elements!
    O how delectable then unto nature will be our own works and productions!
    Whilst Ceres appeareth laden with corn, Bacchus with wines, Flora with
    flowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear air, wholesome and
    pleasant.  I lose myself in this high contemplation.

    Then will among the race of mankind peace, love, benevolence, fidelity,
    tranquillity, rest, banquets, feastings, joy, gladness, gold, silver,
    single money, chains, rings, with other ware and chaffer of that nature be
    found to trot from hand to hand.  No suits at law, no wars, no strife,
    debate, nor wrangling; none will be there a usurer, none will be there a
    pinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch, or churlish hard-hearted refuser.  Good
    God!  Will not this be the golden age in the reign of Saturn? the true idea
    of the Olympic regions, wherein all (other) virtues cease, charity alone
    ruleth, governeth, domineereth, and triumpheth?  All will be fair and
    goodly people there, all just and virtuous.

    O happy world!  O people of that world most happy!  Yea, thrice and four
    times blessed is that people!  I think in very deed that I am amongst them,
    and swear to you, by my good forsooth, that if this glorious aforesaid
    world had a pope, abounding with cardinals, that so he might have the
    association of a sacred college, in the space of very few years you should
    be sure to see the saints much thicker in the roll, more numerous, wonder-
    working and mirific, more services, more vows, more staves and wax-candles
    than are all those in the nine bishoprics of Britany, St. Yves only
    excepted.  Consider, sir, I pray you, how the noble Patelin, having a mind
    to deify and extol even to the third heavens the father of William
    Josseaulme, said no more but this, And he did lend his goods to those who
    were desirous of them.

    O the fine saying!  Now let our microcosm be fancied conform to this model
    in all its members; lending, borrowing, and owing, that is to say,
    according to its own nature.  For nature hath not to any other end created
    man, but to owe, borrow, and lend; no greater is the harmony amongst the
    heavenly spheres than that which shall be found in its well-ordered policy.
    The intention of the founder of this microcosm is, to have a soul therein
    to be entertained, which is lodged there, as a guest with its host, (that)
    it may live there for a while.  Life consisteth in blood, blood is the seat
    of the soul; therefore the chiefest work of the microcosm is, to be making
    blood continually.

    At this forge are exercised all the members of the body; none is exempted
    from labour, each operates apart, and doth its proper office.  And such is
    their heirarchy, that perpetually the one borrows from the other, the one
    lends the other, and the one is the other's debtor.  The stuff and matter
    convenient, which nature giveth to be turned into blood, is bread and wine.
    All kind of nourishing victuals is understood to be comprehended in these
    two, and from hence in the Gothish tongue is called companage.  To find out
    this meat and drink, to prepare and boil it, the hands are put to work, the
    feet do walk and bear up the whole bulk of the corporal mass; the eyes
    guide and conduct all; the appetite in the orifice of the stomach, by means
    of (a) little sourish black humour, called melancholy, which is transmitted
    thereto from the milt, giveth warning to shut in the food.  The tongue doth
    make the first essay, and tastes it; the teeth do chew it, and the stomach
    doth receive, digest, and chylify it.  The mesaraic veins suck out of it
    what is good and fit, leaving behind the excrements, which are, through
    special conduits for that purpose, voided by an expulsive faculty.
    Thereafter it is carried to the liver, where it being changed again, it by
    the virtue of that new transmutation becomes blood.  What joy, conjecture
    you, will then be found amongst those officers when they see this rivulet
    of gold, which is their sole restorative?  No greater is the joy of
    alchemists, when after long travail, toil, and expense they see in their
    furnaces the transmutation.  Then is it that every member doth prepare
    itself, and strive anew to purify and to refine this treasure.  The kidneys
    through the emulgent veins draw that aquosity from thence which you call
    urine, and there send it away through the ureters to be slipped downwards;
    where, in a lower receptacle, and proper for it, to wit, the bladder, it is
    kept, and stayeth there until an opportunity to void it out in his due
    time.  The spleen draweth from the blood its terrestrial part, viz., the
    grounds, lees, or thick substance settled in the bottom thereof, which you
    term melancholy.  The bottle of the gall subtracts from thence all the
    superfluous choler; whence it is brought to another shop or work-house to
    be yet better purified and fined, that is, the heart, which by its
    agitation of diastolic and systolic motions so neatly subtilizeth and
    inflames it, that in the right side ventricle it is brought to perfection,
    and through the veins is sent to all the members.  Each parcel of the body
    draws it then unto itself, and after its own fashion is cherished and
    alimented by it.  Feet, hands, thighs, arms, eyes, ears, back, breast, yea,
    all; and then it is, that who before were lenders, now become debtors.  The
    heart doth in its left side ventricle so thinnify the blood, that it
    thereby obtains the name of spiritual; which being sent through the
    arteries to all the members of the body, serveth to warm and winnow the
    other blood which runneth through the veins.  The lights never cease with
    its lappets and bellows to cool and refresh it, in acknowledgment of which
    good the heart, through the arterial vein, imparts unto it the choicest of
    its blood.  At last it is made so fine and subtle within the rete mirabile,
    that thereafter those animal spirits are framed and composed of it, by
    means whereof the imagination, discourse, judgment, resolution,
    deliberation, ratiocination, and memory have their rise, actings, and
    operations.

    Cops body, I sink, I drown, I perish, I wander astray, and quite fly out of
    myself when I enter into the consideration of the profound abyss of this
    world, thus lending, thus owing.  Believe me, it is a divine thing to
    lend,—to owe, an heroic virtue.  Yet is not this all.  This little world
    thus lending, owing, and borrowing, is so good and charitable, that no
    sooner is the above-specified alimentation finished, but that it forthwith
    projecteth, and hath already forecast, how it shall lend to those who are
    not as yet born, and by that loan endeavour what it may to eternize itself,
    and multiply in images like the pattern, that is, children.  To this end
    every member doth of the choicest and most precious of its nourishment pare
    and cut off a portion, then instantly despatcheth it downwards to that
    place where nature hath prepared for it very fit vessels and receptacles,
    through which descending to the genitories by long ambages, circuits, and
    flexuosities, it receiveth a competent form, and rooms apt enough both in
    man and woman for the future conservation and perpetuating of human kind.
    All this is done by loans and debts of the one unto the other; and hence
    have we this word, the debt of marriage.  Nature doth reckon pain to the
    refuser, with a most grievous vexation to his members and an outrageous
    fury amidst his senses.  But, on the other part, to the lender a set
    reward, accompanied with pleasure, joy, solace, mirth, and merry glee.

    Chapter 3.V. How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers.

    I understand you very well, quoth Pantagruel, and take you to be very good
    at topics, and thoroughly affectioned to your own cause.  But preach it up,
    and patrocinate it, prattle on it, and defend it as much as you will, even
    from hence to the next Whitsuntide, if you please so to do, yet in the end
    you will be astonished to find how you shall have gained no ground at all
    upon me, nor persuaded me by your fair speeches and smooth talk to enter
    never so little into the thraldom of debt.  You shall owe to none, saith
    the holy Apostle, anything save love, friendship, and a mutual benevolence.

    You serve me here, I confess, with fine graphides and diatyposes,
    descriptions and figures, which truly please me very well.  But let me tell
    you, if you will represent unto your fancy an impudent blustering bully and
    an importunate borrower, entering afresh and newly into a town already
    advertised of his manners, you shall find that at his ingress the citizens
    will be more hideously affrighted and amazed, and in a greater terror and
    fear, dread, and trembling, than if the pest itself should step into it in
    the very same garb and accoutrement wherein the Tyanean philosopher found
    it within the city of Ephesus.  And I am fully confirmed in the opinion,
    that the Persians erred not when they said that the second vice was to lie,
    the first being that of owing money.  For, in very truth, debts and lying
    are ordinarily joined together.  I will nevertheless not from hence infer
    that none must owe anything or lend anything.  For who so rich can be that
    sometimes may not owe, or who can be so poor that sometimes may not lend?

    Let the occasion, notwithstanding, in that case, as Plato very wisely
    sayeth and ordaineth in his laws, be such that none be permitted to draw
    any water out of his neighbour's well until first they by continual digging
    and delving into their own proper ground shall have hit upon a kind of
    potter's earth, which is called ceramite, and there had found no source or
    drop of water; for that sort of earth, by reason of its substance, which is
    fat, strong, firm, and close, so retaineth its humidity, that it doth not
    easily evaporate it by any outward excursion or evaporation.

    In good sooth, it is a great shame to choose rather to be still borrowing
    in all places from everyone, than to work and win.  Then only in my
    judgment should one lend, when the diligent, toiling, and industrious
    person is no longer able by his labour to make any purchase unto himself,
    or otherwise, when by mischance he hath suddenly fallen into an unexpected
    loss of his goods.

    Howsoever, let us leave this discourse, and from henceforwards do not hang
    upon creditors, nor tie yourself to them.  I make account for the time past
    to rid you freely of them, and from their bondage to deliver you.  The
    least I should in this point, quoth Panurge, is to thank you, though it be
    the most I can do.  And if gratitude and thanksgiving be to be estimated
    and prized by the affection of the benefactor, that is to be done
    infinitely and sempiternally; for the love which you bear me of your own
    accord and free grace, without any merit of mine, goeth far beyond the
    reach of any price or value.  It transcends all weight, all number, all
    measure; it is endless and everlasting; therefore, should I offer to
    commensurate and adjust it, either to the size and proportion of your own
    noble and gracious deeds, or yet to the contentment and delight of the
    obliged receivers, I would come off but very faintly and flaggingly.  You
    have verily done me a great deal of good, and multiplied your favours on me
    more frequently than was fitting to one of my condition.  You have been
    more bountiful towards me than I have deserved, and your courtesies have by
    far surpassed the extent of my merits, I must needs confess it.  But it is
    not, as you suppose, in the proposed matter.  For there it is not where I
    itch, it is not there where it fretteth, hurts, or vexeth me; for,
    henceforth being quit and out of debt, what countenance will I be able to
    keep?  You may imagine that it will become me very ill for the first month,
    because I have never hitherto been brought up or accustomed to it.  I am
    very much afraid of it.  Furthermore, there shall not one hereafter, native
    of the country of Salmigondy, but he shall level the shot towards my nose.
    All the back-cracking fellows of the world, in discharging of their postern
    petarades, use commonly to say, Voila pour les quittes, that is, For the
    quit.  My life will be of very short continuance, I do foresee it.  I
    recommend to you the making of my epitaph; for I perceive I will die
    confected in the very stench of farts.  If, at any time to come, by way of
    restorative to such good women as shall happen to be troubled with the
    grievous pain of the wind-colic, the ordinary medicaments prove nothing
    effectual, the mummy of all my befarted body will straight be as a present
    remedy appointed by the physicians; whereof they, taking any small modicum,
    it will incontinently for their ease afford them a rattle of bumshot, like
    a sal of muskets.

    Therefore would I beseech you to leave me some few centuries of debts; as
    King Louis the Eleventh, exempting from suits in law the Reverend Miles
    d'Illiers, Bishop of Chartres, was by the said bishop most earnestly
    solicited to leave him some few for the exercise of his mind.  I had rather
    give them all my revenue of the periwinkles, together with the other
    incomes of the locusts, albeit I should not thereby have any parcel abated
    from off the principal sums which I owe.  Let us waive this matter, quoth
    Pantagruel, I have told it you over again.

    Chapter 3.VI. Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars.

    But, in the interim, asked Panurge, by what law was it constituted,
    ordained, and established, that such as should plant a new vineyard, those
    that should build a new house, and the new married men, should be exempted
    and discharged from the duty of warfare for the first year?  By the law,
    answered Pantagruel, of Moses.  Why, replied Panurge, the lately married?
    As for the vine-planters, I am now too old to reflect on them; my
    condition, at this present, induceth me to remain satisfied with the care
    of vintage, finishing and turning the grapes into wine.  Nor are these
    pretty new builders of dead stones written or pricked down in my Book of
    Life.  It is all with live stones that I set up and erect the fabrics of my
    architecture, to wit, men.  It was, according to my opinion, quoth
    Pantagruel, to the end, first, that the fresh married folks should for the
    first year reap a full and complete fruition of their pleasures in their
    mutual exercise of the act of love, in such sort, that in waiting more at
    leisure on the production of posterity and propagating of their progeny,
    they might the better increase their race and make provision of new heirs.
    That if, in the years thereafter, the men should, upon their undergoing of
    some military adventure, happen to be killed, their names and coats-of-arms
    might continue with their children in the same families.  And next, that,
    the wives thereby coming to know whether they were barren or fruitful—for
    one year's trial, in regard of the maturity of age wherein of old they
    married, was held sufficient for the discovery—they might pitch the more
    suitably, in case of their first husband's decease, upon a second match.
    The fertile women to be wedded to those who desire to multiply their issue;
    and the sterile ones to such other mates, as, misregarding the storing of
    their own lineage, choose them only for their virtues, learning, genteel
    behaviour, domestic consolation, management of the house, and matrimonial
    conveniences and comforts, and such like.  The preachers of Varennes, saith
    Panurge, detest and abhor the second marriages, as altogether foolish and
    dishonest.

    Foolish and dishonest? quoth Pantagruel.  A plague take such preachers!
    Yea but, quoth Panurge, the like mischief also befall the Friar Charmer,
    who, in a full auditory making a sermon at Pereilly, and therein
    abominating the reiteration of marriage and the entering again in the bonds
    of a nuptial tie, did swear and heartily give himself to the swiftest devil
    in hell, if he had not rather choose, and would much more willingly
    undertake the unmaidening or depucelating of a hundred virgins, than the
    simple drudgery of one widow.  Truly I find your reason in that point right
    good and strongly grounded.

    But what would you think, if the cause why this exemption or immunity was
    granted had no other foundation but that, during the whole space of the
    said first year, they so lustily bobbed it with their female consorts, as
    both reason and equity require they should do, that they had drained and
    evacuated their spermatic vessels; and were become thereby altogether
    feeble, weak, emasculated, drooping, and flaggingly pithless; yea, in such
    sort that they in the day of battle, like ducks which plunge over head and
    ears, would sooner hide themselves behind the baggage, than, in the company
    of valiant fighters and daring military combatants, appear where stern
    Bellona deals her blows and moves a bustling noise of thwacks and thumps?
    Nor is it to be thought that, under the standard of Mars, they will so much
    as once strike a fair stroke, because their most considerable knocks have
    been already jerked and whirrited within the curtains of his sweetheart
    Venus.

    In confirmation whereof, amongst other relics and monuments of antiquity,
    we now as yet often see, that in all great houses, after the expiring of
    some few days, these young married blades are readily sent away to visit
    their uncles, that in the absence of their wives reposing themselves a
    little they may recover their decayed strength by the recruit of a fresh
    supply, the more vigorous to return again and face about to renew the
    duelling shock and conflict of an amorous dalliance, albeit for the greater
    part they have neither uncle nor aunt to go to.

    Just so did the King Crackart, after the battle of the Cornets, not cashier
    us (speaking properly), I mean me and the Quail-caller, but for our
    refreshment remanded us to our houses; and he is as yet seeking after his
    own.  My grandfather's godmother was wont to say to me when I was a boy,—

      Patenostres et oraisons
      Sont pour ceux-la, qui les retiennent.
      Ung fiffre en fenaisons
      Est plus fort que deux qui en viennent.

      Not orisons nor patenotres
      Shall ever disorder my brain.
      One cadet, to the field as he flutters,
      Is worth two, when they end the campaign.

    That which prompteth me to that opinion is, that the vine-planters did
    seldom eat of the grapes, or drink of the wine of their labour, till the
    first year was wholly elapsed.  During all which time also the builders did
    hardly inhabit their new-structured dwelling-places, for fear of dying
    suffocated through want of respiration; as Galen hath most learnedly
    remarked, in the second book of the Difficulty of Breathing.  Under favour,
    sir, I have not asked this question without cause causing and reason truly
    very ratiocinant.  Be not offended, I pray you.

    Chapter 3.VII. How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his
    magnificent codpiece.

    Panurge, the day thereafter, caused pierce his right ear after the Jewish
    fashion, and thereto clasped a little gold ring, of a ferny-like kind of
    workmanship, in the beazil or collet whereof was set and enchased a flea;
    and, to the end you may be rid of all doubts, you are to know that the flea
    was black.  O, what a brave thing it is, in every case and circumstance of
    a matter, to be thoroughly well informed!  The sum of the expense hereof,
    being cast up, brought in, and laid down upon his council-board carpet, was
    found to amount to no more quarterly than the charge of the nuptials of a
    Hircanian tigress; even, as you would say, 600,000 maravedis.  At these
    vast costs and excessive disbursements, as soon as he perceived himself to
    be out of debt, he fretted much; and afterwards, as tyrants and lawyers use
    to do, he nourished and fed her with the sweat and blood of his subjects
    and clients.

    He then took four French ells of a coarse brown russet cloth, and therein
    apparelling himself, as with a long, plain-seamed, and single-stitched
    gown, left off the wearing of his breeches, and tied a pair of spectacles
    to his cap.  In this equipage did he present himself before Pantagruel; to
    whom this disguise appeared the more strange, that he did not, as before,
    see that goodly, fair, and stately codpiece, which was the sole anchor of
    hope wherein he was wonted to rely, and last refuge he had midst all the
    waves and boisterous billows which a stormy cloud in a cross fortune would
    raise up against him.  Honest Pantagruel, not understanding the mystery,
    asked him, by way of interrogatory, what he did intend to personate in that
    new-fangled prosopopoeia.  I have, answered Panurge, a flea in mine ear,
    and have a mind to marry.  In a good time, quoth Pantagruel, you have told
    me joyful tidings.  Yet would not I hold a red-hot iron in my hand for all
    the gladness of them.  But it is not the fashion of lovers to be accoutred
    in such dangling vestments, so as to have their shirts flagging down over
    their knees, without breeches, and with a long robe of a dark brown mingled
    hue, which is a colour never used in Talarian garments amongst any persons
    of honour, quality, or virtue.  If some heretical persons and schismatical
    sectaries have at any time formerly been so arrayed and clothed (though
    many have imputed such a kind of dress to cosenage, cheat, imposture, and
    an affectation of tyranny upon credulous minds of the rude multitude), I
    will nevertheless not blame them for it, nor in that point judge rashly or
    sinistrously of them.  Everyone overflowingly aboundeth in his own sense
    and fancy; yea, in things of a foreign consideration, altogether
    extrinsical and indifferent, which in and of themselves are neither
    commendable nor bad, because they proceed not from the interior of the
    thoughts and heart, which is the shop of all good and evil; of goodness, if
    it be upright, and that its affections be regulated by the pure and clean
    spirit of righteousness; and, on the other side, of wickedness, if its
    inclinations, straying beyond the bounds of equity, be corrupted and
    depraved by the malice and suggestions of the devil.  It is only the
    novelty and new-fangledness thereof which I dislike, together with the
    contempt of common custom and the fashion which is in use.

    The colour, answered Panurge, is convenient, for it is conform to that
    of my council-board carpet; therefore will I henceforth hold me with it,
    and more narrowly and circumspectly than ever hitherto I have done look to
    my affairs and business.  Seeing I am once out of debt, you never yet saw
    man more unpleasing than I will be, if God help me not.  Lo, here be my
    spectacles.  To see me afar off, you would readily say that it were Friar
    (John) Burgess.  I believe certainly that in the next ensuing year I shall
    once more preach the Crusade.  Bounce, buckram.  Do you see this russet?
    Doubt not but there lurketh under it some hid property and occult virtue
    known to very few in the world.  I did not take it on before this morning,
    and, nevertheless, am already in a rage of lust, mad after a wife, and
    vehemently hot upon untying the codpiece-point; I itch, I tingle, I
    wriggle, and long exceedingly to be married, that, without the danger of
    cudgel-blows, I may labour my female copes-mate with the hard push of a
    bull-horned devil.  O the provident and thrifty husband that I then will
    be!  After my death, with all honour and respect due to my frugality, will
    they burn the sacred bulk of my body, of purpose to preserve the ashes
    thereof, in memory of the choicest pattern that ever was of a perfectly
    wary and complete householder.  Cops body, this is not the carpet whereon
    my treasurer shall be allowed to play false in his accounts with me, by
    setting down an X for a V, or an L for an S.  For in that case should I
    make a hail of fisticuffs to fly into his face.  Look upon me, sir, both
    before and behind,—it is made after the manner of a toga, which was the
    ancient fashion of the Romans in time of peace.  I took the mode, shape,
    and form thereof in Trajan's Column at Rome, as also in the Triumphant Arch
    of Septimus Severus.  I am tired of the wars, weary of wearing buff-coats,
    cassocks, and hoquetons.  My shoulders are pitifully worn and bruised with
    the carrying of harness.  Let armour cease, and the long robe bear sway!
    At least it must be so for the whole space of the succeeding year, if I be
    married; as yesterday, by the Mosaic law, you evidenced.  In what
    concerneth the breeches, my great-aunt Laurence did long ago tell me, that
    the breeches were only ordained for the use of the codpiece, and to no
    other end; which I, upon a no less forcible consequence, give credit to
    every whit, as well as to the saying of the fine fellow Galen, who in his
    ninth book, Of the Use and Employment of our Members, allegeth that the
    head was made for the eyes.  For nature might have placed our heads in our
    knees or elbows, but having beforehand determined that the eyes should
    serve to discover things from afar, she for the better enabling them to
    execute their designed office, fixed them in the head, as on the top of a
    long pole, in the most eminent part of all the body—no otherwise than we
    see the phares, or high towers erected in the mouths of havens, that
    navigators may the further off perceive with ease the lights of the nightly
    fires and lanterns.  And because I would gladly, for some short while, a
    year at least, take a little rest and breathing time from the toilsome
    labour of the military profession, that is to say, be married, I have
    desisted from wearing any more a codpiece, and consequently have laid aside
    my breeches.  For the codpiece is the principal and most especial piece of
    armour that a warrior doth carry; and therefore do I maintain even to the
    fire (exclusively, understand you me), that no Turks can properly be said
    to be armed men, in regard that codpieces are by their law forbidden to be
    worn.

    Chapter 3.VIII. Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors.

    3-08-240.jpg (171K)

    Will you maintain, quoth Pantagruel, that the codpiece is the chief piece
    of a military harness?  It is a new kind of doctrine, very paradoxical; for
    we say, At spurs begins the arming of a man.  Sir, I maintain it, answered
    Panurge, and not wrongfully do I maintain it.  Behold how nature, having a
    fervent desire, after its production of plants, trees, shrubs, herbs,
    sponges, and plant-animals, to eternize and continue them unto all
    succession of ages (in their several kinds or sorts, at least, although the
    individuals perish) unruinable, and in an everlasting being, hath most
    curiously armed and fenced their buds, sprouts, shoots, and seeds, wherein
    the above-mentioned perpetuity consisteth, by strengthening, covering,
    guarding, and fortifying them with an admirable industry, with husks,
    cases, scurfs and swads, hulls, cods, stones, films, cartels, shells, ears,
    rinds, barks, skins, ridges, and prickles, which serve them instead of
    strong, fair, and natural codpieces.  As is manifestly apparent in pease,
    beans, fasels, pomegranates, peaches, cottons, gourds, pumpions, melons,
    corn, lemons, almonds, walnuts, filberts, and chestnuts; as likewise in all
    plants, slips, or sets whatsoever, wherein it is plainly and evidently
    seen, that the sperm and semence is more closely veiled, overshadowed,
    corroborated, and thoroughly harnessed, than any other part, portion, or
    parcel of the whole.

    Nature, nevertheless, did not after that manner provide for the
    sempiternizing of (the) human race; but, on the contrary, created man
    naked, tender, and frail, without either offensive or defensive arms; and
    that in the estate of innocence, in the first age of all, which was the
    golden season; not as a plant, but living creature, born for peace, not
    war, and brought forth into the world with an unquestionable right and
    title to the plenary fruition and enjoyment of all fruits and vegetables,
    as also to a certain calm and gentle rule and dominion over all kinds of
    beasts, fowls, fishes, reptiles, and insects.  Yet afterwards it happening
    in the time of the iron age, under the reign of Jupiter, when, to the
    multiplication of mischievous actions, wickedness and malice began to take
    root and footing within the then perverted hearts of men, that the earth
    began to bring forth nettles, thistles, thorns, briars, and such other
    stubborn and rebellious vegetables to the nature of man.  Nor scarce was
    there any animal which by a fatal disposition did not then revolt from him,
    and tacitly conspire and covenant with one another to serve him no longer,
    nor, in case of their ability to resist, to do him any manner of obedience,
    but rather, to the uttermost of their power, to annoy him with all the hurt
    and harm they could.  The man, then, that he might maintain his primitive
    right and prerogative, and continue his sway and dominion over all, both
    vegetable and sensitive creatures, and knowing of a truth that he could not
    be well accommodated as he ought without the servitude and subjection of
    several animals, bethought himself that of necessity he must needs put on
    arms, and make provision of harness against wars and violence.  By the holy
    Saint Babingoose, cried out Pantagruel, you are become, since the last
    rain, a great lifrelofre,—philosopher, I should say.  Take notice, sir,
    quoth Panurge, when Dame Nature had prompted him to his own arming, what
    part of the body it was, where, by her inspiration, he clapped on the first
    harness.  It was forsooth by the double pluck of my little dog the ballock
    and good Senor Don Priapos Stabo-stando—which done, he was content, and
    sought no more.  This is certified by the testimony of the great Hebrew
    captain (and) philosopher Moses, who affirmeth that he fenced that member
    with a brave and gallant codpiece, most exquisitely framed, and by right
    curious devices of a notably pregnant invention made up and composed of
    fig-tree leaves, which by reason of their solid stiffness, incisory
    notches, curled frizzling, sleeked smoothness, large ampleness, together
    with their colour, smell, virtue, and faculty, were exceeding proper and
    fit for the covering and arming of the satchels of generation—the
    hideously big Lorraine cullions being from thence only excepted, which,
    swaggering down to the lowermost bottom of the breeches, cannot abide, for
    being quite out of all order and method, the stately fashion of the high
    and lofty codpiece; as is manifest by the noble Valentine Viardiere, whom I
    found at Nancy, on the first day of May—the more flauntingly to
    gallantrize it afterwards—rubbing his ballocks, spread out upon a table
    after the manner of a Spanish cloak.  Wherefore it is, that none should
    henceforth say, who would not speak improperly, when any country bumpkin
    hieth to the wars, Have a care, my roister, of the wine-pot, that is, the
    skull, but, Have a care, my roister, of the milk-pot, that is, the
    testicles.  By the whole rabble of the horned fiends of hell, the head
    being cut off, that single person only thereby dieth.  But, if the ballocks
    be marred, the whole race of human kind would forthwith perish, and be lost
    for ever.

    This was the motive which incited the goodly writer Galen, Lib. 1. De
    Spermate, to aver with boldness that it were better, that is to say, a less
    evil, to have no heart at all than to be quite destitute of genitories; for
    there is laid up, conserved, and put in store, as in a secessive repository
    and sacred warehouse, the semence and original source of the whole
    offspring of mankind.  Therefore would I be apt to believe, for less than a
    hundred francs, that those are the very same stones by means whereof
    Deucalion and Pyrrha restored the human race, in peopling with men and
    women the world, which a little before that had been drowned in the
    overflowing waves of a poetical deluge.  This stirred up the valiant
    Justinian, L. 4. De Cagotis tollendis, to collocate his Summum Bonum, in
    Braguibus, et Braguetis.  For this and other causes, the Lord Humphrey de
    Merville, following of his king to a certain warlike expedition, whilst he
    was in trying upon his own person a new suit of armour, for of his old
    rusty harness he could make no more use, by reason that some few years
    since the skin of his belly was a great way removed from his kidneys, his
    lady thereupon, in the profound musing of a contemplative spirit, very
    maturely considering that he had but small care of the staff of love and
    packet of marriage, seeing he did no otherwise arm that part of the body
    than with links of mail, advised him to shield, fence, and gabionate it
    with a big tilting helmet which she had lying in her closet, to her
    otherwise utterly unprofitable.  On this lady were penned these subsequent
    verses, which are extant in the third book of the Shitbrana of Paltry
    Wenches.

      When Yoland saw her spouse equipp'd for fight,
      And, save the codpiece, all in armour dight,
      My dear, she cried, why, pray, of all the rest
      Is that exposed, you know I love the best?
      Was she to blame for an ill-managed fear,—
      Or rather pious, conscionable care?
      Wise lady, she!  In hurlyburly fight,
      Can any tell where random blows may light?

    Leave off then, sir, from being astonished, and wonder no more at this new
    manner of decking and trimming up of myself as you now see me.

    Chapter 3.IX. How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should marry, yea, or
    no.

    To this Pantagruel replying nothing, Panurge prosecuted the discourse he
    had already broached, and therewithal fetching, as from the bottom of his
    heart, a very deep sigh, said, My lord and master, you have heard the
    design I am upon, which is to marry, if by some disastrous mischance all
    the holes in the world be not shut up, stopped, closed, and bushed.  I
    humbly beseech you, for the affection which of a long time you have borne
    me, to give me your best advice therein.  Then, answered Pantagruel, seeing
    you have so decreed, taken deliberation thereon, and that the matter is
    fully determined, what need is there of any further talk thereof, but
    forthwith to put it into execution what you have resolved?  Yea but, quoth
    Panurge, I would be loth to act anything therein without your counsel had
    thereto.  It is my judgment also, quoth Pantagruel, and I advise you to it.
    Nevertheless, quoth Panurge, if I understood aright that it were much
    better for me to remain a bachelor as I am, than to run headlong upon new
    hairbrained undertakings of conjugal adventure, I would rather choose not
    to marry.  Quoth Pantagruel, Then do not marry.  Yea but, quoth Panurge,
    would you have me so solitarily drive out the whole course of my life,
    without the comfort of a matrimonial consort?  You know it is written, Vae
    soli! and a single person is never seen to reap the joy and solace that is
    found with married folks.  Then marry, in the name of God, quoth
    Pantagruel.  But if, quoth Panurge, my wife should make me a cuckold—as it
    is not unknown unto you, how this hath been a very plentiful year in the
    production of that kind of cattle—I would fly out, and grow impatient
    beyond all measure and mean.  I love cuckolds with my heart, for they seem
    unto me to be of a right honest conversation, and I truly do very willingly
    frequent their company; but should I die for it, I would not be one of
    their number.  That is a point for me of a too sore prickling point.  Then
    do not marry, quoth Pantagruel, for without all controversy this sentence
    of Seneca is infallibly true, What thou to others shalt have done, others
    will do the like to thee.  Do you, quoth Panurge, aver that without all
    exception?  Yes, truly, quoth Pantagruel, without all exception.  Ho, ho,
    says Panurge, by the wrath of a little devil, his meaning is, either in
    this world or in the other which is to come.  Yet seeing I can no more want
    a wife than a blind man his staff—(for) the funnel must be in agitation,
    without which manner of occupation I cannot live—were it not a great deal
    better for me to apply and associate myself to some one honest, lovely, and
    virtuous woman, than as I do, by a new change of females every day, run a
    hazard of being bastinadoed, or, which is worse, of the great pox, if not
    of both together.  For never—be it spoken by their husbands' leave and
    favour—had I enjoyment yet of an honest woman.  Marry then, in God's name,
    quoth Pantagruel.  But if, quoth Panurge, it were the will of God, and that
    my destiny did unluckily lead me to marry an honest woman who should beat
    me, I would be stored with more than two third parts of the patience of
    Job, if I were not stark mad by it, and quite distracted with such rugged
    dealings.  For it hath been told me that those exceeding honest women have
    ordinarily very wicked head-pieces; therefore is it that their family
    lacketh not for good vinegar.  Yet in that case should it go worse with me,
    if I did not then in such sort bang her back and breast, so thumpingly
    bethwack her gillets, to wit, her arms, legs, head, lights, liver, and
    milt, with her other entrails, and mangle, jag, and slash her coats so
    after the cross-billet fashion that the greatest devil of hell should wait
    at the gate for the reception of her damnel soul.  I could make a shift for
    this year to waive such molestation and disquiet, and be content to lay
    aside that trouble, and not to be engaged in it.

    Do not marry then, answered Pantagruel.  Yea but, quoth Panurge,
    considering the condition wherein I now am, out of debt and unmarried; mark
    what I say, free from all debt, in an ill hour, for, were I deeply on the
    score, my creditors would be but too careful of my paternity, but being
    quit, and not married, nobody will be so regardful of me, or carry towards
    me a love like that which is said to be in a conjugal affection.  And if by
    some mishap I should fall sick, I would be looked to very waywardly.  The
    wise man saith, Where there is no woman—I mean the mother of a family and
    wife in the union of a lawful wedlock—the crazy and diseased are in danger
    of being ill used and of having much brabbling and strife about them; as by
    clear experience hath been made apparent in the persons of popes, legates,
    cardinals, bishops, abbots, priors, priests, and monks; but there, assure
    yourself, you shall not find me.  Marry then, in the name of God, answered
    Pantagruel.  But if, quoth Panurge, being ill at ease, and possibly through
    that distemper made unable to discharge the matrimonial duty that is
    incumbent to an active husband, my wife, impatient of that drooping
    sickness and faint-fits of a pining languishment, should abandon and
    prostitute herself to the embraces of another man, and not only then not
    help and assist me in my extremity and need, but withal flout at and make
    sport of that my grievous distress and calamity; or peradventure, which is
    worse, embezzle my goods and steal from me, as I have seen it oftentimes
    befall unto the lot of many other men, it were enough to undo me utterly,
    to fill brimful the cup of my misfortune, and make me play the mad-pate
    reeks of Bedlam.  Do not marry then, quoth Pantagruel.  Yea but, said
    Panurge, I shall never by any other means come to have lawful sons and
    daughters, in whom I may harbour some hope of perpetuating my name and
    arms, and to whom also I may leave and bequeath my inheritances and
    purchased goods (of which latter sort you need not doubt but that in some
    one or other of these mornings I will make a fair and goodly show), that so
    I may cheer up and make merry when otherwise I should be plunged into a
    peevish sullen mood of pensive sullenness, as I do perceive daily by the
    gentle and loving carriage of your kind and gracious father towards you; as
    all honest folks use to do at their own homes and private dwelling-houses.
    For being free from debt, and yet not married, if casually I should fret
    and be angry, although the cause of my grief and displeasure were never so
    just, I am afraid, instead of consolation, that I should meet with nothing
    else but scoffs, frumps, gibes, and mocks at my disastrous fortune.  Marry
    then, in the name of God, quoth Pantagruel.

    Chapter 3.X. How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving advice in
    the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth somewhat of the
    Homeric and Virgilian lotteries.

    Your counsel, quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour, seemeth unto
    me not unlike to the song of Gammer Yea-by-nay.  It is full of sarcasms,
    mockeries, bitter taunts, nipping bobs, derisive quips, biting jerks, and
    contradictory iterations, the one part destroying the other.  I know not,
    quoth Pantagruel, which of all my answers to lay hold on; for your
    proposals are so full of ifs and buts, that I can ground nothing on them,
    nor pitch upon any solid and positive determination satisfactory to what is
    demanded by them.  Are not you assured within yourself of what you have a
    mind to?  The chief and main point of the whole matter lieth there.  All
    the rest is merely casual, and totally dependeth upon the fatal disposition
    of the heavens.

    We see some so happy in the fortune of this nuptial encounter, that their
    family shineth as it were with the radiant effulgency of an idea, model, or
    representation of the joys of paradise; and perceive others, again, to be
    so unluckily matched in the conjugal yoke, that those very basest of devils
    which tempt the hermits that inhabit the deserts of Thebais and Montserrat
    are not more miserable than they.  It is therefore expedient, seeing you
    are resolved for once to take a trial of the state of marriage, that, with
    shut eyes, bowing your head, and kissing the ground, you put the business
    to a venture, and give it a fair hazard, in recommending the success of the
    residue to the disposure of Almighty God.  It lieth not in my power to give
    you any other manner of assurance, or otherwise to certify you of what
    shall ensue on this your undertaking.  Nevertheless, if it please you, this
    you may do.  Bring hither Virgil's poems, that after having opened the
    book, and with our fingers severed the leaves thereof three several times,
    we may, according to the number agreed upon betwixt ourselves, explore the
    future hap of your intended marriage.  For frequently by a Homeric lottery
    have many hit upon their destinies; as is testified in the person of
    Socrates, who, whilst he was in prison, hearing the recitation of this
    verse of Homer, said of Achilles in the Ninth of the Iliads—

      Emati ke tritato Phthien eribolon ikoimen,

      We, the third day, to fertile Pthia came—

    thereby foresaw that on the third subsequent day he was to die.  Of the
    truth whereof he assured Aeschines; as Plato, in Critone, Cicero, in Primo,
    de Divinatione, Diogenes Laertius, and others, have to the full recorded in
    their works.  The like is also witnessed by Opilius Macrinus, to whom,
    being desirous to know if he should be the Roman emperor, befell, by chance
    of lot, this sentence in the Eighth of the Iliads—

      O geron, e mala de se neoi teirousi machetai,
      Ze de bin lelutai, chalepon de se geras opazei.

      Dotard, new warriors urge thee to be gone.
      Thy life decays, and old age weighs thee down.

    In fact, he, being then somewhat ancient, had hardly enjoyed the
    sovereignty of the empire for the space of fourteen months, when by
    Heliogabalus, then both young and strong, he was dispossessed thereof,
    thrust out of all, and killed.  Brutus doth also bear witness of another
    experiment of this nature, who willing, through this exploratory way by
    lot, to learn what the event and issue should be of the Pharsalian battle
    wherein he perished, he casually encountered on this verse, said of
    Patroclus in the Sixteenth of the Iliads—

      Alla me moir oloe, kai Letous ektanen uios.

      Fate, and Latona's son have shot me dead.

    And accordingly Apollo was the field-word in the dreadful day of that
    fight.  Divers notable things of old have likewise been foretold and known
    by casting of Virgilian lots; yea, in matters of no less importance than
    the obtaining of the Roman empire, as it happened to Alexander Severus,
    who, trying his fortune at the said kind of lottery, did hit upon this
    verse written in the Sixth of the Aeneids—

      Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.

      Know, Roman, that thy business is to reign.

    He, within very few years thereafter, was effectually and in good earnest
    created and installed Roman emperor.  A semblable story thereto is related
    of Adrian, who, being hugely perplexed within himself out of a longing
    humour to know in what account he was with the Emperor Trajan, and how
    large the measure of that affection was which he did bear unto him, had
    recourse, after the manner above specified, to the Maronian lottery, which
    by haphazard tendered him these lines out of the Sixth of the Aeneids—

      Quis procul ille autem, ramis insignis olivae
      Sacra ferens?  Nosco crines incanaque menta
      Regis Romani.

      But who is he, conspicuous from afar,
      With olive boughs, that doth his offerings bear?
      By the white hair and beard I know him plain,
      The Roman king.

    Shortly thereafter was he adopted by Trajan, and succeeded to him in the
    empire.  Moreover, to the lot of the praiseworthy Emperor Claudius befell
    this line of Virgil, written in the Sixth of his Aeneids—

      Tertia dum Latio regnantem viderit aestas.

      Whilst the third summer saw him reign, a king
      In Latium.

    And in effect he did not reign above two years.  To the said Claudian also,
    inquiring concerning his brother Quintilius, whom he proposed as a
    colleague with himself in the empire, happened the response following in
    the Sixth of the Aeneids—

      Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata.

        Whom Fate let us see,
      And would no longer suffer him to be.

    And it so fell out; for he was killed on the seventeenth day after he had
    attained unto the management of the imperial charge.  The very same lot,
    also, with the like misluck, did betide the Emperor Gordian the younger.
    To Claudius Albinus, being very solicitous to understand somewhat of his
    future adventures, did occur this saying, which is written in the Sixth of
    the Aeneids—

      Hic rem Romanam magno turbante tumultu
      Sistet Eques, &c.

      The Romans, boiling with tumultuous rage,
      This warrior shall the dangerous storm assuage:
      With victories he the Carthaginian mauls,
      And with strong hand shall crush the rebel Gauls.

    Likewise, when the Emperor D. Claudius, Aurelian's predecessor, did with
    great eagerness research after the fate to come of his posterity, his hap
    was to alight on this verse in the First of the Aeneids—

      Hic ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono.

      No bounds are to be set, no limits here.

    Which was fulfilled by the goodly genealogical row of his race.  When Mr.
    Peter Amy did in like manner explore and make trial if he should escape the
    ambush of the hobgoblins who lay in wait all-to-bemaul him, he fell upon
    this verse in the Third of the Aeneids—

      Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum!

      Oh, flee the bloody land, the wicked shore!

    Which counsel he obeying, safe and sound forthwith avoided all these
    ambuscades.

    Were it not to shun prolixity, I could enumerate a thousand such like
    adventures, which, conform to the dictate and verdict of the verse, have by
    that manner of lot-casting encounter befallen to the curious researchers of
    them.  Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest you should be deluded, that I
    would upon this kind of fortune-flinging proof infer an uncontrollable and
    not to be gainsaid infallibility of truth.

    Chapter 3.XI. How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of dice
    to be unlawful.

    It would be sooner done, quoth Panurge, and more expeditely, if we should
    try the matter at the chance of three fair dice.  Quoth Pantagruel, That
    sort of lottery is deceitful, abusive, illicitous, and exceedingly
    scandalous.  Never trust in it.  The accursed book of the Recreation of
    Dice was a great while ago excogitated in Achaia, near Bourre, by that
    ancient enemy of mankind, the infernal calumniator, who, before the statue
    or massive image of the Bourraic Hercules, did of old, and doth in several
    places of the world as yet, make many simple souls to err and fall into his
    snares.  You know how my father Gargantua hath forbidden it over all his
    kingdoms and dominions; how he hath caused burn the moulds and draughts
    thereof, and altogether suppressed, abolished, driven forth, and cast it
    out of the land, as a most dangerous plague and infection to any well-
    polished state or commonwealth.  What I have told you of dice, I say the
    same of the play at cockall.  It is a lottery of the like guile and
    deceitfulness; and therefore do not for convincing of me allege in
    opposition to this my opinion, or bring in the example of the fortunate
    cast of Tiberius, within the fountain of Aponus, at the oracle of Gerion.
    These are the baited hooks by which the devil attracts and draweth unto him
    the foolish souls of silly people into eternal perdition.

    Nevertheless, to satisfy your humour in some measure, I am content you
    throw three dice upon this table, that, according to the number of the
    blots which shall happen to be cast up, we may hit upon a verse of that
    page which in the setting open of the book you shall have pitched upon.

    Have you any dice in your pocket?  A whole bagful, answered Panurge.  That
    is provision against the devil, as is expounded by Merlin Coccaius, Lib.
    2. De Patria Diabolorum.  The devil would be sure to take me napping, and
    very much at unawares, if he should find me without dice.  With this, the
    three dice being taken out, produced, and thrown, they fell so pat upon the
    lower points that the cast was five, six, and five.  These are, quoth
    Panurge, sixteen in all.  Let us take the sixteenth line of the page.  The
    number pleaseth me very well; I hope we shall have a prosperous and happy
    chance.  May I be thrown amidst all the devils of hell, even as a great
    bowl cast athwart at a set of ninepins, or cannon-ball shot among a
    battalion of foot, in case so many times I do not boult my future wife the
    first night of our marriage!  Of that, forsooth, I make no doubt at all,
    quoth Pantagruel.  You needed not to have rapped forth such a horrid
    imprecation, the sooner to procure credit for the performance of so small a
    business, seeing possibly the first bout will be amiss, and that you know
    is usually at tennis called fifteen.  At the next justling turn you may
    readily amend that fault, and so complete your reckoning of sixteen.  Is it
    so, quoth Panurge, that you understand the matter?  And must my words be
    thus interpreted?  Nay, believe me never yet was any solecism committed by
    that valiant champion who often hath for me in Belly-dale stood sentry at
    the hypogastrian cranny.  Did you ever hitherto find me in the
    confraternity of the faulty?  Never, I trow; never, nor ever shall, for
    ever and a day.  I do the feat like a goodly friar or father confessor,
    without default.  And therein am I willing to be judged by the players.  He
    had no sooner spoke these words than the works of Virgil were brought in.
    But before the book was laid open, Panurge said to Pantagruel, My heart,
    like the furch of a hart in a rut, doth beat within my breast.  Be pleased
    to feel and grope my pulse a little on this artery of my left arm. At its
    frequent rise and fall you would say that they swinge and belabour me after
    the manner of a probationer, posed and put to a peremptory trial in the
    examination of his sufficiency for the discharge of the learned duty of a
    graduate in some eminent degree in the college of the Sorbonists.

    But would you not hold it expedient, before we proceed any further, that we
    should invocate Hercules and the Tenetian goddesses who in the chamber of
    lots are said to rule, sit in judgment, and bear a presidential sway?
    Neither him nor them, answered Pantagruel; only open up the leaves of the
    book with your fingers, and set your nails awork.

    Chapter 3.XII. How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurge
    shall have in his marriage.

    Then at the opening of the book in the sixteenth row of the lines of the
    disclosed page did Panurge encounter upon this following verse:

      Nec Deus hunc mensa, Dea nec dignata cubili est.

      The god him from his table banished,
      Nor would the goddess have him in her bed.

    This response, quoth Pantagruel, maketh not very much for your benefit or
    advantage; for it plainly signifies and denoteth that your wife shall be a
    strumpet, and yourself by consequence a cuckold.  The goddess, whom you
    shall not find propitious nor favourable unto you, is Minerva, a most
    redoubtable and dreadful virgin, a powerful and fulminating goddess, an
    enemy to cuckolds and effeminate youngsters, to cuckold-makers and
    adulterers.  The god is Jupiter, a terrible and thunder-striking god from
    heaven.  And withal it is to be remarked, that, conform to the doctrine of
    the ancient Etrurians, the manubes, for so did they call the darting hurls
    or slinging casts of the Vulcanian thunderbolts, did only appertain to her
    and to Jupiter her father capital.  This was verified in the conflagration
    of the ships of Ajax Oileus, nor doth this fulminating power belong to any
    other of the Olympic gods.  Men, therefore, stand not in such fear of them.
    Moreover, I will tell you, and you may take it as extracted out of the
    profoundest mysteries of mythology, that, when the giants had enterprised
    the waging of a war against the power of the celestial orbs, the gods at
    first did laugh at those attempts, and scorned such despicable enemies, who
    were, in their conceit, not strong enough to cope in feats of warfare with
    their pages; but when they saw by the gigantine labour the high hill Pelion
    set on lofty Ossa, and that the mount Olympus was made shake to be erected
    on the top of both, then was it that Jupiter held a parliament, or general
    convention, wherein it was unanimously resolved upon and condescended to by
    all the gods, that they should worthily and valiantly stand to their
    defence.  And because they had often seen battles lost by the cumbersome
    lets and disturbing encumbrances of women confusedly huddled in amongst
    armies, it was at that time decreed and enacted that they should expel and
    drive out of heaven into Egypt and the confines of Nile that whole crew of
    goddesses, disguised in the shapes of weasels, polecats, bats, shrew-mice,
    ferrets, fulmarts, and other such like odd transformations; only Minerva
    was reserved to participate with Jupiter in the horrific fulminating power,
    as being the goddess both of war and learning, of arts and arms, of counsel
    and despatch—a goddess armed from her birth, a goddess dreaded in heaven,
    in the air, by sea and land.  By the belly of Saint Buff, quoth Panurge,
    should I be Vulcan, whom the poet blazons?  Nay, I am neither a cripple,
    coiner of false money, nor smith, as he was.  My wife possibly will be as
    comely and handsome as ever was his Venus, but not a whore like her, nor I
    a cuckold like him.  The crook-legged slovenly slave made himself to be
    declared a cuckold by a definite sentence and judgment, in the open view of
    all the gods.  For this cause ought you to interpret the afore-mentioned
    verse quite contrary to what you have said.  This lot importeth that my
    wife will be honest, virtuous, chaste, loyal, and faithful; not armed,
    surly, wayward, cross, giddy, humorous, heady, hairbrained, or extracted
    out of the brains, as was the goddess Pallas; nor shall this fair jolly
    Jupiter be my co-rival.  He shall never dip his bread in my broth, though
    we should sit together at one table.

    Consider his exploits and gallant actions.  He was the manifest ruffian,
    wencher, whoremonger, and most infamous cuckold-maker that ever breathed.
    He did always lecher it like a boar, and no wonder, for he was fostered by
    a sow in the Isle of Candia, if Agathocles the Babylonian be not a liar,
    and more rammishly lascivious than a buck; whence it is that he is said by
    others to have been suckled and fed with the milk of the Amalthaean goat.
    By the virtue of Acheron, he justled, bulled, and lastauriated in one day
    the third part of the world, beasts and people, floods and mountains; that
    was Europa.  For this grand subagitatory achievement the Ammonians caused
    draw, delineate, and paint him in the figure and shape of a ram ramming,
    and horned ram.  But I know well enough how to shield and preserve myself
    from that horned champion.  He will not, trust me, have to deal in my
    person with a sottish, dunsical Amphitryon, nor with a silly witless Argus,
    for all his hundred spectacles, nor yet with the cowardly meacock Acrisius,
    the simple goose-cap Lycus of Thebes, the doting blockhead Agenor, the
    phlegmatic pea-goose Aesop, rough-footed Lycaon, the luskish misshapen
    Corytus of Tuscany, nor with the large-backed and strong-reined Atlas.  Let
    him alter, change, transform, and metamorphose himself into a hundred
    various shapes and figures, into a swan, a bull, a satyr, a shower of gold,
    or into a cuckoo, as he did when he unmaidened his sister Juno; into an
    eagle, ram, or dove, as when he was enamoured of the virgin Phthia, who
    then dwelt in the Aegean territory; into fire, a serpent, yea, even into a
    flea; into Epicurean and Democratical atoms, or, more
    Magistronostralistically, into those sly intentions of the mind, which in
    the schools are called second notions,—I'll catch him in the nick, and
    take him napping.  And would you know what I would do unto him?  Even that
    which to his father Coelum Saturn did—Seneca foretold it of me, and
    Lactantius hath confirmed it—what the goddess Rhea did to Athis.  I would
    make him two stone lighter, rid him of his Cyprian cymbals, and cut so
    close and neatly by the breech, that there shall not remain thereof so much
    as one—, so cleanly would I shave him, and disable him for ever from being
    Pope, for Testiculos non habet.  Hold there, said Pantagruel; ho, soft and
    fair, my lad!  Enough of that,—cast up, turn over the leaves, and try your
    fortune for the second time.  Then did he fall upon this ensuing verse:

      Membra quatit, gelidusque coit formidine sanguis.

      His joints and members quake, he becomes pale,
      And sudden fear doth his cold blood congeal.

    This importeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will soundly bang your back and
    belly.  Clean and quite contrary, answered Panurge; it is of me that he
    prognosticates, in saying that I will beat her like a tiger if she vex me.
    Sir Martin Wagstaff will perform that office, and in default of a cudgel,
    the devil gulp him, if I should not eat her up quick, as Candaul the Lydian
    king did his wife, whom he ravened and devoured.

    You are very stout, says Pantagruel, and courageous; Hercules himself durst
    hardly adventure to scuffle with you in this your raging fury.  Nor is it
    strange; for the Jan is worth two, and two in fight against Hercules are
    too too strong.  Am I a Jan? quoth Panurge.  No, no, answered Pantagruel.
    My mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack.  Thereafter did he
    hit, at the third opening of the book, upon this verse:

      Foemineo praedae, et spoliorum ardebat amore.

      After the spoil and pillage, as in fire,
      He burnt with a strong feminine desire.

    This portendeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will steal your goods, and rob
    you.  Hence this, according to these three drawn lots, will be your future
    destiny, I clearly see it,—you will be a cuckold, you will be beaten, and
    you will be robbed.  Nay, it is quite otherwise, quoth Panurge; for it is
    certain that this verse presageth that she will love me with a perfect
    liking.  Nor did the satyr-writing poet lie in proof hereof, when he
    affirmed that a woman, burning with extreme affection, takes sometimes
    pleasure to steal from her sweetheart.  And what, I pray you?  A glove, a
    point, or some such trifling toy of no importance, to make him keep a
    gentle kind of stirring in the research and quest thereof.  In like manner,
    these small scolding debates and petty brabbling contentions, which
    frequently we see spring up and for a certain space boil very hot betwixt a
    couple of high-spirited lovers, are nothing else but recreative diversions
    for their refreshment, spurs to and incentives of a more fervent amity than
    ever.  As, for example, we do sometimes see cutlers with hammers maul their
    finest whetstones, therewith to sharpen their iron tools the better.  And
    therefore do I think that these three lots make much for my advantage;
    which, if not, I from their sentence totally appeal.  There is no
    appellation, quoth Pantagruel, from the decrees of fate or destiny, of lot
    or chance; as is recorded by our ancient lawyers, witness Baldus, Lib. ult.
    Cap. de Leg.  The reason hereof is, Fortune doth not acknowledge a
    superior, to whom an appeal may be made from her or any of her substitutes.
    And in this case the pupil cannot be restored to his right in full, as
    openly by the said author is alleged in L. Ait Praetor, paragr. ult. ff. de
    minor.

    Chapter 3.XIII. How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of his
    marriage by dreams.

    Now, seeing we cannot agree together in the manner of expounding or
    interpreting the sense of the Virgilian lots, let us bend our course
    another way, and try a new sort of divination.  Of what kind? asked
    Panurge.  Of a good ancient and authentic fashion, answered Pantagruel; it
    is by dreams.  For in dreaming, such circumstances and conditions being
    thereto adhibited, as are clearly enough described by Hippocrates, in Lib.
    Peri ton enupnion, by Plato, Plotin, Iamblicus, Sinesius, Aristotle,
    Xenophon, Galen, Plutarch, Artemidorus, Daldianus, Herophilus, Q. Calaber,
    Theocritus, Pliny, Athenaeus, and others, the soul doth oftentimes foresee
    what is to come.  How true this is, you may conceive by a very vulgar and
    familiar example; as when you see that at such a time as suckling babes,
    well nourished, fed, and fostered with good milk, sleep soundly and
    profoundly, the nurses in the interim get leave to sport themselves, and
    are licentiated to recreate their fancies at what range to them shall seem
    most fitting and expedient, their presence, sedulity, and attendance on
    the cradle being, during all that space, held unnecessary.  Even just so,
    when our body is at rest, that the concoction is everywhere accomplished,
    and that, till it awake, it lacks for nothing, our soul delighteth to
    disport itself and is well pleased in that frolic to take a review of its
    native country, which is the heavens, where it receiveth a most notable
    participation of its first beginning with an imbuement from its divine
    source, and in contemplation of that infinite and intellectual sphere,
    whereof the centre is everywhere, and the circumference in no place of the
    universal world, to wit, God, according to the doctrine of Hermes
    Trismegistus, to whom no new thing happeneth, whom nothing that is past
    escapeth, and unto whom all things are alike present, remarketh not only
    what is preterit and gone in the inferior course and agitation of sublunary
    matters, but withal taketh notice what is to come; then bringing a relation
    of those future events unto the body of the outward senses and exterior
    organs, it is divulged abroad unto the hearing of others.  Whereupon the
    owner of that soul deserveth to be termed a vaticinator, or prophet.
    Nevertheless, the truth is, that the soul is seldom able to report those
    things in such sincerity as it hath seen them, by reason of the
    imperfection and frailty of the corporeal senses, which obstruct the
    effectuating of that office; even as the moon doth not communicate unto
    this earth of ours that light which she receiveth from the sun with so much
    splendour, heat, vigour, purity, and liveliness as it was given her.  Hence
    it is requisite for the better reading, explaining, and unfolding of these
    somniatory vaticinations and predictions of that nature, that a dexterous,
    learned, skilful, wise, industrious, expert, rational, and peremptory
    expounder or interpreter be pitched upon, such a one as by the Greeks is
    called onirocrit, or oniropolist.  For this cause Heraclitus was wont to
    say that nothing is by dreams revealed to us, that nothing is by dreams
    concealed from us, and that only we thereby have a mystical signification
    and secret evidence of things to come, either for our own prosperous or
    unlucky fortune, or for the favourable or disastrous success of another.
    The sacred Scriptures testify no less, and profane histories assure us of
    it, in both which are exposed to our view a thousand several kinds of
    strange adventures, which have befallen pat according to the nature of the
    dream, and that as well to the party dreamer as to others.  The Atlantic
    people, and those that inhabit the (is)land of Thasos, one of the Cyclades,
    are of this grand commodity deprived; for in their countries none yet ever
    dreamed.  Of this sort (were) Cleon of Daulia, Thrasymedes, and in our days
    the learned Frenchman Villanovanus, neither of all which knew what dreaming
    was.

    Fail not therefore to-morrow, when the jolly and fair Aurora with her rosy
    fingers draweth aside the curtains of the night to drive away the sable
    shades of darkness, to bend your spirits wholly to the task of sleeping
    sound, and thereto apply yourself.  In the meanwhile you must denude your
    mind of every human passion or affection, such as are love and hatred, fear
    and hope, for as of old the great vaticinator, most famous and renowned
    prophet Proteus, was not able in his disguise or transformation into fire,
    water, a tiger, a dragon, and other such like uncouth shapes and visors, to
    presage anything that was to come till he was restored to his own first
    natural and kindly form; just so doth man; for, at his reception of the art
    of divination and faculty of prognosticating future things, that part in
    him which is the most divine, to wit, the Nous, or Mens, must be calm,
    peaceable, untroubled, quiet, still, hushed, and not embusied or distracted
    with foreign, soul-disturbing perturbations.  I am content, quoth Panurge.
    But, I pray you, sir, must I this evening, ere I go to bed, eat much or
    little?  I do not ask this without cause.  For if I sup not well, large,
    round, and amply, my sleeping is not worth a forked turnip.  All the night
    long I then but doze and rave, and in my slumbering fits talk idle
    nonsense, my thoughts being in a dull brown study, and as deep in their
    dumps as is my belly hollow.

    Not to sup, answered Pantagruel, were best for you, considering the state
    of your complexion and healthy constitution of your body.  A certain very
    ancient prophet, named Amphiaraus, wished such as had a mind by dreams to
    be imbued with any oracle, for four-and-twenty hours to taste no victuals,
    and to abstain from wine three days together.  Yet shall not you be put to
    such a sharp, hard, rigorous, and extreme sparing diet.  I am truly right
    apt to believe that a man whose stomach is replete with various cheer, and
    in a manner surfeited with drinking, is hardly able to conceive aright of
    spiritual things; yet am not I of the opinion of those who, after long and
    pertinacious fastings, think by such means to enter more profoundly into
    the speculation of celestial mysteries.  You may very well remember how my
    father Gargantua (whom here for honour sake I name) hath often told us that
    the writings of abstinent, abstemious, and long-fasting hermits were every
    whit as saltless, dry, jejune, and insipid as were their bodies when they
    did compose them.  It is a most difficult thing for the spirits to be in a
    good plight, serene and lively, when there is nothing in the body but a
    kind of voidness and inanity; seeing the philosophers with the physicians
    jointly affirm that the spirits which are styled animal spring from, and
    have their constant practice in and through the arterial blood, refined and
    purified to the life within the admirable net which, wonderfully framed,
    lieth under the ventricles and tunnels of the brain.  He gave us also the
    example of the philosopher who, when he thought most seriously to have
    withdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from the rustling
    clutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the better to improve
    his theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was, notwithstanding his
    uttermost endeavours to free himself from all untoward noises, surrounded
    and environed about so with the barking of curs, bawling of mastiffs,
    bleating of sheep, prating of parrots, tattling of jackdaws, grunting of
    swine, girning of boars, yelping of foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping of
    mice, squeaking of weasels, croaking of frogs, crowing of cocks, cackling
    of hens, calling of partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays,
    peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of
    swallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckoos, bumbling of bees,
    rammage of hawks, chirming of linnets, croaking of ravens, screeching of
    owls, whicking of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of
    cushat-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of
    sparrows, crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps,
    buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabbits, cricking of ferrets, humming
    of wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings,
    clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes, warbling
    of nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys, coniating of
    storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies, murmuring of stock-
    doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles,
    guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats, guerieting of
    apes, snuttering of monkeys, pioling of pelicans, quacking of ducks,
    yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying of
    elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was much
    more troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair of
    Fontenay or Niort.  Just so is it with those who are tormented with the
    grievous pangs of hunger.  The stomach begins to gnaw, and bark, as it
    were, the eyes to look dim, and the veins, by greedily sucking some
    refection to themselves from the proper substance of all the members of a
    fleshy consistence, violently pull down and draw back that vagrant, roaming
    spirit, careless and neglecting of his nurse and natural host, which is the
    body; as when a hawk upon the fist, willing to take her flight by a soaring
    aloft in the open spacious air, is on a sudden drawn back by a leash tied
    to her feet.

    To this purpose also did he allege unto us the authority of Homer, the
    father of all philosophy, who said that the Grecians did not put an end to
    their mournful mood for the death of Patroclus, the most intimate friend of
    Achilles, till hunger in a rage declared herself, and their bellies
    protested to furnish no more tears unto their grief.  For from bodies
    emptied and macerated by long fasting there could not be such supply of
    moisture and brackish drops as might be proper on that occasion.

    Mediocrity at all times is commendable; nor in this case are you to abandon
    it.  You may take a little supper, but thereat must you not eat of a hare,
    nor of any other flesh.  You are likewise to abstain from beans, from the
    preak, by some called the polyp, as also from coleworts, cabbage, and all
    other such like windy victuals, which may endanger the troubling of your
    brains and the dimming or casting a kind of mist over your animal spirits.
    For, as a looking-glass cannot exhibit the semblance or representation of
    the object set before it, and exposed to have its image to the life
    expressed, if that the polished sleekedness thereof be darkened by gross
    breathings, dampish vapours, and foggy, thick, infectious exhalations, even
    so the fancy cannot well receive the impression of the likeness of those
    things which divination doth afford by dreams, if any way the body be
    annoyed or troubled with the fumish steam of meat which it had taken in a
    while before; because betwixt these two there still hath been a mutual
    sympathy and fellow-feeling of an indissolubly knit affection.  You shall
    eat good Eusebian and Bergamot pears, one apple of the short-shank pippin
    kind, a parcel of the little plums of Tours, and some few cherries of the
    growth of my orchard.  Nor shall you need to fear that thereupon will ensue
    doubtful dreams, fallacious, uncertain, and not to be trusted to, as by
    some peripatetic philosophers hath been related; for that, say they, men do
    more copiously in the season of harvest feed on fruitages than at any other
    time.  The same is mystically taught us by the ancient prophets and poets,
    who allege that all vain and deceitful dreams lie hid and in covert under
    the leaves which are spread on the ground—by reason that the leaves fall
    from the trees in the autumnal quarter.  For the natural fervour which,
    abounding in ripe, fresh, recent fruits, cometh by the quickness of its
    ebullition to be with ease evaporated into the animal parts of the dreaming
    person—the experiment is obvious in most—is a pretty while before it be
    expired, dissolved, and evanished.  As for your drink, you are to have it
    of the fair, pure water of my fountain.

    The condition, quoth Panurge, is very hard.  Nevertheless, cost what price
    it will, or whatsoever come of it, I heartily condescend thereto;
    protesting that I shall to-morrow break my fast betimes after my somniatory
    exercitations.  Furthermore, I recommend myself to Homer's two gates, to
    Morpheus, to Iselon, to Phantasus, and unto Phobetor.  If they in this my
    great need succour me and grant me that assistance which is fitting, I will
    in honour of them all erect a jolly, genteel altar, composed of the softest
    down.  If I were now in Laconia, in the temple of Juno, betwixt Oetile and
    Thalamis, she suddenly would disentangle my perplexity, resolve me of my
    doubts, and cheer me up with fair and jovial dreams in a deep sleep.

    Then did he say thus unto Pantagruel:  Sir, were it not expedient for my
    purpose to put a branch or two of curious laurel betwixt the quilt and
    bolster of my bed, under the pillow on which my head must lean?  There is
    no need at all of that, quoth Pantagruel; for, besides that it is a thing
    very superstitious, the cheat thereof hath been at large discovered unto us
    in the writings of Serapion, Ascalonites, Antiphon, Philochorus, Artemon,
    and Fulgentius Planciades.  I could say as much to you of the left shoulder
    of a crocodile, as also of a chameleon, without prejudice be it spoken to
    the credit which is due to the opinion of old Democritus; and likewise of
    the stone of the Bactrians, called Eumetrides, and of the Ammonian horn;
    for so by the Aethiopians is termed a certain precious stone, coloured like
    gold, and in the fashion, shape, form, and proportion of a ram's horn, as
    the horn of Jupiter Ammon is reported to have been:  they over and above
    assuredly affirming that the dreams of those who carry it about them are no
    less veritable and infallible than the truth of the divine oracles.  Nor is
    this much unlike to what Homer and Virgil wrote of these two gates of
    sleep, to which you have been pleased to recommend the management of what
    you have in hand.  The one is of ivory, which letteth in confused,
    doubtful, and uncertain dreams; for through ivory, how small and slender
    soever it be, we can see nothing, the density, opacity, and close
    compactedness of its material parts hindering the penetration of the visual
    rays and the reception of the specieses of such things as are visible.  The
    other is of horn, at which an entry is made to sure and certain dreams,
    even as through horn, by reason of the diaphanous splendour and bright
    transparency thereof, the species of all objects of the sight distinctly
    pass, and so without confusion appear, that they are clearly seen.  Your
    meaning is, and you would thereby infer, quoth Friar John, that the dreams
    of all horned cuckolds, of which number Panurge, by the help of God and his
    future wife, is without controversy to be one, are always true and
    infallible.

    Chapter 3.XIV. Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof.

    At seven o'clock of the next following morning Panurge did not fail to
    present himself before Pantagruel, in whose chamber were at that time
    Epistemon, Friar John of the Funnels, Ponocrates, Eudemon, Carpalin, and
    others, to whom, at the entry of Panurge, Pantagruel said, Lo! here cometh
    our dreamer.  That word, quoth Epistemon, in ancient times cost very much,
    and was dearly sold to the children of Jacob.  Then said Panurge, I have
    been plunged into my dumps so deeply, as if I had been lodged with Gaffer
    Noddy-cap.  Dreamed indeed I have, and that right lustily; but I could take
    along with me no more thereof that I did goodly understand save only that I
    in my vision had a pretty, fair, young, gallant, handsome woman, who no
    less lovingly and kindly treated and entertained me, hugged, cherished,
    cockered, dandled, and made much of me, as if I had been another neat
    dilly-darling minion, like Adonis.  Never was man more glad than I was
    then; my joy at that time was incomparable.  She flattered me, tickled me,
    stroked me, groped me, frizzled me, curled me, kissed me, embraced me, laid
    her hands about my neck, and now and then made jestingly pretty little
    horns above my forehead.  I told her in the like disport, as I did play the
    fool with her, that she should rather place and fix them in a little below
    mine eyes, that I might see the better what I should stick at with them;
    for, being so situated, Momus then would find no fault therewith, as he did
    once with the position of the horns of bulls.  The wanton, toying girl,
    notwithstanding any remonstrance of mine to the contrary, did always drive
    and thrust them further in; yet thereby, which to me seemed wonderful, she
    did not do me any hurt at all.  A little after, though I know not how, I
    thought I was transformed into a tabor, and she into a chough.

    My sleeping there being interrupted, I awaked in a start, angry,
    displeased, perplexed, chafing, and very wroth.  There have you a large
    platterful of dreams, make thereupon good cheer, and, if you please, spare
    not to interpret them according to the understanding which you may have in
    them.  Come, Carpalin, let us to breakfast.  To my sense and meaning, quoth
    Pantagruel, if I have skill or knowledge in the art of divination by
    dreams, your wife will not really, and to the outward appearance of the
    world, plant or set horns, and stick them fast in your forehead, after a
    visible manner, as satyrs use to wear and carry them; but she will be so
    far from preserving herself loyal in the discharge and observance of a
    conjugal duty, that, on the contrary, she will violate her plighted faith,
    break her marriage-oath, infringe all matrimonial ties, prostitute her body
    to the dalliance of other men, and so make you a cuckold.  This point is
    clearly and manifestly explained and expounded by Artemidorus just as I
    have related it.  Nor will there be any metamorphosis or transmutation made
    of you into a drum or tabor, but you will surely be as soundly beaten as
    ever was tabor at a merry wedding.  Nor yet will she be changed into a
    chough, but will steal from you, chiefly in the night, as is the nature of
    that thievish bird.  Hereby may you perceive your dreams to be in every jot
    conform and agreeable to the Virgilian lots.  A cuckold you will be, beaten
    and robbed.  Then cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells the
    truth; upon my conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold—an honest one, I warrant
    thee.  O the brave horns that will be borne by thee!  Ha, ha, ha!  Our good
    Master de Cornibus.  God save thee, and shield thee!  Wilt thou be pleased
    to preach but two words of a sermon to us, and I will go through the parish
    church to gather up alms for the poor.

    You are, quoth Panurge, very far mistaken in your interpretation; for the
    matter is quite contrary to your sense thereof.  My dream presageth that I
    shall by marriage be stored with plenty of all manner of goods—the
    hornifying of me showing that I will possess a cornucopia, that Amalthaean
    horn which is called the horn of abundance, whereof the fruition did still
    portend the wealth of the enjoyer.  You possibly will say that they are
    rather like to be satyr's horns; for you of these did make some mention.
    Amen, Amen, Fiat, fiatur, ad differentiam papae.  Thus shall I have my
    touch-her-home still ready.  My staff of love, sempiternally in a good
    case, will, satyr-like, be never toiled out—a thing which all men wish
    for, and send up their prayers to that purpose, but such a thing as
    nevertheless is granted but to a few.  Hence doth it follow by a
    consequence as clear as the sunbeams that I will never be in the danger of
    being made a cuckold, for the defect hereof is Causa sine qua non; yea, the
    sole cause, as many think, of making husbands cuckolds.  What makes poor
    scoundrel rogues to beg, I pray you?  Is it not because they have not
    enough at home wherewith to fill their bellies and their pokes?  What is it
    makes the wolves to leave the woods?  Is it not the want of flesh meat?
    What maketh women whores?  You understand me well enough.  And herein may I
    very well submit my opinion to the judgment of learned lawyers, presidents,
    counsellors, advocates, procurers, attorneys, and other glossers and
    commentators on the venerable rubric, De frigidis et maleficiatis.  You
    are, in truth, sir, as it seems to me (excuse my boldness if I have
    transgressed), in a most palpable and absurd error to attribute my horns to
    cuckoldry.  Diana wears them on her head after the manner of a crescent.
    Is she a cucquean for that?  How the devil can she be cuckolded who never
    yet was married?  Speak somewhat more correctly, I beseech you, lest she,
    being offended, furnish you with a pair of horns shapen by the pattern of
    those which she made for Actaeon.  The goodly Bacchus also carries horns,—
    Pan, Jupiter Ammon, with a great many others.  Are they all cuckolds?  If
    Jove be a cuckold, Juno is a whore.  This follows by the figure metalepsis:
    as to call a child, in the presence of his father and mother, a bastard, or
    whore's son, is tacitly and underboard no less than if he had said openly
    the father is a cuckold and his wife a punk.  Let our discourse come nearer
    to the purpose.  The horns that my wife did make me are horns of abundance,
    planted and grafted in my head for the increase and shooting up of all good
    things.  This will I affirm for truth, upon my word, and pawn my faith and
    credit both upon it.  As for the rest, I will be no less joyful, frolic,
    glad, cheerful, merry, jolly, and gamesome, than a well-bended tabor in the
    hands of a good drummer at a nuptial feast, still making a noise, still
    rolling, still buzzing and cracking.  Believe me, sir, in that consisteth
    none of my least good fortunes.  And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt,
    neat, quaint, dainty, trim, tricked up, brisk, smirk, and smug, even as a
    pretty little Cornish chough.  Who will not believe this, let hell or the
    gallows be the burden of his Christmas carol.

    I remark, quoth Pantagruel, the last point or particle which you did speak
    of, and, having seriously conferred it with the first, find that at the
    beginning you were delighted with the sweetness of your dream; but in the
    end and final closure of it you startingly awaked, and on a sudden were
    forthwith vexed in choler and annoyed.  Yea, quoth Panurge, the reason of
    that was because I had fasted too long.  Flatter not yourself, quoth
    Pantagruel; all will go to ruin.  Know for a certain truth, that every
    sleep that endeth with a starting, and leaves the person irksome, grieved,
    and fretting, doth either signify a present evil, or otherwise presageth
    and portendeth a future imminent mishap.  To signify an evil, that is to
    say, to show some sickness hardly curable, a kind of pestilentious or
    malignant boil, botch, or sore, lying and lurking hid, occult, and latent
    within the very centre of the body, which many times doth by the means of
    sleep, whose nature is to reinforce and strengthen the faculty and virtue
    of concoction, being according to the theorems of physic to declare itself,
    and moves toward the outward superficies.  At this sad stirring is the
    sleeper's rest and ease disturbed and broken, whereof the first feeling and
    stinging smart admonisheth that he must patiently endure great pain and
    trouble, and thereunto provide some remedy; as when we say proverbially, to
    incense hornets, to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion,
    instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain
    meaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling
    with it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet.  On the
    other part, to presage or foretell an evil, especially in what concerneth
    the exploits of the soul in matter of somnial divinations, is as much to
    say as that it giveth us to understand that some dismal fortune or
    mischance is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail to
    come to pass.  A clear and evident example hereof is to be found in the
    dream and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as likewise in that of Eurydice, the
    wife of Orpheus, neither of which was (no) sooner finished, saith Ennius,
    but that incontinently thereafter they awaked in a start, and were
    affrighted horribly.  Thereupon these accidents ensued:  Hecuba had her
    husband Priamus, together with her children, slain before her eyes, and saw
    then the destruction of her country; and Eurydice died speedily thereafter
    in a most miserable manner.  Aeneas, dreaming that he spoke to Hector a
    little after his decease, did on a sudden in a great start awake, and was
    afraid.  Now hereupon did follow this event:  Troy that same night was
    spoiled, sacked, and burnt.  At another time the same Aeneas dreaming that
    he saw his familiar geniuses and penates, in a ghastly fright and
    astonishment awaked, of which terror and amazement the issue was, that the
    very next day subsequent, by a most horrible tempest on the sea, he was
    like to have perished and been cast away.  Moreover, Turnus being prompted,
    instigated, and stirred up by the fantastic vision of an infernal fury to
    enter into a bloody war against Aeneas, awaked in a start much troubled and
    disquieted in spirit; in sequel whereof, after many notable and famous
    routs, defeats, and discomfitures in open field, he came at last to be
    killed in a single combat by the said Aeneas.  A thousand other instances I
    could afford, if it were needful, of this matter.  Whilst I relate these
    stories of Aeneas, remark the saying of Fabius Pictor, who faithfully
    averred that nothing had at any time befallen unto, was done, or
    enterprised by him, whereof he preallably had not notice, and beforehand
    foreseen it to the full, by sure predictions altogether founded on the
    oracles of somnial divination.  To this there is no want of pregnant
    reasons, no more than of examples.  For if repose and rest in sleeping be a
    special gift and favour of the gods, as is maintained by the philosophers,
    and by the poet attested in these lines,

      Then sleep, that heavenly gift, came to refresh
      Of human labourers the wearied flesh;

    such a gift or benefit can never finish or terminate in wrath and
    indignation without portending some unlucky fate and most disastrous
    fortune to ensue.  Otherwise it were a molestation, and not an ease; a
    scourge, and not a gift; at least, (not) proceeding from the gods above,
    but from the infernal devils our enemies, according to the common vulgar
    saying.

    Suppose the lord, father, or master of a family, sitting at a very
    sumptuous dinner, furnished with all manner of good cheer, and having at
    his entry to the table his appetite sharp set upon his victuals, whereof
    there was great plenty, should be seen rise in a start, and on a sudden
    fling out of his chair, abandoning his meat, frighted, appalled, and in a
    horrid terror, who should not know the cause hereof would wonder, and be
    astonished exceedingly.  But what? he heard his male servants cry, Fire,
    fire, fire, fire! his serving-maids and women yell, Stop thief, stop thief!
    and all his children shout as loud as ever they could, Murder, O murder,
    murder!  Then was it not high time for him to leave his banqueting, for
    application of a remedy in haste, and to give speedy order for succouring
    of his distressed household?  Truly I remember that the Cabalists and
    Massorets, interpreters of the sacred Scriptures, in treating how with
    verity one might judge of evangelical apparitions (because oftentimes the
    angel of Satan is disguised and transfigured into an angel of light), said
    that the difference of these two mainly did consist in this:  the
    favourable and comforting angel useth in his appearing unto man at first to
    terrify and hugely affright him, but in the end he bringeth consolation,
    leaveth the person who hath seen him joyful, well-pleased, fully content,
    and satisfied; on the other side, the angel of perdition, that wicked,
    devilish, and malignant spirit, at his appearance unto any person in the
    beginning cheereth up the heart of his beholder, but at last forsakes him,
    and leaves him troubled, angry, and perplexed.

    Chapter 3.XV. Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery concerning powdered
    beef.

    The Lord save those who see, and do not hear! quoth Panurge.  I see you
    well enough, but know not what it is that you have said.  The hunger-
    starved belly wanteth ears.  For lack of victuals, before God, I roar,
    bray, yell, and fume as in a furious madness.  I have performed too hard a
    task to-day, an extraordinary work indeed.  He shall be craftier, and do
    far greater wonders than ever did Mr. Mush, who shall be able any more this
    year to bring me on the stage of preparation for a dreaming verdict.  Fie!
    not to sup at all, that is the devil.  Pox take that fashion!  Come, Friar
    John, let us go break our fast; for, if I hit on such a round refection in
    the morning as will serve thoroughly to fill the mill-hopper and hogs-hide
    of my stomach, and furnish it with meat and drink sufficient, then at a
    pinch, as in the case of some extreme necessity which presseth, I could
    make a shift that day to forbear dining.  But not to sup!  A plague rot
    that base custom, which is an error offensive to Nature!  That lady made
    the day for exercise, to travel, work, wait on and labour in each his
    negotiation and employment; and that we may with the more fervency and
    ardour prosecute our business, she sets before us a clear burning candle,
    to wit, the sun's resplendency; and at night, when she begins to take the
    light from us, she thereby tacitly implies no less than if she would have
    spoken thus unto us:  My lads and lasses, all of you are good and honest
    folks, you have wrought well to-day, toiled and turmoiled enough,—the
    night approacheth,—therefore cast off these moiling cares of yours, desist
    from all your swinking painful labours, and set your minds how to refresh
    your bodies in the renewing of their vigour with good bread, choice wine,
    and store of wholesome meats; then may you take some sport and recreation,
    and after that lie down and rest yourselves, that you may strongly, nimbly,
    lustily, and with the more alacrity to-morrow attend on your affairs as
    formerly.

    Falconers, in like manner, when they have fed their hawks, will not suffer
    them to fly on a full gorge, but let them on a perch abide a little, that
    they may rouse, bait, tower, and soar the better.  That good pope who was
    the first institutor of fasting understood this well enough; for he
    ordained that our fast should reach but to the hour of noon; all the
    remainder of that day was at our disposure, freely to eat and feed at any
    time thereof.  In ancient times there were but few that dined, as you would
    say, some church men, monks and canons; for they have little other
    occupation.  Each day is a festival unto them, who diligently heed the
    claustral proverb, De missa ad mensam.  They do not use to linger and defer
    their sitting down and placing of themselves at table, only so long as they
    have a mind in waiting for the coming of the abbot; so they fell to without
    ceremony, terms, or conditions; and everybody supped, unless it were some
    vain, conceited, dreaming dotard.  Hence was a supper called coena, which
    showeth that it is common to all sorts of people.  Thou knowest it well,
    Friar John.  Come, let us go, my dear friend, in the name of all the devils
    of the infernal regions, let us go.  The gnawings of my stomach in this
    rage of hunger are so tearing, that they make it bark like a mastiff.  Let
    us throw some bread and beef into his throat to pacify him, as once the
    sibyl did to Cerberus.  Thou likest best monastical brewis, the prime, the
    flower of the pot.  I am for the solid, principal verb that comes after—
    the good brown loaf, always accompanied with a round slice of the nine-
    lecture-powdered labourer.  I know thy meaning, answered Friar John; this
    metaphor is extracted out of the claustral kettle.  The labourer is the ox
    that hath wrought and done the labour; after the fashion of nine lectures,
    that is to say, most exquisitely well and thoroughly boiled.  These holy
    religious fathers, by a certain cabalistic institution of the ancients, not
    written, but carefully by tradition conveyed from hand to hand, rising
    betimes to go to morning prayers, were wont to flourish that their
    matutinal devotion with some certain notable preambles before their entry
    into the church, viz., they dunged in the dungeries, pissed in the
    pisseries, spit in the spitteries, melodiously coughed in the cougheries,
    and doted in their dotaries, that to the divine service they might not
    bring anything that was unclean or foul.  These things thus done, they very
    zealously made their repair to the Holy Chapel, for so was in their canting
    language termed the convent kitchen, where they with no small earnestness
    had care that the beef-pot should be put on the crook for the breakfast of
    the religious brothers of our Lord and Saviour; and the fire they would
    kindle under the pot themselves.  Now, the matins consisting of nine
    lessons, (it) it was so incumbent on them, that must have risen the rather
    for the more expedite despatching of them all.  The sooner that they rose,
    the sharper was their appetite and the barkings of their stomachs, and the
    gnawings increased in the like proportion, and consequently made these
    godly men thrice more a-hungered and athirst than when their matins were
    hemmed over only with three lessons.  The more betimes they rose, by the
    said cabal, the sooner was the beef-pot put on; the longer that the beef
    was on the fire, the better it was boiled; the more it boiled, it was the
    tenderer; the tenderer that it was, the less it troubled the teeth,
    delighted more the palate, less charged the stomach, and nourished our good
    religious men the more substantially; which is the only end and prime
    intention of the first founders, as appears by this, that they eat not to
    live, but live to eat, and in this world have nothing but their life.  Let
    us go, Panurge.

    Now have I understood thee, quoth Panurge, my plushcod friar, my caballine
    and claustral ballock.  I freely quit the costs, interest, and charges,
    seeing you have so egregiously commented upon the most especial chapter of
    the culinary and monastic cabal.  Come along, my Carpalin, and you, Friar
    John, my leather-dresser.  Good morrow to you all, my good lords; I have
    dreamed too much to have so little.  Let us go.  Panurge had no sooner done
    speaking than Epistemon with a loud voice said these words:  It is a very
    ordinary and common thing amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, and
    presage the misfortune, bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have the
    understanding, providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man's own mishap
    is very scarce and rare to be found anywhere.  This is exceeding
    judiciously and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who there
    affirmeth that every man in the world carrieth about his neck a wallet, in
    the fore-bag whereof were contained the faults and mischances of others
    always exposed to his view and knowledge; and in the other scrip thereof,
    which hangs behind, are kept the bearer's proper transgressions and
    inauspicious adventures, at no time seen by him, nor thought upon, unless
    he be a person that hath a favourable aspect from the heavens.

    Chapter 3.XVI. How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibyl of Panzoust.

    A little while thereafter Pantagruel sent for Panurge and said unto him,
    The affection which I bear you being now inveterate and settled in my mind
    by a long continuance of time, prompteth me to the serious consideration of
    your welfare and profit; in order whereto, remark what I have thought
    thereon.  It hath been told me that at Panzoust, near Crouly, dwelleth a
    very famous sibyl, who is endowed with the skill of foretelling all things
    to come.  Take Epistemon in your company, repair towards her, and hear what
    she will say unto you.  She is possibly, quoth Epistemon, some Canidia,
    Sagana, or Pythonissa, either whereof with us is vulgarly called a witch,—
    I being the more easily induced to give credit to the truth of this
    character of her, that the place of her abode is vilely stained with the
    abominable repute of abounding more with sorcerers and witches than ever
    did the plains of Thessaly.  I should not, to my thinking, go thither
    willingly, for that it seems to me a thing unwarrantable, and altogether
    forbidden in the law of Moses.  We are not Jews, quoth Pantagruel, nor is
    it a matter judiciously confessed by her, nor authentically proved by
    others that she is a witch.  Let us for the present suspend our judgment,
    and defer till after your return from thence the sifting and garbling of
    those niceties.  Do we know but that she may be an eleventh sibyl or a
    second Cassandra?  But although she were neither, and she did not merit the
    name or title of any of these renowned prophetesses, what hazard, in the
    name of God, do you run by offering to talk and confer with her of the
    instant perplexity and perturbation of your thoughts?  Seeing especially,
    and which is most of all, she is, in the estimation of those that are
    acquainted with her, held to know more, and to be of a deeper reach of
    understanding, than is either customary to the country wherein she liveth
    or to the sex whereof she is.  What hindrance, hurt, or harm doth the
    laudable desire of knowledge bring to any man, were it from a sot, a pot, a
    fool, a stool, a winter mitten, a truckle for a pulley, the lid of a
    goldsmith's crucible, an oil-bottle, or old slipper?  You may remember to
    have read, or heard at least, that Alexander the Great, immediately after
    his having obtained a glorious victory over the King Darius in Arbela,
    refused, in the presence of the splendid and illustrious courtiers that
    were about him, to give audience to a poor certain despicable-like fellow,
    who through the solicitations and mediation of some of his royal attendants
    was admitted humbly to beg that grace and favour of him.  But sore did he
    repent, although in vain, a thousand and ten thousand times thereafter, the
    surly state which he then took upon him to the denial of so just a suit,
    the grant whereof would have been worth unto him the value of a brace of
    potent cities.  He was indeed victorious in Persia, but withal so far
    distant from Macedonia, his hereditary kingdom, that the joy of the one did
    not expel the extreme grief which through occasion of the other he had
    inwardly conceived; for, not being able with all his power to find or
    invent a convenient mean and expedient how to get or come by the certainty
    of any news from thence, both by reason of the huge remoteness of the
    places from one to another, as also because of the impeditive interposition
    of many great rivers, the interjacent obstacle of divers wild deserts, and
    obstructive interjection of sundry almost inaccessible mountains,—whilst
    he was in this sad quandary and solicitous pensiveness, which, you may
    suppose, could not be of a small vexation to him, considering that it was a
    matter of no great difficulty to run over his whole native soil, possess
    his country, seize on his kingdom, install a new king in the throne, and
    plant thereon foreign colonies, long before he could come to have any
    advertisement of it:  for obviating the jeopardy of so dreadful
    inconveniency, and putting a fit remedy thereto, a certain Sidonian
    merchant of a low stature but high fancy, very poor in show, and to the
    outward appearance of little or no account, having presented himself before
    him, went about to affirm and declare that he had excogitated and hit upon
    a ready mean and way by the which those of his territories at home should
    come to the certain notice of his Indian victories, and himself be
    perfectly informed of the state and condition of Egypt and Macedonia within
    less than five days.  Whereupon the said Alexander, plunged into a sullen
    animadvertency of mind, through his rash opinion of the improbability of
    performing a so strange and impossible-like undertaking, dismissed the
    merchant without giving ear to what he had to say, and vilified him.  What
    could it have cost him to hearken unto what the honest man had invented and
    contrived for his good?  What detriment, annoyance, damage, or loss could
    he have undergone to listen to the discovery of that secret which the good
    fellow would have most willingly revealed unto him?  Nature, I am
    persuaded, did not without a cause frame our ears open, putting thereto no
    gate at all, nor shutting them up with any manner of enclosures, as she
    hath done unto the tongue, the eyes, and other such out-jetting parts of
    the body.  The cause, as I imagine, is to the end that every day and every
    night, and that continually, we may be ready to hear, and by a perpetual
    hearing apt to learn.  For, of all the senses, it is the fittest for the
    reception of the knowledge of arts, sciences, and disciplines; and it may
    be that man was an angel, that is to say, a messenger sent from God, as
    Raphael was to Tobit.  Too suddenly did he contemn, despise, and misregard
    him; but too long thereafter, by an untimely and too late repentance, did
    he do penance for it.  You say very well, answered Epistemon, yet shall you
    never for all that induce me to believe that it can tend any way to the
    advantage or commodity of a man to take advice and counsel of a woman,
    namely, of such a woman, and the woman of such a country.  Truly I have
    found, quoth Panurge, a great deal of good in the counsel of women, chiefly
    in that of the old wives amongst them; for every time I consult with them I
    readily get a stool or two extraordinary, to the great solace of my bumgut
    passage.  They are as sleuthhounds in the infallibility of their scent, and
    in their sayings no less sententious than the rubrics of the law.
    Therefore in my conceit it is not an improper kind of speech to call them
    sage or wise women.  In confirmation of which opinion of mine, the
    customary style of my language alloweth them the denomination of presage
    women.  The epithet of sage is due unto them because they are surpassing
    dexterous in the knowledge of most things.  And I give them the title of
    presage, for that they divinely foresee and certainly foretell future
    contingencies and events of things to come.  Sometimes I call them not
    maunettes, but monettes, from their wholesome monitions.  Whether it be so,
    ask Pythagoras, Socrates, Empedocles, and our master Ortuinus.  I
    furthermore praise and commend above the skies the ancient memorable
    institution of the pristine Germans, who ordained the responses and
    documents of old women to be highly extolled, most cordially reverenced,
    and prized at a rate in nothing inferior to the weight, test, and standard
    of the sanctuary.  And as they were respectfully prudent in receiving of
    these sound advices, so by honouring and following them did they prove no
    less fortunate in the happy success of all their endeavours.  Witness the
    old wife Aurinia, and the good mother Velled, in the days of Vespasian.
    You need not any way doubt but that feminine old age is always fructifying
    in qualities sublime—I would have said sibylline.  Let us go, by the help,
    let us go, by the virtue of God, let us go.  Farewell, Friar John, I
    recommend the care of my codpiece to you.  Well, quoth Epistemon, I will
    follow you, with this protestation nevertheless, that if I happen to get a
    sure information, or otherwise find that she doth use any kind of charm or
    enchantment in her responses, it may not be imputed to me for a blame to
    leave you at the gate of her house, without accompanying you any further
    in.

    Chapter 3.XVII. How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust.

    3-17-225.jpg (158K)

    Their voyage was three days journeying.  On the third whereof was shown
    unto them the house of the vaticinatress standing on the knap or top of a
    hill, under a large and spacious walnut-tree.  Without great difficulty
    they entered into that straw-thatched cottage, scurvily built, naughtily
    movabled, and all besmoked.  It matters not, quoth Epistemon; Heraclitus,
    the grand Scotist and tenebrous darksome philosopher, was nothing
    astonished at his introit into such a coarse and paltry habitation; for he
    did usually show forth unto his sectators and disciples that the gods made
    as cheerfully their residence in these mean homely mansions as in sumptuous
    magnific palaces, replenished with all manner of delight, pomp, and
    pleasure.  I withal do really believe that the dwelling-place of the so
    famous and renowned Hecate was just such another petty cell as this is,
    when she made a feast therein to the valiant Theseus; and that of no other
    better structure was the cot or cabin of Hyreus, or Oenopion, wherein
    Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury were not ashamed, all three together, to
    harbour and sojourn a whole night, and there to take a full and hearty
    repast; for the payment of the shot they thankfully pissed Orion.  They
    finding the ancient woman at a corner of her own chimney, Epistemon said,
    She is indeed a true sibyl, and the lively portrait of one represented by
    the Grei kaminoi of Homer.  The old hag was in a pitiful bad plight and
    condition in matter of the outward state and complexion of her body, the
    ragged and tattered equipage of her person in the point of accoutrement,
    and beggarly poor provision of fare for her diet and entertainment; for she
    was ill apparelled, worse nourished, toothless, blear-eyed, crook-
    shouldered, snotty, her nose still dropping, and herself still drooping,
    faint, and pithless; whilst in this woefully wretched case she was making
    ready for her dinner porridge of wrinkled green coleworts, with a bit skin
    of yellow bacon, mixed with a twice-before-cooked sort of waterish,
    unsavoury broth, extracted out of bare and hollow bones.  Epistemon said,
    By the cross of a groat, we are to blame, nor shall we get from her any
    response at all, for we have not brought along with us the branch of gold.
    I have, quoth Panurge, provided pretty well for that, for here I have it
    within my bag, in the substance of a gold ring, accompanied with some fair
    pieces of small money.  No sooner were these words spoken, when Panurge
    coming up towards her, after the ceremonial performance of a profound and
    humble salutation, presented her with six neat's tongues dried in the
    smoke, a great butter-pot full of fresh cheese, a borachio furnished with
    good beverage, and a ram's cod stored with single pence, newly coined.  At
    last he, with a low courtesy, put on her medical finger a pretty handsome
    golden ring, whereinto was right artificially enchased a precious toadstone
    of Beausse.  This done, in few words and very succinctly, did he set open
    and expose unto her the motive reason of his coming, most civilly and
    courteously entreating her that she might be pleased to vouchsafe to give
    him an ample and plenary intelligence concerning the future good luck of
    his intended marriage.

    The old trot for a while remained silent, pensive, and grinning like a dog;
    then, after she had set her withered breech upon the bottom of a bushel,
    she took into her hands three old spindles, which when she had turned and
    whirled betwixt her fingers very diversely and after several fashions, she
    pried more narrowly into, by the trial of their points, the sharpest
    whereof she retained in her hand, and threw the other two under a stone
    trough.  After this she took a pair of yarn windles, which she nine times
    unintermittedly veered and frisked about; then at the ninth revolution or
    turn, without touching them any more, maturely perpending the manner of
    their motion, she very demurely waited on their repose and cessation from
    any further stirring.  In sequel whereof she pulled off one of her wooden
    pattens, put her apron over her head, as a priest uses to do his amice when
    he is going to sing mass, and with a kind of antique, gaudy, party-coloured
    string knit it under her neck.  Being thus covered and muffled, she whiffed
    off a lusty good draught out of the borachio, took three several pence
    forth of the ramcod fob, put them into so many walnut-shells, which she set
    down upon the bottom of a feather-pot, and then, after she had given them
    three whisks of a broom besom athwart the chimney, casting into the fire
    half a bavin of long heather, together with a branch of dry laurel, she
    observed with a very hush and coy silence in what form they did burn, and
    saw that, although they were in a flame, they made no kind of noise or
    crackling din.  Hereupon she gave a most hideous and horribly dreadful
    shout, muttering betwixt her teeth some few barbarous words of a strange
    termination.

    This so terrified Panurge that he forthwith said to Epistemon, The devil
    mince me into a gallimaufry if I do not tremble for fear!  I do not think
    but that I am now enchanted; for she uttereth not her voice in the terms of
    any Christian language.  O look, I pray you, how she seemeth unto me to be
    by three full spans higher than she was when she began to hood herself with
    her apron.  What meaneth this restless wagging of her slouchy chaps?  What
    can be the signification of the uneven shrugging of her hulchy shoulders?
    To what end doth she quaver with her lips, like a monkey in the
    dismembering of a lobster?  My ears through horror glow; ah! how they
    tingle!  I think I hear the shrieking of Proserpina; the devils are
    breaking loose to be all here.  O the foul, ugly, and deformed beasts!  Let
    us run away!  By the hook of God, I am like to die for fear!  I do not love
    the devils; they vex me, and are unpleasant fellows.  Now let us fly, and
    betake us to our heels.  Farewell, gammer; thanks and gramercy for your
    goods!  I will not marry; no, believe me, I will not.  I fairly quit my
    interest therein, and totally abandon and renounce it from this time
    forward, even as much as at present.  With this, as he endeavoured to make
    an escape out of the room, the old crone did anticipate his flight and make
    him stop.  The way how she prevented him was this:  whilst in her hand she
    held the spindle, she flung out to a back-yard close by her lodge, where,
    after she had peeled off the barks of an old sycamore three several times,
    she very summarily, upon eight leaves which dropped from thence, wrote with
    the spindle-point some curt and briefly-couched verses, which she threw
    into the air, then said unto them, Search after them if you will; find them
    if you can; the fatal destinies of your marriage are written in them.

    No sooner had she done thus speaking than she did withdraw herself unto her
    lurking-hole, where on the upper seat of the porch she tucked up her gown,
    her coats, and smock, as high as her armpits, and gave them a full
    inspection of the nockandroe; which being perceived by Panurge, he said to
    Epistemon, God's bodikins, I see the sibyl's hole!  She suddenly then
    bolted the gate behind her, and was never since seen any more.  They
    jointly ran in haste after the fallen and dispersed leaves, and gathered
    them at last, though not without great labour and toil, for the wind had
    scattered them amongst the thorn-bushes of the valley.  When they had
    ranged them each after other in their due places, they found out their
    sentence, as it is metrified in this octastich:

      Thy fame upheld
      (Properly, as corrected by Ozell:
      Thy fame will be shell'd
        By her, I trow.),
        Even so, so:
      And she with child
        Of thee:  No.
      Thy good end
        Suck she shall,
      And flay thee, friend,
        But not all.

    Chapter 3.XVIII. How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound the verses of the Sibyl of
    Panzoust.

    The leaves being thus collected and orderly disposed, Epistemon and Panurge
    returned to Pantagruel's court, partly well pleased and other part
    discontented; glad for their being come back, and vexed for the trouble
    they had sustained by the way, which they found to be craggy, rugged,
    stony, rough, and ill-adjusted.  They made an ample and full relation of
    their voyage unto Pantagruel, as likewise of the estate and condition of
    the sibyl.  Then, having presented to him the leaves of the sycamore, they
    show him the short and twattle verses that were written in them.
    Pantagruel, having read and considered the whole sum and substance of the
    matter, fetched from his heart a deep and heavy sigh; then said to Panurge,
    You are now, forsooth, in a good taking, and have brought your hogs to a
    fine market.  The prophecy of the sibyl doth explain and lay out before us
    the same very predictions which have been denoted, foretold, and presaged
    to us by the decree of the Virgilian lots and the verdict of your own
    proper dreams, to wit, that you shall be very much disgraced, shamed, and
    discredited by your wife; for that she will make you a cuckold in
    prostituting herself to others, being big with child by another than you,—
    will steal from you a great deal of your goods, and will beat you, scratch
    and bruise you, even to plucking the skin in a part from off you,—will
    leave the print of her blows in some member of your body.  You understand
    as much, answered Panurge, in the veritable interpretation and expounding
    of recent prophecies as a sow in the matter of spicery.  Be not offended,
    sir, I beseech you, that I speak thus boldly; for I find myself a little in
    choler, and that not without cause, seeing it is the contrary that is true.
    Take heed, and give attentive ear unto my words.  The old wife said that,
    as the bean is not seen till first it be unhusked, and that its swad or
    hull be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue and
    transcendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed abroad
    proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellency
    thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half of a married
    couple.  How many times have I heard you say that the function of a
    magistrate, or office of dignity, discovereth the merits, parts, and
    endowments of the person so advanced and promoted, and what is in him.
    That is to say, we are then best able to judge aright of the deservings of
    a man when he is called to the management of affairs; for when before he
    lived in a private condition, we could have no more certain knowledge of
    him than of a bean within his husk.  And thus stands the first article
    explained; otherwise, could you imagine that the good fame, repute, and
    estimation of an honest man should depend upon the tail of a whore?

    Now to the meaning of the second article!  My wife will be with child,—
    here lies the prime felicity of marriage,—but not of me.  Copsody, that I
    do believe indeed!  It will be of a pretty little infant.  O how heartily I
    shall love it!  I do already dote upon it; for it will be my dainty feedle-
    darling, my genteel dilly-minion.  From thenceforth no vexation, care, or
    grief shall take such deep impression in my heart, how hugely great or
    vehement soever it otherwise appear, but that it shall evanish forthwith at
    the sight of that my future babe, and at the hearing of the chat and
    prating of its childish gibberish.  And blessed be the old wife.  By my
    truly, I have a mind to settle some good revenue or pension upon her out of
    the readiest increase of the lands of my Salmigondinois; not an inconstant
    and uncertain rent-seek, like that of witless, giddy-headed bachelors, but
    sure and fixed, of the nature of the well-paid incomes of regenting
    doctors.  If this interpretation doth not please you, think you my wife
    will bear me in her flanks, conceive with me, and be of me delivered, as
    women use in childbed to bring forth their young ones; so as that it may be
    said, Panurge is a second Bacchus, he hath been twice born; he is re-born,
    as was Hippolytus,—as was Proteus, one time of Thetis, and secondly, of
    the mother of the philosopher Apollonius,—as were the two Palici, near the
    flood Simaethos in Sicily.  His wife was big of child with him.  In him is
    renewed and begun again the palintocy of the Megarians and the palingenesy
    of Democritus.  Fie upon such errors!  To hear stuff of that nature rends
    mine ears.

    The words of the third article are:  She will suck me at my best end.  Why
    not?  That pleaseth me right well.  You know the thing; I need not tell you
    that it is my intercrural pudding with one end.  I swear and promise that,
    in what I can, I will preserve it sappy, full of juice, and as well
    victualled for her use as may be.  She shall not suck me, I believe, in
    vain, nor be destitute of her allowance; there shall her justum both in
    peck and lippy be furnished to the full eternally.  You expound this
    passage allegorically, and interpret it to theft and larceny.  I love the
    exposition, and the allegory pleaseth me; but not according to the sense
    whereto you stretch it.  It may be that the sincerity of the affection
    which you bear me moveth you to harbour in your breast those refractory
    thoughts concerning me, with a suspicion of my adversity to come.  We have
    this saying from the learned, That a marvellously fearful thing is love,
    and that true love is never without fear.  But, sir, according to my
    judgment, you do understand both of and by yourself that here stealth
    signifieth nothing else, no more than in a thousand other places of Greek
    and Latin, old and modern writings, but the sweet fruits of amorous
    dalliance, which Venus liketh best when reaped in secret, and culled by
    fervent lovers filchingly.  Why so, I prithee tell?  Because, when the feat
    of the loose-coat skirmish happeneth to be done underhand and privily,
    between two well-disposed, athwart the steps of a pair of stairs lurkingly,
    and in covert behind a suit of hangings, or close hid and trussed upon an
    unbound faggot, it is more pleasing to the Cyprian goddess, and to me also
    —I speak this without prejudice to any better or more sound opinion—than
    to perform that culbusting art after the Cynic manner, in the view of the
    clear sunshine, or in a rich tent, under a precious stately canopy, within
    a glorious and sublime pavilion, or yet on a soft couch betwixt rich
    curtains of cloth of gold, without affrightment, at long intermediate
    respites, enjoying of pleasures and delights a bellyfull, at all great
    ease, with a huge fly-flap fan of crimson satin and a bunch of feathers of
    some East-Indian ostrich serving to give chase unto the flies all round
    about; whilst, in the interim, the female picks her teeth with a stiff
    straw picked even then from out of the bottom of the bed she lies on.  If
    you be not content with this my exposition, are you of the mind that my
    wife will suck and sup me up as people use to gulp and swallow oysters out
    of the shell? or as the Cilician women, according to the testimony of
    Dioscorides, were wont to do the grain of alkermes?  Assuredly that is an
    error.  Who seizeth on it, doth neither gulch up nor swill down, but takes
    away what hath been packed up, catcheth, snatcheth, and plies the play of
    hey-pass, repass.

    The fourth article doth imply that my wife will flay me, but not all.  O
    the fine word!  You interpret this to beating strokes and blows.  Speak
    wisely.  Will you eat a pudding?  Sir, I beseech you to raise up your
    spirits above the low-sized pitch of earthly thoughts unto that height of
    sublime contemplation which reacheth to the apprehension of the mysteries
    and wonders of Dame Nature.  And here be pleased to condemn yourself, by a
    renouncing of those errors which you have committed very grossly and
    somewhat perversely in expounding the prophetic sayings of the holy sibyl.
    Yet put the case (albeit I yield not to it) that, by the instigation of the
    devil, my wife should go about to wrong me, make me a cuckold downwards to
    the very breech, disgrace me otherwise, steal my goods from me, yea, and
    lay violently her hands upon me;—she nevertheless should fail of her
    attempts and not attain to the proposed end of her unreasonable
    undertakings.  The reason which induceth me hereto is grounded totally on
    this last point, which is extracted from the profoundest privacies of a
    monastic pantheology, as good Friar Arthur Wagtail told me once upon a
    Monday morning, as we were (if I have not forgot) eating a bushel of
    trotter-pies; and I remember well it rained hard.  God give him the good
    morrow!  The women at the beginning of the world, or a little after,
    conspired to flay the men quick, because they found the spirit of mankind
    inclined to domineer it, and bear rule over them upon the face of the whole
    earth; and, in pursuit of this their resolution, promised, confirmed,
    swore, and covenanted amongst them all, by the pure faith they owe to the
    nocturnal Sanct Rogero.  But O the vain enterprises of women!  O the great
    fragility of that sex feminine!  They did begin to flay the man, or peel
    him (as says Catullus), at that member which of all the body they loved
    best, to wit, the nervous and cavernous cane, and that above five thousand
    years ago; yet have they not of that small part alone flayed any more till
    this hour but the head.  In mere despite whereof the Jews snip off that
    parcel of the skin in circumcision, choosing far rather to be called
    clipyards, rascals, than to be flayed by women, as are other nations.  My
    wife, according to this female covenant, will flay it to me, if it be not
    so already.  I heartily grant my consent thereto, but will not give her
    leave to flay it all.  Nay, truly will I not, my noble king.

    Yea but, quoth Epistemon, you say nothing of her most dreadful cries and
    exclamations when she and we both saw the laurel-bough burn without
    yielding any noise or crackling.  You know it is a very dismal omen, an
    inauspicious sign, unlucky indice, and token formidable, bad, disastrous,
    and most unhappy, as is certified by Propertius, Tibullus, the quick
    philosopher Porphyrius, Eustathius on the Iliads of Homer, and by many
    others.  Verily, verily, quoth Panurge, brave are the allegations which you
    bring me, and testimonies of two-footed calves.  These men were fools, as
    they were poets; and dotards, as they were philosophers; full of folly, as
    they were of philosophy.

    Chapter 3.XIX. How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men.

    Pantagruel, when this discourse was ended, held for a pretty while his
    peace, seeming to be exceeding sad and pensive, then said to Panurge, The
    malignant spirit misleads, beguileth, and seduceth you.  I have read that
    in times past the surest and most veritable oracles were not those which
    either were delivered in writing or uttered by word of mouth in speaking.
    For many times, in their interpretation, right witty, learned, and
    ingenious men have been deceived through amphibologies, equivoques, and
    obscurity of words, no less than by the brevity of their sentences.  For
    which cause Apollo, the god of vaticination, was surnamed Loxias.  Those
    which were represented then by signs and outward gestures were accounted
    the truest and the most infallible.  Such was the opinion of Heraclitus.
    And Jupiter did himself in this manner give forth in Ammon frequently
    predictions.  Nor was he single in this practice; for Apollo did the like
    amongst the Assyrians.  His prophesying thus unto those people moved them
    to paint him with a large long beard, and clothes beseeming an old settled
    person of a most posed, staid, and grave behaviour; not naked, young, and
    beardless, as he was portrayed most usually amongst the Grecians.  Let us
    make trial of this kind of fatidicency; and go you take advice of some dumb
    person without any speaking.  I am content, quoth Panurge.  But, says
    Pantagruel, it were requisite that the dumb you consult with be such as
    have been deaf from the hour of their nativity, and consequently dumb; for
    none can be so lively, natural, and kindly dumb as he who never heard.

    How is it, quoth Panurge, that you conceive this matter?  If you apprehend
    it so, that never any spoke who had not before heard the speech of others,
    I will from that antecedent bring you to infer very logically a most absurd
    and paradoxical conclusion.  But let it pass; I will not insist on it.  You
    do not then believe what Herodotus wrote of two children, who, at the
    special command and appointment of Psammeticus, King of Egypt, having been
    kept in a petty country cottage, where they were nourished and entertained
    in a perpetual silence, did at last, after a certain long space of time,
    pronounce this word Bec, which in the Phrygian language signifieth bread.
    Nothing less, quoth Pantagruel, do I believe than that it is a mere abusing
    of our understandings to give credit to the words of those who say that
    there is any such thing as a natural language.  All speeches have had their
    primary origin from the arbitrary institutions, accords, and agreements of
    nations in their respective condescendments to what should be noted and
    betokened by them.  An articulate voice, according to the dialecticians,
    hath naturally no signification at all; for that the sense and meaning
    thereof did totally depend upon the good will and pleasure of the first
    deviser and imposer of it.  I do not tell you this without a cause; for
    Bartholus, Lib. 5. de Verb. Oblig., very seriously reporteth that even in
    his time there was in Eugubia one named Sir Nello de Gabrielis, who,
    although he by a sad mischance became altogether deaf, understood
    nevertheless everyone that talked in the Italian dialect howsoever he
    expressed himself; and that only by looking on his external gestures, and
    casting an attentive eye upon the divers motions of his lips and chaps.  I
    have read, I remember also, in a very literate and eloquent author, that
    Tyridates, King of Armenia, in the days of Nero, made a voyage to Rome,
    where he was received with great honour and solemnity, and with all manner
    of pomp and magnificence.  Yea, to the end there might be a sempiternal
    amity and correspondence preserved betwixt him and the Roman senate, there
    was no remarkable thing in the whole city which was not shown unto him.  At
    his departure the emperor bestowed upon him many ample donatives of an
    inestimable value; and besides, the more entirely to testify his affection
    towards him, heartily entreated him to be pleased to make choice of any
    whatsoever thing in Rome was most agreeable to his fancy, with a promise
    juramentally confirmed that he should not be refused of his demand.
    Thereupon, after a suitable return of thanks for a so gracious offer, he
    required a certain Jack-pudding whom he had seen to act his part most
    egregiously upon the stage, and whose meaning, albeit he knew not what it
    was he had spoken, he understood perfectly enough by the signs and
    gesticulations which he had made.  And for this suit of his, in that he
    asked nothing else, he gave this reason, that in the several wide and
    spacious dominions which were reduced under the sway and authority of his
    sovereign government, there were sundry countries and nations much
    differing from one another in language, with whom, whether he was to speak
    unto them or give any answer to their requests, he was always necessitated
    to make use of divers sorts of truchman and interpreters.  Now with this
    man alone, sufficient for supplying all their places, will that great
    inconveniency hereafter be totally removed; seeing he is such a fine
    gesticulator, and in the practice of chirology an artist so complete,
    expert, and dexterous, that with his very fingers he doth speak.
    Howsoever, you are to pitch upon such a dumb one as is deaf by nature and
    from his birth; to the end that his gestures and signs may be the more
    vively and truly prophetic, and not counterfeit by the intermixture of some
    adulterate lustre and affectation.  Yet whether this dumb person shall be
    of the male or female sex is in your option, lieth at your discretion, and
    altogether dependeth on your own election.

    I would more willingly, quoth Panurge, consult with and be advised by a
    dumb woman, were it not that I am afraid of two things.  The first is, that
    the greater part of women, whatever be that they see, do always represent
    unto their fancies, think, and imagine, that it hath some relation to the
    sugared entering of the goodly ithyphallos, and graffing in the cleft of
    the overturned tree the quickset imp of the pin of copulation.  Whatever
    signs, shows, or gestures we shall make, or whatever our behaviour,
    carriage, or demeanour shall happen to be in their view and presence, they
    will interpret the whole in reference to the act of androgynation and the
    culbutizing exercise, by which means we shall be abusively disappointed of
    our designs, in regard that she will take all our signs for nothing else
    but tokens and representations of our desire to entice her unto the lists
    of a Cyprian combat or catsenconny skirmish.  Do you remember what happened
    at Rome two hundred and threescore years after the foundation thereof?  A
    young Roman gentleman encountering by chance, at the foot of Mount Celion,
    with a beautiful Latin lady named Verona, who from her very cradle upwards
    had always been both deaf and dumb, very civilly asked her, not without a
    chironomatic Italianizing of his demand, with various jectigation of his
    fingers and other gesticulations as yet customary amongst the speakers of
    that country, what senators in her descent from the top of the hill she had
    met with going up thither.  For you are to conceive that he, knowing no
    more of her deafness than dumbness, was ignorant of both.  She in the
    meantime, who neither heard nor understood so much as one word of what he
    had said, straight imagined, by all that she could apprehend in the lovely
    gesture of his manual signs, that what he then required of her was what
    herself had a great mind to, even that which a young man doth naturally
    desire of a woman.  Then was it that by signs, which in all occurrences of
    venereal love are incomparably more attractive, valid, and efficacious than
    words, she beckoned to him to come along with her to her house; which when
    he had done, she drew him aside to a privy room, and then made a most
    lively alluring sign unto him to show that the game did please her.
    Whereupon, without any more advertisement, or so much as the uttering of
    one word on either side, they fell to and bringuardized it lustily.

    The other cause of my being averse from consulting with dumb women is, that
    to our signs they would make no answer at all, but suddenly fall backwards
    in a divarication posture, to intimate thereby unto us the reality of their
    consent to the supposed motion of our tacit demands.  Or if they should
    chance to make any countersigns responsory to our propositions, they would
    prove so foolish, impertinent, and ridiculous, that by them ourselves
    should easily judge their thoughts to have no excursion beyond the duffling
    academy.  You know very well how at Brignoles, when the religious nun,
    Sister Fatbum, was made big with child by the young Stiffly-stand-to't, her
    pregnancy came to be known, and she cited by the abbess, and, in a full
    convention of the convent, accused of incest.  Her excuse was that she did
    not consent thereto, but that it was done by the violence and impetuous
    force of the Friar Stiffly-stand-to't.  Hereto the abbess very austerely
    replying, Thou naughty wicked girl, why didst thou not cry, A rape, a rape!
    then should all of us have run to thy succour.  Her answer was that the
    rape was committed in the dortour, where she durst not cry because it was a
    place of sempiternal silence.  But, quoth the abbess, thou roguish wench,
    why didst not thou then make some sign to those that were in the next
    chamber beside thee?  To this she answered that with her buttocks she made
    a sign unto them as vigorously as she could, yet never one of them did so
    much as offer to come to her help and assistance.  But, quoth the abbess,
    thou scurvy baggage, why didst thou not tell it me immediately after the
    perpetration of the fact, that so we might orderly, regularly, and
    canonically have accused him?  I would have done so, had the case been
    mine, for the clearer manifestation of mine innocency.  I truly, madam,
    would have done the like with all my heart and soul, quoth Sister Fatbum,
    but that fearing I should remain in sin, and in the hazard of eternal
    damnation, if prevented by a sudden death, I did confess myself to the
    father friar before he went out of the room, who, for my penance, enjoined
    me not to tell it, or reveal the matter unto any.  It were a most enormous
    and horrid offence, detestable before God and the angels, to reveal a
    confession.  Such an abominable wickedness would have possibly brought down
    fire from heaven, wherewith to have burnt the whole nunnery, and sent us
    all headlong to the bottomless pit, to bear company with Korah, Dathan, and
    Abiram.

    You will not, quoth Pantagruel, with all your jesting, make me laugh.  I
    know that all the monks, friars, and nuns had rather violate and infringe
    the highest of the commandments of God than break the least of their
    provincial statutes.  Take you therefore Goatsnose, a man very fit for your
    present purpose; for he is, and hath been, both dumb and deaf from the very
    remotest infancy of his childhood.

    Chapter 3.XX. How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge.

    Goatsnose being sent for, came the day thereafter to Pantagruel's court; at
    his arrival to which Panurge gave him a fat calf, the half of a hog, two
    puncheons of wine, one load of corn, and thirty francs of small money;
    then, having brought him before Pantagruel, in presence of the gentlemen of
    the bed-chamber he made this sign unto him.  He yawned a long time, and in
    yawning made without his mouth with the thumb of his right hand the figure
    of the Greek letter Tau by frequent reiterations.  Afterwards he lifted up
    his eyes to heavenwards, then turned them in his head like a she-goat in
    the painful fit of an absolute birth, in doing whereof he did cough and
    sigh exceeding heavily.  This done, after that he had made demonstration of
    the want of his codpiece, he from under his shirt took his placket-racket
    in a full grip, making it therewithal clack very melodiously betwixt his
    thighs; then, no sooner had he with his body stooped a little forwards, and
    bowed his left knee, but that immediately thereupon holding both his arms
    on his breast, in a loose faint-like posture, the one over the other, he
    paused awhile.  Goatsnose looked wistly upon him, and having heedfully
    enough viewed him all over, he lifted up into the air his left hand, the
    whole fingers whereof he retained fistwise close together, except the thumb
    and the forefinger, whose nails he softly joined and coupled to one
    another.  I understand, quoth Pantagruel, what he meaneth by that sign.  It
    denotes marriage, and withal the number thirty, according to the profession
    of the Pythagoreans.  You will be married.  Thanks to you, quoth Panurge,
    in turning himself towards Goatsnose, my little sewer, pretty master's
    mate, dainty bailie, curious sergeant-marshal, and jolly catchpole-leader.
    Then did he lift higher up than before his said left hand, stretching out
    all the five fingers thereof, and severing them as wide from one another as
    he possibly could get done.  Here, says Pantagruel, doth he more amply and
    fully insinuate unto us, by the token which he showeth forth of the quinary
    number, that you shall be married.  Yea, that you shall not only be
    affianced, betrothed, wedded, and married, but that you shall furthermore
    cohabit and live jollily and merrily with your wife; for Pythagoras called
    five the nuptial number, which, together with marriage, signifieth the
    consummation of matrimony, because it is composed of a ternary, the first
    of the odd, and binary, the first of the even numbers, as of a male and
    female knit and united together.  In very deed it was the fashion of old in
    the city of Rome at marriage festivals to light five wax tapers; nor was it
    permitted to kindle any more at the magnific nuptials of the most potent
    and wealthy, nor yet any fewer at the penurious weddings of the poorest and
    most abject of the world.  Moreover, in times past, the heathen or paynims
    implored the assistance of five deities, or of one helpful, at least, in
    five several good offices to those that were to be married.  Of this sort
    were the nuptial Jove, Juno, president of the feast, the fair Venus, Pitho,
    the goddess of eloquence and persuasion, and Diana, whose aid and succour
    was required to the labour of child-bearing.  Then shouted Panurge, O the
    gentle Goatsnose, I will give him a farm near Cinais, and a windmill hard
    by Mirebalais!  Hereupon the dumb fellow sneezeth with an impetuous
    vehemency and huge concussion of the spirits of the whole body, withdrawing
    himself in so doing with a jerking turn towards the left hand.  By the body
    of a fox new slain, quoth Pantagruel, what is that?  This maketh nothing
    for your advantage; for he betokeneth thereby that your marriage will be
    inauspicious and unfortunate.  This sneezing, according to the doctrine of
    Terpsion, is the Socratic demon.  If done towards the right side, it
    imports and portendeth that boldly and with all assurance one may go
    whither he will and do what he listeth, according to what deliberation he
    shall be pleased to have thereupon taken; his entries in the beginning,
    progress in his proceedings, and success in the events and issues will be
    all lucky, good, and happy.  The quite contrary thereto is thereby implied
    and presaged if it be done towards the left.  You, quoth Panurge, do take
    always the matter at the worst, and continually, like another Davus,
    casteth in new disturbances and obstructions; nor ever yet did I know this
    old paltry Terpsion worthy of citation but in points only of cosenage and
    imposture.  Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, Cicero hath written I know not
    what to the same purpose in his Second Book of Divination.

    Panurge then, turning himself towards Goatsnose, made this sign unto him.
    He inverted his eyelids upwards, wrenched his jaws from the right to the
    left side, and drew forth his tongue half out of his mouth.  This done, he
    posited his left hand wholly open, the mid-finger wholly excepted, which
    was perpendicularly placed upon the palm thereof, and set it just in the
    room where his codpiece had been.  Then did he keep his right hand
    altogether shut up in a fist, save only the thumb, which he straight turned
    backwards directly under the right armpit, and settled it afterwards on
    that most eminent part of the buttocks which the Arabs call the Al-Katim.
    Suddenly thereafter he made this interchange:  he held his right hand after
    the manner of the left, and posited it on the place wherein his codpiece
    sometime was, and retaining his left hand in the form and fashion of the
    right, he placed it upon his Al-Katim.  This altering of hands did he
    reiterate nine several times; at the last whereof he reseated his eyelids
    into their own first natural position.  Then doing the like also with his
    jaws and tongue, he did cast a squinting look upon Goatsnose, diddering and
    shivering his chaps, as apes use to do nowadays, and rabbits, whilst,
    almost starved with hunger, they are eating oats in the sheaf.

    Then was it that Goatsnose, lifting up into the air his right hand wholly
    open and displayed, put the thumb thereof, even close unto its first
    articulation, between the two third joints of the middle and ring fingers,
    pressing about the said thumb thereof very hard with them both, and, whilst
    the remanent joints were contracted and shrunk in towards the wrist, he
    stretched forth with as much straightness as he could the fore and little
    fingers.  That hand thus framed and disposed of he laid and posited upon
    Panurge's navel, moving withal continually the aforesaid thumb, and bearing
    up, supporting, or under-propping that hand upon the above-specified fore
    and little fingers, as upon two legs.  Thereafter did he make in this
    posture his hand by little and little, and by degrees and pauses,
    successively to mount from athwart the belly to the stomach, from whence he
    made it to ascend to the breast, even upwards to Panurge's neck, still
    gaining ground, till, having reached his chin, he had put within the
    concave of his mouth his afore-mentioned thumb; then fiercely brandishing
    the whole hand, which he made to rub and grate against his nose, he heaved
    it further up, and made the fashion as if with the thumb thereof he would
    have put out his eyes.  With this Panurge grew a little angry, and went
    about to withdraw and rid himself from this ruggedly untoward dumb devil.
    But Goatsnose in the meantime, prosecuting the intended purpose of his
    prognosticatory response, touched very rudely, with the above-mentioned
    shaking thumb, now his eyes, then his forehead, and after that the borders
    and corners of his cap.  At last Panurge cried out, saying, Before God,
    master fool, if you do not let me alone, or that you will presume to vex me
    any more, you shall receive from the best hand I have a mask wherewith to
    cover your rascally scroundrel face, you paltry shitten varlet.  Then said
    Friar John, He is deaf, and doth not understand what thou sayest unto him.
    Bulliballock, make sign to him of a hail of fisticuffs upon the muzzle.

    What the devil, quoth Panurge, means this busy restless fellow?  What is it
    that this polypragmonetic ardelion to all the fiends of hell doth aim at?
    He hath almost thrust out mine eyes, as if he had been to poach them in a
    skillet with butter and eggs.  By God, da jurandi, I will feast you with
    flirts and raps on the snout, interlarded with a double row of bobs and
    finger-fillipings!  Then did he leave him in giving him by way of salvo a
    volley of farts for his farewell.  Goatsnose, perceiving Panurge thus to
    slip away from him, got before him, and, by mere strength enforcing him to
    stand, made this sign unto him.  He let fall his right arm toward his knee
    on the same side as low as he could, and, raising all the fingers of that
    hand into a close fist, passed his dexter thumb betwixt the foremost and
    mid fingers thereto belonging.  Then scrubbing and swingeing a little with
    his left hand alongst and upon the uppermost in the very bough of the elbow
    of the said dexter arm, the whole cubit thereof, by leisure, fair and
    softly, at these thumpatory warnings, did raise and elevate itself even to
    the elbow, and above it; on a sudden did he then let it fall down as low as
    before, and after that, at certain intervals and such spaces of time,
    raising and abasing it, he made a show thereof to Panurge.  This so
    incensed Panurge that he forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him the
    dumb roister and given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respect
    and reverence which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained his
    choler and kept his fury within bounds and limits.  Then said Pantagruel,
    If the bare signs now vex and trouble you, how much more grievously will
    you be perplexed and disquieted with the real things which by them are
    represented and signified!  All truths agree and are consonant with one
    another.  This dumb fellow prophesieth and foretelleth that you will be
    married, cuckolded, beaten, and robbed.  As for the marriage, quoth
    Panurge, I yield thereto, and acknowledge the verity of that point of his
    prediction; as for the rest, I utterly abjure and deny it:  and believe,
    sir, I beseech you, if it may please you so to do, that in the matter of
    wives and horses never any man was predestinated to a better fortune than
    I.

    Chapter 3.XXI. How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named Raminagrobis.

    I never thought, said Pantagruel, to have encountered with any man so
    headstrong in his apprehensions, or in his opinions so wilful, as I have
    found you to be and see you are.  Nevertheless, the better to clear and
    extricate your doubts, let us try all courses, and leave no stone unturned
    nor wind unsailed by.  Take good heed to what I am to say unto you.  The
    swans, which are fowls consecrated to Apollo, never chant but in the hour
    of their approaching death, especially in the Meander flood, which is a
    river that runneth along some of the territories of Phrygia.  This I say,
    because Aelianus and Alexander Myndius write that they had seen several
    swans in other places die, but never heard any of them sing or chant before
    their death.  However, it passeth for current that the imminent death of a
    swan is presaged by his foregoing song, and that no swan dieth until
    preallably he have sung.

    After the same manner, poets, who are under the protection of Apollo, when
    they are drawing near their latter end do ordinarily become prophets, and
    by the inspiration of that god sing sweetly in vaticinating things which
    are to come.  It hath been likewise told me frequently, that old decrepit
    men upon the brinks of Charon's banks do usher their decease with a
    disclosure all at ease, to those that are desirous of such informations, of
    the determinate and assured truth of future accidents and contingencies.  I
    remember also that Aristophanes, in a certain comedy of his, calleth the
    old folks Sibyls, Eith o geron Zibullia.  For as when, being upon a pier by
    the shore, we see afar off mariners, seafaring men, and other travellers
    alongst the curled waves of azure Thetis within their ships, we then
    consider them in silence only, and seldom proceed any further than to wish
    them a happy and prosperous arrival; but when they do approach near to the
    haven, and come to wet their keels within their harbour, then both with
    words and  gestures we salute them, and heartily congratulate their access
    safe to the port wherein we are ourselves.  Just so the angels, heroes, and
    good demons, according to the doctrine of the Platonics, when they see
    mortals drawing near unto the harbour of the grave, as the most sure and
    calmest port of any, full of repose, ease, rest, tranquillity, free from
    the  troubles and solicitudes of this tumultuous and tempestuous world; then
    is  it that they with alacrity hail and salute them, cherish and comfort
    them, and, speaking to them lovingly, begin even then to bless them with
    illuminations, and to communicate unto them the abstrusest mysteries of
    divination.  I will not offer here to confound your memory by quoting
    antique examples of Isaac, of Jacob, of Patroclus towards Hector, of Hector
    towards Achilles, of Polymnestor towards Agamemnon, of Hecuba, of the
    Rhodian renowned by Posidonius, of Calanus the Indian towards Alexander the
    Great, of Orodes towards Mezentius, and of many others.  It shall suffice
    for the present that I commemorate unto you the learned and valiant knight
    and cavalier William of Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the Hill
    of Tarara, the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age, and of
    our supputation 1543, according to the Roman account.  The last three or
    four hours of his life he did employ in the serious utterance of a very
    pithy discourse, whilst with a clear judgment and spirit void of all
    trouble he did foretell several important things, whereof a great deal is
    come to pass, and the rest we wait for.  Howbeit, his prophecies did at
    that time seem unto us somewhat strange, absurd, and unlikely, because
    there did not then appear any sign of efficacy enough to engage our faith
    to the belief of what he did prognosticate.  We have here, near to the town
    of Villomere, a man that is both old and a poet, to wit, Raminagrobis, who
    to his second wife espoused my Lady Broadsow, on whom he begot the fair
    Basoche.  It hath been told me he is a-dying, and so near unto his latter
    end that he is almost upon the very last moment, point, and article thereof.
    Repair thither as fast as you can, and be ready to give an attentive ear to
    what he shall chant unto you.  It may be that you shall obtain from him what
    you desire, and that Apollo will be pleased by his means to clear your
    scruples.  I am content, quoth Panurge.  Let us go thither, Epistemon, and
    that both instantly and in all haste, lest otherwise his death prevent our
    coming.  Wilt thou come along with us, Friar John?  Yes, that I will, quoth
    Friar John, right heartily to do thee a courtesy, my billy-ballocks; for I
    love thee with the best of my milt and liver.

    Thereupon, incontinently, without any further lingering, to the way they
    all three went, and quickly thereafter—for they made good speed—arriving
    at the poetical habitation, they found the jolly old man, albeit in the
    agony of his departure from this world, looking cheerfully, with an open
    countenance, splendid aspect, and behaviour full of alacrity.  After that
    Panurge had very civilly saluted him, he in a free gift did present him
    with a gold ring, which he even then put upon the medical finger of his
    left hand, in the collet or bezel whereof was enchased an Oriental
    sapphire, very fair and large.  Then, in imitation of Socrates, did he make
    an oblation unto him of a fair white cock, which was no sooner set upon the
    tester of his bed, than that, with a high raised head and crest, lustily
    shaking his feather-coat, he crowed stentoriphonically loud.  This done,
    Panurge very courteously required of him that he would vouchsafe to favour
    him with the grant and report of his sense and judgment touching the future
    destiny of his intended marriage.  For answer hereto, when the honest old
    man had forthwith commanded pen, paper, and ink to be brought unto him, and
    that he was at the same call conveniently served with all the three, he
    wrote these following verses:

      Take, or not take her,
        Off, or on:
      Handy-dandy is your lot.
      When her name you write, you blot.
      'Tis undone, when all is done,
      Ended e'er it was begun:
      Hardly gallop, if you trot,
      Set not forward when you run,
      Nor be single, though alone,
        Take, or not take her.

      Before you eat, begin to fast;
      For what shall be was never past.
      Say, unsay, gainsay, save your breath:
      Then wish at once her life and death.
        Take, or not take her.

    These lines he gave out of his own hands unto them, saying unto them, Go,
    my lads, in peace! the great God of the highest heavens be your guardian
    and preserver! and do not offer any more to trouble or disquiet me with
    this or any other business whatsoever.  I have this same very day, which is
    the last both of May and of me, with a greal deal of labour, toil, and
    difficulty, chased out of my house a rabble of filthy, unclean, and
    plaguily pestilentious rake-hells, black beasts, dusk, dun, white, ash-
    coloured, speckled, and a foul vermin of other hues, whose obtrusive
    importunity would not permit me to die at my own ease; for by fraudulent
    and deceitful pricklings, ravenous, harpy-like graspings, waspish
    stingings, and such-like unwelcome approaches, forged in the shop of I know
    not what kind of insatiabilities, they went about to withdraw and call me
    out of those sweet thoughts wherein I was already beginning to repose
    myself and acquiesce in the contemplation and vision, yea, almost in the
    very touch and taste of the happiness and felicity which the good God hath
    prepared for his faithful saints and elect in the other life and state of
    immortality.  Turn out of their courses and eschew them, step forth of
    their ways and do not resemble them; meanwhile, let me be no more troubled
    by you, but leave me now in silence, I beseech you.

    Chapter 3.XXII. How Panurge patrocinates and defendeth the Order of the Begging Friars.

    Panurge, at his issuing forth of Raminagrobis's chamber, said, as if he had
    been horribly affrighted, By the virtue of God, I believe that he is an
    heretic; the devil take me, if I do not! he doth so villainously rail at
    the Mendicant Friars and Jacobins, who are the two hemispheres of the
    Christian world; by whose gyronomonic circumbilvaginations, as by two
    celivagous filopendulums, all the autonomatic metagrobolism of the Romish
    Church, when tottering and emblustricated with the gibble-gabble gibberish
    of this odious error and heresy, is homocentrically poised.  But what harm,
    in the devil's name, have these poor devils the Capuchins and Minims done
    unto him?  Are not these beggarly devils sufficiently wretched already?
    Who can imagine that these poor snakes, the very extracts of ichthyophagy,
    are not thoroughly enough besmoked and besmeared with misery, distress, and
    calamity?  Dost thou think, Friar John, by thy faith, that he is in the
    state of salvation?  He goeth, before God, as surely damned to thirty
    thousand basketsful of devils as a pruning-bill to the lopping of a vine-
    branch.  To revile with opprobrious speeches the good and courageous props
    and pillars of the Church,—is that to be called a poetical fury?  I cannot
    rest satisfied with him; he sinneth grossly, and blasphemeth against the
    true religion.  I am very much offended at his scandalizing words and
    contumelious obloquy.  I do not care a straw, quoth Friar John, for what he
    hath said; for although everybody should twit and jerk them, it were but a
    just retaliation, seeing all persons are served by them with the like
    sauce:  therefore do I pretend no interest therein.  Let us see,
    nevertheless, what he hath written.  Panurge very attentively read the
    paper which the old man had penned; then said to his two fellow-travellers,
    The poor drinker doteth.  Howsoever, I excuse him, for that I believe he is
    now drawing near to the end and final closure of his life.  Let us go make
    his epitaph.  By the answer which he hath given us, I am not, I protest,
    one jot wiser than I was.  Hearken here, Epistemon, my little bully, dost
    not thou hold him to be very resolute in his responsory verdicts?  He is a
    witty, quick, and subtle sophister.  I will lay an even wager that he is a
    miscreant apostate.  By the belly of a stalled ox, how careful he is not to
    be mistaken in his words.  He answered but by disjunctives, therefore can
    it not be true which he saith; for the verity of such-like propositions is
    inherent only in one of its two members.  O the cozening prattler that he
    is!  I wonder if Santiago of Bressure be one of these cogging shirks.  Such
    was of old, quoth Epistemon, the custom of the grand vaticinator and
    prophet Tiresias, who used always, by way of a preface, to say openly and
    plainly at the beginning of his divinations and predictions that what he
    was to tell would either come to pass or not.  And such is truly the style
    of all prudently presaging prognosticators.  He was nevertheless, quoth
    Panurge, so unfortunately misadventurous in the lot of his own destiny,
    that Juno thrust out both his eyes.

    Yes, answered Epistemon, and that merely out of a spite and spleen for
    having pronounced his award more veritable than she, upon the question
    which was merrily proposed by Jupiter.  But, quoth Panurge, what archdevil
    is it that hath possessed this Master Raminagrobis, that so unreasonably,
    and without any occasion, he should have so snappishly and bitterly
    inveighed against these poor honest fathers, Jacobins, Minors, and Minims?
    It vexeth me grievously, I assure you; nor am I able to conceal my
    indignation.  He hath transgressed most enormously; his soul goeth
    infallibly to thirty thousand panniersful of devils.  I understand you not,
    quoth Epistemon, and it disliketh me very much that you should so absurdly
    and perversely interpret that of the Friar Mendicants which by the harmless
    poet was spoken of black beasts, dun, and other sorts of other coloured
    animals.  He is not in my opinion guilty of such a sophistical and
    fantastic allegory as by that phrase of his to have meant the Begging
    Brothers.  He in downright terms speaketh absolutely and properly of fleas,
    punies, hand worms, flies, gnats, and other such-like scurvy vermin,
    whereof some are black, some dun, some ash-coloured, some tawny, and some
    brown and dusky, all noisome, molesting, tyrannous, cumbersome, and
    unpleasant creatures, not only to sick and diseased folks, but to those
    also who are of a sound, vigorous, and healthful temperament and
    constitution.  It is not unlikely that he may have the ascarids, and the
    lumbrics, and worms within the entrails of his body.  Possibly doth he
    suffer, as it is frequent and usual amongst the Egyptians, together with
    all those who inhabit the Erythraean confines, and dwell along the shores
    and coasts of the Red Sea, some sour prickings and smart stingings in his
    arms and legs of those little speckled dragons which the Arabians call
    meden.  You are to blame for offering to expound his words otherwise, and
    wrong the ingenuous poet, and outrageously abuse and miscall the said
    fraters, by an imputation of baseness undeservedly laid to their charge.
    We still should, in such like discourses of fatiloquent soothsayers,
    interpret all things to the best.  Will you teach me, quoth Panurge, how to
    discern flies among milk, or show your father the way how to beget
    children?  He is, by the virtue of God, an arrant heretic, a resolute,
    formal heretic; I say, a rooted, combustible heretic, one as fit to burn as
    the little wooden clock at Rochelle.  His soul goeth to thirty thousand
    cartsful of devils.  Would you know whither?  Cocks-body, my friend,
    straight under Proserpina's close-stool, to the very middle of the self-
    same infernal pan within which she, by an excrementitious evacuation,
    voideth the faecal stuff of her stinking clysters, and that just upon the
    left side of the great cauldron of three fathom height, hard by the claws
    and talons of Lucifer, in the very darkest of the passage which leadeth
    towards the black chamber of Demogorgon.  O the villain!

    Chapter 3.XXIII. How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis.

    3-23-294.jpg (154K)

    Let us return, quoth Panurge, not ceasing, to the uttermost of our
    abilities, to ply him with wholesome admonitions for the furtherance of his
    salvation.  Let us go back, for God's sake; let us go, in the name of God.
    It will be a very meritorious work, and of great charity in us to deal so
    in the matter, and provide so well for him that, albeit he come to lose
    both body and life, he may at least escape the risk and danger of the
    eternal damnation of his soul.  We will by our holy persuasions bring him
    to a sense and feeling of his escapes, induce him to acknowledge his
    faults, move him to a cordial repentance of his errors, and stir up in him
    such a sincere contrition of heart for his offences, as will prompt him
    with all earnestness to cry mercy, and to beg pardon at the hands of the
    good fathers, as well of the absent as of such as are present.  Whereupon
    we will take instrument formally and authentically extended, to the end he
    be not, after his decease, declared an heretic, and condemned, as were the
    hobgoblins of the provost's wife of Orleans, to the undergoing of such
    punishments, pains, and tortures as are due to and inflicted on those that
    inhabit the horrid cells of the infernal regions; and withal incline,
    instigate, and persuade him to bequeath and leave in legacy (by way of an
    amends and satisfaction for the outrage and injury done to those good
    religious fathers throughout all the convents, cloisters, and monasteries
    of this province), many bribes, a great deal of mass-singing, store of
    obits, and that sempiternally, on the anniversary day of his decease, every
    one of them all be furnished with a quintuple allowance, and that the great
    borachio replenished with the best liquor trudge apace along the tables, as
    well of the young duckling monkitoes, lay brothers, and lowermost degree of
    the abbey lubbards, as of the learned priests and reverend clerks,—the
    very meanest of the novices and mitiants unto the order being equally
    admitted to the benefit of those funerary and obsequial festivals with the
    aged rectors and professed fathers.  This is the surest ordinary means
    whereby from God he may obtain forgiveness.  Ho, ho, I am quite mistaken; I
    digress from the purpose, and fly out of my discourse, as if my spirits
    were a-wool-gathering.  The devil take me, if I go thither!  Virtue God!
    The chamber is already full of devils.  O what a swinging, thwacking noise
    is now amongst them!  O the terrible coil that they keep!  Hearken, do you
    not hear the rustling, thumping bustle of their strokes and blows, as they
    scuffle with one another, like true devils indeed, who shall gulp up the
    Raminagrobis soul, and be the first bringer of it, whilst it is hot, to
    Monsieur Lucifer?  Beware, and get you hence! for my part, I will not go
    thither.  The devil roast me if I go!  Who knows but that these hungry mad
    devils may in the haste of their rage and fury of their impatience take a
    qui for a quo, and instead of Raminagrobis snatch up poor Panurge frank and
    free?  Though formerly, when I was deep in debt, they always failed.  Get
    you hence!  I will not go thither.  Before God, the very bare apprehension
    thereof is like to kill me.  To be in a place where there are greedy,
    famished, and hunger-starved devils; amongst factious devils—amidst
    trading and trafficking devils—O the Lord preserve me!  Get you hence!  I
    dare pawn my credit on it, that no Jacobin, Cordelier, Carmelite, Capuchin,
    Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment.  The
    wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter will
    and testament.  The devil take me, if I go thither.  If he be damned, to
    his own loss and hindrance be it.  What the deuce moved him to be so
    snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true religion?
    Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite out of his
    chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest need of
    the aid, suffrage, and assistance of their devout prayers and holy
    admonitions?  Why did not he by testament leave them, at least, some jolly
    lumps and cantles of substantial meat, a parcel of cheek-puffing victuals,
    and a little belly-timber and provision for the guts of these poor folks,
    who have nothing but their life in this world?  Let him go thither who
    will, the devil take me if I go; for, if I should, the devil would not fail
    to snatch me up.  Cancro.  Ho, the pox!  Get you hence, Friar John!  Art
    thou content that thirty thousand wainload of devils should get away with
    thee at this same very instant?  If thou be, at my request do these three
    things.  First, give me thy purse; for besides that thy money is marked
    with crosses, and the cross is an enemy to charms, the same may befall to
    thee which not long ago happened to John Dodin, collector of the excise of
    Coudray, at the ford of Vede, when the soldiers broke the planks.  This
    moneyed fellow, meeting at the very brink of the bank of the ford with
    Friar Adam Crankcod, a Franciscan observantin of Mirebeau, promised him a
    new frock, provided that in the transporting of him over the water he would
    bear him upon his neck and shoulders, after the manner of carrying dead
    goats; for he was a lusty, strong-limbed, sturdy rogue.  The condition
    being agreed upon, Friar Crankcod trusseth himself up to his very ballocks,
    and layeth upon his back, like a fair little Saint Christopher, the load of
    the said supplicant Dodin, and so carried him gaily and with a good will,
    as Aeneas bore his father Anchises through the conflagration of Troy,
    singing in the meanwhile a pretty Ave Maris Stella.  When they were in the
    very deepest place of all the ford, a little above the master-wheel of the
    water-mill, he asked if he had any coin about him.  Yes, quoth Dodin, a
    whole bagful; and that he needed not to mistrust his ability in the
    performance of the promise which he had made unto him concerning a new
    frock.  How! quoth Friar Crankcod, thou knowest well enough that by the
    express rules, canons, and injunctions of our order we are forbidden to
    carry on us any kind of money.  Thou art truly unhappy, for having made me
    in this point to commit a heinous trespass.  Why didst thou not leave thy
    purse with the miller?  Without fail thou shalt presently receive thy
    reward for it; and if ever hereafter I may but lay hold upon thee within
    the limits of our chancel at Mirebeau, thou shalt have the Miserere even to
    the Vitulos.  With this, suddenly discharging himself of his burden, he
    throws me down your Dodin headlong.  Take example by this Dodin, my dear
    friend Friar John, to the end that the devils may the better carry thee
    away at thine own ease.  Give me thy purse.  Carry no manner of cross upon
    thee.  Therein lieth an evident and manifestly apparent danger.  For if you
    have any silver coined with a cross upon it, they will cast thee down
    headlong upon some rocks, as the eagles use to do with the tortoises for
    the breaking of their shells, as the bald pate of the poet Aeschylus can
    sufficiently bear witness.  Such a fall would hurt thee very sore, my sweet
    bully, and I would be sorry for it.  Or otherwise they will let thee fall
    and tumble down into the high swollen waves of some capacious sea, I know
    not where; but, I warrant thee, far enough hence, as Icarus fell, which
    from thy name would afterwards get the denomination of the Funnelian Sea.

    Secondly, be out of debt.  For the devils carry a great liking to those
    that are out of debt.  I have sore felt the experience thereof in mine own
    particular; for now the lecherous varlets are always wooing me, courting
    me, and making much of me, which they never did when I was all to pieces.
    The soul of one in debt is insipid, dry, and heretical altogether.

    Thirdly, with the cowl and Domino de Grobis, return to Raminagrobis; and in
    case, being thus qualified, thirty thousand boatsful of devils forthwith
    come not to carry thee quite away, I shall be content to be at the charge
    of paying for the pint and faggot.  Now, if for the more security thou
    wouldst some associate to bear thee company, let not me be the comrade thou
    searchest for; think not to get a fellow-traveller of me,—nay, do not.  I
    advise thee for the best.  Get you hence; I will not go thither.  The devil
    take me if I go.  Notwithstanding all the fright that you are in, quoth
    Friar John, I would not care so much as might possibly be expected I
    should, if I once had but my sword in my hand.  Thou hast verily hit the
    nail on the head, quoth Panurge, and speakest like a learned doctor, subtle
    and well-skilled in the art of devilry.  At the time when I was a student
    in the University of Toulouse (Tolette), that same reverend father in the
    devil, Picatrix, rector of the diabological faculty, was wont to tell us
    that the devils did naturally fear the bright glancing of swords as much as
    the splendour and light of the sun.  In confirmation of the verity whereof
    he related this story, that Hercules, at his descent into hell to all the
    devils of those regions, did not by half so much terrify them with his club
    and lion's skin as afterwards Aeneas did with his clear shining armour upon
    him, and his sword in his hand well-furbished and unrusted, by the aid,
    counsel, and assistance of the Sybilla Cumana.  That was perhaps the reason
    why the senior John Jacomo di Trivulcio, whilst he was a-dying at Chartres,
    called for his cutlass, and died with a drawn sword in his hand, laying
    about him alongst and athwart around the bed and everywhere within his
    reach, like a stout, doughty, valorous and knight-like cavalier; by which
    resolute manner of fence he scared away and put to flight all the devils
    that were then lying in wait for his soul at the passage of his death.
    When the Massorets and Cabalists are asked why it is that none of all the
    devils do at any time enter into the terrestrial paradise? their answer
    hath been, is, and will be still, that there is a cherubin standing at the
    gate thereof with a flame-like glistering sword in his hand.  Although, to
    speak in the true diabological sense or phrase of Toledo, I must needs
    confess and acknowledge that veritably the devils cannot be killed or die
    by the stroke of a sword, I do nevertheless avow and maintain, according to
    the doctrine of the said diabology, that they may suffer a solution of
    continuity (as if with thy shable thou shouldst cut athwart the flame of a
    burning fire, or the gross opacous exhalations of a thick and obscure
    smoke), and cry out like very devils at their sense and feeling of this
    dissolution, which in real deed I must aver and affirm is devilishly
    painful, smarting, and dolorous.

    When thou seest the impetuous shock of two armies, and vehement violence of
    the push in their horrid encounter with one another, dost thou think,
    Ballockasso, that so horrible a noise as is heard there proceedeth from the
    voice and shouts of men, the dashing and jolting of harness, the clattering
    and clashing of armies, the hacking and slashing of battle-axes, the
    justling and crashing of pikes, the bustling and breaking of lances, the
    clamour and shrieks of the wounded, the sound and din of drums, the
    clangour and shrillness of trumpets, the neighing and rushing in of horses,
    with the fearful claps and thundering of all sorts of guns, from the double
    cannon to the pocket pistol inclusively?  I cannot goodly deny but that in
    these various things which I have rehearsed there may be somewhat
    occasionative of the huge yell and tintamarre of the two engaged bodies.
    But the most fearful and tumultuous coil and stir, the terriblest and most
    boisterous garboil and hurry, the chiefest rustling black santus of all,
    and most principal hurlyburly springeth from the grievously plangorous
    howling and lowing of devils, who pell-mell, in a hand-over-head confusion,
    waiting for the poor souls of the maimed and hurt soldiery, receive
    unawares some strokes with swords, and so by those means suffer a solution
    of and division in the continuity of their aerial and invisible substances;
    as if some lackey, snatching at the lard-slices stuck in a piece of roast
    meat on the spit, should get from Mr. Greasyfist a good rap on the knuckles
    with a cudgel.  They cry out and shout like devils, even as Mars did when
    he was hurt by Diomedes at the siege of Troy, who, as Homer testifieth of
    him, did then raise his voice more horrifically loud and sonoriferously
    high than ten thousand men together would have been able to do.  What
    maketh all this for our present purpose?  I have been speaking here of
    well-furbished armour and bright shining swords.  But so is it not, Friar
    John, with thy weapon; for by a long discontinuance of work, cessation from
    labour, desisting from making it officiate, and putting it into that
    practice wherein it had been formerly accustomed, and, in a word, for want
    of occupation, it is, upon my faith, become more rusty than the key-hole of
    an old powdering-tub.  Therefore it is expedient that you do one of these
    two things:  either furbish your weapon bravely, and as it ought to be, or
    otherwise have a care that, in the rusty case it is in, you do not presume
    to return to the house of Raminagrobis.  For my part, I vow I will not go
    thither.  The devil take me if I go.

    Chapter 3.XXIV. How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon.

    Having left the town of Villomere, as they were upon their return towards
    Pantagruel, Panurge, in addressing his discourse to Epistemon, spoke thus:
    My most ancient friend and gossip, thou seest the perplexity of my
    thoughts, and knowest many remedies for the removal thereof; art thou not
    able to help and succour me?  Epistemon, thereupon taking the speech in
    hand, represented unto Panurge how the open voice and common fame of the
    whole country did run upon no other discourse but the derision and mockery
    of his new disguise; wherefore his counsel unto him was that he would in
    the first place be pleased to make use of a little hellebore for the
    purging of his brain of that peccant humour which, through that extravagant
    and fantastic mummery of his, had furnished the people with a too just
    occasion of flouting and gibing, jeering and scoffing him, and that next he
    would resume his ordinary fashion of accoutrement, and go apparelled as he
    was wont to do.  I am, quoth Panurge, my dear gossip Epistemon, of a mind
    and resolution to marry, but am afraid of being a cuckold and to be
    unfortunate in my wedlock.  For this cause have I made a vow to young St.
    Francis—who at Plessis-les-Tours is much reverenced of all women,
    earnestly cried unto by them, and with great devotion, for he was the first
    founder of the confraternity of good men, whom they naturally covet,
    affect, and long for—to wear spectacles in my cap, and to carry no
    codpiece in my breeches, until the present inquietude and perturbation of
    my spirits be fully settled.

    Truly, quoth Epistemon, that is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen to a dozen.
    It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that you do not return unto
    yourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and straying
    abroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man.  This
    whimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promise
    made by the shag-haired Argives, who, having in their controversy against
    the Lacedaemonians for the territory of Thyrea, lost the battle which they
    hoped should have decided it for their advantage, vowed to carry never any
    hair on their heads till preallably they had recovered the loss of both
    their honour and lands.  As likewise to the memory of the vow of a pleasant
    Spaniard called Michael Doris, who vowed to carry in his hat a piece of the
    shin of his leg till he should be revenged of him who had struck it off.
    Yet do not I know which of these two deserveth most to wear a green and
    yellow hood with a hare's ears tied to it, either the aforesaid
    vainglorious champion, or that Enguerrant, who having forgot the art and
    manner of writing histories set down by the Samosatian philosopher, maketh
    a most tediously long narrative and relation thereof.  For, at the first
    reading of such a profuse discourse, one would think it had been broached
    for the introducing of a story of great importance and moment concerning
    the waging of some formidable war, or the notable change and mutation of
    potent states and kingdoms; but, in conclusion, the world laugheth at the
    capricious champion, at the Englishman who had affronted him, as also at
    their scribbler Enguerrant, more drivelling at the mouth than a mustard
    pot.  The jest and scorn thereof is not unlike to that of the mountain of
    Horace, which by the poet was made to cry out and lament most enormously as
    a woman in the pangs and labour of child-birth, at which deplorable and
    exorbitant cries and lamentations the whole neighbourhood being assembled
    in expectation to see some marvellous monstrous production, could at last
    perceive no other but the paltry, ridiculous mouse.

    Your mousing, quoth Panurge, will not make me leave my musing why folks
    should be so frumpishly disposed, seeing I am certainly persuaded that some
    flout who merit to be flouted at; yet, as my vow imports, so will I do.  It
    is now a long time since, by Jupiter Philos (A mistake of the
    translator's.—M.), we did swear faith and amity to one another.  Give me
    your advice, billy, and tell me your opinion freely, Should I marry or no?
    Truly, quoth Epistemon, the case is hazardous, and the danger so eminently
    apparent that I find myself too weak and insufficient to give you a
    punctual and peremptory resolution therein; and if ever it was true that
    judgment is difficult in matters of the medicinal art, what was said by
    Hippocrates of Lango, it is certainly so in this case.  True it is that in
    my brain there are some rolling fancies, by means whereof somewhat may be
    pitched upon of a seeming efficacy to the disentangling your mind of those
    dubious apprehensions wherewith it is perplexed; but they do not thoroughly
    satisfy me.  Some of the Platonic sect affirm that whosoever is able to see
    his proper genius may know his own destiny.  I understand not their
    doctrine, nor do I think that you adhere to them; there is a palpable
    abuse.  I have seen the experience of it in a very curious gentleman of the
    country of Estangourre.  This is one of the points.  There is yet another
    not much better.  If there were any authority now in the oracles of Jupiter
    Ammon; of Apollo in Lebadia, Delphos, Delos, Cyrra, Patara, Tegyres,
    Preneste, Lycia, Colophon, or in the Castalian Fountain; near Antiochia in
    Syria, between the Branchidians; of Bacchus in Dodona; of Mercury in
    Phares, near Patras; of Apis in Egypt; of Serapis in Canope; of Faunus in
    Menalia, and Albunea near Tivoli; of Tiresias in Orchomenus; of Mopsus in
    Cilicia; of Orpheus in Lesbos, and of Trophonius in Leucadia; I would in
    that case advise you, and possibly not, to go thither for their judgment
    concerning the design and enterprise you have in hand.  But you know that
    they are all of them become as dumb as so many fishes since the advent of
    that Saviour King whose coming to this world hath made all oracles and
    prophecies to cease; as the approach of the sun's radiant beams expelleth
    goblins, bugbears, hobthrushes, broams, screech-owl-mates, night-walking
    spirits, and tenebrions.  These now are gone; but although they were as yet
    in continuance and in the same power, rule, and request that formerly they
    were, yet would not I counsel you to be too credulous in putting any trust
    in their responses.  Too many folks have been deceived thereby.  It stands
    furthermore upon record how Agrippina did charge the fair Lollia with the
    crime of having interrogated the oracle of Apollo Clarius, to understand if
    she should be at any time married to the Emperor Claudius; for which cause
    she was first banished, and thereafter put to a shameful and ignominious
    death.

    But, saith Panurge, let us do better.  The Ogygian Islands are not far
    distant from the haven of Sammalo.  Let us, after that we shall have spoken
    to our king, make a voyage thither.  In one of these four isles, to wit,
    that which hath its primest aspect towards the sun setting, it is reported,
    and I have read in good antique and authentic authors, that there reside
    many soothsayers, fortune-tellers, vaticinators, prophets, and diviners of
    things to come; that Saturn inhabiteth that place, bound with fair chains
    of gold and within the concavity of a golden rock, being nourished with
    divine ambrosia and nectar, which are daily in great store and abundance
    transmitted to him from the heavens, by I do not well know what kind of
    fowls,—it may be that they are the same ravens which in the deserts are
    said to have fed St. Paul, the first hermit,—he very clearly foretelleth
    unto everyone who is desirous to be certified of the condition of his lot
    what his destiny will be, and what future chance the Fates have ordained
    for him; for the Parcae, or Weird Sisters, do not twist, spin, or draw out
    a thread, nor yet doth Jupiter perpend, project, or deliberate anything
    which the good old celestial father knoweth not to the full, even whilst he
    is asleep.  This will be a very summary abbreviation of our labour, if we
    but hearken unto him a little upon the serious debate and canvassing of
    this my perplexity.  That is, answered Epistemon, a gullery too evident, a
    plain abuse and fib too fabulous.  I will not go, not I; I will not go.

    Chapter 3.XXV. How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa.

    Nevertheless, quoth Epistemon, continuing his discourse, I will tell you
    what you may do, if you believe me, before we return to our king.  Hard by
    here, in the Brown-wheat (Bouchart) Island, dwelleth Herr Trippa.  You know
    how by the arts of astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, metopomancy, and others
    of a like stuff and nature, he foretelleth all things to come; let us talk
    a little, and confer with him about your business.  Of that, answered
    Panurge, I know nothing; but of this much concerning him I am assured, that
    one day, and that not long since, whilst he was prating to the great king
    of celestial, sublime, and transcendent things, the lacqueys and footboys
    of the court, upon the upper steps of stairs between two doors, jumbled,
    one after another, as often as they listed, his wife, who is passable fair,
    and a pretty snug hussy.  Thus he who seemed very clearly to see all
    heavenly and terrestrial things without spectacles, who discoursed boldly
    of adventures past, with great confidence opened up present cases and
    accidents, and stoutly professed the presaging of all future events and
    contingencies, was not able, with all the skill and cunning that he had, to
    perceive the bumbasting of his wife, whom he reputed to be very chaste, and
    hath not till this hour got notice of anything to the contrary.  Yet let us
    go to him, seeing you will have it so; for surely we can never learn too
    much.  They on the very next ensuing day came to Herr Trippa's lodging.
    Panurge, by way of donative, presented him with a long gown lined all
    through with wolf-skins, with a short sword mounted with a gilded hilt and
    covered with a velvet scabbard, and with fifty good single angels; then in
    a familiar and friendly way did he ask of him his opinion touching the
    affair.  At the very first Herr Trippa, looking on him very wistly in the
    face, said unto him:  Thou hast the metoposcopy and physiognomy of a
    cuckold,—I say, of a notorious and infamous cuckold.  With this, casting
    an eye upon Panurge's right hand in all the parts thereof, he said, This
    rugged draught which I see here, just under the mount of Jove, was never
    yet but in the hand of a cuckold.  Afterwards, he with a white lead pen
    swiftly and hastily drew a certain number of diverse kinds of points, which
    by rules of geomancy he coupled and joined together; then said:  Truth
    itself is not truer than that it is certain thou wilt be a cuckold a little
    after thy marriage.  That being done, he asked of Panurge the horoscope of
    his nativity, which was no sooner by Panurge tendered unto him, than that,
    erecting a figure, he very promptly and speedily formed and fashioned a
    complete fabric of the houses of heaven in all their parts, whereof when he
    had considered the situation and the aspects in their triplicities, he
    fetched a deep sigh, and said:  I have clearly enough already discovered
    unto you the fate of your cuckoldry, which is unavoidable, you cannot
    escape it.  And here have I got of new a further assurance thereof, so that
    I may now hardily pronounce and affirm, without any scruple or hesitation
    at all, that thou wilt be a cuckold; that furthermore, thou wilt be beaten
    by thine own wife, and that she will purloin, filch and steal of thy goods
    from thee; for I find the seventh house, in all its aspects, of a malignant
    influence, and every one of the planets threatening thee with disgrace,
    according as they stand seated towards one another, in relation to the
    horned signs of Aries, Taurus, and Capricorn.  In the fourth house I find
    Jupiter in a decadence, as also in a tetragonal aspect to Saturn,
    associated with Mercury.  Thou wilt be soundly peppered, my good, honest
    fellow, I warrant thee.  I will be? answered Panurge.  A plague rot thee,
    thou old fool and doting sot, how graceless and unpleasant thou art!  When
    all cuckolds shall be at a general rendezvous, thou shouldst be their
    standard-bearer.  But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these two
    fingers?  This Panurge said, putting the forefinger of his left hand
    betwixt the fore and mid finger of the right, which he thrust out towards
    Herr Trippa, holding them open after the manner of two horns, and shutting
    into his fist his thumb with the other fingers.  Then, in turning to
    Epistemon, he said:  Lo here the true Olus of Martial, who addicted and
    devoted himself wholly to the observing the miseries, crosses, and
    calamities of others, whilst his own wife, in the interim, did keep an open
    bawdy-house.  This varlet is poorer than ever was Irus, and yet he is
    proud, vaunting, arrogant, self-conceited, overweening, and more
    insupportable than seventeen devils; in one word, Ptochalazon, which term
    of old was applied to the like beggarly strutting coxcombs.  Come, let us
    leave this madpash bedlam, this hairbrained fop, and give him leave to rave
    and dose his bellyful with his private and intimately acquainted devils,
    who, if they were not the very worst of all infernal fiends, would never
    have deigned to serve such a knavish barking cur as this is.  He hath not
    learnt the first precept of philosophy, which is, Know thyself; for whilst
    he braggeth and boasteth that he can discern the least mote in the eye of
    another, he is not able to see the huge block that puts out the sight of
    both his eyes.  This is such another Polypragmon as is by Plutarch
    described.  He is of the nature of the Lamian witches, who in foreign
    places, in the houses of strangers, in public, and amongst the common
    people, had a sharper and more piercing inspection into their affairs than
    any lynx, but at home in their own proper dwelling-mansions were blinder
    than moldwarps, and saw nothing at all.  For their custom was, at their
    return from abroad, when they were by themselves in private, to take their
    eyes out of their head, from whence they were as easily removable as a pair
    of spectacles from their nose, and to lay them up into a wooden slipper
    which for that purpose did hang behind the door of their lodging.

    Panurge had no sooner done speaking, when Herr Trippa took into his hand a
    tamarisk branch.  In this, quoth Epistemon, he doth very well, right, and
    like an artist, for Nicander calleth it the divinatory tree.  Have you a
    mind, quoth Herr Trippa, to have the truth of the matter yet more fully and
    amply disclosed unto you by pyromancy, by aeromancy, whereof Aristophanes
    in his Clouds maketh great estimation, by hydromancy, by lecanomancy, of
    old in prime request amongst the Assyrians, and thoroughly tried by
    Hermolaus Barbarus.  Come hither, and I will show thee in this platterful
    of fair fountain-water thy future wife lechering and sercroupierizing it
    with two swaggering ruffians, one after another.  Yea, but have a special
    care, quoth Panurge, when thou comest to put thy nose within mine arse,
    that thou forget not to pull off thy spectacles.  Herr Trippa, going on in
    his discourse, said, By catoptromancy, likewise held in such account by the
    Emperor Didius Julianus, that by means thereof he ever and anon foresaw all
    that which at any time did happen or befall unto him.  Thou shalt not need
    to put on thy spectacles, for in a mirror thou wilt see her as clearly and
    manifestly nebrundiated and billibodring it, as if I should show it in the
    fountain of the temple of Minerva near Patras.  By coscinomancy, most
    religiously observed of old amidst the ceremonies of the ancient Romans.
    Let us have a sieve and shears, and thou shalt see devils.  By
    alphitomancy, cried up by Theocritus in his Pharmaceutria.  By alentomancy,
    mixing the flour of wheat with oatmeal.  By astragalomancy, whereof I have
    the plots and models all at hand ready for the purpose.  By tyromancy,
    whereof we make some proof in a great Brehemont cheese which I here keep by
    me.  By giromancy, if thou shouldst turn round circles, thou mightest
    assure thyself from me that they would fall always on the wrong side.  By
    sternomancy, which maketh nothing for thy advantage, for thou hast an ill-
    proportioned stomach.  By libanomancy, for the which we shall need but a
    little frankincense.  By gastromancy, which kind of ventral fatiloquency
    was for a long time together used in Ferrara by Lady Giacoma Rodogina, the
    Engastrimythian prophetess.  By cephalomancy, often practised amongst the
    High Germans in their boiling of an ass's head upon burning coals.  By
    ceromancy, where, by the means of wax dissolved into water, thou shalt see
    the figure, portrait, and lively representation of thy future wife, and of
    her fredin fredaliatory belly-thumping blades.  By capnomancy.  O the
    gallantest and most excellent of all secrets!  By axionomancy; we want only
    a hatchet and a jet-stone to be laid together upon a quick fire of hot
    embers.  O how bravely Homer was versed in the practice hereof towards
    Penelope's suitors!  By onymancy; for that we have oil and wax.  By
    tephromancy.  Thou wilt see the ashes thus aloft dispersed exhibiting thy
    wife in a fine posture.  By botanomancy; for the nonce I have some few
    leaves in reserve.  By sicomancy; O divine art in fig-tree leaves!  By
    icthiomancy, in ancient times so celebrated, and put in use by Tiresias and
    Polydamas, with the like certainty of event as was tried of old at the
    Dina-ditch within that grove consecrated to Apollo which is in the
    territory of the Lycians.  By choiromancy; let us have a great many hogs,
    and thou shalt have the bladder of one of them.  By cheromancy, as the bean
    is found in the cake at the Epiphany vigil.  By anthropomancy, practised by
    the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus.  It is somewhat irksome, but thou wilt
    endure it well enough, seeing thou art destinated to be a cuckold.  By a
    sibylline stichomancy.  By onomatomancy.  How do they call thee?  Chaw-
    turd, quoth Panurge.  Or yet by alectryomancy.  If I should here with a
    compass draw a round, and in looking upon thee, and considering thy lot,
    divide the circumference thereof into four-and-twenty equal parts, then
    form a several letter of the alphabet upon every one of them; and, lastly,
    posit a barleycorn or two upon each of these so disposed letters, I durst
    promise upon my faith and honesty that, if a young virgin cock be permitted
    to range alongst and athwart them, he should only eat the grains which are
    set and placed upon these letters, A. C.U.C.K.O.L.D. T.H.O.U. S.H.A.L.T.
    B.E.  And that as fatidically as, under the Emperor Valens, most
    perplexedly desirous to know the name of him who should be his successor to
    the empire, the cock vacticinating and alectryomantic ate up the pickles
    that were posited on the letters T.H.E.O.D.  Or, for the more certainty,
    will you have a trial of your fortune by the art of aruspiciny, by augury,
    or by extispiciny?  By turdispiciny, quoth Panurge.  Or yet by the mystery
    of necromancy?  I will, if you please, suddenly set up again and revive
    someone lately deceased, as Apollonius of Tyane did to Achilles, and the
    Pythoness in the presence of Saul; which body, so raised up and
    requickened, will tell us the sum of all you shall require of him:  no more
    nor less than, at the invocation of Erictho, a certain defunct person
    foretold to Pompey the whole progress and issue of the fatal battle fought
    in the Pharsalian fields.  Or, if you be afraid of the dead, as commonly
    all cuckolds are, I will make use of the faculty of sciomancy.

    Go, get thee gone, quoth Panurge, thou frantic ass, to the devil, and be
    buggered, filthy Bardachio that thou art, by some Albanian, for a steeple-
    crowned hat.  Why the devil didst not thou counsel me as well to hold an
    emerald or the stone of a hyaena under my tongue, or to furnish and provide
    myself with tongues of whoops, and hearts of green frogs, or to eat of the
    liver and milt of some dragon, to the end that by those means I might, at
    the chanting and chirping of swans and other fowls, understand the
    substance of my future lot and destiny, as did of old the Arabians in the
    country of Mesopotamia?  Fifteen brace of devils seize upon the body and
    soul of this horned renegado, miscreant cuckold, the enchanter, witch, and
    sorcerer of Antichrist to all the devils of hell!  Let us return towards
    our king.  I am sure he will not be well pleased with us if he once come to
    get notice that we have been in the kennel of this muffled devil.  I repent
    my being come hither.  I would willingly dispense with a hundred nobles and
    fourteen yeomans, on condition that he who not long since did blow in the
    bottom of my breeches should instantly with his squirting spittle
    inluminate his moustaches.  O Lord God now! how the villain hath besmoked
    me with vexation and anger, with charms and witchcraft, and with a terrible
    coil and stir of infernal and Tartarian devils!  The devil take him!  Say
    Amen, and let us go drink.  I shall not have any appetite for my victuals,
    how good cheer soever I make, these two days to come,—hardly these four.

    Chapter 3.XXVI. How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels.

    Panurge was indeed very much troubled in mind and disquieted at the words
    of Herr Trippa, and therefore, as he passed by the little village of
    Huymes, after he had made his address to Friar John, in pecking at,
    rubbing, and scratching his own left ear, he said unto him, Keep me a
    little jovial and merry, my dear and sweet bully, for I find my brains
    altogether metagrabolized and confounded, and my spirits in a most dunsical
    puzzle at the bitter talk of this devilish, hellish, damned fool.  Hearken,
    my dainty cod.

    
    Mellow C.            Varnished C.      Resolute C.
    Lead-coloured C.     Renowned C.       Cabbage-like C.
    Knurled C.           Matted C.         Courteous C.
    Suborned C.          Genitive C.       Fertile C.
    Desired C.           Gigantal C.       Whizzing C.
    Stuffed C.           Oval C.           Neat C.
    Speckled C.          Claustral C.      Common C.
    Finely metalled C.   Virile C.         Brisk C.
    Arabian-like C.      Stayed C.         Quick C.
    Trussed-up Grey-   Massive C.        Bearlike C.
      hound-like C.      Manual C.         Partitional C.
    Mounted C.           Absolute C.       Patronymic C.
    Sleeked C.           Well-set C.       Cockney C.
    Diapered C.          Gemel C.          Auromercuriated C.
    Spotted C.           Turkish C.        Robust C.
    Master C.            Burning C.        Appetizing C.
    Seeded C.            Thwacking C.      Succourable C.
    Lusty C.             Urgent C.         Redoubtable C.
    Jupped C.            Handsome C.       Affable C.
    Milked C.            Prompt C.         Memorable C.
    Calfeted C.          Fortunate C.      Palpable C.
    Raised C.            Boxwood C.        Barbable C.
    Odd C.               Latten C.         Tragical C.
    Steeled C.           Unbridled C.      Transpontine C.
    Stale C.             Hooked C.         Digestive C.
    Orange-tawny C.      Researched C.     Active C.
    Embroidered C.       Encompassed C.    Vital C.
    Glazed C.            Strouting out C.  Magistral C.
    Interlarded C.       Jolly C.          Monachal C.
    Burgher-like C.      Lively C.         Subtle C.
    Empowdered C.        Gerundive C.      Hammering C.
    Ebonized C.          Franked C.        Clashing C.
    Brasiliated C.       Polished C.       Tingling C.
    Organized C.         Powdered Beef C.  Usual C.
    Passable C.          Positive C.       Exquisite C.
    Trunkified C.        Spared C.         Trim C.
    Furious C.           Bold C.           Succulent C.
    Packed C.            Lascivious C.     Factious C.
    Hooded C.            Gluttonous C.     Clammy C.
    Fat C.               Boulting C.       New-vamped C.
    High-prized C.       Snorting C.       Improved C.
    Requisite C.         Pilfering C.      Malling C.
    Laycod C.            Shaking C.        Sounding C.
    Hand-filling C.      Bobbing C.        Battled C.
    Insuperable C.       Chiveted C.       Burly C.
    Agreeable C.         Fumbling C.       Seditious C.
    Formidable C.        Topsyturvying C.  Wardian C.
    Profitable C.        Raging C.         Protective C.
    Notable C.           Piled up C.       Twinkling C.
    Musculous C.         Filled up C.      Able C.
    Subsidiary C.        Manly C.          Algoristical C.
    Satiric C.           Idle C.           Odoriferous C.
    Repercussive C.      Membrous C.       Pranked C.
    Convulsive C.        Strong C.         Jocund C.
    Restorative C.       Twin C.           Routing C.
    Masculinating C.     Belabouring C.    Purloining C.
    Incarnative C.       Gentle C.         Frolic C.
    Sigillative C.       Stirring C.       Wagging C.
    Sallying C.          Confident C.      Ruffling C.
    Plump C.             Nimble C.         Jumbling C.
    Thundering C.        Roundheaded C.    Rumbling C.
    Lechering C.         Figging C.        Thumping C.
    Fulminating C.       Helpful C.        Bumping C.
    Sparkling C.         Spruce C.         Cringeling C.
    Ramming C.           Plucking C.       Berumpling C.
    Lusty C.             Ramage C.         Jogging C.
    Household C.         Fine C.           Nobbing C.
    Pretty C.            Fierce C.         Touzing C.
    Astrolabian C.       Brawny C.         Tumbling C.
    Algebraical C.       Compt C.          Fambling C.
    Venust C.            Repaired C.       Overturning C.
    Aromatizing C.       Soft C.           Shooting C.
    Tricksy C.           Wild C.           Culeting C.
    Paillard C.          Renewed C.        Jagged C.
    Gaillard C.          Quaint C.         Pinked C.
    Broaching C.         Starting C.       Arsiversing C.
    Addle C.             Fleshy C.         Polished C.
    Syndicated C.        Auxiliary C.      Slashed C.
    Hamed C.             Stuffed C.        Clashing C.
    Leisurely C.         Well-fed C.       Wagging C.
    Cut C.               Flourished C.     Scriplike C.
    Smooth C.            Fallow C.         Encremastered C.
    Depending C.         Sudden C.         Bouncing C.
    Independent C.       Graspful C.       Levelling C.
    Lingering C.         Swillpow C.       Fly-flap C.
    Rapping C.           Crushing C.       Perinae-tegminal C.
    Reverend C.          Creaking C.       Squat-couching C.
    Nodding C.           Dilting C.        Short-hung C.
    Disseminating C.     Ready C.          The hypogastrian C.
    Affecting C.         Vigorous C.       Witness-bearing C.
    Affected C.          Skulking C.       Testigerous C.
    Grappled C.          Superlative C.    Instrumental C.
    

    My harcabuzing cod and buttock-stirring ballock, Friar John, my friend, I
    do carry a singular respect unto thee, and honour thee with all my heart.
    Thy counsel I hold for a choice and delicate morsel; therefore have I
    reserved it for the last bit.  Give me thy advice freely, I beseech thee,
    Should I marry or no?  Friar John very merrily, and with a sprightly
    cheerfulness, made this answer to him:  Marry, in the devil's name.  Why
    not?  What the devil else shouldst thou do but marry?  Take thee a wife,
    and furbish her harness to some tune.  Swinge her skin-coat as if thou wert
    beating on stock-fish; and let the repercussion of thy clapper from her
    resounding metal make a noise as if a double peal of chiming-bells were
    hung at the cremasters of thy ballocks.  As I say marry, so do I understand
    that thou shouldst fall to work as speedily as may be; yea, my meaning is
    that thou oughtest to be so quick and forward therein, as on this same very
    day, before sunset, to cause proclaim thy banns of matrimony, and make
    provision of bedsteads.  By the blood of a hog's-pudding, till when wouldst
    thou delay the acting of a husband's part?  Dost thou not know, and is it
    not daily told unto thee, that the end of the world approacheth?  We are
    nearer it by three poles and half a fathom than we were two days ago.  The
    Antichrist is already born; at least it is so reported by many.  The truth
    is, that hitherto the effects of his wrath have not reached further than to
    the scratching of his nurse and governesses.  His nails are not sharp
    enough as yet, nor have his claws attained to their full growth,—he is
    little.

      Crescat; Nos qui vivimus, multiplicemur.

    It is written so, and it is holy stuff, I warrant you; the truth whereof is
    like to last as long as a sack of corn may be had for a penny, and a
    puncheon of pure wine for threepence.  Wouldst thou be content to be found
    with thy genitories full in the day of judgment?  Dum venerit judicari?
    Thou hast, quoth Panurge, a right, clear, and neat spirit, Friar John, my
    metropolitan cod; thou speakst in very deed pertinently and to purpose.
    That belike was the reason which moved Leander of Abydos in Asia, whilst he
    was swimming through the Hellespontic sea to make a visit to his sweetheart
    Hero of Sestus in Europe, to pray unto Neptune and all the other marine
    gods, thus:

      Now, whilst I go, have pity on me,
      And at my back returning drown me.

    He was loth, it seems, to die with his cods overgorged.  He was to be
    commended; therefore do I promise, that from henceforth no malefactor shall
    by justice be executed within my jurisdiction of Salmigondinois, who shall
    not, for a day or two at least before, be permitted to culbut and
    foraminate onocrotalwise, that there remain not in all his vessels to write
    a Greek Y.  Such a precious thing should not be foolishly cast away.  He
    will perhaps therewith beget a male, and so depart the more contentedly out
    of this life, that he shall have left behind him one for one.

    Chapter 3.XXVII. How Friar John merrily and sportingly counselleth Panurge.

    By Saint Rigomet, quoth Friar John, I do advise thee to nothing, my dear
    friend Panurge, which I would not do myself were I in thy place.  Only have
    a special care, and take good heed thou solder well together the joints of
    the double-backed and two-bellied beast, and fortify thy nerves so
    strongly, that there be no discontinuance in the knocks of the venerean
    thwacking, else thou art lost, poor soul.  For if there pass long intervals
    betwixt the priapizing feats, and that thou make an intermission of too
    large a time, that will befall thee which betides the nurses if they desist
    from giving suck to children—they lose their milk; and if continually thou
    do not hold thy aspersory tool in exercise, and keep thy mentul going, thy
    lacticinian nectar will be gone, and it will serve thee only as a pipe to
    piss out at, and thy cods for a wallet of lesser value than a beggar's
    scrip.  This is a certain truth I tell thee, friend, and doubt not of it;
    for myself have seen the sad experiment thereof in many, who cannot now do
    what they would, because before they did not what they might have done:  Ex
    desuetudine amittuntur privilegia.  Non-usage oftentimes destroys one's
    right, say the learned doctors of the law; therefore, my billy, entertain
    as well as possibly thou canst that hypogastrian lower sort of troglodytic
    people, that their chief pleasure may be placed in the case of sempiternal
    labouring.  Give order that henceforth they live not, like idle gentlemen,
    idly upon their rents and revenues, but that they may work for their
    livelihood by breaking ground within the Paphian trenches.  Nay truly,
    answered Panurge, Friar John, my left ballock, I will believe thee, for
    thou dealest plain with me, and fallest downright square upon the business,
    without going about the bush with frivolous circumstances and unnecessary
    reservations.  Thou with the splendour of a piercing wit hast dissipated
    all the lowering clouds of anxious apprehensions and suspicions which did
    intimidate and terrify me; therefore the heavens be pleased to grant to
    thee at all she-conflicts a stiff-standing fortune.  Well then, as thou
    hast said, so will I do; I will, in good faith, marry,—in that point there
    shall be no failing, I promise thee,—and shall have always by me pretty
    girls clothed with the name of my wife's waiting-maids, that, lying under
    thy wings, thou mayest be night-protector of their sisterhood.

    Let this serve for the first part of the sermon.  Hearken, quoth Friar
    John, to the oracle of the bells of Varenes.  What say they?  I hear and
    understand them, quoth Panurge; their sound is, by my thirst, more
    uprightly fatidical than that of Jove's great kettles in Dodona.  Hearken!
    Take thee a wife, take thee a wife, and marry, marry, marry; for if thou
    marry, thou shalt find good therein, herein, here in a wife thou shalt find
    good; so marry, marry.  I will assure thee that I shall be married; all the
    elements invite and prompt me to it.  Let this word be to thee a brazen
    wall, by diffidence not to be broken through.  As for the second part of
    this our doctrine,—thou seemest in some measure to mistrust the readiness
    of my paternity in the practising of my placket-racket within the
    Aphrodisian tennis-court at all times fitting, as if the stiff god of
    gardens were not favourable to me.  I pray thee, favour me so much as to
    believe that I still have him at a beck, attending always my commandments,
    docile, obedient, vigorous, and active in all things and everywhere, and
    never stubborn or refractory to my will or pleasure.  I need no more but to
    let go the reins, and slacken the leash, which is the belly-point, and when
    the game is shown unto him, say, Hey, Jack, to thy booty! he will not fail
    even then to flesh himself upon his prey, and tuzzle it to some purpose.
    Hereby you may perceive, although my future wife were as unsatiable and
    gluttonous in her voluptuousness and the delights of venery as ever was the
    Empress Messalina, or yet the Marchioness (of Oincester) in England, and I
    desire thee to give credit to it, that I lack not for what is requisite to
    overlay the stomach of her lust, but have wherewith aboundingly to please
    her.  I am not ignorant that Solomon said, who indeed of that matter
    speaketh clerklike and learnedly,—as also how Aristotle after him declared
    for a truth that, for the greater part, the lechery of a woman is ravenous
    and unsatisfiable.  Nevertheless, let such as are my friends who read those
    passages receive from me for a most real verity, that I for such a Jill
    have a fit Jack; and that, if women's things cannot be satiated, I have an
    instrument indefatigable,—an implement as copious in the giving as can in
    craving be their vade mecums.  Do not here produce ancient examples of the
    paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability
    the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus
    Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had
    the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian
    trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar.  Nor shalt thou need
    to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince of
    whom Theophrastus, Plinius, and Athenaeus testify, that with the help of a
    certain herb he was able, and had given frequent experiments thereof, to
    toss his sinewy piece of generation in the act of carnal concupiscence
    above three score and ten times in the space of four-and-twenty hours.  Of
    that I believe nothing, the number is supposititious, and too prodigally
    foisted in.  Give no faith unto it, I beseech thee, but prithee trust me in
    this, and thy credulity therein shall not be wronged, for it is true, and
    probatum est, that my pioneer of nature—the sacred ithyphallian champion—
    is of all stiff-intruding blades the primest.  Come hither, my ballocket,
    and hearken.  Didst thou ever see the monk of Castre's cowl?  When in any
    house it was laid down, whether openly in the view of all or covertly out
    of the sight of any, such was the ineffable virtue thereof for excitating
    and stirring up the people of both sexes unto lechery, that the whole
    inhabitants and indwellers, not only of that, but likewise of all the
    circumjacent places thereto, within three leagues around it, did suddenly
    enter into rut, both beasts and folks, men and women, even to the dogs and
    hogs, rats and cats.

    I swear to thee that many times heretofore I have perceived and found in my
    codpiece a certain kind of energy or efficacious virtue much more irregular
    and of a greater anomaly than what I have related.  I will not speak to
    thee either of house or cottage, nor of church or market, but only tell
    thee, that once at the representation of the Passion, which was acted at
    Saint Maxents, I had no sooner entered within the pit of the theatre, but
    that forthwith, by the virtue and occult property of it, on a sudden all
    that were there, both players and spectators, did fall into such an
    exorbitant temptation of lust, that there was not angel, man, devil, nor
    deviless upon the place who would not then have bricollitched it with all
    their heart and soul.  The prompter forsook his copy, he who played
    Michael's part came down to rights, the devils issued out of hell and
    carried along with them most of the pretty little girls that were there;
    yea, Lucifer got out of his fetters; in a word, seeing the huge disorder, I
    disparked myself forth of that enclosed place, in imitation of Cato the
    Censor, who perceiving, by reason of his presence, the Floralian festivals
    out of order, withdrew himself.

    Chapter 3.XXVIII. How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matter of cuckoldry.

    I understand thee well enough, said Friar John; but time makes all things
    plain.  The most durable marble or porphyry is subject to old age and
    decay.  Though for the present thou possibly be not weary of the exercise,
    yet is it like I will hear thee confess a few years hence that thy cods
    hang dangling downwards for want of a better truss.  I see thee waxing a
    little hoar-headed already.  Thy beard, by the distinction of grey, white,
    tawny, and black, hath to my thinking the resemblance of a map of the
    terrestrial globe or geographical chart.  Look attentively upon and take
    inspection of what I shall show unto thee.  Behold there Asia.  Here are
    Tigris and Euphrates.  Lo there Afric.  Here is the mountain of the Moon,—
    yonder thou mayst perceive the fenny march of Nilus.  On this side lieth
    Europe.  Dost thou not see the Abbey of Theleme?  This little tuft, which
    is altogether white, is the Hyperborean Hills.  By the thirst of my
    thropple, friend, when snow is on the mountains, I say the head and the
    chin, there is not then any considerable heat to be expected in the valleys
    and low countries of the codpiece.  By the kibes of thy heels, quoth
    Panurge, thou dost not understand the topics.  When snow is on the tops of
    the hills, lightning, thunder, tempest, whirlwinds, storms, hurricanes, and
    all the devils of hell rage in the valleys.  Wouldst thou see the
    experience thereof, go to the territory of the Switzers and earnestly
    perpend with thyself there the situation of the lake of Wunderberlich,
    about four leagues distant from Berne, on the Syon-side of the land.  Thou
    twittest me with my grey hairs, yet considerest not how I am of the nature
    of leeks, which with a white head carry a green, fresh, straight, and
    vigorous tail.  The truth is, nevertheless (why should I deny it), that I
    now and then discern in myself some indicative signs of old age.  Tell
    this, I prithee, to nobody, but let it be kept very close and secret
    betwixt us two; for I find the wine much sweeter now, more savoury to my
    taste, and unto my palate of a better relish than formerly I was wont to
    do; and withal, besides mine accustomed manner, I have a more dreadful
    apprehension than I ever heretofore have had of lighting on bad wine.  Note
    and observe that this doth argue and portend I know not what of the west
    and occident of my time, and signifieth that the south and meridian of mine
    age is past.  But what then, my gentle companion?  That doth but betoken
    that I will hereafter drink so much the more.  That is not, the devil hale
    it, the thing that I fear; nor is it there where my shoe pinches.  The
    thing that I doubt most, and have greatest reason to dread and suspect is,
    that through some long absence of our King Pantagruel (to whom I must needs
    bear company should he go to all the devils of Barathrum), my future wife
    shall make me a cuckold.  This is, in truth, the long and short on't.  For
    I am by all those whom I have spoke to menaced and threatened with a horned
    fortune, and all of them affirm it is the lot to which from heaven I am
    predestinated.  Everyone, answered Friar John, that would be a cuckold is
    not one.  If it be thy fate to be hereafter of the number of that horned
    cattle, then may I conclude with an Ergo, thy wife will be beautiful, and
    Ergo, thou wilt be kindly used by her.  Likewise with this Ergo, thou shalt
    be blessed with the fruition of many friends and well-willers.  And finally
    with this other Ergo, thou shalt be saved and have a place in Paradise.
    These are monachal topics and maxims of the cloister.  Thou mayst take more
    liberty to sin.  Thou shalt be more at ease than ever.  There will be never
    the less left for thee, nothing diminished, but thy goods shall increase
    notably.  And if so be it was preordinated for thee, wouldst thou be so
    impious as not to acquiesce in thy destiny?  Speak, thou jaded cod.

    
    Faded C.           Louting C.            Appellant C.
    Mouldy C.          Discouraged C.        Swagging C.
    Musty C.           Surfeited C.          Withered C.
    Paltry C.          Peevish C.            Broken-reined C.
    Senseless C.       Translated C.         Defective C.
    Foundered C.       Forlorn C.            Crestfallen C.
    Distempered C.     Unsavoury C.          Felled C.
    Bewrayed C.        Worm-eaten C.         Fleeted C.
    Inveigled C.       Overtoiled C.         Cloyed C.
    Dangling C.        Miserable C.          Squeezed C.
    Stupid C.          Steeped C.            Resty C.
    Seedless C.        Kneaded-with-cold-  Pounded C.
    Soaked C.            water C.            Loose C.
    Coldish C.         Hacked C.             Fruitless C.
    Pickled C.         Flaggy C.             Riven C.
    Churned C.         Scrubby C.            Pursy C.
    Filliped C.        Drained C.            Fusty C.
    Singlefied C.      Haled C.              Jadish C.
    Begrimed C.        Lolling C.            Fistulous C.
    Wrinkled C.        Drenched C.           Languishing C.
    Fainted C.         Burst C.              Maleficiated C.
    Extenuated C.      Stirred up C.         Hectic C.
    Grim C.            Mitred C.             Worn out C.
    Wasted C.          Peddlingly furnished  Ill-favoured C.
    Inflamed C.          C.                  Duncified C.
    Unhinged C.        Rusty C.              Macerated C.
    Scurfy C.          Exhausted C.          Paralytic C.
    Straddling C.      Perplexed C.          Degraded C.
    Putrefied C.       Unhelved C.           Benumbed C.
    Maimed C.          Fizzled C.            Bat-like C.
    Overlechered C.    Leprous C.            Fart-shotten C.
    Druggely C.        Bruised C.            Sunburnt C.
    Mitified C.        Spadonic C.           Pacified C.
    Goat-ridden C.     Boughty C.            Blunted C.
    Weakened C.        Mealy C.              Rankling tasted C.
    Ass-ridden C.      Wrangling C.          Rooted out C.
    Puff-pasted C.     Gangrened C.          Costive C.
    St. Anthonified C. Crust-risen C.        Hailed on C.
    Untriped C.        Ragged C.             Cuffed C.
    Blasted C.         Quelled C.            Buffeted C.
    Cut off C.         Braggadocio C.        Whirreted C.
    Beveraged C.       Beggarly C.           Robbed C.
    Scarified C.       Trepanned C.          Neglected C.
    Dashed C.          Bedusked C.           Lame C.
    Slashed C.         Emasculated C.        Confused C.
    Enfeebled C.       Corked C.             Unsavoury C.
    Whore-hunting C.   Transparent C.        Overthrown C.
    Deteriorated C.    Vile C.               Boulted C.
    Chill C.           Antedated C.          Trod under C.
    Scrupulous C.      Chopped C.            Desolate C.
    Crazed C.          Pinked C.             Declining C.
    Tasteless C.       Cup-glassified C.     Stinking C.
    Sorrowful C.       Harsh C.              Crooked C.
    Murdered C.        Beaten C.             Brabbling C.
    Matachin-like C.   Barred C.             Rotten C.
    Besotted C.        Abandoned C.          Anxious C.
    Customerless C.    Confounded C.         Clouted C.
    Minced C.          Loutish C.            Tired C.
    Exulcerated C.     Borne down C.         Proud C.
    Patched C.         Sparred C.            Fractured C.
    Stupified C.       Abashed C.            Melancholy C.
    Annihilated C.     Unseasonable C.       Coxcombly C.
    Spent C.           Oppressed C.          Base C.
    Foiled C.          Grated C.             Bleaked C.
    Anguished C.       Falling away C.       Detested C.
    Disfigured C.      Smallcut C.           Diaphanous C.
    Disabled C.        Disordered C.         Unworthy C.
    Forceless C.       Latticed C.           Checked C.
    Censured C.        Ruined C.             Mangled C.
    Cut C.             Exasperated C.        Turned over C.
    Rifled C.          Rejected C.           Harried C.
    Undone C.          Belammed C.           Flawed C.
    Corrected C.       Fabricitant C.        Froward C.
    Slit C.            Perused C.            Ugly C.
    Skittish C.        Emasculated C.        Drawn C.
    Spongy C.          Roughly handled C.    Riven C.
    Botched C.         Examined C.           Distasteful C.
    Dejected C.        Cracked C.            Hanging C.
    Jagged C.          Wayward C.            Broken C.
    Pining C.          Haggled C.            Limber C.
    Deformed C.        Gleaning C.           Effeminate C.
    Mischieved C.      Ill-favoured C.       Kindled C.
    Cobbled C.         Pulled C.             Evacuated C.
    Embased C.         Drooping C.           Grieved C.
    Ransacked C.       Faint C.              Carking C.
    Despised C.        Parched C.            Disorderly C.
    Mangy C.           Paltry C.             Empty C.
    Abased C.          Cankered C.           Disquieted C.
    Supine C.          Void C.               Besysted C.
    Mended C.          Vexed C.              Confounded C.
    Dismayed C.        Bestunk C.            Hooked C.
    Divorous C.        Winnowed C.           Unlucky C.
    Wearied C.         Decayed C.            Sterile C.
    Sad C.             Disastrous C.         Beshitten C.
    Cross C.           Unhandsome C.         Appeased C.
    Vain-glorious C.   Stummed C.            Caitiff C.
    Poor C.            Barren C.             Woeful C.
    Brown C.           Wretched C.           Unseemly C.
    Shrunken C.        Feeble C.             Heavy C.
    Abhorred C.        Cast down C.          Weak C.
    Troubled C.        Stopped C.            Prostrated C.
    Scornful C.        Kept under C.         Uncomely C.
    Dishonest C.       Stubborn C.           Naughty C.
    Reproved C.        Ground C.             Laid flat C.
    Cocketed C.        Retchless C.          Suffocated C.
    Filthy C.          Weather-beaten C.     Held down C.
    Shred C.           Flayed C.             Barked C.
    Chawned C.         Bald C.               Hairless C.
    Short-winded C.    Tossed C.             Flamping C.
    Branchless C.      Flapping C.           Hooded C.
    Chapped C.         Cleft C.              Wormy C.
    Failing C.         Meagre C.             Besysted (In his anxiety to swell
    his catalogue as much as possible, Sir Thomas Urquhart has set down this
    word twice.) C.
    Deficient C.       Dumpified C.          Faulty C.
    Lean C.            Suppressed C.         Bemealed C.
    Consumed C.        Hagged C.             Mortified C.
    Used C.            Jawped C.             Scurvy C.
    Puzzled C.         Havocked C.           Bescabbed C.
    Allayed C.         Astonished C.         Torn C.
    Spoiled C.         Dulled C.             Subdued C.
    Clagged C.         Slow C.               Sneaking C.
    Palsy-stricken C.  Plucked up C.         Bare C.
    Amazed C.          Constipated C.        Swart C.
    Bedunsed C.        Blown C.              Smutched C.
    Extirpated C.      Blockified C.         Raised up C.
    Banged C.          Pommelled C.          Chopped C.
    Stripped C.        All-to-bemauled C.    Flirted C.
    Hoary C.           Fallen away C.        Blained C.
    Blotted C.         Stale C.              Rensy C.
    Sunk in C.         Corrupted C.          Frowning C.
    Ghastly C.         Beflowered C.         Limping C.
    Unpointed C.       Amated C.             Ravelled C.
    Beblistered C.     Blackish C.           Rammish C.
    Wizened C.         Underlaid C.          Gaunt C.
    Beggar-plated C.   Loathing C.           Beskimmered C.
    Douf C.            Ill-filled C.         Scraggy C.
    Clarty C.          Bobbed C.             Lank C.
    Lumpish C.         Mated C.              Swashering C.
    Abject C.          Tawny C.              Moiling C.
    Side C.            Whealed C.            Swinking C.
    Choked up C.       Besmeared C.          Harried C.
    Backward C.        Hollow C.             Tugged C.
    Prolix C.          Pantless C.           Towed C.
    Spotted C.         Guizened C.           Misused C.
    Crumpled C.        Demiss C.             Adamitical C.
    Frumpled C.        Refractory C.
    
    

    Ballockatso to the devil, my dear friend Panurge, seeing it is so decreed
    by the gods, wouldst thou invert the course of the planets, and make them
    retrograde?  Wouldst thou disorder all the celestial spheres, blame the
    intelligences, blunt the spindles, joint the wherves, slander the spinning
    quills, reproach the bobbins, revile the clew-bottoms, and finally ravel
    and untwist all the threads of both the warp and the waft of the weird
    Sister-Parcae?  What a pox to thy bones dost thou mean, stony cod?  Thou
    wouldst if thou couldst, a great deal worse than the giants of old intended
    to have done.  Come hither, billicullion.  Whether wouldst thou be jealous
    without cause, or be a cuckold and know nothing of it?  Neither the one nor
    the other, quoth Panurge, would I choose to be.  But if I get an inkling of
    the matter, I will provide well enough, or there shall not be one stick of
    wood within five hundred leagues about me whereof to make a cudgel.  In
    good faith, Friar John, I speak now seriously unto thee, I think it will be
    my best not to marry.  Hearken to what the bells do tell me, now that we
    are nearer to them!  Do not marry, marry not, not, not, not, not; marry,
    marry not, not, not, not, not.  If thou marry, thou wilt miscarry, carry,
    carry; thou'lt repent it, resent it, sent it!  If thou marry, thou a
    cuckold, a cou-cou-cuckoo, cou-cou-cuckold thou shalt be.  By the worthy
    wrath of God, I begin to be angry.  This campanilian oracle fretteth me to
    the guts,—a March hare was never in such a chafe as I am.  O how I am
    vexed!  You monks and friars of the cowl-pated and hood-polled fraternity,
    have you no remedy nor salve against this malady of graffing horns in
    heads?  Hath nature so abandoned humankind, and of her help left us so
    destitute, that married men cannot know how to sail through the seas of
    this mortal life and be safe from the whirlpools, quicksands, rocks, and
    banks that lie alongst the coast of Cornwall.

    I will, said Friar John, show thee a way and teach thee an expedient by
    means whereof thy wife shall never make thee a cuckold without thy
    knowledge and thine own consent.  Do me the favour, I pray thee, quoth
    Panurge, my pretty, soft, downy cod; now tell it, billy, tell it, I beseech
    thee.  Take, quoth Friar John, Hans Carvel's ring upon thy finger, who was
    the King of Melinda's chief jeweller.  Besides that this Hans Carvel had
    the reputation of being very skilful and expert in the lapidary's
    profession, he was a studious, learned, and ingenious man, a scientific
    person, full of knowledge, a great philosopher, of a sound judgment, of a
    prime wit, good sense, clear spirited, an honest creature, courteous,
    charitable, a giver of alms, and of a jovial humour, a boon companion, and
    a merry blade, if ever there was any in the world.  He was somewhat
    gorbellied, had a little shake in his head, and was in effect unwieldy of
    his body.  In his old age he took to wife the Bailiff of Concordat's
    daughter, young, fair, jolly, gallant, spruce, frisk, brisk, neat, feat,
    smirk, smug, compt, quaint, gay, fine, tricksy, trim, decent, proper,
    graceful, handsome, beautiful, comely, and kind—a little too much—to her
    neighbours and acquaintance.

    Hereupon it fell out, after the expiring of a scantling of weeks, that
    Master Carvel became as jealous as a tiger, and entered into a very
    profound suspicion that his new-married gixy did keep a-buttock-stirring
    with others.  To prevent which inconveniency he did tell her many tragical
    stories of the total ruin of several kingdoms by adultery; did read unto
    her the legend of chaste wives; then made some lectures to her in the
    praise of the choice virtue of pudicity, and did present her with a book in
    commendation of conjugal fidelity; wherein the wickedness of all licentious
    women was odiously detested; and withal he gave her a chain enriched with
    pure oriental sapphires.  Notwithstanding all this, he found her always
    more and more inclined to the reception of her neighbour copes-mates, that
    day by day his jealousy increased.  In sequel whereof, one night as he was
    lying by her, whilst in his sleep the rambling fancies of the lecherous
    deportments of his wife did take up the cellules of his brain, he dreamt
    that he encountered with the devil, to whom he had discovered to the full
    the buzzing of his head and suspicion that his wife did tread her shoe
    awry.  The devil, he thought, in this perplexity did for his comfort give
    him a ring, and therewithal did kindly put it on his middle finger, saying,
    Hans Carvel, I give thee this ring,—whilst thou carriest it upon that
    finger, thy wife shall never carnally be known by any other than thyself
    without thy special knowledge and consent.  Gramercy, quoth Hans Carvel, my
    lord devil, I renounce Mahomet if ever it shall come off my finger.  The
    devil vanished, as is his custom; and then Hans Carvel, full of joy
    awaking, found that his middle finger was as far as it could reach within
    the what-do-by-call-it of his wife.  I did forget to tell thee how his
    wife, as soon as she had felt the finger there, said, in recoiling her
    buttocks, Off, yes, nay, tut, pish, tush, ay, lord, that is not the thing
    which should be put up in that place.  With this Hans Carvel thought that
    some pilfering fellow was about to take the ring from him.  Is not this an
    infallible and sovereign antidote?  Therefore, if thou wilt believe me, in
    imitation of this example never fail to have continually the ring of thy
    wife's commodity upon thy finger.  When that was said, their discourse and
    their way ended.

    Chapter 3.XXIX. How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician, lawyer, and
    philosopher, for extricating Panurge out of the perplexity wherein he was.

    No sooner were they come into the royal palace, but they to the full made
    report unto Pantagruel of the success of their expedition, and showed him
    the response of Raminagrobis.  When Pantagruel had read it over and over
    again, the oftener he perused it being the better pleased therewith, he
    said, in addressing his speech to Panurge, I have not as yet seen any
    answer framed to your demand which affordeth me more contentment.  For in
    this his succinct copy of verses, he summarily and briefly, yet fully
    enough expresseth how he would have us to understand that everyone in the
    project and enterprise of marriage ought to be his own carver, sole
    arbitrator of his proper thoughts, and from himself alone take counsel in
    the main and peremptory closure of what his determination should be, in
    either his assent to or dissent from it.  Such always hath been my opinion
    to you, and when at first you spoke thereof to me I truly told you this
    same very thing; but tacitly you scorned my advice, and would not harbour
    it within your mind.  I know for certain, and therefore may I with the
    greater confidence utter my conception of it, that philauty, or self-love,
    is that which blinds your judgment and deceiveth you.

    Let us do otherwise, and that is this:  Whatever we are, or have,
    consisteth in three things—the soul, the body, and the goods.  Now, for
    the preservation of these three, there are three sorts of learned men
    ordained, each respectively to have care of that one which is recommended
    to his charge.  Theologues are appointed for the soul, physicians for the
    welfare of the body, and lawyers for the safety of our goods.  Hence it is
    that it is my resolution to have on Sunday next with me at dinner a divine,
    a physician, and a lawyer, that with those three assembled thus together we
    may in every point and particle confer at large of your perplexity.  By
    Saint Picot, answered Panurge, we never shall do any good that way, I see
    it already.  And you see yourself how the world is vilely abused, as when
    with a foxtail one claps another's breech to cajole him.  We give our souls
    to keep to the theologues, who for the greater part are heretics.  Our
    bodies we commit to the physicians, who never themselves take any physic.
    And then we entrust our goods to the lawyers, who never go to law against
    one another.  You speak like a courtier, quoth Pantagruel.  But the first
    point of your assertion is to be denied; for we daily see how good
    theologues make it their chief business, their whole and sole employment,
    by their deeds, their words, and writings, to extirpate errors and heresies
    out of the hearts of men, and in their stead profoundly plant the true and
    lively faith.  The second point you spoke of I commend; for, whereas the
    professors of the art of medicine give so good order to the prophylactic,
    or conservative part of their faculty, in what concerneth their proper
    healths, that they stand in no need of making use of the other branch,
    which is the curative or therapeutic, by medicaments.  As for the third, I
    grant it to be true, for learned advocates and counsellors at law are so
    much taken up with the affairs of others in their consultations, pleadings,
    and such-like patrocinations of those who are their clients, that they have
    no leisure to attend any controversies of their own.  Therefore, on the
    next ensuing Sunday, let the divine be our godly Father Hippothadee, the
    physician our honest Master Rondibilis, and our legist our friend
    Bridlegoose.  Nor will it be (to my thinking) amiss, that we enter into the
    Pythagoric field, and choose for an assistant to the three afore-named
    doctors our ancient faithful acquaintance, the philosopher Trouillogan;
    especially seeing a perfect philosopher, such as is Trouillogan, is able
    positively to resolve all whatsoever doubts you can propose.  Carpalin,
    have you a care to have them here all four on Sunday next at dinner,
    without fail.

    I believe, quoth Epistemon, that throughout the whole country, in all the
    corners thereof, you could not have pitched upon such other four.  Which I
    speak not so much in regard of the most excellent qualifications and
    accomplishments wherewith all of them are endowed for the respective
    discharge and management of each his own vocation and calling (wherein
    without all doubt or controversy they are the paragons of the land, and
    surpass all others), as for that Rondibilis is married now, who before was
    not,—Hippothadee was not before, nor is yet,—Bridlegoose was married
    once, but is not now,—and Trouillogan is married now, who wedded was to
    another wife before.  Sir, if it may stand with your good liking, I will
    ease Carpalin of some parcel of his labour, and invite Bridlegoose myself,
    with whom I of a long time have had a very intimate familiarity, and unto
    whom I am to speak on the behalf of a pretty hopeful youth who now studieth
    at Toulouse, under the most learned virtuous doctor Boissonet.  Do what you
    deem most expedient, quoth Pantagruel, and tell me if my recommendation can
    in anything be steadable for the promoval of the good of that youth, or
    otherwise serve for bettering of the dignity and office of the worthy
    Boissonet, whom I do so love and respect for one of the ablest and most
    sufficient in his way that anywhere are extant.  Sir, I will use therein my
    best endeavours, and heartily bestir myself about it.

    Chapter 3.XXX. How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurge in the matter and
    business of his nuptial enterprise.

    3-30-322.jpg (157K)

    The dinner on the subsequent Sunday was no sooner made ready than that the
    afore-named invited guests gave thereto their appearance, all of them,
    Bridlegoose only excepted, who was the deputy-governor of Fonsbeton.  At
    the ushering in of the second service Panurge, making a low reverence,
    spake thus:  Gentlemen, the question I am to propound unto you shall be
    uttered in very few words—Should I marry or no?  If my doubt herein be not
    resolved by you, I shall hold it altogether insolvable, as are the
    Insolubilia de Aliaco; for all of you are elected, chosen, and culled out
    from amongst others, everyone in his own condition and quality, like so
    many picked peas on a carpet.

    The Father Hippothadee, in obedience to the bidding of Pantagruel, and with
    much courtesy to the company, answered exceeding modestly after this
    manner:  My friend, you are pleased to ask counsel of us; but first you
    must consult with yourself.  Do you find any trouble or disquiet in your
    body by the importunate stings and pricklings of the flesh?  That I do,
    quoth Panurge, in a hugely strong and almost irresistible measure.  Be not
    offended, I beseech you, good father, at the freedom of my expression.  No
    truly, friend, not I, quoth Hippothadee, there is no reason why I should be
    displeased therewith.  But in this carnal strife and debate of yours have
    you obtained from God the gift and special grace of continency?  In good
    faith, not, quoth Panurge.  My counsel to you in that case, my friend, is
    that you marry, quoth Hippothadee; for you should rather choose to marry
    once than to burn still in fires of concupiscence.  Then Panurge, with a
    jovial heart and a loud voice, cried out, That is spoke gallantly, without
    circumbilivaginating about and about, and never hitting it in its centred
    point.  Gramercy, my good father!  In truth I am resolved now to marry, and
    without fail I shall do it quickly.  I invite you to my wedding.  By the
    body of a hen, we shall make good cheer, and be as merry as crickets.  You
    shall wear the bridegroom's colours, and, if we eat a goose, my wife shall
    not roast it for me.  I will entreat you to lead up the first dance of the
    bridesmaids, if it may please you to do me so much favour and honour.
    There resteth yet a small difficulty, a little scruple, yea, even less than
    nothing, whereof I humbly crave your resolution.  Shall I be a cuckold,
    father, yea or no?  By no means, answered Hippothadee, will you be
    cuckolded, if it please God.  O the Lord help us now, quoth Panurge;
    whither are we driven to, good folks?  To the conditionals, which,
    according to the rules and precepts of the dialectic faculty, admit of all
    contradictions and impossibilities.  If my Transalpine mule had wings, my
    Transalpine mule would fly, if it please God, I shall not be a cuckold; but
    I shall be a cuckold, if it please him.  Good God, if this were a condition
    which I knew how to prevent, my hopes should be as high as ever, nor would
    I despair.  But you here send me to God's privy council, to the closet of
    his little pleasures.  You, my French countrymen, which is the way you take
    to go thither?

    My honest father, I believe it will be your best not to come to my wedding.
    The clutter and dingle-dangle noise of marriage guests will but disturb
    you, and break the serious fancies of your brain.  You love repose, with
    solitude and silence; I really believe you will not come.  And then you
    dance but indifferently, and would be out of countenance at the first
    entry.  I will send you some good things to your chamber, together with the
    bride's favour, and there you may drink our health, if it may stand with
    your good liking.  My friend, quoth Hippothadee, take my words in the sense
    wherein I meant them, and do not misinterpret me.  When I tell you,—If it
    please God,—do I to you any wrong therein?  Is it an ill expression?  Is
    it a blaspheming clause or reserve any way scandalous unto the world?  Do
    not we thereby honour the Lord God Almighty, Creator, Protector, and
    Conserver of all things?  Is not that a mean whereby we do acknowledge him
    to be the sole giver of all whatsoever is good?  Do not we in that manifest
    our faith that we believe all things to depend upon his infinite and
    incomprehensible bounty, and that without him nothing can be produced, nor
    after its production be of any value, force, or power, without the
    concurring aid and favour of his assisting grace?  Is it not a canonical
    and authentic exception, worthy to be premised to all our undertakings?  Is
    it not expedient that what we propose unto ourselves be still referred to
    what shall be disposed of by the sacred will of God, unto which all things
    must acquiesce in the heavens as well as on the earth?  Is not that verily
    a sanctifying of his holy name?  My friend, you shall not be a cuckold, if
    it please God, nor shall we need to despair of the knowledge of his good
    will and pleasure herein, as if it were such an abstruse and mysteriously
    hidden secret that for the clear understanding thereof it were necessary to
    consult with those of his celestial privy council, or expressly make a
    voyage unto the empyrean chamber where order is given for the effectuating
    of his most holy pleasures.  The great God hath done us this good, that he
    hath declared and revealed them to us openly and plainly, and described
    them in the Holy Bible.  There will you find that you shall never be a
    cuckold, that is to say, your wife shall never be a strumpet, if you make
    choice of one of a commendable extraction, descended of honest parents, and
    instructed in all piety and virtue—such a one as hath not at any time
    haunted or frequented the company or conversation of those that are of
    corrupt and depraved manners, one loving and fearing God, who taketh a
    singular delight in drawing near to him by faith and the cordial observing
    of his sacred commandments—and finally, one who, standing in awe of the
    Divine Majesty of the Most High, will be loth to offend him and lose the
    favourable kindness of his grace through any defect of faith or
    transgression against the ordinances of his holy law, wherein adultery is
    most rigorously forbidden and a close adherence to her husband alone most
    strictly and severely enjoined; yea, in such sort that she is to cherish,
    serve, and love him above anything, next to God, that meriteth to be
    beloved.  In the interim, for the better schooling of her in these
    instructions, and that the wholesome doctrine of a matrimonial duty may
    take the deeper root in her mind, you must needs carry yourself so on your
    part, and your behaviour is to be such, that you are to go before her in a
    good example, by entertaining her unfeignedly with a conjugal amity, by
    continually approving yourself in all your words and actions a faithful and
    discreet husband; and by living, not only at home and privately with your
    own household and family, but in the face also of all men and open view of
    the world, devoutly, virtuously, and chastely, as you would have her on her
    side to deport and to demean herself towards you, as becomes a godly,
    loyal, and respectful wife, who maketh conscience to keep inviolable the
    tie of a matrimonial oath.  For as that looking-glass is not the best which
    is most decked with gold and precious stones, but that which representeth
    to the eye the liveliest shapes of objects set before it, even so that wife
    should not be most esteemed who richest is and of the noblest race, but she
    who, fearing God, conforms herself nearest unto the humour of her husband.

    Consider how the moon doth not borrow her light from Jupiter, Mars,
    Mercury, or any other of the planets, nor yet from any of those splendid
    stars which are set in the spangled firmament, but from her husband only,
    the bright sun, which she receiveth from him more or less, according to the
    manner of his aspect and variously bestowed eradiations.  Just so should
    you be a pattern to your wife in virtue, goodly zeal, and true devotion,
    that by your radiance in darting on her the aspect of an exemplary
    goodness, she, in your imitation, may outshine the luminaries of all other
    women.  To this effect you daily must implore God's grace to the protection
    of you both.  You would have me then, quoth Panurge, twisting the whiskers
    of his beard on either side with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand,
    to espouse and take to wife the prudent frugal woman described by Solomon.
    Without all doubt she is dead, and truly to my best remembrance I never saw
    her; the Lord forgive me!  Nevertheless, I thank you, father.  Eat this
    slice of marchpane, it will help your digestion; then shall you be
    presented with a cup of claret hippocras, which is right healthful and
    stomachal.  Let us proceed.

    Chapter 3.XXXI. How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge.

    Panurge, continuing his discourse, said, The first word which was spoken by
    him who gelded the lubberly, quaffing monks of Saussiniac, after that he
    had unstoned Friar Cauldaureil, was this, To the rest.  In like manner, I
    say, To the rest.  Therefore I beseech you, my good Master Rondibilis,
    should I marry or not?  By the raking pace of my mule, quoth Rondibilis, I
    know not what answer to make to this problem of yours.

    You say that you feel in you the pricking stings of sensuality, by which
    you are stirred up to venery.  I find in our faculty of medicine, and we
    have founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate resolution and final
    decision of the ancient Platonics, that carnal concupiscence is cooled and
    quelled five several ways.

    First, By the means of wine.  I shall easily believe that, quoth Friar
    John, for when I am well whittled with the juice of the grape I care for
    nothing else, so I may sleep.  When I say, quoth Rondibilis, that wine
    abateth lust, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken; for by intemperancy
    proceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor there is brought
    upon the body of such a swill-down boozer a chillness in the blood, a
    slackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the generative seed, a numbness
    and hebetation of the senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion of
    the muscles—all which are great lets and impediments to the act of
    generation.  Hence it is that Bacchus, the god of bibbers, tipplers, and
    drunkards, is most commonly painted beardless and clad in a woman's habit,
    as a person altogether effeminate, or like a libbed eunuch.  Wine,
    nevertheless, taken moderately, worketh quite contrary effects, as is
    implied by the old proverb, which saith that Venus takes cold when not
    accompanied with Ceres and Bacchus.  This opinion is of great antiquity, as
    appeareth by the testimony of Diodorus the Sicilian, and confirmed by
    Pausanias, and universally held amongst the Lampsacians, that Don Priapus
    was the son of Bacchus and Venus.

    Secondly, The fervency of lust is abated by certain drugs, plants, herbs,
    and roots, which make the taker cold, maleficiated, unfit for, and unable
    to perform the act of generation; as hath been often experimented in the
    water-lily, heraclea, agnus castus, willow-twigs, hemp-stalks, woodbine,
    honeysuckle, tamarisk, chaste tree, mandrake, bennet, keckbugloss, the skin
    of a hippopotam, and many other such, which, by convenient doses
    proportioned to the peccant humour and constitution of the patient, being
    duly and seasonably received within the body—what by their elementary
    virtues on the one side and peculiar properties on the other—do either
    benumb, mortify, and beclumpse with cold the prolific semence, or scatter
    and disperse the spirits which ought to have gone along with and conducted
    the sperm to the places destined and appointed for its reception, or
    lastly, shut up, stop, and obstruct the ways, passages, and conduits
    through which the seed should have been expelled, evacuated, and ejected.
    We have nevertheless of those ingredients which, being of a contrary
    operation, heat the blood, bend the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken the
    senses, strengthen the muscles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite, and
    enable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of the feat of amorous
    dalliance.  I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, God be thanked, and
    you, my good master.  Howsoever, I pray you, take no exception or offence
    at these my words; for what I have said was not out of any illwill I did
    bear to you, the Lord he knows.

    Thirdly, The ardour of lechery is very much subdued and mated by frequent
    labour and continual toiling.  For by painful exercises and laborious
    working so great a dissolution is brought upon the whole body, that the
    blood, which runneth alongst the channels of the veins thereof for the
    nourishment and alimentation of each of its members, hath neither time,
    leisure, nor power to afford the seminal resudation, or superfluity of the
    third concoction, which nature most carefully reserves for the conservation
    of the individual, whose preservation she more heedfully regardeth than the
    propagating of the species and the multiplication of humankind.  Whence it
    is that Diana is said to be chaste, because she is never idle, but always
    busied about her hunting.  For the same reason was a camp or leaguer of old
    called castrum, as if they would have said castum; because the soldiers,
    wrestlers, runners, throwers of the bar, and other such-like athletic
    champions as are usually seen in a military circumvallation, do incessantly
    travail and turmoil, and are in a perpetual stir and agitation.  To this
    purpose Hippocrates also writeth in his book, De Aere, Aqua et Locis, that
    in his time there were people in Scythia as impotent as eunuchs in the
    discharge of a venerean exploit, because that without any cessation, pause,
    or respite they were never from off horseback, or otherwise assiduously
    employed in some troublesome and molesting drudgery.

    On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the philosophers
    say that idleness is the mother of luxury.  When it was asked Ovid, Why
    Aegisthus became an adulterer? he made no other answer but this, Because he
    was idle.  Who were able to rid the world of loitering and laziness might
    easily frustrate and disappoint Cupid of all his designs, aims, engines,
    and devices, and so disable and appal him that his bow, quiver, and darts
    should from thenceforth be a mere needless load and burden to him, for that
    it could not then lie in his power to strike or wound any of either sex
    with all the arms he had.  He is not, I believe, so expert an archer as
    that he can hit the cranes flying in the air, or yet the young stags
    skipping through the thickets, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that
    is to say, people moiling, stirring and hurrying up and down, restless, and
    without repose.  He must have those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay,
    lither, and full of ease, whom he is able, though his mother help him, to
    touch, much less to pierce with all his arrows.  In confirmation hereof,
    Theophrastus, being asked on a time what kind of beast or thing he judged a
    toyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, that it was a passion of idle
    and sluggish spirits.  From which pretty description of tickling love-
    tricks that of Diogenes's hatching was not very discrepant, when he defined
    lechery the occupation of folks destitute of all other occupation.  For
    this cause the Syconian engraver Canachus, being desirous to give us to
    understand that sloth, drowsiness, negligence, and laziness were the prime
    guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not
    standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting.

    Fourthly, The tickling pricks of incontinency are blunted by an eager
    study; for from thence proceedeth an incredible resolution of the spirits,
    that oftentimes there do not remain so many behind as may suffice to push
    and thrust forwards the generative resudation to the places thereto
    appropriated, and therewithal inflate the cavernous nerve whose office is
    to ejaculate the moisture for the propagation of human progeny.  Lest you
    should think it is not so, be pleased but to contemplate a little the form,
    fashion, and carriage of a man exceeding earnestly set upon some learned
    meditation, and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how all the
    arteries of his brains are stretched forth and bent like the string of a
    crossbow, the more promptly, dexterously, and copiously to suppeditate,
    furnish, and supply him with store of spirits sufficient to replenish and
    fill up the ventricles, seats, tunnels, mansions, receptacles, and cellules
    of the common sense,—of the imagination, apprehension, and fancy,—of the
    ratiocination, arguing, and resolution,—as likewise of the memory,
    recordation, and remembrance; and with great alacrity, nimbleness, and
    agility to run, pass, and course from the one to the other, through those
    pipes, windings, and conduits which to skilful anatomists are perceivable
    at the end of the wonderful net where all the arteries close in a
    terminating point; which arteries, taking their rise and origin from the
    left capsule of the heart, bring through several circuits, ambages, and
    anfractuosities, the vital, to subtilize and refine them to the ethereal
    purity of animal spirits.  Nay, in such a studiously musing person you may
    espy so extravagant raptures of one as it were out of himself, that all his
    natural faculties for that time will seem to be suspended from each their
    proper charge and office, and his exterior senses to be at a stand.  In a
    word, you cannot otherwise choose than think that he is by an extraordinary
    ecstasy quite transported out of what he was, or should be; and that
    Socrates did not speak improperly when he said that philosophy was nothing
    else but a meditation upon death.  This possibly is the reason why
    Democritus deprived himself of the sense of seeing, prizing at a much lower
    rate the loss of his sight than the diminution of his contemplations, which
    he frequently had found disturbed by the vagrant, flying-out strayings of
    his unsettled and roving eyes.  Therefore is it that Pallas, the goddess of
    wisdom, tutoress and guardianess of such as are diligently studious and
    painfully industrious, is, and hath been still accounted a virgin.  The
    Muses upon the same consideration are esteemed perpetual maids; and the
    Graces, for the like reason, have been held to continue in a sempiternal
    pudicity.

    I remember to have read that Cupid, on a time being asked of his mother
    Venus why he did not assault and set upon the Muses, his answer was that he
    found them so fair, so sweet, so fine, so neat, so wise, so learned, so
    modest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and so continually busied
    and employed,—one in the speculation of the stars,—another in the
    supputation of numbers,—the third in the dimension of geometrical
    quantities,—the fourth in the composition of heroic poems,—the fifth in
    the jovial interludes of a comic strain,—the sixth in the stately gravity
    of a tragic vein,—the seventh in the melodious disposition of musical
    airs,—the eighth in the completest manner of writing histories and books
    on all sorts of subjects,—and the ninth in the mysteries, secrets, and
    curiosities of all sciences, faculties, disciplines, and arts whatsoever,
    whether liberal or mechanic,—that approaching near unto them he unbended
    his bow, shut his quiver, and extinguished his torch, through mere shame
    and fear that by mischance he might do them some hurt or prejudice.  Which
    done, he thereafter put off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound to
    look them in the face, and to hear their melody and poetic odes.  There
    took he the greatest pleasure in the world, that many times he was
    transported with their beauty and pretty behaviour, and charmed asleep by
    the harmony; so far was he from assaulting them or interrupting their
    studies.  Under this article may be comprised what Hippocrates wrote in the
    afore-cited treatise concerning the Scythians; as also that in a book of
    his entitled Of Breeding and Production, where he hath affirmed all such
    men to be unfit for generation as have their parotid arteries cut—whose
    situation is beside the ears—for the reason given already when I was
    speaking of the resolution of the spirits and of that spiritual blood
    whereof the arteries are the sole and proper receptacles, and that likewise
    he doth maintain a large portion of the parastatic liquor to issue and
    descend from the brains and backbone.

    Fifthly, By the too frequent reiteration of the act of venery.  There did I
    wait for you, quoth Panurge, and shall willingly apply it to myself, whilst
    anyone that pleaseth may, for me, make use of any of the four preceding.
    That is the very same thing, quoth Friar John, which Father Scyllino, Prior
    of Saint Victor at Marseilles, calleth by the name of maceration and taming
    of the flesh.  I am of the same opinion,—and so was the hermit of Saint
    Radegonde, a little above Chinon; for, quoth he, the hermits of Thebaide
    can no more aptly or expediently macerate and bring down the pride of their
    bodies, daunt and mortify their lecherous sensuality, or depress and
    overcome the stubbornness and rebellion of the flesh, than by duffling and
    fanfreluching it five-and-twenty or thirty times a day.  I see Panurge,
    quoth Rondibilis, neatly featured and proportioned in all the members of
    his body, of a good temperament in his humours, well-complexioned in his
    spirits, of a competent age, in an opportune time, and of a reasonably
    forward mind to be married.  Truly, if he encounter with a wife of the like
    nature, temperament, and constitution, he may beget upon her children
    worthy of some transpontine monarchy; and the sooner he marry it will be
    the better for him, and the more conducible for his profit if he would see
    and have his children in his own time well provided for.  Sir, my worthy
    master, quoth Panurge, I will do it, do not you doubt thereof, and that
    quickly enough, I warrant you.  Nevertheless, whilst you were busied in the
    uttering of your learned discourse, this flea which I have in mine ear hath
    tickled me more than ever.  I retain you in the number of my festival
    guests, and promise you that we shall not want for mirth and good cheer
    enough, yea, over and above the ordinary rate.  And, if it may please you,
    desire your wife to come along with you, together with her she-friends and
    neighbours—that is to be understood—and there shall be fair play.

    Chapter 3.XXXII. How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one of the appendances
    of marriage.

    There remaineth as yet, quoth Panurge, going on in his discourse, one small
    scruple to be cleared.  You have seen heretofore, I doubt not, in the Roman
    standards, S.P.Q.R., Si, Peu, Que, Rien.  Shall not I be a cuckold?  By the
    haven of safety, cried out Rondibilis, what is this you ask of me?  If you
    shall be a cuckold?  My noble friend, I am married, and you are like to be
    so very speedily; therefore be pleased, from my experiment in the matter,
    to write in your brain with a steel pen this subsequent ditton, There is no
    married man who doth not run the hazard of being made a cuckold.  Cuckoldry
    naturally attendeth marriage.  The shadow doth not more naturally follow
    the body, than cuckoldry ensueth after marriage to place fair horns upon
    the husbands' heads.

    And when you shall happen to hear any man pronounce these three words, He
    is married; if you then say he is, hath been, shall be, or may be a
    cuckold, you will not be accounted an unskilful artist in framing of true
    consequences.  Tripes and bowels of all the devils, cries Panurge, what do
    you tell me?  My dear friend, answered Rondibilis, as Hippocrates on a time
    was in the very nick of setting forwards from Lango to Polystilo to visit
    the philosopher Democritus, he wrote a familiar letter to his friend
    Dionysius, wherein he desired him that he would, during the interval of his
    absence, carry his wife to the house of her father and mother, who were an
    honourable couple and of good repute; because I would not have her at my
    home, said he, to make abode in solitude.  Yet, notwithstanding this her
    residence beside her parents, do not fail, quoth he, with a most heedful
    care and circumspection to pry into her ways, and to espy what places she
    shall go to with her mother, and who those be that shall repair unto her.
    Not, quoth he, that I do mistrust her virtue, or that I seem to have any
    diffidence of her pudicity and chaste behaviour,—for of that I have
    frequently had good and real proofs,—but I must freely tell you, She is a
    woman.  There lies the suspicion.

    My worthy friend, the nature of women is set forth before our eyes and
    represented to us by the moon, in divers other things as well as in this,
    that they squat, skulk, constrain their own inclinations, and, with all the
    cunning they can, dissemble and play the hypocrite in the sight and
    presence of their husbands; who come no sooner to be out of the way, but
    that forthwith they take their advantage, pass the time merrily, desist
    from all labour, frolic it, gad abroad, lay aside their counterfeit garb,
    and openly declare and manifest the interior of their dispositions, even as
    the moon, when she is in conjunction with the sun, is neither seen in the
    heavens nor on the earth, but in her opposition, when remotest from him,
    shineth in her greatest fulness, and wholly appeareth in her brightest
    splendour whilst it is night.  Thus women are but women.

    When I say womankind, I speak of a sex so frail, so variable, so
    changeable, so fickle, inconstant, and imperfect, that in my opinion
    Nature, under favour, nevertheless, of the prime honour and reverence which
    is due unto her, did in a manner mistake the road which she had traced
    formerly, and stray exceedingly from that excellence of providential
    judgment by the which she had created and formed all other things, when she
    built, framed, and made up the woman.  And having thought upon it a hundred
    and five times, I know not what else to determine therein, save only that
    in the devising, hammering, forging, and composing of the woman she hath
    had a much tenderer regard, and by a great deal more respectful heed to the
    delightful consortship and sociable delectation of the man, than to the
    perfection and accomplishment of the individual womanishness or muliebrity.
    The divine philosopher Plato was doubtful in what rank of living creatures
    to place and collocate them, whether amongst the rational animals, by
    elevating them to an upper seat in the specifical classis of humanity, or
    with the irrational, by degrading them to a lower bench on the opposite
    side, of a brutal kind, and mere bestiality.  For nature hath posited in a
    privy, secret, and intestine place of their bodies, a sort of member, by
    some not impertinently termed an animal, which is not to be found in men.
    Therein sometimes are engendered certain humours so saltish, brackish,
    clammy, sharp, nipping, tearing, prickling, and most eagerly tickling, that
    by their stinging acrimony, rending nitrosity, figging itch, wriggling
    mordicancy, and smarting salsitude (for the said member is altogether
    sinewy and of a most quick and lively feeling), their whole body is shaken
    and ebrangled, their senses totally ravished and transported, the
    operations of their judgment and understanding utterly confounded, and all
    disordinate passions and perturbations of the mind thoroughly and
    absolutely allowed, admitted, and approved of; yea, in such sort that if
    nature had not been so favourable unto them as to have sprinkled their
    forehead with a little tincture of bashfulness and modesty, you should see
    them in a so frantic mood run mad after lechery, and hie apace up and down
    with haste and lust, in quest of and to fix some chamber-standard in their
    Paphian ground, that never did the Proetides, Mimallonides, nor Lyaean
    Thyades deport themselves in the time of their bacchanalian festivals more
    shamelessly, or with a so affronted and brazen-faced impudency; because
    this terrible animal is knit unto, and hath an union with all the chief and
    most principal parts of the body, as to anatomists is evident.  Let it not
    here be thought strange that I should call it an animal, seeing therein I
    do no otherwise than follow and adhere to the doctrine of the academic and
    peripatetic philosophers.  For if a proper motion be a certain mark and
    infallible token of the life and animation of the mover, as Aristotle
    writeth, and that any such thing as moveth of itself ought to be held
    animated and of a living nature, then assuredly Plato with very good reason
    did give it the denomination of an animal, for that he perceived and
    observed in it the proper and self-stirring motions of suffocation,
    precipitation, corrugation, and of indignation so extremely violent, that
    oftentimes by them is taken and removed from the woman all other sense and
    moving whatsoever, as if she were in a swounding lipothymy, benumbing
    syncope, epileptic, apoplectic palsy, and true resemblance of a pale-faced
    death.

    Furthermore, in the said member there is a manifest discerning faculty of
    scents and odours very perceptible to women, who feel it fly from what is
    rank and unsavoury, and follow fragrant and aromatic smells.  It is not
    unknown to me how Cl. Galen striveth with might and main to prove that
    these are not proper and particular notions proceeding intrinsically from
    the thing itself, but accidentally and by chance.  Nor hath it escaped my
    notice how others of that sect have laboured hardly, yea, to the utmost of
    their abilities, to demonstrate that it is not a sensitive discerning or
    perception in it of the difference of wafts and smells, but merely a
    various manner of virtue and efficacy passing forth and flowing from the
    diversity of odoriferous substances applied near unto it.  Nevertheless, if
    you will studiously examine and seriously ponder and weigh in Critolaus's
    balance the strength of their reasons and arguments, you shall find that
    they, not only in this, but in several other matters also of the like
    nature, have spoken at random, and rather out of an ambitious envy to check
    and reprehend their betters than for any design to make inquiry into the
    solid truth.

    I will not launch my little skiff any further into the wide ocean of this
    dispute, only will I tell you that the praise and commendation is not mean
    and slender which is due to those honest and good women who, living
    chastely and without blame, have had the power and virtue to curb, range,
    and subdue that unbridled, heady, and wild animal to an obedient,
    submissive, and obsequious yielding unto reason.  Therefore here will I
    make an end of my discourse thereon, when I shall have told you that the
    said animal being once satiated—if it be possible that it can be contented
    or satisfied—by that aliment which nature hath provided for it out of the
    epididymal storehouse of man, all its former and irregular and disordered
    motions are at an end, laid, and assuaged, all its vehement and unruly
    longings lulled, pacified, and quieted, and all the furious and raging
    lusts, appetites, and desires thereof appeased, calmed, and extinguished.
    For this cause let it seem nothing strange unto you if we be in a perpetual
    danger of being cuckolds, that is to say, such of us as have not
    wherewithal fully to satisfy the appetite and expectation of that voracious
    animal.  Odds fish! quoth Panurge, have you no preventive cure in all your
    medicinal art for hindering one's head to be horny-graffed at home whilst
    his feet are plodding abroad?  Yes, that I have, my gallant friend,
    answered Rondibilis, and that which is a sovereign remedy, whereof I
    frequently make use myself; and, that you may the better relish, it is set
    down and written in the book of a most famous author, whose renown is of a
    standing of two thousand years.  Hearken and take good heed.  You are,
    quoth Panurge, by cockshobby, a right honest man, and I love you with all
    my heart.  Eat a little of this quince-pie; it is very proper and
    convenient for the shutting up of the orifice of the ventricle of the
    stomach, because of a kind of astringent stypticity which is in that sort
    of fruit, and is helpful to the first concoction.  But what? I think I
    speak Latin before clerks.  Stay till I give you somewhat to drink out of
    this Nestorian goblet.  Will you have another draught of white hippocras?
    Be not afraid of the squinzy, no.  There is neither squinant, ginger, nor
    grains in it; only a little choice cinnamon, and some of the best refined
    sugar, with the delicious white wine of the growth of that vine which was
    set in the slips of the great sorbapple above the walnut-tree.

    Chapter 3.XXXIII. Rondibilis the physician's cure of cuckoldry.

    At that time, quoth Rondibilis, when Jupiter took a view of the state of
    his Olympic house and family, and that he had made the calendar of all the
    gods and goddesses, appointing unto the festival of every one of them its
    proper day and season, establishing certain fixed places and stations for
    the pronouncing of oracles and relief of travelling pilgrims, and ordaining
    victims, immolations, and sacrifices suitable and correspondent to the
    dignity and nature of the worshipped and adored deity—Did not he do, asked
    Panurge, therein as Tintouille, the Bishop of Auxerre, is said once to have
    done?  This noble prelate loved entirely the pure liquor of the grape, as
    every honest and judicious man doth; therefore was it that he had an
    especial care and regard to the bud of the vine-tree as to the great-
    grandfather of Bacchus.  But so it is, that for sundry years together he
    saw a most pitiful havoc, desolation, and destruction made amongst the
    sprouts, shootings, buds, blossoms, and scions of the vines by hoary frost,
    dank fogs, hot mists, unseasonable colds, chill blasts, thick hail, and
    other calamitous chances of foul weather, happening, as he thought, by the
    dismal inauspiciousness of the holy days of St. George, St. Mary, St. Paul,
    St. Eutrope, Holy Rood, the Ascension, and other festivals, in that time
    when the sun passeth under the sign of Taurus; and thereupon harboured in
    his mind this opinion, that the afore-named saints were Saint Hail-
    flingers, Saint Frost-senders, Saint Fog-mongers, and Saint Spoilers of the
    Vine-buds.  For which cause he went about to have transmitted their feasts
    from the spring to the winter, to be celebrated between Christmas and
    Epiphany, so the mother of the three kings called it, allowing them with
    all honour and reverence the liberty then to freeze, hail, and rain as much
    as they would; for that he knew that at such a time frost was rather
    profitable than hurtful to the vine-buds, and in their steads to have
    placed the festivals of St. Christopher, St. John the Baptist, St.
    Magdalene, St. Anne, St. Domingo, and St. Lawrence; yea, and to have gone
    so far as to collocate and transpose the middle of August in and to the
    beginning of May, because during the whole space of their solemnity there
    was so little danger of hoary frosts and cold mists, that no artificers are
    then held in greater request than the afforders of refrigerating
    inventions, makers of junkets, fit disposers of cooling shades, composers
    of green arbours, and refreshers of wine.

    Jupiter, said Rondibilis, forgot the poor devil Cuckoldry, who was then in
    the court at Paris very eagerly soliciting a peddling suit at law for one
    of his vassals and tenants.  Within some few days thereafter, I have forgot
    how many, when he got full notice of the trick which in his absence was
    done unto him, he instantly desisted from prosecuting legal processes in
    the behalf of others, full of solicitude to pursue after his own business,
    lest he should be foreclosed, and thereupon he appeared personally at the
    tribunal of the great Jupiter, displayed before him the importance of his
    preceding merits, together with the acceptable services which in obedience
    to his commandments he had formerly performed; and therefore in all
    humility begged of him that he would be pleased not to leave him alone
    amongst all the sacred potentates, destitute and void of honour, reverence,
    sacrifices, and festival ceremonies.  To this petition Jupiter's answer was
    excusatory, that all the places and offices of his house were bestowed.
    Nevertheless, so importuned was he by the continual supplications of
    Monsieur Cuckoldry, that he, in fine, placed him in the rank, list, roll,
    rubric, and catalogue, and appointed honours, sacrifices, and festival
    rites to be observed on earth in great devotion, and tendered to him with
    solemnity.  The feast, because there was no void, empty, nor vacant place
    in all the calendar, was to be celebrated jointly with, and on the same day
    that had been consecrated to the goddess Jealousy.  His power and dominion
    should be over married folks, especially such as had handsome wives.  His
    sacrifices were to be suspicion, diffidence, mistrust, a lowering pouting
    sullenness, watchings, wardings, researchings, plyings, explorations,
    together with the waylayings, ambushes, narrow observations, and malicious
    doggings of the husband's scouts and espials of the most privy actions of
    their wives.  Herewithal every married man was expressly and rigorously
    commanded to reverence, honour, and worship him, to celebrate and solemnize
    his festival with twice more respect than that of any other saint or deity,
    and to immolate unto him with all sincerity and alacrity of heart the
    above-mentioned sacrifices and oblations, under pain of severe censures,
    threatenings, and comminations of these subsequent fines, mulcts,
    amerciaments, penalties, and punishments to be inflicted on the
    delinquents:  that Monsieur Cuckoldry should never be favourable nor
    propitious to them; that he should never help, aid, supply, succour, nor
    grant them any subventitious furtherance, auxiliary suffrage, or
    adminiculary assistance; that he should never hold them in any reckoning,
    account, or estimation; that he should never deign to enter within their
    houses, neither at the doors, windows, nor any other place thereof; that he
    should never haunt nor frequent their companies or conversations, how
    frequently soever they should invocate him and call upon his name; and that
    not only he should leave and abandon them to rot alone with their wives in
    a sempiternal solitariness, without the benefit of the diversion of any
    copes-mate or corrival at all, but should withal shun and eschew them, fly
    from them, and eternally forsake and reject them as impious heretics and
    sacrilegious persons, according to the accustomed manner of other gods
    towards such as are too slack in offering up the duties and reverences
    which ought to be performed respectively to their divinities—as is
    evidently apparent in Bacchus towards negligent vine-dressers; in Ceres,
    against idle ploughmen and tillers of the ground; in Pomona, to unworthy
    fruiterers and costard-mongers; in Neptune, towards dissolute mariners and
    seafaring men, in Vulcan, towards loitering smiths and forgemen; and so
    throughout the rest.  Now, on the contrary, this infallible promise was
    added, that unto all those who should make a holy day of the above-recited
    festival, and cease from all manner of worldly work and negotiation, lay
    aside all their own most important occasions, and to be so retchless,
    heedless, and careless of what might concern the management of their proper
    affairs as to mind nothing else but a suspicious espying and prying into
    the secret deportments of their wives, and how to coop, shut up, hold at
    under, and deal cruelly and austerely with them by all the harshness and
    hardships that an implacable and every way inexorable jealousy can devise
    and suggest, conform to the sacred ordinances of the afore-mentioned
    sacrifices and oblations, he should be continually favourable to them,
    should love them, sociably converse with them, should be day and night in
    their houses, and never leave them destitute of his presence.  Now I have
    said, and you have heard my cure.

    Ha, ha, ha! quoth Carpalin, laughing; this is a remedy yet more apt and
    proper than Hans Carvel's ring.  The devil take me if I do not believe it!
    The humour, inclination, and nature of women is like the thunder, whose
    force in its bolt or otherwise burneth, bruiseth, and breaketh only hard,
    massive, and resisting objects, without staying or stopping at soft, empty,
    and yielding matters.  For it pasheth into pieces the steel sword without
    doing any hurt to the velvet scabbard which ensheatheth it.  It chrusheth
    also and consumeth the bones without wounding or endamaging the flesh
    wherewith they are veiled and covered.  Just so it is that women for the
    greater part never bend the contention, subtlety, and contradictory
    disposition of their spirits unless it be to do what is prohibited and
    forbidden.

    Verily, quoth Hippothadee, some of our doctors aver for a truth that the
    first woman of the world, whom the Hebrews call Eve, had hardly been
    induced or allured into the temptation of eating of the fruit of the Tree
    of Life if it had not been forbidden her so to do.  And that you may give
    the more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the cautelous
    and wily tempter did commemorate unto her, for an antecedent to his
    enthymeme, the prohibition which was made to taste it, as being desirous to
    infer from thence, It is forbidden thee; therefore thou shouldst eat of it,
    else thou canst not be a woman.

    Chapter 3.XXXIV. How women ordinarily have the greatest longing after things prohibited.

    When I was, quoth Carpalin, a whoremaster at Orleans, the whole art of
    rhetoric, in all its tropes and figures, was not able to afford unto me a
    colour or flourish of greater force and value, nor could I by any other
    form or manner of elocution pitch upon a more persuasive argument for
    bringing young beautiful married ladies into the snares of adultery,
    through alluring and enticing them to taste with me of amorous delights,
    than with a lively sprightfulness to tell them in downright terms, and to
    remonstrate to them with a great show of detestation of a crime so horrid,
    how their husbands were jealous.  This was none of my invention.  It is
    written, and we have laws, examples, reasons, and daily experiences
    confirmative of the same.  If this belief once enter into their noddles,
    their husbands will infallibly be cuckolds; yea, by God, will they, without
    swearing, although they should do like Semiramis, Pasiphae, Egesta, the
    women of the Isle Mandez in Egypt, and other such-like queanish flirting
    harlots mentioned in the writings of Herodotus, Strabo, and such-like
    puppies.

    Truly, quoth Ponocrates, I have heard it related, and it hath been told me
    for a verity, that Pope John XXII., passing on a day through the Abbey of
    Toucherome, was in all humility required and besought by the abbess and
    other discreet mothers of the said convent to grant them an indulgence by
    means whereof they might confess themselves to one another, alleging that
    religious women were subject to some petty secret slips and imperfections
    which would be a foul and burning shame for them to discover and to reveal
    to men, how sacerdotal soever their functions were; but that they would
    freelier, more familiarly, and with greater cheerfulness, open to each
    other their offences, faults, and escapes under the seal of confession.
    There is not anything, answered the pope, fitting for you to impetrate of
    me which I would not most willingly condescend unto; but I find one
    inconvenience.  You know confession should be kept secret, and women are
    not able to do so.  Exceeding well, quoth they, most holy father, and much
    more closely than the best of men.

    The said pope on the very same day gave them in keeping a pretty box,
    wherein he purposely caused a little linnet to be put, willing them very
    gently and courteously to lock it up in some sure and hidden place, and
    promising them, by the faith of a pope, that he should yield to their
    request if they would keep secret what was enclosed within that deposited
    box, enjoining them withal not to presume one way nor other, directly or
    indirectly, to go about the opening thereof, under pain of the highest
    ecclesiastical censure, eternal excommunication.  The prohibition was no
    sooner made but that they did all of them boil with a most ardent desire to
    know and see what kind of thing it was that was within it.  They thought
    long already that the pope was not gone, to the end they might jointly,
    with the more leisure and ease, apply themselves to the box-opening
    curiosity.

    The holy father, after he had given them his benediction, retired and
    withdrew himself to the pontifical lodgings of his own palace.  But he was
    hardly gone three steps from without the gates of their cloister when the
    good ladies throngingly, and as in a huddled crowd, pressing hard on the
    backs of one another, ran thrusting and shoving who should be first at the
    setting open of the forbidden box and descrying of the quod latitat within.

    On the very next day thereafter the pope made them another visit, of a full
    design, purpose, and intention, as they imagined, to despatch the grant of
    their sought and wished-for indulgence.  But before he would enter into any
    chat or communing with them, he commanded the casket to be brought unto
    him.  It was done so accordingly; but, by your leave, the bird was no more
    there.  Then was it that the pope did represent to their maternities how
    hard a matter and difficult it was for them to keep secrets revealed to
    them in confession unmanifested to the ears of others, seeing for the space
    of four-and-twenty hours they were not able to lay up in secret a box which
    he had highly recommended to their discretion, charge, and custody.

    Welcome, in good faith, my dear master, welcome!  It did me good to hear
    you talk, the Lord be praised for all!  I do not remember to have seen you
    before now, since the last time that you acted at Montpellier with our
    ancient friends, Anthony Saporra, Guy Bourguyer, Balthasar Noyer, Tolet,
    John Quentin, Francis Robinet, John Perdrier, and Francis Rabelais, the
    moral comedy of him who had espoused and married a dumb wife.  I was there,
    quoth Epistemon.  The good honest man her husband was very earnestly urgent
    to have the fillet of her tongue untied, and would needs have her speak by
    any means.  At his desire some pains were taken on her, and partly by the
    industry of the physician, other part by the expertness of the surgeon, the
    encyliglotte which she had under her tongue being cut, she spoke and spoke
    again; yea, within a few hours she spoke so loud, so much, so fiercely, and
    so long, that her poor husband returned to the same physician for a recipe
    to make her hold her peace.  There are, quoth the physician, many proper
    remedies in our art to make dumb women speak, but there are none that ever
    I could learn therein to make them silent.  The only cure which I have
    found out is their husband's deafness.  The wretch became within few weeks
    thereafter, by virtue of some drugs, charms, or enchantments which the
    physician had prescribed unto him, so deaf that he could not have heard the
    thundering of nineteen hundred cannons at a salvo.  His wife perceiving
    that indeed he was as deaf as a door-nail, and that her scolding was but in
    vain, sith that he heard her not, she grew stark mad.

    Some time after the doctor asked for his fee of the husband, who answered
    that truly he was deaf, and so was not able to understand what the tenour
    of his demand might be.  Whereupon the leech bedusted him with a little, I
    know not what, sort of powder, which rendered him a fool immediately, so
    great was the stultificating virtue of that strange kind of pulverized
    dose.  Then did this fool of a husband and his mad wife join together, and,
    falling on the doctor and the surgeon, did so scratch, bethwack, and bang
    them that they were left half dead upon the place, so furious were the
    blows which they received.  I never in my lifetime laughed so much as at
    the acting of that buffoonery.

    Let us come to where we left off, quoth Panurge.  Your words, being
    translated from the clapper-dudgeons to plain English, do signify that it
    is not very inexpedient that I marry, and that I should not care for being
    a cuckold.  You have there hit the nail on the head.  I believe, master
    doctor, that on the day of my marriage you will be so much taken up with
    your patients, or otherwise so seriously employed, that we shall not enjoy
    your company.  Sir, I will heartily excuse your absence.

      Stercus et urina medici sunt prandia prima.
      Ex aliis paleas, ex istis collige grana.

    You are mistaken, quoth Rondibilis, in the second verse of our distich, for
    it ought to run thus—

      Nobis sunt signa, vobis sunt prandia digna.

    If my wife at any time prove to be unwell and ill at ease, I will look upon
    the water which she shall have made in an urinal glass, quoth Rondibilis,
    grope her pulse, and see the disposition of her hypogaster, together with
    her umbilicary parts—according to the prescript rule of Hippocrates, 2.
    Aph. 35—before I proceed any further in the cure of her distemper.  No,
    no, quoth Panurge, that will be but to little purpose.  Such a feat is for
    the practice of us that are lawyers, who have the rubric, De ventre
    inspiciendo.  Do not therefore trouble yourself about it, master doctor; I
    will provide for her a plaster of warm guts.  Do not neglect your more
    urgent occasions otherwhere for coming to my wedding.  I will send you some
    supply of victuals to your own house, without putting you to the trouble of
    coming abroad, and you shall always be my special friend.  With this,
    approaching somewhat nearer to him, he clapped into his hand, without the
    speaking of so much as one word, four rose nobles.  Rondibilis did shut his
    fist upon them right kindly; yet, as if it had displeased him to make
    acceptance of such golden presents, he in a start, as if he had been wroth,
    said, He he, he, he, he! there was no need of anything; I thank you
    nevertheless.  From wicked folks I never get enough, and I from honest
    people refuse nothing.  I shall be always, sir, at your command.  Provided
    that I pay you well, quoth Panurge.  That, quoth Rondibilis, is understood.

    Chapter 3.XXXV. How the philosopher Trouillogan handleth the difficulty of marriage.

    As this discourse was ended, Pantagruel said to the philosopher
    Trouillogan, Our loyal, honest, true, and trusty friend, the lamp from hand
    to hand is come to you.  It falleth to your turn to give an answer:  Should
    Panurge, pray you, marry, yea or no?  He should do both, quoth Trouillogan.
    What say you? asked Panurge.  That which you have heard, answered
    Trouillogan.  What have I heard? replied Panurge.  That which I have said,
    replied Trouillogan.  Ha, ha, ha! are we come to that pass? quoth Panurge.
    Let it go nevertheless, I do not value it at a rush, seeing we can make no
    better of the game.  But howsoever tell me, Should I marry or no?  Neither
    the one nor the other, answered Trouillogan.  The devil take me, quoth
    Panurge, if these odd answers do not make me dote, and may he snatch me
    presently away if I do understand you.  Stay awhile until I fasten these
    spectacles of mine on this left ear, that I may hear you better.  With this
    Pantagruel perceived at the door of the great hall, which was that day
    their dining-room, Gargantua's little dog, whose name was Kyne; for so was
    Toby's dog called, as is recorded.  Then did he say to these who were there
    present, Our king is not far off,—let us all rise.

    That word was scarcely sooner uttered, than that Gargantua with his royal
    presence graced that banqueting and stately hall.  Each of the guests arose
    to do their king that reverence and duty which became them.  After that
    Gargantua had most affably saluted all the gentlemen there present, he
    said, Good friends, I beg this favour of you, and therein you will very
    much oblige me, that you leave not the places where you sate nor quit the
    discourse you were upon.  Let a chair be brought hither unto this end of
    the table, and reach me a cupful of the strongest and best wine you have,
    that I may drink to all the company.  You are, in faith, all welcome,
    gentlemen.  Now let me know what talk you were about.  To this Pantagruel
    answered that at the beginning of the second service Panurge had proposed a
    problematic theme, to wit, whether he should marry, or not marry? that
    Father Hippothadee and Doctor Rondibilis had already despatched their
    resolutions thereupon; and that, just as his majesty was coming in, the
    faithful Trouillogan in the delivery of his opinion hath thus far
    proceeded, that when Panurge asked whether he ought to marry, yea or no? at
    first he made this answer, Both together.  When this same question was
    again propounded, his second answer was, Neither the one nor the other.
    Panurge exclaimeth that those answers are full of repugnancies and
    contradictions, protesting that he understands them not, nor what it is
    that can be meant by them.  If I be not mistaken, quoth Gargantua, I
    understand it very well.  The answer is not unlike to that which was once
    made by a philosopher in ancient times, who being interrogated if he had a
    woman whom they named him to his wife?  I have her, quoth he, but she hath
    not me,—possessing her, by her I am not possessed.  Such another answer,
    quoth Pantagruel, was once made by a certain bouncing wench of Sparta, who
    being asked if at any time she had had to do with a man? No, quoth she, but
    sometimes men have had to do with me.  Well then, quoth Rondibilis, let it
    be a neuter in physic, as when we say a body is neuter, when it is neither
    sick nor healthful, and a mean in philosophy; that, by an abnegation of
    both extremes, and this by the participation of the one and of the other.
    Even as when lukewarm water is said to be both hot and cold; or rather, as
    when time makes the partition, and equally divides betwixt the two, a while
    in the one, another while as long in the other opposite extremity.  The
    holy Apostle, quoth Hippothadee, seemeth, as I conceive, to have more
    clearly explained this point when he said, Those that are married, let them
    be as if they were not married; and those that have wives, let them be as
    if they had no wives at all.  I thus interpret, quoth Pantagruel, the
    having and not having of a wife.  To have a wife is to have the use of her
    in such a way as nature hath ordained, which is for the aid, society, and
    solace of man, and propagating of his race.  To have no wife is not to be
    uxorious, play the coward, and be lazy about her, and not for her sake to
    distain the lustre of that affection which man owes to God, or yet for her
    to leave those offices and duties which he owes unto his country, unto his
    friends and kindred, or for her to abandon and forsake his precious
    studies, and other businesses of account, to wait still on her will, her
    beck, and her buttocks.  If we be pleased in this sense to take having and
    not having of a wife, we shall indeed find no repugnancy nor contradiction
    in the terms at all.

    Chapter 3.XXXVI. A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian philosopher
    Trouillogan.

    You speak wisely, quoth Panurge, if the moon were green cheese.  Such a
    tale once pissed my goose.  I do not think but that I am let down into that
    dark pit in the lowermost bottom whereof the truth was hid, according to
    the saying of Heraclitus.  I see no whit at all, I hear nothing, understand
    as little, my senses are altogether dulled and blunted; truly I do very
    shrewdly suspect that I am enchanted.  I will now alter the former style of
    my discourse, and talk to him in another strain.  Our trusty friend, stir
    not, nor imburse any; but let us vary the chance, and speak without
    disjunctives.  I see already that these loose and ill-joined members of an
    enunciation do vex, trouble, and perplex you.

      Now go on, in the name of God!  Should I marry?

      Trouillogan.  There is some likelihood therein.

      Panurge.  But if I do not marry?

      Trouil.  I see in that no inconvenience.

      Pan.  You do not?

      Trouil.  None, truly, if my eyes deceive me not.

      Pan.  Yea, but I find more than five hundred.

      Trouil.  Reckon them.

      Pan.  This is an impropriety of speech, I confess; for I do no more
    thereby but take a certain for an uncertain number, and posit the
    determinate term for what is indeterminate.  When I say, therefore, five
    hundred, my meaning is many.

      Trouil.  I hear you.

    Pan.  Is it possible for me to live without a wife, in the name of all the
    subterranean devils?

      Trouil.  Away with these filthy beasts.

      Pan.  Let it be, then, in the name of God; for my Salmigondinish people
    use to say, To lie alone, without a wife, is certainly a brutish life.  And
    such a life also was it assevered to be by Dido in her lamentations.

      Trouil.  At your command.

      Pan.  By the pody cody, I have fished fair; where are we now?  But will
    you tell me?  Shall I marry?

      Trouil.  Perhaps.

      Pan.  Shall I thrive or speed well withal?

      Trouil.  According to the encounter.

      Pan.  But if in my adventure I encounter aright, as I hope I will, shall
    I be fortunate?

      Trouil.  Enough.

      Pan.  Let us turn the clean contrary way, and brush our former words
    against the wool:  what if I encounter ill?

      Trouil.  Then blame not me.

      Pan.  But, of courtesy, be pleased to give me some advice.  I heartily
    beseech you, what must I do?

      Trouil.  Even what thou wilt.

      Pan.  Wishy, washy; trolly, trolly.

      Trouil.  Do not invocate the name of anything, I pray you.

      Pan.  In the name of God, let it be so!  My actions shall be regulated by
    the rule and square of your counsel.  What is it that you advise and
    counsel me to do?

      Trouil.  Nothing.

      Pan.  Shall I marry?

      Trouil.  I have no hand in it.

      Pan.  Then shall I not marry?

      Trouil.  I cannot help it.

      Pan.  If I never marry, I shall never be a cuckold.

      Trouil.  I thought so.

      Pan.  But put the case that I be married.

      Trouil.  Where shall we put it?

      Pan.  Admit it be so, then, and take my meaning in that sense.

      Trouil.  I am otherwise employed.

      Pan.  By the death of a hog, and mother of a toad, O Lord! if I durst
    hazard upon a little fling at the swearing game, though privily and under
    thumb, it would lighten the burden of my heart and ease my lights and reins
    exceedingly.  A little patience nevertheless is requisite.  Well then, if I
    marry, I shall be a cuckold.

      Trouil.  One would say so.

      Pan.  Yet if my wife prove a virtuous, wise, discreet, and chaste woman,
    I shall never be cuckolded.

      Trouil.  I think you speak congruously.

      Pan.  Hearken.

      Trouil.  As much as you will.

      Pan.  Will she be discreet and chaste?  This is the only point I would be
    resolved in.

      Trouil.  I question it.

      Pan.  You never saw her?

      Trouil.  Not that I know of.

      Pan.  Why do you then doubt of that which you know not?

      Trouil.  For a cause.

      Pan.  And if you should know her.

      Trouil.  Yet more.

      Pan.  Page, my pretty little darling, take here my cap,—I give it thee.
    Have a care you do not break the spectacles that are in it.  Go down to the
    lower court.  Swear there half an hour for me, and I shall in compensation
    of that favour swear hereafter for thee as much as thou wilt.  But who
    shall cuckold me?

      Trouil.  Somebody.

      Pan.  By the belly of the wooden horse at Troy, Master Somebody, I shall
    bang, belam thee, and claw thee well for thy labour.

      Trouil.  You say so.

      Pan.  Nay, nay, that Nick in the dark cellar, who hath no white in his
    eye, carry me quite away with him if, in that case, whensoever I go abroad
    from the palace of my domestic residence, I do not, with as much
    circumspection as they use to ring mares in our country to keep them from
    being sallied by stoned horses, clap a Bergamasco lock upon my wife.

      Trouil.  Talk better.

      Pan.  It is bien chien, chie chante, well cacked and cackled, shitten,
    and sung in matter of talk.  Let us resolve on somewhat.

      Trouil.  I do not gainsay it.

      Pan.  Have a little patience.  Seeing I cannot on this side draw any
    blood of you, I will try if with the lancet of my judgment I be able to
    bleed you in another vein.  Are you married, or are you not?

      Trouil.  Neither the one nor the other, and both together.

      Pan.  O the good God help us!  By the death of a buffle-ox, I sweat with
    the toil and travail that I am put to, and find my digestion broke off,
    disturbed, and interrupted, for all my phrenes, metaphrenes, and
    diaphragms, back, belly, midriff, muscles, veins, and sinews are held in a
    suspense and for a while discharged from their proper offices to stretch
    forth their several powers and abilities for incornifistibulating and
    laying up into the hamper of my understanding your various sayings and
    answers.

      Trouil.  I shall be no hinderer thereof.

      Pan.  Tush, for shame!  Our faithful friend, speak; are you married?

      Trouil.  I think so.

      Pan.  You were also married before you had this wife?

      Trouil.  It is possible.

      Pan.  Had you good luck in your first marriage?

      Trouil.  It is not impossible.

      Pan.  How thrive you with this second wife of yours?

      Trouil.  Even as it pleaseth my fatal destiny.

      Pan.  But what, in good earnest?  Tell me—do you prosper well with her?

      Trouil.  It is likely.

      Pan.  Come on, in the name of God.  I vow, by the burden of Saint
    Christopher, that I had rather undertake the fetching of a fart forth of
    the belly of a dead ass than to draw out of you a positive and determinate
    resolution.  Yet shall I be sure at this time to have a snatch at you, and
    get my claws over you.  Our trusty friend, let us shame the devil of hell,
    and confess the verity.  Were you ever a cuckold?  I say, you who are here,
    and not that other you who playeth below in the tennis-court?

      Trouil.  No, if it was not predestinated.

      Pan.  By the flesh, blood, and body, I swear, reswear, forswear, abjure,
    and renounce, he evades and avoids, shifts, and escapes me, and quite slips
    and winds himself out of my grips and clutches.

    At these words Gargantua arose and said, Praised be the good God in all
    things, but especially for bringing the world into that height of
    refinedness beyond what it was when I first came to be acquainted
    therewith, that now the learnedst and most prudent philosophers are not
    ashamed to be seen entering in at the porches and frontispieces of the
    schools of the Pyrrhonian, Aporrhetic, Sceptic, and Ephectic sects.
    Blessed be the holy name of God!  Veritably, it is like henceforth to be
    found an enterprise of much more easy undertaking to catch lions by the
    neck, horses by the main, oxen by the horns, bulls by the muzzle, wolves by
    the tail, goats by the beard, and flying birds by the feet, than to entrap
    such philosophers in their words.  Farewell, my worthy, dear, and honest
    friends.

    When he had done thus speaking, he withdrew himself from the company.
    Pantagruel and others with him would have followed and accompanied him, but
    he would not permit them so to do.  No sooner was Gargantua departed out of
    the banqueting-hall than that Pantagruel said to the invited guests:
    Plato's Timaeus, at the beginning always of a solemn festival convention,
    was wont to count those that were called thereto.  We, on the contrary,
    shall at the closure and end of this treatment reckon up our number.  One,
    two, three; where is the fourth?  I miss my friend Bridlegoose.  Was not he
    sent for?  Epistemon answered that he had been at his house to bid and
    invite him, but could not meet with him; for that a messenger from the
    parliament of Mirlingois, in Mirlingues, was come to him with a writ of
    summons to cite and warn him personally to appear before the reverend
    senators of the high court there, to vindicate and justify himself at the
    bar of the crime of prevarication laid to his charge, and to be
    peremptorily instanced against him in a certain decree, judgment, or
    sentence lately awarded, given, and pronounced by him; and that, therefore,
    he had taken horse and departed in great haste from his own house, to the
    end that without peril or danger of falling into a default or contumacy he
    might be the better able to keep the prefixed and appointed time.

    I will, quoth Pantagruel, understand how that matter goeth.  It is now
    above forty years that he hath been constantly the judge of Fonsbeton,
    during which space of time he hath given four thousand definitive
    sentences, of two thousand three hundred and nine whereof, although appeal
    was made by the parties whom he had judicially condemned from his inferior
    judicatory to the supreme court of the parliament of Mirlingois, in
    Mirlingues, they were all of them nevertheless confirmed, ratified, and
    approved of by an order, decree, and final sentence of the said sovereign
    court, to the casting of the appellants, and utter overthrow of the suits
    wherein they had been foiled at law, for ever and a day.  That now in his
    old age he should be personally summoned, who in all the foregoing time of
    his life hath demeaned himself so unblamably in the discharge of the office
    and vocation he had been called unto, it cannot assuredly be that such a
    change hath happened without some notorious misfortune and disaster.  I am
    resolved to help and assist him in equity and justice to the uttermost
    extent of my power and ability.  I know the malice, despite, and wickedness
    of the world to be so much more nowadays exasperated, increased, and
    aggravated by what it was not long since, that the best cause that is, how
    just and equitable soever it be, standeth in great need to be succoured,
    aided, and supported.  Therefore presently, from this very instant forth,
    do I purpose, till I see the event and closure thereof, most heedfully to
    attend and wait upon it, for fear of some underhand tricky surprisal,
    cavilling pettifoggery, or fallacious quirks in law, to his detriment,
    hurt, or disadvantage.

    Then dinner being done, and the tables drawn and removed, when Pantagruel
    had very cordially and affectionately thanked his invited guests for the
    favour which he had enjoyed of their company, he presented them with
    several rich and costly gifts, such as jewels, rings set with precious
    stones, gold and silver vessels, with a great deal of other sort of plate
    besides, and lastly, taking of them all his leave, retired himself into an
    inner chamber.

    Chapter 3.XXXVII. How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of a fool.

    3-37-346.jpg (165K)

    When Pantagruel had withdrawn himself, he, by a little sloping window in
    one of the galleries, perceived Panurge in a lobby not far from thence,
    walking alone, with the gesture, carriage, and garb of a fond dotard,
    raving, wagging, and shaking his hands, dandling, lolling, and nodding with
    his head, like a cow bellowing for her calf; and, having then called him
    nearer, spoke unto him thus:  You are at this present, as I think, not
    unlike to a mouse entangled in a snare, who the more that she goeth about
    to rid and unwind herself out of the gin wherein she is caught, by
    endeavouring to clear and deliver her feet from the pitch whereto they
    stick, the foulier she is bewrayed with it, and the more strongly pestered
    therein.  Even so is it with you.  For the more that you labour, strive,
    and enforce yourself to disencumber and extricate your thoughts out of the
    implicating involutions and fetterings of the grievous and lamentable gins
    and springs of anguish and perplexity, the greater difficulty there is in
    the relieving of you, and you remain faster bound than ever.  Nor do I know
    for the removal of this inconveniency any remedy but one.

    Take heed, I have often heard it said in a vulgar proverb, The wise may be
    instructed by a fool.  Seeing the answers and responses of sage and
    judicious men have in no manner of way satisfied you, take advice of some
    fool, and possibly by so doing you may come to get that counsel which will
    be agreeable to your own heart's desire and contentment.  You know how by
    the advice and counsel and prediction of fools, many kings, princes,
    states, and commonwealths have been preserved, several battles gained, and
    divers doubts of a most perplexed intricacy resolved.  I am not so
    diffident of your memory as to hold it needful to refresh it with a
    quotation of examples, nor do I so far undervalue your judgment but that I
    think it will acquiesce in the reason of this my subsequent discourse.  As
    he who narrowly takes heed to what concerns the dexterous management of his
    private affairs, domestic businesses, and those adoes which are confined
    within the strait-laced compass of one family, who is attentive, vigilant,
    and active in the economic rule of his own house, whose frugal spirit never
    strays from home, who loseth no occasion whereby he may purchase to himself
    more riches, and build up new heaps of treasure on his former wealth, and
    who knows warily how to prevent the inconveniences of poverty, is called a
    worldly wise man, though perhaps in the second judgment of the
    intelligences which are above he be esteemed a fool,—so, on the contrary,
    is he most like, even in the thoughts of all celestial spirits, to be not
    only sage, but to presage events to come by divine inspiration, who laying
    quite aside those cares which are conducible to his body or his fortunes,
    and, as it were, departing from himself, rids all his senses of terrene
    affections, and clears his fancies of those plodding studies which harbour
    in the minds of thriving men.  All which neglects of sublunary things are
    vulgarily imputed folly.  After this manner, the son of Picus, King of the
    Latins, the great soothsayer Faunus, was called Fatuus by the witless
    rabble of the common people.  The like we daily see practised amongst the
    comic players, whose dramatic roles, in distribution of the personages,
    appoint the acting of the fool to him who is the wisest of the troop.  In
    approbation also of this fashion the mathematicians allow the very same
    horoscope to princes and to sots.  Whereof a right pregnant instance by
    them is given in the nativities of Aeneas and Choroebus; the latter of
    which two is by Euphorion said to have been a fool, and yet had with the
    former the same aspects and heavenly genethliac influences.

    I shall not, I suppose, swerve much from the purpose in hand, if I relate
    unto you what John Andrew said upon the return of a papal writ, which was
    directed to the mayor and burgesses of Rochelle, and after him by Panorme,
    upon the same pontifical canon; Barbatias on the Pandects, and recently by
    Jason in his Councils, concerning Seyny John, the noted fool of Paris, and
    Caillet's fore great-grandfather.  The case is this.

    At Paris, in the roastmeat cookery of the Petit Chastelet, before the
    cookshop of one of the roastmeat sellers of that lane, a certain hungry
    porter was eating his bread, after he had by parcels kept it a while above
    the reek and steam of a fat goose on the spit, turning at a great fire, and
    found it, so besmoked with the vapour, to be savoury; which the cook
    observing, took no notice, till after having ravined his penny loaf,
    whereof no morsel had been unsmokified, he was about decamping and going
    away.  But, by your leave, as the fellow thought to have departed thence
    shot-free, the master-cook laid hold upon him by the gorget, and demanded
    payment for the smoke of his roast meat.  The porter answered, that he had
    sustained no loss at all; that by what he had done there was no diminution
    made of the flesh; that he had taken nothing of his, and that therefore he
    was not indebted to him in anything.  As for the smoke in question, that,
    although he had not been there, it would howsoever have been evaporated;
    besides, that before that time it had never been seen nor heard that
    roastmeat smoke was sold upon the streets of Paris.  The cook hereto
    replied, that he was not obliged nor any way bound to feed and nourish for
    nought a porter whom he had never seen before with the smoke of his roast
    meat, and thereupon swore that if he would not forthwith content and
    satisfy him with present payment for the repast which he had thereby got,
    that he would take his crooked staves from off his back; which, instead of
    having loads thereafter laid upon them, should serve for fuel to his
    kitchen fires.  Whilst he was going about so to do, and to have pulled them
    to him by one of the bottom rungs which he had caught in his hand, the
    sturdy porter got out of his grip, drew forth the knotty cudgel, and stood
    to his own defence.  The altercation waxed hot in words, which moved the
    gaping hoidens of the sottish Parisians to run from all parts thereabouts,
    to see what the issue would be of that babbling strife and contention.  In
    the interim of this dispute, to very good purpose Seyny John, the fool and
    citizen of Paris, happened to be there, whom the cook perceiving, said to
    the porter, Wilt thou refer and submit unto the noble Seyny John the
    decision of the difference and controversy which is betwixt us?  Yes, by
    the blood of a goose, answered the porter, I am content.  Seyny John the
    fool, finding that the cook and porter had compromised the determination of
    their variance and debate to the discretion of his award and arbitrament,
    after that the reasons on either side whereupon was grounded the mutual
    fierceness of their brawling jar had been to the full displayed and laid
    open before him, commanded the porter to draw out of the fob of his belt a
    piece of money, if he had it.  Whereupon the porter immediately without
    delay, in reverence to the authority of such a judicious umpire, put the
    tenth part of a silver Philip into his hand.  This little Philip Seyny John
    took; then set it on his left shoulder, to try by feeling if it was of a
    sufficient weight.  After that, laying it on the palm of his hand, he made
    it ring and tingle, to understand by the ear if it was of a good alloy in
    the metal whereof it was composed.  Thereafter he put it to the ball or
    apple of his left eye, to explore by the sight if it was well stamped and
    marked; all which being done, in a profound silence of the whole doltish
    people who were there spectators of this pageantry, to the great hope of
    the cook's and despair of the porter's prevalency in the suit that was in
    agitation, he finally caused the porter to make it sound several times upon
    the stall of the cook's shop.  Then with a presidential majesty holding his
    bauble sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his head with a hood of marten
    skins, each side whereof had the resemblance of an ape's face sprucified up
    with ears of pasted paper, and having about his neck a bucked ruff, raised,
    furrowed, and ridged with pointing sticks of the shape and fashion of small
    organ pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs coughed two or three
    times, and then with an audible voice pronounced this following sentence:
    The court declareth that the porter who ate his bread at the smoke of the
    roast, hath civilly paid the cook with the sound of his money.  And the
    said court ordaineth that everyone return to his own home, and attend his
    proper business, without cost and charges, and for a cause.  This verdict,
    award, and arbitrament of the Parisian fool did appear so equitable, yea,
    so admirable to the aforesaid doctors, that they very much doubted if the
    matter had been brought before the sessions for justice of the said place,
    or that the judges of the Rota at Rome had been umpires therein, or yet
    that the Areopagites themselves had been the deciders thereof, if by any
    one part, or all of them together, it had been so judicially sententiated
    and awarded.  Therefore advise, if you will be counselled by a fool.

    Chapter 3.XXXVIII. How Triboulet is set forth and blazed by Pantagruel and Panurge.

    By my soul, quoth Panurge, that overture pleaseth me exceedingly well.  I
    will therefore lay hold thereon, and embrace it.  At the very motioning
    thereof my very right entrail seemeth to be widened and enlarged, which was
    but just now hard-bound, contracted, and costive.  But as we have hitherto
    made choice of the purest and most refined cream of wisdom and sapience for
    our counsel, so would I now have to preside and bear the prime sway in our
    consultation as very a fool in the supreme degree.  Triboulet, quoth
    Pantagruel, is completely foolish, as I conceive.  Yes, truly, answered
    Panurge, he is properly and totally a fool, a

    
    
        Pantagruel.                        Panurge.
    Fatal f.                           Jovial f.
    Natural f.                         Mercurial f.
    Celestial f.                       Lunatic f.
    Erratic f.                         Ducal f.
    Eccentric f.                       Common f.
    Aethereal and Junonian f.          Lordly f.
    Arctic f.                          Palatine f.
    Heroic f.                          Principal f.
    Genial f.                          Pretorian f.
    Inconstant f.                      Elected f.
    Earthly f.                         Courtly f.
    Salacious and sporting f.          Primipilary f.
    Jocund and wanton f.               Triumphant f.
    Pimpled f.                         Vulgar f.
    Freckled f.                        Domestic f.
    Bell-tinging f.                    Exemplary f.
    Laughing and lecherous f.          Rare outlandish f.
    Nimming and filching f.            Satrapal f.
    Unpressed f.                       Civil f.
    First broached f.                  Popular f.
    Augustal f.                        Familiar f.
    Caesarine f.                       Notable f.
    Imperial f.                        Favourized f.
    Royal f.                           Latinized f.
    Patriarchal f.                     Ordinary f.
    Original f.                        Transcendent f.
    Loyal f.                           Rising f.
    Episcopal f.                       Papal f.
    Doctoral f.                        Consistorian f.
    Monachal f.                        Conclavist f.
    Fiscal f.                          Bullist f.
    Extravagant f.                     Synodal f.
    Writhed f.                         Doting and raving f.
    Canonical f.                       Singular and surpassing f.
    Such another f.                    Special and excelling f.
    Graduated f.                       Metaphysical f.
    Commensal f.                       Scatical f.
    Primolicentiated f.                Predicamental and categoric f.
    Train-bearing f.                   Predicable and enunciatory f.
    Supererogating f.                  Decumane and superlative f.
    Collateral f.                      Dutiful and officious f.
    Haunch and side f.                 Optical and perspective f.
    Nestling, ninny, and youngling f.  Algoristic f.
    Flitting, giddy, and unsteady f.   Algebraical f.
    Brancher, novice, and cockney f.   Cabalistical and Massoretical f.
    Haggard, cross, and froward f.     Talmudical f.
    Gentle, mild, and tractable f.     Algamalized f.
    Mail-coated f.                     Compendious f.
    Pilfering and purloining f.        Abbreviated f.
    Tail-grown f.                      Hyperbolical f.
    Grey peckled f.                    Anatomastical f.
    Pleonasmical f.                    Allegorical f.
    Capital f.                         Tropological f.
    Hair-brained f.                    Micher pincrust f.
    Cordial f.                         Heteroclit f.
    Intimate f.                        Summist f.
    Hepatic f.                         Abridging f.
    Cupshotten and swilling f.         Morrish f.
    Splenetic f.                       Leaden-sealed f.
    Windy f.                           Mandatory f.
    Legitimate f.                      Compassionate f.
    Azymathal f.                       Titulary f.
    Almicantarized f.                  Crouching, showking, ducking f.
    Proportioned f.                    Grim, stern, harsh, and wayward f.
    Chinnified f.                      Well-hung and timbered f.
    Swollen and puffed up f.           Ill-clawed, pounced, and pawed f.
    Overcockrifedlid and lified f.     Well-stoned f.
    Corallory f.                       Crabbed and unpleasing f.
    Eastern f.                         Winded and untainted f.
    Sublime f.                         Kitchen haunting f.
    Crimson f.                         Lofty and stately f.
    Ingrained f.                       Spitrack f.
    City f.                            Architrave f.
    Basely accoutred f.                Pedestal f.
    Mast-headed f.                     Tetragonal f.
    Modal f.                           Renowned f.
    Second notial f.                   Rheumatic f.
    Cheerful and buxom f.              Flaunting and braggadocio f.
    Solemn f.                          Egregious f.
    Annual f.                          Humourous and capricious f.
    Festival f.                        Rude, gross, and absurd f.
    Recreative f.                      Large-measured f.
    Boorish and counterfeit f.         Babble f.
    Pleasant f.                        Down-right f.
    Privileged f.                      Broad-listed f.
    Rustical f.                        Duncical-bearing f.
    Proper and peculiar f.             Stale and over-worn f.
    Ever ready f.                      Saucy and swaggering f.
    Diapasonal f.                      Full-bulked f.
    Resolute f.                        Gallant and vainglorious f.
    Hieroglyphical f.                  Gorgeous and gaudy f.
    Authentic f.                       Continual and intermitting f.
    Worthy f.                          Rebasing and roundling f.
    Precious f.                        Prototypal and precedenting f.
    Fanatic f.                         Prating f.
    Fantastical f.                     Catechetic f.
    Symphatic f.                       Cacodoxical f.
    Panic f.                           Meridional f.
    Limbecked and distilled f.         Nocturnal f.
    Comportable f.                     Occidental f.
    Wretched and heartless f.          Trifling f.
    Fooded f.                          Astrological and figure-flinging f.
    Thick and threefold f.             Genethliac and horoscopal f.
    Damasked f.                        Knavish f.
    Fearney f.                         Idiot f.
    Unleavened f.                      Blockish f.
    Baritonant f.                      Beetle-headed f.
    Pink and spot-powdered f.          Grotesque f.
    Musket-proof f.                    Impertinent f.
    Pedantic f.                        Quarrelsome f.
    Strouting f.                       Unmannerly f.
    Wood f.                            Captious and sophistical f.
    Greedy f.                          Soritic f.
    Senseless f.                       Catholoproton f.
    Godderlich f.                      Hoti and Dioti f.
    Obstinate f.                       Alphos and Catati f.
    Contradictory f.
    Pedagogical f.
    Daft f.
    Drunken f.
    Peevish f.
    Prodigal f.
    Rash f.
    Plodding f.
    

      Pantagruel.  If there was any reason why at Rome the Quirinal holiday of
    old was called the Feast of Fools, I know not why we may not for the like
    cause institute in France the Tribouletic Festivals, to be celebrated and
    solemnized over all the land.

      Panurge.  If all fools carried cruppers.

      Pantagruel.  If he were the god Fatuus of whom we have already made
    mention, the husband of the goddess Fatua, his father would be Good Day,
    and his grandmother Good Even.

      Panurge.  If all fools paced, albeit he be somewhat wry-legged, he would
    overlay at least a fathom at every rake.  Let us go toward him without any
    further lingering or delay; we shall have, no doubt, some fine resolution
    of him.  I am ready to go, and long for the issue of our progress
    impatiently.  I must needs, quoth Pantagruel, according to my former
    resolution therein, be present at Bridlegoose's trial.  Nevertheless,
    whilst I shall be upon my journey towards Mirelingues, which is on the
    other side of the river of Loire, I will despatch Carpalin to bring along
    with him from Blois the fool Triboulet.  Then was Carpalin instantly sent
    away, and Pantagruel, at the same time attended by his domestics, Panurge,
    Epistemon, Ponocrates, Friar John, Gymnast, Ryzotomus, and others, marched
    forward on the high road to Mirelingues.

    Chapter 3.XXXIX. How Pantagruel was present at the trial of Judge Bridlegoose, who decided
    causes and controversies in law by the chance and fortune of the dice.

    3-39-352.jpg (172K)

    On the day following, precisely at the hour appointed, Pantagruel came to
    Mirelingues.  At his arrival the presidents, senators, and counsellors
    prayed him to do them the honour to enter in with them, to hear the
    decision of all the causes, arguments, and reasons which Bridlegoose in his
    own defence would produce, why he had pronounced a certain sentence against
    the subsidy-assessor, Toucheronde, which did not seem very equitable to
    that centumviral court.  Pantagruel very willingly condescended to their
    desire, and accordingly entering in, found Bridlegoose sitting within the
    middle of the enclosure of the said court of justice; who immediately upon
    the coming of Pantagruel, accompanied with the senatorian members of that
    worshipful judicatory, arose, went to the bar, had his indictment read, and
    for all his reasons, defences, and excuses, answered nothing else but that
    he was become old, and that his sight of late was very much failed, and
    become dimmer than it was wont to be; instancing therewithal many miseries
    and calamities which old age bringeth along with it, and are concomitant to
    wrinkled elders; which not. per Archid. d. lxxxvi. c. tanta.  By reason of
    which infirmity he was not able so distinctly and clearly to discern the
    points and blots of the dice as formerly he had been accustomed to do;
    whence it might very well have happened, said he, as old dim-sighted Isaac
    took Jacob for Esau, that I after the same manner, at the decision of
    causes and controversies in law, should have been mistaken in taking a
    quatre for a cinque, or a trey for a deuce.  This I beseech your worships,
    quoth he, to take into your serious consideration, and to have the more
    favourable opinion of my uprightness, notwithstanding the prevarication
    whereof I am accused in the matter of Toucheronde's sentence, that at the
    time of that decree's pronouncing I only had made use of my small dice; and
    your worships, said he, know very well how by the most authentic rules of
    the law it is provided that the imperfections of nature should never be
    imputed unto any for crimes and transgressions; as appeareth, ff. de re
    milit. l. qui cum uno. ff. de reg.  Jur. l. fere. ff. de aedil. edict. per
    totum. ff. de term. mod. l. Divus Adrianus, resolved by Lud. Rom. in l. si
    vero. ff. Sol. Matr.  And who would offer to do otherwise, should not
    thereby accuse the man, but nature, and the all-seeing providence of God,
    as is evident in l. Maximum Vitium, c. de lib. praeter.

    What kind of dice, quoth Trinquamelle, grand-president of the said court,
    do you mean, my friend Bridlegoose?  The dice, quoth Bridlegoose, of
    sentences at law, decrees, and peremptory judgments, Alea Judiciorum,
    whereof is written, Per Doct. 26. qu. 2. cap. sort. l. nec emptio ff. de
    contrahend. empt. l. quod debetur. ff. de pecul. et ibi Bartol., and which
    your worships do, as well as I, use, in this glorious sovereign court of
    yours.  So do all other righteous judges in their decision of processes and
    final determination of legal differences, observing that which hath been
    said thereof by D. Henri. Ferrandat, et not. gl. in c. fin. de sortil. et
    l. sed cum ambo. ff. de jud.  Ubi Docto.  Mark, that chance and fortune are
    good, honest, profitable, and necessary for ending of and putting a final
    closure to dissensions and debates in suits at law.  The same hath more
    clearly been declared by Bald. Bartol. et Alex. c. communia de leg. l. Si
    duo.  But how is it that you do these things? asked Trinquamelle.  I very
    briefly, quoth Bridlegoose, shall answer you, according to the doctrine and
    instructions of Leg. ampliorem para. in refutatoriis. c. de appel.; which
    is conform to what is said in Gloss l. 1. ff. quod met. causa.  Gaudent
    brevitate moderni.  My practice is therein the same with that of your other
    worships, and as the custom of the judicatory requires, unto which our law
    commandeth us to have regard, and by the rule thereof still to direct and
    regulate our actions and procedures; ut not. extra. de consuet. in c. ex
    literis et ibi innoc.  For having well and exactly seen, surveyed,
    overlooked, reviewed, recognized, read, and read over again, turned and
    tossed over, seriously perused and examined the bills of complaint,
    accusations, impeachments, indictments, warnings, citations, summonings,
    comparitions, appearances, mandates, commissions, delegations,
    instructions, informations, inquests, preparatories, productions,
    evidences, proofs, allegations, depositions, cross speeches,
    contradictions, supplications, requests, petitions, inquiries, instruments
    of the deposition of witnesses, rejoinders, replies, confirmations of
    former assertions, duplies, triplies, answers to rejoinders, writings,
    deeds, reproaches, disabling of exceptions taken, grievances, salvation
    bills, re-examination of witnesses, confronting of them together,
    declarations, denunciations, libels, certificates, royal missives, letters
    of appeal, letters of attorney, instruments of compulsion, delineatories,
    anticipatories, evocations, messages, dimissions, issues, exceptions,
    dilatory pleas, demurs, compositions, injunctions, reliefs, reports,
    returns, confessions, acknowledgments, exploits, executions, and other
    such-like confects and spiceries, both at the one and the other side, as a
    good judge ought to do, conform to what hath been noted thereupon.  Spec.
    de ordination. Paragr. 3. et Tit. de Offi. omn. jud. paragr. fin. et de
    rescriptis praesentat. parag. 1.—I posit on the end of a table in my
    closet all the pokes and bags of the defendant, and then allow unto him the
    first hazard of the dice, according to the usual manner of your other
    worships.  And it is mentioned, l. favorabiliores. ff. de reg. jur. et in
    cap. cum sunt eod. tit. lib. 6, which saith, Quum sunt partium jura
    obscura, reo potius favendum est quam actori.  That being done, I
    thereafter lay down upon the other end of the same table the bags and
    satchels of the plaintiff, as your other worships are accustomed to do,
    visum visu, just over against one another; for Opposita juxta se posita
    clarius elucescunt:  ut not. in lib. 1. parag. Videamus. ff. de his qui
    sunt sui vel alieni juris, et in l. munerum. para. mixta ff. de mun. et
    hon.  Then do I likewise and semblably throw the dice for him, and
    forthwith livre him his chance.  But, quoth Trinquamelle, my friend, how
    come you to know, understand, and resolve the obscurity of these various
    and seeming contrary passages in law, which are laid claim to by the
    suitors and pleading parties?  Even just, quoth Bridlegoose, after the
    fashion of your other worships; to wit, when there are many bags on the one
    side and on the other, I then use my little small dice, after the customary
    manner of your other worships, in obedience to the law, Semper in
    stipulationibus ff. de reg. jur.  And the law ver(s)ified versifieth that,
    Eod. tit. Semper in obscuris quod minimum est sequimur; canonized in c. in
    obscuris. eod. tit. lib. 6.  I have other large great dice, fair and goodly
    ones, which I employ in the fashion that your other worships use to do,
    when the matter is more plain, clear, and liquid, that is to say, when
    there are fewer bags.  But when you have done all these fine things, quoth
    Trinquamelle, how do you, my friend, award your decrees, and pronounce
    judgment?  Even as your other worships, answered Bridlegoose; for I give
    out sentence in his favour unto whom hath befallen the best chance by dice,
    judiciary, tribunian, pretorial, what comes first.  So our laws command,
    ff. qui pot. in pign. l. creditor, c. de consul. 1.  Et de regul. jur. in
    6.  Qui prior est tempore potior est jure.

    Chapter 3.XL. How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions which
    he decided by the chance of the dice.

    Yea but, quoth Trinquamelle, my friend, seeing it is by the lot, chance,
    and throw of the dice that you award your judgments and sentences, why do
    not you livre up these fair throws and chances the very same day and hour,
    without any further procrastination or delay, that the controverting party-
    pleaders appear before you?  To what use can those writings serve you,
    those papers and other procedures contained in the bags and pokes of the
    law-suitors?  To the very same use, quoth Bridlegoose, that they serve your
    other worships.  They are behooveful unto me, and serve my turn in three
    things very exquisite, requisite, and authentical.  First, for formality
    sake, the omission whereof, that it maketh all, whatever is done, to be of
    no force nor value, is excellently well proved, by Spec. 1. tit. de instr.
    edit. et tit. de rescript. praesent.  Besides that, it is not unknown to
    you, who have had many more experiments thereof than I, how oftentimes, in
    judicial proceedings, the formalities utterly destroy the materialities and
    substances of the causes and matters agitated; for Forma mutata, mutatur
    substantia. ff. ad exhib. l. Julianus. ff. ad leg. Fal. l. si is qui
    quadraginta.  Et extra de decim. c. ad audientiam, et de celebrat. miss. c.
    in quadam.

    Secondly, they are useful and steadable to me, even as unto your other
    worships, in lieu of some other honest and healthful exercise.  The late
    Master Othoman Vadet (Vadere), a prime physician, as you would say, Cod. de
    Comit. et Archi. lib. 12, hath frequently told me that the lack and default
    of bodily exercise is the chief, if not the sole and only cause of the
    little health and short lives of all officers of justice, such as your
    worships and I am.  Which observation was singularly well before him noted
    and remarked by Bartholus in lib. 1. c. de sent. quae pro eo quod.
    Therefore it is that the practice of such-like exercitations is appointed
    to be laid hold on by your other worships, and consequently not to be
    denied unto me, who am of the same profession; Quia accessorium naturam
    sequitur principalis. de reg. jur. l. 6. et l. cum principalis. et l. nihil
    dolo. ff. eod. tit. ff. de fide-juss. l. fide-juss. et extra de officio
    deleg. cap. 1.  Let certain honest and recreative sports and plays of
    corporeal exercises be allowed and approved of; and so far, (ff. de allus.
    et aleat. l. solent. et authent.) ut omnes obed. in princ. coll. 7. et ff.
    de praescript. verb. l. si gratuitam et l. 1. cod. de spect. l. 11.  Such
    also is the opinion of D. Thom, in secunda, secundae Q. I. 168.  Quoted in
    very good purpose by D. Albert de Rosa, who fuit magnus practicus, and a
    solemn doctor, as Barbatias attesteth in principiis consil.  Wherefore the
    reason is evidently and clearly deduced and set down before us in gloss. in
    prooemio. ff. par. ne autem tertii.

      Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis.

    In very deed, once, in the year a thousand four hundred fourscore and
    ninth, having a business concerning the portion and inheritance of a
    younger brother depending in the court and chamber of the four high
    treasurers of France, whereinto as soon as ever I got leave to enter by a
    pecuniary permission of the usher thereof,—as your other worships know
    very well, that Pecuniae obediunt omnia, and there says Baldus, in l.
    singularia. ff. si cert. pet. et Salic. in l. receptitia. Cod. de constit.
    pecuni. et Card. in Clem. 1. de baptism.—I found them all recreating and
    diverting themselves at the play called muss, either before or after
    dinner; to me, truly, it is a thing altogether indifferent whether of the
    two it was, provided that hic not., that the game of the muss is honest,
    healthful, ancient, and lawful, a Muscho inventore, de quo cod. de petit.
    haered. l. si post mortem. et Muscarii.  Such as play and sport it at the
    muss are excusable in and by law, lib. 1. c. de excus. artific. lib. 10.
    And at the very same time was Master Tielman Picquet one of the players of
    that game of muss.  There is nothing that I do better remember, for he
    laughed heartily when his fellow-members of the aforesaid judicial chamber
    spoiled their caps in swingeing of his shoulders.  He, nevertheless, did
    even then say unto them, that the banging and flapping of him, to the waste
    and havoc of their caps, should not, at their return from the palace to
    their own houses, excuse them from their wives, Per. c. extra. de
    praesumpt. et ibi gloss.  Now, resolutorie loquendo, I should say,
    according to the style and phrase of your other worships, that there is no
    exercise, sport, game, play, nor recreation in all this palatine, palatial,
    or parliamentary world, more aromatizing and fragrant than to empty and
    void bags and purses, turn over papers and writings, quote margins and
    backs of scrolls and rolls, fill panniers, and take inspection of causes,
    Ex. Bart. et Joan. de Pra. in l. falsa. de condit. et demonst. ff.

    Thirdly, I consider, as your own worships use to do, that time ripeneth and
    bringeth all things to maturity, that by time everything cometh to be made
    manifest and patent, and that time is the father of truth and virtue.
    Gloss. in l. 1. cod. de servit. authent. de restit. et ea quae pa. et spec.
    tit. de requisit. cons.  Therefore is it that, after the manner and fashion
    of your other worships, I defer, protract, delay, prolong, intermit,
    surcease, pause, linger, suspend, prorogate, drive out, wire-draw, and
    shift off the time of giving a definitive sentence, to the end that the
    suit or process, being well fanned and winnowed, tossed and canvassed to
    and fro, narrowly, precisely, and nearly garbled, sifted, searched, and
    examined, and on all hands exactly argued, disputed, and debated, may, by
    succession of time, come at last to its full ripeness and maturity.  By
    means whereof, when the fatal hazard of the dice ensueth thereupon, the
    parties cast or condemned by the said aleatory chance will with much
    greater patience, and more mildly and gently, endure and bear up the
    disastrous load of their misfortune, than if they had been sentenced at
    their first arrival unto the court, as not. gl. ff. de excus. tut. l. tria.
    onera.

      Portatur leviter quod portat quisque libenter.

    On the other part, to pass a decree or sentence when the action is raw,
    crude, green, unripe, unprepared, as at the beginning, a danger would ensue
    of a no less inconveniency than that which the physicians have been wont to
    say befalleth to him in whom an imposthume is pierced before it be ripe, or
    unto any other whose body is purged of a strong predominating humour before
    its digestion.  For as it is written, in authent. haec constit. in Innoc.
    de constit. princip., so is the same repeated in gloss. in c. caeterum.
    extra. de juram. calumn.  Quod medicamenta morbis exhibent, hoc jura
    negotiis.  Nature furthermore admonisheth and teacheth us to gather and
    reap, eat and feed on fruits when they are ripe, and not before.  Instit.
    de rer. div. paragr. is ad quem et ff. de action. empt. l. Julianus.  To
    marry likewise our daughters when they are ripe, and no sooner, ff. de
    donation. inter vir. et uxor. l. cum hic status. paragr. si quis sponsam.
    et 27 qu. 1. c. sicut dicit. gl.

      Jam matura thoro plenis adoleverat annis
      Virginitas.

    And, in a word, she instructeth us to do nothing of any considerable
    importance, but in a full maturity and ripeness, 23. q. para ult. et 23. de
    c. ultimo.

    Chapter 3.XLI. How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties at
    variance in matters of law.

    3-41-356.jpg (150K)

    I remember to the same purpose, quoth Bridlegoose, in continuing his
    discourse, that in the time when at Poictiers I was a student of law under
    Brocadium Juris, there was at Semerve one Peter Dandin, a very honest man,
    careful labourer of the ground, fine singer in a church-desk, of good
    repute and credit, and older than the most aged of all your worships; who
    was wont to say that he had seen the great and goodly good man, the Council
    of Lateran, with his wide and broad-brimmed red hat.  As also, that he had
    beheld and looked upon the fair and beautiful Pragmatical Sanction his
    wife, with her huge rosary or patenotrian chaplet of jet-beads hanging at a
    large sky-coloured ribbon.  This honest man compounded, atoned, and agreed
    more differences, controversies, and variances at law than had been
    determined, voided, and finished during his time in the whole palace of
    Poictiers, in the auditory of Montmorillon, and in the town-house of the
    old Partenay.  This amicable disposition of his rendered him venerable and
    of great estimation, sway, power, and authority throughout all the
    neighbouring places of Chauvigny, Nouaille, Leguge, Vivonne, Mezeaux,
    Estables, and other bordering and circumjacent towns, villages, and
    hamlets.  All their debates were pacified by him; he put an end to their
    brabbling suits at law and wrangling differences.  By his advice and
    counsels were accords and reconcilements no less firmly made than if the
    verdict of a sovereign judge had been interposed therein, although, in very
    deed, he was no judge at all, but a right honest man, as you may well
    conceive,—arg. in l. sed si unius. ff. de jure-jur. et de verbis
    obligatoriis l.continuus.  There was not a hog killed within three parishes
    of him whereof he had not some part of the haslet and puddings.  He was
    almost every day invited either to a marriage banquet, christening feast,
    an uprising or women-churching treatment, a birthday's anniversary
    solemnity, a merry frolic gossiping, or otherwise to some delicious
    entertainment in a tavern, to make some accord and agreement between
    persons at odds and in debate with one another.  Remark what I say; for he
    never yet settled and compounded a difference betwixt any two at variance,
    but he straight made the parties agreed and pacified to drink together as a
    sure and infallible token and symbol of a perfect and completely well-
    cemented reconciliation, sign of a sound and sincere amity and proper mark
    of a new joy and gladness to follow thereupon,—Ut not. per (Doct.) ff. de
    peric. et com. rei vend. l. 1.  He had a son, whose name was Tenot Dandin,
    a lusty, young, sturdy, frisking roister, so help me God! who likewise, in
    imitation of his peace-making father, would have undertaken and meddled
    with the making up of variances and deciding of controversies betwixt
    disagreeing and contentious party-pleaders; as you know,

      Saepe solet similis esse patri.
      Et sequitur leviter filia matris iter.

    Ut ait gloss. 6, quaest. 1. c. Si quis. gloss. de cons. dist. 5. c. 2. fin.
    et est. not. per Doct. cod. de impub. et aliis substit. l. ult. et l.
    legitime. ff. de stat. hom. gloss. in l. quod si nolit. ff. de aedil.
    edict. l. quisquis c. ad leg. Jul. Majest. Excipio filios a Moniali
    susceptos ex Monacho. per glos. in c. impudicas. 27. quaestione. 1.  And
    such was his confidence to have no worse success than his father, he
    assumed unto himself the title of Law-strife-settler.  He was likewise in
    these pacificatory negotiations so active and vigilant—for, Vigilantibus
    jura subveniunt. ex l. pupillus. ff. quae in fraud. cred. et ibid. l. non
    enim. et instit. in prooem.—that when he had smelt, heard, and fully
    understood—ut ff.si quando paup. fec. l. Agaso. gloss. in verb. olfecit,
    id est, nasum ad culum posuit—and found that there was anywhere in the
    country a debatable matter at law, he would incontinently thrust in his
    advice, and so forwardly intrude his opinion in the business, that he made
    no bones of making offer, and taking upon him to decide it, how difficult
    soever it might happen to be, to the full contentment and satisfaction of
    both parties.  It is written, Qui non laborat non manducat; and the said
    gl. ff. de damn. infect. l. quamvis, and Currere plus que le pas vetulam
    compellit egestas. gloss. ff. de lib. agnosc. l. si quis. pro qua facit. l.
    si plures. c. de cond. incert.  But so hugely great was his misfortune in
    this his undertaking, that he never composed any difference, how little
    soever you may imagine it might have been, but that, instead of reconciling
    the parties at odds, he did incense, irritate, and exasperate them to a
    higher point of dissension and enmity than ever they were at before.  Your
    worships know, I doubt not, that,

      Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis.

    Gl. ff. de alien. jud. mut. caus. fa. lib.2.  This administered unto the
    tavern-keepers, wine-drawers, and vintners of Semerve an occasion to say,
    that under him they had not in the space of a whole year so much
    reconciliation-wine, for so were they pleased to call the good wine of
    Leguge, as under his father they had done in one half-hour's time.  It
    happened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret thereof
    to his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in pacificatory
    enterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross, and backward
    inclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly, and irreverently
    upbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world had been so
    wayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of all square, frame,
    and order as it was then, his father had never attained to and acquired the
    honour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably, inviolably, and
    irrevocably as he had done.  In doing whereof Tenot did heinously
    transgress against the law which prohibiteth children to reproach the
    actions of their parents; per gl. et Bart. l. 3. paragr. si quis. ff. de
    cond. ob caus. et authent. de nupt. par. sed quod sancitum. col. 4.  To
    this the honest old father answered thus:  My son Dandin, when Don Oportet
    taketh place, this is the course which we must trace, gl. c. de appell. l.
    eos etiam.  For the road that you went upon was not the way to the fuller's
    mill, nor in any part thereof was the form to be found wherein the hare did
    sit.  Thou hast not the skill and dexterity of settling and composing
    differences.  Why?  Because thou takest them at the beginning, in the very
    infancy and bud as it were, when they are green, raw, and indigestible.
    Yet I know handsomely and featly how to compose and settle them all.  Why?
    Because I take them at their decadence, in their weaning, and when they are
    pretty well digested.  So saith Gloss:

      Dulcior est fructus post multa pericula ductus.

    L. non moriturus. c. de contrahend. et committ. stip.  Didst thou ever hear
    the vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at the
    declension of a disease?  For the sickness being come to a crisis is then
    upon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end, although the
    physician should not repair thither for the cure thereof; whereby, though
    nature wholly do the work, he bears away the palm and praise thereof.  My
    pleaders, after the same manner, before I did interpose my judgment in the
    reconciling of them, were waxing faint in their contestations.  Their
    altercation heat was much abated, and, in declining from their former
    strife, they of themselves inclined to a firm accommodation of their
    differences; because there wanted fuel to that fire of burning rancour and
    despiteful wrangling whereof the lower sort of lawyers were the kindlers.
    That is to say, their purses were emptied of coin, they had not a win in
    their fob, nor penny in their bag, wherewith to solicit and present their
    actions.

      Deficiente pecu, deficit omne, nia.

    There wanted then nothing but some brother to supply the place of a
    paranymph, brawl-broker, proxenete, or mediator, who, acting his part
    dexterously, should be the first broacher of the motion of an agreement,
    for saving both the one and the other party from that hurtful and
    pernicious shame whereof he could not have avoided the imputation when it
    should have been said that he was the first who yielded and spoke of a
    reconcilement, and that therefore, his cause not being good, and being
    sensible where his shoe did pinch him, he was willing to break the ice, and
    make the greater haste to prepare the way for a condescendment to an
    amicable and friendly treaty.  Then was it that I came in pudding time,
    Dandin, my son, nor is the fat of bacon more relishing to boiled peas than
    was my verdict then agreeable to them.  This was my luck, my profit, and
    good fortune.  I tell thee, my jolly son Dandin, that by this rule and
    method I could settle a firm peace, or at least clap up a cessation of arms
    and truce for many years to come, betwixt the Great King and the Venetian
    State, the Emperor and the Cantons of Switzerland, the English and the
    Scots, and betwixt the Pope and the Ferrarians.  Shall I go yet further?
    Yea, as I would have God to help me, betwixt the Turk and the Sophy, the
    Tartars and the Muscoviters.  Remark well what I am to say unto thee.  I
    would take them at that very instant nick of time when both those of the
    one and the other side should be weary and tired of making war, when they
    had voided and emptied their own cashes and coffers of all treasure and
    coin, drained and exhausted the purses and bags of their subjects, sold and
    mortgaged their domains and proper inheritances, and totally wasted, spent,
    and consumed the munition, furniture, provision, and victuals that were
    necessary for the continuance of a military expedition.  There I am sure,
    by God, or by his Mother, that, would they, would they not, in spite of all
    their teeths, they should be forced to have a little respite and breathing
    time to moderate the fury and cruel rage of their ambitious aims.  This is
    the doctrine in Gl. 37. d. c. si quando.

      Odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.

    Chapter 3.XLII. How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to their
    perfect growth.

    3-42-360.jpg (175K)

    For this cause, quoth Bridlegoose, going on in his discourse, I temporize
    and apply myself to the times, as your other worships use to do, waiting
    patiently for the maturity of the process, full growth and perfection
    thereof in all its members, to wit, the writings and the bags.  Arg. in l.
    si major. c. commun. divid. et de cons. di. 1. c. solemnitates, et ibi gl.
    A suit in law at its production, birth, and first beginning, seemeth to me,
    as unto your other worships, shapeless, without form or fashion,
    incomplete, ugly and imperfect, even as a bear at his first coming into the
    world hath neither hands, skin, hair, nor head, but is merely an inform,
    rude, and ill-favoured piece and lump of flesh, and would remain still so,
    if his dam, out of the abundance of her affection to her hopeful cub, did
    not with much licking put his members into that figure and shape which
    nature had provided for those of an arctic and ursinal kind; ut not. Doct.
    ff. ad l. Aquil. l. 3. in fin.  Just so do I see, as your other worships
    do, processes and suits in law, at their first bringing forth, to be
    numberless, without shape, deformed, and disfigured, for that then they
    consist only of one or two writings, or copies of instruments, through
    which defect they appear unto me, as to your other worships, foul,
    loathsome, filthy, and misshapen beasts.  But when there are heaps of these
    legiformal papers packed, piled, laid up together, impoked, insatchelled,
    and put up in bags, then is it that with a good reason we may term that
    suit, to which, as pieces, parcels, parts, portions, and members thereof,
    they do pertain and belong, well-formed and fashioned, big-limbed, strong-
    set, and in all and each of its dimensions most completely membered.
    Because forma dat esse. rei. l. si is qui. ff. ad leg.  Falcid. in c. cum
    dilecta. de rescript. Barbat. consil. 12. lib. 2, and before him, Baldus,
    in c. ult. extra. de consuet. et l. Julianus ad exhib. ff. et l. quaesitum.
    ff. de leg. 3.  The manner is such as is set down in gl. p. quaest. 1. c.
    Paulus.

      Debile principium melior fortuna sequetur.

    Like your other worships, also the sergeants, catchpoles, pursuivants,
    messengers, summoners, apparitors, ushers, door-keepers, pettifoggers,
    attorneys, proctors, commissioners, justices of the peace, judge delegates,
    arbitrators, overseers, sequestrators, advocates, inquisitors, jurors,
    searchers, examiners, notaries, tabellions, scribes, scriveners, clerks,
    pregnotaries, secondaries, and expedanean judges, de quibus tit. est. l. 3.
    c., by sucking very much, and that exceeding forcibly, and licking at the
    purses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already begot and
    engendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws, talons, beaks,
    bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles, humours, and so
    forth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of the whole; which
    parts, particles, pendicles, and appurtenances are the law pokes and bags,
    gl. de cons. d. 4. c. accepisti.  Qualis vestis erit, talia corda gerit.
    Hic notandum est, that in this respect the pleaders, litigants, and law-
    suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and administrators of
    justice.  For beatius est dare quam accipere. ff. commun. l. 3. extra. de
    celebr. Miss. c. cum Marthae. et 24. quaest. 1. cap. Od. gl.

      Affectum dantis pensat censura tonantis.

    Thus becometh the action or process by their care and industry to be of a
    complete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and fashioned
    according to the canonical gloss.

      Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae.

    Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in verbo
    Roma.

      Roma manus rodit, quas rodere non valet, odit.
      Dantes custodit, non dantes spernit, et odit.

    The reason whereof is thought to be this:

      Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora.

    ut est gl. in l. quum hi. ff. de transact.  Nor is this all; for the
    inconvenience of the contrary is set down in gloss. c. de allu. l. fin.

      Quum labor in damno est, crescit mortalis egestas.

    In confirmation whereof we find that the true etymology and exposition of
    the word process is purchase, viz. of good store of money to the lawyers,
    and of many pokes—id est, prou-sacks—to the pleaders, upon which subject
    we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.

      Ligitando jura crescunt; litigando jus acquiritur.

    Item gl. in cap. illud extrem. de praesumpt. et c. de prob. l. instrum. l.
    non epistolis. l. non nudis.

      Et si non prosunt singula, multa juvant.

    Yea but, asked Trinquamelle, how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal
    causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante
    crimine?  Even as your other worships use to do, answered Bridlegoose.
    First, I permit the plaintiff to depart from the court, enjoining him not
    to presume to return thither till he preallably should have taken a good
    sound and profound sleep, which is to serve for the prime entry and
    introduction to the legal carrying on of the business.  In the next place,
    a formal report is to be made to me of his having slept.  Thirdly, I issue
    forth a warrant to convene him before me.  Fourthly, he is to produce a
    sufficient and authentic attestation of his having thoroughly and entirely
    slept, conform to the Gloss. 37. Quest. 7. c. Si quis cum.

      Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.

    Being thus far advanced in the formality of the process, I find that this
    consopiating act engendereth another act, whence ariseth the articulating
    of a member.  That again produceth a third act, fashionative of another
    member; which third bringing forth a fourth, procreative of another act.
    New members in a no fewer number are shapen and framed, one still breeding
    and begetting another—as, link after link, the coat of mail at length is
    made—till thus, piece after piece, by little and little, by information
    upon information, the process be completely well formed and perfect in all
    his members.  Finally, having proceeded this length, I have recourse to my
    dice, nor is it to be thought that this interruption, respite, or
    interpellation is by me occasioned without very good reason inducing me
    thereunto, and a notable experience of a most convincing and irrefragable
    force.

    I remember, on a time, that in the camp at Stockholm there was a certain
    Gascon named Gratianauld, native of the town of Saint Sever, who having
    lost all his money at play, and consecutively being very angry thereat—as
    you know, Pecunia est alter sanguis, ut ait Anto. de Burtio, in c.
    accedens. 2. extra ut lit. non contest. et Bald. in l. si tuis. c. de opt.
    leg. per tot.in l. advocati. c. de advoc. div. jud.  Pecunia est vita
    hominis et optimus fide-jussor in necessitatibus—did, at his coming forth
    of the gaming-house, in the presence of the whole company that was there,
    with a very loud voice speak in his own language these following words:
    Pao cap de bious hillots, que maux de pipes bous tresbire:  ares que de
    pergudes sont les mires bingt, et quouatre bagnelles, ta pla donnerien
    pics, trucs, et patacts, Sey degun de bous aulx, qui boille truquar ambe
    iou a bels embis.  Finding that none would make him any answer, he passed
    from thence to that part of the leaguer where the huff-snuff, honder
    sponder, swashbuckling High Germans were, to whom he renewed these very
    terms, provoking them to fight with him; but all the return he had from
    them to his stout challenge was only, Der Gasconner thut sich ausz mit ein
    iedem zu schlagen, aber er ist geneigter zu stehlen, darum, liebe frawen,
    habt sorg zu euerm hauszrath.  Finding also that none of that band of
    Teutonic soldiers offered himself to the combat, he passed to that quarter
    of the leaguer where the French freebooting adventurers were encamped, and
    reiterating unto them what he had before repeated to the Dutch warriors,
    challenged them likewise to fight with him, and therewithal made some
    pretty little Gasconado frisking gambols to oblige them the more cheerfully
    and gallantly to cope with him in the lists of a duellizing engagement; but
    no answer at all was made unto him.  Whereupon the Gascon, despairing of
    meeting with any antagonists, departed from thence, and laying himself down
    not far from the pavilions of the grand Christian cavalier Crissie, fell
    fast asleep.  When he had thoroughly slept an hour or two, another
    adventurous and all-hazarding blade of the forlorn hope of the lavishingly
    wasting gamesters, having also lost all his moneys, sallied forth with
    sword in his hand, of a firm resolution to fight with the aforesaid Gascon,
    seeing he had lost as well as he.

      Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris,

    saith the Gl. de poenitent. distinct. 3. c. sunt plures.  To this effect
    having made inquiry and search for him throughout the whole camp, and in
    sequel thereof found him asleep, he said unto him, Up, ho, good fellow, in
    the name of all the devils of hell, rise up, rise up, get up!  I have lost
    my money as well as thou hast done; let us therefore go fight lustily
    together, grapple and scuffle it to some purpose.  Thou mayest look and see
    that my tuck is no longer than thy rapier.  The Gascon, altogether
    astonished at his unexpected provocation, without altering his former
    dialect spoke thus:  Cap de Saint Arnault, quau seys to you, qui me
    rebeillez?  Que mau de taberne te gire.  Ho Saint Siobe, cap de Gascoigne,
    ta pla dormy jou, quand aquoest taquain me bingut estee.  The venturous
    roister inviteth him again to the duel, but the Gascon, without
    condescending to his desire, said only this:  He paovret jou tesquinerie
    ares, que son pla reposat.  Vayne un pauque te pausar com jou, peusse
    truqueren.  Thus, in forgetting his loss, he forgot the eagerness which he
    had to fight.  In conclusion, after that the other had likewise slept a
    little, they, instead of fighting, and possibly killing one another, went
    jointly to a sutler's tent, where they drank together very amicably, each
    upon the pawn of his sword.  Thus by a little sleep was pacified the ardent
    fury of two warlike champions.  There, gossip, comes the golden word of
    John Andr. in cap. ult. de sent. et re. judic. l. sexto.

      Sedendo, et dormiendo fit anima prudens.

    Chapter 3.XLIII.

    How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing actions at
    law by the chance of the dice.

    With this Bridlegoose held his peace.  Whereupon Trinquamelle bid him
    withdraw from the court—which accordingly was done—and then directed his
    discourse to Pantagruel after this manner:  It is fitting, most illustrious
    prince, not only by reason of the deep obligations wherein this present
    parliament, together with the whole marquisate of Mirelingues, stand bound
    to your royal highness for the innumerable benefits which, as effects of
    mere grace, they have received from your incomparable bounty, but for that
    excellent wit also, prime judgment, and admirable learning wherewith
    Almighty God, the giver of all good things, hath most richly qualified and
    endowed you, we tender and present unto you the decision of this new,
    strange, and paradoxical case of Bridlegoose; who, in your presence, to
    your both hearing and seeing, hath plainly confessed his final judging and
    determinating of suits of law by the mere chance and fortune of the dice.
    Therefore do we beseech you that you may be pleased to give sentence
    therein as unto you shall seem most just and equitable.  To this Pantagruel
    answered:  Gentlemen, it is not unknown to you how my condition is somewhat
    remote from the profession of deciding law controversies; yet, seeing you
    are pleased to do me the honour to put that task upon me, instead of
    undergoing the office of a judge I will become your humble supplicant.  I
    observe, gentlemen, in this Bridlegoose several things which induce me to
    represent before you that it is my opinion he should be pardoned.  In the
    first place, his old age; secondly, his simplicity; to both which qualities
    our statute and common laws, civil and municipal together, allow many
    excuses for any slips or escapes which, through the invincible imperfection
    of either, have been inconsiderately stumbled upon by a person so
    qualified.  Thirdly, gentlemen, I must needs display before you another
    case, which in equity and justice maketh much for the advantage of
    Bridlegoose, to wit, that this one, sole, and single fault of his ought to
    be quite forgotten, abolished, and swallowed up by that immense and vast
    ocean of just dooms and sentences which heretofore he hath given and
    pronounced; his demeanours, for these forty years and upwards that he hath
    been a judge, having been so evenly balanced in the scales of uprightness,
    that envy itself till now could not have been so impudent as to accuse and
    twit him with any act worthy of a check or reprehension; as, if a drop of
    the sea were thrown into the Loire, none could perceive or say that by this
    single drop the whole river should be salt and brackish.

    Truly, it seemeth unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose's
    juridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinary
    savouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his preceding
    sentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and approved of by
    yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court.  For it is
    usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifest
    his own ineffable glory in blunting the perspicacy of the eyes of the wise,
    in weakening the strength of potent oppressors, in depressing the pride of
    rich extortioners, and in erecting, comforting, protecting, supporting,
    upholding, and shoring up the poor, feeble, humble, silly, and foolish ones
    of the earth.  But, waiving all these matters, I shall only beseech you,
    not by the obligations which you pretend to owe to my family, for which I
    thank you, but for that constant and unfeigned love and affection which you
    have always found in me, both on this and on the other side of Loire, for
    the maintenance and establishment of your places, offices, and dignities,
    that for this one time you would pardon and forgive him upon these two
    conditions.  First, that he satisfy, or put a sufficient surety for the
    satisfaction of the party wronged by the injustice of the sentence in
    question.  For the fulfilment of this article I will provide sufficiently.
    And, secondly, that for his subsidiary aid in the weighty charge of
    administrating justice you would be pleased to appoint and assign unto him
    some pretty little virtuous counsellor, younger, learneder, and wiser than
    he, by the square and rule of whose advice he may regulate, guide, temper,
    and moderate in times coming all his judiciary procedures; or otherwise, if
    you intend totally to depose him from his office, and to deprive him
    altogether of the state and dignity of a judge, I shall cordially entreat
    you to make a present and free gift of him to me, who shall find in my
    kingdoms charges and employments enough wherewith to embusy him, for the
    bettering of his own fortunes and furtherance of my service.  In the
    meantime, I implore the Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier of all good
    things, in his grace, mercy, and kindness, to preserve you all now and
    evermore, world without end.

    These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg with
    such a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree and
    eminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and master-speaker of that
    Mirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the whole court, and went out
    of the chamber; at the door whereof finding Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John,
    and others, he forthwith, attended by them, walked to the outer gate, where
    all of them immediately took horse to return towards Gargantua.  Pantagruel
    by the way related to them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose's
    sententiating differences at law.  Friar John said that he had seen Peter
    Dandin, and was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in the
    monastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon.  Gymnast
    likewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand Christian cavalier
    De Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made answer to the
    adventurer.  Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the matter of believing
    that it was morally possible Bridlegoose should have been for such a long
    space of time so continually fortunate in that aleatory way of deciding law
    debates.  Epistemon said to Pantagruel, Such another story, not much unlike
    to that in all the circumstances thereof, is vulgarly reported of the
    provost of Montlehery.  In good sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is to
    be wondered at.  To have hit right twice or thrice in a judgment so given
    by haphazard might have fallen out well enough, especially in controversies
    that were ambiguous, intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure.

    Chapter 3.XLIV. How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human
    judgment.

    Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty
    debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella,
    proconsul in Asia.  The case was this.

    A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece.  He dying,
    she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to her second
    husband bore a boy called Effege.  A pretty long time thereafter it
    happened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and stepdams is very
    rare towards the children of the first fathers and mothers deceased, that
    this husband, with the help of his son Effege, secretly, wittingly,
    willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece.  The woman came no sooner to
    get information of the fact, but, that it might not go unpunished, she
    caused kill them both, to revenge the death of her first son.  She was
    apprehended and carried before Cneius Dolabella, in whose presence she,
    without dissembling anything, confessed all that was laid to her charge;
    yet alleged that she had both right and reason on her side for the killing
    of them.  Thus was the state of the question.  He found the business so
    dubious and intricate, that he knew not what to determine therein, nor
    which of the parties to incline to.  On the one hand, it was an execrable
    crime to cut off at once both her second husband and her son.  On the other
    hand, the cause of the murder seemed to be so natural, as to be grounded
    upon the law of nations and the rational instinct of all the people of the
    world, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyed
    her first son; not that they had been in any manner of way wronged,
    outraged, or injured by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his
    inheritance.  In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon,
    he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their
    advice and judgment.  That judicious senate, very sagely perpending the
    reasons of his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally to
    compear before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to some
    interrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in the
    verbal defence.  Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in their
    opinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what to
    say or judge therein.  Who had decided that plea by the chance and fortune
    of the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which side soever he
    had passed his casting and condemnatory sentence.  If against the woman,
    she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign authority by taking that
    vengeance at her own hand, the inflicting whereof was only competent to the
    supreme power to administer justice in criminal cases.  If for her, the
    just resentment of a so atrocious injury done unto her, in murdering her
    innocent son, did fully excuse and vindicate her of any trespass or offence
    about that particular committed by her.  But this continuation of
    Bridlegoose for so many years still hitting the nail on the head, never
    missing the mark, and always judging aright, by the mere throwing of the
    dice and chance thereof, is that which most astonisheth and amazeth me.

    To answer, quoth Pantagruel (Epistemon, says the English edition of 1694,
    following the reading of the modern French editions.  Le Duchat has pointed
    out the mistake.—M.), categorically to that which you wonder at, I must
    ingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet, conjecturally to guess at
    the reason of it, I would refer the cause of that marvellously long-
    continued happy success in the judiciary results of his definitive
    sentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and benignity of the
    intelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after having
    contemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of Judge
    Bridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did regulate that for
    him by chance which by the profoundest act of his maturest deliberation he
    was not able to reach unto.  That, likewise, which possibly made him to
    diffide in his own skill and capacity, notwithstanding his being an expert
    and understanding lawyer, for anything that I know to the contrary, was the
    knowledge and experience which he had of the antinomies, contrarieties,
    antilogies, contradictions, traversings, and thwartings of laws, customs,
    edicts, statutes, orders, and ordinances, in which dangerous opposition,
    equity and justice being structured and founded on either of the opposite
    terms, and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice and
    iniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, being
    assuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequently
    transformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light,
    maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and pens of
    his ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing judges, law-
    monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-like law-
    wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black to
    white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply.  For the more
    expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleading
    parties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is well
    known that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find an
    advocate to patrocinate and defend it,—else would there be no process in
    the world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at the bar.  He did in these
    extremities, as I conceive, most humbly recommend the direction of his
    judicial proceedings to the upright judge of judges, God Almighty; did
    submit himself to the conduct and guideship of the blessed Spirit in the
    hazard and perplexity of the definitive sentence, and, by this aleatory
    lot, did as it were implore and explore the divine decree of his goodwill
    and pleasure, instead of that which we call the final judgment of a court.
    To this effect, to the better attaining to his purpose, which was to judge
    righteously, he did, in my opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the end
    that by the providence aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whose
    action was uprightest, and backed with greatest reason.  In doing whereof
    he did not stray from the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is so
    little harm in that manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety and
    perplexedness of human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasure
    of his divine will.

    Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that the
    unstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those of
    the parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose was
    arraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worse
    practice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance and
    hazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have it
    remitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are full
    of blood and hearts of wry affections.  Besides that, their principal
    direction in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, a
    wicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, so
    pernicious, unjust, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was his
    ordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, and
    ordinances, as at an outroop or putsale, to him who offered most for them.
    Thus did he shape measures for the pleaders, and cut their morsels to them
    by and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits, scantlings, and shreds
    of the law now in use, altogether concealing, suppressing, disannulling,
    and abolishing the remainder, which did make for the total law; fearing
    that, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge of
    such as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctors
    of the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts,
    his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the
    public notice of the world.  Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that
    is to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical
    case should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination
    of what is their right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees;
    as Cato in his time wished and advised that every judiciary court should be
    paved with caltrops.

    Chapter 3.XLV. How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.

    On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very same
    hour that Triboulet was by water come from Blois.  Panurge, at his arrival,
    gave him a hog's bladder puffed up with wind, and resounding because of the
    hard peas that were within it.  Moreover he did present him with a gilt
    wooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell, an osier-wattled
    wicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty apples of the
    orchard of Blandureau.

    If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is no
    more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage.  Triboulet
    girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, ate
    some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine.  Panurge very wistly and
    heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seen
    ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drink
    heartily, and by good long draughts.  When Triboulet had done with his
    drinking, Panurge laid out before him and exposed the sum of the business
    wherein he was to require his advice, in eloquent and choicely-sorted
    terms, adorned with flourishes of rhetoric.  But, before he had altogether
    done, Triboulet with his fist gave him a bouncing whirret between the
    shoulders, rendered back into his hand again the empty bottle, fillipped
    and flirted him in the nose with the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a final
    resolution, shaking and wagging his head strongly and disorderly, he
    answered nothing else but this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk,
    Buzansay hornpipe!  These words thus finished, he slipped himself out of
    the company, went aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight in
    the melody of the rickling crackling noise of the peas.  After which time
    it lay not in the power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate
    sound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about to
    interrogate him further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would have
    stuck him therewith.  I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought my
    pigs to a fine market.  Have I not got a brave determination of all my
    doubts, and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it?
    He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who
    brought him hither to me,—That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at
    me,—but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of
    my thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny.

    Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quoth
    Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the gestures
    and speech which he hath made and uttered.  In them, veritably, quoth he,
    have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable mysteries; yea, of
    such important worth and weight, that I shall never henceforth be
    astonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal of worship
    and reverence honour and respect natural fools equally with their primest
    doctors, muftis, divines, and prophets.  Did not you take heed, quoth he, a
    little before he opened his mouth to speak, what a shogging, shaking, and
    wagging his head did keep?  By the approved doctrine of the ancient
    philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most expert magicians, and
    the received opinions of the learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitation
    and moving should by us all be judged to proceed from, and be quickened and
    suscitated by the coming and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical
    spirit, which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacle
    of a debile substance (for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, a
    little head containeth not much brains), was the cause of that commotion.
    This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, when
    they affirm that shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a human
    body, partly because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden
    and load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness and
    imbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ.  A manifest example
    whereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to their
    head a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in the
    hand that holds it.  This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mystical
    pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always, before the
    uttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of her domestic
    laurel.  Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to
    acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holy
    days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the
    head of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake.
    Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoever
    he walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furious
    lolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that he commonly affrighted those
    who casually met with him in his way.  The said author in another place,
    showing a reason why Charmides shook and brangled his head, assevered that
    he was transported and in an ecstasy.  Catullus after the same manner
    maketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the
    Menades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented
    prophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads.
    As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were
    wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals.  Whence, too, according
    to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination,
    for kubistan signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and
    play the part of one that is wry-necked.

    Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the
    Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize and
    vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shrugging
    of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used then
    most punctually.  For the common voice of the philosophers, together with
    the opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth that
    vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without the
    concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the said
    presaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspired
    declareth and manifesteth it unto others.  The learned lawyer Julian, being
    asked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful and
    in a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, and
    enraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without a
    noddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging
    at the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent
    enough.  Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and
    instructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do
    a pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication,
    stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the
    sage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them
    up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of
    theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strange
    and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly by
    disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of a
    wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline.  All which Virgil
    acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo Cynthius.

    Chapter 3.XLVI. How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.

    He says you are a fool.  And what kind of fool?  A mad fool, who in your
    old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your
    pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his
    codpiece.  He says furthermore, Beware of the monk.  Upon mine honour, it
    gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk.  Nay, I will
    engage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in my
    possession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe,
    Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the horned
    brotherhood of Vulcan.  Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute to
    the wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet.  The other oracles and
    responses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, without
    descending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitch
    upon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess who
    is to be the copesmate of your wife and hornifier of your proper self.
    Thus noble Triboulet tells it us plainly, from whose words we may gather
    with all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much
    the more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously
    contaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher.  Moreover, he says
    that you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned,
    hornified, and cornuted.  And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the
    Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes
    of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for
    another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet,
    and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud,
    obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay
    hornpipe.  Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder,
    and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the
    back.  This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, and
    fillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, as
    you stole the hog's bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton.

    Flat contrary, quoth Panurge;—not that I would impudently exempt myself
    from being a vassal in the territory of folly.  I hold of that
    jurisdiction, and am subject thereto, I confess it.  And why should I not?
    For the whole world is foolish.  In the old Lorraine language, fou for tou,
    all and fool, were the same thing.  Besides, it is avouched by Solomon that
    infinite is the number of fools.  From an infinity nothing can be deducted
    or abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything thereto be
    added or subjoined.  Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I should
    not hold myself a fool.  After the same manner of speaking, we may aver the
    number of the mad and enraged folks to be infinite.  Avicenna maketh no
    bones to assert that the several kinds of madness are infinite.  Though
    this much of Triboulet's words tend little to my advantage, howbeit the
    prejudice which I sustain thereby be common with me to all other men, yet
    the rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me.  He said to my
    wife, Be wary of the monkey; that is as much as if she should be cheery,
    and take as much delight in a monkey as ever did the Lesbia of Catullus in
    her sparrow; who will for his recreation pass his time no less joyfully at
    the exercise of snatching flies than heretofore did the merciless fly-
    catcher Domitian.  Withal he meant, by another part of his discourse, that
    she should be of a jovial country-like humour, as gay and pleasing as a
    harmonious hornpipe of Saulieau or Buzansay.  The veridical Triboulet did
    therein hint at what I liked well, as perfectly knowing the inclinations
    and propensions of my mind, my natural disposition, and the bias of my
    interior passions and affections.  For you may be assured that my humour is
    much better satisfied and contented with the pretty, frolic, rural,
    dishevelled shepherdesses, whose bums through their coarse canvas smocks
    smell of the clover grass of the field, than with those great ladies in
    magnific courts, with their flandan top-knots and sultanas, their polvil,
    pastillos, and cosmetics.  The homely sound, likewise, of a rustical
    hornpipe is more agreeable to my ears than the curious warbling and musical
    quavering of lutes, theorbos, viols, rebecs, and violins.  He gave me a
    lusty rapping thwack on my back,—what then?  Let it pass, in the name and
    for the love of God, as an abatement of and deduction from so much of my
    future pains in purgatory.  He did it not out of any evil intent.  He
    thought, belike, to have hit some of the pages.  He is an honest fool, and
    an innocent changeling.  It is a sin to harbour in the heart any bad
    conceit of him.  As for myself, I heartily pardon him.  He flirted me on
    the nose.  In that there is no harm; for it importeth nothing else but that
    betwixt my wife and me there will occur some toyish wanton tricks which
    usually happen to all new-married folks.

    Chapter 3.XLVII. How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of the
    holy bottle.

    There is as yet another point, quoth Panurge, which you have not at all
    considered on, although it be the chief and principal head of the matter.
    He put the bottle in my hand and restored it me again.  How interpret you
    that passage?  What is the meaning of that?  He possibly, quoth Pantagruel,
    signifieth thereby that your wife will be such a drunkard as shall daily
    take in her liquor kindly, and ply the pots and bottles apace.  Quite
    otherwise, quoth Panurge; for the bottle was empty.  I swear to you, by the
    prickling brambly thorn of St. Fiacre in Brie, that our unique morosoph,
    whom I formerly termed the lunatic Triboulet, referreth me, for attaining
    to the final resolution of my scruple, to the response-giving bottle.
    Therefore do I renew afresh the first vow which I made, and here in your
    presence protest and make oath, by Styx and Acheron, to carry still
    spectacles in my cap, and never to wear a codpiece in my breeches, until
    upon the enterprise in hand of my nuptial undertaking I shall have obtained
    an answer from the holy bottle.  I am acquainted with a prudent,
    understanding, and discreet gentleman, and besides a very good friend of
    mine, who knoweth the land, country, and place where its temple and oracle
    is built and posited.  He will guide and conduct us thither sure and
    safely.  Let us go thither, I beseech you.  Deny me not, and say not nay;
    reject not the suit I make unto you, I entreat you.  I will be to you an
    Achates, a Damis, and heartily accompany you all along in the whole voyage,
    both in your going forth and coming back.  I have of a long time known you
    to be a great lover of peregrination, desirous still to learn new things,
    and still to see what you had never seen before.

    Very willingly, quoth Pantagruel, I condescend to your request.  But before
    we enter in upon our progress towards the accomplishment of so far a
    journey, replenished and fraught with eminent perils, full of innumerable
    hazards, and every way stored with evident and manifest dangers,—What
    dangers? quoth Panurge, interrupting him.  Dangers fly back, run from, and
    shun me whithersoever I go, seven leagues around, as in the presence of the
    sovereign a subordinate magistracy is eclipsed; or as clouds and darkness
    quite evanish at the bright coming of a radiant sun; or as all sores and
    sicknesses did suddenly depart at the approach of the body of St. Martin a
    Quande.  Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, before we adventure to set
    forwards on the road of our projected and intended voyage, some few points
    are to be discussed, expedited, and despatched.  First, let us send back
    Triboulet to Blois.  Which was instantly done, after that Pantagruel had
    given him a frieze coat.  Secondly, our design must be backed with the
    advice and counsel of the king my father.  And, lastly, it is most needful
    and expedient for us that we search for and find out some sibyl to serve us
    for a guide, truchman, and interpreter.  To this Panurge made answer, that
    his friend Xenomanes would abundantly suffice for the plenary discharge and
    performance of the sibyl's office; and that, furthermore, in passing
    through the Lanternatory revelling country, they should take along with
    them a learned and profitable Lanternesse, which would be no less useful to
    them in their voyage than was the sibyl to Aeneas in his descent to the
    Elysian fields.  Carpalin, in the interim, as he was upon the conducting
    away of Triboulet, in his passing by hearkened a little to the discourse
    they were upon; then spoke out, saying, Ho, Panurge, master freeman, take
    my Lord Debitis at Calais alongst with you, for he is goud-fallot, a good
    fellow.  He will not forget those who have been debitors; these are
    Lanternes.  Thus shall you not lack for both fallot and lanterne.  I may
    safely with the little skill I have, quoth Pantagruel, prognosticate that
    by the way we shall engender no melancholy.  I clearly perceive it already.
    The only thing that vexeth me is, that I cannot speak the Lanternatory
    language.  I shall, answered Panurge, speak for you all.  I understand it
    every whit as well as I do mine own maternal tongue; I have been no less
    used to it than to the vulgar French.

      Briszmarg dalgotbrick nubstzne zos.
      Isquebsz prusq:  albok crinqs zacbac.
      Mizbe dilbarskz morp nipp stancz bos,
      Strombtz, Panurge, walmap quost gruszbac.

    Now guess, friend Epistemon, what this is.  They are, quoth Epistemon,
    names of errant devils, passant devils, and rampant devils.  These words of
    thine, dear friend of mine, are true, quoth Panurge; yet are they terms
    used in the language of the court of the Lanternish people.  By the way, as
    we go upon our journey, I will make to thee a pretty little dictionary,
    which, notwithstanding, shall not last you much longer than a pair of new
    shoes.  Thou shalt have learned it sooner than thou canst perceive the
    dawning of the next subsequent morning.  What I have said in the foregoing
    tetrastich is thus translated out of the Lanternish tongue into our vulgar
    dialect:

      All miseries attended me, whilst I
      A lover was, and had no good thereby.
      Of better luck the married people tell;
      Panurge is one of those, and knows it well.

    There is little more, then, quoth Pantagruel, to be done, but that we
    understand what the will of the king my father will be therein, and
    purchase his consent.

    Chapter 3.XLVIII. How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry without the
    special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers.

    No sooner had Pantagruel entered in at the door of the great hall of the
    castle, than that he encountered full butt with the good honest Gargantua
    coming forth from the council board, unto whom he made a succinct and
    summary narrative of what had passed and occurred, worthy of his
    observation, in his travels abroad, since their last interview; then,
    acquainting him with the design he had in hand, besought him that it might
    stand with his goodwill and pleasure to grant him leave to prosecute and go
    through-stitch with the enterprise which he had undertaken.  The good man
    Gargantua, having in one hand two great bundles of petitions endorsed and
    answered, and in the other some remembrancing notes and bills, to put him
    in mind of such other requests of supplicants, which, albeit presented, had
    nevertheless been neither read nor heard, he gave both to Ulric Gallet, his
    ancient and faithful Master of Requests; then drew aside Pantagruel, and,
    with a countenance more serene and jovial than customary, spoke to him
    thus:  I praise God, and have great reason so to do, my most dear son, that
    he hath been pleased to entertain in you a constant inclination to virtuous
    actions.  I am well content that the voyage which you have motioned to me
    be by you accomplished, but withal I could wish you would have a mind and
    desire to marry, for that I see you are of competent years.  Panurge in the
    meanwhile was in a readiness of preparing and providing for remedies,
    salves, and cures against all such lets, obstacles, and impediments as he
    could in the height of his fancy conceive might by Gargantua be cast in the
    way of their itinerary design.  Is it your pleasure, most dear father, that
    you speak? answered Pantagruel.  For my part, I have not yet thought upon
    it.  In all this affair I wholly submit and rest in your good liking and
    paternal authority.  For I shall rather pray unto God that he would throw
    me down stark dead at your feet, in your pleasure, than that against your
    pleasure I should be found married alive.  I never yet heard that by any
    law, whether sacred or profane, yea, amongst the rudest and most barbarous
    nations in the world, it was allowed and approved of that children may be
    suffered and tolerated to marry at their own goodwill and pleasure, without
    the knowledge, advice, or consent asked and had thereto of their fathers,
    mothers, and nearest kindred.  All legislators, everywhere upon the face of
    the whole earth, have taken away and removed this licentious liberty from
    children, and totally reserved it to the discretion of the parents.

    My dearly beloved son, quoth Gargantua, I believe you, and from my heart
    thank God for having endowed you with the grace of having both a perfect
    notice of and entire liking to laudable and praiseworthy things; and that
    through the windows of your exterior senses he hath vouchsafed to transmit
    unto the interior faculties of your mind nothing but what is good and
    virtuous.  For in my time there hath been found on the continent a certain
    country, wherein are I know not what kind of Pastophorian mole-catching
    priests, who, albeit averse from engaging their proper persons into a
    matrimonial duty, like the pontifical flamens of Cybele in Phrygia, as if
    they were capons, and not cocks full of lasciviousness, salacity, and
    wantonness, who yet have, nevertheless, in the matter of conjugal affairs,
    taken upon them to prescribe laws and ordinances to married folks.  I
    cannot goodly determine what I should most abhor, detest, loathe, and
    abominate,—whether the tyrannical presumption of those dreaded sacerdotal
    mole-catchers, who, not being willing to contain and coop up themselves
    within the grates and trellises of their own mysterious temples, do deal
    in, meddle with, obtrude upon, and thrust their sickles into harvests of
    secular businesses quite contrary and diametrically opposite to the
    quality, state, and condition of their callings, professions, and
    vocations; or the superstitious stupidity and senseless scrupulousness of
    married folks, who have yielded obedience, and submitted their bodies,
    fortunes, and estates to the discretion and authority of such odious,
    perverse, barbarous, and unreasonable laws.  Nor do they see that which is
    clearer than the light and splendour of the morning star,—how all these
    nuptial and connubial sanctions, statutes, and ordinances have been
    decreed, made, and instituted for the sole benefit, profit, and advantage
    of the flaminal mysts and mysterious flamens, and nothing at all for the
    good, utility, or emolument of the silly hoodwinked married people.  Which
    administereth unto others a sufficient cause for rendering these churchmen
    suspicious of iniquity, and of an unjust and fraudulent manner of dealing,
    no more to be connived at nor countenanced, after that it be well weighed
    in the scales of reason, than if with a reciprocal temerity the laics, by
    way of compensation, would impose laws to be followed and observed by those
    mysts and flamens, how they should behave themselves in the making and
    performance of their rites and ceremonies, and after what manner they ought
    to proceed in the offering up and immolating of their various oblations,
    victims, and sacrifices; seeing that, besides the decimation and tithe-
    haling of their goods, they cut off and take parings, shreddings, and
    clippings of the gain proceeding from the labour of their hands and sweat
    of their brows, therewith to entertain themselves the better.  Upon which
    consideration, in my opinion, their injunctions and commands would not
    prove so pernicious and impertinent as those of the ecclesiastic power unto
    which they had tendered their blind obedience.  For, as you have very well
    said, there is no place in the world where, legally, a licence is granted
    to the children to marry without the advice and consent of their parents
    and kindred.  Nevertheless, by those wicked laws and mole-catching customs,
    whereat there is a little hinted in what I have already spoken to you,
    there is no scurvy, measly, leprous, or pocky ruffian, pander, knave,
    rogue, skellum, robber, or thief, pilloried, whipped, and burn-marked in
    his own country for his crimes and felonies, who may not violently snatch
    away and ravish what maid soever he had a mind to pitch upon, how noble,
    how fair, how rich, honest, and chaste soever she be, and that out of the
    house of her own father, in his own presence, from the bosom of her mother,
    and in the sight and despite of her friends and kindred looking on a so
    woeful spectacle, provided that the rascal villain be so cunning as to
    associate unto himself some mystical flamen, who, according to the covenant
    made betwixt them two, shall be in hope some day to participate of the
    prey.

    Could the Goths, the Scyths, or Massagets do a worse or more cruel act to
    any of the inhabitants of a hostile city, when, after the loss of many of
    their most considerable commanders, the expense of a great deal of money,
    and a long siege, they shall have stormed and taken it by a violent and
    impetuous assault?  May not these fathers and mothers, think you, be
    sorrowful and heavy-hearted when they see an unknown fellow, a vagabond
    stranger, a barbarous lout, a rude cur, rotten, fleshless, putrified,
    scraggy, boily, botchy, poor, a forlorn caitiff and miserable sneak, by an
    open rapt snatch away before their own eyes their so fair, delicate, neat,
    well-behavioured, richly-provided-for and healthful daughters, on whose
    breeding and education they had spared no cost nor charges, by bringing
    them up in an honest discipline to all the honourable and virtuous
    employments becoming one of their sex descended of a noble parentage,
    hoping by those commendable and industrious means in an opportune and
    convenient time to bestow them on the worthy sons of their well-deserving
    neighbours and ancient friends, who had nourished, entertained, taught,
    instructed, and schooled their children with the same care and solicitude,
    to make them matches fit to attain to the felicity of a so happy marriage,
    that from them might issue an offspring and progeny no less heirs to the
    laudable endowments and exquisite qualifications of their parents, whom
    they every way resemble, than to their personal and real estates, movables,
    and inheritances?  How doleful, trist, and plangorous would such a sight
    and pageantry prove unto them?  You shall not need to think that the
    collachrymation of the Romans and their confederates at the decease of
    Germanicus Drusus was comparable to this lamentation of theirs?  Neither
    would I have you to believe that the discomfort and anxiety of the
    Lacedaemonians, when the Greek Helen, by the perfidiousness of the
    adulterous Trojan, Paris, was privily stolen away out of their country, was
    greater or more pitiful than this ruthful and deplorable collugency of
    theirs?  You may very well imagine that Ceres at the ravishment of her
    daughter Proserpina was not more attristed, sad, nor mournful than they.
    Trust me, and your own reason, that the loss of Osiris was not so
    regrettable to Isis, nor did Venus so deplore the death of Adonis, nor yet
    did Hercules so bewail the straying of Hylas, nor was the rapt of Polyxena
    more throbbingly resented and condoled by Priamus and Hecuba, than this
    aforesaid accident would be sympathetically bemoaned, grievous, ruthful,
    and anxious to the woefully desolate and disconsolate parents.

    Notwithstanding all this, the greater part of so vilely abused parents are
    so timorous and afraid of devils and hobgoblins, and so deeply plunged in
    superstition, that they dare not gainsay nor contradict, much less oppose
    and resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the mole-catcher hath
    been present at the perpetrating of the fact, and a party contractor and
    covenanter in that detestable bargain.  What do they do then?  They
    wretchedly stay at their own miserable homes, destitute of their well-
    beloved daughters, the fathers cursing the days and the hours wherein they
    were married, and the mothers howling and crying that it was not their
    fortune to have brought forth abortive issues when they happened to be
    delivered of such unfortunate girls, and in this pitiful plight spend at
    best the remainder of their time with tears and weeping for those their
    children, of and from whom they expected, (and, with good reason, should
    have obtained and reaped,) in these latter days of theirs, joy and comfort.
    Other parents there have been, so impatient of that affront and indignity
    put upon them and their families, that, transported with the extremity of
    passion, in a mad and frantic mood, through the vehemency of a grievous
    fury and raging sorrow, have drowned, hanged, killed, and otherwise put
    violent hands on themselves.  Others, again, of that parental relation
    have, upon the reception of the like injury, been of a more magnanimous and
    heroic spirit, who, in imitation and at the example of the children of
    Jacob revenging upon the Sichemites the rapt of their sister Dinah, having
    found the rascally ruffian in the association of his mystical mole-catcher
    closely and in hugger-mugger conferring, parleying, and coming with their
    daughters, for the suborning, corrupting, depraving, perverting, and
    enticing these innocent unexperienced maids unto filthy lewdnesses, have,
    without any further advisement on the matter, cut them instantly into
    pieces, and thereupon forthwith thrown out upon the fields their so
    dismembered bodies, to serve for food unto the wolves and ravens.  Upon the
    chivalrous, bold, and courageous achievement of a so valiant, stout, and
    manlike act, the other mole-catching symmysts have been so highly incensed,
    and have so chafed, fretted, and fumed thereat, that, bills of complaint
    and accusations having been in a most odious and detestable manner put in
    before the competent judges, the arm of secular authority hath with much
    importunity and impetuosity been by them implored and required, they
    proudly contending that the servants of God would become contemptible if
    exemplary punishment were not speedily taken upon the persons of the
    perpetrators of such an enormous, horrid, sacrilegious, crying, heinous,
    and execrable crime.

    Yet neither by natural equity, by the law of nations, nor by any imperial
    law whatsoever, hath there been found so much as one rubric, paragraph,
    point, or tittle, by the which any kind of chastisement or correction hath
    been adjudged due to be inflicted upon any for their delinquency in that
    kind.  Reason opposeth, and nature is repugnant.  For there is no virtuous
    man in the world who both naturally and with good reason will not be more
    hugely troubled in mind, hearing of the news of the rapt, disgrace,
    ignominy, and dishonour of his daughter, than of her death.  Now any man,
    finding in hot blood one who with a forethought felony hath murdered his
    daughter, may, without tying himself to the formalities and circumstances
    of a legal proceeding, kill him on a sudden and out of hand without
    incurring any hazard of being attainted and apprehended by the officers of
    justice for so doing.  What wonder is it then?  Or how little strange
    should it appear to any rational man, if a lechering rogue, together with
    his mole-catching abettor, be entrapped in the flagrant act of suborning
    his daughter, and stealing her out of his house, though herself consent
    thereto, that the father in such a case of stain and infamy by them brought
    upon his family, should put them both to a shameful death, and cast their
    carcasses upon dunghills to be devoured and eaten up by dogs and swine, or
    otherwise fling them a little further off to the direption, tearing, and
    rending asunder of their joints and members by the wild beasts of the field
    (as unworthy to receive the gentle, the desired, the last kind embraces of
    the great Alma Mater, the earth, commonly called burial).

    Dearly beloved son, have an especial care that after my decease none of
    these laws be received in any of your kingdoms; for whilst I breathe, by
    the grace and assistance of God, I shall give good order.  Seeing,
    therefore, you have totally referred unto my discretion the disposure of
    you in marriage, I am fully of an opinion that I shall provide sufficiently
    well for you in that point.  Make ready and prepare yourself for Panurge's
    voyage.  Take along with you Epistemon, Friar John, and such others as you
    will choose.  Do with my treasures what unto yourself shall seem most
    expedient.  None of your actions, I promise you, can in any manner of way
    displease me.  Take out of my arsenal Thalasse whatsoever equipage,
    furniture, or provision you please, together with such pilots, mariners,
    and truchmen as you have a mind to, and with the first fair and favourable
    wind set sail and make out to sea in the name of God our Saviour.  In the
    meanwhile, during your absence, I shall not be neglective of providing a
    wife for you, nor of those preparations which are requisite to be made for
    the more sumptuous solemnizing of your nuptials with a most splendid feast,
    if ever there was any in the world, since the days of Ahasuerus.

    Chapter 3.XLIX. How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and of the herb
    named Pantagruelion.

    Within very few days after that Pantagruel had taken his leave of the good
    Gargantua, who devoutly prayed for his son's happy voyage, he arrived at
    the seaport, near to Sammalo, accompanied with Panurge, Epistemon, Friar
    John of the Funnels, Abbot of Theleme, and others of the royal house,
    especially with Xenomanes the great traveller and thwarter of dangerous
    ways, who was come at the bidding and appointment of Panurge, of whose
    castlewick of Salmigondin he did hold some petty inheritance by the tenure
    of a mesne fee.  Pantagruel, being come thither, prepared and made ready
    for launching a fleet of ships, to the number of those which Ajax of
    Salamine had of old equipped in convoy of the Grecian soldiery against the
    Trojan state.  He likewise picked out for his use so many mariners, pilots,
    sailors, interpreters, artificers, officers, and soldiers, as he thought
    fitting, and therewithal made provision of so much victuals of all sorts,
    artillery, munition of divers kinds, clothes, moneys, and other such
    luggage, stuff, baggage, chaffer, and furniture, as he deemed needful for
    carrying on the design of a so tedious, long, and perilous voyage.  Amongst
    other things, it was observed how he caused some of his vessels to be
    fraught and loaded with a great quantity of an herb of his called
    Pantagruelion, not only of the green and raw sort of it, but of the
    confected also, and of that which was notably well befitted for present use
    after the fashion of conserves.  The herb Pantagruelion hath a little root
    somewhat hard and rough, roundish, terminating in an obtuse and very blunt
    point, and having some of its veins, strings, or filaments coloured with
    some spots of white, never fixeth itself into the ground above the
    profoundness almost of a cubit, or foot and a half.  From the root thereof
    proceedeth the only stalk, orbicular, cane-like, green without, whitish
    within, and hollow like the stem of smyrnium, olus atrum, beans, and
    gentian, full of long threads, straight, easy to be broken, jagged,
    snipped, nicked, and notched a little after the manner of pillars and
    columns, slightly furrowed, chamfered, guttered, and channelled, and full
    of fibres, or hairs like strings, in which consisteth the chief value and
    dignity of the herb, especially in that part thereof which is termed mesa,
    as he would say the mean, and in that other, which hath got the
    denomination of milasea.  Its height is commonly of five or six foot.  Yet
    sometimes it is of such a tall growth as doth surpass the length of a
    lance, but that is only when it meeteth with a sweet, easy, warm, wet, and
    well-soaked soil—as is the ground of the territory of Olone, and that of
    Rasea, near to Preneste in Sabinia—and that it want not for rain enough
    about the season of the fishers' holidays and the estival solstice.  There
    are many trees whose height is by it very far exceeded, and you might call
    it dendromalache by the authority of Theophrastus.  The plant every year
    perisheth,—the tree neither in the trunk, root, bark, or boughs being
    durable.

    From the stalk of this Pantagruelian plant there issue forth several large
    and great branches, whose leaves have thrice as much length as breadth,
    always green, roughish, and rugged like the orcanet, or Spanish bugloss,
    hardish, slit round about like unto a sickle, or as the saxifragum, betony,
    and finally ending as it were in the points of a Macedonian spear, or of
    such a lancet as surgeons commonly make use of in their phlebotomizing
    tiltings.  The figure and shape of the leaves thereof is not much different
    from that of those of the ash-tree, or of agrimony; the herb itself being
    so like the Eupatorian plant that many skilful herbalists have called it
    the Domestic Eupator, and the Eupator the Wild Pantagruelion.  These leaves
    are in equal and parallel distances spread around the stalk by the number
    in every rank either of five or seven, nature having so highly favoured and
    cherished this plant that she hath richly adorned it with these two odd,
    divine, and mysterious numbers.  The smell thereof is somewhat strong, and
    not very pleasing to nice, tender, and delicate noses.  The seed enclosed
    therein mounteth up to the very top of its stalk, and a little above it.

    This is a numerous herb; for there is no less abundance of it than of any
    other whatsoever.  Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid, and
    some of an oblong shape, and all of those either black, bright-coloured, or
    tawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a quickly-blasted-away coat, yet
    such a one as is of a delicious taste and savour to all shrill and sweetly-
    singing birds, such as linnets, goldfinches, larks, canary birds, yellow-
    hammers, and others of that airy chirping choir; but it would quite
    extinguish the natural heat and procreative virtue of the semence of any
    man who would eat much and often of it.  And although that of old amongst
    the Greeks there was certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns and
    tarts, made thereof, which commonly for a liquorish daintiness were
    presented on the table after supper to delight the palate and make the wine
    relish the better; yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive to
    the stomach.  For it engendereth bad and unwholesome blood, and with its
    exorbitant heat woundeth them with grievous, hurtful, smart, and noisome
    vapours.  And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male and
    female, which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, the
    daffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine,
    pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even so in
    this herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is very
    copious of and abundant in seed.  There is likewise in it a female, which
    hath great store and plenty of whitish flowers, serviceable to little or no
    purpose, nor doth it carry in it seed of any worth at all, at least
    comparable to that of the male.  It hath also a larger leaf, and much
    softer than that of the male, nor doth it altogether grow to so great a
    height.  This Pantagruelion is to be sown at the first coming of the
    swallows, and is to be plucked out of the ground when the grasshoppers
    begin to be a little hoarse.

    Chapter 3.L. How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought.

    The herb Pantagruelion, in September, under the autumnal equinox, is
    dressed and prepared several ways, according to the various fancies of the
    people and diversity of the climates wherein it groweth.  The first
    instruction which Pantagruel gave concerning it was to divest and despoil
    the stalk and stem thereof of all its flowers and seeds, to macerate and
    mortify it in pond, pool, or lake water, which is to be made run a little
    for five days together (Properly—'lake water, which is to be made
    stagnant, not current, for five days together.'—M.) if the season be dry
    and the water hot, or for full nine or twelve days if the weather be
    cloudish and the water cold.  Then must it be parched before the sun till
    it be drained of its moisture.  After this it is in the shadow, where the
    sun shines not, to be peeled and its rind pulled off.  Then are the fibres
    and strings thereof to be parted, wherein, as we have already said,
    consisteth its prime virtue, price, and efficacy, and severed from the
    woody part thereof, which is unprofitable, and serveth hardly to any other
    use than to make a clear and glistering blaze, to kindle the fire, and for
    the play, pastime, and disport of little children, to blow up hogs'
    bladders and make them rattle.  Many times some use is made thereof by
    tippling sweet-lipped bibbers, who out of it frame quills and pipes,
    through which they with their liquor-attractive breath suck up the new
    dainty wine from the bung of the barrel.  Some modern Pantagruelists, to
    shun and avoid that manual labour which such a separating and partitional
    work would of necessity require, employ certain cataractic instruments,
    composed and formed after the same manner that the froward, pettish, and
    angry Juno did hold the fingers of both her hands interwovenly clenched
    together when she would have hindered the childbirth delivery of Alcmena at
    the nativity of Hercules; and athwart those cataracts they break and bruise
    to very trash the woody parcels, thereby to preserve the better the fibres,
    which are the precious and excellent parts.  In and with this sole
    operation do these acquiesce and are contented, who, contrary to the
    received opinion of the whole earth, and in a manner paradoxical to all
    philosophers, gain their livelihoods backwards, and by recoiling.  But
    those that love to hold it at a higher rate, and prize it according to its
    value, for their own greater profit do the very same which is told us of
    the recreation of the three fatal sister Parcae, or of the nocturnal
    exercise of the noble Circe, or yet of the excuse which Penelope made to
    her fond wooing youngsters and effeminate courtiers during the long absence
    of her husband Ulysses.

    By these means is this herb put into a way to display its inestimable
    virtues, whereof I will discover a part; for to relate all is a thing
    impossible to do.  I have already interpreted and exposed before you the
    denomination thereof.  I find that plants have their names given and
    bestowed upon them after several ways.  Some got the name of him who first
    found them out, knew them, sowed them, improved them by culture, qualified
    them to tractability, and appropriated them to the uses and subserviences
    they were fit for, as the Mercuriale from Mercury; Panacea from Panace, the
    daughter of Aesculapius; Armois from Artemis, who is Diana; Eupatoria from
    the king Eupator; Telephion from Telephus; Euphorbium from Euphorbus, King
    Juba's physician; Clymenos from Clymenus; Alcibiadium from Alcibiades;
    Gentiane from Gentius, King of Sclavonia, and so forth, through a great
    many other herbs or plants.  Truly, in ancient times this prerogative of
    imposing the inventor's name upon an herb found out by him was held in a so
    great account and estimation, that, as a controversy arose betwixt Neptune
    and Pallas from which of them two that land should receive its denomination
    which had been equally found out by them both together—though thereafter
    it was called and had the appellation of Athens, from Athene, which is
    Minerva—just so would Lynceus, King of Scythia, have treacherously slain
    the young Triptolemus, whom Ceres had sent to show unto mankind the
    invention of corn, which until then had been utterly unknown, to the end
    that, after the murder of the messenger, whose death he made account to
    have kept secret, he might, by imposing, with the less suspicion of false
    dealing, his own name upon the said found out seed, acquire unto himself an
    immortal honour and glory for having been the inventor of a grain so
    profitable and necessary to and for the use of human life.  For the
    wickedness of which treasonable attempt he was by Ceres transformed into
    that wild beast which by some is called a lynx and by others an ounce.
    Such also was the ambition of others upon the like occasion, as appeareth
    by that very sharp wars and of a long continuance have been made of old
    betwixt some residentiary kings in Cappadocia upon this only debate, of
    whose name a certain herb should have the appellation; by reason of which
    difference, so troublesome and expensive to them all, it was by them called
    Polemonion, and by us for the same cause termed Make-bate.

    Other herbs and plants there are which retain the names of the countries
    from whence they were transported, as the Median apples from Media, where
    they first grew; Punic apples from Punicia, that is to say, Carthage;
    Ligusticum, which we call lovage, from Liguria, the coast of Genoa; Rhubarb
    from a flood in Barbary, as Ammianus attesteth, called Ru; Santonica from a
    region of that name; Fenugreek from Greece; Gastanes from a country so
    called; Persicaria from Persia; Sabine from a territory of that
    appellation; Staechas from the Staechad Islands; Spica Celtica from the
    land of the Celtic Gauls, and so throughout a great many other, which were
    tedious to enumerate.  Some others, again, have obtained their
    denominations by way of antiphrasis, or contrariety; as Absinth, because it
    is contrary to Psinthos, for it is bitter to the taste in drinking;
    Holosteon, as if it were all bones, whilst, on the contrary, there is no
    frailer, tenderer, nor brittler herb in the whole production of nature than
    it.

    There are some other sorts of herbs which have got their names from their
    virtues and operations, as Aristolochia, because it helpeth women in
    childbirth; Lichen, for that it cureth the disease of that name; Mallow,
    because it mollifieth; Callithricum, because it maketh the hair of a bright
    colour; Alyssum, Ephemerum, Bechium, Nasturtium, Aneban (Henbane), and so
    forth through many more.

    Other some there are which have obtained their names from the admirable
    qualities that are found to be in them, as Heliotropium, which is the
    marigold, because it followeth the sun, so that at the sun rising it
    displayeth and spreads itself out, at his ascending it mounteth, at his
    declining it waneth, and when he is set it is close shut; Adianton,
    because, although it grow near unto watery places, and albeit you should
    let it lie in water a long time, it will nevertheless retain no moisture
    nor humidity; Hierachia, Eringium, and so throughout a great many more.
    There are also a great many herbs and plants which have retained the very
    same names of the men and women who have been metamorphosed and transformed
    in them, as from Daphne the laurel is called also Daphne; Myrrh from
    Myrrha, the daughter of Cinarus; Pythis from Pythis; Cinara, which is the
    artichoke, from one of that name; Narcissus, with Saffron, Smilax, and
    divers others.

    Many herbs likewise have got their names of those things which they seem to
    have some resemblance to; as Hippuris, because it hath the likeness of a
    horse's tail; Alopecuris, because it representeth in similitude the tail of
    a fox; Psyllion, from a flea which it resembleth; Delphinium, for that it
    is like a dolphin fish; Bugloss is so called because it is an herb like an
    ox's tongue; Iris, so called because in its flowers it hath some
    resemblance of the rainbow; Myosota, because it is like the ear of a mouse;
    Coronopus, for that it is of the likeness of a crow's foot.  A great many
    other such there are, which here to recite were needless.  Furthermore, as
    there are herbs and plants which have had their names from those of men, so
    by a reciprocal denomination have the surnames of many families taken their
    origin from them, as the Fabii, a fabis, beans; the Pisons, a pisis, peas;
    the Lentuli from lentils; the Cicerons; a ciceribus, vel ciceris, a sort of
    pulse called chickpease, and so forth.  In some plants and herbs the
    resemblance or likeness hath been taken from a higher mark or object, as
    when we say Venus' navel, Venus' hair, Venus' tub, Jupiter's beard,
    Jupiter's eye, Mars' blood, the Hermodactyl or Mercury's fingers, which are
    all of them names of herbs, as there are a great many more of the like
    appellation.  Others, again, have received their denomination from their
    forms, such as the Trefoil, because it is three-leaved; Pentaphylon, for
    having five leaves; Serpolet, because it creepeth along the ground;
    Helxine, Petast, Myrobalon, which the Arabians called Been, as if you would
    say an acorn, for it hath a kind of resemblance thereto, and withal is very
    oily.

    Chapter 3.LI. Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof.

    3-51-386.jpg (105K)

    By such-like means of attaining to a denomination—the fabulous ways being
    only from thence excepted, for the Lord forbid that we should make use of
    any fables in this a so veritable history—is this herb called
    Pantagruelion, for Pantagruel was the inventor thereof.  I do not say of
    the plant itself, but of a certain use which it serves for, exceeding
    odious and hateful to thieves and robbers, unto whom it is more contrarious
    and hurtful than the strangle-weed and chokefitch is to the flax, the cats-
    tail to the brakes, the sheave-grass to the mowers of hay, the fitches to
    the chickney-pease, the darnel to barley, the hatchet-fitch to the lentil
    pulse, the antramium to the beans, tares to wheat, ivy to walls, the water-
    lily to lecherous monks, the birchen rod to the scholars of the college of
    Navarre in Paris, colewort to the vine-tree, garlic to the loadstone,
    onions to the sight, fern-seed to women with child, willow-grain to vicious
    nuns, the yew-tree shade to those that sleep under it, wolfsbane to wolves
    and libbards, the smell of fig-tree to mad bulls, hemlock to goslings,
    purslane to the teeth, or oil to trees.  For we have seen many of those
    rogues, by virtue and right application of this herb, finish their lives
    short and long, after the manner of Phyllis, Queen of Thracia, of Bonosus,
    Emperor of Rome, of Amata, King Latinus's wife, of Iphis, Autolycus,
    Lycambe, Arachne, Phaedra, Leda, Achius, King of Lydia, and many thousands
    more, who were chiefly angry and vexed at this disaster therein, that,
    without being otherwise sick or evil-disposed in their bodies, by a touch
    only of the Pantagruelion they came on a sudden to have the passage
    obstructed, and their pipes, through which were wont to bolt so many jolly
    sayings and to enter so many luscious morsels, stopped, more cleverly than
    ever could have done the squinancy.

    Others have been heard most woefully to lament, at the very instant when
    Atropos was about to cut the thread of their life, that Pantagruel held
    them by the gorge.  But, well-a-day, it was not Pantagruel; he never was an
    executioner.  It was the Pantagruelion, manufactured and fashioned into an
    halter; and serving in the place and office of a cravat.  In that, verily,
    they solecized and spoke improperly, unless you would excuse them by a
    trope, which alloweth us to posit the inventor in the place of the thing
    invented, as when Ceres is taken for bread, and Bacchus put instead of
    wine.  I swear to you here, by the good and frolic words which are to issue
    out of that wine-bottle which is a-cooling below in the copper vessel full
    of fountain water, that the noble Pantagruel never snatched any man by the
    throat, unless it was such a one as was altogether careless and neglective
    of those obviating remedies which were preventive of the thirst to come.

    It is also termed Pantagruelion by a similitude.  For Pantagruel, at the
    very first minute of his birth, was no less tall than this herb is long
    whereof I speak unto you, his measure having been then taken the more easy
    that he was born in the season of the great drought, when they were busiest
    in the gathering of the said herb, to wit, at that time when Icarus's dog,
    with his fiery bawling and barking at the sun, maketh the whole world
    Troglodytic, and enforceth people everywhere to hide themselves in dens and
    subterranean caves.  It is likewise called Pantagruelion because of the
    notable and singular qualities, virtues, and properties thereof.  For as
    Pantagruel hath been the idea, pattern, prototype, and exemplary of all
    jovial perfection and accomplishment—in the truth whereof I believe there
    is none of you gentlemen drinkers that putteth any question—so in this
    Pantagruelion have I found so much efficacy and energy, so much
    completeness and excellency, so much exquisiteness and rarity, and so many
    admirable effects and operations of a transcendent nature, that if the
    worth and virtue thereof had been known when those trees, by the relation
    of the prophet, made election of a wooden king to rule and govern over
    them, it without all doubt would have carried away from all the rest the
    plurality of votes and suffrages.

    Shall I yet say more?  If Oxylus, the son of Orius, had begotten this plant
    upon his sister Hamadryas, he had taken more delight in the value and
    perfection of it alone than in all his eight children, so highly renowned
    by our ablest mythologians that they have sedulously recommended their
    names to the never-failing tuition of an eternal remembrance.  The eldest
    child was a daughter, whose name was Vine; the next born was a boy, and his
    name was Fig-tree; the third was called Walnut-tree; the fourth Oak; the
    fifth Sorbapple-tree; the sixth Ash; the seventh Poplar, and the last had
    the name of Elm, who was the greatest surgeon in his time.  I shall forbear
    to tell you how the juice or sap thereof, being poured and distilled within
    the ears, killeth every kind of vermin that by any manner of putrefaction
    cometh to be bred and engendered there, and destroyeth also any whatsoever
    other animal that shall have entered in thereat.  If, likewise, you put a
    little of the said juice within a pail or bucket full of water, you shall
    see the water instantly turn and grow thick therewith as if it were milk-
    curds, whereof the virtue is so great that the water thus curded is a
    present remedy for horses subject to the colic, and such as strike at their
    own flanks.  The root thereof well boiled mollifieth the joints, softeneth
    the hardness of shrunk-in sinews, is every way comfortable to the nerves,
    and good against all cramps and convulsions, as likewise all cold and
    knotty gouts.  If you would speedily heal a burning, whether occasioned by
    water or fire, apply thereto a little raw Pantagruelion, that is to say,
    take it so as it cometh out of the ground, without bestowing any other
    preparation or composition upon it; but have a special care to change it
    for some fresher in lieu thereof as soon as you shall find it waxing dry
    upon the sore.

    Without this herb kitchens would be detested, the tables of dining-rooms
    abhorred, although there were great plenty and variety of most dainty and
    sumptuous dishes of meat set down upon them, and the choicest beds also,
    how richly soever adorned with gold, silver, amber, ivory, porphyry, and
    the mixture of most precious metals, would without it yield no delight or
    pleasure to the reposers in them.  Without it millers could neither carry
    wheat, nor any other kind of corn to the mill, nor would they be able to
    bring back from thence flour, or any other sort of meal whatsoever.
    Without it, how could the papers and writs of lawyers' clients be brought
    to the bar?  Seldom is the mortar, lime, or plaster brought to the
    workhouse without it.  Without it, how should the water be got out of a
    draw-well?  In what case would tabellions, notaries, copists, makers of
    counterpanes, writers, clerks, secretaries, scriveners, and such-like
    persons be without it?  Were it not for it, what would become of the toll-
    rates and rent-rolls?  Would not the noble art of printing perish without
    it?  Whereof could the chassis or paper-windows be made?  How should the
    bells be rung?  The altars of Isis are adorned therewith, the Pastophorian
    priests are therewith clad and accoutred, and whole human nature covered
    and wrapped therein at its first position and production in and into this
    world.  All the lanific trees of Seres, the bumbast and cotton bushes in
    the territories near the Persian Sea and Gulf of Bengala, the Arabian
    swans, together with the plants of Malta, do not all the them clothe,
    attire, and apparel so many persons as this one herb alone.  Soldiers are
    nowadays much better sheltered under it than they were in former times,
    when they lay in tents covered with skins.  It overshadows the theatres and
    amphitheatres from the heat of a scorching sun.  It begirdeth and
    encompasseth forests, chases, parks, copses, and groves, for the pleasure
    of hunters.  It descendeth into the salt and fresh of both sea and river-
    waters for the profit of fishers.  By it are boots of all sizes, buskins,
    gamashes, brodkins, gambadoes, shoes, pumps, slippers, and every cobbled
    ware wrought and made steadable for the use of man.  By it the butt and
    rover-bows are strung, the crossbows bended, and the slings made fixed.
    And, as if it were an herb every whit as holy as the vervain, and
    reverenced by ghosts, spirits, hobgoblins, fiends, and phantoms, the bodies
    of deceased men are never buried without it.

    I will proceed yet further.  By the means of this fine herb the invisible
    substances are visibly stopped, arrested, taken, detained, and prisoner-
    like committed to their receptive gaols.  Heavy and ponderous weights are
    by it heaved, lifted up, turned, veered, drawn, carried, and every way
    moved quickly, nimbly, and easily, to the great profit and emolument of
    humankind.  When I perpend with myself these and such-like marvellous
    effects of this wonderful herb, it seemeth strange unto me how the
    invention of so useful a practice did escape through so many by-past ages
    the knowledge of the ancient philosophers, considering the inestimable
    utility which from thence proceeded, and the immense labour which without
    it they did undergo in their pristine elucubrations.  By virtue thereof,
    through the retention of some aerial gusts, are the huge rambarges, mighty
    galleons, the large floats, the Chiliander, the Myriander ships launched
    from their stations and set a-going at the pleasure and arbitrament of
    their rulers, conders, and steersmen.  By the help thereof those remote
    nations whom nature seemed so unwilling to have discovered to us, and so
    desirous to have kept them still in abscondito and hidden from us, that the
    ways through which their countries were to be reached unto were not only
    totally unknown, but judged also to be altogether impermeable and
    inaccessible, are now arrived to us, and we to them.

    Those voyages outreached flights of birds and far surpassed the scope of
    feathered fowls, how swift soever they had been on the wing, and
    notwithstanding that advantage which they have of us in swimming through
    the air.  Taproban hath seen the heaths of Lapland, and both the Javas and
    Riphaean mountains; wide distant Phebol shall see Theleme, and the
    Islanders drink of the flood Euphrates.  By it the chill-mouthed Boreas
    hath surveyed the parched mansions of the torrid Auster, and Eurus visited
    the regions which Zephyrus hath under his command; yea, in such sort have
    interviews been made by the assistance of this sacred herb, that, maugre
    longitudes and latitudes, and all the variations of the zones, the
    Periaecian people, and Antoecian, Amphiscian, Heteroscian, and Periscian
    had oft rendered and received mutual visits to and from other, upon all the
    climates.  These strange exploits bred such astonishment to the celestial
    intelligences, to all the marine and terrestrial gods, that they were on a
    sudden all afraid.  From which amazement, when they saw how, by means of
    this blest Pantagruelion, the Arctic people looked upon the Antarctic,
    scoured the Atlantic Ocean, passed the tropics, pushed through the torrid
    zone, measured all the zodiac, sported under the equinoctial, having both
    poles level with their horizon, they judged it high time to call a council
    for their own safety and preservation.

    The Olympic gods, being all and each of them affrighted at the sight of
    such achievements, said:  Pantagruel hath shapen work enough for us, and
    put us more to a plunge and nearer our wits' end by this sole herb of his
    than did of old the Aloidae by overturning mountains.  He very speedily is
    to be married, and shall have many children by his wife.  It lies not in
    our power to oppose this destiny; for it hath passed through the hands and
    spindles of the Fatal Sisters, necessity's inexorable daughters.  Who knows
    but by his sons may be found out an herb of such another virtue and
    prodigious energy, as that by the aid thereof, in using it aright according
    to their father's skill, they may contrive a way for humankind to pierce
    into the high aerian clouds, get up unto the springhead of the hail, take
    an inspection of the snowy sources, and shut and open as they please the
    sluices from whence proceed the floodgates of the rain; then, prosecuting
    their aethereal voyage, they may step in unto the lightning workhouse and
    shop, where all the thunderbolts are forged, where, seizing on the magazine
    of heaven and storehouse of our warlike fire-munition, they may discharge a
    bouncing peal or two of thundering ordnance for joy of their arrival to
    these new supernal places, and, charging those tonitrual guns afresh, turn
    the whole force of that artillery against ourselves wherein we most
    confided.  Then is it like they will set forward to invade the territories
    of the Moon, whence, passing through both Mercury and Venus, the Sun will
    serve them for a torch, to show the way from Mars to Jupiter and Saturn.
    We shall not then be able to resist the impetuosity of their intrusion, nor
    put a stoppage to their entering in at all, whatever regions, domiciles, or
    mansions of the spangled firmament they shall have any mind to see, to stay
    in, to travel through for their recreation.  All the celestial signs
    together, with the constellations of the fixed stars, will jointly be at
    their devotion then.  Some will take up their lodging at the Ram, some at
    the Bull, and others at the Twins; some at the Crab, some at the Lion Inn,
    and others at the sign of the Virgin; some at the Balance, others at the
    Scorpion, and others will be quartered at the Archer; some will be
    harboured at the Goat, some at the Water-pourer's sign, some at the Fishes;
    some will lie at the Crown, some at the Harp, some at the Golden Eagle and
    the Dolphin; some at the Flying Horse, some at the Ship, some at the great,
    some at the little Bear; and so throughout the glistening hostelries of the
    whole twinkling asteristic welkin.  There will be sojourners come from the
    earth, who, longing after the taste of the sweet cream, of their own
    skimming off, from the best milk of all the dairy of the Galaxy, will set
    themselves at table down with us, drink of our nectar and ambrosia, and
    take to their own beds at night for wives and concubines our fairest
    goddesses, the only means whereby they can be deified.  A junto hereupon
    being convocated, the better to consult upon the manner of obviating a so
    dreadful danger, Jove, sitting in his presidential throne, asked the votes
    of all the other gods, which, after a profound deliberation amongst
    themselves on all contingencies, they freely gave at last, and then
    resolved unanimously to withstand the shocks of all whatsoever sublunary
    assaults.

    Chapter 3.LII. How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire is not
    able to consume it.

    I have already related to you great and admirable things; but, if you might
    be induced to adventure upon the hazard of believing some other divinity of
    this sacred Pantagruelion, I very willingly would tell it you.  Believe it,
    if you will, or otherwise, believe it not, I care not which of them you do,
    they are both alike to me.  It shall be sufficient for my purpose to have
    told you the truth, and the truth I will tell you.  But to enter in
    thereat, because it is of a knaggy, difficult, and rugged access, this is
    the question which I ask of you.  If I had put within this bottle two
    pints, the one of wine and the other of water, thoroughly and exactly
    mingled together, how would you unmix them?  After what manner would you go
    about to sever them, and separate the one liquor from the other, in such
    sort that you render me the water apart, free from the wine, and the wine
    also pure, without the intermixture of one drop of water, and both of them
    in the same measure, quantity, and taste that I had embottled them?  Or, to
    state the question otherwise.  If your carmen and mariners, entrusted for
    the provision of your houses with the bringing of a certain considerable
    number of tuns, puncheons, pipes, barrels, and hogsheads of Graves wine, or
    of the wine of Orleans, Beaune, and Mireveaux, should drink out the half,
    and afterwards with water fill up the other empty halves of the vessels as
    full as before, as the Limosins use to do in their carriages by wains and
    carts of the wines of Argenton and Sangaultier; after that, how would you
    part the water from the wine, and purify them both in such a case?  I
    understand you well enough.  Your meaning is, that I must do it with an ivy
    funnel.  That is written, it is true, and the verity thereof explored by a
    thousand experiments; you have learned to do this feat before, I see it.
    But those that have never known it, nor at any time have seen the like,
    would hardly believe that it were possible.  Let us nevertheless proceed.

    But put the case, we were now living in the age of Sylla, Marius, Caesar,
    and other such Roman emperors, or that we were in the time of our ancient
    Druids, whose custom was to burn and calcine the dead bodies of their
    parents and lords, and that you had a mind to drink the ashes or cinders of
    your wives or fathers in the infused liquor of some good white-wine, as
    Artemisia drunk the dust and ashes of her husband Mausolus; or otherwise,
    that you did determine to have them reserved in some fine urn or reliquary
    pot; how would you save the ashes apart, and separate them from those other
    cinders and ashes into which the fuel of the funeral and bustuary fire hath
    been converted?  Answer, if you can.  By my figgins, I believe it will
    trouble you so to do.

    Well, I will despatch, and tell you that, if you take of this celestial
    Pantagruelion so much as is needful to cover the body of the defunct, and
    after that you shall have enwrapped and bound therein as hard and closely
    as you can the corpse of the said deceased persons, and sewed up the
    folding-sheet with thread of the same stuff, throw it into the fire, how
    great or ardent soever it be it matters not a straw, the fire through this
    Pantagruelion will burn the body and reduce to ashes the bones thereof, and
    the Pantagruelion shall be not only not consumed nor burnt, but also shall
    neither lose one atom of the ashes enclosed within it, nor receive one atom
    of the huge bustuary heap of ashes resulting from the blazing conflagration
    of things combustible laid round about it, but shall at last, when taken
    out of the fire, be fairer, whiter, and much cleaner than when you did put
    it in at first.  Therefore it is called Asbeston, which is as much to say
    as incombustible.  Great plenty is to be found thereof in Carpasia, as
    likewise in the climate Dia Sienes, at very easy rates.  O how rare and
    admirable a thing it is, that the fire which devoureth, consumeth, and
    destroyeth all such things else, should cleanse, purge, and whiten this
    sole Pantagruelion Carpasian Asbeston!  If you mistrust the verity of this
    relation, and demand for further confirmation of my assertion a visible
    sign, as the Jews and such incredulous infidels use to do, take a fresh
    egg, and orbicularly, or rather ovally, enfold it within this divine
    Pantagruelion.  When it is so wrapped up, put it in the hot embers of a
    fire, how great or ardent soever it be, and having left it there as long as
    you will, you shall at last, at your taking it out of the fire, find the
    egg roasted hard, and as it were burnt, without any alteration, change,
    mutation, or so much as a calefaction of the sacred Pantagruelion.  For
    less than a million of pounds sterling, modified, taken down, and
    amoderated to the twelfth part of one fourpence halfpenny farthing, you are
    able to put it to a trial and make proof thereof.

    Do not think to overmatch me here, by paragoning with it in the way of a
    more eminent comparison the Salamander.  That is a fib; for, albeit a
    little ordinary fire, such as is used in dining-rooms and chambers,
    gladden, cheer up, exhilarate, and quicken it, yet may I warrantably enough
    assure that in the flaming fire of a furnace it will, like any other
    animated creature, be quickly suffocated, choked, consumed, and destroyed.
    We have seen the experiment thereof, and Galen many ages ago hath clearly
    demonstrated and confirmed it, Lib. 3, De temperamentis, and Dioscorides
    maintaineth the same doctrine, Lib. 2.  Do not here instance in competition
    with this sacred herb the feather alum or the wooden tower of Pyraeus,
    which Lucius Sylla was never able to get burnt; for that Archelaus,
    governor of the town for Mithridates, King of Pontus, had plastered it all
    over on the outside with the said alum.  Nor would I have you to compare
    therewith the herb which Alexander Cornelius called Eonem, and said that it
    had some resemblance with that oak which bears the mistletoe, and that it
    could neither be consumed nor receive any manner of prejudice by fire nor
    by water, no more than the mistletoe, of which was built, said he, the so
    renowned ship Argos.  Search where you please for those that will believe
    it.  I in that point desire to be excused.  Neither would I wish you to
    parallel therewith—although I cannot deny but that it is of a very
    marvellous nature—that sort of tree which groweth alongst the mountains of
    Brianson and Ambrun, which produceth out of his root the good agaric.  From
    its body it yieldeth unto us a so excellent rosin, that Galen hath been
    bold to equal it to the turpentine.  Upon the delicate leaves thereof it
    retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna,
    and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat, and greasy substance, it is,
    notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.  It is in Greek and Latin called
    Larix.  The Alpinese name is Melze.  The Antenorides and Venetians term it
    Larege; which gave occasion to that castle in Piedmont to receive the
    denomination of Larignum, by putting Julius Caesar to a stand at his return
    from amongst the Gauls.

    Julius Caesar commanded all the yeomen, boors, hinds, and other inhabitants
    in, near unto, and about the Alps and Piedmont, to bring all manner of
    victuals and provision for an army to those places which on the military
    road he had appointed to receive them for the use of his marching soldiery.
    To which ordinance all of them were obedient, save only those as were
    within the garrison of Larignum, who, trusting in the natural strength of
    the place, would not pay their contribution.  The emperor, purposing to
    chastise them for their refusal, caused his whole army to march straight
    towards that castle, before the gate whereof was erected a tower built of
    huge big spars and rafters of the larch-tree, fast bound together with pins
    and pegs of the same wood, and interchangeably laid on one another, after
    the fashion of a pile or stack of timber, set up in the fabric thereof to
    such an apt and convenient height that from the parapet above the
    portcullis they thought with stones and levers to beat off and drive away
    such as should approach thereto.

    When Caesar had understood that the chief defence of those within the
    castle did consist in stones and clubs, and that it was not an easy matter
    to sling, hurl, dart, throw, or cast them so far as to hinder the
    approaches, he forthwith commanded his men to throw great store of bavins,
    faggots, and fascines round about the castle, and when they had made the
    heap of a competent height, to put them all in a fair fire; which was
    thereupon incontinently done.  The fire put amidst the faggots was so great
    and so high that it covered the whole castle, that they might well imagine
    the tower would thereby be altogether burnt to dust, and demolished.
    Nevertheless, contrary to all their hopes and expectations, when the flame
    ceased, and that the faggots were quite burnt and consumed, the tower
    appeared as whole, sound, and entire as ever.  Caesar, after a serious
    consideration had thereof, commanded a compass to be taken without the
    distance of a stone cast from the castle round about it there, with ditches
    and entrenchments to form a blockade; which when the Larignans understood,
    they rendered themselves upon terms.  And then by a relation from them it
    was that Caesar learned the admirable nature and virtue of this wood, which
    of itself produceth neither fire, flame, nor coal, and would, therefore, in
    regard of that rare quality of incombustibility, have been admitted into
    this rank and degree of a true Pantagruelional plant; and that so much the
    rather, for that Pantagruel directed that all the gates, doors, angiports,
    windows, gutters, fretticed and embowed ceilings, cans, (cants?) and other
    whatsoever wooden furniture in the abbey of Theleme, should be all
    materiated of this kind of timber.  He likewise caused to cover therewith
    the sterns, stems, cook-rooms or laps, hatches, decks, courses, bends, and
    walls of his carricks, ships, galleons, galleys, brigantines, foists,
    frigates, crears, barques, floats, pinks, pinnaces, hoys, ketches, capers,
    and other vessels of his Thalassian arsenal; were it not that the wood or
    timber of the larch-tree, being put within a large and ample furnace full
    of huge vehemently flaming fire proceeding from the fuel of other sorts and
    kinds of wood, cometh at last to be corrupted, consumed, dissipated, and
    destroyed, as are stones in a lime-kiln.  But this Pantagruelion Asbeston
    is rather by the fire renewed and cleansed than by the flames thereof
    consumed or changed.  Therefore,

      Arabians, Indians, Sabaeans,
      Sing not, in hymns and Io Paeans,
      Your incense, myrrh, or ebony.
      Come here, a nobler plant to see,
      And carry home, at any rate,
      Some seed, that you may propagate.
      If in your soil it takes, to heaven
      A thousand thousand thanks be given;
      And say with France, it goodly goes,
      Where the Pantagruelion grows.

    END OF BOOK III



    THE FOURTH BOOK.


    The Translator's Preface.

    Reader,—I don't know what kind of a preface I must write to find thee
    courteous, an epithet too often bestowed without a cause.  The author of
    this work has been as sparing of what we call good nature, as most readers
    are nowadays.  So I am afraid his translator and commentator is not to
    expect much more than has been showed them.  What's worse, there are but
    two sorts of taking prefaces, as there are but two kinds of prologues to
    plays; for Mr. Bays was doubtless in the right when he said that if thunder
    and lightning could not fright an audience into complaisance, the sight of
    the poet with a rope about his neck might work them into pity.  Some,
    indeed, have bullied many of you into applause, and railed at your faults
    that you might think them without any; and others, more safely, have spoken
    kindly of you, that you might think, or at least speak, as favourably of
    them, and be flattered into patience.  Now, I fancy, there's nothing less
    difficult to attempt than the first method; for, in this blessed age, 'tis
    as easy to find a bully without courage, as a whore without beauty, or a
    writer without wit; though those qualifications are so necessary in their
    respective professions.  The mischief is, that you seldom allow any to rail
    besides yourselves, and cannot bear a pride which shocks your own.  As for
    wheedling you into a liking of a work, I must confess it seems the safest
    way; but though flattery pleases you well when it is particular, you hate
    it, as little concerning you, when it is general.  Then we knights of the
    quill are a stiff-necked generation, who as seldom care to seem to doubt
    the worth of our writings, and their being liked, as we love to flatter
    more than one at a time; and had rather draw our pens, and stand up for the
    beauty of our works (as some arrant fools use to do for that of their
    mistresses) to the last drop of our ink.  And truly this submission, which
    sometimes wheedles you into pity, as seldom decoys you into love, as the
    awkward cringing of an antiquated fop, as moneyless as he is ugly, affects
    an experienced fair one.  Now we as little value your pity as a lover his
    mistress's, well satisfied that it is only a less uncivil way of dismissing
    us.  But what if neither of these two ways will work upon you, of which
    doleful truth some of our playwrights stand so many living monuments?  Why,
    then, truly I think on no other way at present but blending the two into
    one; and, from this marriage of huffing and cringing, there will result a
    new kind of careless medley, which, perhaps, will work upon both sorts of
    readers, those who are to be hectored, and those whom we must creep to.  At
    least, it is like to please by its novelty; and it will not be the first
    monster that has pleased you when regular nature could not do it.

    If uncommon worth, lively wit, and deep learning, wove into wholesome
    satire, a bold, good, and vast design admirably pursued, truth set out in
    its true light, and a method how to arrive to its oracle, can recommend a
    work, I am sure this has enough to please any reasonable man.  The three
    books published some time since, which are in a manner an entire work, were
    kindly received; yet, in the French, they come far short of these two,
    which are also entire pieces; for the satire is all general here, much more
    obvious, and consequently more entertaining.  Even my long explanatory
    preface was not thought improper.  Though I was so far from being allowed
    time to make it methodical, that at first only a few pages were intended;
    yet as fast as they were printed I wrote on, till it proved at last like
    one of those towns built little at first, then enlarged, where you see
    promiscuously an odd variety of all sorts of irregular buildings.  I hope
    the remarks I give now will not please less; for, as I have translated the
    work which they explain, I had more time to make them, though as little to
    write them.  It would be needless to give here a large account of my
    performance; for, after all, you readers care no more for this or that
    apology, or pretence of Mr. Translator, if the version does not please you,
    than we do for a blundering cook's excuse after he has spoiled a good dish
    in the dressing.  Nor can the first pretend to much praise, besides that of
    giving his author's sense in its full extent, and copying his style, if it
    is to be copied; since he has no share in the invention or disposition of
    what he translates.  Yet there was no small difficulty in doing Rabelais
    justice in that double respect; the obsolete words and turns of phrase, and
    dark subjects, often as darkly treated, make the sense hard to be
    understood even by a Frenchman, and it cannot be easy to give it the free
    easy air of an original; for even what seems most common talk in one
    language, is what is often the most difficult to be made so in another; and
    Horace's thoughts of comedy may be well applied to this:

      Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere
      Sudoris minimum; sed habet commoedia tantum
      Plus oneris, quanto veniae minus.

    Far be it from me, for all this, to value myself upon hitting the words of
    cant in which my drolling author is so luxuriant; for though such words
    have stood me in good stead, I scarce can forbear thinking myself unhappy
    in having insensibly hoarded up so much gibberish and Billingsgate trash in
    my memory; nor could I forbear asking of myself, as an Italian cardinal
    said on another account, D'onde hai tu pigliato tante coglionerie?  Where
    the devil didst thou rake up all these fripperies?

    It was not less difficult to come up to the author's sublime expressions.
    Nor would I have attempted such a task, but that I was ambitious of giving
    a view of the most valuable work of the greatest genius of his age, to the
    Mecaenas and best genius of this.  For I am not overfond of so ungrateful a
    task as translating, and would rejoice to see less versions and more
    originals; so the latter were not as bad as many of the first are, through
    want of encouragement.  Some indeed have deservedly gained esteem by
    translating; yet not many condescend to translate, but such as cannot
    invent; though to do the first well requires often as much genius as to do
    the latter.

    I wish, reader, thou mayest be as willing to do my author justice, as I
    have strove to do him right.  Yet, if thou art a brother of the quill, it
    is ten to one thou art too much in love with thy own dear productions to
    admire those of one of thy trade.  However, I know three or four who have
    not such a mighty opinion of themselves; but I'll not name them, lest I
    should be obliged to place myself among them.  If thou art one of those
    who, though they never write, criticise everyone that does; avaunt!—Thou
    art a professed enemy of mankind and of thyself, who wilt never be pleased
    nor let anybody be so, and knowest no better way to fame than by striving
    to lessen that of others; though wouldst thou write thou mightst be soon
    known, even by the butterwomen, and fly through the world in bandboxes.  If
    thou art of the dissembling tribe, it is thy office to rail at those books
    which thou huggest in a corner.  If thou art one of those eavesdroppers,
    who would have their moroseness be counted gravity, thou wilt condemn a
    mirth which thou art past relishing; and I know no other way to quit the
    score than by writing (as like enough I may) something as dull, or duller
    than thyself, if possible.  If thou art one of those critics in dressing,
    those extempores of fortune, who, having lost a relation and got an estate,
    in an instant set up for wit and every extravagance, thou'lt either praise
    or discommend this book, according to the dictates of some less foolish
    than thyself, perhaps of one of those who, being lodged at the sign of the
    box and dice, will know better things than to recommend to thee a work
    which bids thee beware of his tricks.  This book might teach thee to leave
    thy follies; but some will say it does not signify much to some fools
    whether they are so or not; for when was there a fool that thought himself
    one?  If thou art one of those who would put themselves upon us for learned
    men in Greek and Hebrew, yet are mere blockheads in English, and patch
    together old pieces of the ancients to get themselves clothes out of them,
    thou art too severely mauled in this work to like it.  Who then will? some
    will cry.  Nay, besides these, many societies that make a great figure in
    the world are reflected on in this book; which caused Rabelais to study to
    be dark, and even bedaub it with many loose expressions, that he might not
    be thought to have any other design than to droll; in a manner bewraying
    his book that his enemies might not bite it.  Truly, though now the riddle
    is expounded, I would advise those who read it not to reflect on the
    author, lest he be thought to have been beforehand with them, and they be
    ranked among those who have nothing to show for their honesty but their
    money, nothing for their religion but their dissembling, or a fat benefice,
    nothing for their wit but their dressing, for their nobility but their
    title, for their gentility but their sword, for their courage but their
    huffing, for their preferment but their assurance, for their learning but
    their degrees, or for their gravity but their wrinkles or dulness.  They
    had better laugh at one another here, as it is the custom of the world.
    Laughing is of all professions; the miser may hoard, the spendthrift
    squander, the politician plot, the lawyer wrangle, and the gamester cheat;
    still their main design is to be able to laugh at one another; and here
    they may do it at a cheap and easy rate.  After all, should this work fail
    to please the greater number of readers, I am sure it cannot miss being
    liked by those who are for witty mirth and a chirping bottle; though not by
    those solid sots who seem to have drudged all their youth long only that
    they might enjoy the sweet blessing of getting drunk every night in their
    old age.  But those men of sense and honour who love truth and the good of
    mankind in general above all other things will undoubtedly countenance this
    work.  I will not gravely insist upon its usefulness, having said enough of
    it in the preface (Motteux' Preface to vol. I of Rabelais, ed. 1694.) to
    the first part.  I will only add, that as Homer in his Odyssey makes his
    hero wander ten years through most parts of the then known world, so
    Rabelais, in a three months' voyage, makes Pantagruel take a view of almost
    all sorts of people and professions; with this difference, however, between
    the ancient mythologist and the modern, that while the Odyssey has been
    compared to a setting sun in respect to the Iliads, Rabelais' last work,
    which is this Voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle (by which he means truth)
    is justly thought his masterpiece, being wrote with more spirit, salt, and
    flame, than the first part of his works.  At near seventy years of age, his
    genius, far from being drained, seemed to have acquired fresh vigour and
    new graces the more it exerted itself; like those rivers which grow more
    deep, large, majestic, and useful by their course.  Those who accuse the
    French of being as sparing of their wit as lavish of their words will find
    an Englishman in our author.  I must confess indeed that my countrymen and
    other southern nations temper the one with the other in a manner as they do
    their wine with water, often just dashing the latter with a little of the
    first.  Now here men love to drink their wine pure; nay, sometimes it will
    not satisfy unless in its very quintessence, as in brandies; though an
    excess of this betrays want of sobriety, as much as an excess of wit
    betrays a want of judgment.  But I must conclude, lest I be justly taxed
    with wanting both.  I will only add, that as every language has its
    peculiar graces, seldom or never to be acquired by a foreigner, I cannot
    think I have given my author those of the English in every place; but as
    none compelled me to write, I fear to ask a pardon which yet the generous
    temper of this nation makes me hope to obtain.  Albinus, a Roman, who had
    written in Greek, desired in his preface to be forgiven his faults of
    language; but Cato asked him in derision whether any had forced him to
    write in a tongue of which he was not an absolute master.  Lucullus wrote a
    history in the same tongue, and said he had scattered some false Greek in
    it to let the world know it was the work of a Roman.  I will not say as
    much of my writings, in which I study to be as little incorrect as the
    hurry of business and shortness of time will permit; but I may better say,
    as Tully did of the history of his consulship, which he also had written in
    Greek, that what errors may be found in the diction are crept in against my
    intent.  Indeed, Livius Andronicus and Terence, the one a Greek, the other
    a Carthaginian, wrote successfully in Latin, and the latter is perhaps the
    most perfect model of the purity and urbanity of that tongue; but I ought
    not to hope for the success of those great men.  Yet am I ambitious of
    being as subservient to the useful diversion of the ingenious of this
    nation as I can, which I have endeavoured in this work, with hopes to
    attempt some greater tasks if ever I am happy enough to have more leisure.
    In the meantime it will not displease me, if it is known that this is given
    by one who, though born and educated in France, has the love and veneration
    of a loyal subject for this nation, one who, by a fatality, which with many
    more made him say,

      Nos patriam fugimus et dulcia linquimus arva,

    is obliged to make the language of these happy regions as natural to him as
    he can, and thankfully say with the rest, under this Protestant government,

      Deus nobis haec otia fecit.


    The Author's Epistle Dedicatory.

    To the most Illustrious Prince and most Reverend Lord Odet, Cardinal de
    Chastillon.

    You know, most illustrious prince, how often I have been, and am daily
    pressed and required by great numbers of eminent persons, to proceed in the
    Pantagruelian fables; they tell me that many languishing, sick, and
    disconsolate persons, perusing them, have deceived their grief, passed
    their time merrily, and been inspired with new joy and comfort.  I commonly
    answer that I aimed not at glory and applause when I diverted myself with
    writing, but only designed to give by my pen, to the absent who labour
    under affliction, that little help which at all times I willingly strive to
    give to the present that stand in need of my art and service.  Sometimes I
    at large relate to them how Hippocrates in several places, and particularly
    in lib. 6. Epidem., describing the institution of the physician his
    disciple, and also Soranus of Ephesus, Oribasius, Galen, Hali Abbas, and
    other authors, have descended to particulars, in the prescription of his
    motions, deportment, looks, countenance, gracefulness, civility,
    cleanliness of face, clothes, beard, hair, hands, mouth, even his very
    nails; as if he were to play the part of a lover in some comedy, or enter
    the lists to fight some enemy.  And indeed the practice of physic is
    properly enough compared by Hippocrates to a fight, and also to a farce
    acted between three persons, the patient, the physician, and the disease.
    Which passage has sometimes put me in mind of Julia's saying to Augustus
    her father.  One day she came before him in a very gorgeous, loose,
    lascivious dress, which very much displeased him, though he did not much
    discover his discontent.  The next day she put on another, and in a modest
    garb, such as the chaste Roman ladies wore, came into his presence.  The
    kind father could not then forbear expressing the pleasure which he took to
    see her so much altered, and said to her:  Oh! how much more this garb
    becomes and is commendable in the daughter of Augustus.  But she, having
    her excuse ready, answered:  This day, sir, I dressed myself to please my
    father's eye; yesterday, to gratify that of my husband.  Thus disguised in
    looks and garb, nay even, as formerly was the fashion, with a rich and
    pleasant gown with four sleeves, which was called philonium according to
    Petrus Alexandrinus in 6. Epidem., a physician might answer to such as
    might find the metamorphosis indecent:  Thus have I accoutred myself, not
    that I am proud of appearing in such a dress, but for the sake of my
    patient, whom alone I wholly design to please, and no wise offend or
    dissatisfy.  There is also a passage in our father Hippocrates, in the book
    I have named, which causes some to sweat, dispute, and labour; not indeed
    to know whether the physician's frowning, discontented, and morose Catonian
    look render the patient sad, and his joyful, serene, and pleasing
    countenance rejoice him; for experience teaches us that this is most
    certain; but whether such sensations of grief or pleasure are produced by
    the apprehension of the patient observing his motions and qualities in his
    physician, and drawing from thence conjectures of the end and catastrophe
    of his disease; as, by his pleasing look, joyful and desirable events, and
    by his sorrowful and unpleasing air, sad and dismal consequences; or
    whether those sensations be produced by a transfusion of the serene or
    gloomy, aerial or terrestrial, joyful or melancholic spirits of the
    physician into the person of the patient, as is the opinion of Plato,
    Averroes, and others.

    Above all things, the forecited authors have given particular directions to
    physicians about the words, discourse, and converse which they ought to
    have with their patients; everyone aiming at one point, that is, to rejoice
    them without offending God, and in no wise whatsoever to vex or displease
    them.  Which causes Herophilus much to blame the physician Callianax, who,
    being asked by a patient of his, Shall I die? impudently made him this
    answer:

      Patroclus died, whom all allow
      By much a better man than you.

    Another, who had a mind to know the state of his distemper, asking him,
    after our merry Patelin's way:  Well, doctor, does not my water tell you I
    shall die?  He foolishly answered, No; if Latona, the mother of those
    lovely twins, Phoebus and Diana, begot thee.  Galen, lib. 4, Comment. 6.
    Epidem., blames much also Quintus his tutor, who, a certain nobleman of
    Rome, his patient, saying to him, You have been at breakfast, my master,
    your breath smells of wine; answered arrogantly, Yours smells of fever;
    which is the better smell of the two, wine or a putrid fever?  But the
    calumny of certain cannibals, misanthropes, perpetual eavesdroppers, has
    been so foul and excessive against me, that it had conquered my patience,
    and I had resolved not to write one jot more.  For the least of their
    detractions were that my books are all stuffed with various heresies, of
    which, nevertheless, they could not show one single instance; much, indeed,
    of comical and facetious fooleries, neither offending God nor the king (and
    truly I own they are the only subject and only theme of these books), but
    of heresy not a word, unless they interpreted wrong, and against all use of
    reason and common language, what I had rather suffer a thousand deaths, if
    it were possible, than have thought; as who should make bread to be stone,
    a fish to be a serpent, and an egg to be a scorpion.  This, my lord,
    emboldened me once to tell you, as I was complaining of it in your
    presence, that if I did not esteem myself a better Christian than they show
    themselves towards me, and if my life, writings, words, nay thoughts,
    betrayed to me one single spark of heresy, or I should in a detestable
    manner fall into the snares of the spirit of detraction, Diabolos, who, by
    their means, raises such crimes against me; I would then, like the phoenix,
    gather dry wood, kindle a fire, and burn myself in the midst of it.  You
    were then pleased to say to me that King Francis, of eternal memory, had
    been made sensible of those false accusations; and that having caused my
    books (mine, I say, because several, false and infamous, have been wickedly
    laid to me) to be carefully and distinctly read to him by the most learned
    and faithful anagnost in this kingdom, he had not found any passage
    suspicious; and that he abhorred a certain envious, ignorant, hypocritical
    informer, who grounded a mortal heresy on an n put instead of an m by the
    carelessness of the printers.

    As much was done by his son, our most gracious, virtuous, and blessed
    sovereign, Henry, whom Heaven long preserve! so that he granted you his
    royal privilege and particular protection for me against my slandering
    adversaries.

    You kindly condescended since to confirm me these happy news at Paris; and
    also lately, when you visited my Lord Cardinal du Bellay, who, for the
    benefit of his health, after a lingering distemper, was retired to St.
    Maur, that place (or rather paradise) of salubrity, serenity, conveniency,
    and all desirable country pleasures.

    Thus, my lord, under so glorious a patronage, I am emboldened once more to
    draw my pen, undaunted now and secure; with hopes that you will still prove
    to me, against the power of detraction, a second Gallic Hercules in
    learning, prudence, and eloquence; an Alexicacos in virtue, power, and
    authority; you, of whom I may truly say what the wise monarch Solomon saith
    of Moses, that great prophet and captain of Israel, Ecclesiast. 45:  A man
    fearing and loving God, who found favour in the sight of all flesh, well-
    beloved both of God and man; whose memorial is blessed.  God made him like
    to the glorious saints, and magnified him so, that his enemies stood in
    fear of him; and for him made wonders; made him glorious in the sight of
    kings, gave him a commandment for his people, and by him showed his light;
    he sanctified him in his faithfulness and meekness, and chose him out of
    all men.  By him he made us to hear his voice, and caused by him the law of
    life and knowledge to be given.

    Accordingly, if I shall be so happy as to hear anyone commend those merry
    composures, they shall be adjured by me to be obliged and pay their thanks
    to you alone, as also to offer their prayers to Heaven for the continuance
    and increase of your greatness; and to attribute no more to me than my
    humble and ready obedience to your commands; for by your most honourable
    encouragement you at once have inspired me with spirit and with invention;
    and without you my heart had failed me, and the fountain-head of my animal
    spirits had been dry.  May the Lord keep you in his blessed mercy!

                   My Lord,

      Your most humble, and most devoted Servant,

                       Francis Rabelais, Physician.

      Paris, this 28th of January, MDLII.


    The Author's Prologue.



    prologue4.jpg (143K)

    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:



    4-00-400.jpg (150K)

      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.



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    THE FOURTH BOOK.

    Chapter 4.I.

    How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the Holy
    Bottle.

    In the month of June, on Vesta's holiday, the very numerical day on which
    Brutus, conquering Spain, taught its strutting dons to truckle under him,
    and that niggardly miser Crassus was routed and knocked on the head by the
    Parthians, Pantagruel took his leave of the good Gargantua, his royal
    father.  The old gentleman, according to the laudable custom of the
    primitive Christians, devoutly prayed for the happy voyage of his son and
    his whole company, and then they took shipping at the port of Thalassa.
    Pantagruel had with him Panurge, Friar John des Entomeures, alias of the
    Funnels, Epistemon, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, Carpalin, cum multis
    aliis, his ancient servants and domestics; also Xenomanes, the great
    traveller, who had crossed so many dangerous roads, dikes, ponds, seas, and
    so forth, and was come some time before, having been sent for by Panurge.

    For certain good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, he had
    left with Gargantua, and marked out, in his great and universal
    hydrographical chart, the course which they were to steer to visit the
    Oracle of the Holy Bottle Bacbuc.  The number of ships were such as I
    described in the third book, convoyed by a like number of triremes, men of
    war, galleons, and feluccas, well-rigged, caulked, and stored with a good
    quantity of Pantagruelion.

    All the officers, droggermen, pilots, captains, mates, boatswains,
    midshipmen, quartermasters, and sailors, met in the Thalamege, Pantagruel's
    principal flag-ship, which had in her stern for her ensign a huge large
    bottle, half silver well polished, the other half gold enamelled with
    carnation; whereby it was easy to guess that white and red were the colours
    of the noble travellers, and that they went for the word of the Bottle.

    On the stern of the second was a lantern like those of the ancients,
    industriously made with diaphanous stone, implying that they were to pass
    by Lanternland.  The third ship had for her device a fine deep china ewer.
    The fourth, a double-handed jar of gold, much like an ancient urn.  The
    fifth, a famous can made of sperm of emerald.  The sixth, a monk's mumping
    bottle made of the four metals together.  The seventh, an ebony funnel, all
    embossed and wrought with gold after the Tauchic manner.  The eighth, an
    ivy goblet, very precious, inlaid with gold.  The ninth, a cup of fine
    Obriz gold.  The tenth, a tumbler of aromatic agoloch (you call it lignum
    aloes) edged with Cyprian gold, after the Azemine make.  The eleventh, a
    golden vine-tub of mosaic work.  The twelfth, a runlet of unpolished gold,
    covered with a small vine of large Indian pearl of Topiarian work.
    Insomuch that there was not a man, however in the dumps, musty, sour-
    looked, or melancholic he were, not even excepting that blubbering whiner
    Heraclitus, had he been there, but seeing this noble convoy of ships and
    their devices, must have been seized with present gladness of heart, and,
    smiling at the conceit, have said that the travellers were all honest
    topers, true pitcher-men, and have judged by a most sure prognostication
    that their voyage, both outward and homeward-bound, would be performed in
    mirth and perfect health.

    In the Thalamege, where was the general meeting, Pantagruel made a short
    but sweet exhortation, wholly backed with authorities from Scripture upon
    navigation; which being ended, with an audible voice prayers were said in
    the presence and hearing of all the burghers of Thalassa, who had flocked
    to the mole to see them take shipping.  After the prayers was melodiously
    sung a psalm of the holy King David, which begins, When Israel went out of
    Egypt; and that being ended, tables were placed upon deck, and a feast
    speedily served up. The Thalassians, who had also borne a chorus in the
    psalm, caused store of belly-timber to be brought out of their houses.  All
    drank to them; they drank to all; which was the cause that none of the
    whole company gave up what they had eaten, nor were sea-sick, with a pain
    at the head and stomach; which inconveniency they could not so easily have
    prevented by drinking, for some time before, salt water, either alone or
    mixed with wine; using quinces, citron peel, juice of pomegranates, sourish
    sweetmeats, fasting a long time, covering their stomachs with paper, or
    following such other idle remedies as foolish physicians prescribe to those
    that go to sea.

    Having often renewed their tipplings, each mother's son retired on board
    his own ship, and set sail all so fast with a merry gale at south-east; to
    which point of the compass the chief pilot, James Brayer by name, had
    shaped his course, and fixed all things accordingly.  For seeing that the
    Oracle of the Holy Bottle lay near Cathay, in the Upper India, his advice,
    and that of Xenomanes also, was not to steer the course which the
    Portuguese use, while sailing through the torrid zone, and Cape Bona
    Speranza, at the south point of Africa, beyond the equinoctial line, and
    losing sight of the northern pole, their guide, they make a prodigious long
    voyage; but rather to keep as near the parallel of the said India as
    possible, and to tack to the westward of the said pole, so that winding
    under the north, they might find themselves in the latitude of the port of
    Olone, without coming nearer it for fear of being shut up in the frozen
    sea; whereas, following this canonical turn, by the said parallel, they
    must have that on the right to the eastward, which at their departure was
    on their left.

    This proved a much shorter cut; for without shipwreck, danger, or loss of
    men, with uninterrupted good weather, except one day near the island of the
    Macreons, they performed in less than four months the voyage of Upper
    India, which the Portuguese, with a thousand inconveniences and innumerable
    dangers, can hardly complete in three years.  And it is my opinion, with
    submission to better judgments, that this course was perhaps steered by
    those Indians who sailed to Germany, and were honourably received by the
    King of the Swedes, while Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul of the
    Gauls; as Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny after them tell us.

    Chapter 4.II. How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island of Medamothy.

    That day and the two following they neither discovered land nor anything
    new; for they had formerly sailed that way:  but on the fourth they made an
    island called Medamothy, of a fine and delightful prospect, by reason of
    the vast number of lighthouses and high marble towers in its circuit, which
    is not less than that of Canada (sic).  Pantagruel, inquiring who governed
    there, heard that it was King Philophanes, absent at that time upon account
    of the marriage of his brother Philotheamon with the infanta of the kingdom
    of Engys.

    Hearing this, he went ashore in the harbour, and while every ship's crew
    watered, passed his time in viewing divers pictures, pieces of tapestry,
    animals, fishes, birds, and other exotic and foreign merchandises, which
    were along the walks of the mole and in the markets of the port.  For it
    was the third day of the great and famous fair of the place, to which the
    chief merchants of Africa and Asia resorted.  Out of these Friar John
    bought him two rare pictures; in one of which the face of a man that brings
    in an appeal was drawn to the life; and in the other a servant that wants a
    master, with every needful particular, action, countenance, look, gait,
    feature, and deportment, being an original by Master Charles Charmois,
    principal painter to King Megistus; and he paid for them in the court
    fashion, with conge and grimace.  Panurge bought a large picture, copied
    and done from the needle-work formerly wrought by Philomela, showing to her
    sister Progne how her brother-in-law Tereus had by force handselled her
    copyhold, and then cut out her tongue that she might not (as women will)
    tell tales.  I vow and swear by the handle of my paper lantern that it was
    a gallant, a mirific, nay, a most admirable piece.  Nor do you think, I
    pray you, that in it was the picture of a man playing the beast with two
    backs with a female; this had been too silly and gross:  no, no; it was
    another-guise thing, and much plainer.  You may, if you please, see it at
    Theleme, on the left hand as you go into the high gallery.  Epistemon
    bought another, wherein were painted to the life the ideas of Plato and the
    atoms of Epicurus.  Rhizotome purchased another, wherein Echo was drawn to
    the life.  Pantagruel caused to be bought, by Gymnast, the life and deeds
    of Achilles, in seventy-eight pieces of tapestry, four fathom long, and
    three fathom broad, all of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver;
    the work beginning at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, continuing to the
    birth of Achilles; his youth, described by Statius Papinius; his warlike
    achievements, celebrated by Homer; his death and obsequies, written by Ovid
    and Quintus Calaber; and ending at the appearance of his ghost, and
    Polyxena's sacrifice, rehearsed by Euripides.

    He also caused to be bought three fine young unicorns; one of them a male
    of a chestnut colour, and two grey dappled females; also a tarand, whom he
    bought of a Scythian of the Gelones' country.

    A tarand is an animal as big as a bullock, having a head like a stag, or a
    little bigger, two stately horns with large branches, cloven feet, hair
    long like that of a furred Muscovite, I mean a bear, and a skin almost as
    hard as steel armour.  The Scythian said that there are but few tarands to
    be found in Scythia, because it varieth its colour according to the
    diversity of the places where it grazes and abides, and represents the
    colour of the grass, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, meadows, rocks, and
    generally of all things near which it comes.  It hath this common with the
    sea-pulp, or polypus, with the thoes, with the wolves of India, and with
    the chameleon, which is a kind of a lizard so wonderful that Democritus
    hath written a whole book of its figure and anatomy, as also of its virtue
    and propriety in magic.  This I can affirm, that I have seen it change its
    colour, not only at the approach of things that have a colour, but by its
    own voluntary impulse, according to its fear or other affections; as, for
    example, upon a green carpet I have certainly seen it become green; but
    having remained there some time, it turned yellow, blue, tanned, and purple
    in course, in the same manner as you see a turkey-cock's comb change colour
    according to its passions.  But what we find most surprising in this tarand
    is, that not only its face and skin, but also its hair could take whatever
    colour was about it.  Near Panurge, with his kersey coat, its hair used to
    turn grey; near Pantagruel, with his scarlet mantle, its hair and skin grew
    red; near the pilot, dressed after the fashion of the Isiacs of Anubis in
    Egypt, its hair seemed all white, which two last colours the chameleons
    cannot borrow.

    When the creature was free from any fear or affection, the colour of its
    hair was just such as you see that of the asses of Meung.

    Chapter 4.III. How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of the
    strange way to have speedy news from far distant places.

    While Pantagruel was taken up with the purchase of those foreign animals,
    the noise of ten guns and culverins, together with a loud and joyful cheer
    of all the fleet, was heard from the mole.  Pantagruel looked towards the
    haven, and perceived that this was occasioned by the arrival of one of his
    father Gargantua's celoces, or advice-boats, named the Chelidonia; because
    on the stern of it was carved in Corinthian brass a sea-swallow, which is a
    fish as large as a dare-fish of Loire, all flesh, without scale, with
    cartilaginous wings (like a bat's) very long and broad, by the means of
    which I have seen them fly about three fathom above water, about a bow-
    shot.  At Marseilles 'tis called lendole.  And indeed that ship was as
    light as a swallow, so that it rather seemed to fly on the sea than to
    sail.  Malicorne, Gargantua's esquire carver, was come in her, being sent
    expressly by his master to have an account of his son's health and
    circumstances, and to bring him credentials.  When Malicorne had saluted
    Pantagruel, before the prince opened the letters, the first thing he said
    to him was, Have you here the Gozal, the heavenly messenger?  Yes, sir,
    said he; here it is swaddled up in this basket.  It was a grey pigeon,
    taken out of Gargantua's dove-house, whose young ones were just hatched
    when the advice-boat was going off.

    If any ill fortune had befallen Pantagruel, he would have fastened some
    black ribbon to his feet; but because all things had succeeded happily
    hitherto, having caused it to be undressed, he tied to its feet a white
    ribbon, and without any further delay let it loose.  The pigeon presently
    flew away, cutting the air with an incredible speed, as you know that there
    is no flight like a pigeon's, especially when it hath eggs or young ones,
    through the extreme care which nature hath fixed in it to relieve and be
    with its young; insomuch that in less than two hours it compassed in the
    air the long tract which the advice-boat, with all her diligence, with oars
    and sails, and a fair wind, could not go through in less than three days
    and three nights; and was seen as it went into the dove-house in its nest.
    Whereupon Gargantua, hearing that it had the white ribbon on, was joyful
    and secure of his son's welfare.  This was the custom of the noble
    Gargantua and Pantagruel when they would have speedy news of something of
    great concern; as the event of some battle, either by sea or land; the
    surrendering or holding out of some strong place; the determination of some
    difference of moment; the safe or unhappy delivery of some queen or great
    lady; the death or recovery of their sick friends or allies, and so forth.
    They used to take the gozal, and had it carried from one to another by the
    post, to the places whence they desired to have news.  The gozal, bearing
    either a black or white ribbon, according to the occurrences and accidents,
    used to remove their doubts at its return, making in the space of one hour
    more way through the air than thirty postboys could have done in one
    natural day.  May not this be said to redeem and gain time with a
    vengeance, think you?  For the like service, therefore, you may believe as
    a most true thing that in the dove-houses of their farms there were to be
    found all the year long store of pigeons hatching eggs or rearing their
    young.  Which may be easily done in aviaries and voleries by the help of
    saltpetre and the sacred herb vervain.

    The gozal being let fly, Pantagruel perused his father Gargantua's letter,
    the contents of which were as followeth:

    My dearest Son,—The affection that naturally a father bears a beloved son
    is so much increased in me by reflecting on the particular gifts which by
    the divine goodness have been heaped on thee, that since thy departure it
    hath often banished all other thoughts out of my mind, leaving my heart
    wholly possessed with fear lest some misfortune has attended thy voyage;
    for thou knowest that fear was ever the attendant of true and sincere love.
    Now because, as Hesiod saith, A good beginning of anything is the half of
    it; or, Well begun's half done, according to the old saying; to free my
    mind from this anxiety I have expressly despatched Malicorne, that he may
    give me a true account of thy health at the beginning of thy voyage.  For
    if it be good, and such as I wish it, I shall easily foresee the rest.

    I have met with some diverting books, which the bearer will deliver thee;
    thou mayest read them when thou wantest to unbend and ease thy mind from
    thy better studies.  He will also give thee at large the news at court.
    The peace of the Lord be with thee.  Remember me to Panurge, Friar John,
    Epistemon, Xenomanes, Gymnast, and thy other principal domestics.  Dated at
    our paternal seat, this 13th day of June.

                Thy father and friend, Gargantua.

    Chapter 4.IV. How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent him several
    curiosities.

    Pantagruel, having perused the letter, had a long conference with the
    esquire Malicorne; insomuch that Panurge, at last interrupting them, asked
    him, Pray, sir, when do you design to drink?  When shall we drink?  When
    shall the worshipful esquire drink?  What a devil! have you not talked long
    enough to drink?  It is a good motion, answered Pantagruel:  go, get us
    something ready at the next inn; I think 'tis the Centaur.  In the meantime
    he writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent by the aforesaid esquire:

    Most gracious Father,—As our senses and animal faculties are more
    discomposed at the news of events unexpected, though desired (even to an
    immediate dissolution of the soul from the body), than if those accidents
    had been foreseen, so the coming of Malicorne hath much surprised and
    disordered me.  For I had no hopes to see any of your servants, or to hear
    from you, before I had finished our voyage; and contented myself with the
    dear remembrance of your august majesty, deeply impressed in the hindmost
    ventricle of my brain, often representing you to my mind.

    But since you have made me happy beyond expectation by the perusal of your
    gracious letter, and the faith I have in your esquire hath revived my
    spirits by the news of your welfare, I am as it were compelled to do what
    formerly I did freely, that is, first to praise the blessed Redeemer, who
    by his divine goodness preserves you in this long enjoyment of perfect
    health; then to return you eternal thanks for the fervent affection which
    you have for me your most humble son and unprofitable servant.

    Formerly a Roman, named Furnius, said to Augustus, who had received his
    father into favour, and pardoned him after he had sided with Antony, that
    by that action the emperor had reduced him to this extremity, that for want
    of power to be grateful, both while he lived and after it, he should be
    obliged to be taxed with ingratitude.  So I may say, that the excess of
    your fatherly affection drives me into such a strait, that I shall be
    forced to live and die ungrateful; unless that crime be redressed by the
    sentence of the Stoics, who say that there are three parts in a benefit,
    the one of the giver, the other of the receiver, the third of the
    remunerator; and that the receiver rewards the giver when he freely
    receives the benefit and always remembers it; as, on the contrary, that man
    is most ungrateful who despises and forgets a benefit.  Therefore, being
    overwhelmed with infinite favours, all proceeding from your extreme
    goodness, and on the other side wholly incapable of making the smallest
    return, I hope at least to free myself from the imputation of ingratitude,
    since they can never be blotted out of my mind; and my tongue shall never
    cease to own that to thank you as I ought transcends my capacity.

    As for us, I have this assurance in the Lord's mercy and help, that the end
    of our voyage will be answerable to its beginning, and so it will be
    entirely performed in health and mirth.  I will not fail to set down in a
    journal a full account of our navigation, that at our return you may have
    an exact relation of the whole.

    I have found here a Scythian tarand, an animal strange and wonderful for
    the variations of colour on its skin and hair, according to the distinction
    of neighbouring things; it is as tractable and easily kept as a lamb.  Be
    pleased to accept of it.

    I also send you three young unicorns, which are the tamest of creatures.

    I have conferred with the esquire, and taught him how they must be fed.
    These cannot graze on the ground by reason of the long horn on their
    forehead, but are forced to browse on fruit trees, or on proper racks, or
    to be fed by hand, with herbs, sheaves, apples, pears, barley, rye, and
    other fruits and roots, being placed before them.

    I am amazed that ancient writers should report them to be so wild, furious,
    and dangerous, and never seen alive; far from it, you will find that they
    are the mildest things in the world, provided they are not maliciously
    offended.  Likewise I send you the life and deeds of Achilles in curious
    tapestry; assuring you whatever rarities of animals, plants, birds, or
    precious stones, and others, I shall be able to find and purchase in our
    travels, shall be brought to you, God willing, whom I beseech, by his
    blessed grace, to preserve you.

    From Medamothy, this 15th of June.  Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon,
    Zenomanes, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, and Carpalin, having most humbly
    kissed your hand, return your salute a thousand times.

           Your most dutiful son and servant, Pantagruel.

    While Pantagruel was writing this letter, Malicorne was made welcome by all
    with a thousand goodly good-morrows and how-d'ye's; they clung about him so
    that I cannot tell you how much they made of him, how many humble services,
    how many from my love and to my love were sent with him.  Pantagruel,
    having writ his letters, sat down at table with him, and afterwards
    presented him with a large chain of gold, weighing eight hundred crowns,
    between whose septenary links some large diamonds, rubies, emeralds,
    turquoise stones, and unions were alternately set in.  To each of his
    bark's crew he ordered to be given five hundred crowns.  To Gargantua, his
    father, he sent the tarand covered with a cloth of satin, brocaded with
    gold, and the tapestry containing the life and deeds of Achilles, with the
    three unicorns in friezed cloth of gold trappings; and so they left
    Medamothy—Malicorne to return to Gargantua, Pantagruel to proceed in his
    voyage, during which Epistemon read to him the books which the esquire had
    brought, and because he found them jovial and pleasant, I shall give you an
    account of them, if you earnestly desire it.

    Chapter 4.V. How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from Lanternland.

    On the fifth day we began already to wind by little and little about the
    pole; going still farther from the equinoctial line, we discovered a
    merchant-man to the windward of us.  The joy for this was not small on both
    sides; we in hopes to hear news from sea, and those in the merchant-man
    from land.  So we bore upon 'em, and coming up with them we hailed them;
    and finding them to be Frenchmen of Xaintonge, backed our sails and lay by
    to talk to them.  Pantagruel heard that they came from Lanternland; which
    added to his joy, and that of the whole fleet.  We inquired about the state
    of that country, and the way of living of the Lanterns; and were told that
    about the latter end of the following July was the time prefixed for the
    meeting of the general chapter of the Lanterns; and that if we arrived
    there at that time, as we might easily, we should see a handsome,
    honourable, and jolly company of Lanterns; and that great preparations were
    making, as if they intended to lanternize there to the purpose.  We were
    told also that if we touched at the great kingdom of Gebarim, we should be
    honourably received and treated by the sovereign of that country, King
    Ohabe, who, as well as all his subjects, speaks Touraine French.

    While we were listening to these news, Panurge fell out with one Dingdong,
    a drover or sheep-merchant of Taillebourg.  The occasion of the fray was
    thus:

    This same Dingdong, seeing Panurge without a codpiece, with his spectacles
    fastened to his cap, said to one of his comrades, Prithee, look, is there
    not a fine medal of a cuckold?  Panurge, by reason of his spectacles, as
    you may well think, heard more plainly by half with his ears than usually;
    which caused him (hearing this) to say to the saucy dealer in mutton, in a
    kind of a pet:

    How the devil should I be one of the hornified fraternity, since I am not
    yet a brother of the marriage-noose, as thou art; as I guess by thy ill-
    favoured phiz?

    Yea, verily, quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be otherwise
    for all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the magnifying
    gimcracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest, prettiest,
    handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and soberest piece of
    woman's flesh for my wife that is in all the whole country of Xaintonge;
    I'll say that for her, and a fart for all the rest.  I bring her home a
    fine eleven-inch-long branch of red coral for her Christmas-box.  What hast
    thou to do with it? what's that to thee? who art thou? whence comest thou,
    O dark lantern of Antichrist?  Answer, if thou art of God.  I ask thee, by
    the way of question, said Panurge to him very seriously, if with the
    consent and countenance of all the elements, I had gingumbobbed, codpieced,
    and thumpthumpriggledtickledtwiddled thy so clever, so pretty, so handsome,
    so proper, so neat, so tight, so honest, and so sober female importance,
    insomuch that the stiff deity that has no forecast, Priapus (who dwells
    here at liberty, all subjection of fastened codpieces, or bolts, bars, and
    locks, abdicated), remained sticking in her natural Christmas-box in such a
    lamentable manner that it were never to come out, but eternally should
    stick there unless thou didst pull it out with thy teeth; what wouldst thou
    do?  Wouldst thou everlastingly leave it there, or wouldst thou pluck it
    out with thy grinders?  Answer me, O thou ram of Mahomet, since thou art
    one of the devil's gang.  I would, replied the sheepmonger, take thee such
    a woundy cut on this spectacle-bearing lug of thine with my trusty bilbo as
    would smite thee dead as a herring.  Thus, having taken pepper in the nose,
    he was lugging out his sword, but, alas!—cursed cows have short horns,—it
    stuck in the scabbard; as you know that at sea cold iron will easily take
    rust by reason of the excessive and nitrous moisture.  Panurge, so smitten
    with terror that his heart sunk down to his midriff, scoured off to
    Pantagruel for help; but Friar John laid hand on his flashing scimitar that
    was new ground, and would certainly have despatched Dingdong to rights, had
    not the skipper and some of his passengers beseeched Pantagruel not to
    suffer such an outrage to be committed on board his ship.  So the matter
    was made up, and Panurge and his antagonist shaked fists, and drank in
    course to one another in token of a perfect reconciliation.

    Chapter 4.VI. How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one of Dingdong's sheep.

    This quarrel being hushed, Panurge tipped the wink upon Epistemon and Friar
    John, and taking them aside, Stand at some distance out of the way, said
    he, and take your share of the following scene of mirth.  You shall have
    rare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but take.  Then
    addressing himself to the drover, he took off to him a bumper of good
    lantern wine.  The other pledged him briskly and courteously.  This done,
    Panurge earnestly entreated him to sell him one of his sheep.

    But the other answered him, Is it come to that, friend and neighbour?
    Would you put tricks upon travellers?  Alas, how finely you love to play
    upon poor folk!  Nay, you seem a rare chapman, that's the truth on't.  Oh,
    what a mighty sheep-merchant you are!  In good faith, you look liker one of
    the diving trade than a buyer of sheep.  Adzookers, what a blessing it
    would be to have one's purse well lined with chink near your worship at a
    tripe-house when it begins to thaw!  Humph, humph, did not we know you
    well, you might serve one a slippery trick!  Pray do but see, good people,
    what a mighty conjuror the fellow would be reckoned.  Patience, said
    Panurge; but waiving that, be so kind as to sell me one of your sheep.
    Come, how much?  What do you mean, master of mine? answered the other.
    They are long-wool sheep; from these did Jason take his golden fleece.  The
    gold of the house of Burgundy was drawn from them.  Zwoons, man, they are
    oriental sheep, topping sheep, fatted sheep, sheep of quality.  Be it so,
    said Panurge; but sell me one of them, I beseech you; and that for a cause,
    paying you ready money upon the nail, in good and lawful occidental current
    cash.  Wilt say how much?  Friend, neighbour, answered the seller of
    mutton, hark ye me a little, on the ear.

      Panurge.  On which side you please; I hear you.

      Dingdong.  You are going to Lanternland, they say.

      Panurge.  Yea, verily.

      Dingdong.  To see fashions?

      Panurge.  Even so.

      Dingdong.  And be merry?

      Panurge.  And be merry.

      Dingdong.  Your name is, as I take it, Robin Mutton?

      Panurge.  As you please for that, sweet sir.

      Dingdong.  Nay, without offence.

      Panurge.  So I would have it.

      Dingdong.  You are, as I take it, the king's jester; aren't you?

      Panurge.  Ay, ay, anything.

      Dingdong.  Give me your hand—humph, humph, you go to see fashions, you
    are the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton!  Do you see this same
    ram?  His name, too, is Robin.  Here, Robin, Robin, Robin!  Baea, baea,
    baea.  Hath he not a rare voice?

      Panurge.  Ay, marry has he, a very fine and harmonious voice.

      Dingdong.  Well, this bargain shall be made between you and me, friend
    and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be
    put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other.  Now I will hold you a
    peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he shall outdo you,
    and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner as when you shall
    be hanged and suspended.

    Patience, said Panurge; but you would do much for me and your whole
    posterity if you would chaffer with me for him, or some other of his
    inferiors.  I beg it of you; good your worship, be so kind.  Hark ye,
    friend of mine, answered the other; with the fleece of these your fine
    Rouen cloth is to be made; your Leominster superfine wool is mine arse to
    it; mere flock in comparison.  Of their skins the best cordovan will be
    made, which shall be sold for Turkey and Montelimart, or for Spanish
    leather at least.  Of the guts shall be made fiddle and harp strings that
    will sell as dear as if they came from Munican or Aquileia.  What do you
    think on't, hah?  If you please, sell me one of them, said Panurge, and I
    will be yours for ever.  Look, here's ready cash.  What's the price?  This
    he said exhibiting his purse stuffed with new Henricuses.

    Chapter 4.VII. Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with Dingdong.

    4-07-420.jpg (63K)

    Neighbour, my friend, answered Dingdong, they are meat for none but kings
    and princes; their flesh is so delicate, so savoury, and so dainty that one
    would swear it melted in the mouth.  I bring them out of a country where
    the very hogs, God be with us, live on nothing but myrobolans.  The sows in
    the styes when they lie-in (saving the honour of this good company) are fed
    only with orange-flowers.  But, said Panurge, drive a bargain with me for
    one of them, and I will pay you for't like a king, upon the honest word of
    a true Trojan; come, come, what do you ask?  Not so fast, Robin, answered
    the trader; these sheep are lineally descended from the very family of the
    ram that wafted Phryxus and Helle over the sea since called the Hellespont.
    A pox on't, said Panurge, you are clericus vel addiscens!  Ita is a
    cabbage, and vere a leek, answered the merchant.  But, rr, rrr, rrrr,
    rrrrr, hoh Robin, rr, rrrrrrr, you don't understand that gibberish, do you?
    Now I think on't, over all the fields where they piss, corn grows as fast
    as if the Lord had pissed there; they need neither be tilled nor dunged.
    Besides, man, your chemists extract the best saltpetre in the world out of
    their urine.  Nay, with their very dung (with reverence be it spoken) the
    doctors in our country make pills that cure seventy-eight kinds of
    diseases, the least of which is the evil of St. Eutropius of Xaintes, from
    which, good Lord, deliver us!  Now what do you think on't, neighbour, my
    friend?  The truth is, they cost me money, that they do.  Cost what they
    will, cried Panurge, trade with me for one of them, paying you well.  Our
    friend, quoth the quacklike sheepman, do but mind the wonders of nature
    that are found in those animals, even in a member which one would think
    were of no use.  Take me but these horns, and bray them a little with an
    iron pestle, or with an andiron, which you please, it is all one to me;
    then bury them wherever you will, provided it be where the sun may shine,
    and water them frequently; in a few months I'll engage you will have the
    best asparagus in the world, not even excepting those of Ravenna.  Now,
    come and tell me whether the horns of your other knights of the bull's
    feather have such a virtue and wonderful propriety?

    Patience, said Panurge.  I don't know whether you be a scholar or no,
    pursued Dingdong; I have seen a world of scholars, I say great scholars,
    that were cuckolds, I'll assure you.  But hark you me, if you were a
    scholar, you should know that in the most inferior members of those
    animals, which are the feet, there is a bone, which is the heel, the
    astragalus, if you will have it so, wherewith, and with that of no other
    creature breathing, except the Indian ass and the dorcades of Libya, they
    used in old times to play at the royal game of dice, whereat Augustus the
    emperor won above fifty thousand crowns one evening.  Now such cuckolds as
    you will be hanged ere you get half so much at it.  Patience, said Panurge;
    but let us despatch.  And when, my friend and neighbour, continued the
    canting sheepseller, shall I have duly praised the inward members, the
    shoulders, the legs, the knuckles, the neck, the breast, the liver, the
    spleen, the tripes, the kidneys, the bladder, wherewith they make
    footballs; the ribs, which serve in Pigmyland to make little crossbows to
    pelt the cranes with cherry-stones; the head, which with a little brimstone
    serves to make a miraculous decoction to loosen and ease the belly of
    costive dogs?  A turd on't, said the skipper to his preaching passenger,
    what a fiddle-faddle have we here?  There is too long a lecture by half:
    sell him if thou wilt; if thou won't, don't let the man lose more time.  I
    hate a gibble-gabble and a rimble-ramble talk.  I am for a man of brevity.
    I will, for your sake, replied the holder-forth; but then he shall give me
    three livres, French money, for each pick and choose.  It is a woundy
    price, cried Panurge; in our country I could have five, nay six, for the
    money; see that you do not overreach me, master.  You are not the first man
    whom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if not
    breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once.  A murrain
    seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the
    worthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times
    better than those which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain,
    used to sell for a gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou
    Hibernian fool, that a talent of gold was worth?  Sweet sir, you fall into
    a passion, I see, returned Panurge; well, hold, here is your money.
    Panurge, having paid his money, chose him out of all the flock a fine
    topping ram; and as he was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, all
    the rest, hearing and bleating in concert, stared to see whither their
    brother-ram should be carried.  In the meanwhile the drover was saying to
    his shepherds:  Ah! how well the knave could choose him out a ram; the
    whoreson has skill in cattle.  On my honest word, I reserved that very
    piece of flesh for the Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition; for
    the good man is naturally overjoyed when he holds a good-sized handsome
    shoulder of mutton, instead of a left-handed racket, in one hand, with a
    good sharp carver in the other.  God wot, how he belabours himself then.

    Chapter 4.VIII. How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea.

    4-08-422.jpg (80K)

    On a sudden, you would wonder how the thing was so soon done—for my part I
    cannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it—our friend Panurge,
    without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard into the
    middle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise.  Upon this all the
    other sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone, made all the
    haste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after another; and great
    was the throng who should leap in first after their leader.  It was
    impossible to hinder them; for you know that it is the nature of sheep
    always to follow the first wheresoever it goes; which makes Aristotle, lib.
    9. De. Hist. Animal., mark them for the most silly and foolish animals in
    the world.  Dingdong, at his wits' end, and stark staring mad, as a man who
    saw his sheep destroy and drown themselves before his face, strove to
    hinder and keep them back with might and main; but all in vain:  they all
    one after t'other frisked and jumped into the sea, and were lost.  At last
    he laid hold on a huge sturdy one by the fleece, upon the deck of the ship,
    hoping to keep it back, and so save that and the rest; but the ram was so
    strong that it proved too hard for him, and carried its master into the
    herring pond in spite of his teeth—where it is supposed he drank somewhat
    more than his fill, so that he was drowned—in the same manner as one-eyed
    Polyphemus' sheep carried out of the den Ulysses and his companions.  The
    like happened to the shepherds and all their gang, some laying hold on
    their beloved tup, this by the horns, t'other by the legs, a third by the
    rump, and others by the fleece; till in fine they were all of them forced
    to sea, and drowned like so many rats.  Panurge, on the gunnel of the ship,
    with an oar in his hand, not to help them you may swear, but to keep them
    from swimming to the ship and saving themselves from drowning, preached and
    canted to them all the while like any little Friar (Oliver) Maillard, or
    another Friar John Burgess; laying before them rhetorical commonplaces
    concerning the miseries of this life and the blessings and felicity of the
    next; assuring them that the dead were much happier than the living in this
    vale of misery, and promised to erect a stately cenotaph and honorary tomb
    to every one of them on the highest summit of Mount Cenis at his return
    from Lanternland; wishing them, nevertheless, in case they were not yet
    disposed to shake hands with this life, and did not like their salt liquor,
    they might have the good luck to meet with some kind whale which might set
    them ashore safe and sound on some blessed land of Gotham, after a famous
    example.

    The ship being cleared of Dingdong and his tups:  Is there ever another
    sheepish soul left lurking on board? cried Panurge.  Where are those of
    Toby Lamb and Robin Ram that sleep while the rest are a-feeding?  Faith, I
    can't tell myself.  This was an old coaster's trick.  What think'st of it,
    Friar John, hah?  Rarely performed, answered Friar John; only methinks that
    as formerly in war, on the day of battle, a double pay was commonly
    promised the soldiers for that day; for if they overcame, there was enough
    to pay them; and if they lost, it would have been shameful for them to
    demand it, as the cowardly foresters did after the battle of Cerizoles;
    likewise, my friend, you ought not to have paid your man, and the money had
    been saved.  A fart for the money, said Panurge; have I not had above fifty
    thousand pounds' worth of sport?  Come now, let's be gone; the wind is
    fair.  Hark you me, my friend John; never did man do me a good turn, but I
    returned, or at least acknowledged it; no, I scorn to be ungrateful; I
    never was, nor ever will be.  Never did man do me an ill one without rueing
    the day that he did it, either in this world or the next.  I am not yet so
    much a fool neither.  Thou damn'st thyself like any old devil, quoth Friar
    John; it is written, Mihi vindictam, &c.  Matter of breviary, mark ye me
    (Motteux adds unnecessarily (by way of explanation), 'that's holy stuff.').

    Chapter 4.IX. How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of the strange ways of
    being akin in that country.

    We had still the wind at south-south-west, and had been a whole day without
    making land.  On the third day, at the flies' uprising (which, you know, is
    some two or three hours after the sun's), we got sight of a triangular
    island, very much like Sicily for its form and situation.  It was called
    the Island of Alliances.

    The people there are much like your carrot-pated Poitevins, save only that
    all of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped like an ace
    of clubs.  For that reason the ancient name of the country was Ennasin.
    They were all akin, as the mayor of the place told us; at least they
    boasted so.

    You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing that, out of the
    family of the Fabii at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th of
    February, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since named
    Scelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, between the
    Tarpeian rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of Etruria
    three hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each other, with
    five thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals, who were all
    slain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of Beccano.  Now
    from this same country of Ennasin, in case of need, above three hundred
    thousand, all relations and of one family, might march out.  Their degrees
    of consanguinity and alliance are very strange; for being thus akin and
    allied to one another, we found that none was either father or mother,
    brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, son-in-law or daughter-
    in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other; unless, truly, a tall flat-
    nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a little shitten-arsed girl
    of three or four years old, father, and the child called him daughter.

    Their distinction of degrees of kindred was thus:  a man used to call a
    woman, my lean bit; the woman called him, my porpoise.  Those, said Friar
    John, must needs stink damnably of fish when they have rubbed their bacon
    one with the other.  One, smiling on a young buxom baggage, said, Good
    morrow, dear currycomb.  She, to return him his civility, said, The like to
    you, my steed.  Ha! ha! ha! said Panurge, that is pretty well, in faith;
    for indeed it stands her in good stead to currycomb this steed.  Another
    greeted his buttock with a Farewell, my case.  She replied, Adieu, trial.
    By St. Winifred's placket, cried Gymnast, this case has been often tried.
    Another asked a she-friend of his, How is it, hatchet?  She answered him,
    At your service, dear helve.  Odds belly, saith Carpalin, this helve and
    this hatchet are well matched.  As we went on, I saw one who, calling his
    she-relation, styled her my crumb, and she called him, my crust.  

    Quoth one to a brisk, plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear tap.
    So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she.  One called a
    wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal:  one named his, my slipper;
    and she, my foot:  another, my boot; she, my shasoon.

    In the same degree of kindred, one called his, my butter; she called him,
    my eggs; and they were akin just like a dish of buttered eggs.  I heard one
    call his, my tripe, and she him, my faggot.  Now I could not, for the
    heart's blood of me, pick out or discover what parentage, alliance,
    affinity, or consanguinity was between them, with reference to our custom;
    only they told us that she was faggot's tripe.  (Tripe de fagot means the
    smallest sticks in a faggot.)  Another, complimenting his convenient, said,
    Yours, my shell; she replied, I was yours before, sweet oyster.  I reckon,
    said Carpalin, she hath gutted his oyster.  Another long-shanked ugly
    rogue, mounted on a pair of high-heeled wooden slippers, meeting a
    strapping, fusty, squabbed dowdy, says he to her, How is't my top?  She was
    short upon him, and arrogantly replied, Never the better for you, my whip.
    By St. Antony's hog, said Xenomanes, I believe so; for how can this whip be
    sufficient to lash this top?

    A college professor, well provided with cod, and powdered and prinked up,
    having a while discoursed with a great lady, taking his leave with these
    words, Thank you, sweetmeat; she cried, There needs no thanks, sour-sauce.
    Saith Pantagruel, This is not altogether incongruous, for sweet meat must
    have sour sauce.  A wooden loggerhead said to a young wench, It is long
    since I saw you, bag; All the better, cried she, pipe.  Set them together,
    said Panurge, then blow in their arses, it will be a bagpipe.  We saw,
    after that, a diminutive humpbacked gallant, pretty near us, taking leave
    of a she-relation of his, thus:  Fare thee well, friend hole; she
    reparteed, Save thee, friend peg.  Quoth Friar John, What could they say
    more, were he all peg and she all hole?  But now would I give something to
    know if every cranny of the hole can be stopped up with that same peg.

    A bawdy bachelor, talking with an old trout, was saying, Remember, rusty
    gun.  I will not fail, said she, scourer.  Do you reckon these two to be
    akin? said Pantagruel to the mayor.  I rather take them to be foes.  In our
    country a woman would take this as a mortal affront.  Good people of
    t'other world, replied the mayor, you have few such and so near relations
    as this gun and scourer are to one another; for they both come out of one
    shop.  What, was the shop their mother? quoth Panurge.  What mother, said
    the mayor, does the man mean?  That must be some of your world's affinity;
    we have here neither father nor mother.  Your little paltry fellows that
    live on t'other side the water, poor rogues, booted with wisps of hay, may
    indeed have such; but we scorn it.  The good Pantagruel stood gazing and
    listening; but at those words he had like to have lost all patience. (Here
    Motteux adds an aside—'os kai nun o Ermeneutes.  P.M.').

    Having very exactly viewed the situation of the island and the way of
    living of the Enassed nation, we went to take a cup of the creature at a
    tavern, where there happened to be a wedding after the manner of the
    country.  Bating that shocking custom, there was special good cheer.

    While we were there, a pleasant match was struck up betwixt a female called
    Pear (a tight thing, as we thought, but by some, who knew better things,
    said to be quaggy and flabby), and a young soft male, called Cheese,
    somewhat sandy.  (Many such matches have been, and they were formerly much
    commended.)  In our country we say, Il ne fut onques tel mariage, qu'est de
    la poire et du fromage; there is no match like that made between the pear
    and the cheese; and in many other places good store of such bargains have
    been driven.  Besides, when the women are at their last prayers, it is to
    this day a noted saying, that after cheese comes nothing.

    In another room I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young pliable
    buskin.  Pantagruel was told that young buskin took old boot to have and to
    hold because she was of special leather, in good case, and waxed, seared,
    liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had been for the
    fisherman that went to bed with his boots on.  In another room below, I saw
    a young brogue taking a young slipper for better for worse; which, they
    told us, was neither for the sake of her piety, parts, or person, but for
    the fourth comprehensive p, portion; the spankers, spur-royals, rose-
    nobles, and other coriander seed with which she was quilted all over.

    Chapter 4.X. How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where he saw King St.
    Panigon.

    We sailed right before the wind, which we had at west, leaving those odd
    alliancers with their ace-of-clubs snouts, and having taken height by the
    sun, stood in for Chely, a large, fruitful, wealthy, and well-peopled
    island.  King St. Panigon, first of the name, reigned there, and, attended
    by the princes his sons and the nobles of his court, came as far as the
    port to receive Pantagruel, and conducted him to his palace; near the gate
    of which the queen, attended by the princesses her daughters and the court
    ladies, received us.  Panigon directed her and all her retinue to salute
    Pantagruel and his men with a kiss; for such was the civil custom of the
    country; and they were all fairly bussed accordingly, except Friar John,
    who stepped aside and sneaked off among the king's officers.  Panigon used
    all the entreaties imaginable to persuade Pantagruel to tarry there that
    day and the next; but he would needs be gone, and excused himself upon the
    opportunity of wind and weather, which, being oftener desired than enjoyed,
    ought not to be neglected when it comes.  Panigon, having heard these
    reasons, let us go, but first made us take off some five-and-twenty or
    thirty bumpers each.

    Pantagruel, returning to the port, missed Friar John, and asked why he was
    not with the rest of the company.  Panurge could not tell how to excuse
    him, and would have gone back to the palace to call him, when Friar John
    overtook them, and merrily cried, Long live the noble Panigon!  As I love
    my belly, he minds good eating, and keeps a noble house and a dainty
    kitchen.  I have been there, boys.  Everything goes about by dozens.  I was
    in good hopes to have stuffed my puddings there like a monk.  What! always
    in a kitchen, friend? said Pantagruel.  By the belly of St. Cramcapon,
    quoth the friar, I understand the customs and ceremonies which are used
    there much better than all the formal stuff, antique postures, and
    nonsensical fiddle-faddle that must be used with those women, magni magna,
    shittencumshita, cringes, grimaces, scrapes, bows, and congees; double
    honours this way, triple salutes that way, the embrace, the grasp, the
    squeeze, the hug, the leer, the smack, baso las manos de vostra merce, de
    vostra maesta.  You are most tarabin, tarabas, Stront; that's downright
    Dutch.  Why all this ado?  I don't say but a man might be for a bit by the
    bye and away, to be doing as well as his neighbours; but this little nasty
    cringing and courtesying made me as mad as any March devil.  You talk of
    kissing ladies; by the worthy and sacred frock I wear, I seldom venture
    upon it, lest I be served as was the Lord of Guyercharois.  What was it?
    said Pantagruel; I know him.  He is one of the best friends I have.

    He was invited to a sumptuous feast, said Friar John, by a relation and
    neighbour of his, together with all the gentlemen and ladies in the
    neighbourhood.  Now some of the latter expecting his coming, dressed the
    pages in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies; then ordered
    them to meet my lord at his coming near the drawbridge.  So the
    complimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads with
    great formality.  At last the ladies, who minded passages in the gallery,
    burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off their
    dress; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he durst make
    up to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they had disguised
    the pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were certainly the very
    footmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised.  Odds fish, da jurandi,
    why do not we rather remove our humanities into some good warm kitchen of
    God, that noble laboratory, and there admire the turning of the spits, the
    harmonious rattling of the jacks and fenders, criticise on the position of
    the lard, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert,
    and the order of the wine service?  Beati immaculati in via.  Matter of
    breviary, my masters.

    Chapter 4.XI. Why monks love to be in kitchens.

    This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right
    monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling.  Truly you put me in mind
    of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a
    company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing
    the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was.  As we viewed the situation and
    beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the
    churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their
    due; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry,
    scandalized, and out of all patience, told us, I don't know what the devil
    you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part I
    have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think my
    eyesight is as clear as another body's, and what can one see after all?
    There are fine houses, indeed and that's all.  But the cage does not feed
    the birds.  God and Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in
    all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet
    I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a
    commonwealth:  ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with
    the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and
    left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a
    spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town.  Now at Amiens, in four,
    nay, five times less ground than we have trod in our contemplations, I
    could have shown you above fourteen streets of roasting cooks, most
    ancient, savoury, and aromatic.  I cannot imagine what kind of pleasure you
    can have taken in gazing on the lions and Africans (so methinks you call
    their tigers) near the belfry, or in ogling the porcupines and estridges in
    the Lord Philip Strozzi's palace.  Faith and truth I had rather see a good
    fat goose at the spit.  This porphyry, those marbles are fine; I say
    nothing to the contrary; but our cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in my
    mind.  These ancient statues are well made; I am willing to believe it;
    but, by St. Ferreol of Abbeville, we have young wenches in our country
    which please me better a thousand times.

    What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found in
    kitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there?  Is there not,
    said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in the
    kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monks
    there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings?  Or is it a natural
    induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself
    leads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they will
    or no?  He would speak of forms following matter, as Averroes calls them,
    answered Epistemon.  Right, said Friar John.

    I will not offer to solve this problem, said Pantagruel; for it is somewhat
    ticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off scurvily; but I
    will tell you what I have heard.

    Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming into one of the tents, where his
    cooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet Antagoras frying a
    conger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked him, Pray, Mr. Poet, was
    Homer frying congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon?  Antagoras
    readily answered:  But do you think, sir, that when Agamemnon did them he
    made it his business to know if any in his camp were frying congers?  The
    king thought it an indecency that a poet should be thus a-frying in a
    kitchen; and the poet let the king know that it was a more indecent thing
    for a king to be found in such a place.  I'll clap another story upon the
    neck of this, quoth Panurge, and will tell you what Breton Villandry
    answered one day to the Duke of Guise.

    They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis against Charles
    the Fifth, Breton, armed cap-a-pie to the teeth, and mounted like St.
    George, yet sneaked off, and played least in sight during the engagement.
    Blood and oons, answered Breton, I was there, and can prove it easily; nay,
    even where you, my lord, dared not have been.  The duke began to resent
    this as too rash and saucy; but Breton easily appeased him, and set them
    all a-laughing.  Egad, my lord, quoth he, I kept out of harm's way; I was
    all the while with your page Jack, skulking in a certain place where you
    had not dared hide your head as I did.  Thus discoursing, they got to their
    ships, and left the island of Chely.

    Chapter 4.XII. How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange way
    of living among the Catchpoles.

    4-12-430.jpg (142K)

    Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through Pettifogging,
    a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly tell what to make
    on't.  There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles, rogues that will hang
    their father for a groat.  They neither invited us to eat or drink; but,
    with a multiplied train of scrapes and cringes, said they were all at our
    service for the Legem pone.

    One of our droggermen related to Pantagruel their strange way of living,
    diametrically opposed to that of our modern Romans; for at Rome a world of
    folks get an honest livelihood by poisoning, drubbing, lambasting,
    stabbing, and murthering; but the catchpoles earn theirs by being thrashed;
    so that if they were long without a tight lambasting, the poor dogs with
    their wives and children would be starved.  This is just, quoth Panurge,
    like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towards
    the equinoctial circle unless they are soundly flogged.  By St. Patrick's
    slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting me
    right, throw me off the saddle, in the devil's name.

    The way is this, said the interpreter.  When a monk, levite, close-fisted
    usurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he sends to
    him one of those catchpoles or apparitors, who nabs, or at least cites him,
    serves a writ or warrant upon him, thumps, abuses, and affronts him
    impudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious instructions;
    insomuch, that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his brains, and is not
    more stupid than a gyrin frog, he will find himself obliged either to apply
    a faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal's jobbernowl, give him the gentle
    lash, or make him cut a caper out at the window, by way of correction.
    This done, Catchpole is rich for four months at least, as if bastinadoes
    were his real harvest; for the monk, levite, usurer, or lawyer will reward
    him roundly; and my gentleman must pay him such swingeing damages that his
    acres must bleed for it, and he be in danger of miserably rotting within a
    stone doublet, as if he had struck the king.

    Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this used by the Lord of
    Basche.  What is it? said Pantagruel.  The Lord of Basche, said Panurge,
    was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his return from the
    long war in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of the French, bravely
    defended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the Second, was every day
    cited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit and for the sport and fancy of
    the fat prior of St. Louant.

    One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for he
    loved to be sometimes among them) he sent for one Loire, his baker, and his
    spouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was also his
    butler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them before his
    gentlemen and other servants:  You all see how I am daily plagued with
    these rascally catchpoles.  Truly, if you do not lend me your helping hand,
    I am finally resolved to leave the country, and go fight for the sultan, or
    the devil, rather than be thus eternally teased.  Therefore, to be rid of
    their damned visits, hereafter, when any of them come here, be ready, you
    baker and your wife, to make your personal appearance in my great hall, in
    your wedding clothes, as if you were going to be affianced.  Here, take
    these ducats, which I give you to keep you in a fitting garb.  As for you,
    Sir Oudart, be sure you make your personal appearance there in your fine
    surplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wed
    them.  Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipe
    and tabor.  The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; then
    all of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one
    another the remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow with
    your fist, bidding the party struck remember the nuptials by that token.
    This will but make you have the better stomach to your supper; but when you
    come to the catchpole's turn, thrash him thrice and threefold, as you would
    a sheaf of green corn; do not spare him; maul him, drub him, lambast him,
    swinge him off, I pray you.  Here, take these steel gauntlets, covered with
    kid.  Head, back, belly, and sides, give him blows innumerable; he that
    gives him most shall be my best friend.  Fear not to be called to an
    account about it; I will stand by you; for the blows must seem to be given
    in jest, as it is customary among us at all weddings.

    Ay, but how shall we know the catchpole? said the man of God.  All sorts of
    people daily resort to this castle.  I have taken care of that, replied the
    lord.  When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade, with a large
    broad silver ring on his thumb, comes to the door, he is certainly a
    catchpole; the porter having civilly let him in, shall ring the bell; then
    be all ready, and come into the hall, to act the tragi-comedy whose plot I
    have now laid for you.

    That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old fat ruddy
    catchpole.  Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men will
    do, the porter soon found him out, by his large greasy spatterdashes, his
    jaded hollow-flanked mare, his bagful of writs and informations dangling at
    his girdle, but, above all, by the large silver hoop on his left thumb.

    The porter was civil to him, admitted him in kindly, and rung the bell
    briskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on their
    best clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall, keeping their
    gravities like a new-made judge.  The dominie put on his surplice and
    stole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole, had him in
    there, and made him suck his face a good while, while the gauntlets were
    drawing on all hands; and then told him, You are come just in pudding-time;
    my lord is in his right cue.  We shall feast like kings anon; here is to be
    swingeing doings; we have a wedding in the house; here, drink and cheer up;
    pull away.

    While these two were at it hand-to-fist, Basche, seeing all his people in
    the hall in their proper equipage, sends for the vicar.  Oudart comes with
    the holy-water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into the
    hall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then served
    Basche with a writ.  Basche gave him grimace for grimace, slipped an angel
    into his mutton-fist, and prayed him to assist at the contract and
    ceremony; which he did.  When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began to
    fly about among the assistants; but when it came to the catchpole's turn,
    they all laid on him so unmercifully with their gauntlets that they at last
    settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one of
    his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, his
    omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces; and all this
    in jest, and no harm done.  God wot how the levite belaboured him, hiding
    within the long sleeve of his canonical shirt his huge steel gauntlet lined
    with ermine; for he was a strong-built ball, and an old dog at fisticuffs.
    The catchpole, all of a bloody tiger-like stripe, with much ado crawled
    home to L'Isle Bouchart, well pleased and edified, however, with Basche's
    kind reception; and, with the help of the good surgeons of the place, lived
    as long as you would have him.  From that time to this, not a word of the
    business; the memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rung
    with joy at his funeral.

    Chapter 4.XIII. How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche commended his servants.

    The catchpole being packed off on blind Sorrel—so he called his one-eyed
    mare—Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his servants, into the
    arbour of his garden; had wine brought, attended with good store of
    pasties, hams, fruit, and other table-ammunition, for a nunchion; drank
    with them joyfully, and then told them this story:

    Master Francis Villon in his old age retired to St. Maxent in Poitou, under
    the patronage of a good honest abbot of the place.  There to make sport for
    the mob, he undertook to get the Passion acted, after the way, and in the
    dialect of the country.  The parts being distributed, the play having been
    rehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and aldermen that the
    mystery might be ready after Niort fair, and that there only wanted
    properties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the parts; so the
    mayor and his brethren took care to get them.

    Villon, to dress an old clownish father greybeard, who was to represent God
    the father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan
    friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole.  Tickletoby refused
    him, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously forbidden
    to give or lend anything to players.  Villon replied that the statute
    reached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games,
    and that he asked no more than what he had seen allowed at Brussels and
    other places.  Tickletoby notwithstanding peremptorily bid him provide
    himself elsewhere if he would, and not to hope for anything out of his
    monastical wardrobe.  Villon gave an account of this to the players, as of
    a most abominable action; adding, that God would shortly revenge himself,
    and make an example of Tickletoby.

    The Saturday following he had notice given him that Tickletoby, upon the
    filly of the convent—so they call a young mare that was never leaped yet—
    was gone a-mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be back about two in the
    afternoon.  Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his devils of the Passion
    through the town.  They were all rigged with wolves', calves', and rams'
    skins, laced and trimmed with sheep's heads, bull's feathers, and large
    kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles, whereat hanged
    dangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells, which made a horrid din.  Some
    held in their claws black sticks full of squibs and crackers; others had
    long lighted pieces of wood, upon which, at the corner of every street,
    they flung whole handfuls of rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire and
    smoke.  Having thus led them about, to the great diversion of the mob and
    the dreadful fear of little children, he finally carried them to an
    entertainment at a summer-house without the gate that leads to St.
    Ligarius.

    As they came near to the place, he espied Tickletoby afar off, coming home
    from mumping, and told them in macaronic verse:

      Hic est de patria, natus, de gente belistra,
      Qui solet antiqua bribas portare bisacco. (Motteux reads:

      'Hic est mumpator natus de gente Cucowli,
      Qui solet antiquo Scrappas portare bisacco.')

    A plague on his friarship, said the devils then; the lousy beggar would not
    lend a poor cope to the fatherly father; let us fright him.  Well said,
    cried Villon; but let us hide ourselves till he comes by, and then charge
    him home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks.  Tickletoby being
    come to the place, they all rushed on a sudden into the road to meet him,
    and in a frightful manner threw fire from all sides upon him and his filly
    foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so many real
    devils, Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hou
    hho, hho, hhoi.  Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely?  The filly
    was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, to
    squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it,
    to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to
    curvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw down
    Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with might
    and main.  Now his straps and stirrups were of cord; and on the right side
    his sandals were so entangled and twisted that he could not for the heart's
    blood of him get out his foot.  Thus he was dragged about by the filly
    through the road, scratching his bare breech all the way; she still
    multiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge and
    ditch, insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so that his cockle
    brains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross.  Then his arms fell
    to pieces, one this way and the other that way; and even so were his legs
    served at the same time.  Then she made a bloody havoc with his puddings;
    and being got to the convent, brought back only his right foot and twisted
    sandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the rest.

    Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to his
    devils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely; I dare
    engage you'll top your parts.  I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay,
    Montmorillon, Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, by gad, even those of
    Poictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you.

    Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee that hereafter you will act rarely
    this tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfully
    hampered, bethwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole.  From this day
    I double your wages.  As for you, my dear, said he to his lady, make your
    gratifications as you please; you are my treasurer, you know.  For my part,
    first and foremost, I drink to you all.  Come on, box it about; it is good
    and cool.  In the second place, you, Mr. Steward, take this silver basin; I
    give it you freely.  Then you, my gentlemen of the horse, take these two
    silver-gilt cups, and let not the pages be horsewhipped these three months.
    My dear, let them have my best white plumes of feathers, with the gold
    buckles to them.  Sir Oudart, this silver flagon falls to your share; this
    other I give to the cooks.  To the valets de chambre I give this silver
    basket; to the grooms, this silver-gilt boat; to the porter, these two
    plates; to the hostlers, these ten porringers.  Trudon, take you these
    silver spoons and this sugar-box.  You, footman, take this large salt.
    Serve me well, and I will remember you.  For, on the word of a gentleman, I
    had rather bear in war one hundred blows on my helmet in the service of my
    country than be once cited by these knavish catchpoles merely to humour
    this same gorbellied prior.

    Chapter 4.XIV. A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche's house.

    Four days after another young, long-shanked, raw-boned catchpole coming to
    serve Basche with a writ at the fat prior's request, was no sooner at the
    gate but the porter smelt him out and rung the bell; at whose second pull
    all the family understood the mystery.  Loire was kneading his dough; his
    wife was sifting meal; Oudart was toping in his office; the gentlemen were
    playing at tennis; the Lord Basche at in-and-out with my lady; the waiting-
    men and gentle-women at push-pin; the officers at lanterloo, and the pages
    at hot-cockles, giving one another smart bangs.  They were all immediately
    informed that a catchpole was housed.

    Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife their
    nuptial badges; Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad; all made
    haste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets.  Basche went into the
    outward yard; there the catchpole meeting him fell on his marrow-bones,
    begged of him not to take it ill if he served him with a writ at the suit
    of the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know that he was a
    public person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to the abbatial
    mitre, ready to do as much for him, nay, for the least of his servants,
    whensoever he would employ and use him.

    Nay, truly, said the lord, you shall not serve your writ till you have
    tasted some of my good Quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a wedding
    which we are to have this very minute.  Let him drink and refresh himself,
    added he, turning towards the levitical butler, and then bring him into the
    hall.  After which, Catchpole, well stuffed and moistened, came with Oudart
    to the place where all the actors in the farce stood ready to begin.  The
    sight of their game set them a-laughing, and the messenger of mischief
    grinned also for company's sake.  Then the mysterious words were muttered
    to and by the couple, their hands joined, the bride bussed, and all
    besprinkled with holy water.  While they were bringing wine and kickshaws,
    thumps began to trot about by dozens.  The catchpole gave the levite
    several blows.  Oudart, who had his gauntlet hid under his canonical shirt,
    draws it on like a mitten, and then, with his clenched fist, souse he fell
    on the catchpole and mauled him like a devil; the junior gauntlets dropped
    on him likewise like so many battering rams.  Remember the wedding by this,
    by that, by these blows, said they.  In short, they stroked him so to the
    purpose that he pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and was
    bruised, thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck,
    breast, arms, and so forth.  Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnival
    time play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole's
    microcosm.  At last down he fell.

    They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of his
    doublet a fine yellow and green favour, and got him upon his snotty beast,
    and God knows how he got to L'Isle Bouchart; where I cannot truly tell you
    whether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by his spouse and the
    able doctors of the country; for the thing never came to my ears.

    The next day they had a third part to the same tune, because it did not
    appear by the lean catchpole's bag that he had served his writ.  So the fat
    prior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums for his garde du
    corps, to summon my lord.  The porter ringing the bell, the whole family
    was overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue.  Basche was at dinner
    with his lady and the gentlemen; so he sent for the catchpole, made him sit
    by him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat till their bellies
    cracked with their breeches unbuttoned.  The fruit being served, the
    catchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited Basche.  Basche
    kindly asked him for a copy of the warrant, which the other had got ready;
    he then takes witness and a copy of the summons.  To the catchpole and his
    bums he ordered four ducats for civility money.  In the meantime all were
    withdrawn for the farce.  So Trudon gave the alarm with his tabor.  Basche
    desired the catchpole to stay and see one of his servants married, and
    witness the contract of marriage, paying him his fee.  The catchpole
    slapdash was ready, took out his inkhorn, got paper immediately, and his
    bums by him.

    Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with the
    gentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements.  Oudart, in
    pontificalibus, takes them both by their hands, asketh them their will,
    giveth them the matrimonial blessing, and was very liberal of holy water.
    The contract written, signed, and registered, on one side was brought wine
    and comfits; on the other, white and orange-tawny-coloured favours were
    distributed; on another, gauntlets privately handed about.

    Chapter 4.XV. How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.

    The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of Breton
    wine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean?  You do not give one
    another the memento of the wedding.  By St. Joseph's wooden shoe, all good
    customs are forgot.  We find the form, but the hare is scampered; and the
    nest, but the birds are flown.  There are no true friends nowadays.  You
    see how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling on
    account of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, is come to nothing.  The
    world is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast.  Now
    come on; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this.  This
    he said, striking Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite.  Then
    the tabor beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty;
    insomuch that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine
    places.  One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other
    his upper jaw-bone or mandibule dislocated so that it hid half his chin,
    with a denudation of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory, and
    canine teeth.  Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were carefully
    hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of the
    company.  So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpole
    and his bums.  But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell,
    complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincornifistibulated his
    nether shoulder-blade.  Nevertheless, he scorned to be thought a flincher,
    and made shift to tope to him on the square.

    The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by signs
    begged his pardon; for speak he could not.  The sham bridegroom made his
    moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with his
    shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was grown quite
    esperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no small
    loss of mistress bride.

    But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with his
    kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were not
    satisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, and
    morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my poor eyes,
    but they have also broke my harmless drum.  Drums indeed are commonly
    beaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but drummers are well
    entertained and never beaten.  Now let Beelzebub e'en take the drum, to
    make his devilship a nightcap.  Brother, said the lame catchpole, never
    fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine, large, old patent,
    which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum, and for Madame St.
    Ann's sake I pray thee forgive us.  By Our Lady of Riviere, the blessed
    dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn.  One of the equerries,
    who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limping
    Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the pouting
    jaw, and told him:  What, Mr. Manhound, was it not enough thus to have
    morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our upper
    members with your botched mittens, but you must also apply such
    morderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurintimpaniments on our
    shinbones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled shoes.  Do
    you call this children's play?  By the mass, 'tis no jest.  The bum,
    wringing his hands, seemed to beg his pardon, muttering with his tongue,
    Mon, mon, mon, vrelon, von, von, like a dumb man.  The bride crying
    laughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not satisfied with
    drubbing her without choice or distinction of members, but had also rudely
    roused and toused her, pulled off her topping, and not having the fear of
    her husband before his eyes, treacherously
    trepignemanpenillorifrizonoufresterfumbled tumbled and squeezed her lower
    parts.  The devil go with it, said Basche; there was much need indeed that
    this same Master King (this was the catchpole's name) should thus break my
    wife's back; however, I forgive him now; these are little nuptial
    caresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me like an angel, and
    drubbed me like a devil.  He had something in him of Friar Thumpwell.
    Come, for all this, I must drink to him, and to you likewise, his trusty
    esquires.  But, said his lady, why hath he been so very liberal of his
    manual kindness to me, without the least provocation?  I assure you, I by
    no means like it; but this I dare say for him, that he hath the hardest
    knuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders.  The steward held his left arm
    in a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain.  I think it was the
    devil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials; shame on ill
    luck; I must needs be meddling with a pox, and now see what I have got by
    the bargain, both my arms are wretchedly engoulevezinemassed and bruised.
    Do you call this a wedding?  By St. Bridget's tooth, I had rather be at
    that of a Tom T—d-man.  This is, o' my word, even just such another feast
    as was that of the Lapithae, described by the philosopher of Samosata.
    One of the bums had lost his tongue.  The other two, tho' they had more
    need to complain, made their excuse as well as they could, protesting that
    they had no ill design in this dumbfounding; begging that, for goodness
    sake, they would forgive them; and so, tho' they could hardly budge a
    foot, or wag along, away they crawled.  About a mile from Basche's seat,
    the catchpole found himself somewhat out of sorts.  The bums got to L'Isle
    Bouchart, publicly saying that since they were born they had never seen an
    honester gentleman than the Lord of Basche, or civiller people than his,
    and that they had never been at the like wedding (which I verily believe);
    but that it was their own faults if they had been tickled off, and tossed
    about from post to pillar, since themselves had began the beating.  So
    they lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after this.  But from
    that time to this it was held for a certain truth that Basche's money was
    more pestilential, mortal, and pernicious to the catchpoles and bums than
    were formerly the aurum Tholosanum and the Sejan horse to those that
    possessed them.  Ever since this he lived quietly, and Basche's wedding
    grew into a common proverb.

    Chapter 4.XVI. How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles.

    This story would seem pleasant enough, said Pantagruel, were we not to have
    always the fear of God before our eyes.  It had been better, said
    Epistemon, if those gauntlets had fallen upon the fat prior.  Since he took
    a pleasure in spending his money partly to vex Basche, partly to see those
    catchpoles banged, good lusty thumps would have done well on his shaved
    crown, considering the horrid concussions nowadays among those puny judges.
    What harm had done those poor devils the catchpoles?  This puts me in mind,
    said Pantagruel, of an ancient Roman named L. Neratius.  He was of noble
    blood, and for some time was rich; but had this tyrannical inclination,
    that whenever he went out of doors he caused his servants to fill their
    pockets with gold and silver, and meeting in the street your spruce
    gallants and better sort of beaux, without the least provocation, for his
    fancy, he used to strike them hard on the face with his fist; and
    immediately after that, to appease them and hinder them from complaining to
    the magistrates, he would give them as much money as satisfied them
    according to the law of the twelve tables.  Thus he used to spend his
    revenue, beating people for the price of his money.  By St. Bennet's sacred
    boot, quoth Friar John, I will know the truth of it presently.

    This said, he went on shore, put his hand in his fob, and took out twenty
    ducats; then said with a loud voice, in the hearing of a shoal of the
    nation of catchpoles, Who will earn twenty ducats for being beaten like the
    devil?  Io, Io, Io, said they all; you will cripple us for ever, sir, that
    is most certain; but the money is tempting.  With this they were all
    thronging who should be first to be thus preciously beaten.  Friar John
    singled him out of the whole knot of these rogues in grain, a red-snouted
    catchpole, who upon his right thumb wore a thick broad silver hoop, wherein
    was set a good large toadstone.  He had no sooner picked him out from the
    rest, but I perceived that they all muttered and grumbled; and I heard a
    young thin-jawed catchpole, a notable scholar, a pretty fellow at his pen,
    and, according to public report, much cried up for his honesty at Doctors'
    Commons, making his complaint and muttering because this same crimson phiz
    carried away all the practice, and that if there were but a score and a
    half of bastinadoes to be got, he would certainly run away with eight and
    twenty of them.  But all this was looked upon to be nothing but mere envy.

    Friar John so unmercifully thrashed, thumped, and belaboured Red-snout,
    back and belly, sides, legs, and arms, head, feet, and so forth, with the
    home and frequently repeated application of one of the best members of a
    faggot, that I took him to be a dead man; then he gave him the twenty
    ducats, which made the dog get on his legs, pleased like a little king or
    two.  The rest were saying to Friar John, Sir, sir, brother devil, if it
    please you to do us the favour to beat some of us for less money, we are
    all at your devilship's command, bags, papers, pens, and all.  Red-snout
    cried out against them, saying, with a loud voice, Body of me, you little
    prigs, will you offer to take the bread out of my mouth? will you take my
    bargain over my head? would you draw and inveigle from me my clients and
    customers?  Take notice, I summon you before the official this day
    sevennight; I will law and claw you like any old devil of Vauverd, that I
    will—Then turning himself towards Friar John, with a smiling and joyful
    look, he said to him, Reverend father in the devil, if you have found me a
    good hide, and have a mind to divert yourself once more by beating your
    humble servant, I will bate you half in half this time rather than lose
    your custom; do not spare me, I beseech you; I am all, and more than all,
    yours, good Mr. Devil; head, lungs, tripes, guts, and garbage; and that at
    a pennyworth, I'll assure you.  Friar John never heeded his proffers, but
    even left them.  The other catchpoles were making addresses to Panurge,
    Epistemon, Gymnast, and others, entreating them charitably to bestow upon
    their carcasses a small beating, for otherwise they were in danger of
    keeping a long fast; but none of them had a stomach to it.  Some time
    after, seeking fresh water for the ship's company, we met a couple of old
    female catchpoles of the place, miserably howling and weeping in concert.
    Pantagruel had kept on board, and already had caused a retreat to be
    sounded.  Thinking that they might be related to the catchpole that was
    bastinadoed, we asked them the occasion of their grief.  They replied that
    they had too much cause to weep; for that very hour, from an exalted triple
    tree, two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cut
    a caper on nothing.  Cut a caper on nothing, said Gymnast; my pages use to
    cut capers on the ground; to cut a caper on nothing should be hanging and
    choking, or I am out.  Ay, ay, said Friar John; you speak of it like St.
    John de la Palisse.

    We asked them why they treated these worthy persons with such a choking
    hempen salad.  They told us they had only borrowed, alias stolen, the tools
    of the mass and hid them under the handle of the parish.  This is a very
    allegorical way of speaking, said Epistemon.

    Chapter 4.XVII. How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of the strange
    death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills.

    That day Pantagruel came to the two islands of Tohu and Bohu, where the
    devil a bit we could find anything to fry with.  For one Wide-nostrils, a
    huge giant, had swallowed every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-
    pan, dripping-pan, and brass and iron pot in the land, for want of
    windmills, which were his daily food.  Whence it happened that somewhat
    before day, about the hour of his digestion, the greedy churl was taken
    very ill with a kind of a surfeit, or crudity of stomach, occasioned, as
    the physicians said, by the weakness of the concocting faculty of his
    stomach, naturally disposed to digest whole windmills at a gust, yet unable
    to consume perfectly the pans and skillets; though it had indeed pretty
    well digested the kettles and pots, as they said they knew by the
    hypostases and eneoremes of four tubs of second-hand drink which he had
    evacuated at two different times that morning.  They made use of divers
    remedies, according to art, to give him ease; but all would not do; the
    distemper prevailed over the remedies; insomuch that the famous Wide-
    nostrils died that morning of so strange a death that I think you ought no
    longer to wonder at that of the poet Aeschylus.  It had been foretold him
    by the soothsayers that he would die on a certain day by the ruin of
    something that should fall on him.  The fatal day being come in its turn,
    he removed himself out of town, far from all houses, trees, (rocks,) or any
    other things that can fall and endanger by their ruin; and strayed in a
    large field, trusting himself to the open sky; there very secure, as he
    thought, unless indeed the sky should happen to fall, which he held to be
    impossible.  Yet they say that the larks are much afraid of it; for if it
    should fall, they must all be taken.

    The Celts that once lived near the Rhine—they are our noble valiant
    French—in ancient times were also afraid of the sky's falling; for being
    asked by Alexander the Great what they feared most in this world, hoping
    well they would say that they feared none but him, considering his great
    achievements, they made answer that they feared nothing but the sky's
    falling; however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy with so brave a
    king, if you believe Strabo, lib. 7, and Arrian, lib. I.

    Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears on the body of the
    moon, speaks of one Phenaces, who very much feared the moon should fall on
    the earth, and pitied those that live under that planet, as the Aethiopians
    and Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever happened to fall on them, and
    would have feared the like of heaven and earth had they not been duly
    propped up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the ancients believed,
    according to Aristotle's testimony, lib. 5, Metaphys.  Notwithstanding all
    this, poor Aeschylus was killed by the fall of the shell of a tortoise,
    which falling from betwixt the claws of an eagle high in the air, just on
    his head, dashed out his brains.

    Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another poet, I mean old jolly
    Anacreon, who was choked with a grape-stone.  Nor at that of Fabius the
    Roman praetor, who was choked with a single goat's hair as he was supping
    up a porringer of milk.  Nor at the death of that bashful fool, who by
    holding in his wind, and for want of letting out a bum-gunshot, died
    suddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius.  Nor at that of the
    Italian buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who in his epitaph complains
    that the bite of a she-puss on his little finger was the cause of his
    death.  Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small a
    prick with a needle on his left thumb that it could hardly be discerned.
    Nor of Quenelault, a Norman physician, who died suddenly at Montpellier,
    merely for having sideways took a worm out of his hand with a penknife.
    Nor of Philomenes, whose servant having got him some new figs for the first
    course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung
    ass got into the house, and seeing the figs on the table, without further
    invitation soberly fell to.  Philomenes coming into the room and nicely
    observing with what gravity the ass ate its dinner, said to the man, who
    was come back, Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of
    ours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine
    to drink.  He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased,
    and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen
    took that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died.  Nor of
    Spurius Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of a
    bath.  Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking his
    grinders with a sage-stalk.  Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk and
    hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which causes, perhaps, many
    not to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident.  Nor of the painter
    Zeuxis, who killed himself with laughing at the sight of the antique
    jobbernowl of an old hag drawn by him.  Nor, in short, of a thousand more
    of which authors write, as Varrius, Pliny, Valerius, J. Baptista Fulgosus,
    and Bacabery the elder.  In short, Gaffer Wide-nostrils choked himself with
    eating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven by the advice
    of physicians.

    They likewise told us there that the King of Cullan in Bohu had routed the
    grandees of King Mecloth, and made sad work with the fortresses of Belima.

    After this, we sailed by the islands of Nargues and Zargues; also by the
    islands of Teleniabin and Geleniabin, very fine and fruitful in ingredients
    for clysters; and then by the islands of Enig and Evig, on whose account
    formerly the Landgrave of Hesse was swinged off with a vengeance.

    Chapter 4.XVIII. How Pantagruel met with a great storm at sea.

    The next day we espied nine sail that came spooning before the wind; they
    were full of Dominicans, Jesuits, Capuchins, Hermits, Austins, Bernardins,
    Egnatins, Celestins, Theatins, Amadeans, Cordeliers, Carmelites, Minims,
    and the devil and all of other holy monks and friars, who were going to the
    Council of Chesil, to sift and garble some new articles of faith against
    the new heretics.  Panurge was overjoyed to see them, being most certain of
    good luck for that day and a long train of others.  So having courteously
    saluted the blessed fathers, and recommended the salvation of his precious
    soul to their devout prayers and private ejaculations, he caused seventy-
    eight dozen of Westphalia hams, units of pots of caviare, tens of Bolonia
    sausages, hundreds of botargoes, and thousands of fine angels, for the
    souls of the dead, to be thrown on board their ships.  Pantagruel seemed
    metagrabolized, dozing, out of sorts, and as melancholic as a cat.  Friar
    John, who soon perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come this
    unusual sadness; when the master, whose watch it was, observing the
    fluttering of the ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began to
    overcast, judged that we should have wind; therefore he bid the boatswain
    call all hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, and
    cabin-boys, and even the passengers; made them first settle their topsails,
    take in their spritsail; then he cried, In with your topsails, lower the
    foresail, tallow under parrels, braid up close all them sails, strike your
    topmasts to the cap, make all sure with your sheeps-feet, lash your guns
    fast.  All this was nimbly done.  Immediately it blowed a storm; the sea
    began to roar and swell mountain-high; the rut of the sea was great, the
    waves breaking upon our ship's quarter; the north-west wind blustered and
    overblowed; boisterous gusts, dreadful clashing, and deadly scuds of wind
    whistled through our yards and made our shrouds rattle again.  The thunder
    grumbled so horridly that you would have thought heaven had been tumbling
    about our ears; at the same time it lightened, rained, hailed; the sky lost
    its transparent hue, grew dusky, thick, and gloomy, so that we had no other
    light than that of the flashes of lightning and rending of the clouds.  The
    hurricanes, flaws, and sudden whirlwinds began to make a flame about us by
    the lightnings, fiery vapours, and other aerial ejaculations.  Oh, how our
    looks were full of amazement and trouble, while the saucy winds did rudely
    lift up above us the mountainous waves of the main!  Believe me, it seemed
    to us a lively image of the chaos, where fire, air, sea, land, and all the
    elements were in a refractory confusion.  Poor Panurge having with the full
    contents of the inside of his doublet plentifully fed the fish, greedy
    enough of such odious fare, sat on the deck all in a heap, with his nose
    and arse together, most sadly cast down, moping and half dead; invoked and
    called to his assistance all the blessed he- and she-saints he could muster
    up; swore and vowed to confess in time and place convenient, and then
    bawled out frightfully, Steward, maitre d'hotel, see ho! my friend, my
    father, my uncle, prithee let us have a piece of powdered beef or pork; we
    shall drink but too much anon, for aught I see.  Eat little and drink the
    more will hereafter be my motto, I fear.  Would to our dear Lord, and to
    our blessed, worthy, and sacred Lady, I were now, I say, this very minute
    of an hour, well on shore, on terra firma, hale and easy.  O twice and
    thrice happy those that plant cabbages!  O destinies, why did you not spin
    me for a cabbage-planter?  O how few are there to whom Jupiter hath been so
    favourable as to predestinate them to plant cabbages!  They have always one
    foot on the ground, and the other not far from it.  Dispute who will of
    felicity and summum bonum, for my part whosoever plants cabbages is now, by
    my decree, proclaimed most happy; for as good a reason as the philosopher
    Pyrrho, being in the same danger, and seeing a hog near the shore eating
    some scattered oats, declared it happy in two respects; first, because it
    had plenty of oats, and besides that, was on shore.  Ha, for a divine and
    princely habitation, commend me to the cows' floor.

    Murder!  This wave will sweep us away, blessed Saviour!  O my friends! a
    little vinegar.  I sweat again with mere agony.  Alas! the mizen-sail's
    split, the gallery's washed away, the masts are sprung, the maintop-
    masthead dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shrouds are
    almost all broke, and blown away.  Alas! alas! where is our main course?
    Al is verlooren, by Godt! our topmast is run adrift.  Alas! who shall have
    this wreck?  Friend, lend me here behind you one of these whales.  Your
    lantern is fallen, my lads.  Alas! do not let go the main-tack nor the
    bowline.  I hear the block crack; is it broke?  For the Lord's sake, let us
    have the hull, and let all the rigging be damned.  Be, be, be, bous, bous,
    bous.  Look to the needle of your compass, I beseech you, good Sir
    Astrophil, and tell us, if you can, whence comes this storm.  My heart's
    sunk down below my midriff.  By my troth, I am in a sad fright, bou, bou,
    bou, bous, bous, I am lost for ever.  I conskite myself for mere madness
    and fear.  Bou, bou, bou, bou, Otto to to to to ti.  Bou, bou, bou, ou, ou,
    ou, bou, bou, bous.  I sink, I'm drowned, I'm gone, good people, I'm
    drowned.

    Chapter 4.XIX. What countenances Panurge and Friar John kept during the storm.

    Pantagruel, having first implored the help of the great and Almighty
    Deliverer, and prayed publicly with fervent devotion, by the pilot's advice
    held tightly the mast of the ship.  Friar John had stripped himself to his
    waistcoat, to help the seamen.  Epistemon, Ponocrates, and the rest did as
    much.  Panurge alone sat on his breech upon deck, weeping and howling.
    Friar John espied him going on the quarter-deck, and said to him, Odzoons!
    Panurge the calf, Panurge the whiner, Panurge the brayer, would it not
    become thee much better to lend us here a helping hand than to lie lowing
    like a cow, as thou dost, sitting on thy stones like a bald-breeched
    baboon?  Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, returned Panurge; Friar John, my
    friend, my good father, I am drowning, my dear friend!  I drown!  I am a
    dead man, my dear father in God; I am a dead man, my friend; your cutting
    hanger cannot save me from this; alas! alas! we are above ela.  Above the
    pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.  Be, be, be, bou, bous.  Alas! we
    are now above g sol re ut.  I sink, I sink, ha, my father, my uncle, my
    all.  The water is got into my shoes by the collar; bous, bous, bous,
    paish, hu, hu, hu, he, he, he, ha, ha, I drown.  Alas! alas!  Hu, hu, hu,
    hu, hu, hu, hu, be, be, bous, bous, bobous, bobous, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho,
    alas! alas!  Now I am like your tumblers, my feet stand higher than my
    head.  Would to heaven I were now with those good holy fathers bound for
    the council whom we met this morning, so godly, so fat, so merry, so plump
    and comely.  Holos, bolos, holas, holas, alas!  This devilish wave (mea
    culpa Deus), I mean this wave of God, will sink our vessel.  Alas!  Friar
    John, my father, my friend, confession.  Here I am down on my knees;
    confiteor; your holy blessing.  Come hither and be damned, thou pitiful
    devil, and help us, said Friar John (who fell a-swearing and cursing like a
    tinker), in the name of thirty legions of black devils, come; will you
    come?  Do not let us swear at this time, said Panurge; holy father, my
    friend, do not swear, I beseech you; to-morrow as much as you please.
    Holos, holos, alas! our ship leaks.  I drown, alas, alas!  I will give
    eighteen hundred thousand crowns to anyone that will set me on shore, all
    berayed and bedaubed as I am now.  If ever there was a man in my country in
    the like pickle.  Confiteor, alas! a word or two of testament or codicil at
    least.  A thousand devils seize the cuckoldy cow-hearted mongrel, cried
    Friar John.  Ods-belly, art thou talking here of making thy will now we are
    in danger, and it behoveth us to bestir our stumps lustily, or never?  Wilt
    thou come, ho devil?  Midshipman, my friend; O the rare lieutenant; here
    Gymnast, here on the poop.  We are, by the mass, all beshit now; our light
    is out.  This is hastening to the devil as fast as it can.  Alas, bou, bou,
    bou, bou, bou, alas, alas, alas, alas! said Panurge; was it here we were
    born to perish?  Oh! ho! good people, I drown, I die.  Consummatum est.  I
    am sped—Magna, gna, gna, said Friar John.  Fie upon him, how ugly the
    shitten howler looks.  Boy, younker, see hoyh.  Mind the pumps or the devil
    choke thee.  Hast thou hurt thyself?  Zoons, here fasten it to one of these
    blocks.  On this side, in the devil's name, hay—so, my boy.  Ah, Friar
    John, said Panurge, good ghostly father, dear friend, don't let us swear,
    you sin.  Oh, ho, oh, ho, be be be bous, bous, bhous, I sink, I die, my
    friends.  I die in charity with all the world.  Farewell, in manus.  Bohus
    bohous, bhousowauswaus.  St. Michael of Aure!  St. Nicholas! now, now or
    never, I here make you a solemn vow, and to our Saviour, that if you stand
    by me this time, I mean if you set me ashore out of this danger, I will
    build you a fine large little chapel or two, between Quande and Montsoreau,
    where neither cow nor calf shall feed.  Oh ho, oh ho.  Above eighteen
    pailfuls or two of it are got down my gullet; bous, bhous, bhous, bhous,
    how damned bitter and salt it is!  By the virtue, said Friar John, of the
    blood, the flesh, the belly, the head, if I hear thee again howling, thou
    cuckoldy cur, I'll maul thee worse than any sea-wolf.  Ods-fish, why don't
    we take him up by the lugs and throw him overboard to the bottom of the
    sea?  Hear, sailor; ho, honest fellow.  Thus, thus, my friend, hold fast
    above.  In truth, here is a sad lightning and thundering; I think that all
    the devils are got loose; it is holiday with them; or else Madame
    Proserpine is in child's labour:  all the devils dance a morrice.

    Chapter 4.XX. How the pilots were forsaking their ships in the greatest stress of
    weather.

    Oh, said Panurge, you sin, Friar John, my former crony! former, I say, for
    at this time I am no more, you are no more.  It goes against my heart to
    tell it you; for I believe this swearing doth your spleen a great deal of
    good; as it is a great ease to a wood-cleaver to cry hem at every blow, and
    as one who plays at ninepins is wonderfully helped if, when he hath not
    thrown his bowl right, and is like to make a bad cast, some ingenious
    stander-by leans and screws his body halfway about on that side which the
    bowl should have took to hit the pins.  Nevertheless, you offend, my sweet
    friend.  But what do you think of eating some kind of cabirotadoes?
    Wouldn't this secure us from this storm?  I have read that the ministers of
    the gods Cabiri, so much celebrated by Orpheus, Apollonius, Pherecydes,
    Strabo, Pausanias, and Herodotus were always secure in time of storm.  He
    dotes, he raves, the poor devil!  A thousand, a million, nay, a hundred
    million of devils seize the hornified doddipole.  Lend's a hand here, hoh,
    tiger, wouldst thou?  Here, on the starboard side.  Ods-me, thou buffalo's
    head stuffed with relics, what ape's paternoster art thou muttering and
    chattering here between thy teeth?  That devil of a sea-calf is the cause
    of all this storm, and is the only man who doth not lend a helping hand.
    By G—, if I come near thee, I'll fetch thee out by the head and ears with
    a vengeance, and chastise thee like any tempestative devil.  Here, mate, my
    lad, hold fast, till I have made a double knot.  O brave boy!  Would to
    heaven thou wert abbot of Talemouze, and that he that is were guardian of
    Croullay.  Hold, brother Ponocrates, you will hurt yourself, man.
    Epistemon, prithee stand off out of the hatchway.  Methinks I saw the
    thunder fall there but just now.  Con the ship, so ho—Mind your steerage.
    Well said, thus, thus, steady, keep her thus, get the longboat clear—
    steady.  Ods-fish, the beak-head is staved to pieces.  Grumble, devils,
    fart, belch, shite, a t—d o' the wave.  If this be weather, the devil's a
    ram.  Nay, by G—, a little more would have washed me clear away into the
    current.  I think all the legions of devils hold here their provincial
    chapter, or are polling, canvassing, and wrangling for the election of a
    new rector.  Starboard; well said.  Take heed; have a care of your noddle,
    lad, in the devil's name.  So ho, starboard, starboard.  Be, be, be, bous,
    bous, bous, cried Panurge; bous, bous, be, be, be, bous, bous, I am lost.
    I see neither heaven nor earth; of the four elements we have here only fire
    and water left.  Bou, bou, bou, bous, bous, bous.  Would it were the
    pleasure of the worthy divine bounty that I were at this present hour in
    the close at Seuille, or at Innocent's the pastry-cook over against the
    painted wine-vault at Chinon, though I were to strip to my doublet, and
    bake the petti-pasties myself.

    Honest man, could not you throw me ashore? you can do a world of good
    things, they say.  I give you all Salmigondinois, and my large shore full
    of whelks, cockles, and periwinkles, if, by your industry, I ever set foot
    on firm ground.  Alas, alas!  I drown.  Harkee, my friends, since we cannot
    get safe into port, let us come to an anchor in some road, no matter
    whither.  Drop all your anchors; let us be out of danger, I beseech you.
    Here, honest tar, get you into the chains, and heave the lead, an't please
    you.  Let us know how many fathom water we are in.  Sound, friend, in the
    Lord Harry's name.  Let us know whether a man might here drink easily
    without stooping.  I am apt to believe one might.  Helm a-lee, hoh, cried
    the pilot.  Helm a-lee; a hand or two at the helm; about ships with her;
    helm a-lee, helm a-lee.  Stand off from the leech of the sail.  Hoh! belay,
    here make fast below; hoh, helm a-lee, lash sure the helm a-lee, and let
    her drive.  Is it come to that? said Pantagruel; our good Saviour then help
    us.  Let her lie under the sea, cried James Brahier, our chief mate; let
    her drive.  To prayers, to prayers; let all think on their souls, and fall
    to prayers; nor hope to escape but by a miracle.  Let us, said Panurge,
    make some good pious kind of vow; alas, alas, alas! bou, bou, be, be, be,
    bous, bous, bous, oho, oho, oho, oho, let us make a pilgrim; come, come,
    let every man club his penny towards it, come on.  Here, here, on this
    side, said Friar John, in the devil's name.  Let her drive, for the Lord's
    sake unhang the rudder; hoh, let her drive, let her drive, and let us
    drink, I say, of the best and most cheering; d'ye hear, steward? produce,
    exhibit; for, d'ye see this, and all the rest will as well go to the devil
    out of hand.  A pox on that wind-broker Aeolus, with his fluster-blusters.
    Sirrah, page, bring me here my drawer (for so he called his breviary); stay
    a little here; haul, friend, thus.  Odzoons, here is a deal of hail and
    thunder to no purpose.  Hold fast above, I pray you.  When have we All-
    saints day?  I believe it is the unholy holiday of all the devil's crew.
    Alas! said Panurge, Friar John damns himself here as black as buttermilk
    for the nonce.  Oh, what a good friend I lose in him.  Alas, alas! this is
    another gats-bout than last year's.  We are falling out of Scylla into
    Charybdis.  Oho! I drown.  Confiteor; one poor word or two by way of
    testament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr. Abstractor, my crony,
    my Achates, Xenomanes, my all.  Alas! I drown; two words of testament here
    upon this ladder.

    Chapter 4.XXI. A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the subject of
    making testaments at sea.

    To make one's last will, said Epistemon, at this time that we ought to
    bestir ourselves and help our seamen, on the penalty of being drowned,
    seems to me as idle and ridiculous a maggot as that of some of Caesar's
    men, who, at their coming into the Gauls, were mightily busied in making
    wills and codicils; bemoaned their fortune and the absence of their spouses
    and friends at Rome, when it was absolutely necessary for them to run to
    their arms and use their utmost strength against Ariovistus their enemy.

    This also is to be as silly as that jolt-headed loblolly of a carter, who,
    having laid his waggon fast in a slough, down on his marrow-bones was
    calling on the strong-backed deity, Hercules, might and main, to help him
    at a dead lift, but all the while forgot to goad on his oxen and lay his
    shoulder to the wheels, as it behoved him; as if a Lord have mercy upon us
    alone would have got his cart out of the mire.

    What will it signify to make your will now? for either we shall come off or
    drown for it.  If we 'scape, it will not signify a straw to us; for
    testaments are of no value or authority but by the death of the testators.
    If we are drowned, will it not be drowned too?  Prithee, who will transmit
    it to the executors?  Some kind wave will throw it ashore, like Ulysses,
    replied Panurge; and some king's daughter, going to fetch a walk in the
    fresco, on the evening will find it, and take care to have it proved and
    fulfilled; nay, and have some stately cenotaph erected to my memory, as
    Dido had to that of her goodman Sichaeus; Aeneas to Deiphobus, upon the
    Trojan shore, near Rhoete; Andromache to Hector, in the city of Buthrot;
    Aristotle to Hermias and Eubulus; the Athenians to the poet Euripides; the
    Romans to Drusus in Germany, and to Alexander Severus, their emperor, in
    the Gauls; Argentier to Callaischre; Xenocrates to Lysidices; Timares to
    his son Teleutagoras; Eupolis and Aristodice to their son Theotimus;
    Onestus to Timocles; Callimachus to Sopolis, the son of Dioclides; Catullus
    to his brother; Statius to his father; Germain of Brie to Herve, the Breton
    tarpaulin.  Art thou mad, said Friar John, to run on at this rate?  Help,
    here, in the name of five hundred thousand millions of cartloads of devils,
    help! may a shanker gnaw thy moustachios, and the three rows of pock-royals
    and cauliflowers cover thy bum and turd-barrel instead of breeches and
    codpiece.  Codsooks, our ship is almost overset.  Ods-death, how shall we
    clear her? it is well if she do not founder.  What a devilish sea there
    runs!  She'll neither try nor hull; the sea will overtake her, so we shall
    never 'scape; the devil 'scape me.  Then Pantagruel was heard to make a sad
    exclamation, saying, with a loud voice, Lord save us, we perish; yet not as
    we would have it, but thy holy will be done.  The Lord and the blessed
    Virgin be with us, said Panurge.  Holos, alas, I drown; be be be bous, be
    bous, bous; in manus.  Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safe
    on shore, like a pretty little Arion.  I shall make shift to sound the
    harp, if it be not unstrung.  Let nineteen legions of black devils seize
    me, said Friar John.  (The Lord be with us! whispered Panurge, between his
    chattering teeth.)  If I come down to thee, I'll show thee to some purpose
    that the badge of thy humanity dangles at a calf's breech, thou ragged,
    horned, cuckoldy booby—mgna, mgnan, mgnan—come hither and help us, thou
    great weeping calf, or may thirty millions of devils leap on thee.  Wilt
    thou come, sea-calf?  Fie; how ugly the howling whelp looks.  What, always
    the same ditty?  Come on now, my bonny drawer.  This he said, opening his
    breviary.  Come forward, thou and I must be somewhat serious for a while;
    let me peruse thee stiffly.  Beatus vir qui non abiit.  Pshaw, I know all
    this by heart; let us see the legend of Mons. St. Nicholas.

      Horrida tempestas montem turbavit acutum.

    Tempest was a mighty flogger of lads at Mountagu College.  If pedants be
    damned for whipping poor little innocent wretches their scholars, he is,
    upon my honour, by this time fixed within Ixion's wheel, lashing the crop-
    eared, bobtailed cur that gives it motion.  If they are saved for having
    whipped innocent lads, he ought to be above the—

    Chapter 4.XXII. An end of the storm.

    Shore, shore! cried Pantagruel.  Land to, my friends, I see land!  Pluck up
    a good spirit, boys, 'tis within a kenning.  So! we are not far from a
    port.—I see the sky clearing up to the northwards.—Look to the south-
    east!  Courage, my hearts, said the pilot; now she'll bear the hullock of a
    sail; the sea is much smoother; some hands aloft to the maintop.  Put the
    helm a-weather.  Steady! steady!  Haul your after-mizen bowlines.  Haul,
    haul, haul!  Thus, thus, and no near.  Mind your steerage; bring your main-
    tack aboard.  Clear your sheets; clear your bowlines; port, port.  Helm
    a-lee.  Now to the sheet on the starboard side, thou son of a whore.  Thou
    art mightily pleased, honest fellow, quoth Friar John, with hearing make
    mention of thy mother.  Luff, luff, cried the quartermaster that conned the
    ship, keep her full, luff the helm.  Luff.  It is, answered the steersman.
    Keep her thus.  Get the bonnets fixed.  Steady, steady.

    That is well said, said Friar John now, this is something like a tansy.
    Come, come, come, children, be nimble.  Good.  Luff, luff, thus.  Helm
    a-weather.  That's well said and thought on.  Methinks the storm is almost
    over.  It was high time, faith; however, the Lord be thanked.  Our devils
    begin to scamper.  Out with all your sails.  Hoist your sails.  Hoist.
    That is spoke like a man, hoist, hoist.  Here, a God's name, honest
    Ponocrates; thou art a lusty fornicator; the whoreson will get none but
    boys.  Eusthenes, thou art a notable fellow.  Run up to the fore-topsail.
    Thus, thus.  Well said, i' faith; thus, thus.  I dare not fear anything all
    this while, for it is holiday.  Vea, vea, vea! huzza!  This shout of the
    seaman is not amiss, and pleases me, for it is holiday.  Keep her full
    thus.  Good.  Cheer up, my merry mates all, cried out Epistemon; I see
    already Castor on the right.  Be, be, bous, bous, bous, said Panurge; I am
    much afraid it is the bitch Helen.  It is truly Mixarchagenas, returned
    Epistemon, if thou likest better that denomination, which the Argives give
    him.  Ho, ho! I see land too; let her bear in with the harbour; I see a
    good many people on the beach; I see a light on an obeliscolychny.  Shorten
    your sails, said the pilot; fetch the sounding line; we must double that
    point of land, and mind the sands.  We are clear of them, said the sailors.
    Soon after, Away she goes, quoth the pilot, and so doth the rest of our
    fleet; help came in good season.

    By St. John, said Panurge, this is spoke somewhat like.  O the sweet word!
    there is the soul of music in it.  Mgna, mgna, mgna, said Friar John; if
    ever thou taste a drop of it, let the devil's dam taste me, thou ballocky
    devil.  Here, honest soul, here's a full sneaker of the very best.  Bring
    the flagons; dost hear, Gymnast: and that same large pasty jambic,
    gammonic, as you will have it.  Take heed you pilot her in right.

    Cheer up, cried out Pantagruel; cheer up, my boys; let us be ourselves
    again.  Do you see yonder, close by our ship, two barks, three sloops, five
    ships, eight pinks, four yawls, and six frigates making towards us, sent by
    the good people of the neighbouring island to our relief?  But who is this
    Ucalegon below, that cries and makes such a sad moan?  Were it not that I
    hold the mast firmly with both my hands, and keep it straighter than two
    hundred tacklings—I would—It is, said Friar John, that poor devil
    Panurge, who is troubled with a calf's ague; he quakes for fear when his
    belly's full.  If, said Pantagruel, he hath been afraid during this
    dreadful hurricane and dangerous storm, provided (waiving that) he hath
    done his part like a man, I do not value him a jot the less for it.  For as
    to fear in all encounters is the mark of a heavy and cowardly heart, as
    Agamemnon did, who for that reason is ignominiously taxed by Achilles with
    having dog's eyes and a stag's heart; so, not to fear when the case is
    evidently dreadful is a sign of want or smallness of judgment.  Now, if
    anything ought to be feared in this life, next to offending God, I will not
    say it is death.  I will not meddle with the disputes of Socrates and the
    academics, that death of itself is neither bad nor to be feared, but I will
    affirm that this kind of shipwreck is to be feared, or nothing is.  For, as
    Homer saith, it is a grievous, dreadful, and unnatural thing to perish at
    sea.  And indeed Aeneas, in the storm that took his fleet near Sicily, was
    grieved that he had not died by the hand of the brave Diomedes, and said
    that those were three, nay four times happy, who perished in the
    conflagration at Troy.  No man here hath lost his life, the Lord our
    Saviour be eternally praised for it! but in truth here is a ship sadly out
    of order.  Well, we must take care to have the damage repaired.  Take heed
    we do not run aground and bulge her.

    Chapter 4.XXIII. How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over.

    4-23-452.jpg (146K)

    What cheer, ho, fore and aft? quoth Panurge.  Oh ho! all is well, the storm
    is over.  I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is sent
    on shore; for I would by all means a little untruss a point.  Shall I help
    you still?  Here, let me see, I will coil this rope; I have plenty of
    courage, and of fear as little as may be.  Give it me yonder, honest tar.
    No, no, I have not a bit of fear.  Indeed, that same decumane wave that
    took us fore and aft somewhat altered my pulse.  Down with your sails; well
    said.  How now, Friar John? you do nothing.  Is it time for us to drink
    now?  Who can tell but St. Martin's running footman Belzebuth may still be
    hatching us some further mischief?  Shall I come and help you again?  Pork
    and peas choke me, if I do heartily repent, though too late, not having
    followed the doctrine of the good philosopher who tells us that to walk by
    the sea and to navigate by the shore are very safe and pleasant things;
    just as 'tis to go on foot when we hold our horse by the bridle.  Ha! ha!
    ha! by G—, all goes well.  Shall I help you here too?  Let me see, I will
    do this as it should be, or the devil's in't.

    Epistemon, who had the inside of one of his hands all flayed and bloody,
    having held a tackling with might and main, hearing what Pantagruel had
    said, told him:  You may believe, my lord, I had my share of fear as well
    as Panurge; yet I spared no pains in lending my helping hand.  I considered
    that, since by fatal and unavoidable necessity we must all die, it is the
    blessed will of God that we die this or that hour, and this or that kind of
    death.  Nevertheless, we ought to implore, invoke, pray, beseech, and
    supplicate him; but we must not stop there; it behoveth us also to use our
    endeavours on our side, and, as the holy writ saith, to co-operate with
    him.

    You know what C. Flaminius, the consul, said when by Hannibal's policy he
    was penned up near the lake of Peruse, alias Thrasymene.  Friends, said he
    to his soldiers, you must not hope to get out of this place barely by vows
    or prayers to the gods; no, 'tis by fortitude and strength we must escape
    and cut ourselves a way with the edge of our swords through the midst of
    our enemies.

    Sallust likewise makes M. Portius Cato say this:  The help of the gods is
    not obtained by idle vows and womanish complaints; 'tis by vigilance,
    labour, and repeated endeavours that all things succeed according to our
    wishes and designs.  If a man in time of need and danger is negligent,
    heartless, and lazy, in vain he implores the gods; they are then justly
    angry and incensed against him.  The devil take me, said Friar John,—I'll
    go his halves, quoth Panurge,—if the close of Seville had not been all
    gathered, vintaged, gleaned, and destroyed, if I had only sung contra
    hostium insidias (matter of breviary) like all the rest of the monking
    devils, and had not bestirred myself to save the vineyard as I did,
    despatching the truant picaroons of Lerne with the staff of the cross.

    Let her sink or swim a God's name, said Panurge, all's one to Friar John;
    he doth nothing; his name is Friar John Do-little; for all he sees me here
    a-sweating and puffing to help with all my might this honest tar, first of
    the name.—Hark you me, dear soul, a word with you; but pray be not angry.
    How thick do you judge the planks of our ship to be?  Some two good inches
    and upwards, returned the pilot; don't fear.  Ods-kilderkins, said Panurge,
    it seems then we are within two fingers' breadth of damnation.

    Is this one of the nine comforts of matrimony?  Ah, dear soul, you do well
    to measure the danger by the yard of fear.  For my part, I have none on't;
    my name is William Dreadnought.  As for heart, I have more than enough
    on't.  I mean none of your sheep's heart; but of wolf's heart—the courage
    of a bravo.  By the pavilion of Mars, I fear nothing but danger.

    Chapter 4.XXIV. How Panurge was said to have been afraid without reason during the storm.

    Good morrow, gentlemen, said Panurge; good morrow to you all; you are in
    very good health, thanks to heaven and yourselves; you are all heartily
    welcome, and in good time.  Let us go on shore.—Here, coxswain, get the
    ladder over the gunnel; man the sides; man the pinnace, and get her by the
    ship's side.  Shall I lend you a hand here?  I am stark mad for want of
    business, and would work like any two yokes of oxen.  Truly this is a fine
    place, and these look like a very good people.  Children, do you want me
    still in anything? do not spare the sweat of my body, for God's sake.
    Adam—that is, man—was made to labour and work, as the birds were made to
    fly.  Our Lord's will is that we get our bread with the sweat of our brows,
    not idling and doing nothing, like this tatterdemalion of a monk here, this
    Friar Jack, who is fain to drink to hearten himself up, and dies for fear.-
    —Rare weather.—I now find the answer of Anacharsis, the noble philosopher,
    very proper.  Being asked what ship he reckoned the safest, he replied:
    That which is in the harbour.  He made a yet better repartee, said
    Pantagruel, when somebody inquiring which is greater, the number of the
    living or that of the dead, he asked them amongst which of the two they
    reckoned those that are at sea, ingeniously implying that they are
    continually in danger of death, dying alive, and living die.  Portius Cato
    also said that there were but three things of which he would repent:  if
    ever he had trusted his wife with his secret, if he had idled away a day,
    and if he had ever gone by sea to a place which he could visit by land.  By
    this dignified frock of mine, said Friar John to Panurge, friend, thou hast
    been afraid during the storm without cause or reason; for thou wert not
    born to be drowned, but rather to be hanged and exalted in the air, or to
    be roasted in the midst of a jolly bonfire.  My lord, would you have a good
    cloak for the rain; leave me off your wolf and badger-skin mantle; let
    Panurge but be flayed, and cover yourself with his hide.  But do not come
    near the fire, nor near your blacksmith's forges, a God's name; for in a
    moment you will see it in ashes.  Yet be as long as you please in the rain,
    snow, hail, nay, by the devil's maker, throw yourself or dive down to the
    very bottom of the water, I'll engage you'll not be wet at all.  Have some
    winter boots made of it, they'll never take in a drop of water; make
    bladders of it to lay under boys to teach them to swim, instead of corks,
    and they will learn without the least danger.  His skin, then, said
    Pantagruel, should be like the herb called true maiden's hair, which never
    takes wet nor moistness, but still keeps dry, though you lay it at the
    bottom of the water as long as you please; and for that reason is called
    Adiantos.

    Friend Panurge, said Friar John, I pray thee never be afraid of water; thy
    life for mine thou art threatened with a contrary element.  Ay, ay, replied
    Panurge, but the devil's cooks dote sometimes, and are apt to make horrid
    blunders as well as others; often putting to boil in water what was
    designed to be roasted on the fire; like the head-cooks of our kitchen, who
    often lard partridges, queests, and stock-doves with intent to roast them,
    one would think; but it happens sometimes that they e'en turn the
    partridges into the pot to be boiled with cabbages, the queests with leek
    pottage, and the stock-doves with turnips.  But hark you me, good friends,
    I protest before this noble company, that as for the chapel which I vowed
    to Mons. St. Nicholas between Quande and Montsoreau, I honestly mean that
    it shall be a chapel of rose-water, which shall be where neither cow nor
    calf shall be fed; for between you and I, I intend to throw it to the
    bottom of the water.  Here is a rare rogue for you, said Eusthenes; here is
    a pure rogue, a rogue in grain, a rogue enough, a rogue and a half.  He is
    resolved to make good the Lombardic proverb, Passato el pericolo, gabbato
    el santo.

      The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
      The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.

    Chapter 4.XXV. How, after the storm, Pantagruel went on shore in the islands of the
    Macreons.

    Immediately after we went ashore at the port of an island which they called
    the island of the Macreons.  The good people of the place received us very
    honourably.  An old Macrobius (so they called their eldest elderman)
    desired Pantagruel to come to the town-house to refresh himself and eat
    something, but he would not budge a foot from the mole till all his men
    were landed.  After he had seen them, he gave order that they should all
    change clothes, and that some of all the stores in the fleet should be
    brought on shore, that every ship's crew might live well; which was
    accordingly done, and God wot how well they all toped and caroused.  The
    people of the place brought them provisions in abundance.  The
    Pantagruelists returned them more; as the truth is, theirs were somewhat
    damaged by the late storm.  When they had well stuffed the insides of their
    doublets, Pantagruel desired everyone to lend their help to repair the
    damage; which they readily did.  It was easy enough to refit there; for all
    the inhabitants of the island were carpenters and all such handicrafts as
    are seen in the arsenal at Venice.  None but the largest island was
    inhabited, having three ports and ten parishes; the rest being overrun with
    wood and desert, much like the forest of Arden.  We entreated the old
    Macrobius to show us what was worth seeing in the island; which he did; and
    in the desert and dark forest we discovered several old ruined temples,
    obelisks, pyramids, monuments, and ancient tombs, with divers inscriptions
    and epitaphs; some of them in hieroglyphic characters; others in the Ionic
    dialect; some in the Arabic, Agarenian, Slavonian, and other tongues; of
    which Epistemon took an exact account.  In the interim, Panurge said to
    Friar John, Is this the island of the Macreons?  Macreon signifies in Greek
    an old man, or one much stricken in years.  What is that to me? said Friar
    John; how can I help it?  I was not in the country when they christened it.
    Now I think on't, quoth Panurge, I believe the name of mackerel (Motteux
    adds, between brackets,—'that's a Bawd in French.') was derived from it;
    for procuring is the province of the old, as buttock-riggling is that of
    the young.  Therefore I do not know but this may be the bawdy or Mackerel
    Island, the original and prototype of the island of that name at Paris.
    Let's go and dredge for cock-oysters.  Old Macrobius asked, in the Ionic
    tongue, How, and by what industry and labour, Pantagruel got to their port
    that day, there having been such blustering weather and such a dreadful
    storm at sea.  Pantagruel told him that the Almighty Preserver of mankind
    had regarded the simplicity and sincere affection of his servants, who did
    not travel for gain or sordid profit, the sole design of their voyage being
    a studious desire to know, see, and visit the Oracle of Bacbuc, and take
    the word of the Bottle upon some difficulties offered by one of the
    company; nevertheless this had not been without great affliction and
    evident danger of shipwreck.  After that, he asked him what he judged to be
    the cause of that terrible tempest, and if the adjacent seas were thus
    frequently subject to storms; as in the ocean are the Ratz of Sammaieu,
    Maumusson, and in the Mediterranean sea the Gulf of Sataly, Montargentan,
    Piombino, Capo Melio in Laconia, the Straits of Gibraltar, Faro di Messina,
    and others.

    Chapter 4.XXVI. How the good Macrobius gave us an account of the mansion and decease of the
    heroes.

    The good Macrobius then answered, Friendly strangers, this island is one of
    the Sporades; not of your Sporades that lie in the Carpathian sea, but one
    of the Sporades of the ocean; in former times rich, frequented, wealthy,
    populous, full of traffic, and in the dominions of the rulers of Britain,
    but now, by course of time, and in these latter ages of the world, poor and
    desolate, as you see.  In this dark forest, above seventy-eight thousand
    Persian leagues in compass, is the dwelling-place of the demons and heroes
    that are grown old, and we believe that some one of them died yesterday;
    since the comet which we saw for three days before together, shines no
    more; and now it is likely that at his death there arose this horrible
    storm; for while they are alive all happiness attends both this and the
    adjacent islands, and a settled calm and serenity.  At the death of every
    one of them, we commonly hear in the forest loud and mournful groans, and
    the whole land is infested with pestilence, earthquakes, inundations, and
    other calamities; the air with fogs and obscurity, and the sea with storms
    and hurricanes.  What you tell us seems to me likely enough, said
    Pantagruel.  For as a torch or candle, as long as it hath life enough and
    is lighted, shines round about, disperses its light, delights those that
    are near it, yields them its service and clearness, and never causes any
    pain or displeasure; but as soon as 'tis extinguished, its smoke and
    evaporation infects the air, offends the bystanders, and is noisome to all;
    so, as long as those noble and renowned souls inhabit their bodies, peace,
    profit, pleasure, and honour never leave the places where they abide; but
    as soon as they leave them, both the continent and adjacent islands are
    annoyed with great commotions; in the air fogs, darkness, thunder, hail;
    tremblings, pulsations, agitations of the earth; storms and hurricanes at
    sea; together with sad complaints amongst the people, broaching of
    religions, changes in governments, and ruins of commonwealths.

    We had a sad instance of this lately, said Epistemon, at the death of that
    valiant and learned knight, William du Bellay; during whose life France
    enjoyed so much happiness, that all the rest of the world looked upon it
    with envy, sought friendship with it, and stood in awe of its power; but
    soon after his decease it hath for a considerable time been the scorn of
    the rest of the world.

    Thus, said Pantagruel, Anchises being dead at Drepani in Sicily, Aeneas was
    dreadfully tossed and endangered by a storm; and perhaps for the same
    reason Herod, that tyrant and cruel King of Judaea, finding himself near
    the pangs of a horrid kind of death—for he died of a phthiriasis, devoured
    by vermin and lice; as before him died L. Sylla, Pherecydes the Syrian, the
    preceptor of Pythagoras, the Greek poet Alcmaeon, and others—and
    foreseeing that the Jews would make bonfires at his death, caused all the
    nobles and magistrates to be summoned to his seraglio out of all the
    cities, towns, and castles of Judaea, fraudulently pretending that he had
    some things of moment to impart to them.  They made their personal
    appearance; whereupon he caused them all to be shut up in the hippodrome of
    the seraglio; then said to his sister Salome and Alexander her husband:  I
    am certain that the Jews will rejoice at my death; but if you will observe
    and perform what I tell you, my funeral shall be honourable, and there will
    be a general mourning.  As soon as you see me dead, let my guards, to whom
    I have already given strict commission to that purpose, kill all the
    noblemen and magistrates that are secured in the hippodrome.  By these
    means all Jewry shall, in spite of themselves, be obliged to mourn and
    lament, and foreigners will imagine it to be for my death, as if some
    heroic soul had left her body.  A desperate tyrant wished as much when he
    said, When I die, let earth and fire be mixed together; which was as good
    as to say, let the whole world perish.  Which saying the tyrant Nero
    altered, saying, While I live, as Suetonius affirms it.  This detestable
    saying, of which Cicero, lib. De Finib., and Seneca, lib. 2, De Clementia,
    make mention, is ascribed to the Emperor Tiberius by Dion Nicaeus and
    Suidas.

    Chapter 4.XXVII. Pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls; and of the dreadful
    prodigies that happened before the death of the late Lord de Langey.

    I would not, continued Pantagruel, have missed the storm that hath thus
    disordered us, were I also to have missed the relation of these things told
    us by this good Macrobius.  Neither am I unwilling to believe what he said
    of a comet that appears in the sky some days before such a decease.  For
    some of those souls are so noble, so precious, and so heroic that heaven
    gives us notice of their departing some days before it happens.  And as a
    prudent physician, seeing by some symptoms that his patient draws towards
    his end, some days before gives notice of it to his wife, children,
    kindred, and friends, that, in that little time he hath yet to live, they
    may admonish him to settle all things in his family, to tutor and instruct
    his children as much as he can, recommend his relict to his friends in her
    widowhood, and declare what he knows to be necessary about a provision for
    the orphans; that he may not be surprised by death without making his will,
    and may take care of his soul and family; in the same manner the heavens,
    as it were joyful for the approaching reception of those blessed souls,
    seem to make bonfires by those comets and blazing meteors, which they at
    the same time kindly design should prognosticate to us here that in a few
    days one of those venerable souls is to leave her body and this terrestrial
    globe.  Not altogether unlike this was what was formerly done at Athens by
    the judges of the Areopagus.  For when they gave their verdict to cast or
    clear the culprits that were tried before them, they used certain notes
    according to the substance of the sentences; by Theta signifying
    condemnation to death; by T, absolution; by A, ampliation or a demur, when
    the case was not sufficiently examined.  Thus having publicly set up those
    letters, they eased the relations and friends of the prisoners, and such
    others as desired to know their doom, of their doubts.  Likewise by these
    comets, as in ethereal characters, the heavens silently say to us, Make
    haste, mortals, if you would know or learn of the blessed souls anything
    concerning the public good or your private interest; for their catastrophe
    is near, which being past, you will vainly wish for them afterwards.

    The good-natured heavens still do more; and that mankind may be declared
    unworthy of the enjoyment of those renowned souls, they fright and astonish
    us with prodigies, monsters, and other foreboding signs that thwart the
    order of nature.

    Of this we had an instance several days before the decease of the heroic
    soul of the learned and valiant Chevalier de Langey, of whom you have
    already spoken.  I remember it, said Epistemon; and my heart still trembles
    within me when I think on the many dreadful prodigies that we saw five or
    six days before he died.  For the Lords D'Assier, Chemant, one-eyed Mailly,
    St. Ayl, Villeneufue-la-Guyart, Master Gabriel, physician of Savillan,
    Rabelais, Cohuau, Massuau, Majorici, Bullou, Cercu, alias Bourgmaistre,
    Francis Proust, Ferron, Charles Girard, Francis Bourre, and many other
    friends and servants to the deceased, all dismayed, gazed on each other
    without uttering one word; yet not without foreseeing that France would in
    a short time be deprived of a knight so accomplished and necessary for its
    glory and protection, and that heaven claimed him again as its due.  By the
    tufted tip of my cowl, cried Friar John, I am e'en resolved to become a
    scholar before I die.  I have a pretty good headpiece of my own, you must
    own.  Now pray give me leave to ask you a civil question.  Can these same
    heroes or demigods you talk of die?  May I never be damned if I was not so
    much a lobcock as to believe they had been immortal, like so many fine
    angels.  Heaven forgive me! but this most reverend father, Macroby, tells
    us they die at last.  Not all, returned Pantagruel.

    The Stoics held them all to be mortal, except one, who alone is immortal,
    impassible, invisible.  Pindar plainly saith that there is no more thread,
    that is to say, no more life, spun from the distaff and flax of the hard-
    hearted Fates for the goddesses Hamadryades than there is for those trees
    that are preserved by them, which are good, sturdy, downright oaks; whence
    they derived their original, according to the opinion of Callimachus and
    Pausanias in Phoci.  With whom concurs Martianus Capella.  As for the
    demigods, fauns, satyrs, sylvans, hobgoblins, aegipanes, nymphs, heroes,
    and demons, several men have, from the total sum, which is the result of
    the divers ages calculated by Hesiod, reckoned their life to be 9720 years;
    that sum consisting of four special numbers orderly arising from one, the
    same added together and multiplied by four every way amounts to forty;
    these forties, being reduced into triangles by five times, make up the
    total of the aforesaid number.  See Plutarch, in his book about the
    Cessation of Oracles.

    This, said Friar John, is not matter of breviary; I may believe as little
    or as much of it as you and I please.  I believe, said Pantagruel, that all
    intellectual souls are exempted from Atropos's scissors.  They are all
    immortal, whether they be of angels, or demons, or human; yet I will tell
    you a story concerning this that is very strange, but is written and
    affirmed by several learned historians.

    Chapter 4.XXVIII. How Pantagruel related a very sad story of the death of the heroes.

    Epitherses, the father of Aemilian the rhetorician, sailing from Greece to
    Italy in a ship freighted with divers goods and passengers, at night the
    wind failed 'em near the Echinades, some islands that lie between the Morea
    and Tunis, and the vessel was driven near Paxos.  When they were got
    thither, some of the passengers being asleep, others awake, the rest eating
    and drinking, a voice was heard that called aloud, Thamous! which cry
    surprised them all.  This same Thamous was their pilot, an Egyptian by
    birth, but known by name only to some few travellers.  The voice was heard
    a second time calling Thamous, in a frightful tone; and none making answer,
    but trembling and remaining silent, the voice was heard a third time, more
    dreadful than before.

    This caused Thamous to answer:  Here am I; what dost thou call me for?
    What wilt thou have me do?  Then the voice, louder than before, bid him
    publish when he should come to Palodes, that the great god Pan was dead.

    Epitherses related that all the mariners and passengers, having heard this,
    were extremely amazed and frighted; and that, consulting among themselves
    whether they had best conceal or divulge what the voice had enjoined,
    Thamous said his advice was that if they happened to have a fair wind they
    should proceed without mentioning a word on't, but if they chanced to be
    becalmed he would publish what he had heard.  Now when they were near
    Palodes they had no wind, neither were they in any current.  Thamous then
    getting up on the top of the ship's forecastle, and casting his eyes on the
    shore, said that he had been commanded to proclaim that the great god Pan
    was dead.  The words were hardly out of his mouth, when deep groans, great
    lamentations, and doleful shrieks, not of one person, but of many together,
    were heard from the land.

    The news of this—many being present then—was soon spread at Rome;
    insomuch that Tiberius, who was then emperor, sent for this Thamous, and
    having heard him gave credit to his words.  And inquiring of the learned in
    his court and at Rome who was that Pan, he found by their relation that he
    was the son of Mercury and Penelope, as Herodotus and Cicero in his third
    book of the Nature of the Gods had written before.

    For my part, I understand it of that great Saviour of the faithful who was
    shamefully put to death at Jerusalem by the envy and wickedness of the
    doctors, priests, and monks of the Mosaic law.  And methinks my
    interpretation is not improper; for he may lawfully be said in the Greek
    tongue to be Pan, since he is our all.  For all that we are, all that we
    live, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in
    him.  He is the good Pan, the great shepherd, who, as the loving shepherd
    Corydon affirms, hath not only a tender love and affection for his sheep,
    but also for their shepherds.  At his death, complaints, sighs, fears, and
    lamentations were spread through the whole fabric of the universe, whether
    heavens, land, sea, or hell.

    The time also concurs with this interpretation of mine; for this most good,
    most mighty Pan, our only Saviour, died near Jerusalem during the reign of
    Tiberius Caesar.

    Pantagruel, having ended this discourse, remained silent and full of
    contemplation.  A little while after we saw the tears flow out of his eyes
    as big as ostrich's eggs.  God take me presently if I tell you one single
    syllable of a lie in the matter.

    Chapter 4.XXIX. How Pantagruel sailed by the Sneaking Island, where Shrovetide reigned.

    4-19-446.jpg (158K)

    The jovial fleet being refitted and repaired, new stores taken in, the
    Macreons over and above satisfied and pleased with the money spent there by
    Pantagruel, our men in better humour than they used to be, if possible, we
    merrily put to sea the next day, near sunset, with a delicious fresh gale.

    Xenomanes showed us afar off the Sneaking Island, where reigned Shrovetide,
    of whom Pantagruel had heard much talk formerly; for that reason he would
    gladly have seen him in person, had not Xenomanes advised him to the
    contrary; first, because this would have been much out of our way, and then
    for the lean cheer which he told us was to be found at that prince's court,
    and indeed all over the island.

    You can see nothing there for your money, said he, but a huge greedy-guts,
    a tall woundy swallower of hot wardens and mussels; a long-shanked mole-
    catcher; an overgrown bottler of hay; a mossy-chinned demi-giant, with a
    double shaven crown, of lantern breed; a very great loitering noddy-peaked
    youngster, banner-bearer to the fish-eating tribe, dictator of mustard-
    land, flogger of little children, calciner of ashes, father and foster-
    father to physicians, swarming with pardons, indulgences, and stations; a
    very honest man; a good catholic, and as brimful of devotion as ever he can
    hold.

    He weeps the three-fourth parts of the day, and never assists at any
    weddings; but, give the devil his due, he is the most industrious larding-
    stick and skewer-maker in forty kingdoms.

    About six years ago, as I passed by Sneaking-land, I brought home a large
    skewer from thence, and made a present of it to the butchers of Quande, who
    set a great value upon them, and that for a cause.  Some time or other, if
    ever we live to come back to our own country, I will show you two of them
    fastened on the great church porch.  His usual food is pickled coats of
    mail, salt helmets and head-pieces, and salt sallets; which sometimes makes
    him piss pins and needles.  As for his clothing, 'tis comical enough o'
    conscience, both for make and colour; for he wears grey and cold, nothing
    before, and nought behind, with the sleeves of the same.

    You will do me a kindness, said Pantagruel, if, as you have described his
    clothes, food, actions, and pastimes, you will also give me an account of
    his shape and disposition in all his parts.  Prithee do, dear cod, said
    Friar John, for I have found him in my breviary, and then follow the
    movable holy days.  With all my heart, answered Xenomanes; we may chance to
    hear more of him as we touch at the Wild Island, the dominions of the squab
    Chitterlings, his enemies, against whom he is eternally at odds; and were
    it not for the help of the noble Carnival, their protector and good
    neighbour, this meagre-looked lozelly Shrovetide would long before this
    have made sad work among them, and rooted them out of their habitation.
    Are these same Chitterlings, said Friar John, male or female, angels or
    mortals, women or maids?  They are, replied Xenomanes, females in sex,
    mortal in kind, some of them maids, others not.  The devil have me, said
    Friar John, if I ben't for them.  What a shameful disorder in nature, is it
    not, to make war against women?  Let's go back and hack the villain to
    pieces.  What! meddle with Shrovetide? cried Panurge, in the name of
    Beelzebub, I am not yet so weary of my life.  No, I'm not yet so mad as
    that comes to.  Quid juris?  Suppose we should find ourselves pent up
    between the Chitterlings and Shrovetide? between the anvil and the hammers?
    Shankers and buboes! stand off! godzooks, let us make the best of our way.
    I bid you good night, sweet Mr. Shrovetide; I recommend to you the
    Chitterlings, and pray don't forget the puddings.

    Chapter 4.XXX. How Shrovetide is anatomized and described by Xenomanes.

    As for the inward parts of Shrovetide, said Xenomanes; his brain is (at
    least, it was in my time) in bigness, colours, substance, and strength,
    much like the left cod of a he hand-worm.

    
    The ventricles of his said brain,     The stomach, like a belt.
      like an auger.                      The pylorus, like a pitchfork.
    The worm-like excrescence, like       The windpipe, like an oyster-a Christmas-box.                      knife.
    The membranes, like a monk's          The throat, like a pincushion
      cowl.                                 stuffed with oakum.
    The funnel, like a mason's chisel.    The lungs, like a prebend's fur-
    The fornix, like a casket.              gown.
    The glandula pinealis, like a bag-  The heart, like a cope.
      pipe.                               The mediastine, like an earthen
    The rete mirabile, like a gutter.       cup.
    The dug-like processus, like a        The pleura, like a crow's bill.
      patch.                              The arteries, like a watch-coat.
    The tympanums, like a whirli-       The midriff, like a montero-cap.
      gig.                                The liver, like a double-tongued
    The rocky bones, like a goose-        mattock.
      wing.                               The veins, like a sash-window.
    The nape of the neck, like a paper    The spleen, like a catcall.
      lantern.                            The guts, like a trammel.
    The nerves, like a pipkin.            The gall, like a cooper's adze.
    The uvula, like a sackbut.            The entrails, like a gauntlet.
    The palate, like a mitten.            The mesentery, like an abbot's
    The spittle, like a shuttle.            mitre.
    The almonds, like a telescope.        The hungry gut, like a button.
    The bridge of his nose, like a        The blind gut, like a breastplate.
      wheelbarrow.                        The colon, like a bridle.
    The head of the larynx, like a        The arse-gut, like a monk's
      vintage-basket.                       leathern bottle.
    The kidneys, like a trowel.           The ligaments, like a tinker's
    The loins, like a padlock.              budget.
    The ureters, like a pothook.          The bones, like three-cornered
    The emulgent veins, like two            cheesecakes.
      gilliflowers.                       The marrow, like a wallet.
    The spermatic vessels, like a cully-The cartilages, like a field-mully-puff.                           tortoise, alias a mole.
    The parastata, like an inkpot.        The glandules in the mouth, like
    The bladder, like a stone-bow.          a pruning-knife.
    The neck, like a mill-clapper.        The animal spirits, like swingeing
    The mirach, or lower parts of the       fisticuffs.
      belly, like a high-crowned hat.     The blood-fermenting, like a
    The siphach, or its inner rind,         multiplication of flirts on the
      like a wooden cuff.                   nose.
    The muscles, like a pair of bellows.  The urine, like a figpecker.
    The tendons, like a hawking-        The sperm, like a hundred ten-glove.                                penny nails.
    
    And his nurse told me, that being married to Mid-lent, he only begot a good
    number of local adverbs and certain double fasts.
    
    His memory he had like a scarf.       His undertakings, like the ballast
    His common sense, like a buzzing        of a galleon.
      of bees.                            His understanding, like a torn
    His imagination, like the chime         breviary.
      of a set of bells.                  His notions, like snails crawling
    His thoughts, like a flight of star-  out of strawberries.
      lings.                              His will, like three filberts in a
    His conscience, like the unnest-      porringer.
      ling of a parcel of young           His desire, like six trusses of hay.
      herons.                             His judgment, like a shoeing-
    His deliberations, like a set of        horn.
      organs.                             His discretion, like the truckle of
    His repentance, like the carriage       a pulley.
      of a double cannon.                 His reason, like a cricket.
    
    

    Chapter 4.XXXI.

    Shrovetide's outward parts anatomized.

    Shrovetide, continued Xenomanes, is somewhat better proportioned in his
    outward parts, excepting the seven ribs which he had over and above the
    common shape of men.

    
    His toes were like a virginal on     The peritoneum, or caul wherein
      an organ.                            his bowels were wrapped, like
    His nails, like a gimlet.              a billiard-table.
    His feet, like a guitar.             His back, like an overgrown rack-
    His heels, like a club.                bent crossbow.
    The soles of his feet, like a cru- The vertebrae, or joints of his
      cible.                               backbone, like a bagpipe.
    His legs, like a hawk's lure.        His ribs, like a spinning-wheel.
    His knees, like a joint-stool.       His brisket, like a canopy.
    His thighs, like a steel cap.        His shoulder-blades, like a mortar.
    His hips, like a wimble.             His breast, like a game at nine-
    His belly as big as a tun, buttoned    pins.
      after the old fashion, with a      His paps, like a hornpipe.
      girdle riding over the middle      His armpits, like a chequer.
      of his bosom.                      His shoulders, like a hand-barrow.
    His navel, like a cymbal.            His arms, like a riding-hood.
    His groin, like a minced pie.        His fingers, like a brotherhood's
    His member, like a slipper.            andirons.
    His purse, like an oil cruet.        The fibulae, or lesser bones of his
    His genitals, like a joiner's planer.  legs, like a pair of stilts.
    Their erecting muscles, like a       His shin-bones, like sickles.
      racket.                            His elbows, like a mouse-trap.
    The perineum, like a flageolet.      His hands, like a curry-comb.
    His arse-hole, like a crystal look-His neck, like a talboy.
      ing-glass.                         His throat, like a felt to distil hip-
    His bum, like a harrow.                pocras.
    The knob in his throat, like a       His loins, like a butter-pot.
      barrel, where hanged two           His jaws, like a caudle cup.
      brazen wens, very fine and         His teeth, like a hunter's staff.
      harmonious, in the shape of an       Of such colt's teeth as his,
      hourglass.                           you will find one at Colonges
    His beard, like a lantern.             les Royaux in Poitou, and
    His chin, like a mushroom.             two at La Brosse in Xaintonge,
    His ears, like a pair of gloves.       on the cellar door.
    His nose, like a buskin.             His tongue, like a jew's-harp.
    His nostrils, like a forehead cloth. His mouth, like a horse-cloth.
    His eyebrows, like a dripping-pan.   His face embroidered like a mule's
    On his left brow was a mark of         pack-saddle.
      the shape and bigness of an        His head contrived like a still.
      urinal.                            His skull, like a pouch.
    His eyelids, like a fiddle.          The suturae, or seams of his skull,
    His eyes, like a comb-box.             like the annulus piscatoris, or
    His optic nerves, like a tinder-     the fisher's signet.
      box.                               His skin, like a gabardine.
    His forehead, like a false cup.      His epidermis, or outward skin,
    His temples, like the cock of a        like a bolting-cloth.
      cistern.                           His hair, like a scrubbing-brush.
    His cheeks, like a pair of wooden    His fur, such as above said.
      shoes.
    

    Chapter 4.XXXII.

    A continuation of Shrovetide's countenance.

    'Tis a wonderful thing, continued Xenomanes, to hear and see the state of
    Shrovetide.

    
    If he chanced to spit, it was whole  When he trembled, it was large
      basketsful of goldfinches.           venison pasties.
    If he blowed his nose, it was        When he did sweat, it was old
      pickled grigs.                       ling with butter sauce.
    When he wept, it was ducks with      When he belched, it was bushels
      onion sauce.                         of oysters.
    When he sneezed, it was whole        When he muttered, it was lawyers'
      tubfuls of mustard.                  revels.
    When he coughed, it was boxes        When he hopped about, it was
      of marmalade.                        letters of licence and protec-
    When he sobbed, it was water-        tions.
      cresses.                           When he stepped back, it was
    When he yawned, it was potfuls         sea cockle-shells.
      of pickled peas.                   When he slabbered, it was com-
    When he sighed, it was dried           mon ovens.
      neats' tongues.                    When he was hoarse, it was an
    When he whistled, it was a whole       entry of morrice-dancers.
      scuttleful of green apes.          When he broke wind, it was dun
    When he snored, it was a whole         cows' leather spatterdashes.
      panful of fried beans.             When he funked, it was washed-
    When he frowned, it was soused         leather boots.
      hogs' feet.                        When he scratched himself, it
    When he spoke, it was coarse           was new proclamations.
      brown russet cloth; so little      When he sung, it was peas in
      it was like crimson silk, with       cods.
      which Parisatis desired that       When he evacuated, it was mush-the words of such as spoke to        rooms and morilles.
      her son Cyrus, King of Persia,     When he puffed, it was cabbages
      should be interwoven.                with oil, alias caules amb'olif.
    When he blowed, it was indulg-     When he talked, it was the last
      ence money-boxes.                    year's snow.
    When he winked, it was buttered      When he dreamt, it was of a
      buns.                                cock and a bull.
    When he grumbled, it was March       When he gave nothing, so much
      cats.                                for the bearer.
    When he nodded, it was iron-       If he thought to himself, it was
      bound waggons.                       whimsies and maggots.
    When he made mouths, it was          If he dozed, it was leases of lands.
      broken staves.
    
    

    What is yet more strange, he used to work doing nothing, and did nothing
    though he worked; caroused sleeping, and slept carousing, with his eyes
    open, like the hares in our country, for fear of being taken napping by the
    Chitterlings, his inveterate enemies; biting he laughed, and laughing bit;
    eat nothing fasting, and fasted eating nothing; mumbled upon suspicion,
    drank by imagination, swam on the tops of high steeples, dried his clothes
    in ponds and rivers, fished in the air, and there used to catch decumane
    lobsters; hunted at the bottom of the herring-pond, and caught there
    ibexes, stamboucs, chamois, and other wild goats; used to put out the eyes
    of all the crows which he took sneakingly; feared nothing but his own
    shadow and the cries of fat kids; used to gad abroad some days, like a
    truant schoolboy; played with the ropes of bells on festival days of
    saints; made a mallet of his fist, and writ on hairy parchment
    prognostications and almanacks with his huge pin-case.

    Is that the gentleman? said Friar John.  He is my man; this is the very
    fellow I looked for.  I will send him a challenge immediately.  This is,
    said Pantagruel, a strange and monstrous sort of man, if I may call him a
    man.  You put me in mind of the form and looks of Amodunt and Dissonance.
    How were they made? said Friar John.  May I be peeled like a raw onion if
    ever I heard a word of them.  I'll tell you what I read of them in some
    ancient apologues, replied Pantagruel.

    Physis—that is to say, Nature—at her first burthen begat Beauty and
    Harmony without carnal copulation, being of herself very fruitful and
    prolific.  Antiphysis, who ever was the counter part of Nature,
    immediately, out of a malicious spite against her for her beautiful and
    honourable productions, in opposition begot Amodunt and Dissonance by
    copulation with Tellumon.  Their heads were round like a football, and not
    gently flatted on both sides, like the common shape of men.  Their ears
    stood pricked up like those of asses; their eyes, as hard as those of
    crabs, and without brows, stared out of their heads, fixed on bones like
    those of our heels; their feet were round like tennis-balls; their arms and
    hands turned backwards towards their shoulders; and they walked on their
    heads, continually turning round like a ball, topsy-turvy, heels over head.

    Yet—as you know that apes esteem their young the handsomest in the world—
    Antiphysis extolled her offspring, and strove to prove that their shape was
    handsomer and neater than that of the children of Physis, saying that thus
    to have spherical heads and feet, and walk in a circular manner, wheeling
    round, had something in it of the perfection of the divine power, which
    makes all beings eternally turn in that fashion; and that to have our feet
    uppermost, and the head below them, was to imitate the Creator of the
    universe; the hair being like the roots, and the legs like the branches of
    man; for trees are better planted by their roots than they could be by
    their branches.  By this demonstration she implied that her children were
    much more to be praised for being like a standing tree, than those of
    Physis, that made a figure of a tree upside down.  As for the arms and
    hands, she pretended to prove that they were more justly turned towards the
    shoulders, because that part of the body ought not to be without defence,
    while the forepart is duly fenced with teeth, which a man cannot only use
    to chew, but also to defend himself against those things that offend him.
    Thus, by the testimony and astipulation of the brute beasts, she drew all
    the witless herd and mob of fools into her opinion, and was admired by all
    brainless and nonsensical people.

    Since that, she begot the hypocritical tribes of eavesdropping dissemblers,
    superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots, the frantic
    Pistolets, (the demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva,) the scrapers of
    benefices, apparitors with the devil in them, and other grinders and
    squeezers of livings, herb-stinking hermits, gulligutted dunces of the
    cowl, church vermin, false zealots, devourers of the substance of men, and
    many more other deformed and ill-favoured monsters, made in spite of
    nature.

    Chapter 4.XXXIII. How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, near the Wild
    Island.

    About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied afar off a huge
    monstrous physeter (a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool), that
    came right upon us, neighing, snorting, raised above the waves higher than
    our main-tops, and spouting water all the way into the air before itself,
    like a large river falling from a mountain.  Pantagruel showed it to the
    pilot and to Xenomanes.

    By the pilot's advice the trumpets of the Thalamege were sounded to warn
    all the fleet to stand close and look to themselves.  This alarm being
    given, all the ships, galleons, frigates, brigantines, according to their
    naval discipline, placed themselves in the order and figure of an Y
    (upsilon), the letter of Pythagoras, as cranes do in their flight, and like
    an acute angle, in whose cone and basis the Thalamege placed herself ready
    to fight smartly.  Friar John with the grenadiers got on the forecastle.

    Poor Panurge began to cry and howl worse than ever.  Babille-babou, said
    he, shrugging up his shoulders, quivering all over with fear, there will be
    the devil upon dun.  This is a worse business than that t'other day.  Let
    us fly, let us fly; old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan, described by
    the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.  It will swallow us
    all, ships and men, shag, rag, and bobtail, like a dose of pills.  Alas! it
    will make no more of us, and we shall hold no more room in its hellish
    jaws, than a sugarplum in an ass's throat.  Look, look, 'tis upon us; let
    us wheel off, whip it away, and get ashore.  I believe 'tis the very
    individual sea-monster that was formerly designed to devour Andromeda; we
    are all undone.  Oh! for some valiant Perseus here now to kill the dog.

    I'll do its business presently, said Pantagruel; fear nothing.  Ods-belly,
    said Panurge, remove the cause of my fear then.  When the devil would you
    have a man be afraid but when there is so much cause?  If your destiny be
    such as Friar John was saying a while ago, replied Pantagruel, you ought to
    be afraid of Pyroeis, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon, the sun's coach-horses,
    that breathe fire at the nostrils; and not of physeters, that spout nothing
    but water at the snout and mouth.  Their water will not endanger your life;
    and that element will rather save and preserve than hurt or endanger you.

    Ay, ay, trust to that, and hang me, quoth Panurge; yours is a very pretty
    fancy.  Ods-fish! did I not give you a sufficient account of the elements'
    transmutation, and the blunders that are made of roast for boiled, and
    boiled for roast?  Alas! here 'tis; I'll go hide myself below.  We are dead
    men, every mother's son of us.  I see upon our main-top that merciless hag
    Atropos, with her scissors new ground, ready to cut our threads all at one
    snip.  Oh! how dreadful and abominable thou art; thou hast drowned a good
    many beside us, who never made their brags of it.  Did it but spout good,
    brisk, dainty, delicious white wine, instead of this damned bitter salt
    water, one might better bear with it, and there would be some cause to be
    patient; like that English lord, who being doomed to die, and had leave to
    choose what kind of death he would, chose to be drowned in a butt of
    malmsey.  Here it is.  Oh, oh! devil!  Sathanas!  Leviathan!  I cannot
    abide to look upon thee, thou art so abominably ugly.  Go to the bar, go
    take the pettifoggers.

    Chapter 4.XXXIV. How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel.

    The physeter, coming between the ships and the galleons, threw water by
    whole tuns upon them, as if it had been the cataracts of the Nile in
    Ethiopia.  On the other side, arrows, darts, gleaves, javelins, spears,
    harping-irons, and partizans, flew upon it like hail.  Friar John did not
    spare himself in it.  Panurge was half dead for fear.  The artillery roared
    and thundered like mad, and seemed to gall it in good earnest, but did but
    little good; for the great iron and brass cannon-shot entering its skin
    seemed to melt like tiles in the sun.

    Pantagruel then, considering the weight and exigency of the matter,
    stretched out his arms and showed what he could do.  You tell us, and it is
    recorded, that Commudus, the Roman emperor, could shoot with a bow so
    dexterously that at a good distance he would let fly an arrow through a
    child's fingers and never touch them.  You also tell us of an Indian
    archer, who lived when Alexander the Great conquered India, and was so
    skilful in drawing the bow, that at a considerable distance he would shoot
    his arrows through a ring, though they were three cubits long, and their
    iron so large and weighty that with them he used to pierce steel cutlasses,
    thick shields, steel breastplates, and generally what he did hit, how firm,
    resisting, hard, and strong soever it were.  You also tell us wonders of
    the industry of the ancient Franks, who were preferred to all others in
    point of archery; and when they hunted either black or dun beasts, used to
    rub the head of their arrows with hellebore, because the flesh of the
    venison struck with such an arrow was more tender, dainty, wholesome, and
    delicious—paring off, nevertheless, the part that was touched round about.
    You also talk of the Parthians, who used to shoot backwards more
    dexterously than other nations forwards; and also celebrate the skill of
    the Scythians in that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, an
    ambassador that made him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five
    arrows, without speaking one word; and being asked what those presents
    meant, and if he had commission to say anything, answered that he had not;
    which puzzled and gravelled Darius very much, till Gobrias, one of the
    seven captains that had killed the magi, explained it, saying to Darius:
    By these gifts and offerings the Scythians silently tell you that except
    the Persians like birds fly up to heaven, or like mice hide themselves near
    the centre of the earth, or like frogs dive to the very bottom of ponds and
    lakes, they shall be destroyed by the power and arrows of the Scythians.

    The noble Pantagruel was, without comparison, more admirable yet in the art
    of shooting and darting; for with his dreadful piles and darts, nearly
    resembling the huge beams that support the bridges of Nantes, Saumur,
    Bergerac, and at Paris the millers' and the changers' bridges, in length,
    size, weight, and iron-work, he at a mile's distance would open an oyster
    and never touch the edges; he would snuff a candle without putting it out;
    would shoot a magpie in the eye; take off a boot's under-sole, or a riding-
    hood's lining, without soiling them a bit; turn over every leaf of Friar
    John's breviary, one after another, and not tear one.

    With such darts, of which there was good store in the ship, at the first
    blow he ran the physeter in at the forehead so furiously that he pierced
    both its jaws and tongue; so that from that time to this it no more opened
    its guttural trapdoor, nor drew and spouted water.  At the second blow he
    put out its right eye, and at the third its left; and we had all the
    pleasure to see the physeter bearing those three horns in its forehead,
    somewhat leaning forwards in an equilateral triangle.

    Meanwhile it turned about to and fro, staggering and straying like one
    stunned, blinded, and taking his leave of the world.  Pantagruel, not
    satisfied with this, let fly another dart, which took the monster under the
    tail likewise sloping; then with three other on the chine, in a
    perpendicular line, divided its flank from the tail to the snout at an
    equal distance.  Then he larded it with fifty on one side, and after that,
    to make even work, he darted as many on its other side; so that the body of
    the physeter seemed like the hulk of a galleon with three masts, joined by
    a competent dimension of its beams, as if they had been the ribs and chain-
    wales of the keel; which was a pleasant sight.  The physeter then giving up
    the ghost, turned itself upon its back, as all dead fishes do; and being
    thus overturned, with the beams and darts upside down in the sea, it seemed
    a scolopendra or centipede, as that serpent is described by the ancient
    sage Nicander.

    Chapter 4.XXXV. How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, the ancient abode of the
    Chitterlings.

    4-35-472.jpg (143K)

    The boat's crew of the ship Lantern towed the physeter ashore on the
    neighbouring shore, which happened to be the Wild Island, to make an
    anatomical dissection of its body and save the fat of its kidneys, which,
    they said, was very useful and necessary for the cure of a certain
    distemper, which they called want of money.  As for Pantagruel, he took no
    manner of notice of the monster; for he had seen many such, nay, bigger, in
    the Gallic ocean.  Yet he condescended to land in the Wild Island, to dry
    and refresh some of his men (whom the physeter had wetted and bedaubed), at
    a small desert seaport towards the south, seated near a fine pleasant
    grove, out of which flowed a delicious brook of fresh, clear, and purling
    water.  Here they pitched their tents and set up their kitchens; nor did
    they spare fuel.

    Everyone having shifted as they thought fit, Friar John rang the bell, and
    the cloth was immediately laid, and supper brought in.  Pantagruel eating
    cheerfully with his men, much about the second course perceived certain
    little sly Chitterlings clambering up a high tree near the pantry, as still
    as so many mice.  Which made him ask Xenomanes what kind of creatures these
    were, taking them for squirrels, weasels, martins, or ermines.  They are
    Chitterlings, replied Xenomanes.  This is the Wild Island of which I spoke
    to you this morning; there hath been an irreconcilable war this long time
    between them and Shrovetide, their malicious and ancient enemy.  I believe
    that the noise of the guns which we fired at the physeter hath alarmed
    them, and made them fear their enemy was come with his forces to surprise
    them, or lay the island waste, as he hath often attempted to do; though he
    still came off but bluely, by reason of the care and vigilance of the
    Chitterlings, who (as Dido said to Aeneas's companions that would have
    landed at Carthage without her leave or knowledge) were forced to watch and
    stand upon their guard, considering the malice of their enemy and the
    neighbourhood of his territories.

    Pray, dear friend, said Pantagruel, if you find that by some honest means
    we may bring this war to an end, and reconcile them together, give me
    notice of it; I will use my endeavours in it with all my heart, and spare
    nothing on my side to moderate and accommodate the points in dispute
    between both parties.

    That's impossible at this time, answered Xenomanes.  About four years ago,
    passing incognito by this country, I endeavoured to make a peace, or at
    least a long truce among them; and I had certainly brought them to be good
    friends and neighbours if both one and the other parties would have yielded
    to one single article.  Shrovetide would not include in the treaty of peace
    the wild puddings nor the highland sausages, their ancient gossips and
    confederates.  The Chitterlings demanded that the fort of Cacques might be
    under their government, as is the Castle of Sullouoir, and that a parcel of
    I don't know what stinking villains, murderers, robbers, that held it then,
    should be expelled.  But they could not agree in this, and the terms that
    were offered seemed too hard to either party.  So the treaty broke off, and
    nothing was done.  Nevertheless, they became less severe, and gentler
    enemies than they were before; but since the denunciation of the national
    Council of Chesil, whereby they were roughly handled, hampered, and cited;
    whereby also Shrovetide was declared filthy, beshitten, and berayed, in
    case he made any league or agreement with them; they are grown wonderfully
    inveterate, incensed, and obstinate against one another, and there is no
    way to remedy it.  You might sooner reconcile cats and rats, or hounds and
    hares together.

    Chapter 4.XXXVI. How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado for Pantagruel.

    4-36-474.jpg (139K)

    While Xenomanes was saying this, Friar John spied twenty or thirty young
    slender-shaped Chitterlings posting as fast as they could towards their
    town, citadel, castle, and fort of Chimney, and said to Pantagruel, I smell
    a rat; there will be here the devil upon two sticks, or I am much out.
    These worshipful Chitterlings may chance to mistake you for Shrovetide,
    though you are not a bit like him.  Let us once in our lives leave our
    junketing for a while, and put ourselves in a posture to give 'em a
    bellyful of fighting, if they would be at that sport.  There can be no
    false Latin in this, said Xenomanes; Chitterlings are still Chitterlings,
    always double-hearted and treacherous.

    Pantagruel then arose from table to visit and scour the thicket, and
    returned presently; having discovered, on the left, an ambuscade of squab
    Chitterlings; and on the right, about half a league from thence, a large
    body of huge giant-like armed Chitterlings ranged in battalia along a
    little hill, and marching furiously towards us at the sound of bagpipes,
    sheep's paunches, and bladders, the merry fifes and drums, trumpets, and
    clarions, hoping to catch us as Moss caught his mare.  By the conjecture of
    seventy-eight standards which we told, we guessed their number to be two
    and forty thousand, at a modest computation.

    Their order, proud gait, and resolute looks made us judge that they were
    none of your raw, paltry links, but old warlike Chitterlings and Sausages.
    From the foremost ranks to the colours they were all armed cap-a-pie with
    small arms, as we reckoned them at a distance, yet very sharp and case-
    hardened.  Their right and left wings were lined with a great number of
    forest puddings, heavy pattipans, and horse sausages, all of them tall and
    proper islanders, banditti, and wild.

    Pantagruel was very much daunted, and not without cause; though Epistemon
    told him that it might be the use and custom of the Chitterlingonians to
    welcome and receive thus in arms their foreign friends, as the noble kings
    of France are received and saluted at their first coming into the chief
    cities of the kingdom after their advancement to the crown.  Perhaps, said
    he, it may be the usual guard of the queen of the place, who, having notice
    given her by the junior Chitterlings of the forlorn hope whom you saw on
    the tree, of the arrival of your fine and pompous fleet, hath judged that
    it was without doubt some rich and potent prince, and is come to visit you
    in person.

    Pantagruel, little trusting to this, called a council, to have their advice
    at large in this doubtful case.  He briefly showed them how this way of
    reception with arms had often, under colour of compliment and friendship,
    been fatal.  Thus, said he, the Emperor Antonius Caracalla at one time
    destroyed the citizens of Alexandria, and at another time cut off the
    attendants of Artabanus, King of Persia, under colour of marrying his
    daughter, which, by the way, did not pass unpunished, for a while after
    this cost him his life.

    Thus Jacob's children destroyed the Sichemites, to revenge the rape of
    their sister Dinah.  By such another hypocritical trick Gallienus, the
    Roman emperor, put to death the military men in Constantinople.  Thus,
    under colour of friendship, Antonius enticed Artavasdes, King of Armenia;
    then, having caused him to be bound in heavy chains and shackled, at last
    put him to death.

    We find a thousand such instances in history; and King Charles VI. is
    justly commended for his prudence to this day, in that, coming back
    victorious over the Ghenters and other Flemings to his good city of Paris,
    and when he came to Bourget, a league from thence, hearing that the
    citizens with their mallets—whence they got the name of Maillotins—were
    marched out of town in battalia, twenty thousand strong, he would not go
    into the town till they had laid down their arms and retired to their
    respective homes; though they protested to him that they had taken arms
    with no other design than to receive him with the greater demonstration of
    honour and respect.

    Chapter 4.XXXVII. How Pantagruel sent for Colonel Maul-chitterling and Colonel Cut-pudding;
    with a discourse well worth your hearing about the names of places and
    persons.

    The resolution of the council was that, let things be how they would, it
    behoved the Pantagruelists to stand upon their guard.  Therefore Carpalin
    and Gymnast were ordered by Pantagruel to go for the soldiers that were on
    board the Cup galley, under the command of Colonel Maul-chitterling, and
    those on board the Vine-tub frigate, under the command of Colonel Cut-
    pudding the younger.  I will ease Gymnast of that trouble, said Panurge,
    who wanted to be upon the run; you may have occasion for him here.  By
    this worthy frock of mine, quoth Friar John, thou hast a mind to slip thy
    neck out of the collar and absent thyself from the fight, thou white-
    livered son of a dunghill!  Upon my virginity thou wilt never come back.
    Well, there can be no great loss in thee; for thou wouldst do nothing here
    but howl, bray, weep, and dishearten the good soldiers.  I will certainly
    come back, said Panurge, Friar John, my ghostly father, and speedily too;
    do but take care that these plaguy Chitterlings do not board our ships.
    All the while you will be a-fighting I will pray heartily for your
    victory, after the example of the valiant captain and guide of the people
    of Israel, Moses. Having said this, he wheeled off.

    Then said Epistemon to Pantagruel:  The denomination of these two colonels
    of yours, Maul-chitterling and Cut-pudding, promiseth us assurance,
    success, and victory, if those Chitterlings should chance to set upon us.
    You take it rightly, said Pantagruel, and it pleaseth me to see you foresee
    and prognosticate our victory by the names of our colonels.

    This way of foretelling by names is not new; it was in old times celebrated
    and religiously observed by the Pythagoreans.  Several great princes and
    emperors have formerly made good use of it.  Octavianus Augustus, second
    emperor of the Romans, meeting on a day a country fellow named Eutychus—
    that is, fortunate—driving an ass named Nicon—that is, in Greek,
    Victorian—moved by the signification of the ass's and ass-driver's names,
    remained assured of all prosperity and victory.

    The Emperor Vespasian being once all alone at prayers in the temple of
    Serapis, at the sight and unexpected coming of a certain servant of his
    named Basilides—that is, royal—whom he had left sick a great way behind,
    took hopes and assurance of obtaining the empire of the Romans.  Regilian
    was chosen emperor by the soldiers for no other reason but the
    signification of his name.  See the Cratylus of the divine Plato.  (By my
    thirst, I will read it, said Rhizotome; I hear you so often quote it.)  See
    how the Pythagoreans, by reason of the names and numbers, conclude that
    Patroclus was to fall by the hand of Hector; Hector by Achilles; Achilles
    by Paris; Paris by Philoctetes.  I am quite lost in my understanding when I
    reflect upon the admirable invention of Pythagoras, who by the number,
    either even or odd, of the syllables of every name, would tell you of what
    side a man was lame, hulch-backed, blind, gouty, troubled with the palsy,
    pleurisy, or any other distemper incident to humankind; allotting even
    numbers to the left (Motteux reads—'even numbers to the Right, and odd
    ones to the Left.'), and odd ones to the right side of the body.

    Indeed, said Epistemon, I saw this way of syllabizing tried at Xaintes at a
    general procession, in the presence of that good, virtuous, learned and
    just president, Brian Vallee, Lord of Douhait.  When there went by a man or
    woman that was either lame, blind of one eye, or humpbacked, he had an
    account brought him of his or her name; and if the syllables of the name
    were of an odd number, immediately, without seeing the persons, he declared
    them to be deformed, blind, lame, or crooked of the right side; and of the
    left, if they were even in number; and such indeed we ever found them.

    By this syllabical invention, said Pantagruel, the learned have affirmed
    that Achilles kneeling was wounded by the arrow of Paris in the right heel,
    for his name is of odd syllables (here we ought to observe that the
    ancients used to kneel the right foot); and that Venus was also wounded
    before Troy in the left hand, for her name in Greek is Aphrodite, of four
    syllables; Vulcan lamed of his left foot for the same reason; Philip, King
    of Macedon, and Hannibal, blind of the right eye; not to speak of
    sciaticas, broken bellies, and hemicranias, which may be distinguished by
    this Pythagorean reason.

    But returning to names:  do but consider how Alexander the Great, son of
    King Philip, of whom we spoke just now, compassed his undertaking merely by
    the interpretation of a name.  He had besieged the strong city of Tyre, and
    for several weeks battered it with all his power; but all in vain.  His
    engines and attempts were still baffled by the Tyrians, which made him
    finally resolve to raise the siege, to his great grief; foreseeing the
    great stain which such a shameful retreat would be to his reputation.  In
    this anxiety and agitation of mind he fell asleep and dreamed that a satyr
    was come into his tent, capering, skipping, and tripping it up and down,
    with his goatish hoofs, and that he strove to lay hold on him.  But the
    satyr still slipped from him, till at last, having penned him up into a
    corner, he took him.  With this he awoke, and telling his dream to the
    philosophers and sages of his court, they let him know that it was a
    promise of victory from the gods, and that he should soon be master of
    Tyre; the word satyros divided in two being sa Tyros, and signifying Tyre
    is thine; and in truth, at the next onset, he took the town by storm, and
    by a complete victory reduced that stubborn people to subjection.

    On the other hand, see how, by the signification of one word, Pompey fell
    into despair.  Being overcome by Caesar at the battle of Pharsalia, he had
    no other way left to escape but by flight; which attempting by sea, he
    arrived near the island of Cyprus, and perceived on the shore near the city
    of Paphos a beautiful and stately palace; now asking the pilot what was the
    name of it, he told him that it was called kakobasilea, that is, evil king;
    which struck such a dread and terror in him that he fell into despair, as
    being assured of losing shortly his life; insomuch that his complaints,
    sighs, and groans were heard by the mariners and other passengers.  And
    indeed, a while after, a certain strange peasant, called Achillas, cut off
    his head.

    To all these examples might be added what happened to L. Paulus Emilius
    when the senate elected him imperator, that is, chief of the army which
    they sent against Perses, King of Macedon.  That evening returning home to
    prepare for his expedition, and kissing a little daughter of his called
    Trasia, she seemed somewhat sad to him.  What is the matter, said he, my
    chicken?  Why is my Trasia thus sad and melancholy?  Daddy, replied the
    child, Persa is dead.  This was the name of a little bitch which she loved
    mightily.  Hearing this, Paulus took assurance of a victory over Perses.

    If time would permit us to discourse of the sacred Hebrew writ, we might
    find a hundred noted passages evidently showing how religiously they
    observed proper names and their significations.

    He had hardly ended this discourse, when the two colonels arrived with
    their soldiers, all well armed and resolute.  Pantagruel made them a short
    speech, entreating them to behave themselves bravely in case they were
    attacked; for he could not yet believe that the Chitterlings were so
    treacherous; but he bade them by no means to give the first offence, giving
    them Carnival for the watchword.

    Chapter 4.XXXVIII. How Chitterlings are not to be slighted by men.

    You shake your empty noddles now, jolly topers, and do not believe what I
    tell you here, any more than if it were some tale of a tub.  Well, well, I
    cannot help it.  Believe it if you will; if you won't, let it alone.  For
    my part, I very well know what I say.  It was in the Wild Island, in our
    voyage to the Holy Bottle.  I tell you the time and place; what would you
    have more?  I would have you call to mind the strength of the ancient
    giants that undertook to lay the high mountain Pelion on the top of Ossa,
    and set among those the shady Olympus, to dash out the gods' brains,
    unnestle them, and scour their heavenly lodgings.  Theirs was no small
    strength, you may well think, and yet they were nothing but Chitterlings
    from the waist downwards, or at least serpents, not to tell a lie for the
    matter.

    The serpent that tempted Eve, too, was of the Chitterling kind, and yet it
    is recorded of him that he was more subtle than any beast of the field.
    Even so are Chitterlings.  Nay, to this very hour they hold in some
    universities that this same tempter was the Chitterling called Ithyphallus,
    into which was transformed bawdy Priapus, arch-seducer of females in
    paradise, that is, a garden, in Greek.

    Pray now tell me who can tell but that the Swiss, now so bold and warlike,
    were formerly Chitterlings?  For my part, I would not take my oath to the
    contrary.  The Himantopodes, a nation very famous in Ethiopia, according to
    Pliny's description, are Chitterlings, and nothing else.  If all this will
    not satisfy your worships, or remove your incredulity, I would have you
    forthwith (I mean drinking first, that nothing be done rashly) visit
    Lusignan, Parthenay, Vouant, Mervant, and Ponzauges in Poitou.  There you
    will find a cloud of witnesses, not of your affidavit-men of the right
    stamp, but credible time out of mind, that will take their corporal oath,
    on Rigome's knuckle-bone, that Melusina their founder or foundress, which
    you please, was woman from the head to the prick-purse, and thence
    downwards was a serpentine Chitterling, or if you'll have it otherwise, a
    Chitterlingdized serpent.  She nevertheless had a genteel and noble gait,
    imitated to this very day by your hop-merchants of Brittany, in their
    paspie and country dances.

    What do you think was the cause of Erichthonius's being the first inventor
    of coaches, litters, and chariots?  Nothing but because Vulcan had begot
    him with Chitterlingdized legs, which to hide he chose to ride in a litter,
    rather than on horseback; for Chitterlings were not yet in esteem at that
    time.

    The Scythian nymph, Ora, was likewise half woman and half Chitterling, and
    yet seemed so beautiful to Jupiter that nothing could serve him but he must
    give her a touch of his godship's kindness; and accordingly he had a brave
    boy by her, called Colaxes; and therefore I would have you leave off
    shaking your empty noddles at this, as if it were a story, and firmly
    believe that nothing is truer than the gospel.

    Chapter 4.XXXIX. How Friar John joined with the cooks to fight the Chitterlings.

    Friar John seeing these furious Chitterlings thus boldly march up, said to
    Pantagruel, Here will be a rare battle of hobby-horses, a pretty kind of
    puppet-show fight, for aught I see.  Oh! what mighty honour and wonderful
    glory will attend our victory!  I would have you only be a bare spectator
    of this fight, and for anything else leave me and my men to deal with them.
    What men? said Pantagruel.  Matter of breviary, replied Friar John.  How
    came Potiphar, who was head-cook of Pharaoh's kitchens, he that bought
    Joseph, and whom the said Joseph might have made a cuckold if he had not
    been a Joseph; how came he, I say, to be made general of all the horse in
    the kingdom of Egypt?  Why was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar's head-cook,
    chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroy
    Jerusalem?  I hear you, replied Pantagruel.  By St. Christopher's whiskers,
    said Friar John, I dare lay a wager that it was because they had formerly
    engaged Chitterlings, or men as little valued; whom to rout, conquer, and
    destroy, cooks are without comparison more fit than cuirassiers and
    gendarmes armed at all points, or all the horse and foot in the world.

    You put me in mind, said Pantagruel, of what is written amongst the
    facetious and merry sayings of Cicero.  During the more than civil wars
    between Caesar and Pompey, though he was much courted by the first, he
    naturally leaned more to the side of the latter.  Now one day hearing that
    the Pompeians in a certain rencontre had lost a great many men, he took a
    fancy to visit their camp.  There he perceived little strength, less
    courage, but much disorder.  From that time, foreseeing that things would
    go ill with them, as it since happened, he began to banter now one and then
    another, and be very free of his cutting jests; so some of Pompey's
    captains, playing the good fellows to show their assurance, told him, Do
    you see how many eagles we have yet?  (They were then the device of the
    Romans in war.)  They might be of use to you, replied Cicero, if you had to
    do with magpies.

    Thus, seeing we are to fight Chitterlings, pursued Pantagruel, you infer
    thence that it is a culinary war, and have a mind to join with the cooks.
    Well, do as you please, I'll stay here in the meantime, and wait for the
    event of the rumpus.

    Friar John went that very moment among the sutlers, into the cooks' tents,
    and told them in a pleasing manner:  I must see you crowned with honour and
    triumph this day, my lads; to your arms are reserved such achievements as
    never yet were performed within the memory of man.  Ods-belly, do they make
    nothing of the valiant cooks?  Let us go fight yonder fornicating
    Chitterlings!  I'll be your captain.  But first let's drink, boys.  Come
    on! let us be of good cheer.  Noble captain, returned the kitchen tribe,
    this was spoken like yourself; bravely offered.  Huzza! we are all at your
    excellency's command, and we live and die by you.  Live, live, said Friar
    John, a God's name; but die by no means.  That is the Chitterlings' lot;
    they shall have their bellyful of it.  Come on then, let us put ourselves
    in order; Nabuzardan's the word.

    Chapter 4.XL. How Friar John fitted up the sow; and of the valiant cooks that went into
    it.

    Then, by Friar John's order, the engineers and their workmen fitted up the
    great sow that was in the ship Leathern Bottle.  It was a wonderful
    machine, so contrived that, by means of large engines that were round about
    it in rows, it throw'd forked iron bars and four-squared steel bolts; and
    in its hold two hundred men at least could easily fight, and be sheltered.
    It was made after the model of the sow of Riole, by the means of which
    Bergerac was retaken from the English in the reign of Charles the Sixth.

    Here are the names of the noble and valiant cooks who went into the sow, as
    the Greeks did into the Trojan horse:

    
    Sour-sauce.        Crisp-pig.         Carbonado.
    Sweet-meat.        Greasy-slouch.     Sop-in-pan.
    Greedy-gut.        Fat-gut.           Pick-fowl.
    Liquorice-chops.   Bray-mortar.       Mustard-pot.
    Soused-pork.       Lick-sauce.        Hog's-haslet.
    Slap-sauce.        Hog's-foot.        Chopped-phiz.
    Cock-broth.        Hodge-podge.       Gallimaufry.
    Slipslop.
    
    All these noble cooks in their coat-of-arms did bear, in a field gules, a
    larding-pin vert, charged with a chevron argent.
    
    Lard, hog's-lard.  Pinch-lard.        Snatch-lard.
    Nibble-lard.       Top-lard.          Gnaw-lard.
    Filch-lard.        Pick-lard.         Scrape-lard.
    Fat-lard.          Save-lard.         Chew-lard.
    
    Gaillard (by syncope) born near Rambouillet.  The said culinary doctor's
    name was Gaillardlard, in the same manner as you use to say idolatrous for
    idololatrous.
    
    Stiff-lard.        Cut-lard.          Waste-lard.
    Watch-lard.        Mince-lard.        Ogle-lard.
    Sweet-lard.        Dainty-lard.       Weigh-lard.
    Eat-lard.          Fresh-lard.        Gulch-lard.
    Snap-lard.         Rusty-lard.        Eye-lard.
    Catch-lard.
    
    Names unknown among the Marranes and Jews.
    
    Ballocky.          Thirsty.           Porridge-pot.
    Pick-sallat.       Kitchen-stuff.     Lick-dish.
    Broil-rasher.      Verjuice.          Salt-gullet.
    Coney-skin.        Save-dripping.     Snail-dresser.
    Dainty-chops.      Watercress.        Soup-monger.
    Pie-wright.        Scrape-turnip.     Brewis-belly.
    Pudding-pan.       Trivet.            Chine-picker.
    Toss-pot.          Monsieur Ragout.   Suck-gravy.
    Mustard-sauce.     Crack-pipkin.      Macaroon.
    Claret-sauce.      Scrape-pot.        Skewer-maker.
    Swill-broth.
    
    Smell-smock.  He was afterwards taken from the kitchen and removed to
    chamber-practice, for the service of the noble Cardinal Hunt-venison.
    
    Rot-roast.         Hog's gullet.      Fox-tail.
    Dish-clout.        Sirloin.           Fly-flap.
    Save-suet.         Spit-mutton.       Old Grizzle.
    Fire-fumbler.      Fritter-frier.     Ruff-belly.
    Pillicock.         Flesh-smith.       Saffron-sauce.
    Long-tool.         Cram-gut.          Strutting-tom.
    Prick-pride.       Tuzzy-mussy.       Slashed-snout.
    Prick-madam.       Jacket-liner.      Smutty-face.
    Pricket.           Guzzle-drink.
    
    Mondam, that first invented madam's sauce, and for that discovery was thus
    called in the Scotch-French dialect.
    
    Loblolly.          Sloven.            Trencher-man.
    Slabber-chops.     Swallow-pitcher.   Goodman Goosecap.
    Scum-pot.          Wafer-monger.      Munch-turnip.
    Gully-guts.        Snap-gobbet.       Pudding-bag.
    Rinse-pot.         Scurvy-phiz.       Pig-sticker.
    Drink-spiller.
    
    Robert.  He invented Robert's sauce, so good and necessary for roasted
    coneys, ducks, fresh pork, poached eggs, salt fish, and a thousand other
    such dishes.
    
    Cold-eel.          Frying-pan.        Big-snout.
    Thornback.         Man of dough.      Lick-finger.
    Gurnard.           Sauce-doctor.      Tit-bit.
    Grumbling-gut.     Waste-butter.      Sauce-box.
    Alms-scrip.        Shitbreech.        All-fours.
    Taste-all.         Thick-brawn.       Whimwham.
    Scrap-merchant.    Tom T—d.          Baste-roast.
    Belly-timberman.   Mouldy-crust.      Gaping-hoyden.
    Hashee.            Hasty.             Calf's-pluck.
    Frig-palate.       Red-herring.       Leather-breeches.
    Powdering-tub.     Cheesecake.
    
    

    All these noble cooks went into the sow, merry, cheery, hale, brisk, old
    dogs at mischief, and ready to fight stoutly.  Friar John ever and anon
    waving his huge scimitar, brought up the rear, and double-locked the doors
    on the inside.

    Chapter 4.XLI. How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees.

    4-41-482.jpg (57K)

    The Chitterlings advanced so near that Pantagruel perceived that they
    stretched their arms and already began to charge their lances, which caused
    him to send Gymnast to know what they meant, and why they thus, without the
    least provocation, came to fall upon their old trusty friends, who had
    neither said nor done the least ill thing to them.  Gymnast being advanced
    near their front, bowed very low, and said to them as loud as ever he
    could:  We are friends, we are friends; all, all of us your friends, yours,
    and at your command; we are for Carnival, your old confederate.  Some have
    since told me that he mistook, and said cavernal instead of carnival.

    Whatever it was, the word was no sooner out of his mouth but a huge little
    squab Sausage, starting out of the front of their main body, would have
    griped him by the collar.  By the helmet of Mars, said Gymnast, I will
    swallow thee; but thou shalt only come in in chips and slices; for, big as
    thou art, thou couldst never come in whole.  This spoke, he lugs out his
    trusty sword, Kiss-mine-arse (so he called it) with both his fists, and cut
    the Sausage in twain.  Bless me, how fat the foul thief was! it puts me in
    mind of the huge bull of Berne, that was slain at Marignan when the drunken
    Swiss were so mauled there.  Believe me, it had little less than four
    inches' lard on its paunch.

    The Sausage's job being done, a crowd of others flew upon Gymnast, and had
    most scurvily dragged him down when Pantagruel with his men came up to his
    relief.  Then began the martial fray, higgledy-piggledy.  Maul-chitterling
    did maul chitterlings; Cut-pudding did cut puddings; Pantagruel did break
    the Chitterlings at the knees; Friar John played at least in sight within
    his sow, viewing and observing all things; when the Pattipans that lay in
    ambuscade most furiously sallied out upon Pantagruel.

    Friar John, who lay snug all this while, by that time perceiving the rout
    and hurlyburly, set open the doors of his sow and sallied out with his
    merry Greeks, some of them armed with iron spits, others with andirons,
    racks, fire-shovels, frying-pans, kettles, grid-irons, oven forks, tongs,
    dripping pans, brooms, iron pots, mortars, pestles, all in battle array,
    like so many housebreakers, hallooing and roaring out all together most
    frightfully, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan.  Thus shouting and hooting
    they fought like dragons, and charged through the Pattipans and Sausages.
    The Chitterlings perceiving this fresh reinforcement, and that the others
    would be too hard for 'em, betook themselves to their heels, scampering off
    with full speed, as if the devil had come for them.  Friar John, with an
    iron crow, knocked them down as fast as hops; his men, too, were not
    sparing on their side.  Oh, what a woeful sight it was! the field was all
    over strewed with heaps of dead or wounded Chitterlings; and history
    relates that had not heaven had a hand in it, the Chitterling tribe had
    been totally routed out of the world by the culinary champions.  But there
    happened a wonderful thing, you may believe as little or as much of it as
    you please.

    From the north flew towards us a huge, fat, thick, grizzly swine, with long
    and large wings, like those of a windmill; its plumes red crimson, like
    those of a phenicoptere (which in Languedoc they call flaman); its eyes
    were red, and flaming like a carbuncle; its ears green, like a Prasin
    emerald; its teeth like a topaz; its tail long and black, like jet; its
    feet white, diaphanous and transparent like a diamond, somewhat broad, and
    of the splay kind, like those of geese, and as Queen Dick's used to be at
    Toulouse in the days of yore.  About its neck it wore a gold collar, round
    which were some Ionian characters, whereof I could pick out but two words,
    US ATHENAN, hog-teaching Minerva.

    The sky was clear before; but at that monster's appearance it changed so
    mightily for the worse that we were all amazed at it.  As soon as the
    Chitterlings perceived the flying hog, down they all threw their weapons
    and fell on their knees, lifting up their hands joined together, without
    speaking one word, in a posture of adoration.  Friar John and his party
    kept on mincing, felling, braining, mangling, and spitting the Chitterlings
    like mad; but Pantagruel sounded a retreat, and all hostility ceased.

    The monster having several times hovered backwards and forwards between the
    two armies, with a tail-shot voided above twenty-seven butts of mustard on
    the ground; then flew away through the air, crying all the while, Carnival,
    Carnival, Carnival.

    Chapter 4.XLII. How Pantagruel held a treaty with Niphleseth, Queen of the Chitterlings.

    The monster being out of sight, and the two armies remaining silent,
    Pantagruel demanded a parley with the lady Niphleseth, Queen of the
    Chitterlings, who was in her chariot by the standards; and it was easily
    granted.  The queen alighted, courteously received Pantagruel, and was glad
    to see him.  Pantagruel complained to her of this breach of peace; but she
    civilly made her excuse, telling him that a false information had caused
    all this mischief; her spies having brought her word that Shrovetide, their
    mortal foe, was landed, and spent his time in examining the urine of
    physeters.

    She therefore entreated him to pardon them their offence, telling him that
    sir-reverence was sooner found in Chitterlings than gall; and offering, for
    herself and all her successors, to hold of him and his the whole island and
    country; to obey him in all his commands, be friends to his friends, and
    foes to his foes; and also to send every year, as an acknowledgment of
    their homage, a tribute of seventy-eight thousand royal Chitterlings, to
    serve him at his first course at table six months in the year; which was
    punctually performed.  For the next day she sent the aforesaid quantity of
    royal Chitterlings to the good Gargantua, under the conduct of young
    Niphleseth, infanta of the island.

    The good Gargantua made a present of them to the great King of Paris.  But
    by change of air, and for want of mustard (the natural balsam and restorer
    of Chitterlings), most of them died.  By the great king's particular grant
    they were buried in heaps in a part of Paris to this day called La Rue
    pavee d'Andouilles, the street paved with Chitterlings.  At the request of
    the ladies at his court young Niphleseth was preserved, honourably used,
    and since that married to heart's content; and was the mother of many
    children, for which heaven be praised.

    Pantagruel civilly thanked the queen, forgave all offences, refused the
    offer she had made of her country, and gave her a pretty little knife.
    After that he asked several nice questions concerning the apparition of
    that flying hog.  She answered that it was the idea of Carnival, their
    tutelary god in time of war, first founder and original of all the
    Chitterling race; for which reason he resembled a hog, for Chitterlings
    drew their extraction from hogs.

    Pantagruel asking to what purpose and curative indication he had voided so
    much mustard on the earth, the queen replied that mustard was their sanc-
    greal and celestial balsam, of which, laying but a little in the wounds of
    the fallen Chitterlings, in a very short time the wounded were healed and
    the dead restored to life.  Pantagruel held no further discourse with the
    queen, but retired a-shipboard.  The like did all the boon companions, with
    their implements of destruction and their huge sow.

    Chapter 4.XLIII. How Pantagruel went into the island of Ruach.

    Two days after we arrived at the island of Ruach; and I swear to you, by
    the celestial hen and chickens, that I found the way of living of the
    people so strange and wonderful that I can't, for the heart's blood of me,
    half tell it you.  They live on nothing but wind, eat nothing but wind, and
    drink nothing but wind.  They have no other houses but weathercocks.  They
    sow no other seeds but the three sorts of windflowers, rue, and herbs that
    may make one break wind to the purpose; these scour them off carefully.
    The common sort of people to feed themselves make use of feather, paper, or
    linen fans, according to their abilities.  As for the rich, they live by
    the means of windmills.

    When they would have some noble treat, the tables are spread under one or
    two windmills.  There they feast as merry as beggars, and during the meal
    their whole talk is commonly of the goodness, excellency, salubrity, and
    rarity of winds; as you, jolly topers, in your cups philosophize and argue
    upon wines.  The one praises the south-east, the other the south-west; this
    the west and by south, and this the east and by north; another the west,
    and another the east; and so of the rest.  As for lovers and amorous
    sparks, no gale for them like a smock-gale.  For the sick they use bellows
    as we use clysters among us.

    Oh! said to me a little diminutive swollen bubble, that I had now but a
    bladderful of that same Languedoc wind which they call Cierce.  The famous
    physician, Scurron, passing one day by this country, was telling us that it
    is so strong that it will make nothing of overturning a loaded waggon.  Oh!
    what good would it not do my Oedipodic leg.  The biggest are not the best;
    but, said Panurge, rather would I had here a large butt of that same good
    Languedoc wine that grows at Mirevaux, Canteperdrix, and Frontignan.

    I saw a good likely sort of a man there, much resembling Ventrose, tearing
    and fuming in a grievous fret with a tall burly groom and a pimping little
    page of his, laying them on, like the devil, with a buskin.  Not knowing
    the cause of his anger, at first I thought that all this was by the
    doctor's advice, as being a thing very healthy to the master to be in a
    passion and to his man to be banged for it.  But at last I heard him taxing
    his man with stealing from him, like a rogue as he was, the better half of
    a large leathern bag of an excellent southerly wind, which he had carefully
    laid up, like a hidden reserve, against the cold weather.

    They neither exonerate, dung, piss, nor spit in that island; but, to make
    amends, they belch, fizzle, funk, and give tail-shots in abundance.  They
    are troubled with all manner of distempers; and, indeed, all distempers are
    engendered and proceed from ventosities, as Hippocrates demonstrates, lib.
    De Flatibus.  But the most epidemical among them is the wind-cholic.  The
    remedies which they use are large clysters, whereby they void store of
    windiness.  They all die of dropsies and tympanies, the men farting and the
    women fizzling; so that their soul takes her leave at the back-door.

    Some time after, walking in the island, we met three hairbrained airy
    fellows, who seemed mightily puffed up, and went to take their pastime and
    view the plovers, who live on the same diet as themselves, and abound in
    the island.  I observed that, as your true topers when they travel carry
    flasks, leathern bottles, and small runlets along with them, so each of
    them had at his girdle a pretty little pair of bellows.  If they happened
    to want wind, by the help of those pretty bellows they immediately drew
    some, fresh and cool, by attraction and reciprocal expulsion; for, as you
    well know, wind essentially defined is nothing but fluctuating and agitated
    air.

    A while after, we were commanded, in the king's name, not to receive for
    three hours any man or woman of the country on board our ships; some having
    stolen from him a rousing fart, of the very individual wind which old
    goodman Aeolus the snorer gave Ulysses to conduct his ship whenever it
    should happen to be becalmed.  Which fart the king kept religiously, like
    another sanc-greal, and performed a world of wonderful cures with it in
    many dangerous diseases, letting loose and distributing to the patient only
    as much of it as might frame a virginal fart; which is, if you must know,
    what our sanctimonials, alias nuns, in their dialect call ringing
    backwards.

    Chapter 4.XLIV. How small rain lays a high wind.

    Pantagruel commended their government and way of living, and said to their
    hypenemian mayor:  If you approve Epicurus's opinion, placing the summum
    bonum in pleasure (I mean pleasure that's easy and free from toil), I
    esteem you happy; for your food being wind, costs you little or nothing,
    since you need but blow.  True, sir, returned the mayor; but, alas! nothing
    is perfect here below; for too often when we are at table, feeding on some
    good blessed wind of God as on celestial manna, merry as so many friars,
    down drops on a sudden some small rain, which lays our wind, and so robs us
    of it.  Thus many a meal's lost for want of meat.

    Just so, quoth Panurge, Jenin Toss-pot of Quinquenais, evacuating some wine
    of his own burning on his wife's posteriors, laid the ill-fumed wind that
    blowed out of their centre as out of some magisterial Aeolipile.  Here is a
    kind of a whim on that subject which I made formerly:

      One evening when Toss-pot had been at his butts,
      And Joan his fat spouse crammed with turnips her guts,
      Together they pigged, nor did drink so besot him
      But he did what was done when his daddy begot him.
      Now when to recruit he'd fain have been snoring,
      Joan's back-door was filthily puffing and roaring;
      So for spite he bepissed her, and quickly did find
      That a very small rain lays a very high wind.

    We are also plagued yearly with a very great calamity, cried the mayor; for
    a giant called Wide-nostrils, who lives in the island of Tohu, comes hither
    every spring to purge, by the advice of his physicians, and swallows us,
    like so many pills, a great number of windmills, and of bellows also, at
    which his mouth waters exceedingly.

    Now this is a sad mortification to us here, who are fain to fast over three
    or four whole Lents every year for this, besides certain petty Lents, ember
    weeks, and other orison and starving tides.  And have you no remedy for
    this? asked Pantagruel.  By the advice of our Mezarims, replied the mayor,
    about the time that he uses to give us a visit, we garrison our windmills
    with good store of cocks and hens.  The first time that the greedy thief
    swallowed them, they had like to have done his business at once; for they
    crowed and cackled in his maw, and fluttered up and down athwart and along
    in his stomach, which threw the glutton into a lipothymy cardiac passion
    and dreadful and dangerous convulsions, as if some serpent, creeping in at
    his mouth, had been frisking in his stomach.

    Here is a comparative as altogether incongruous and impertinent, cried
    Friar John, interrupting them; for I have formerly heard that if a serpent
    chance to get into a man's stomach it will not do him the least hurt, but
    will immediately get out if you do but hang the patient by the heels and
    lay a panful of warm milk near his mouth.  You were told this, said
    Pantagruel, and so were those who gave you this account; but none ever saw
    or read of such a cure.  On the contrary, Hippocrates, in his fifth book of
    Epidem, writes that such a case happening in his time the patient presently
    died of a spasm and convulsion.

    Besides the cocks and hens, said the mayor, continuing his story, all the
    foxes in the country whipped into Wide-nostril's mouth, posting after the
    poultry; which made such a stir with Reynard at their heels, that he
    grievously fell into fits each minute of an hour.

    At last, by the advice of a Baden enchanter, at the time of the paroxysm he
    used to flay a fox by way of antidote and counter-poison.  Since that he
    took better advice, and eases himself with taking a clyster made with a
    decoction of wheat and barley corns, and of livers of goslings; to the
    first of which the poultry run, and the foxes to the latter.  Besides, he
    swallows some of your badgers or fox-dogs by the way of pills and boluses.
    This is our misfortune.

    Cease to fear, good people, cried Pantagruel; this huge Wide-nostrils, this
    same swallower of windmills, is no more, I will assure you; he died, being
    stifled and choked with a lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven,
    by the advice of his physicians.

    Chapter 4.XLV. How Pantagruel went ashore in the island of Pope-Figland.

    The next morning we arrived at the island of Pope-figs; formerly a rich and
    free people, called the Gaillardets, but now, alas! miserably poor, and
    under the yoke of the Papimen.  The occasion of it was this:

    On a certain yearly high holiday, the burgomaster, syndics, and topping
    rabbies of the Gaillardets chanced to go into the neighbouring island
    Papimany to see the festival and pass away the time.  Now one of them
    having espied the pope's picture (with the sight of which, according to a
    laudable custom, the people were blessed on high-offering holidays), made
    mouths at it, and cried, A fig for it! as a sign of manifest contempt and
    derision.  To be revenged of this affront, the Papimen, some days after,
    without giving the others the least warning, took arms, and surprised,
    destroyed, and ruined the whole island of the Gaillardets; putting the men
    to the sword, and sparing none but the women and children, and those too
    only on condition to do what the inhabitants of Milan were condemned to by
    the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

    These had rebelled against him in his absence, and ignominiously turned the
    empress out of the city, mounting her a-horseback on a mule called Thacor,
    with her breech foremost towards the old jaded mule's head, and her face
    turned towards the crupper.  Now Frederick being returned, mastered them,
    and caused so careful a search to be made that he found out and got the
    famous mule Thacor.  Then the hangman by his order clapped a fig into the
    mule's jimcrack, in the presence of the enslaved cits that were brought
    into the middle of the great market-place, and proclaimed in the emperor's
    name, with trumpets, that whosoever of them would save his own life should
    publicly pull the fig out with his teeth, and after that put it in again in
    the very individual cranny whence he had draw'd it without using his hands,
    and that whoever refused to do this should presently swing for it and die
    in his shoes.  Some sturdy fools, standing upon their punctilio, chose
    honourably to be hanged rather than submit to so shameful and abominable a
    disgrace; and others, less nice in point of ceremony, took heart of grace,
    and even resolved to have at the fig, and a fig for't, rather than make a
    worse figure with a hempen collar, and die in the air at so short warning.
    Accordingly, when they had neatly picked out the fig with their teeth from
    old Thacor's snatch-blatch, they plainly showed it the headsman, saying,
    Ecco lo fico, Behold the fig!

    By the same ignominy the rest of these poor distressed Gaillardets saved
    their bacon, becoming tributaries and slaves, and the name of Pope-figs was
    given them, because they said, A fig for the pope's image.  Since this, the
    poor wretches never prospered, but every year the devil was at their doors,
    and they were plagued with hail, storms, famine, and all manner of woes, as
    an everlasting punishment for the sin of their ancestors and relations.
    Perceiving the misery and calamity of that generation, we did not care to
    go further up into the country, contenting ourselves with going into a
    little chapel near the haven to take some holy water.  It was dilapidated
    and ruined, wanting also a cover—like Saint Peter at Rome.  When we were
    in, as we dipped our fingers in the sanctified cistern, we spied in the
    middle of that holy pickle a fellow muffled up with stoles, all under
    water, like a diving duck, except the tip of his snout to draw his breath.
    About him stood three priests, true shavelings, clean shorn and polled, who
    were muttering strange words to the devils out of a conjuring book.

    Pantagruel was not a little amazed at this, and inquiring what kind of
    sport these were at, was told that for three years last past the plague had
    so dreadfully raged in the island that the better half of it had been
    utterly depopulated, and the lands lay fallow and unoccupied.  Now, the
    mortality being over, this same fellow who had crept into the holy tub,
    having a large piece of ground, chanced to be sowing it with white winter
    wheat at the very minute of an hour that a kind of a silly sucking devil,
    who could not yet write or read, or hail and thunder, unless it were on
    parsley or coleworts, and got leave of his master Lucifer to go into this
    island of Pope-figs, where the devils were very familiar with the men and
    women, and often went to take their pastime.

    This same devil being got thither, directed his discourse to the
    husbandman, and asked him what he was doing.  The poor man told him that he
    was sowing the ground with corn to help him to subsist the next year.  Ay,
    but the ground is none of thine, Mr. Plough-jobber, cried the devil, but
    mine; for since the time that you mocked the pope all this land has been
    proscribed, adjudged, and abandoned to us.  However, to sow corn is not my
    province; therefore I will give thee leave to sow the field, that is to
    say, provided we share the profit.  I will, replied the farmer.  I mean,
    said the devil, that of what the land shall bear, two lots shall be made,
    one of what shall grow above ground, the other of what shall be covered
    with earth.  The right of choosing belongs to me; for I am a devil of noble
    and ancient race; thou art a base clown.  I therefore choose what shall lie
    under ground, take thou what shall be above.  When dost thou reckon to
    reap, hah?  About the middle of July, quoth the farmer.  Well, said the
    devil, I'll not fail thee then; in the meantime, slave as thou oughtest.
    Work, clown, work.  I am going to tempt to the pleasing sin of whoring the
    nuns of Dryfart, the sham saints of the cowl, and the gluttonish crew.  I
    am more than sure of these.  They need but meet, and the job is done; true
    fire and tinder, touch and take; down falls nun, and up gets friar.

    Chapter 4.XLVI. How a junior devil was fooled by a husbandman of Pope-Figland.

    In the middle of July the devil came to the place aforesaid with all his
    crew at his heels, a whole choir of the younger fry of hell; and having met
    the farmer, said to him, Well, clodpate, how hast thou done since I went?
    Thou and I must share the concern.  Ay, master devil, quoth the clown; it
    is but reason we should.  Then he and his men began to cut and reap the
    corn; and, on the other side, the devil's imps fell to work, grubbing up
    and pulling out the stubble by the root.

    The countryman had his corn thrashed, winnowed it, put in into sacks, and
    went with it to market.  The same did the devil's servants, and sat them
    down there by the man to sell their straw.  The countryman sold off his
    corn at a good rate, and with the money filled an old kind of a demi-buskin
    which was fastened to his girdle.  But the devil a sou the devils took; far
    from taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by the country louts.

    Market being over, quoth the devil to the farmer, Well, clown, thou hast
    choused me once, it is thy fault; chouse me twice, 'twill be mine.  Nay,
    good sir devil, replied the farmer; how can I be said to have choused you,
    since it was your worship that chose first?  The truth is, that by this
    trick you thought to cheat me, hoping that nothing would spring out of the
    earth for my share, and that you should find whole underground the corn
    which I had sowed, and with it tempt the poor and needy, the close
    hypocrite, or the covetous griper; thus making them fall into your snares.
    But troth, you must e'en go to school yet; you are no conjurer, for aught I
    see; for the corn that was sow'd is dead and rotten, its corruption having
    caused the generation of that which you saw me sell.  So you chose the
    worst, and therefore are cursed in the gospel.  Well, talk no more of it,
    quoth the devil; what canst thou sow our field with for next year?  If a
    man would make the best of it, answered the ploughman, 'twere fit he sow it
    with radish.  Now, cried the devil, thou talkest like an honest fellow,
    bumpkin.  Well, sow me good store of radish, I'll see and keep them safe
    from storms, and will not hail a bit on them.  But hark ye me, this time I
    bespeak for my share what shall be above ground; what's under shall be
    thine.  Drudge on, looby, drudge on.  I am going to tempt heretics; their
    souls are dainty victuals when broiled in rashers and well powdered.  My
    Lord Lucifer has the griping in the guts; they'll make a dainty warm dish
    for his honour's maw.

    When the season of radishes was come, our devil failed not to meet in the
    field, with a train of rascally underlings, all waiting devils, and finding
    there the farmer and his men, he began to cut and gather the leaves of the
    radishes.  After him the farmer with his spade dug up the radishes, and
    clapped them up into pouches.  This done, the devil, the farmer, and their
    gangs, hied them to market, and there the farmer presently made good money
    of his radishes; but the poor devil took nothing; nay, what was worse, he
    was made a common laughing-stock by the gaping hoidens.  I see thou hast
    played me a scurvy trick, thou villainous fellow, cried the angry devil; at
    last I am fully resolved even to make an end of the business betwixt thee
    and myself about the ground, and these shall be the terms:  we will
    clapperclaw each other, and whoever of us two shall first cry Hold, shall
    quit his share of the field, which shall wholly belong to the conqueror.  I
    fix the time for this trial of skill on this day seven-night; assure
    thyself that I'll claw thee off like a devil.  I was going to tempt your
    fornicators, bailiffs, perplexers of causes, scriveners, forgers of deeds,
    two-handed counsellors, prevaricating solicitors, and other such vermin;
    but they were so civil as to send me word by an interpreter that they are
    all mine already.  Besides, our master Lucifer is so cloyed with their
    souls that he often sends them back to the smutty scullions and slovenly
    devils of his kitchen, and they scarce go down with them, unless now and
    then, when they are high-seasoned.

    Some say there is no breakfast like a student's, no dinner like a lawyer's,
    no afternoon's nunchion like a vine-dresser's, no supper like a
    tradesman's, no second supper like a serving-wench's, and none of these
    meals equal to a frockified hobgoblin's.  All this is true enough.
    Accordingly, at my Lord Lucifer's first course, hobgoblins, alias imps in
    cowls, are a standing dish.  He willingly used to breakfast on students;
    but, alas!  I do not know by what ill luck they have of late years joined
    the Holy Bible to their studies; so the devil a one we can get down among
    us; and I verily believe that unless the hypocrites of the tribe of Levi
    help us in it, taking from the enlightened book-mongers their St. Paul,
    either by threats, revilings, force, violence, fire, and faggot, we shall
    not be able to hook in any more of them to nibble at below.  He dines
    commonly on counsellors, mischief-mongers, multipliers of lawsuits, such as
    wrest and pervert right and law and grind and fleece the poor; he never
    fears to want any of these.  But who can endure to be wedded to a dish?

    He said t'other day, at a full chapter, that he had a great mind to eat the
    soul of one of the fraternity of the cowl that had forgot to speak for
    himself in his sermon, and he promised double pay and a large pension to
    anyone that should bring him such a titbit piping hot.  We all went
    a-hunting after such a rarity, but came home without the prey; for they all
    admonish the good women to remember their convent.  As for afternoon
    nunchions, he has left them off since he was so woefully griped with the
    colic; his fosterers, sutlers, charcoal-men, and boiling cooks having been
    sadly mauled and peppered off in the northern countries.

    His high devilship sups very well on tradesmen, usurers, apothecaries,
    cheats, coiners, and adulterers of wares.  Now and then, when he is on the
    merry pin, his second supper is of serving-wenches who, after they have by
    stealth soaked their faces with their master's good liquor, fill up the
    vessel with it at second hand, or with other stinking water.

    Well, drudge on, boor, drudge on; I am going to tempt the students of
    Trebisonde to leave father and mother, forego for ever the established and
    common rule of living, disclaim and free themselves from obeying their
    lawful sovereign's edicts, live in absolute liberty, proudly despise
    everyone, laugh at all mankind, and taking the fine jovial little cap of
    poetic licence, become so many pretty hobgoblins.

    Chapter 4.XLVII. How the devil was deceived by an old woman of Pope-Figland.

    The country lob trudged home very much concerned and thoughtful, you may
    swear; insomuch that his good woman, seeing him thus look moping, weened
    that something had been stolen from him at market; but when she had heard
    the cause of his affliction and seen his budget well lined with coin, she
    bade him be of good cheer, assuring him that he would be never the worse
    for the scratching bout in question; wishing him only to leave her to
    manage that business, and not trouble his head about it; for she had
    already contrived how to bring him off cleverly.  Let the worst come to the
    worst, said the husbandman, it will be but a scratch; for I'll yield at the
    first stroke, and quit the field.  Quit a fart, replied the wife; he shall
    have none of the field.  Rely upon me, and be quiet; let me alone to deal
    with him.  You say he is a pimping little devil, that is enough; I will
    soon make him give up the field, I will warrant you.  Indeed, had he been a
    great devil, it had been somewhat.

    The day that we landed in the island happened to be that which the devil
    had fixed for the combat.  Now the countryman having, like a good Catholic,
    very fairly confessed himself, and received betimes in the morning, by the
    advice of the vicar had hid himself, all but the snout, in the holy-water
    pot, in the posture in which we found him; and just as they were telling us
    this story, news came that the old woman had fooled the devil and gained
    the field.  You may not be sorry, perhaps, to hear how this happened.

    The devil, you must know, came to the poor man's door, and rapping there,
    cried, So ho! ho, the house! ho, clodpate! where art thou?  Come out with a
    vengeance; come out with a wannion; come out and be damned; now for
    clawing.  Then briskly and resolutely entering the house, and not finding
    the countryman there, he spied his wife lying on the ground, piteously
    weeping and howling.  What is the matter? asked the devil.  Where is he?
    what does he?  Oh! that I knew where he is, replied threescore and five;
    the wicked rogue, the butcherly dog, the murderer!  He has spoiled me; I am
    undone; I die of what he has done me.  How, cried the devil, what is it?
    I'll tickle him off for you by-and-by.  Alas! cried the old dissembler, he
    told me, the butcher, the tyrant, the tearer of devils told me that he had
    made a match to scratch with you this day, and to try his claws he did but
    just touch me with his little finger here betwixt the legs, and has spoiled
    me for ever.  Oh! I am a dead woman; I shall never be myself again; do but
    see!  Nay, and besides, he talked of going to the smith's to have his
    pounces sharpened and pointed.  Alas! you are undone, Mr. Devil; good sir,
    scamper quickly, I am sure he won't stay; save yourself, I beseech you.
    While she said this she uncovered herself up to the chin, after the manner
    in which the Persian women met their children who fled from the fight, and
    plainly showed her what do ye call them.  The frightened devil, seeing the
    enormous solution of the continuity in all its dimensions, blessed himself,
    and cried out, Mahon, Demiourgon, Megaera, Alecto, Persephone! 'slife,
    catch me here when he comes!  I am gone! 'sdeath, what a gash!  I resign
    him the field.

    Having heard the catastrophe of the story, we retired a-shipboard, not
    being willing to stay there any longer.  Pantagruel gave to the poor's box
    of the fabric of the church eighteen thousand good royals, in commiseration
    of the poverty of the people and the calamity of the place.

    Chapter 4.XLVIII. How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany.

    4-48-496.jpg (173K)

    Having left the desolate island of the Pope-figs, we sailed for the space
    of a day very fairly and merrily, and made the blessed island of Papimany.
    As soon as we had dropt anchor in the road, before we had well moored our
    ship with ground-tackle, four persons in different garbs rowed towards us
    in a skiff.  One of them was dressed like a monk in his frock, draggle-
    tailed, and booted; the other like a falconer, with a lure, and a long-
    winged hawk on his fist; the third like a solicitor, with a large bag, full
    of informations, subpoenas, breviates, bills, writs, cases, and other
    implements of pettifogging; the fourth looked like one of your vine-barbers
    about Ocleans, with a jaunty pair of canvas trousers, a dosser, and a
    pruning knife at his girdle.

    As soon as the boat had clapped them on board, they all with one voice
    asked, Have you seen him, good passengers, have you seen him?  Who? asked
    Pantagruel.  You know who, answered they.  Who is it? asked Friar John.
    'Sblood and 'ounds, I'll thrash him thick and threefold.  This he said
    thinking that they inquired after some robber, murderer, or church-breaker.
    Oh, wonderful! cried the four; do not you foreign people know the one?
    Sirs, replied Epistemon, we do not understand those terms; but if you will
    be pleased to let us know who you mean, we will tell you the truth of the
    matter without any more ado.  We mean, said they, he that is.  Did you ever
    see him?  He that is, returned Pantagruel, according to our theological
    doctrine, is God, who said to Moses, I am that I am.  We never saw him, nor
    can he be beheld by mortal eyes.  We mean nothing less than that supreme
    God who rules in heaven, replied they; we mean the god on earth.  Did you
    ever see him?  Upon my honour, replied Carpalin, they mean the pope.  Ay,
    ay, answered Panurge; yea, verily, gentlemen, I have seen three of them,
    whose sight has not much bettered me.  How! cried they, our sacred
    decretals inform us that there never is more than one living.  I mean
    successively, one after the other, returned Panurge; otherwise I never saw
    more than one at a time.

    O thrice and four times happy people! cried they; you are welcome, and more
    than double welcome!  They then kneeled down before us and would have
    kissed our feet, but we would not suffer it, telling them that should the
    pope come thither in his own person, 'tis all they could do to him.  No,
    certainly, answered they, for we have already resolved upon the matter.  We
    would kiss his bare arse without boggling at it, and eke his two pounders;
    for he has a pair of them, the holy father, that he has; we find it so by
    our fine decretals, otherwise he could not be pope.  So that, according to
    our subtle decretaline philosophy, this is a necessary consequence:  he is
    pope; therefore he has genitories, and should genitories no more be found
    in the world, the world could no more have a pope.

    While they were talking thus, Pantagruel inquired of one of the coxswain's
    crew who those persons were.  He answered that they were the four estates
    of the island, and added that we should be made as welcome as princes,
    since we had seen the pope.  Panurge having been acquainted with this by
    Pantagruel, said to him in his ear, I swear and vow, sir, 'tis even so; he
    that has patience may compass anything.  Seeing the pope had done us no
    good; now, in the devil's name, 'twill do us a great deal.  We then went
    ashore, and the whole country, men, women, and children, came to meet us as
    in a solemn procession.  Our four estates cried out to them with a loud
    voice, They have seen him! they have seen him! they have seen him!  That
    proclamation being made, all the mob kneeled before us, lifting up their
    hands towards heaven, and crying, O happy men!  O most happy! and this
    acclamation lasted above a quarter of an hour.

    Then came the Busby (!) of the place, with all his pedagogues, ushers, and
    schoolboys, whom he magisterially flogged, as they used to whip children in
    our country formerly when some criminal was hanged, that they might
    remember it.  This displeased Pantagruel, who said to them, Gentlemen, if
    you do not leave off whipping these poor children, I am gone.  The people
    were amazed, hearing his stentorian voice; and I saw a little hump with
    long fingers say to the hypodidascal, What, in the name of wonder! do all
    those that see the pope grow as tall as yon huge fellow that threatens us?
    Ah! how I shall think time long till I have seen him too, that I may grow
    and look as big.  In short, the acclamations were so great that Homenas (so
    they called their bishop) hastened thither on an unbridled mule with green
    trappings, attended by his apposts (as they said) and his supposts, or
    officers bearing crosses, banners, standards, canopies, torches, holy-water
    pots, &c.  He too wanted to kiss our feet (as the good Christian Valfinier
    did to Pope Clement), saying that one of their hypothetes, that's one of
    the scavengers, scourers, and commentators of their holy decretals, had
    written that, in the same manner as the Messiah, so long and so much
    expected by the Jews, at last appeared among them; so, on some happy day of
    God, the pope would come into that island; and that, while they waited for
    that blessed time, if any who had seen him at Rome or elsewhere chanced to
    come among them, they should be sure to make much of them, feast them
    plentifully, and treat them with a great deal of reverence.  However, we
    civilly desired to be excused.

    Chapter 4.XLIX. How Homenas, Bishop of Papimany, showed us the Uranopet decretals.

    Homenas then said to us:  'Tis enjoined us by our holy decretals to visit
    churches first and taverns after.  Therefore, not to decline that fine
    institution, let us go to church; we will afterwards go and feast
    ourselves.  Man of God, quoth Friar John, do you go before, we'll follow
    you.  You spoke in the matter properly, and like a good Christian; 'tis
    long since we saw any such.  For my part, this rejoices my mind very much,
    and I verily believe that I shall have the better stomach after it.  Well,
    'tis a happy thing to meet with good men!  Being come near the gate of the
    church, we spied a huge thick book, gilt, and covered all over with
    precious stones, as rubies, emeralds, (diamonds,) and pearls, more, or at
    least as valuable as those which Augustus consecrated to Jupiter
    Capitolinus.  This book hanged in the air, being fastened with two thick
    chains of gold to the zoophore of the porch.  We looked on it and admired
    it.  As for Pantagruel, he handled it and dandled it and turned it as he
    pleased, for he could reach it without straining; and he protested that
    whenever he touched it, he was seized with a pleasant tickling at his
    fingers' end, new life and activity in his arms, and a violent temptation
    in his mind to beat one or two sergeants, or such officers, provided they
    were not of the shaveling kind.  Homenas then said to us, The law was
    formerly given to the Jews by Moses, written by God himself.  At Delphos,
    before the portal of Apollo's temple, this sentence, GNOTHI SEAUTON, was
    found written with a divine hand.  And some time after it, EI was also
    seen, and as divinely written and transmitted from heaven. Cybele's image
    was brought out of heaven, into a field called Pessinunt, in Phrygia; so
    was that of Diana to Tauris, if you will believe Euripides; the oriflamme,
    or holy standard, was transmitted out of heaven to the noble and most
    Christian kings of France, to fight against the unbelievers.  In the reign
    of Numa Pompilius, second King of the Romans, the famous copper buckler
    called Ancile was seen to descend from heaven.  At Acropolis, near Athens,
    Minerva's statue formerly fell from the empyreal heaven.  In like manner
    the sacred decretals which you see were written with the hand of an angel
    of the cherubim kind.  You outlandish people will hardly believe this, I
    fear.  Little enough, of conscience, said Panurge.  And then, continued
    Homenas, they were miraculously transmitted to us here from the very heaven
    of heavens; in the same manner as the river Nile is called Diipetes by
    Homer, the father of all philosophy—the holy decretals always excepted.
    Now, because you have seen the pope, their evangelist and everlasting
    protector, we will give you leave to see and kiss them on the inside, if
    you think meet.  But then you must fast three days before, and canonically
    confess; nicely and strictly mustering up and inventorizing your sins,
    great and small, so thick that one single circumstance of them may not
    escape you; as our holy decretals, which you see, direct.  This will take
    up some time.  Man of God, answered Panurge, we have seen and descried
    decrees, and eke decretals enough o' conscience; some on paper, other on
    parchment, fine and gay like any painted paper lantern, some on vellum,
    some in manuscript, and others in print; so you need not take half these
    pains to show us these.  We'll take the goodwill for the deed, and thank
    you as much as if we had.  Ay, marry, said Homenas, but you never saw these
    that are angelically written.  Those in your country are only transcripts
    from ours; as we find it written by one of our old decretaline scholiasts.
    For me, do not spare me; I do not value the labour, so I may serve you.  Do
    but tell me whether you will be confessed and fast only three short little
    days of God?  As for shriving, answered Panurge, there can be no great harm
    in't; but this same fasting, master of mine, will hardly down with us at
    this time, for we have so very much overfasted ourselves at sea that the
    spiders have spun their cobwebs over our grinders.  Do but look on this
    good Friar John des Entomeures (Homenas then courteously demi-clipped him
    about the neck), some moss is growing in his throat for want of bestirring
    and exercising his chaps.  He speaks the truth, vouched Friar John; I have
    so much fasted that I'm almost grown hump-shouldered.  Come, then, let's go
    into the church, said Homenas; and pray forgive us if for the present we do
    not sing you a fine high mass.  The hour of midday is past, and after it
    our sacred decretals forbid us to sing mass, I mean your high and lawful
    mass.  But I'll say a low and dry one for you.  I had rather have one
    moistened with some good Anjou wine, cried Panurge; fall to, fall to your
    low mass, and despatch.  Ods-bodikins, quoth Friar John, it frets me to the
    guts that I must have an empty stomach at this time of day; for, had I
    eaten a good breakfast and fed like a monk, if he should chance to sing us
    the Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, I had then brought thither bread and
    wine for the traits passes (those that are gone before).  Well, patience;
    pull away, and save tide; short and sweet, I pray you, and this for a
    cause.

    Chapter 4.L. How Homenas showed us the archetype, or representation of a pope.

    Mass being mumbled over, Homenas took a huge bundle of keys out of a trunk
    near the head altar, and put thirty-two of them into so many keyholes; put
    back so many springs; then with fourteen more mastered so many padlocks,
    and at last opened an iron window strongly barred above the said altar.
    This being done, in token of great mystery he covered himself with wet
    sackcloth, and drawing a curtain of crimson satin, showed us an image
    daubed over, coarsely enough, to my thinking; then he touched it with a
    pretty long stick, and made us all kiss the part of the stick that had
    touched the image.  After this he said unto us, What think you of this
    image?  It is the likeness of a pope, answered Pantagruel; I know it by the
    triple crown, his furred amice, his rochet, and his slipper.  You are in
    the right, said Homenas; it is the idea of that same good god on earth
    whose coming we devoutly await, and whom we hope one day to see in this
    country.  O happy, wished-for, and much-expected day! and happy, most happy
    you, whose propitious stars have so favoured you as to let you see the
    living and real face of this good god on earth! by the single sight of
    whose picture we obtain full remission of all the sins which we remember
    that we have committed, as also a third part and eighteen quarantaines of
    the sins which we have forgot; and indeed we only see it on high annual
    holidays.

    This caused Pantagruel to say that it was a work like those which Daedalus
    used to make, since, though it were deformed and ill drawn, nevertheless
    some divine energy, in point of pardons, lay hid and concealed in it.
    Thus, said Friar John, at Seuille, the rascally beggars being one evening
    on a solemn holiday at supper in the spital, one bragged of having got six
    blancs, or twopence halfpenny; another eight liards, or twopence; a third,
    seven caroluses, or sixpence; but an old mumper made his vaunts of having
    got three testons, or five shillings.  Ah, but, cried his comrades, thou
    hast a leg of God; as if, continued Friar John, some divine virtue could
    lie hid in a stinking ulcerated rotten shank.  Pray, said Pantagruel, when
    you are for telling us some such nauseous tale, be so kind as not to forget
    to provide a basin, Friar John; I'll assure you, I had much ado to forbear
    bringing up my breakfast.  Fie! I wonder a man of your coat is not ashamed
    to use thus the sacred name of God in speaking of things so filthy and
    abominable! fie, I say.  If among your monking tribes such an abuse of
    words is allowed, I beseech you leave it there, and do not let it come out
    of the cloisters.  Physicians, said Epistemon, thus attribute a kind of
    divinity to some diseases.  Nero also extolled mushrooms, and, in a Greek
    proverb, termed them divine food, because with them he had poisoned
    Claudius his predecessor.  But methinks, gentlemen, this same picture is
    not over-like our late popes.  For I have seen them, not with their
    pallium, amice, or rochet on, but with helmets on their heads, more like
    the top of a Persian turban; and while the Christian commonwealth was in
    peace, they alone were most furiously and cruelly making war.  This must
    have been then, returned Homenas, against the rebellious, heretical
    Protestants; reprobates who are disobedient to the holiness of this good
    god on earth.  'Tis not only lawful for him to do so, but it is enjoined
    him by the sacred decretals; and if any dare transgress one single iota
    against their commands, whether they be emperors, kings, dukes, princes, or
    commonwealths, he is immediately to pursue them with fire and sword, strip
    them of all their goods, take their kingdoms from them, proscribe them,
    anathematize them, and destroy not only their bodies, those of their
    children, relations, and others, but damn also their souls to the very
    bottom of the most hot and burning cauldron in hell.  Here, in the devil's
    name, said Panurge, the people are no heretics; such as was our
    Raminagrobis, and as they are in Germany and England.  You are Christians
    of the best edition, all picked and culled, for aught I see.  Ay, marry are
    we, returned Homenas, and for that reason we shall all be saved.  Now let
    us go and bless ourselves with holy water, and then to dinner.

    Chapter 4.LI. Table-talk in praise of the decretals.

    4-51-500.jpg (147K)

    Now, topers, pray observe that while Homenas was saying his dry mass, three
    collectors, or licensed beggars of the church, each of them with a large
    basin, went round among the people, with a loud voice:  Pray remember the
    blessed men who have seen his face.  As we came out of the temple they
    brought their basins brimful of Papimany chink to Homenas, who told us that
    it was plentifully to feast with; and that, of this contribution and
    voluntary tax, one part should be laid out in good drinking, another in
    good eating, and the remainder in both, according to an admirable
    exposition hidden in a corner of their holy decretals; which was performed
    to a T, and that at a noted tavern not much unlike that of Will's at
    Amiens.  Believe me, we tickled it off there with copious cramming and
    numerous swilling.

    I made two notable observations at that dinner:  the one, that there was
    not one dish served up, whether of cabrittas, capons, hogs (of which latter
    there is great plenty in Papimany), pigeons, coneys, leverets, turkeys, or
    others, without abundance of magistral stuff; the other, that every course,
    and the fruit also, were served up by unmarried females of the place, tight
    lasses, I'll assure you, waggish, fair, good-conditioned, and comely,
    spruce, and fit for business.  They were all clad in fine long white albs,
    with two girts; their hair interwoven with narrow tape and purple ribbon,
    stuck with roses, gillyflowers, marjoram, daffadowndillies, thyme, and
    other sweet flowers.

    At every cadence they invited us to drink and bang it about, dropping us
    neat and genteel courtesies; nor was the sight of them unwelcome to all the
    company; and as for Friar John, he leered on them sideways, like a cur that
    steals a capon.  When the first course was taken off, the females
    melodiously sung us an epode in the praise of the sacrosanct decretals; and
    then the second course being served up, Homenas, joyful and cheery, said to
    one of the she-butlers, Light here, Clerica.  Immediately one of the girls
    brought him a tall-boy brimful of extravagant wine.  He took fast hold of
    it, and fetching a deep sigh, said to Pantagruel, My lord, and you, my good
    friends, here's t'ye, with all my heart; you are all very welcome.  When he
    had tipped that off, and given the tall-boy to the pretty creature, he
    lifted up his voice and said, O most holy decretals, how good is good wine
    found through your means!  This is the best jest we have had yet, observed
    Panurge.  But it would still be a better, said Pantagruel, if they could
    turn bad wine into good.

    O seraphic Sextum! continued Homenas, how necessary are you not to the
    salvation of poor mortals!  O cherubic Clementinae! how perfectly the
    perfect institution of a true Christian is contained and described in you!
    O angelical Extravagantes! how many poor souls that wander up and down in
    mortal bodies through this vale of misery would perish were it not for you!
    When, ah! when shall this special gift of grace be bestowed on mankind, as
    to lay aside all other studies and concerns, to use you, to peruse you, to
    understand you, to know you by heart, to practise you, to incorporate you,
    to turn you into blood, and incentre you into the deepest ventricles of
    their brains, the inmost marrow of their bones, and most intricate
    labyrinth of their arteries?  Then, ah! then, and no sooner than then, nor
    otherwise than thus, shall the world be happy!  While the old man was thus
    running on, Epistemon rose and softly said to Panurge:  For want of a
    close-stool, I must even leave you for a moment or two; this stuff has
    unbunged the orifice of my mustard-barrel; but I'll not tarry long.

    Then, ah! then, continued Homenas, no hail, frost, ice, snow, overflowing,
    or vis major; then plenty of all earthly goods here below.  Then
    uninterrupted and eternal peace through the universe, an end of all wars,
    plunderings, drudgeries, robbing, assassinates, unless it be to destroy
    these cursed rebels the heretics.  Oh! then, rejoicing, cheerfulness,
    jollity, solace, sports, and delicious pleasures, over the face of the
    earth.  Oh! what great learning, inestimable erudition, and god-like
    precepts are knit, linked, rivetted, and mortised in the divine chapters of
    these eternal decretals!

    Oh! how wonderfully, if you read but one demi-canon, short paragraph, or
    single observation of these sacrosanct decretals, how wonderfully, I say,
    do you not perceive to kindle in your hearts a furnace of divine love,
    charity towards your neighbour (provided he be no heretic), bold contempt
    of all casual and sublunary things, firm content in all your affections,
    and ecstatic elevation of soul even to the third heaven.

    Chapter 4.LII. A continuation of the miracles caused by the decretals.

    Wisely, brother Timothy, quoth Panurge, did am, did am; he says blew; but,
    for my part, I believe as little of it as I can.  For one day by chance I
    happened to read a chapter of them at Poictiers, at the most
    decretalipotent Scotch doctor's, and old Nick turn me into bumfodder, if
    this did not make me so hide-bound and costive, that for four or five days
    I hardly scumbered one poor butt of sir-reverence; and that, too, was full
    as dry and hard, I protest, as Catullus tells us were those of his
    neighbour Furius:

      Nec toto decies cacas in anno,
      Atque id durius est faba, et lapillis:
      Quod tu si manibus teras, fricesque,
      Non unquam digitum inquinare posses.

    Oh, ho! cried Homenas; by'r lady, it may be you were then in the state of
    mortal sin, my friend.  Well turned, cried Panurge; this was a new strain,
    egad.

    One day, said Friar John, at Seuille, I had applied to my posteriors, by
    way of hind-towel, a leaf of an old Clementinae which our rent-gatherer,
    John Guimard, had thrown out into the green of our cloister.  Now the devil
    broil me like a black pudding, if I wasn't so abominably plagued with
    chaps, chawns, and piles at the fundament, that the orifice of my poor
    nockandroe was in a most woeful pickle for I don't know how long.  By'r our
    lady, cried Homenas, it was a plain punishment of God for the sin that you
    had committed in beraying that sacred book, which you ought rather to have
    kissed and adored; I say with an adoration of latria, or of hyperdulia at
    least.  The Panormitan never told a lie in the matter.

    Saith Ponocrates:  At Montpelier, John Chouart having bought of the monks
    of St. Olary a delicate set of decretals, written on fine large parchment
    of Lamballe, to beat gold between the leaves, not so much as a piece that
    was beaten in them came to good, but all were dilacerated and spoiled.
    Mark this! cried Homenas; 'twas a divine punishment and vengeance.

    At Mans, said Eudemon, Francis Cornu, apothecary, had turned an old set of
    Extravagantes into waste paper.  May I never stir, if whatever was lapped
    up in them was not immediately corrupted, rotten, and spoiled; incense,
    pepper, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, wax, cassia, rhubarb, tamarinds, all
    drugs and spices, were lost without exception.  Mark, mark, quoth Homenas,
    an effect of divine justice!  This comes of putting the sacred Scriptures
    to such profane uses.

    At Paris, said Carpalin, Snip Groignet the tailor had turned an old
    Clementinae into patterns and measures, and all the clothes that were cut
    on them were utterly spoiled and lost; gowns, hoods, cloaks, cassocks,
    jerkins, jackets, waistcoats, capes, doublets, petticoats, corps de robes,
    farthingales, and so forth.  Snip, thinking to cut a hood, would cut you
    out a codpiece; instead of a cassock he would make you a high-crowned hat;
    for a waistcoat he'd shape you out a rochet; on the pattern of a doublet
    he'd make you a thing like a frying-pan.  Then his journeymen having
    stitched it up did jag it and pink it at the bottom, and so it looked like
    a pan to fry chestnuts.  Instead of a cape he made a buskin; for a
    farthingale he shaped a montero cap; and thinking to make a cloak, he'd cut
    out a pair of your big out-strouting Swiss breeches, with panes like the
    outside of a tabor.  Insomuch that Snip was condemned to make good the
    stuffs to all his customers; and to this day poor Cabbage's hair grows
    through his hood and his arse through his pocket-holes.  Mark, an effect of
    heavenly wrath and vengeance! cried Homenas.

    At Cahusac, said Gymnast, a match being made by the lords of Estissac and
    Viscount Lausun to shoot at a mark, Perotou had taken to pieces a set of
    decretals and set one of the leaves for the white to shoot at.  Now I sell,
    nay, I give and bequeath for ever and aye, the mould of my doublet to
    fifteen hundred hampers full of black devils, if ever any archer in the
    country (though they are singular marksmen in Guienne) could hit the white.
    Not the least bit of the holy scribble was contaminated or touched; nay,
    and Sansornin the elder, who held stakes, swore to us, figues dioures, hard
    figs (his greatest oath), that he had openly, visibly, and manifestly seen
    the bolt of Carquelin moving right to the round circle in the middle of the
    white; and that just on the point, when it was going to hit and enter, it
    had gone aside above seven foot and four inches wide of it towards the
    bakehouse.

    Miracle! cried Homenas, miracle! miracle!  Clerica, come wench, light,
    light here.  Here's to you all, gentlemen; I vow you seem to me very sound
    Christians.  While he said this, the maidens began to snicker at his elbow,
    grinning, giggling, and twittering among themselves.  Friar John began to
    paw, neigh, and whinny at the snout's end, as one ready to leap, or at
    least to play the ass, and get up and ride tantivy to the devil like a
    beggar on horseback.

    Methinks, said Pantagruel, a man might have been more out of danger near
    the white of which Gymnast spoke than was formerly Diogenes near another.
    How is that? asked Homenas; what was it?  Was he one of our decretalists?
    Rarely fallen in again, egad, said Epistemon, returning from stool; I see
    he will hook his decretals in, though by the head and shoulders.

    Diogenes, said Pantagruel, one day for pastime went to see some archers
    that shot at butts, one of whom was so unskilful, that when it was his turn
    to shoot all the bystanders went aside, lest he should mistake them for the
    mark.  Diogenes had seen him shoot extremely wide of it; so when the other
    was taking aim a second time, and the people removed at a great distance to
    the right and left of the white, he placed himself close by the mark,
    holding that place to be the safest, and that so bad an archer would
    certainly rather hit any other.

    One of the Lord d'Estissac's pages at last found out the charm, pursued
    Gymnast, and by his advice Perotou put in another white made up of some
    papers of Pouillac's lawsuit, and then everyone shot cleverly.

    At Landerousse, said Rhizotome, at John Delif's wedding were very great
    doings, as 'twas then the custom of the country.  After supper several
    farces, interludes, and comical scenes were acted; they had also several
    morris-dancers with bells and tabors, and divers sorts of masks and mummers
    were let in.  My schoolfellows and I, to grace the festival to the best of
    our power (for fine white and purple liveries had been given to all of us
    in the morning), contrived a merry mask with store of cockle-shells, shells
    of snails, periwinkles, and such other.  Then for want of cuckoo-pint, or
    priest-pintle, lousebur, clote, and paper, we made ourselves false faces
    with the leaves of an old Sextum that had been thrown by and lay there for
    anyone that would take it up, cutting out holes for the eyes, nose, and
    mouth.  Now, did you ever hear the like since you were born?  When we had
    played our little boyish antic tricks, and came to take off our sham faces,
    we appeared more hideous and ugly than the little devils that acted the
    Passion at Douay; for our faces were utterly spoiled at the places which
    had been touched by those leaves.  One had there the small-pox; another,
    God's token, or the plague-spot; a third, the crinckums; a fourth, the
    measles; a fifth, botches, pushes, and carbuncles; in short, he came off
    the least hurt who only lost his teeth by the bargain.  Miracle! bawled out
    Homenas, miracle!

    Hold, hold! cried Rhizotome; it is not yet time to clap.  My sister Kate
    and my sister Ren had put the crepines of their hoods, their ruffles,
    snuffekins, and neck-ruffs new washed, starched, and ironed, into that very
    book of decretals; for, you must know, it was covered with thick boards and
    had strong clasps.  Now, by the virtue of God—Hold, interrupted Homenas,
    what god do you mean?  There is but one, answered Rhizotome.  In heaven, I
    grant, replied Homenas; but we have another here on earth, do you see?  Ay,
    marry have we, said Rhizotome; but on my soul I protest I had quite forgot
    it.  Well then, by the virtue of god the pope, their pinners, neck-ruffs,
    bib, coifs, and other linen turned as black as a charcoal-man's sack.
    Miracle! cried Homenas.  Here, Clerica, light me here; and prithee, girl,
    observe these rare stories.  How comes it to pass then, asked Friar John,
    that people say,

      Ever since decrees had tails,
      And gendarmes lugged heavy mails,
      Since each monk would have a horse,
      All went here from bad to worse.

    I understand you, answered Homenas; this is one of the quirks and little
    satires of the new-fangled heretics.

    Chapter 4.LIII. How by the virtue of the decretals, gold is subtilely drawn out of France
    to Rome.

    I would, said Epistemon, it had cost me a pint of the best tripe that ever
    can enter into gut, so we had but compared with the original the dreadful
    chapters, Execrabilis, De multa, Si plures; De annatis per totum; Nisi
    essent; Cum ad monasterium; Quod delectio; Mandatum; and certain others,
    that draw every year out of France to Rome four hundred thousand ducats and
    more.

    Do you make nothing of this? asked Homenas.  Though, methinks, after all,
    it is but little, if we consider that France, the most Christian, is the
    only nurse the see of Rome has.  However, find me in the whole world a
    book, whether of philosophy, physic, law, mathematics, or other humane
    learning, nay, even, by my God, of the Holy Scripture itself, will draw as
    much money thence?  None, none, psha, tush, blurt, pish; none can.  You may
    look till your eyes drop out of your head, nay, till doomsday in the
    afternoon, before you can find another of that energy; I'll pass my word
    for that.

    Yet these devilish heretics refuse to learn and know it.  Burn 'em, tear
    'em, nip 'em with hot pincers, drown 'em, hang 'em, spit 'em at the
    bunghole, pelt 'em, paut 'em, bruise 'em, beat 'em, cripple 'em, dismember
    'em, cut 'em, gut 'em, bowel 'em, paunch 'em, thrash 'em, slash 'em, gash
    'em, chop 'em, slice 'em, slit 'em, carve 'em, saw 'em, bethwack 'em, pare
    'em, hack 'em, hew 'em, mince 'em, flay 'em, boil 'em, broil 'em, roast
    'em, toast 'em, bake 'em, fry 'em, crucify 'em, crush 'em, squeeze 'em,
    grind 'em, batter 'em, burst 'em, quarter 'em, unlimb 'em, behump 'em,
    bethump 'em, belam 'em, belabour 'em, pepper 'em, spitchcock 'em, and
    carbonade 'em on gridirons, these wicked heretics! decretalifuges,
    decretalicides, worse than homicides, worse than patricides,
    decretalictones of the devil of hell.

    As for you other good people, I must earnestly pray and beseech you to
    believe no other thing, to think on, say, undertake, or do no other thing,
    than what's contained in our sacred decretals and their corollaries, this
    fine Sextum, these fine Clementinae, these fine Extravagantes.  O deific
    books!  So shall you enjoy glory, honour, exaltation, wealth, dignities,
    and preferments in this world; be revered and dreaded by all, preferred,
    elected, and chosen above all men.

    For there is not under the cope of heaven a condition of men out of which
    you'll find persons fitter to do and handle all things than those who by
    divine prescience, eternal predestination, have applied themselves to the
    study of the holy decretals.

    Would you choose a worthy emperor, a good captain, a fit general in time of
    war, one that can well foresee all inconveniences, avoid all dangers,
    briskly and bravely bring his men on to a breach or attack, still be on
    sure grounds, always overcome without loss of his men, and know how to make
    a good use of his victory?  Take me a decretist.  No, no, I mean a
    decretalist.  Ho, the foul blunder, whispered Epistemon.

    Would you, in time of peace, find a man capable of wisely governing the
    state of a commonwealth, of a kingdom, of an empire, of a monarchy;
    sufficient to maintain the clergy, nobility, senate, and commons in wealth,
    friendship, unity, obedience, virtue, and honesty?  Take a decretalist.

    Would you find a man who, by his exemplary life, eloquence, and pious
    admonitions, may in a short time, without effusion of human blood, conquer
    the Holy Land, and bring over to the holy Church the misbelieving Turks,
    Jews, Tartars, Muscovites, Mamelukes, and Sarrabonites?  Take me a
    decretalist.

    What makes, in many countries, the people rebellious and depraved, pages
    saucy and mischievous, students sottish and duncical?  Nothing but that
    their governors and tutors were not decretalists.

    But what, on your conscience, was it, do you think, that established,
    confirmed, and authorized those fine religious orders with whom you see the
    Christian world everywhere adorned, graced, and illustrated, as the
    firmament is with its glorious stars?  The holy decretals.

    What was it that founded, underpropped, and fixed, and now maintains,
    nourishes, and feeds the devout monks and friars in convents, monasteries,
    and abbeys; so that did they not daily and mightily pray without ceasing,
    the world would be in evident danger of returning to its primitive chaos?
    The sacred decretals.

    What makes and daily increases the famous and celebrated patrimony of St.
    Peter in plenty of all temporal, corporeal, and spiritual blessings?  The
    holy decretals.

    What made the holy apostolic see and pope of Rome, in all times, and at
    this present, so dreadful in the universe, that all kings, emperors,
    potentates, and lords, willing, nilling, must depend upon him, hold of him,
    be crowned, confirmed, and authorized by him, come thither to strike sail,
    buckle, and fall down before his holy slipper, whose picture you have seen?
    The mighty decretals of God.

    I will discover you a great secret.  The universities of your world have
    commonly a book, either open or shut, in their arms and devices; what book
    do you think it is?  Truly, I do not know, answered Pantagruel; I never
    read it.  It is the decretals, said Homenas, without which the privileges
    of all universities would soon be lost.  You must own that I have taught
    you this; ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

    Here Homenas began to belch, to fart, to funk, to laugh, to slaver, and to
    sweat; and then he gave his huge greasy four-cornered cap to one of the
    lasses, who clapped it on her pretty head with a great deal of joy, after
    she had lovingly bussed it, as a sure token that she should be first
    married.  Vivat, cried Epistemon, fifat, bibat, pipat.

    O apocalyptic secret! continued Homenas; light, light, Clerica; light here
    with double lanterns.  Now for the fruit, virgins.

    I was saying, then, that giving yourselves thus wholly to the study of the
    holy decretals, you will gain wealth and honour in this world.  I add, that
    in the next you will infallibly be saved in the blessed kingdom of heaven,
    whose keys are given to our good god and decretaliarch.  O my good god,
    whom I adore and never saw, by thy special grace open unto us, at the point
    of death at least, this most sacred treasure of our holy Mother Church,
    whose protector, preserver, butler, chief-larder, administrator, and
    disposer thou art; and take care, I beseech thee, O lord, that the precious
    works of supererogation, the goodly pardons, do not fail us in time of
    need; so that the devils may not find an opportunity to gripe our precious
    souls, and the dreadful jaws of hell may not swallow us.  If we must pass
    through purgatory thy will be done.  It is in thy power to draw us out of
    it when thou pleasest.  Here Homenas began to shed huge hot briny tears, to
    beat his breast, and kiss his thumbs in the shape of a cross.

    Chapter 4.LIV. How Homenas gave Pantagruel some bon-Christian pears.

    Epistemon, Friar John, and Panurge, seeing this doleful catastrophe, began,
    under the cover of their napkins, to cry Meeow, meeow, meeow; feigning to
    wipe their eyes all the while as if they had wept.  The wenches were doubly
    diligent, and brought brimmers of Clementine wine to every one, besides
    store of sweetmeats; and thus the feasting was revived.

    Before we arose from table, Homenas gave us a great quantity of fair large
    pears, saying, Here, my good friends, these are singular good pears.  You
    will find none such anywhere else, I dare warrant.  Every soil bears not
    everything, you know.  India alone boasts black ebony; the best incense is
    produced in Sabaea; the sphragitid earth at Lemnos; so this island is the
    only place where such fine pears grow.  You may, if you please, make
    seminaries with their pippins in your country.

    I like their taste extremely, said Pantagruel.  If they were sliced, and
    put into a pan on the fire with wine and sugar, I fancy they would be very
    wholesome meat for the sick, as well as for the healthy.  Pray what do you
    call 'em?  No otherwise than you have heard, replied Homenas.  We are a
    plain downright sort of people, as God would have it, and call figs, figs;
    plums, plums; and pears, pears.  Truly, said Pantagruel, if I live to go
    home—which I hope will be speedily, God willing—I'll set off and graff
    some in my garden in Touraine, by the banks of the Loire, and will call
    them bon-Christian or good-Christian pears, for I never saw better
    Christians than are these good Papimans.  I would like him two to one
    better yet, said Friar John, would he but give us two or three cartloads of
    yon buxom lasses.  Why, what would you do with them? cried Homenas.  Quoth
    Friar John, No harm, only bleed the kind-hearted souls straight between the
    two great toes with certain clever lancets of the right stamp; by which
    operation good Christian children would be inoculated upon them, and the
    breed be multiplied in our country, in which there are not many over-good,
    the more's the pity.

    Nay, verily, replied Homenas, we cannot do this; for you would make them
    tread their shoes awry, crack their pipkins, and spoil their shapes.  You
    love mutton, I see; you will run at sheep.  I know you by that same nose
    and hair of yours, though I never saw your face before.  Alas! alas! how
    kind you are!  And would you indeed damn your precious soul?  Our decretals
    forbid this.  Ah, I wish you had them at your finger's-end.  Patience, said
    Friar John; but, si tu non vis dare, praesta, quaesumus.  Matter of
    breviary.  As for that, I defy all the world, and I fear no man that wears
    a head and a hood, though he were a crystalline, I mean a decretaline
    doctor.

    Dinner being over, we took our leave of the right reverend Homenas, and of
    all the good people, humbly giving thanks; and, to make them amends for
    their kind entertainment, promised them that, at our coming to Rome, we
    would make our applications so effectually to the pope that he would
    speedily be sure to come to visit them in person.  After this we went
    o'board.

    Pantagruel, by an act of generosity, and as an acknowledgment of the sight
    of the pope's picture, gave Homenas nine pieces of double friezed cloth of
    gold to be set before the grates of the window.  He also caused the church
    box for its repairs and fabric to be quite filled with double crowns of
    gold; and ordered nine hundred and fourteen angels to be delivered to each
    of the lasses who had waited at table, to buy them husbands when they could
    get them.

    Chapter 4.LV. How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words.

    When we were at sea, junketting, tippling, discoursing, and telling
    stories, Pantagruel rose and stood up to look out; then asked us, Do you
    hear nothing, gentlemen?  Methinks I hear some people talking in the air,
    yet I can see nobody.  Hark!  According to his command we listened, and
    with full ears sucked in the air as some of you suck oysters, to find if we
    could hear some sound scattered through the sky; and to lose none of it,
    like the Emperor Antoninus some of us laid their hands hollow next to their
    ears; but all this would not do, nor could we hear any voice.  Yet
    Pantagruel continued to assure us he heard various voices in the air, some
    of men, and some of women.

    At last we began to fancy that we also heard something, or at least that
    our ears tingled; and the more we listened, the plainer we discerned the
    voices, so as to distinguish articulate sounds.  This mightily frightened
    us, and not without cause; since we could see nothing, yet heard such
    various sounds and voices of men, women, children, horses, &c., insomuch
    that Panurge cried out, Cods-belly, there is no fooling with the devil; we
    are all beshit, let's fly.  There is some ambuscado hereabouts.  Friar
    John, art thou here my love?  I pray thee, stay by me, old boy.  Hast thou
    got thy swindging tool?  See that it do not stick in thy scabbard; thou
    never scourest it half as it should be.  We are undone.  Hark!  They are
    guns, gad judge me.  Let's fly, I do not say with hands and feet, as Brutus
    said at the battle of Pharsalia; I say, with sails and oars.  Let's whip it
    away.  I never find myself to have a bit of courage at sea; in cellars and
    elsewhere I have more than enough.  Let's fly and save our bacon.  I do not
    say this for any fear that I have; for I dread nothing but danger, that I
    don't; I always say it that shouldn't.  The free archer of Baignolet said
    as much.  Let us hazard nothing, therefore, I say, lest we come off bluely.
    Tack about, helm a-lee, thou son of a bachelor.  Would I were now well in
    Quinquenais, though I were never to marry.  Haste away, let's make all the
    sail we can.  They'll be too hard for us; we are not able to cope with
    them; they are ten to our one, I'll warrant you.  Nay, and they are on
    their dunghill, while we do not know the country.  They will be the death
    of us.  We'll lose no honour by flying.  Demosthenes saith that the man
    that runs away may fight another day.  At least let us retreat to the
    leeward.  Helm a-lee; bring the main-tack aboard, haul the bowlines, hoist
    the top-gallants.  We are all dead men; get off, in the devil's name, get
    off.

    Pantagruel, hearing the sad outcry which Panurge made, said, Who talks of
    flying?  Let's first see who they are; perhaps they may be friends.  I can
    discover nobody yet, though I can see a hundred miles round me.  But let's
    consider a little.  I have read that a philosopher named Petron was of
    opinion that there were several worlds that touched each other in an
    equilateral triangle; in whose centre, he said, was the dwelling of truth;
    and that the words, ideas, copies, and images of all things past and to
    come resided there; round which was the age; and that with success of time
    part of them used to fall on mankind like rheums and mildews, just as the
    dew fell on Gideon's fleece, till the age was fulfilled.

    I also remember, continued he, that Aristotle affirms Homer's words to be
    flying, moving, and consequently animated.  Besides, Antiphanes said that
    Plato's philosophy was like words which, being spoken in some country
    during a hard winter, are immediately congealed, frozen up, and not heard;
    for what Plato taught young lads could hardly be understood by them when
    they were grown old.  Now, continued he, we should philosophize and search
    whether this be not the place where those words are thawed.

    You would wonder very much should this be the head and lyre of Orpheus.
    When the Thracian women had torn him to pieces they threw his head and lyre
    into the river Hebrus, down which they floated to the Euxine sea as far as
    the island of Lesbos; the head continually uttering a doleful song, as it
    were lamenting the death of Orpheus, and the lyre, with the wind's impulse
    moving its strings and harmoniously accompanying the voice.  Let's see if
    we cannot discover them hereabouts.

    Chapter 4.LVI. How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones.

    The skipper made answer:  Be not afraid, my lord; we are on the confines of
    the Frozen Sea, on which, about the beginning of last winter, happened a
    great and bloody fight between the Arimaspians and the Nephelibates.  Then
    the words and cries of men and women, the hacking, slashing, and hewing of
    battle-axes, the shocking, knocking, and jolting of armours and harnesses,
    the neighing of horses, and all other martial din and noise, froze in the
    air; and now, the rigour of the winter being over, by the succeeding
    serenity and warmth of the weather they melt and are heard.

    By jingo, quoth Panurge, the man talks somewhat like.  I believe him.  But
    couldn't we see some of 'em?  I think I have read that, on the edge of the
    mountain on which Moses received the Judaic law, the people saw the voices
    sensibly.  Here, here, said Pantagruel, here are some that are not yet
    thawed.  He then threw us on the deck whole handfuls of frozen words, which
    seemed to us like your rough sugar-plums, of many colours, like those used
    in heraldry; some words gules (this means also jests and merry sayings),
    some vert, some azure, some black, some or (this means also fair words);
    and when we had somewhat warmed them between our hands, they melted like
    snow, and we really heard them, but could not understand them, for it was a
    barbarous gibberish.  One of them only, that was pretty big, having been
    warmed between Friar John's hands, gave a sound much like that of chestnuts
    when they are thrown into the fire without being first cut, which made us
    all start.  This was the report of a field-piece in its time, cried Friar
    John.

    Panurge prayed Pantagruel to give him some more; but Pantagruel told him
    that to give words was the part of a lover.  Sell me some then, I pray you,
    cried Panurge.  That's the part of a lawyer, returned Pantagruel.  I would
    sooner sell you silence, though at a dearer rate; as Demosthenes formerly
    sold it by the means of his argentangina, or silver squinsy.

    However, he threw three or four handfuls of them on the deck; among which I
    perceived some very sharp words, and some bloody words, which the pilot
    said used sometimes to go back and recoil to the place whence they came,
    but it was with a slit weasand.  We also saw some terrible words, and some
    others not very pleasant to the eye.

    When they had been all melted together, we heard a strange noise, hin, hin,
    hin, hin, his, tick, tock, taack, bredelinbrededack, frr, frr, frr, bou,
    bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, track, track, trr, trr, trr, trrr,
    trrrrrr, on, on, on, on, on, on, ououououon, gog, magog, and I do not know
    what other barbarous words, which the pilot said were the noise made by the
    charging squadrons, the shock and neighing of horses.

    Then we heard some large ones go off like drums and fifes, and others like
    clarions and trumpets.  Believe me, we had very good sport with them.  I
    would fain have saved some merry odd words, and have preserved them in oil,
    as ice and snow are kept, and between clean straw.  But Pantagruel would
    not let me, saying that 'tis a folly to hoard up what we are never like to
    want or have always at hand, odd, quaint, merry, and fat words of gules
    never being scarce among all good and jovial Pantagruelists.

    Panurge somewhat vexed Friar John, and put him in the pouts; for he took
    him at his word while he dreamed of nothing less.  This caused the friar to
    threaten him with such a piece of revenge as was put upon G. Jousseaume,
    who having taken the merry Patelin at his word when he had overbid himself
    in some cloth, was afterwards fairly taken by the horns like a bullock by
    his jovial chapman, whom he took at his word like a man.  Panurge, well
    knowing that threatened folks live long, bobbed and made mouths at him in
    token of derision, then cried, Would I had here the word of the Holy
    Bottle, without being thus obliged to go further in pilgrimage to her.

    Chapter 4.LVII. How Pantagruel went ashore at the dwelling of Gaster, the first master of
    arts in the world.

    That day Pantagruel went ashore in an island which, for situation and
    governor, may be said not to have its fellow.  When you just come into it,
    you find it rugged, craggy, and barren, unpleasant to the eye, painful to
    the feet, and almost as inaccessible as the mountain of Dauphine, which is
    somewhat like a toadstool, and was never climbed as any can remember by any
    but Doyac, who had the charge of King Charles the Eighth's train of
    artillery.

    This same Doyac with strange tools and engines gained that mountain's top,
    and there he found an old ram.  It puzzled many a wise head to guess how it
    got thither.  Some said that some eagle or great horncoot, having carried
    it thither while it was yet a lambkin, it had got away and saved itself
    among the bushes.

    As for us, having with much toil and sweat overcome the difficult ways at
    the entrance, we found the top of the mountain so fertile, healthful, and
    pleasant, that I thought I was then in the true garden of Eden, or earthly
    paradise, about whose situation our good theologues are in such a quandary
    and keep such a pother.

    As for Pantagruel, he said that here was the seat of Arete—that is as much
    as to say, virtue—described by Hesiod.  This, however, with submission to
    better judgments.  The ruler of this place was one Master Gaster, the first
    master of arts in this world.  For, if you believe that fire is the great
    master of arts, as Tully writes, you very much wrong him and yourself;
    alas! Tully never believed this.  On the other side, if you fancy Mercury
    to be the first inventor of arts, as our ancient Druids believed of old,
    you are mightily beside the mark.  The satirist's sentence, that affirms
    Master Gaster to be the master of all arts, is true.  With him peacefully
    resided old goody Penia, alias Poverty, the mother of the ninety-nine
    Muses, on whom Porus, the lord of Plenty, formerly begot Love, that noble
    child, the mediator of heaven and earth, as Plato affirms in Symposio.

    We were all obliged to pay our homage and swear allegiance to that mighty
    sovereign; for he is imperious, severe, blunt, hard, uneasy, inflexible;
    you cannot make him believe, represent to him, or persuade him anything.

    He does not hear; and as the Egyptians said that Harpocrates, the god of
    silence, named Sigalion in Greek, was astome, that is, without a mouth, so
    Gaster was created without ears, even like the image of Jupiter in Candia.

    He only speaks by signs, but those signs are more readily obeyed by
    everyone than the statutes of senates or commands of monarchs.  Neither
    will he admit the least let or delay in his summons.  You say that when a
    lion roars all the beasts at a considerable distance round about, as far as
    his roar can be heard, are seized with a shivering.  This is written, it is
    true, I have seen it. I assure you that at Master Gaster's command the very
    heavens tremble, and all the earth shakes.  His command is called, Do this
    or die.  Needs must when the devil drives; there's no gainsaying of it.

    The pilot was telling us how, on a certain time, after the manner of the
    members that mutinied against the belly, as Aesop describes it, the whole
    kingdom of the Somates went off into a direct faction against Gaster,
    resolving to throw off his yoke; but they soon found their mistake, and
    most humbly submitted, for otherwise they had all been famished.

    What company soever he is in, none dispute with him for precedence or
    superiority; he still goes first, though kings, emperors, or even the pope,
    were there.  So he held the first place at the council of Basle; though
    some will tell you that the council was tumultuous by the contention and
    ambition of many for priority.

    Everyone is busied and labours to serve him, and indeed, to make amends for
    this, he does this good to mankind, as to invent for them all arts,
    machines, trades, engines, and crafts; he even instructs brutes in arts
    which are against their nature, making poets of ravens, jackdaws,
    chattering jays, parrots, and starlings, and poetesses of magpies, teaching
    them to utter human language, speak, and sing; and all for the gut.  He
    reclaims and tames eagles, gerfalcons, falcons gentle, sakers, lanners,
    goshawks, sparrowhawks, merlins, haggards, passengers, wild rapacious
    birds; so that, setting them free in the air whenever he thinks fit, as
    high and as long as he pleases, he keeps them suspended, straying, flying,
    hovering, and courting him above the clouds.  Then on a sudden he makes
    them stoop, and come down amain from heaven next to the ground; and all for
    the gut.

    Elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, bears, horses, mares, and dogs, he teaches
    to dance, prance, vault, fight, swim, hide themselves, fetch and carry what
    he pleases; and all for the gut.

    Salt and fresh-water fish, whales, and the monsters of the main, he brings
    them up from the bottom of the deep; wolves he forces out of the woods,
    bears out of the rocks, foxes out of their holes, and serpents out of the
    ground, and all for the gut.

    In short, he is so unruly, that in his rage he devours all men and beasts;
    as was seen among the Vascons, when Q. Metellus besieged them in the
    Sertorian wars, among the Saguntines besieged by Hannibal; among the Jews
    besieged by the Romans, and six hundred more; and all for the gut.  When
    his regent Penia takes a progress, wherever she moves all senates are shut
    up, all statutes repealed, all orders and proclamations vain; she knows,
    obeys, and has no law.  All shun her, in every place choosing rather to
    expose themselves to shipwreck at sea, and venture through fire, rocks,
    caves, and precipices, than be seized by that most dreadful tormentor.

    Chapter 4.LVIII. How, at the court of the master of ingenuity, Pantagruel detested the
    Engastrimythes and the Gastrolaters.

    At the court of that great master of ingenuity, Pantagruel observed two
    sorts of troublesome and too officious apparitors, whom he very much
    detested.  The first were called Engastrimythes; the others, Gastrolaters.

    The first pretended to be descended of the ancient race of Eurycles, and
    for this brought the authority of Aristophanes in his comedy called the
    Wasps; whence of old they were called Euryclians, as Plato writes, and
    Plutarch in his book of the Cessation of Oracles.  In the holy decrees, 26,
    qu. 3, they are styled Ventriloqui; and the same name is given them in
    Ionian by Hippocrates, in his fifth book of Epid., as men who speak from
    the belly.  Sophocles calls them Sternomantes.  These were soothsayers,
    enchanters, cheats, who gulled the mob, and seemed not to speak and give
    answers from the mouth, but from the belly.

    Such a one, about the year of our Lord 1513, was Jacoba Rodogina, an
    Italian woman of mean extract; from whose belly we, as well as an infinite
    number of others at Ferrara and elsewhere, have often heard the voice of
    the evil spirit speak, low, feeble, and small, indeed, but yet very
    distinct, articulate, and intelligible, when she was sent for out of
    curiosity by the lords and princes of the Cisalpine Gaul.  To remove all
    manner of doubt, and be assured that this was not a trick, they used to
    have her stripped stark naked, and caused her mouth and nose to be stopped.
    This evil spirit would be called Curled-pate, or Cincinnatulo, seeming
    pleased when any called him by that name, at which he was always ready to
    answer.  If any spoke to him of things past or present, he gave pertinent
    answers, sometimes to the amazement of the hearers; but if of things to
    come, then the devil was gravelled, and used to lie as fast as a dog can
    trot.  Nay, sometimes he seemed to own his ignorance, instead of an answer
    letting out a rousing fart, or muttering some words with barbarous and
    uncouth inflexions, and not to be understood.

    As for the Gastrolaters, they stuck close to one another in knots and
    gangs.  Some of them merry, wanton, and soft as so many milk-sops; others
    louring, grim, dogged, demure, and crabbed; all idle, mortal foes to
    business, spending half their time in sleeping and the rest in doing
    nothing, a rent-charge and dead unnecessary weight on the earth, as Hesiod
    saith; afraid, as we judged, of offending or lessening their paunch.
    Others were masked, disguised, and so oddly dressed that it would have done
    you good to have seen them.

    There's a saying, and several ancient sages write, that the skill of nature
    appears wonderful in the pleasure which she seems to have taken in the
    configuration of sea-shells, so great is their variety in figures, colours,
    streaks, and inimitable shapes.  I protest the variety we perceived in the
    dresses of the gastrolatrous coquillons was not less.  They all owned
    Gaster for their supreme god, adored him as a god, offered him sacrifices
    as to their omnipotent deity, owned no other god, served, loved, and
    honoured him above all things.

    You would have thought that the holy apostle spoke of those when he said
    (Phil. chap. 3), Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you
    even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ:  whose end is
    destruction, whose God is their belly.  Pantagruel compared them to the
    Cyclops Polyphemus, whom Euripides brings in speaking thus:  I only
    sacrifice to myself—not to the gods—and to this belly of mine, the
    greatest of all the gods.

    Chapter 4.LIX. Of the ridiculous statue Manduce; and how and what the Gastrolaters
    sacrifice to their ventripotent god.

    While we fed our eyes with the sight of the phizzes and actions of these
    lounging gulligutted Gastrolaters, we on a sudden heard the sound of a
    musical instrument called a bell; at which all of them placed themselves in
    rank and file as for some mighty battle, everyone according to his office,
    degree, and seniority.

    In this order they moved towards Master Gaster, after a plump, young,
    lusty, gorbellied fellow, who on a long staff fairly gilt carried a wooden
    statue, grossly carved, and as scurvily daubed over with paint; such a one
    as Plautus, Juvenal, and Pomp. Festus describe it.  At Lyons during the
    Carnival it is called Maschecroute or Gnawcrust; they call'd this Manduce.

    It was a monstrous, ridiculous, hideous figure, fit to fright little
    children; its eyes were bigger than its belly, and its head larger than all
    the rest of its body; well mouth-cloven however, having a goodly pair of
    wide, broad jaws, lined with two rows of teeth, upper tier and under tier,
    which, by the magic of a small twine hid in the hollow part of the golden
    staff, were made to clash, clatter, and rattle dreadfully one against
    another; as they do at Metz with St. Clement's dragon.

    Coming near the Gastrolaters I saw they were followed by a great number of
    fat waiters and tenders, laden with baskets, dossers, hampers, dishes,
    wallets, pots, and kettles.  Then, under the conduct of Manduce, and
    singing I do not know what dithyrambics, crepalocomes, and epenons, opening
    their baskets and pots, they offered their god:

    
    White hippocras,         Fricassees, nine       Cold loins of veal,
      with dry toasts.         sorts.                 with spice.
    White bread.             Monastical brewis.     Zinziberine.
    Brown bread.             Gravy soup.            Beatille pies.
    Carbonadoes, six         Hotch-pots.            Brewis.
      sorts.                 Soft bread.            Marrow-bones, toast,
    Brawn.                   Household bread.         and cabbage.
    Sweetbreads.             Capirotadoes.          Hashes.
    
    Eternal drink intermixed.  Brisk delicate white wine led the van; claret
    and champagne followed, cool, nay, as cold as the very ice, I say, filled
    and offered in large silver cups.  Then they offered:
    
    Chitterlings, gar-     Chines and peas.       Hams.
      nished with mus-     Hog's haslets.         Brawn heads.
      tard.                  Scotch collops.        Powdered venison,
    Sausages.                Puddings.                with turnips.
    Neats' tongues.          Cervelats.             Pickled olives.
    Hung beef.               Bologna sausages.
    
    All this associated with sempiternal liquor.  Then they housed within his
    muzzle:
    
    Legs of mutton, with     Ribs of pork, with     Caponets.
      shallots.                onion sauce.         Caviare and toast.
    Olias.                   Roast capons, basted   Fawns, deer.
    Lumber pies, with          with their own       Hares, leverets.
      hot sauce.               dripping.            Plovers.
    Partridges and young     Flamingoes.            Herons, and young
      partridges.            Cygnets.                 herons.
    Dwarf-herons.            A reinforcement of     Olives.
    Teals.                     vinegar intermixed.  Thrushes.
    Duckers.                 Venison pasties.       Young sea-ravens.
    Bitterns.                Lark pies.             Geese, goslings.
    Shovellers.              Dormice pies.          Queests.
    Curlews.                 Cabretto pasties.      Widgeons.
    Wood-hens.               Roebuck pasties.       Mavises.
    Coots, with leeks.       Pigeon pies.           Grouses.
    Fat kids.                Kid pasties.           Turtles.
    Shoulders of mutton,     Capon pies.            Doe-coneys.
      with capers.           Bacon pies.            Hedgehogs.
    Sirloins of beef.        Soused hog's feet.     Snites.
    Breasts of veal.         Fried pasty-crust.     Then large puffs.
    Pheasants and phea-    Forced capons.         Thistle-finches.
      sant poots.            Parmesan cheese.       Whore's farts.
    Peacocks.                Red and pale hip-    Fritters.
    Storks.                    pocras.              Cakes, sixteen sorts.
    Woodcocks.               Gold-peaches.          Crisp wafers.
    Snipes.                  Artichokes.            Quince tarts.
    Ortolans.                Dry and wet sweet-   Curds and cream.
    Turkey cocks, hen          meats, seventy-    Whipped cream.
      turkeys, and turkey      eight sorts.         Preserved mirabo-poots.                 Boiled hens, and fat     lans.
    Stock-doves, and           capons marinated.    Jellies.
      wood-culvers.          Pullets, with eggs.    Welsh barrapyclids.
    Pigs, with wine sauce.   Chickens.              Macaroons.
    Blackbirds, ousels, and  Rabbits, and sucking   Tarts, twenty sorts.
      rails.                   rabbits.             Lemon cream, rasp-
    Moorhens.                Quails, and young        berry cream, &c.
    Bustards, and bustard      quails.              Comfits, one hundred
      poots.                 Pigeons, squabs, and     colours.
    Fig-peckers.               squeakers.           Cream wafers.
    Young Guinea hens.       Fieldfares.            Cream cheese.
    

    Vinegar brought up the rear to wash the mouth, and for fear of the squinsy;
    also toasts to scour the grinders.

    Chapter 4.LX. What the Gastrolaters sacrificed to their god on interlarded fish-days.

    Pantagruel did not like this pack of rascally scoundrels with their
    manifold kitchen sacrifices, and would have been gone had not Epistemon
    prevailed with him to stay and see the end of the farce.  He then asked the
    skipper what the idle lobcocks used to sacrifice to their gorbellied god on
    interlarded fish-days.  For his first course, said the skipper, they gave
    him:

    
    Caviare.                  tops, bishop's-cods,    Red herrings.
    Botargoes.                celery, chives, ram-  Pilchards.
    Fresh butter.             pions, jew's-ears (a    Anchovies.
    Pease soup.               sort of mushrooms       Fry of tunny.
    Spinach.                  that sprout out of      Cauliflowers.
    Fresh herrings, full      old elders), spara-   Beans.
      roed.                   gus, wood-bind,         Salt salmon.
    Salads, a hundred         and a world of          Pickled grigs.
      varieties, of cres-   others.                 Oysters in the shell.
      ses, sodden hop-
    
    Then he must drink, or the devil would gripe him at the throat; this,
    therefore, they take care to prevent, and nothing is wanting.  Which being
    done, they give him lampreys with hippocras sauce:
    
    Gurnards.               Thornbacks.             Fried oysters.
    Salmon trouts.          Sleeves.                Cockles.
    Barbels, great and      Sturgeons.              Prawns.
      small.                Sheath-fish.            Smelts.
    Roaches.                Mackerels.              Rock-fish.
    Cockerels.              Maids.                  Gracious lords.
    Minnows.                Plaice.                 Sword-fish.
    Skate-fish.             Sharplings.             Soles.
    Lamprels.               Tunnies.                Mussels.
    Jegs.                   Silver eels.            Lobsters.
    Pickerels.              Chevins.                Great prawns.
    Golden carps.           Crayfish.               Dace.
    Burbates.               Pallours.               Bleaks.
    Salmons.                Shrimps.                Tenches.
    Salmon-peels.           Congers.                Ombres.
    Dolphins.               Porpoises.              Fresh cods.
    Barn trouts.            Bases.                  Dried melwels.
    Miller's-thumbs.        Shads.                  Darefish.
    Precks.                 Murenes, a sort of      Fausens, and grigs.
    Bret-fish.                lampreys.             Eel-pouts.
    Flounders.              Graylings.              Tortoises.
    Sea-nettles.            Smys.                   Serpents, i.e. wood-
    Mullets.                Turbots.                  eels.
    Gudgeons.               Trout, not above a      Dories.
    Dabs and sandings.        foot long.            Moor-game.
    Haddocks.               Salmons.                Perches.
    Carps.                  Meagers.                Loaches.
    Pikes.                  Sea-breams.             Crab-fish.
    Bottitoes.              Halibuts.               Snails and whelks.
    Rochets.                Dog's tongue, or kind   Frogs.
    Sea-bears.                fool.
    
    If, when he had crammed all this down his guttural trapdoor, he did not
    immediately make the fish swim again in his paunch, death would pack him
    off in a trice.  Special care is taken to antidote his godship with vine-
    tree syrup.  Then is sacrificed to him haberdines, poor-jack,
    minglemangled, mismashed, &c.
    
    Eggs fried, beaten,       sliced, roasted in     Green-fish.
      buttered, poached,      the embers, tossed     Sea-batts.
      hardened, boiled,       in the chimney, &c.    Cod's sounds.
      broiled, stewed,      Stock-fish.              Sea-pikes.
    
    Which to concoct and digest the more easily, vinegar is multiplied.  For
    the latter part of their sacrifices they offer:
    
    Rice milk, and hasty    Stewed prunes, and       Raisins.
      pudding.                baked bullace.         Dates.
    Buttered wheat, and     Pistachios, or fistic    Chestnut and wal-flummery.               nuts.                    nuts.
    Water-gruel, and        Figs.                    Filberts.
      milk-porridge.        Almond butter.           Parsnips.
    Frumenty and bonny      Skirret root.            Artichokes.
      clamber.              White-pot.
                  Perpetuity of soaking with the whole.
    

    It was none of their fault, I will assure you, if this same god of theirs
    was not publicly, preciously, and plentifully served in the sacrifices,
    better yet than Heliogabalus's idol; nay, more than Bel and the Dragon in
    Babylon, under King Belshazzar.  Yet Gaster had the manners to own that he
    was no god, but a poor, vile, wretched creature.  And as King Antigonus,
    first of the name, when one Hermodotus (as poets will flatter, especially
    princes) in some of his fustian dubbed him a god, and made the sun adopt
    him for his son, said to him:  My lasanophore (or, in plain English, my
    groom of the close-stool) can give thee the lie; so Master Gaster very
    civilly used to send back his bigoted worshippers to his close-stool, to
    see, smell, taste, philosophize, and examine what kind of divinity they
    could pick out of his sir-reverence.
       

    Chapter 4.LXI.

    How Gaster invented means to get and preserve corn.

    Those gastrolatrous hobgoblins being withdrawn, Pantagruel carefully minded
    the famous master of arts, Gaster.  You know that, by the institution of
    nature, bread has been assigned him for provision and food; and that, as an
    addition to this blessing, he should never want the means to get bread.

    Accordingly, from the beginning he invented the smith's art, and husbandry
    to manure the ground, that it might yield him corn; he invented arms and
    the art of war to defend corn; physic and astronomy, with other parts of
    mathematics which might be useful to keep corn a great number of years in
    safety from the injuries of the air, beasts, robbers, and purloiners; he
    invented water, wind, and handmills, and a thousand other engines to grind
    corn and to turn it into meal; leaven to make the dough ferment, and the
    use of salt to give it a savour; for he knew that nothing bred more
    diseases than heavy, unleavened, unsavoury bread.

    He found a way to get fire to bake it; hour-glasses, dials, and clocks to
    mark the time of its baking; and as some countries wanted corn, he
    contrived means to convey some out of one country into another.

    He had the wit to pimp for asses and mares, animals of different species,
    that they might copulate for the generation of a third, which we call
    mules, more strong and fit for hard service than the other two.  He
    invented carts and waggons to draw him along with greater ease; and as seas
    and rivers hindered his progress, he devised boats, galleys, and ships (to
    the astonishment of the elements) to waft him over to barbarous, unknown,
    and far distant nations, thence to bring, or thither to carry corn.

    Besides, seeing that when he had tilled the ground, some years the corn
    perished in it for want of rain in due season, in others rotted or was
    drowned by its excess, sometimes spoiled by hail, eat by worms in the ear,
    or beaten down by storms, and so his stock was destroyed on the ground; we
    were told that ever since the days of yore he has found out a way to
    conjure the rain down from heaven only with cutting certain grass, common
    enough in the field, yet known to very few, some of which was then shown
    us.  I took it to be the same as the plant, one of whose boughs being
    dipped by Jove's priest in the Agrian fountain on the Lycian mountain in
    Arcadia, in time of drought raised vapours which gathered into clouds, and
    then dissolved into rain that kindly moistened the whole country.

    Our master of arts was also said to have found a way to keep the rain up in
    the air, and make it to fall into the sea; also to annihilate the hail,
    suppress the winds, and remove storms as the Methanensians of Troezene used
    to do.  And as in the fields thieves and plunderers sometimes stole and
    took by force the corn and bread which others had toiled to get, he
    invented the art of building towns, forts, and castles, to hoard and secure
    that staff of life.  On the other hand, finding none in the fields, and
    hearing that it was hoarded up and secured in towns, forts, and castles,
    and watched with more care than ever were the golden pippins of the
    Hesperides, he turned engineer, and found ways to beat, storm, and demolish
    forts and castles with machines and warlike thunderbolts, battering-rams,
    ballists, and catapults, whose shapes were shown to us, not over-well
    understood by our engineers, architects, and other disciples of Vitruvius;
    as Master Philibert de l'Orme, King Megistus's principal architect, has
    owned to us.

    And seeing that sometimes all these tools of destruction were baffled by
    the cunning subtlety or the subtle cunning (which you please) of
    fortifiers, he lately invented cannons, field-pieces, culverins, bombards,
    basiliskos, murdering instruments that dart iron, leaden, and brazen balls,
    some of them outweighing huge anvils.  This by the means of a most dreadful
    powder, whose hellish compound and effect has even amazed nature, and made
    her own herself outdone by art, the Oxydracian thunders, hails, and storms
    by which the people of that name immediately destroyed their enemies in the
    field being but mere potguns to these.  For one of our great guns when used
    is more dreadful, more terrible, more diabolical, and maims, tears, breaks,
    slays, mows down, and sweeps away more men, and causes a greater
    consternation and destruction than a hundred thunderbolts.

    Chapter 4.LXII. How Gaster invented an art to avoid being hurt or touched by cannon-balls.

    Gaster having secured himself with his corn within strongholds, has
    sometimes been attacked by enemies; his fortresses, by that thrice
    threefold cursed instrument, levelled and destroyed; his dearly beloved
    corn and bread snatched out of his mouth and sacked by a titanic force;
    therefore he then sought means to preserve his walls, bastions, rampiers,
    and sconces from cannon-shot, and to hinder the bullets from hitting him,
    stopping them in their flight, or at least from doing him or the besieged
    walls any damage.  He showed us a trial of this which has been since used
    by Fronton, and is now common among the pastimes and harmless recreations
    of the Thelemites.  I will tell you how he went to work, and pray for the
    future be a little more ready to believe what Plutarch affirms to have
    tried.  Suppose a herd of goats were all scampering as if the devil drove
    them, do but put a bit of eringo into the mouth of the hindmost nanny, and
    they will all stop stock still in the time you can tell three.

    Thus Gaster, having caused a brass falcon to be charged with a sufficient
    quantity of gunpowder well purged from its sulphur, and curiously made up
    with fine camphor, he then had a suitable ball put into the piece, with
    twenty-four little pellets like hail-shot, some round, some pearl fashion;
    then taking his aim and levelling it at a page of his, as if he would have
    hit him on the breast.  About sixty strides off the piece, halfway between
    it and the page in a right line, he hanged on a gibbet by a rope a very
    large siderite or iron-like stone, otherwise called herculean, formerly
    found on Ida in Phrygia by one Magnes, as Nicander writes, and commonly
    called loadstone; then he gave fire to the prime on the piece's touch-hole,
    which in an instant consuming the powder, the ball and hail-shot were with
    incredible violence and swiftness hurried out of the gun at its muzzle,
    that the air might penetrate to its chamber, where otherwise would have
    been a vacuum, which nature abhors so much, that this universal machine,
    heaven, air, land, and sea, would sooner return to the primitive chaos than
    admit the least void anywhere.  Now the ball and small shot, which
    threatened the page with no less than quick destruction, lost their
    impetuosity and remained suspended and hovering round the stone; nor did
    any of them, notwithstanding the fury with which they rushed, reach the
    page.

    Master Gaster could do more than all this yet, if you will believe me; for
    he invented a way how to cause bullets to fly backwards, and recoil on
    those that sent them with as great a force, and in the very numerical
    parallel for which the guns were planted.  And indeed, why should he have
    thought this difficult? seeing the herb ethiopis opens all locks
    whatsoever, and an echinus or remora, a silly weakly fish, in spite of all
    the winds that blow from the thirty-two points of the compass, will in the
    midst of a hurricane make you the biggest first-rate remain stock still, as
    if she were becalmed or the blustering tribe had blown their last.  Nay,
    and with the flesh of that fish, preserved with salt, you may fish gold out
    of the deepest well that was ever sounded with a plummet; for it will
    certainly draw up the precious metal, since Democritus affirmed it.
    Theophrastus believed and experienced that there was an herb at whose
    single touch an iron wedge, though never so far driven into a huge log of
    the hardest wood that is, would presently come out; and it is this same
    herb your hickways, alias woodpeckers, use, when with some mighty axe
    anyone stops up the hole of their nests, which they industriously dig and
    make in the trunk of some sturdy tree.  Since stags and hinds, when deeply
    wounded with darts, arrows, and bolts, if they do but meet the herb called
    dittany, which is common in Candia, and eat a little of it, presently the
    shafts come out and all is well again; even as kind Venus cured her beloved
    byblow Aeneas when he was wounded on the right thigh with an arrow by
    Juturna, Turnus's sister.  Since the very wind of laurels, fig-trees, or
    sea-calves makes the thunder sheer off insomuch that it never strikes them.
    Since at the sight of a ram, mad elephants recover their former senses.
    Since mad bulls coming near wild fig-trees, called caprifici, grow tame,
    and will not budge a foot, as if they had the cramp.  Since the venomous
    rage of vipers is assuaged if you but touch them with a beechen bough.
    Since also Euphorion writes that in the isle of Samos, before Juno's temple
    was built there, he has seen some beasts called neades, whose voice made
    the neighbouring places gape and sink into a chasm and abyss.  In short,
    since elders grow of a more pleasing sound, and fitter to make flutes, in
    such places where the crowing of cocks is not heard, as the ancient sages
    have writ and Theophrastus relates; as if the crowing of a cock dulled,
    flattened, and perverted the wood of the elder, as it is said to astonish
    and stupify with fear that strong and resolute animal, a lion.  I know that
    some have understood this of wild elder, that grows so far from towns or
    villages that the crowing of cocks cannot reach near it; and doubtless that
    sort ought to be preferred to the stenching common elder that grows about
    decayed and ruined places; but others have understood this in a higher
    sense, not literal, but allegorical, according to the method of the
    Pythagoreans, as when it was said that Mercury's statue could not be made
    of every sort of wood; to which sentence they gave this sense, that God is
    not to be worshipped in a vulgar form, but in a chosen and religious
    manner.  In the same manner, by this elder which grows far from places
    where cocks are heard, the ancients meant that the wise and studious ought
    not to give their minds to trivial or vulgar music, but to that which is
    celestial, divine, angelical, more abstracted, and brought from remoter
    parts, that is, from a region where the crowing of cocks is not heard; for,
    to denote a solitary and unfrequented place, we say cocks are never heard
    to crow there.

    Chapter 4.LXIII. How Pantagruel fell asleep near the island of Chaneph, and of the problems
    proposed to be solved when he waked.

    4-63-524.jpg (66K)

    The next day, merrily pursuing our voyage, we came in sight of the island
    of Chaneph, where Pantagruel's ship could not arrive, the wind chopping
    about, and then failing us so that we were becalmed, and could hardly get
    ahead, tacking about from starboard to larboard, and larboard to starboard,
    though to our sails we added drabblers.

    With this accident we were all out of sorts, moping, drooping,
    metagrabolized, as dull as dun in the mire, in C sol fa ut flat, out of
    tune, off the hinges, and I-don't-know-howish, without caring to speak one
    single syllable to each other.

    Pantagruel was taking a nap, slumbering and nodding on the quarter-deck by
    the cuddy, with an Heliodorus in his hand; for still it was his custom to
    sleep better by book than by heart.

    Epistemon was conjuring, with his astrolabe, to know what latitude we were
    in.

    Friar John was got into the cook-room, examining, by the ascendant of the
    spits and the horoscope of ragouts and fricassees, what time of day it
    might then be.

    Panurge (sweet baby!) held a stalk of Pantagruelions, alias hemp, next his
    tongue, and with it made pretty bubbles and bladders.

    Gymnast was making tooth-pickers with lentisk.

    Ponocrates, dozing, dozed, and dreaming, dreamed; tickled himself to make
    himself laugh, and with one finger scratched his noddle where it did not
    itch.

    Carpalin, with a nutshell and a trencher of verne (that's a card in
    Gascony), was making a pretty little merry windmill, cutting the card
    longways into four slips, and fastening them with a pin to the convex of
    the nut, and its concave to the tarred side of the gunnel of the ship.

    Eusthenes, bestriding one of the guns, was playing on it with his fingers
    as if it had been a trump-marine.

    Rhizotome, with the soft coat of a field tortoise, alias ycleped a mole,
    was making himself a velvet purse.

    Xenomanes was patching up an old weather-beaten lantern with a hawk's
    jesses.

    Our pilot (good man!) was pulling maggots out of the seamen's noses.

    At last Friar John, returning from the forecastle, perceived that
    Pantagruel was awake.  Then breaking this obstinate silence, he briskly and
    cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time, and raise good weather,
    during a calm at sea.

    Panurge, whose belly thought his throat cut, backed the motion presently,
    and asked for a pill to purge melancholy.

    Epistemon also came on, and asked how a man might be ready to bepiss
    himself with laughing when he has no heart to be merry.

    Gymnast, arising, demanded a remedy for a dimness of eyes.

    Ponocrates, after he had a while rubbed his noddle and shaken his ears,
    asked how one might avoid dog-sleep.  Hold! cried Pantagruel, the
    Peripatetics have wisely made a rule that all problems, questions, and
    doubts which are offered to be solved ought to be certain, clear, and
    intelligible.  What do you mean by dog-sleep?  I mean, answered Ponocrates,
    to sleep fasting in the sun at noonday, as the dogs do.

    Rhizotome, who lay stooping on the pump, raised his drowsy head, and lazily
    yawning, by natural sympathy set almost everyone in the ship a-yawning too;
    then he asked for a remedy against oscitations and gapings.

    Xenomanes, half puzzled, and tired out with new-vamping his antiquated
    lantern, asked how the hold of the stomach might be so well ballasted and
    freighted from the keel to the main hatch, with stores well stowed, that
    our human vessels might not heel or be walt, but well trimmed and stiff.

    Carpalin, twirling his diminutive windmill, asked how many motions are to
    be felt in nature before a gentleman may be said to be hungry.

    Eusthenes, hearing them talk, came from between decks, and from the capstan
    called out to know why a man that is fasting, bit by a serpent also
    fasting, is in greater danger of death than when man and serpent have eat
    their breakfasts;—why a man's fasting-spittle is poisonous to serpents and
    venomous creatures.

    One single solution may serve for all your problems, gentlemen, answered
    Pantagruel; and one single medicine for all such symptoms and accidents.
    My answer shall be short, not to tire you with a long needless train of
    pedantic cant.  The belly has no ears, nor is it to be filled with fair
    words; you shall be answered to content by signs and gestures.  As formerly
    at Rome, Tarquin the Proud, its last king, sent an answer by signs to his
    son Sextus, who was among the Gabii at Gabii.  (Saying this, he pulled the
    string of a little bell, and Friar John hurried away to the cook-room.)
    The son having sent his father a messenger to know how he might bring the
    Gabii under a close subjection, the king, mistrusting the messenger, made
    him no answer, and only took him into his privy garden, and in his presence
    with his sword lopped off the heads of the tall poppies that were there.
    The express returned without any other despatch, yet having related to the
    prince what he had seen his father do, he easily understood that by those
    signs he advised him to cut off the heads of the chief men in the town, the
    better to keep under the rest of the people.

    Chapter 4.LXIV. How Pantagruel gave no answer to the problems.

    Pantagruel then asked what sort of people dwelt in that damned island.
    They are, answered Xenomanes, all hypocrites, holy mountebanks, tumblers of
    beads, mumblers of ave-marias, spiritual comedians, sham saints, hermits,
    all of them poor rogues who, like the hermit of Lormont between Blaye and
    Bordeaux, live wholly on alms given them by passengers.  Catch me there if
    you can, cried Panurge; may the devil's head-cook conjure my bumgut into a
    pair of bellows if ever you find me among them!  Hermits, sham saints,
    living forms of mortification, holy mountebanks, avaunt! in the name of
    your father Satan, get out of my sight!  When the devil's a hog, you shall
    eat bacon.  I shall not forget yet awhile our fat Concilipetes of Chesil.
    O that Beelzebub and Astaroth had counselled them to hang themselves out of
    the way, and they had done't! we had not then suffered so much by devilish
    storms as we did for having seen 'em.  Hark ye me, dear rogue, Xenomanes,
    my friend, I prithee are these hermits, hypocrites, and eavesdroppers maids
    or married?  Is there anything of the feminine gender among them?  Could a
    body hypocritically take there a small hypocritical touch?  Will they lie
    backwards, and let out their fore-rooms?  There's a fine question to be
    asked, cried Pantagruel.  Yes, yes, answered Xenomanes; you may find there
    many goodly hypocritesses, jolly spiritual actresses, kind hermitesses,
    women that have a plaguy deal of religion; then there's the copies of 'em,
    little hypocritillons, sham sanctitos, and hermitillons.  Foh! away with
    them, cried Friar John; a young saint, an old devil!  (Mark this, an old
    saying, and as true a one as, a young whore, an old saint.)  Were there not
    such, continued Xenomanes, the isle of Chaneph, for want of a
    multiplication of progeny, had long ere this been desert and desolate.

    Pantagruel sent them by Gymnast in the pinnace seventy-eight thousand fine
    pretty little gold half-crowns, of those that are marked with a lantern.
    After this he asked, What's o'clock?  Past nine, answered Epistemon.  It is
    then the best time to go to dinner, said Pantagruel; for the sacred line so
    celebrated by Aristophanes in his play called Concionatrices is at hand,
    never failing when the shadow is decempedal.

    Formerly, among the Persians, dinner-time was at a set hour only for kings;
    as for all others, their appetite and their belly was their clock; when
    that chimed, they thought it time to go to dinner.  So we find in Plautus a
    certain parasite making a heavy do, and sadly railing at the inventors of
    hour-glasses and dials as being unnecessary things, there being no clock
    more regular than the belly.

    Diogenes being asked at what times a man ought to eat, answered, The rich
    when he is hungry, the poor when he has anything to eat.  Physicians more
    properly say that the canonical hours are,

      To rise at five, to dine at nine,
      To sup at five, to sleep at nine.

    The famous king Petosiris's magic was different,—Here the officers for the
    gut came in, and got ready the tables and cupboards; laid the cloth, whose
    sight and pleasant smell were very comfortable; and brought plates,
    napkins, salts, tankards, flagons, tall-boys, ewers, tumblers, cups,
    goblets, basins, and cisterns.

    Friar John, at the head of the stewards, sewers, yeomen of the pantry, and
    of the mouth, tasters, carvers, cupbearers, and cupboard-keepers, brought
    four stately pasties, so huge that they put me in mind of the four bastions
    at Turin.  Ods-fish, how manfully did they storm them!  What havoc did they
    make with the long train of dishes that came after them!  How bravely did
    they stand to their pan-puddings, and paid off their dust!  How merrily did
    they soak their noses!

    The fruit was not yet brought in, when a fresh gale at west and by north
    began to fill the main-course, mizen-sail, fore-sail, tops, and top-
    gallants; for which blessing they all sung divers hymns of thanks and
    praise.

    When the fruit was on the table, Pantagruel asked, Now tell me, gentlemen,
    are your doubts fully resolved or no?  I gape and yawn no more, answered
    Rhizotome.  I sleep no longer like a dog, said Ponocrates.  I have cleared
    my eyesight, said Gymnast.  I have broke my fast, said Eusthenes; so that
    for this whole day I shall be secure from the danger of my spittle.

    
    Asps.             Black wag leg-flies.  Domeses.
    Amphisbenes.      Spanish flies.        Dryinades.
    Anerudutes.       Catoblepes.           Dragons.
    Abedissimons.     Horned snakes.        Elopes.
    Alhartrafz.       Caterpillars.         Enhydrides.
    Ammobates.        Crocodiles.           Falvises.
    Apimaos.          Toads.                Galeotes.
    Alhatrabans.      Nightmares.           Harmenes.
    Aractes.          Mad dogs.             Handons.
    Asterions.        Colotes.              Icles.
    Alcharates.       Cychriodes.           Jarraries.
    Arges.            Cafezates.            Ilicines.
    Spiders.          Cauhares.             Pharaoh's mice.
    Starry lizards.   Snakes.               Kesudures.
    Attelabes.        Cuhersks, two-      Sea-hares.
    Ascalabotes.        tongued adders.     Chalcidic newts.
    Haemorrhoids.     Amphibious ser-     Footed serpents.
    Basilisks.          pents.              Manticores.
    Fitches.          Cenchres.             Molures.
    Sucking water-  Cockatrices.          Mouse-serpents.
      snakes.         Dipsades.             Shrew-mice.
    Miliares.         Salamanders.          Stinkfish.
    Megalaunes.       Slowworms.            Stuphes.
    Spitting-asps.    Stellions.            Sabrins.
    Porphyri.         Scorpenes.            Blood-sucking flies.
    Pareades.         Scorpions.            Hornfretters.
    Phalanges.        Hornworms.            Scolopendres.
    Penphredons.      Scalavotins.          Tarantulas.
    Pinetree-worms.   Solofuidars.          Blind worms.
    Ruteles.          Deaf-asps.            Tetragnathias.
    Worms.            Horseleeches.         Teristales.
    Rhagions.         Salt-haters.          Vipers, &c.
    Rhaganes.         Rot-serpents.
    
    

    Chapter 4.LXV. How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants.

    In what hierarchy of such venomous creatures do you place Panurge's future
    spouse? asked Friar John.  Art thou speaking ill of women, cried Panurge,
    thou mangy scoundrel, thou sorry, noddy-peaked shaveling monk?  By the
    cenomanic paunch and gixy, said Epistemon, Euripides has written, and makes
    Andromache say it, that by industry, and the help of the gods, men had
    found remedies against all poisonous creatures; but none was yet found
    against a bad wife.

    This flaunting Euripides, cried Panurge, was gabbling against women every
    foot, and therefore was devoured by dogs, as a judgment from above; as
    Aristophanes observes.  Let's go on.  Let him speak that is next.  I can
    leak now like any stone-horse, said then Epistemon.  I am, said Xenomanes,
    full as an egg and round as a hoop; my ship's hold can hold no more, and
    will now make shift to bear a steady sail.  Said Carpalin, A truce with
    thirst, a truce with hunger; they are strong, but wine and meat are
    stronger.  I'm no more in the dumps cried Panurge; my heart's a pound
    lighter.  I'm in the right cue now, as brisk as a body-louse, and as merry
    as a beggar.  For my part, I know what I do when I drink; and it is a true
    thing (though 'tis in your Euripides) that is said by that jolly toper
    Silenus of blessed memory, that—

      The man's emphatically mad,
      Who drinks the best, yet can be sad.

    We must not fail to return our humble and hearty thanks to the Being who,
    with this good bread, this cool delicious wine, these good meats and rare
    dainties, removes from our bodies and minds these pains and perturbations,
    and at the same time fills us with pleasure and with food.

    But methinks, sir, you did not give an answer to Friar John's question;
    which, as I take it, was how to raise good weather.  Since you ask no more
    than this easy question, answered Pantagruel, I'll strive to give you
    satisfaction; and some other time we'll talk of the rest of the problems,
    if you will.

    Well then, Friar John asked how good weather might be raised.  Have we not
    raised it?  Look up and see our full topsails.  Hark how the wind whistles
    through the shrouds, what a stiff gale it blows.  Observe the rattling of
    the tacklings, and see the sheets that fasten the mainsail behind; the
    force of the wind puts them upon the stretch.  While we passed our time
    merrily, the dull weather also passed away; and while we raised the glasses
    to our mouths, we also raised the wind by a secret sympathy in nature.

    Thus Atlas and Hercules clubbed to raise and underprop the falling sky, if
    you'll believe the wise mythologists, but they raised it some half an inch
    too high, Atlas to entertain his guest Hercules more pleasantly, and
    Hercules to make himself amends for the thirst which some time before had
    tormented him in the deserts of Africa.  Your good father, said Friar John,
    interrupting him, takes care to free many people from such an
    inconveniency; for I have been told by many venerable doctors that his
    chief-butler, Turelupin, saves above eighteen hundred pipes of wine yearly
    to make servants, and all comers and goers, drink before they are a-dry.
    As the camels and dromedaries of a caravan, continued Pantagruel, use to
    drink for the thirst that's past, for the present, and for that to come, so
    did Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this gave new motion to
    the sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation, about which our
    crackbrained astrologers make such a pother.  This, said Panurge, makes the
    saying good:

      While jolly companions carouse it together,
      A fig for the storm, it gives way to good weather.

    Nay, continued Pantagruel, some will tell you that we have not only
    shortened the time of the calm, but also much disburthened the ship; not
    like Aesop's basket, by easing it of the provision, but by breaking our
    fasts; and that a man is more terrestrial and heavy when fasting than when
    he has eaten and drank, even as they pretend that he weighs more dead than
    living.  However it is, you will grant they are in the right who take their
    morning's draught and breakfast before a long journey; then say that the
    horses will perform the better, and that a spur in the head is worth two in
    the flank; or, in the same horse dialect—

      That a cup in the pate
      Is a mile in the gate.

    Don't you know that formerly the Amycleans worshipped the noble Bacchus
    above all other gods, and gave him the name of Psila, which in the Doric
    dialect signifies wings; for, as the birds raise themselves by a towering
    flight with their wings above the clouds, so, with the help of soaring
    Bacchus, the powerful juice of the grape, our spirits are exalted to a
    pitch above themselves, our bodies are more sprightly, and their earthly
    parts become soft and pliant.

    Chapter 4.LXVI. How, by Pantagruel's order, the Muses were saluted near the isle of
    Ganabim.

    This fair wind and as fine talk brought us in sight of a high land, which
    Pantagruel discovering afar off, showed it Xenomanes, and asked him, Do you
    see yonder to the leeward a high rock with two tops, much like Mount
    Parnassus in Phocis?  I do plainly, answered Xenomanes; 'tis the isle of
    Ganabim.  Have you a mind to go ashore there?  No, returned Pantagruel.
    You do well, indeed, said Xenomanes; for there is nothing worth seeing in
    the place.  The people are all thieves; yet there is the finest fountain in
    the world, and a very large forest towards the right top of the mountain.
    Your fleet may take in wood and water there.

    He that spoke last, spoke well, quoth Panurge; let us not by any means be
    so mad as to go among a parcel of thieves and sharpers.  You may take my
    word for't, this place is just such another as, to my knowledge, formerly
    were the islands of Sark and Herm, between the smaller and the greater
    Britain; such as was the Poneropolis of Philip in Thrace; islands of
    thieves, banditti, picaroons, robbers, ruffians, and murderers, worse than
    raw-head and bloody-bones, and full as honest as the senior fellows of the
    college of iniquity, the very outcasts of the county gaol's common-side.
    As you love yourself, do not go among 'em.  If you go you'll come off but
    bluely, if you come off at all.  If you will not believe me, at least
    believe what the good and wise Xenomanes tells you; for may I never stir if
    they are not worse than the very cannibals; they would certainly eat us
    alive.  Do not go among 'em, I pray you; it were safer to take a journey to
    hell.  Hark! by Cod's body, I hear 'em ringing the alarm-bell most
    dreadfully, as the Gascons about Bordeaux used formerly to do against the
    commissaries and officers for the tax on salt, or my ears tingle.  Let's
    sheer off.

    Believe me, sir, said Friar John, let's rather land; we will rid the world
    of that vermin, and inn there for nothing.  Old Nick go with thee for me,
    quoth Panurge.  This rash hairbrained devil of a friar fears nothing, but
    ventures and runs on like a mad devil as he is, and cares not a rush what
    becomes of others; as if everyone was a monk, like his friarship.  A pox on
    grinning honour, say I.  Go to, returned the friar, thou mangy noddy-peak!
    thou forlorn druggle-headed sneaksby! and may a million of black devils
    anatomize thy cockle brain.  The hen-hearted rascal is so cowardly that he
    berays himself for fear every day.  If thou art so afraid, dunghill, do not
    go; stay here and be hanged; or go and hide thy loggerhead under Madam
    Proserpine's petticoat.

    Panurge hearing this, his breech began to make buttons; so he slunk in in
    an instant, and went to hide his head down in the bread-room among the
    musty biscuits and the orts and scraps of broken bread.

    Pantagruel in the meantime said to the rest:  I feel a pressing retraction
    in my soul, which like a voice admonishes me not to land there.  Whenever I
    have felt such a motion within me I have found myself happy in avoiding
    what it directed me to shun, or in undertaking what it prompted me to do;
    and I never had occasion to repent following its dictates.

    As much, said Epistemon, is related of the daemon of Socrates, so
    celebrated among the Academics.  Well then, sir, said Friar John, while the
    ship's crew water have you a mind to have good sport?  Panurge is got down
    somewhere in the hold, where he is crept into some corner, and lurks like a
    mouse in a cranny.  Let 'em give the word for the gunner to fire yon gun
    over the round-house on the poop; this will serve to salute the Muses of
    this Anti-parnassus; besides, the powder does but decay in it.  You are in
    the right, said Pantagruel; here, give the word for the gunner.

    The gunner immediately came, and was ordered by Pantagruel to fire that
    gun, and then charge it with fresh powder, which was soon done.  The
    gunners of the other ships, frigates, galleons, and galleys of the fleet,
    hearing us fire, gave every one a gun to the island; which made such a
    horrid noise that you would have sworn heaven had been tumbling about our
    ears.

    Chapter 4.LXVII. How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge cat Rodilardus, which
    he took for a puny devil.

    Panurge, like a wild, addle-pated, giddy-goat, sallies out of the bread-
    room in his shirt, with nothing else about him but one of his stockings,
    half on, half off, about his heel, like a rough-footed pigeon; his hair and
    beard all bepowdered with crumbs of bread in which he had been over head
    and ears, and a huge and mighty puss partly wrapped up in his other
    stocking.  In this equipage, his chaps moving like a monkey's who's
    a-louse-hunting, his eyes staring like a dead pig's, his teeth chattering,
    and his bum quivering, the poor dog fled to Friar John, who was then
    sitting by the chain-wales of the starboard side of the ship, and prayed
    him heartily to take pity on him and keep him in the safeguard of his
    trusty bilbo; swearing, by his share of Papimany, that he had seen all hell
    broke loose.

    Woe is me, my Jacky, cried he, my dear Johnny, my old crony, my brother, my
    ghostly father! all the devils keep holiday, all the devils keep their
    feast to-day, man.  Pork and peas choke me if ever thou sawest such
    preparations in thy life for an infernal feast.  Dost thou see the smoke of
    hell's kitchens?  (This he said, showing him the smoke of the gunpowder
    above the ships.)  Thou never sawest so many damned souls since thou wast
    born; and so fair, so bewitching they seem, that one would swear they are
    Stygian ambrosia.  I thought at first, God forgive me! that they had been
    English souls; and I don't know but that this morning the isle of Horses,
    near Scotland, was sacked, with all the English who had surprised it, by
    the lords of Termes and Essay.

    Friar John, at the approach of Panurge, was entertained with a kind of
    smell that was not like that of gunpowder, nor altogether so sweet as musk;
    which made him turn Panurge about, and then he saw that his shirt was
    dismally bepawed and berayed with fresh sir-reverence.  The retentive
    faculty of the nerve which restrains the muscle called sphincter ('tis the
    arse-hole, an it please you) was relaxated by the violence of the fear
    which he had been in during his fantastic visions.  Add to this the
    thundering noise of the shooting, which seems more dreadful between decks
    than above.  Nor ought you to wonder at such a mishap; for one of the
    symptoms and accidents of fear is, that it often opens the wicket of the
    cupboard wherein second-hand meat is kept for a time.  Let's illustrate
    this noble theme with some examples.

    Messer Pantolfe de la Cassina of Siena, riding post from Rome, came to
    Chambery, and alighting at honest Vinet's took one of the pitchforks in the
    stable; then turning to the innkeeper, said to him, Da Roma in qua io non
    son andato del corpo.  Di gratia piglia in mano questa forcha, et fa mi
    paura.  (I have not had a stool since I left Rome.  I pray thee take this
    pitchfork and fright me.)  Vinet took it, and made several offers as if he
    would in good earnest have hit the signor, but all in vain; so the Sienese
    said to him, Si tu non fai altramente, tu non fai nulla; pero sforzati di
    adoperarli piu guagliardamente.  (If thou dost not go another way to work,
    thou hadst as good do nothing; therefore try to bestir thyself more
    briskly.)  With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater with the
    pitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin, that down
    fell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks wide
    straggling over his poll.  Then mine host sputtering, with a full-mouthed
    laugh, said to his guest, By Beelzebub's bumgut, much good may it do you,
    Signore Italiano.  Take notice this is datum Camberiaci, given at Chambery.
    'Twas well the Sienese had untrussed his points and let down his drawers;
    for this physic worked with him as soon as he took it, and as copious was
    the evacuation as that of nine buffaloes and fourteen missificating arch-
    lubbers.  Which operation being over, the mannerly Sienese courteously gave
    mine host a whole bushel of thanks, saying to him, Io ti ringratio, bel
    messere; cosi facendo tu m' ai esparmiata la speza d'un servitiale.  (I
    thank thee, good landlord; by this thou hast e'en saved me the expense of a
    clyster.)

    I'll give you another example of Edward V., King of England.  Master
    Francis Villon, being banished France, fled to him, and got so far into his
    favour as to be privy to all his household affairs.  One day the king,
    being on his close-stool, showed Villon the arms of France, and said to
    him, Dost thou see what respect I have for thy French kings?  I have none
    of their arms anywhere but in this backside, near my close-stool.  Ods-
    life, said the buffoon, how wise, prudent, and careful of your health your
    highness is!  How carefully your learned doctor, Thomas Linacre, looks
    after you!  He saw that now you grow old you are inclined to be somewhat
    costive, and every day were fain to have an apothecary, I mean a
    suppository or clyster, thrust into your royal nockandroe; so he has, much
    to the purpose, induced you to place here the arms of France; for the very
    sight of them puts you into such a dreadful fright that you immediately let
    fly as much as would come from eighteen squattering bonasi of Paeonia.  And
    if they were painted in other parts of your house, by jingo, you would
    presently conskite yourself wherever you saw them.  Nay, had you but here a
    picture of the great oriflamme of France, ods-bodikins, your tripes and
    bowels would be in no small danger of dropping out at the orifice of your
    posteriors.  But henh, henh, atque iterum henh.

      A silly cockney am I not,
        As ever did from Paris come?
      And with a rope and sliding knot
        My neck shall know what weighs my bum.

    A cockney of short reach, I say, shallow of judgment and judging shallowly,
    to wonder that you should cause your points to be untrussed in your chamber
    before you come into this closet.  By'r lady, at first I thought your
    close-stool had stood behind the hangings of your bed; otherwise it seemed
    very odd to me you should untruss so far from the place of evacuation.  But
    now I find I was a gull, a wittol, a woodcock, a mere ninny, a dolt-head, a
    noddy, a changeling, a calf-lolly, a doddipoll.  You do wisely, by the
    mass, you do wisely; for had you not been ready to clap your hind face on
    the mustard-pot as soon as you came within sight of these arms—mark ye me,
    cop's body—the bottom of your breeches had supplied the office of a close-
    stool.

    Friar John, stopping the handle of his face with his left hand, did, with
    the forefinger of the right, point out Panurge's shirt to Pantagruel, who,
    seeing him in this pickle, scared, appalled, shivering, raving, staring,
    berayed, and torn with the claws of the famous cat Rodilardus, could not
    choose but laugh, and said to him, Prithee what wouldst thou do with this
    cat?  With this cat? quoth Panurge; the devil scratch me if I did not think
    it had been a young soft-chinned devil, which, with this same stocking
    instead of mitten, I had snatched up in the great hutch of hell as
    thievishly as any sizar of Montague college could have done.  The devil
    take Tybert!  I feel it has all bepinked my poor hide, and drawn on it to
    the life I don't know how many lobsters' whiskers.  With this he threw his
    boar-cat down.

    Go, go, said Pantagruel, be bathed and cleaned, calm your fears, put on a
    clean shift, and then your clothes.  What! do you think I am afraid? cried
    Panurge.  Not I, I protest.  By the testicles of Hercules, I am more
    hearty, bold, and stout, though I say it that should not, than if I had
    swallowed as many flies as are put into plumcakes and other paste at Paris
    from Midsummer to Christmas.  But what's this?  Hah! oh, ho! how the devil
    came I by this?  Do you call this what the cat left in the malt, filth,
    dirt, dung, dejection, faecal matter, excrement, stercoration,
    sir-reverence, ordure, second-hand meats, fumets, stronts, scybal, or
    spyrathe? 'Tis Hibernian saffron, I protest.  Hah, hah, hah! 'tis Irish
    saffron, by Shaint Pautrick, and so much for this time.  Selah.  Let's
    drink.



    THE FIFTH BOOK.


    The Author's Prologue.

    Indefatigable topers, and you, thrice precious martyrs of the smock, give
    me leave to put a serious question to your worships while you are idly
    striking your codpieces, and I myself not much better employed.  Pray, why
    is it that people say that men are not such sots nowadays as they were in
    the days of yore?  Sot is an old word that signifies a dunce, dullard,
    jolthead, gull, wittol, or noddy, one without guts in his brains, whose
    cockloft is unfurnished, and, in short, a fool.  Now would I know whether
    you would have us understand by this same saying, as indeed you logically
    may, that formerly men were fools and in this generation are grown wise?
    How many and what dispositions made them fools?  How many and what
    dispositions were wanting to make 'em wise?  Why were they fools?  How
    should they be wise?  Pray, how came you to know that men were formerly
    fools?  How did you find that they are now wise?  Who the devil made 'em
    fools?  Who a God's name made 'em wise?  Who d'ye think are most, those
    that loved mankind foolish, or those that love it wise?  How long has it
    been wise?  How long otherwise?  Whence proceeded the foregoing folly?
    Whence the following wisdom?  Why did the old folly end now, and no later?
    Why did the modern wisdom begin now, and no sooner?  What were we the worse
    for the former folly?  What the better for the succeeding wisdom?  How
    should the ancient folly be come to nothing?  How should this same new
    wisdom be started up and established?

    Now answer me, an't please you.  I dare not adjure you in stronger terms,
    reverend sirs, lest I make your pious fatherly worships in the least
    uneasy.  Come, pluck up a good heart; speak the truth and shame the devil.
    Be cheery, my lads; and if you are for me, take me off three or five
    bumpers of the best, while I make a halt at the first part of the sermon;
    then answer my question.  If you are not for me, avaunt! avoid, Satan!  For
    I swear by my great-grandmother's placket (and that's a horrid oath), that
    if you don't help me to solve that puzzling problem, I will, nay, I already
    do repent having proposed it; for still I must remain nettled and
    gravelled, and a devil a bit I know how to get off.  Well, what say you?
    I'faith, I begin to smell you out.  You are not yet disposed to give me an
    answer; nor I neither, by these whiskers.  Yet to give some light into the
    business, I'll e'en tell you what had been anciently foretold in the matter
    by a venerable doctor, who, being moved by the spirit in a prophetic vein,
    wrote a book ycleped the Prelatical Bagpipe.  What d'ye think the old
    fornicator saith?  Hearken, you old noddies, hearken now or never.

      The jubilee's year, when all like fools were shorn,
      Is about thirty supernumerary.
      O want of veneration! fools they seemed,
      But, persevering, with long breves, at last
      No more they shall be gaping greedy fools.
      For they shall shell the shrub's delicious fruit,
      Whose flower they in the spring so much had feared.

    Now you have it, what do you make on't?  The seer is ancient, the style
    laconic, the sentences dark like those of Scotus, though they treat of
    matters dark enough in themselves.  The best commentators on that good
    father take the jubilee after the thirtieth to be the years that are
    included in this present age till 1550 (there being but one jubilee every
    fifty years).  Men shall no longer be thought fools next green peas season.

    The fools, whose number, as Solomon certifies, is infinite, shall go to pot
    like a parcel of mad bedlamites as they are; and all manner of folly shall
    have an end, that being also numberless, according to Avicenna, maniae
    infinitae sunt species.  Having been driven back and hidden towards the
    centre during the rigour of the winter, 'tis now to be seen on the surface,
    and buds out like the trees.  This is as plain as a nose in a man's face;
    you know it by experience; you see it.  And it was formerly found out by
    that great good man Hippocrates, Aphorism Verae etenim maniae, &c.  This
    world therefore wisifying itself, shall no longer dread the flower and
    blossoms of every coming spring, that is, as you may piously believe,
    bumper in hand and tears in eyes, in the woeful time of Lent, which used to
    keep them company.

    Whole cartloads of books that seemed florid, flourishing, and flowery, gay,
    and gaudy as so many butterflies, but in the main were tiresome, dull,
    soporiferous, irksome, mischievous, crabbed, knotty, puzzling, and dark as
    those of whining Heraclitus, as unintelligible as the numbers of
    Pythagoras, that king of the bean, according to Horace; those books, I say,
    have seen their best days and shall soon come to nothing, being delivered
    to the executing worms and merciless petty chandlers; such was their
    destiny, and to this they were predestinated.

    In their stead beans in cod are started up; that is, these merry and
    fructifying Pantagruelian books, so much sought nowadays in expectation of
    the following jubilee's period; to the study of which writings all people
    have given their minds, and accordingly have gained the name of wise.

    Now I think I have fairly solved and resolved your problem; then reform,
    and be the better for it.  Hem once or twice like hearts of oak; stand to
    your pan-puddings, and take me off your bumpers, nine go-downs, and huzza!
    since we are like to have a good vintage, and misers hang themselves.  Oh!
    they will cost me an estate in hempen collars if fair weather hold.  For I
    hereby promise to furnish them with twice as much as will do their business
    on free cost, as often as they will take the pains to dance at a rope's end
    providently to save charges, to the no small disappointment of the finisher
    of the law.

    Now, my friends, that you may put in for a share of this new wisdom, and
    shake off the antiquated folly this very moment, scratch me out of your
    scrolls and quite discard the symbol of the old philosopher with the golden
    thigh, by which he has forbidden you to eat beans; for you may take it for
    a truth granted among all professors in the science of good eating, that he
    enjoined you not to taste of them only with the same kind intent that a
    certain fresh-water physician had when he did forbid to Amer, late Lord of
    Camelotiere, kinsman to the lawyer of that name, the wing of the partridge,
    the rump of the chicken, and the neck of the pigeon, saying, Ala mala,
    rumpum dubium, collum bonum, pelle remota.  For the duncical dog-leech was
    so selfish as to reserve them for his own dainty chops, and allowed his
    poor patients little more than the bare bones to pick, lest they should
    overload their squeamish stomachs.

    To the heathen philosopher succeeded a pack of Capuchins, monks who forbid
    us the use of beans, that is, Pantagruelian books.  They seem to follow the
    example of Philoxenus and Gnatho, one of whom was a Sicilian of fulsome
    memory, the ancient master-builders of their monastic cram-gut
    voluptuousness, who, when some dainty bit was served up at a feast,
    filthily used to spit on it, that none but their nasty selves might have
    the stomach to eat of it, though their liquorish chops watered never so
    much after it.

    So those hideous, snotty, phthisicky, eaves-dropping, musty, moving forms
    of mortification, both in public and private, curse those dainty books, and
    like toads spit their venom upon them.

    Now, though we have in our mother-tongue several excellent works in verse
    and prose, and, heaven be praised! but little left of the trash and
    trumpery stuff of those duncical mumblers of ave-maries and the barbarous
    foregoing Gothic age, I have made bold to choose to chirrup and warble my
    plain ditty, or, as they say, to whistle like a goose among the swans,
    rather than be thought deaf among so many pretty poets and eloquent
    orators.  And thus I am prouder of acting the clown, or any other under-
    part, among the many ingenious actors in that noble play, than of herding
    among those mutes, who, like so many shadows and ciphers, only serve to
    fill up the house and make up a number, gaping and yawning at the flies,
    and pricking up their lugs, like so many Arcadian asses, at the striking up
    of the music; thus silently giving to understand that their fopships are
    tickled in the right place.

    Having taken this resolution, I thought it would not be amiss to move my
    Diogenical tub, that you might not accuse me of living without example.  I
    see a swarm of our modern poets and orators, your Colinets, Marots,
    Drouets, Saint Gelais, Salels, Masuels, and many more, who, having
    commenced masters in Apollo's academy on Mount Parnassus, and drunk
    brimmers at the Caballin fountain among the nine merry Muses, have raised
    our vulgar tongue, and made it a noble and everlasting structure.  Their
    works are all Parian marble, alabaster, porphyry, and royal cement; they
    treat of nothing but heroic deeds, mighty things, grave and difficult
    matters, and this in a crimson, alamode, rhetorical style.  Their writings
    are all divine nectar, rich, racy, sparkling, delicate, and luscious wine.
    Nor does our sex wholly engross this honour; ladies have had their share of
    the glory; one of them, of the royal blood of France, whom it were a
    profanation but to name here, surprises the age at once by the transcendent
    and inventive genius in her writings and the admirable graces of her style.
    Imitate those great examples if you can; for my part I cannot.  Everyone,
    you know, cannot go to Corinth.  When Solomon built the temple, all could
    not give gold by handfuls.

    Since then 'tis not in my power to improve our architecture as much as
    they, I am e'en resolved to do like Renault of Montauban:  I'll wait on the
    masons, set on the pot for the masons, cook for the stone-cutters; and
    since it was not my good luck to be cut out for one of them, I will live
    and die the admirer of their divine writings.

    As for you, little envious prigs, snarling bastards, puny critics, you'll
    soon have railed your last; go hang yourselves, and choose you out some
    well-spread oak, under whose shade you may swing in state, to the
    admiration of the gaping mob; you shall never want rope enough.  While I
    here solemnly protest before my Helicon, in the presence of my nine
    mistresses the Muses, that if I live yet the age of a dog, eked out with
    that of three crows, sound wind and limbs, like the old Hebrew captain
    Moses, Xenophilus the musician, and Demonax the philosopher, by arguments
    no ways impertinent, and reasons not to be disputed, I will prove, in the
    teeth of a parcel of brokers and retailers of ancient rhapsodies and such
    mouldy trash, that our vulgar tongue is not so mean, silly, inept, poor,
    barren, and contemptible as they pretend.  Nor ought I to be afraid of I
    know not what botchers of old threadbare stuff, a hundred and a hundred
    times clouted up and pieced together; wretched bunglers that can do nothing
    but new-vamp old rusty saws; beggarly scavengers that rake even the
    muddiest canals of antiquity for scraps and bits of Latin as insignificant
    as they are often uncertain.  Beseeching our grandees of Witland that, as
    when formerly Apollo had distributed all the treasures of his poetical
    exchequer to his favourites, little hulchbacked Aesop got for himself the
    office of apologue-monger; in the same manner, since I do not aspire
    higher, they would not deny me that of puny rhyparographer, or riffraff
    follower of the sect of Pyreicus.

    I dare swear they will grant me this; for they are all so kind, so good-
    natured, and so generous, that they'll ne'er boggle at so small a request.
    Therefore, both dry and hungry souls, pot and trenchermen, fully enjoying
    those books, perusing, quoting them in their merry conventicles, and
    observing the great mysteries of which they treat, shall gain a singular
    profit and fame; as in the like case was done by Alexander the Great with
    the books of prime philosophy composed by Aristotle.

    O rare! belly on belly! what swillers, what twisters will there be!

    Then be sure all you that take care not to die of the pip, be sure, I say,
    you take my advice, and stock yourselves with good store of such books as
    soon as you meet with them at the booksellers; and do not only shell those
    beans, but e'en swallow them down like an opiate cordial, and let them be
    in you; I say, let them be within you; then you shall find, my beloved,
    what good they do to all clever shellers of beans.

    Here is a good handsome basketful of them, which I here lay before your
    worships; they were gathered in the very individual garden whence the
    former came.  So I beseech you, reverend sirs, with as much respect as was
    ever paid by dedicating author, to accept of the gift, in hopes of somewhat
    better against next visit the swallows give us.


    THE FIFTH BOOK.

    Chapter 5.I.

    How Pantagruel arrived at the Ringing Island, and of the noise that we
    heard.

    Pursuing our voyage, we sailed three days without discovering anything; on
    the fourth we made land.  Our pilot told us that it was the Ringing Island,
    and indeed we heard a kind of a confused and often repeated noise, that
    seemed to us at a great distance not unlike the sound of great, middle-
    sized, and little bells rung all at once, as 'tis customary at Paris,
    Tours, Gergeau, Nantes, and elsewhere on high holidays; and the nearer we
    came to the land the louder we heard that jangling.

    Some of us doubted that it was the Dodonian kettle, or the portico called
    Heptaphone in Olympia, or the eternal humming of the colossus raised on
    Memnon's tomb in Thebes of Egypt, or the horrid din that used formerly to
    be heard about a tomb at Lipara, one of the Aeolian islands.  But this did
    not square with chorography.

    I do not know, said Pantagruel, but that some swarms of bees hereabouts may
    be taking a ramble in the air, and so the neighbourhood make this dingle-
    dangle with pans, kettles, and basins, the corybantine cymbals of Cybele,
    grandmother of the gods, to call them back.  Let's hearken.  When we were
    nearer, among the everlasting ringing of these indefatigable bells we heard
    the singing, as we thought, of some men.  For this reason, before we
    offered to land on the Ringing Island, Pantagruel was of opinion that we
    should go in the pinnace to a small rock, near which we discovered an
    hermitage and a little garden.  There we found a diminutive old hermit,
    whose name was Braguibus, born at Glenay.  He gave us a full account of all
    the jangling, and regaled us after a strange sort of fashion—four livelong
    days did he make us fast, assuring us that we should not be admitted into
    the Ringing Island otherwise, because it was then one of the four fasting,
    or ember weeks.  As I love my belly, quoth Panurge, I by no means
    understand this riddle.  Methinks this should rather be one of the four
    windy weeks; for while we fast we are only puffed up with wind.  Pray now,
    good father hermit, have not you here some other pastime besides fasting?
    Methinks it is somewhat of the leanest; we might well enough be without so
    many palace holidays and those fasting times of yours.  In my Donatus,
    quoth Friar John, I could find yet but three times or tenses, the preterit,
    the present, and the future; doubtless here the fourth ought to be a work
    of supererogation.  That time or tense, said Epistemon, is aorist, derived
    from the preter-imperfect tense of the Greeks, admitted in war (?) and odd
    cases.  Patience perforce is a remedy for a mad dog.  Saith the hermit:  It
    is, as I told you, fatal to go against this; whosoever does it is a rank
    heretic, and wants nothing but fire and faggot, that's certain.  To deal
    plainly with you, my dear pater, cried Panurge, being at sea, I much more
    fear being wet than being warm, and being drowned than being burned.

    Well, however, let us fast, a God's name; yet I have fasted so long that it
    has quite undermined my flesh, and I fear that at last the bastions of this
    bodily fort of mine will fall to ruin.  Besides, I am much more afraid of
    vexing you in this same trade of fasting; for the devil a bit I understand
    anything in it, and it becomes me very scurvily, as several people have
    told me, and I am apt to believe them.  For my part, I have no great
    stomach to fasting; for alas! it is as easy as pissing a bed, and a trade
    of which anybody may set up; there needs no tools.  I am much more inclined
    not to fast for the future; for to do so there is some stock required, and
    some tools are set a-work.  No matter, since you are so steadfast, and
    would have us fast, let us fast as fast as we can, and then breakfast in
    the name of famine.  Now we are come to these esurial idle days.  I vow I
    had quite put them out of my head long ago.  If we must fast, said
    Pantagruel, I see no other remedy but to get rid of it as soon as we can,
    as we would out of a bad way.  I'll in that space of time somewhat look
    over my papers, and examine whether the marine study be as good as ours at
    land.  For Plato, to describe a silly, raw, ignorant fellow, compares him
    to those that are bred on shipboard, as we would do one bred up in a
    barrel, who never saw anything but through the bung-hole.

    To tell you the short and the long of the matter, our fasting was most
    hideous and terrible; for the first day we fasted on fisticuffs, the second
    at cudgels, the third at sharps, and the fourth at blood and wounds:  such
    was the order of the fairies.

    Chapter 5.II. How the Ringing Island had been inhabited by the Siticines, who were become
    birds.

    Having fasted as aforesaid, the hermit gave us a letter for one whom he
    called Albian Camar, Master Aedituus of the Ringing Island; but Panurge
    greeting him called him Master Antitus.  He was a little queer old fellow,
    bald-pated, with a snout whereat you might easily have lighted a card-
    match, and a phiz as red as a cardinal's cap.  He made us all very welcome,
    upon the hermit's recommendation, hearing that we had fasted, as I have
    told you.

    When we had well stuffed our puddings, he gave us an account of what was
    remarkable in the island, affirming that it had been at first inhabited by
    the Siticines; but that, according to the course of nature—as all things,
    you know, are subject to change—they were become birds.

    There I had a full account of all that Atteius Capito, Paulus, Marcellus,
    A. Gellius, Athenaeus, Suidas, Ammonius, and others had writ of the
    Siticines and Sicinnists; and then we thought we might as easily believe
    the transmutations of Nectymene, Progne, Itys, Alcyone, Antigone, Tereus,
    and other birds.  Nor did we think it more reasonable to doubt of the
    transmogrification of the Macrobian children into swans, or that of the men
    of Pallene in Thrace into birds, as soon as they had bathed themselves in
    the Tritonic lake.  After this the devil a word could we get out of him but
    of birds and cages.

    The cages were spacious, costly, magnificent, and of an admirable
    architecture.  The birds were large, fine, and neat accordingly, looking as
    like the men in my country as one pea does like another; for they ate and
    drank like men, muted like men, endued or digested like men, farted like
    men, but stunk like devils; slept, billed, and trod their females like men,
    but somewhat oftener:  in short, had you seen and examined them from top to
    toe, you would have laid your head to a turnip that they had been mere men.
    However, they were nothing less, as Master Aedituus told us; assuring us,
    at the same time, that they were neither secular nor laic; and the truth
    is, the diversity of their feathers and plumes did not a little puzzle us.

    Some of them were all over as white as swans, others as black as crows,
    many as grey as owls, others black and white like magpies, some all red
    like red-birds, and others purple and white like some pigeons.  He called
    the males clerg-hawks, monk-hawks, priest-hawks, abbot-hawks, bish-hawks,
    cardin-hawks, and one pope-hawk, who is a species by himself.  He called
    the females clerg-kites, nun-kites, priest-kites, abbess-kites, bish-kites,
    cardin-kites, and pope-kites.

    However, said he, as hornets and drones will get among the bees, and there
    do nothing but buzz, eat, and spoil everything; so, for these last three
    hundred years, a vast swarm of bigottelloes flocked, I do not know how,
    among these goodly birds every fifth full moon, and have bemuted, berayed,
    and conskited the whole island.  They are so hard-favoured and monstrous
    that none can abide them.  For their wry necks make a figure like a crooked
    billet; their paws are hairy, like those of rough-footed pigeons; their
    claws and pounces, belly and breech, like those of the Stymphalid harpies.
    Nor is it possible to root them out, for if you get rid of one, straight
    four-and-twenty new ones fly thither.

    There had been need of another monster-hunter such as was Hercules; for
    Friar John had like to have run distracted about it, so much he was nettled
    and puzzled in the matter.  As for the good Pantagruel, he was even served
    as was Messer Priapus, contemplating the sacrifices of Ceres, for want of
    skin.

    Chapter 5.III. How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island.

    5-03-544.jpg (157K)

    We then asked Master Aedituus why there was but one pope-hawk among such
    venerable birds multiplied in all their species.  He answered that such was
    the first institution and fatal destiny of the stars that the clerg-hawks
    begot the priest-hawks and monk-hawks without carnal copulation, as some
    bees are born of a young bull; the priest-hawks begat the bish-hawks, the
    bish-hawks the stately cardin-hawks, and the stately cardin-hawks, if they
    live long enough, at last come to be pope-hawk.

    Of this last kind there never is more than one at a time, as in a beehive
    there is but one king, and in the world is but one sun.

    When the pope-hawk dies, another arises in his stead out of the whole brood
    of cardin-hawks, that is, as you must understand it all along, without
    carnal copulation.  So that there is in that species an individual unity,
    with a perpetuity of succession, neither more or less than in the Arabian
    phoenix.

    'Tis true that, about two thousand seven hundred and sixty moons ago, two
    pope-hawks were seen upon the face of the earth; but then you never saw in
    your lives such a woeful rout and hurly-burly as was all over this island.
    For all these same birds did so peck, clapperclaw, and maul one another all
    that time, that there was the devil and all to do, and the island was in a
    fair way of being left without inhabitants.  Some stood up for this pope-
    hawk, some for t'other.  Some, struck with a dumbness, were as mute as so
    many fishes; the devil a note was to be got out of them; part of the merry
    bells here were as silent as if they had lost their tongues, I mean their
    clappers.

    During these troublesome times they called to their assistance the
    emperors, kings, dukes, earls, barons, and commonwealths of the world that
    live on t'other side the water; nor was this schism and sedition at an end
    till one of them died, and the plurality was reduced to a unity.

    We then asked what moved those birds to be thus continually chanting and
    singing.  He answered that it was the bells that hung on the top of their
    cages.  Then he said to us, Will you have me make these monk-hawks whom you
    see bardocuculated with a bag such as you use to still brandy, sing like
    any woodlarks?  Pray do, said we.  He then gave half-a-dozen pulls to a
    little rope, which caused a diminutive bell to give so many ting-tangs; and
    presently a parcel of monk-hawks ran to him as if the devil had drove 'em,
    and fell a-singing like mad.

    Pray, master, cried Panurge, if I also rang this bell could I make those
    other birds yonder, with red-herring-coloured feathers, sing?  Ay, marry
    would you, returned Aedituus.  With this Panurge hanged himself (by the
    hands, I mean) at the bell-rope's end, and no sooner made it speak but
    those smoked birds hied them thither and began to lift up their voices and
    make a sort of untowardly hoarse noise, which I grudge to call singing.
    Aedituus indeed told us that they fed on nothing but fish, like the herns
    and cormorants of the world, and that they were a fifth kind of cucullati
    newly stamped.

    He added that he had been told by Robert Valbringue, who lately passed that
    way in his return from Africa, that a sixth kind was to fly hither out of
    hand, which he called capus-hawks, more grum, vinegar-faced, brain-sick,
    froward, and loathsome than any kind whatsoever in the whole island.
    Africa, said Pantagruel, still uses to produce some new and monstrous
    thing.

    Chapter 5.IV. How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers.

    Since you have told us, said Pantagruel, how the pope-hawk is begot by the
    cardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the bish-hawks by the
    priest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the clerg-hawks, I would gladly know
    whence you have these same clerg-hawks.  They are all of them passengers,
    or travelling birds, returned Aedituus, and come hither from t'other world;
    part out of a vast country called Want-o'-bread, the rest out of another
    toward the west, which they style Too-many-of-'em.  From these two
    countries flock hither, every year, whole legions of these clerg-hawks,
    leaving their fathers, mothers, friends, and relations.

    This happens when there are too many children, whether male or female, in
    some good family of the latter country; insomuch that the house would come
    to nothing if the paternal estate were shared among them all (as reason
    requires, nature directs, and God commands).  For this cause parents use to
    rid themselves of that inconveniency by packing off the younger fry, and
    forcing them to seek their fortune in this isle Bossart (Crooked Island).
    I suppose he means L'Isle Bouchart, near Chinon, cried Panurge.  No,
    replied t'other, I mean Bossart (Crooked), for there is not one in ten
    among them but is either crooked, crippled, blinking, limping,
    ill-favoured, deformed, or an unprofitable load to the earth.

    'Twas quite otherwise among the heathens, said Pantagruel, when they used
    to receive a maiden among the number of vestals; for Leo Antistius affirms
    that it was absolutely forbidden to admit a virgin into that order if she
    had any vice in her soul or defect in her body, though it were but the
    smallest spot on any part of it.  I can hardly believe, continued Aedituus,
    that their dams on t'other side the water go nine months with them; for
    they cannot endure them nine years, nay, scarce seven sometimes, in the
    house, but by putting only a shirt over the other clothes of the young
    urchins, and lopping off I don't well know how many hairs from their
    crowns, mumbling certain apostrophized and expiatory words, they visibly,
    openly, and plainly, by a Pythagorical metempsychosis, without the least
    hurt, transmogrify them into such birds as you now see; much after the
    fashion of the Egyptian heathens, who used to constitute their isiacs by
    shaving them and making them put on certain linostoles, or surplices.
    However, I don't know, my good friends, but that these she-things, whether
    clerg-kites, monk-kites, and abbess-kites, instead of singing pleasant
    verses and charisteres, such as used to be sung to Oromasis by Zoroaster's
    institution, may be bellowing out such catarates and scythropys (cursed
    lamentable and wretched imprecations) as were usually offered to the
    Arimanian demon; being thus in devotion for their kind friends and
    relations that transformed them into birds, whether when they were maids,
    or thornbacks, in their prime, or at their last prayers.

    But the greatest numbers of our birds came out of Want-o'-bread, which,
    though a barren country, where the days are of a most tedious lingering
    length, overstocks this whole island with the lower class of birds.  For
    hither fly the asapheis that inhabit that land, either when they are in
    danger of passing their time scurvily for want of belly-timber, being
    unable, or, what's more likely, unwilling to take heart of grace and follow
    some honest lawful calling, or too proud-hearted and lazy to go to service
    in some sober family.  The same is done by your frantic inamoradoes, who,
    when crossed in their wild desires, grow stark staring mad, and choose this
    life suggested to them by their despair, too cowardly to make them swing,
    like their brother Iphis of doleful memory.  There is another sort, that
    is, your gaol-birds, who, having done some rogue's trick or other heinous
    villainy, and being sought up and down to be trussed up and made to ride
    the two or three-legged mare that groans for them, warily scour off and
    come here to save their bacon; because all these sorts of birds are here
    provided for, and grow in an instant as fat as hogs, though they came as
    lean as rakes; for having the benefit of the clergy, they are as safe as
    thieves in a mill within this sanctuary.

    But, asked Pantagruel, do these birds never return to the world where they
    were hatched?  Some do, answered Aedituus; formerly very few, very seldom,
    very late, and very unwillingly; however, since some certain eclipses, by
    the virtue of the celestial constellations, a great crowd of them fled back
    to the world.  Nor do we fret or vex ourselves a jot about it; for those
    that stay wisely sing, The fewer the better cheer; and all those that fly
    away, first cast off their feathers here among these nettles and briars.

    Accordingly we found some thrown by there; and as we looked up and down, we
    chanced to light on what some people will hardly thank us for having
    discovered; and thereby hangs a tale.

    Chapter 5.V. Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island.

    These words were scarce out of his mouth when some five-and-twenty or
    thirty birds flew towards us; they were of a hue and feather like which we
    had not seen anything in the whole island.  Their plumes were as changeable
    as the skin of the chameleon, and the flower of tripolion, or teucrion.
    They had all under the left wing a mark like two diameters dividing a
    circle into equal parts, or, if you had rather have it so, like a
    perpendicular line falling on a right line.  The marks which each of them
    bore were much of the same shape, but of different colours; for some were
    white, others green, some red, others purple, and some blue.  Who are
    those? asked Panurge; and how do you call them?  They are mongrels, quoth
    Aedituus.

    We call them knight-hawks, and they have a great number of rich
    commanderies (fat livings) in your world.  Good your worship, said I, make
    them give us a song, an't please you, that we may know how they sing.  They
    scorn your words, cried Aedituus; they are none of your singing-birds; but,
    to make amends, they feed as much as the best two of them all.  Pray where
    are their hens? where are their females? said I.  They have none, answered
    Aedituus.  How comes it to pass then, asked Panurge, that they are thus
    bescabbed, bescurfed, all embroidered o'er the phiz with carbuncles,
    pushes, and pock-royals, some of which undermine the handles of their
    faces?  This same fashionable and illustrious disease, quoth Aedituus, is
    common among that kind of birds, because they are pretty apt to be tossed
    on the salt deep.

    He then acquainted us with the occasion of their coming.  This next to us,
    said he, looks so wistfully upon you to see whether he may not find among
    your company a stately gaudy kind of huge dreadful birds of prey, which yet
    are so untoward that they ne'er could be brought to the lure nor to perch
    on the glove.  They tell us that there are such in your world, and that
    some of them have goodly garters below the knee with an inscription about
    them which condemns him (qui mal y pense) who shall think ill of it to be
    berayed and conskited.  Others are said to wear the devil in a string
    before their paunches; and others a ram's skin.  All that's true enough,
    good Master Aedituus, quoth Panurge; but we have not the honour to be
    acquainted with their knightships.

    Come on, cried Aedituus in a merry mood, we have had chat enough o'
    conscience! let's e'en go drink.  And eat, quoth Panurge.  Eat, replied
    Aedituus, and drink bravely, old boy; twist like plough-jobbers and swill
    like tinkers.  Pull away and save tide, for nothing is so dear and precious
    as time; therefore we will be sure to put it to a good use.

    He would fain have carried us first to bathe in the bagnios of the cardin-
    hawks, which are goodly delicious places, and have us licked over with
    precious ointments by the alyptes, alias rubbers, as soon as we should come
    out of the bath.  But Pantagruel told him that he could drink but too much
    without that.  He then led us into a spacious delicate refectory, or
    fratery-room, and told us:  Braguibus the hermit made you fast four days
    together; now, contrariwise, I'll make you eat and drink of the best four
    days through stitch before you budge from this place.  But hark ye me,
    cried Panurge, may not we take a nap in the mean time?  Ay, ay, answered
    Aedituus; that is as you shall think good; for he that sleeps, drinks.
    Good Lord! how we lived! what good bub! what dainty cheer!  O what a honest
    cod was this same Aedituus!

    Chapter 5.VI. How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island.

    Pantagruel looked I don't know howish, and seemed not very well pleased
    with the four days' junketting which Aedituus enjoined us.  Aedituus, who
    soon found it out, said to him, You know, sir, that seven days before
    winter, and seven days after, there is no storm at sea; for then the
    elements are still out of respect for the halcyons, or king-fishers, birds
    sacred to Thetis, which then lay their eggs and hatch their young near the
    shore.  Now here the sea makes itself amends for this long calm; and
    whenever any foreigners come hither it grows boisterous and stormy for four
    days together.  We can give no other reason for it but that it is a piece
    of its civility, that those who come among us may stay whether they will or
    no, and be copiously feasted all the while with the incomes of the ringing.
    Therefore pray don't think your time lost; for, willing, nilling, you'll be
    forced to stay, unless you are resolved to encounter Juno, Neptune, Doris,
    Aeolus, and his fluster-busters, and, in short, all the pack of ill-natured
    left-handed godlings and vejoves.  Do but resolve to be cheery, and fall-to
    briskly.

    After we had pretty well stayed our stomachs with some tight snatches,
    Friar John said to Aedituus, For aught I see, you have none but a parcel of
    birds and cages in this island of yours, and the devil a bit of one of them
    all that sets his hand to the plough, or tills the land whose fat he
    devours; their whole business is to be frolic, to chirp it, to whistle it,
    to warble it, tossing it, and roar it merrily night and day.  Pray then, if
    I may be so bold, whence comes this plenty and overflowing of all dainty
    bits and good things which we see among you?  From all the other world,
    returned Aedituus, if you except some part of the northern regions, who of
    late years have stirred up the jakes.  Mum! they may chance ere long to rue
    the day they did so; their cows shall have porridge, and their dogs oats;
    there will be work made among them, that there will.  Come, a fig for't,
    let's drink.  But pray what countrymen are you?  Touraine is our country,
    answered Panurge.  Cod so, cried Aedituus, you were not then hatched of an
    ill bird, I will say that for you, since the blessed Touraine is your
    mother; for from thence there comes hither every year such a vast store of
    good things, that we were told by some folks of the place that happened to
    touch at this island, that your Duke of Touraine's income will not afford
    him to eat his bellyful of beans and bacon (a good dish spoiled between
    Moses and Pythagoras) because his predecessors have been more than liberal
    to these most holy birds of ours, that we might here munch it, twist it,
    cram it, gorge it, craw it, riot it, junket it, and tickle it off, stuffing
    our puddings with dainty pheasants, partridges, pullets with eggs, fat
    capons of Loudunois, and all sorts of venison and wild fowl.  Come, box it
    about; tope on, my friends.  Pray do you see yon jolly birds that are
    perched together, how fat, how plump, and in good case they look, with the
    income that Touraine yields us!  And in faith they sing rarely for their
    good founders, that is the truth on't.  You never saw any Arcadian birds
    mumble more fairly than they do over a dish when they see these two gilt
    batons, or when I ring for them those great bells that you see above their
    cages.  Drink on, sirs, whip it away.  Verily, friends, 'tis very fine
    drinking to-day, and so 'tis every day o' the week; then drink on, toss it
    about, here's to you with all my soul.  You are most heartily welcome;
    never spare it, I pray you; fear not we should ever want good bub and
    belly-timber; for, look here, though the sky were of brass, and the earth
    of iron, we should not want wherewithal to stuff the gut, though they were
    to continue so seven or eight years longer than the famine in Egypt.  Let
    us then, with brotherly love and charity, refresh ourselves here with the
    creature.

    Woons, man, cried Panurge, what a rare time you have on't in this world!
    Psha, returned Aedituus, this is nothing to what we shall have in t'other;
    the Elysian fields will be the least that can fall to our lot.  Come, in
    the meantime let us drink here; come, here's to thee, old fuddlecap.

    Your first Siticines, said I, were superlatively wise in devising thus a
    means for you to compass whatever all men naturally covet so much, and so
    few, or, to speak more properly, none can enjoy together—I mean, a
    paradise in this life, and another in the next.  Sure you were born wrapt
    in your mother's smickets!  O happy creatures!  O more than men!  Would I
    had the luck to fare like you!  (Motteux inserts Chapter XVI. after Chapter
    VI.)

    Chapter 5.VII. How Panurge related to Master Aedituus the fable of the horse and the ass.

    When we had crammed and crammed again, Aedituus took us into a chamber that
    was well furnished, hung with tapestry, and finely gilt.  Thither he caused
    to be brought store of mirobolans, cashou, green ginger preserved, with
    plenty of hippocras, and delicious wine.  With those antidotes, that were
    like a sweet Lethe, he invited us to forget the hardships of our voyage;
    and at the same time he sent plenty of provisions on board our ship that
    rid in the harbour.  After this, we e'en jogged to bed for that night; but
    the devil a bit poor pilgarlic could sleep one wink—the everlasting
    jingle-jangle of the bells kept me awake whether I would or no.

    About midnight Aedituus came to wake us that we might drink.  He himself
    showed us the way, saying:  You men of t'other world say that ignorance is
    the mother of all evil, and so far you are right; yet for all that you do
    not take the least care to get rid of it, but still plod on, and live in
    it, with it, and by it; for which a plaguy deal of mischief lights on you
    every day, and you are right enough served—you are perpetually ailing
    somewhat, making a moan, and never right.  It is what I was ruminating upon
    just now.  And, indeed, ignorance keeps you here fastened in bed, just as
    that bully-rock Mars was detained by Vulcan's art; for all the while you do
    not mind that you ought to spare some of your rest, and be as lavish as you
    can of the goods of this famous island.  Come, come, you should have eaten
    three breakfasts already; and take this from me for a certain truth, that
    if you would consume the mouth-ammunition of this island, you must rise
    betimes; eat them, they multiply; spare them, they diminish.

    For example, mow a field in due season, and the grass will grow thicker and
    better; don't mow it, and in a short time 'twill be floored with moss.
    Let's drink, and drink again, my friends; come, let's all carouse it.  The
    leanest of our birds are now singing to us all; we'll drink to them, if you
    please.  Let's take off one, two, three, nine bumpers.  Non zelus, sed
    caritas.

    When day, peeping in the east, made the sky turn from black to red like a
    boiling lobster, he waked us again to take a dish of monastical brewis.
    From that time we made but one meal, that only lasted the whole day; so
    that I cannot well tell how I may call it, whether dinner, supper,
    nunchion, or after-supper; only, to get a stomach, we took a turn or two in
    the island, to see and hear the blessed singing-birds.

    At night Panurge said to Aedituus:  Give me leave, sweet sir, to tell you a
    merry story of something that happened some three and twenty moons ago in
    the country of Chastelleraud.

    One day in April, a certain gentleman's groom, Roger by name, was walking
    his master's horses in some fallow ground.  There 'twas his good fortune to
    find a pretty shepherdess feeding her bleating sheep and harmless lambkins
    on the brow of a neighbouring mountain, in the shade of an adjacent grove;
    near her, some frisking kids tripped it over a green carpet of nature's own
    spreading, and, to complete the landscape, there stood an ass.  Roger, who
    was a wag, had a dish of chat with her, and after some ifs, ands, and buts,
    hems and heighs on her side, got her in the mind to get up behind him, to
    go and see his stable, and there take a bit by the bye in a civil way.
    While they were holding a parley, the horse, directing his discourse to the
    ass (for all brute beasts spoke that year in divers places), whispered
    these words in his ear:  Poor ass, how I pity thee! thou slavest like any
    hack, I read it on thy crupper.  Thou dost well, however, since God has
    created thee to serve mankind; thou art a very honest ass, but not to be
    better rubbed down, currycombed, trapped, and fed than thou art, seems to
    me indeed to be too hard a lot.  Alas! thou art all rough-coated, in ill
    plight, jaded, foundered, crestfallen, and drooping, like a mooting duck,
    and feedest here on nothing but coarse grass, or briars and thistles.
    Therefore do but pace it along with me, and thou shalt see how we noble
    steeds, made by nature for war, are treated.  Come, thou'lt lose nothing by
    coming; I'll get thee a taste of my fare.  I' troth, sir, I can but love
    you and thank you, returned the ass; I'll wait on you, good Mr. Steed.
    Methinks, gaffer ass, you might as well have said Sir Grandpaw Steed.  O!
    cry mercy, good Sir Grandpaw, returned the ass; we country clowns are
    somewhat gross, and apt to knock words out of joint.  However, an't please
    you, I will come after your worship at some distance, lest for taking this
    run my side should chance to be firked and curried with a vengeance, as it
    is but too often, the more is my sorrow.

    The shepherdess being got behind Roger, the ass followed, fully resolved to
    bait like a prince with Roger's steed; but when they got to the stable, the
    groom, who spied the grave animal, ordered one of his underlings to welcome
    him with a pitchfork and currycomb him with a cudgel.  The ass, who heard
    this, recommended himself mentally to the god Neptune, and was packing off,
    thinking and syllogizing within himself thus:  Had not I been an ass, I had
    not come here among great lords, when I must needs be sensible that I was
    only made for the use of the small vulgar.  Aesop had given me a fair
    warning of this in one of his fables.  Well, I must e'en scamper or take
    what follows.  With this he fell a-trotting, and wincing, and yerking, and
    calcitrating, alias kicking, and farting, and funking, and curvetting, and
    bounding, and springing, and galloping full drive, as if the devil had come
    for him in propria persona.

    The shepherdess, who saw her ass scour off, told Roger that it was her
    cattle, and desired he might be kindly used, or else she would not stir her
    foot over the threshold.  Friend Roger no sooner knew this but he ordered
    him to be fetched in, and that my master's horses should rather chop straw
    for a week together than my mistress's beast should want his bellyful of
    corn.

    The most difficult point was to get him back; for in vain the youngsters
    complimented and coaxed him to come.  I dare not, said the ass; I am
    bashful.  And the more they strove by fair means to bring him with them,
    the more the stubborn thing was untoward, and flew out at the heels;
    insomuch that they might have been there to this hour, had not his mistress
    advised them to toss oats in a sieve or in a blanket, and call him; which
    was done, and made him wheel about and say, Oats, with a witness! oats
    shall go to pot.  Adveniat; oats will do, there's evidence in the case; but
    none of the rubbing down, none of the firking.  Thus melodiously singing
    (for, as you know, that Arcadian bird's note is very harmonious) he came to
    the young gentleman of the horse, alias black garb, who brought him to the
    stable.

    When he was there, they placed him next to the great horse his friend,
    rubbed him down, currycombed him, laid clean straw under him up to the
    chin, and there he lay at rack and manger, the first stuffed with sweet
    hay, the latter with oats; which when the horse's valet-dear-chambre
    sifted, he clapped down his lugs, to tell them by signs that he could eat
    it but too well without sifting, and that he did not deserve so great an
    honour.

    When they had well fed, quoth the horse to the ass;  Well, poor ass, how is
    it with thee now?  How dost thou like this fare?  Thou wert so nice at
    first, a body had much ado to get thee hither.  By the fig, answered the
    ass, which, one of our ancestors eating, Philemon died laughing, this is
    all sheer ambrosia, good Sir Grandpaw; but what would you have an ass say?
    Methinks all this is yet but half cheer.  Don't your worships here now and
    then use to take a leap?  What leaping dost thou mean? asked the horse; the
    devil leap thee! dost thou take me for an ass?  In troth, Sir Grandpaw,
    quoth the ass, I am somewhat of a blockhead, you know, and cannot, for the
    heart's blood of me, learn so fast the court way of speaking of you
    gentlemen horses; I mean, don't you stallionize it sometimes here among
    your mettled fillies?  Tush, whispered the horse, speak lower; for, by
    Bucephalus, if the grooms but hear thee they will maul and belam thee
    thrice and threefold, so that thou wilt have but little stomach to a
    leaping bout.  Cod so, man, we dare not so much as grow stiff at the tip of
    the lowermost snout, though it were but to leak or so, for fear of being
    jerked and paid out of our lechery.  As for anything else, we are as happy
    as our master, and perhaps more.  By this packsaddle, my old acquaintance,
    quoth the ass, I have done with you; a fart for thy litter and hay, and a
    fart for thy oats; give me the thistles of our fields, since there we leap
    when we list.  Eat less, and leap more, I say; it is meat, drink, and cloth
    to us.  Ah! friend Grandpaw, it would do thy heart good to see us at a
    fair, when we hold our provincial chapter!  Oh! how we leap it, while our
    mistresses are selling their goslings and other poultry!  With this they
    parted.  Dixi; I have done.

    Panurge then held his peace.  Pantagruel would have had him to have gone on
    to the end of the chapter; but Aedituus said, A word to the wise is enough;
    I can pick out the meaning of that fable, and know who is that ass, and who
    the horse; but you are a bashful youth, I perceive.  Well, know that
    there's nothing for you here; scatter no words.  Yet, returned Panurge, I
    saw but even now a pretty kind of a cooing abbess-kite as white as a dove,
    and her I had rather ride than lead.  May I never stir if she is not a
    dainty bit, and very well worth a sin or two.  Heaven forgive me! I meant
    no more harm in it than you; may the harm I meant in it befall me
    presently.

    Chapter 5.VIII. How with much ado we got a sight of the pope-hawk.

    Our junketting and banqueting held on at the same rate the third day as the
    two former.  Pantagruel then earnestly desired to see the pope-hawk; but
    Aedituus told him it was not such an easy matter to get a sight of him.
    How, asked Pantagruel, has he Plato's helmet on his crown, Gyges's ring on
    his pounces, or a chameleon on his breast, to make him invisible when he
    pleases?  No, sir, returned Aedituus; but he is naturally of pretty
    difficult access.  However, I'll see and take care that you may see him, if
    possible.  With this he left us piddling; then within a quarter of an hour
    came back, and told us the pope-hawk is now to be seen.  So he led us,
    without the least noise, directly to the cage wherein he sat drooping, with
    his feathers staring about him, attended by a brace of little cardin-hawks
    and six lusty fusty bish-hawks.

    Panurge stared at him like a dead pig, examining exactly his figure, size,
    and motions.  Then with a loud voice he said, A curse light on the hatcher
    of the ill bird; o' my word, this is a filthy whoop-hooper.  Tush, speak
    softly, said Aedituus; by G—, he has a pair of ears, as formerly Michael
    de Matiscones remarked.  What then? returned Panurge; so hath a whoopcat.
    So, said Aedituus; if he but hear you speak such another blasphemous word,
    you had as good be damned.  Do you see that basin yonder in his cage?  Out
    of it shall sally thunderbolts and lightnings, storms, bulls, and the devil
    and all, that will sink you down to Peg Trantum's, an hundred fathom under
    ground.  It were better to drink and be merry, quoth Friar John.

    Panurge was still feeding his eyes with the sight of the pope-hawk and his
    attendants, when somewhere under his cage he perceived a madge-howlet.
    With this he cried out, By the devil's maker, master, there's roguery in
    the case; they put tricks upon travellers here more than anywhere else, and
    would make us believe that a t—d's a sugarloaf.  What damned cozening,
    gulling, and coney-catching have we here!  Do you see this madge-howlet?
    By Minerva, we are all beshit.  Odsoons, said Aedituus, speak softly, I
    tell you.  It is no madge-howlet, no she-thing on my honest word; but a
    male, and a noble bird.

    May we not hear the pope-hawk sing? asked Pantagruel.  I dare not promise
    that, returned Aedituus; for he only sings and eats at his own hours.  So
    don't I, quoth Panurge; poor pilgarlic is fain to make everybody's time his
    own; if they have time, I find time.  Come, then, let us go drink, if you
    will.  Now this is something like a tansy, said Aedituus; you begin to talk
    somewhat like; still speak in that fashion, and I'll secure you from being
    thought a heretic.  Come on, I am of your mind.

    As we went back to have t'other fuddling bout, we spied an old green-headed
    bish-hawk, who sat moping with his mate and three jolly bittern attendants,
    all snoring under an arbour.  Near the old cuff stood a buxom abbess-kite
    that sung like any linnet; and we were so mightily tickled with her singing
    that I vow and swear we could have wished all our members but one turned
    into ears, to have had more of the melody.  Quoth Panurge, This pretty
    cherubim of cherubims is here breaking her head with chanting to this huge,
    fat, ugly face, who lies grunting all the while like a hog as he is.  I
    will make him change his note presently, in the devil's name.  With this he
    rang a bell that hung over the bish-hawk's head; but though he rang and
    rang again, the devil a bit bish-hawk would hear; the louder the sound, the
    louder his snoring.  There was no making him sing.  By G—, quoth Panurge,
    you old buzzard, if you won't sing by fair means, you shall by foul.
    Having said this, he took up one of St. Stephen's loaves, alias a stone,
    and was going to hit him with it about the middle.  But Aedituus cried to
    him, Hold, hold, honest friend! strike, wound, poison, kill, and murder all
    the kings and princes in the world, by treachery or how thou wilt, and as
    soon as thou wouldst unnestle the angels from their cockloft.  Pope-hawk
    will pardon thee all this.  But never be so mad as to meddle with these
    sacred birds, as much as thou lovest the profit, welfare, and life not only
    of thyself, and thy friends and relations alive or dead, but also of those
    that may be born hereafter to the thousandth generation; for so long thou
    wouldst entail misery upon them.  Do but look upon that basin.  Catso! let
    us rather drink, then, quoth Panurge.  He that spoke last, spoke well, Mr.
    Antitus, quoth Friar John; while we are looking on these devilish birds we
    do nothing but blaspheme; and while we are taking a cup we do nothing but
    praise God.  Come on, then, let's go drink; how well that word sounds!

    The third day (after we had drank, as you must understand) Aedituus
    dismissed us.  We made him a present of a pretty little Perguois knife,
    which he took more kindly than Artaxerxes did the cup of cold water that
    was given him by a clown.  He most courteously thanked us, and sent all
    sorts of provisions aboard our ships, wished us a prosperous voyage and
    success in our undertakings, and made us promise and swear by Jupiter of
    stone to come back by his territories.  Finally he said to us, Friends,
    pray note that there are many more stones in the world than men; take care
    you don't forget it.

    Chapter 5.IX. How we arrived at the island of Tools.

    Having well ballasted the holds of our human vessels, we weighed anchor,
    hoised up sail, stowed the boats, set the land, and stood for the offing
    with a fair loom gale, and for more haste unpareled the mizen-yard, and
    launched it and the sail over the lee-quarter, and fitted gyves to keep it
    steady, and boomed it out; so in three days we made the island of Tools,
    that is altogether uninhabited.  We saw there a great number of trees which
    bore mattocks, pickaxes, crows, weeding-hooks, scythes, sickles, spades,
    trowels, hatchets, hedging-bills, saws, adzes, bills, axes, shears,
    pincers, bolts, piercers, augers, and wimbles.

    Others bore dags, daggers, poniards, bayonets, square-bladed tucks,
    stilettoes, poniardoes, skeans, penknives, puncheons, bodkins, swords,
    rapiers, back-swords, cutlasses, scimitars, hangers, falchions, glaives,
    raillons, whittles, and whinyards.

    Whoever would have any of these needed but to shake the tree, and
    immediately they dropped down as thick as hops, like so many ripe plums;
    nay, what's more, they fell on a kind of grass called scabbard, and
    sheathed themselves in it cleverly.  But when they came down, there was
    need of taking care lest they happened to touch the head, feet, or other
    parts of the body.  For they fell with the point downwards, and in they
    stuck, or slit the continuum of some member, or lopped it off like a twig;
    either of which generally was enough to have killed a man, though he were a
    hundred years old, and worth as many thousand spankers, spur-royals, and
    rose-nobles.

    Under some other trees, whose names I cannot justly tell you, I saw some
    certain sorts of weeds that grew and sprouted like pikes, lances, javelins,
    javelots, darts, dartlets, halberds, boar-spears, eel-spears, partizans,
    tridents, prongs, trout-staves, spears, half-pikes, and hunting-staves.  As
    they sprouted up and chanced to touch the tree, straight they met with
    their heads, points, and blades, each suitable to its kind, made ready for
    them by the trees over them, as soon as every individual wood was grown up,
    fit for its steel; even like the children's coats, that are made for them
    as soon as they can wear them and you wean them of their swaddling clothes.
    Nor do you mutter, I pray you, at what Plato, Anaxagoras, and Democritus
    have said.  Ods-fish! they were none of your lower-form gimcracks, were
    they?

    Those trees seemed to us terrestrial animals, in no wise so different from
    brute beasts as not to have skin, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments,
    nerves, cartilages, kernels, bones, marrow, humours, matrices, brains, and
    articulations; for they certainly have some, since Theophrastus will have
    it so.  But in this point they differed from other animals, that their
    heads, that is, the part of their trunks next to the root, are downwards;
    their hair, that is, their roots, in the earth; and their feet, that is,
    their branches, upside down; as if a man should stand on his head with
    outstretched legs.  And as you, battered sinners, on whom Venus has
    bestowed something to remember her, feel the approach of rains, winds,
    cold, and every change of weather, at your ischiatic legs and your
    omoplates, by means of the perpetual almanack which she has fixed there; so
    these trees have notice given them, by certain sensations which they have
    at their roots, stocks, gums, paps, or marrow, of the growth of the staves
    under them, and accordingly they prepare suitable points and blades for
    them beforehand.  Yet as all things, except God, are sometimes subject to
    error, nature itself not free from it when it produceth monstrous things,
    likewise I observed something amiss in these trees.  For a half-pike that
    grew up high enough to reach the branches of one of these instrumentiferous
    trees, happened no sooner to touch them but, instead of being joined to an
    iron head, it impaled a stubbed broom at the fundament.  Well, no matter,
    'twill serve to sweep the chimney.  Thus a partizan met with a pair of
    garden shears.  Come, all's good for something; 'twill serve to nip off
    little twigs and destroy caterpillars.  The staff of a halberd got the
    blade of a scythe, which made it look like a hermaphrodite.  Happy-be-
    lucky, 'tis all a case; 'twill serve for some mower.  Oh, 'tis a great
    blessing to put our trust in the Lord!  As we went back to our ships I
    spied behind I don't know what bush, I don't know what folks, doing I don't
    know what business, in I don't know what posture, scouring I don't know
    what tools, in I don't know what manner, and I don't know what place.

    Chapter 5.X. How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping.

    We left the island of Tools to pursue our voyage, and the next day stood in
    for the island of Sharping, the true image of Fontainebleau, for the land
    is so very lean that the bones, that is, the rocks, shoot through its skin.
    Besides, 'tis sandy, barren, unhealthy, and unpleasant.  Our pilot showed
    us there two little square rocks which had eight equal points in the shape
    of a cube.  They were so white that I might have mistaken them for
    alabaster or snow, had he not assured us they were made of bone.

    He told us that twenty chance devils very much feared in our country dwelt
    there in six different storeys, and that the biggest twins or braces of
    them were called sixes, and the smallest ambs-ace; the rest cinques,
    quatres, treys, and deuces.  When they were conjured up, otherwise coupled,
    they were called either sice cinque, sice quatre, sice trey, sice deuce,
    and sice ace; or cinque quatre, cinque trey, and so forth.  I made there a
    shrewd observation.  Would you know what 'tis, gamesters?  'Tis that there
    are very few of you in the world but what call upon and invoke the devils.
    For the dice are no sooner thrown on the board, and the greedy gazing
    sparks have hardly said, Two sixes, Frank; but Six devils damn it! cry as
    many of them.  If ambs-ace; then, A brace of devils broil me! will they
    say.  Quatre-deuce, Tom; The deuce take it! cries another.  And so on to
    the end of the chapter.  Nay, they don't forget sometimes to call the black
    cloven-footed gentlemen by their Christian names and surnames; and what is
    stranger yet, they use them as their greatest cronies, and make them so
    often the executors of their wills, not only giving themselves, but
    everybody and everything, to the devil, that there's no doubt but he takes
    care to seize, soon or late, what's so zealously bequeathed him.  Indeed,
    'tis true Lucifer does not always immediately appear by his lawful
    attorneys; but, alas! 'tis not for want of goodwill; he is really to be
    excused for his delay; for what the devil would you have a devil do?  He
    and his black guards are then at some other places, according to the
    priority of the persons that call on them; therefore, pray let none be so
    venturesome as to think that the devils are deaf and blind.

    He then told us that more wrecks had happened about those square rocks, and
    a greater loss of body and goods, than about all the Syrtes, Scyllas and
    Charybdes, Sirens, Strophades, and gulfs in the universe.  I had not much
    ado to believe it, remembering that formerly, among the wise Egyptians,
    Neptune was described in hieroglyphics for the first cube, Apollo by an
    ace, Diana by a deuce, Minerva by seven, and so forth.

    He also told us that there was a phial of sanc-greal, a most divine thing,
    and known to a few.  Panurge did so sweeten up the syndics of the place
    that they blessed us with the sight of 't; but it was with three times more
    pother and ado, with more formalities and antic tricks, than they show the
    pandects of Justinian at Florence, or the holy Veronica at Rome.  I never
    saw such a sight of flambeaux, torches, and hagios, sanctified tapers,
    rush-lights, and farthing candles in my whole life.  After all, that which
    was shown us was only the ill-faced countenance of a roasted coney.

    All that we saw there worth speaking of was a good face set upon an ill
    game, and the shells of the two eggs formerly laid up and hatched by Leda,
    out of which came Castor and Pollux, fair Helen's brothers.  These same
    syndics sold us a piece of 'em for a song, I mean, for a morsel of bread.
    Before we went we bought a parcel of hats and caps of the manufacture of
    the place, which, I fear, will turn to no very good account; nor are those
    who shall take 'em off our hands more likely to commend their wearing.

    Chapter 5.XI. How we passed through the wicket inhabited by Gripe-men-all, Archduke of
    the Furred Law-cats.

    From thence Condemnation was passed by us.  'Tis another damned barren
    island, whereat none for the world cared to touch.  Then we went through
    the wicket; but Pantagruel had no mind to bear us company, and 'twas well
    he did not, for we were nabbed there, and clapped into lob's-pound by order
    of Gripe-men-all, Archduke of the Furred Law-cats, because one of our
    company would ha' put upon a sergeant some hats of the Sharping Island.

    The Furred Law-cats are most terrible and dreadful monsters, they devour
    little children, and trample over marble stones.  Pray tell me, noble
    topers, do they not deserve to have their snouts slit?  The hair of their
    hides doesn't lie outward, but inwards, and every mother's son of 'em for
    his device wears a gaping pouch, but not all in the same manner; for some
    wear it tied to their neck scarfwise, others upon the breech, some on the
    paunch, others on the side, and all for a cause, with reason and mystery.
    They have claws so very strong, long, and sharp that nothing can get from
    'em that is once fast between their clutches.  Sometimes they cover their
    heads with mortar-like caps, at other times with mortified caparisons.

    As we entered their den, said a common mumper, to whom we had given half a
    teston, Worshipful culprits, God send you a good deliverance!  Examine
    well, said he, the countenance of these stout props and pillars of this
    catch-coin law and iniquity; and pray observe, that if you still live but
    six olympiads, and the age of two dogs more, you'll see these Furred Law-
    cats lords of all Europe, and in peaceful possession of all the estates and
    dominions belonging to it; unless, by divine providence, what's got over
    the devil's back is spent under his belly, or the goods which they unjustly
    get perish with their prodigal heirs.  Take this from an honest beggar.

    Among 'em reigns the sixth essence; by the means of which they gripe all,
    devour all, conskite all, burn all, draw all, hang all, quarter all, behead
    all, murder all, imprison all, waste all, and ruin all, without the least
    notice of right or wrong; for among them vice is called virtue; wickedness,
    piety; treason, loyalty; robbery, justice.  Plunder is their motto, and
    when acted by them is approved by all men, except the heretics; and all
    this they do because they dare; their authority is sovereign and
    irrefragable.  For a sign of the truth of what I tell you, you'll find that
    there the mangers are above the racks.  Remember hereafter that a fool told
    you this; and if ever plague, famine, war, fire, earthquakes, inundations,
    or other judgments befall the world, do not attribute 'em to the aspects
    and conjunctions of the malevolent planets; to the abuses of the court of
    Romania, or the tyranny of secular kings and princes; to the impostures of
    the false zealots of the cowl, heretical bigots, false prophets, and
    broachers of sects; to the villainy of griping usurers, clippers, and
    coiners; or to the ignorance, impudence, and imprudence of physicians,
    surgeons, and apothecaries; nor to the lewdness of adulteresses and
    destroyers of by-blows; but charge them all, wholly and solely, to the
    inexpressible, incredible, and inestimable wickedness and ruin which is
    continually hatched, brewed, and practised in the den or shop of those
    Furred Law-cats.  Yet 'tis no more known in the world than the cabala of
    the Jews, the more's the pity; and therefore 'tis not detested, chastised,
    and punished as 'tis fit it should be.  But should all their villainy be
    once displayed in its true colours and exposed to the people, there never
    was, is, nor will be any spokesman so sweet-mouthed, whose fine colloguing
    tongue could save 'em; nor any law so rigorous and draconic that could
    punish 'em as they deserve; nor yet any magistrate so powerful as to hinder
    their being burnt alive in their coneyburrows without mercy.  Even their
    own furred kittlings, friends, and relations would abominate 'em.

    For this reason, as Hannibal was solemnly sworn by his father Amilcar to
    pursue the Romans with the utmost hatred as long as ever he lived, so my
    late father has enjoined me to remain here without, till God Almighty's
    thunder reduce them there within to ashes, like other presumptuous Titans,
    profane wretches, and opposers of God; since mankind is so inured to their
    oppressions that they either do not remember, foresee, or have a sense of
    the woes and miseries which they have caused; or, if they have, either will
    not, dare not, or cannot root 'em out.

    How, said Panurge, say you so?  Catch me there and hang me!  Damme, let's
    march off!  This noble beggar has scared me worse than thunder in autumn
    (Motteux gives 'than the thunder would do them.').  Upon this we were
    filing off; but, alas! we found ourselves trapped—the door was double-
    locked and barricadoed.  Some messengers of ill news told us it was full as
    easy to get in there as into hell, and no less hard to get out.  Ay, there
    indeed lay the difficulty, for there is no getting loose without a pass and
    discharge in due course from the bench.  This for no other reason than
    because folks go easier out of a church than out of a sponging-house, and
    because they could not have our company when they would.  The worst on't
    was when we got through the wicket; for we were carried, to get out our
    pass or discharge, before a more dreadful monster than ever was read of in
    the legends of knight-errantry.  They called him Gripe-men-all.  I can't
    tell what to compare it to better than to a Chimaera, a Sphinx, a Cerberus;
    or to the image of Osiris, as the Egyptians represented him, with three
    heads, one of a roaring lion, t'other of a fawning cur, and the last of a
    howling, prowling wolf, twisted about with a dragon biting his tail,
    surrounded with fiery rays.  His hands were full of gore, his talons like
    those of the harpies, his snout like a hawk's bill, his fangs or tusks like
    those of an overgrown brindled wild boar; his eyes were flaming like the
    jaws of hell, all covered with mortars interlaced with pestles, and nothing
    of his arms was to be seen but his clutches.  His hutch, and that of the
    warren-cats his collaterals, was a long, spick-and-span new rack, a-top of
    which (as the mumper told us) some large stately mangers were fixed in the
    reverse.  Over the chief seat was the picture of an old woman holding the
    case or scabbard of a sickle in her right hand, a pair of scales in her
    left, with spectacles on her nose; the cups or scales of the balance were a
    pair of velvet pouches, the one full of bullion, which overpoised t'other,
    empty and long, hoisted higher than the middle of the beam.  I'm of opinion
    it was the true effigies of Justice Gripe-men-all; far different from the
    institution of the ancient Thebans, who set up the statues of their dicasts
    without hands, in marble, silver, or gold, according to their merit, even
    after their death.

    When we made our personal appearance before him, a sort of I don't know
    what men, all clothed with I don't know what bags and pouches, with long
    scrolls in their clutches, made us sit down upon a cricket (such as
    criminals sit on when tried in France).  Quoth Panurge to 'em, Good my
    lords, I'm very well as I am; I'd as lief stand, an't please you.  Besides,
    this same stool is somewhat of the lowest for a man that has new breeches
    and a short doublet.  Sit you down, said Gripe-men-all again, and look that
    you don't make the court bid you twice.  Now, continued he, the earth shall
    immediately open its jaws and swallow you up to quick damnation if you
    don't answer as you should.

    Chapter 5.XII. How Gripe-men-all propounded a riddle to us.

    When we were sat, Gripe-men-all, in the middle of his furred cats, called
    to us in a hoarse dreadful voice, Well, come on, give me presently—an
    answer.  Well, come on, muttered Panurge between his teeth, give, give me
    presently—a comforting dram.  Hearken to the court, continued Gripe-men-
    all.

                    An Enigma.

      A young tight thing, as fair as may be,
      Without a dad conceived a baby,
      And brought him forth without the pother
      In labour made by teeming mother.
      Yet the cursed brat feared not to gripe her,
      But gnawed, for haste, her sides like viper.
      Then the black upstart boldly sallies,
      And walks and flies o'er hills and valleys.
      Many fantastic sons of wisdom,
      Amazed, foresaw their own in his doom;
      And thought like an old Grecian noddy,
      A human spirit moved his body.

    Give, give me out of hand—an answer to this riddle, quoth Gripe-men-all.
    Give, give me—leave to tell you, good, good my lord, answered Panurge,
    that if I had but a sphinx at home, as Verres one of your precursors had, I
    might then solve your enigma presently.  But verily, good my lord, I was
    not there; and, as I hope to be saved, am as innocent in the matter as the
    child unborn.  Foh, give me—a better answer, cried Gripe-men-all; or, by
    gold, this shall not serve your turn.  I'll not be paid in such coin; if
    you have nothing better to offer, I'll let your rascalship know that it had
    been better for you to have fallen into Lucifer's own clutches than into
    ours.  Dost thou see 'em here, sirrah? hah? and dost thou prate here of thy
    being innocent, as if thou couldst be delivered from our racks and tortures
    for being so?  Give me—Patience! thou widgeon.  Our laws are like cobwebs;
    your silly little flies are stopped, caught, and destroyed therein, but
    your stronger ones break them, and force and carry them which way they
    please.  Likewise, don't think we are so mad as to set up our nets to snap
    up your great robbers and tyrants.  No, they are somewhat too hard for us,
    there's no meddling with them; for they would make no more of us than we
    make of the little ones.  But you paltry, silly, innocent wretches must
    make us amends; and, by gold, we will innocentize your fopship with a
    wannion, you never were so innocentized in your days; the devil shall sing
    mass among ye.

    Friar John, hearing him run on at that mad rate, had no longer the power to
    remain silent, but cried to him, Heigh-day!  Prithee, Mr. Devil in a coif,
    wouldst thou have a man tell thee more than he knows?  Hasn't the fellow
    told you he does not know a word of the business?  His name is Twyford.  A
    plague rot you! won't truth serve your turns?  Why, how now, Mr. Prate-
    apace, cried Gripe-men-all, taking him short, marry come up, who made you
    so saucy as to open your lips before you were spoken to?  Give me—
    Patience!  By gold! this is the first time since I have reigned that anyone
    has had the impudence to speak before he was bidden.  How came this mad
    fellow to break loose?  (Villain, thou liest, said Friar John, without
    stirring his lips.)  Sirrah, sirrah, continued Gripe-men-all, I doubt thou
    wilt have business enough on thy hands when it comes to thy turn to answer.
    (Damme, thou liest, said Friar John, silently.)  Dost thou think, continued
    my lord, thou art in the wilderness of your foolish university, wrangling
    and bawling among the idle, wandering searchers and hunters after truth?
    By gold, we have here other fish to fry; we go another gate's-way to work,
    that we do.  By gold, people here must give categorical answers to what
    they don't know.  By gold, they must confess they have done those things
    which they have not nor ought to have done.  By gold, they must protest
    that they know what they never knew in their lives; and, after all,
    patience perforce must be their only remedy, as well as a mad dog's.  Here
    silly geese are plucked, yet cackle not.  Sirrah, give me—an account
    whether you had a letter of attorney, or whether you were feed or no, that
    you offered to bawl in another man's cause?  I see you had no authority to
    speak, and I may chance to have you wed to something you won't like.  Oh,
    you devils, cried Friar John, proto-devils, panto-devils, you would wed a
    monk, would you?  Ho hu! ho hu!  A heretic! a heretic!  I'll give thee out
    for a rank heretic.

    Chapter 5.XIII. How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle.

    5-13-564.jpg (138K)

    Gripe-men-all, as if he had not heard what Friar John said, directed his
    discourse to Panurge, saying to him, Well, what have you to say for
    yourself, Mr. Rogue-enough, hah?  Give, give me out of hand—an answer.
    Say? quoth Panurge; why, what would you have me say?  I say that we are
    damnably beshit, since you give no heed at all to the equity of the plea,
    and the devil sings among you.  Let this answer serve for all, I beseech
    you, and let us go out about our business; I am no longer able to hold out,
    as gad shall judge me.

    Go to, go to, cried Gripe-men-all; when did you ever hear that for these
    three hundred years last past anybody ever got out of this weel without
    leaving something of his behind him?  No, no, get out of the trap if you
    can without losing leather, life, or at least some hair, and you will have
    done more than ever was done yet.  For why, this would bring the wisdom of
    the court into question, as if we had took you up for nothing, and dealt
    wrongfully by you.  Well, by hook or by crook, we must have something out
    of you.  Look ye, it is a folly to make a rout for a fart and ado; one word
    is as good as twenty.  I have no more to say to thee, but that, as thou
    likest thy former entertainment, thou wilt tell me more of the next; for it
    will go ten times worse with thee unless, by gold, you give me—a solution
    to the riddle I propounded.  Give, give—it, without any more ado.

    By gold, quoth Panurge, 'tis a black mite or weevil which is born of a
    white bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the mite
    being turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes flies over
    hills and dales.  Now Pythagoras, the philosopher, and his sect, besides
    many others, wondering at its birth in such a place (which makes some argue
    for equivocal generation), thought that by a metempsychosis the body of
    that insect was the lodging of a human soul.  Now, were you men here, after
    your welcomed death, according to his opinion, your souls would most
    certainly enter into the body of mites or weevils; for in your present
    state of life you are good for nothing in the world but to gnaw, bite, eat,
    and devour all things, so in the next you'll e'en gnaw and devour your
    mother's very sides, as the vipers do.  Now, by gold, I think I have fairly
    solved and resolved your riddle.

    May my bauble be turned into a nutcracker, quoth Friar John, if I could not
    almost find in my heart to wish that what comes out at my bunghole were
    beans, that these evil weevils might feed as they deserve.

    Panurge then, without any more ado, threw a large leathern purse stuffed
    with gold crowns (ecus au soleil) among them.

    The Furred Law-cats no sooner heard the jingling of the chink but they all
    began to bestir their claws, like a parcel of fiddlers running a division;
    and then fell to't, squimble, squamble, catch that catch can.  They all
    said aloud, These are the fees, these are the gloves; now, this is somewhat
    like a tansy.  Oh! 'twas a pretty trial, a sweet trial, a dainty trial.  O'
    my word, they did not starve the cause.  These are none of your snivelling
    forma pauperis's; no, they are noble clients, gentlemen every inch of them.
    By gold, it is gold, quoth Panurge, good old gold, I'll assure you.

    Saith Gripe-men-all, The court, upon a full hearing (of the gold, quoth
    Panurge), and weighty reasons given, finds the prisoners not guilty, and
    accordingly orders them to be discharged out of custody, paying their fees.
    Now, gentlemen, proceed, go forwards, said he to us; we have not so much of
    the devil in us as we have of his hue; though we are stout, we are
    merciful.

    As we came out at the wicket, we were conducted to the port by a detachment
    of certain highland griffins, scribere cum dashoes, who advised us before
    we came to our ships not to offer to leave the place until we had made the
    usual presents, first to the Lady Gripe-men-all, then to all the Furred
    Law-pusses; otherwise we must return to the place from whence we came.
    Well, well, said Friar John, we'll fumble in our fobs, examine every one of
    us his concern, and e'en give the women their due; we'll ne'er boggle or
    stick out on that account; as we tickled the men in the palm, we'll tickle
    the women in the right place.  Pray, gentlemen, added they, don't forget to
    leave somewhat behind you for us poor devils to drink your healths.  O
    lawd! never fear, answered Friar John, I don't remember that I ever went
    anywhere yet where the poor devils are not remembered and encouraged.

    Chapter 5.XIV. How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption.

    Friar John had hardly said those words ere he perceived seventy-eight
    galleys and frigates just arriving at the port.  So he hied him thither to
    learn some news; and as he asked what goods they had o' board, he soon
    found that their whole cargo was venison, hares, capons, turkeys, pigs,
    swine, bacon, kids, calves, hens, ducks, teals, geese, and other poultry
    and wildfowl.

    He also spied among these some pieces of velvet, satin, and damask.  This
    made him ask the new-comers whither and to whom they were going to carry
    those dainty goods.  They answered that they were for Gripe-men-all and the
    Furred Law-cats.

    Pray, asked he, what is the true name of all these things in your country
    language?  Corruption, they replied.  If they live on corruption, said the
    friar, they will perish with their generation.  May the devil be damned, I
    have it now:  their fathers devoured the good gentlemen who, according to
    their state of life, used to go much a-hunting and hawking, to be the
    better inured to toil in time of war; for hunting is an image of a martial
    life, and Xenophon was much in the right of it when he affirmed that
    hunting had yielded a great number of excellent warriors, as well as the
    Trojan horse.  For my part, I am no scholar; I have it but by hearsay, yet
    I believe it.  Now the souls of those brave fellows, according to Gripe-
    men-all's riddle, after their decease enter into wild boars, stags,
    roebucks, herns, and such other creatures which they loved, and in quest of
    which they went while they were men; and these Furred Law-cats, having
    first destroyed and devoured their castles, lands, demesnes, possessions,
    rents, and revenues, are still seeking to have their blood and soul in
    another life.  What an honest fellow was that same mumper who had
    forewarned us of all these things, and bid us take notice of the mangers
    above the racks!

    But, said Panurge to the new-comers, how do you come by all this venison?
    Methinks the great king has issued out a proclamation strictly inhibiting
    the destroying of stags, does, wild boars, roebucks, or other royal game,
    on pain of death.  All this is true enough, answered one for the rest, but
    the great king is so good and gracious, you must know, and these Furred
    Law-cats so curst and cruel, so mad, and thirsting after Christian blood,
    that we have less cause to fear in trespassing against that mighty
    sovereign's commands than reason to hope to live if we do not continually
    stop the mouths of these Furred Law-cats with such bribes and corruption.
    Besides, added he, to-morrow Gripe-men-all marries a furred law-puss of his
    to a high and mighty double-furred law-tybert.  Formerly we used to call
    them chop-hay; but alas! they are not such neat creatures now as to eat
    any, or chew the cud.  We call them chop-hares, chop-partridges, chop-
    woodcocks, chop-pheasants, chop-pullets, chop-venison, chop-coneys, chop-
    pigs, for they scorn to feed on coarser meat.  A t—d for their chops,
    cried Friar John, next year we'll have 'em called chop-dung, chop-stront,
    chop-filth.

    Would you take my advice? added he to the company.  What is it? answered
    we.  Let's do two things, returned he.  First, let us secure all this
    venison and wild fowl—I mean, paying well for them; for my part, I am but
    too much tired already with our salt meat, it heats my flanks so horribly.
    In the next place, let's go back to the wicket, and destroy all these
    devilish Furred Law-cats.  For my part, quoth Panurge, I know better
    things; catch me there, and hang me.  No, I am somewhat more inclined to be
    fearful than bold; I love to sleep in a whole skin.

    Chapter 5.XV. How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats.

    Virtue of the frock, quoth Friar John, what kind of voyage are we making?
    A shitten one, o' my word; the devil of anything we do but fizzling,
    farting, funking, squattering, dozing, raving, and doing nothing.  Ods-
    belly, 'tisn't in my nature to lie idle; I mortally hate it.  Unless I am
    doing some heroic feat every foot, I can't sleep one wink o' nights.  Damn
    it, did you then take me along with you for your chaplain, to sing mass and
    shrive you?  By Maundy Thursday, the first of ye all that comes to me on
    such an account shall be fitted; for the only penance I'll enjoin shall be,
    that he immediately throw himself headlong overboard into the sea like a
    base cowhearted son of ten fathers.  This in deduction of the pains of
    purgatory.

    What made Hercules such a famous fellow, d'ye think?  Nothing but that
    while he travelled he still made it his business to rid the world of
    tyrannies, errors, dangers, and drudgeries; he still put to death all
    robbers, all monsters, all venomous serpents and hurtful creatures.  Why
    then do we not follow his example, doing as he did in the countries through
    which we pass?  He destroyed the Stymphalides, the Lernaean hydra, Cacus,
    Antheus, the Centaurs, and what not; I am no clericus, those that are such
    tell me so.

    In imitation of that noble by-blow, let's destroy and root out these wicked
    Furred Law-cats, that are a kind of ravenous devils; thus we shall remove
    all manner of tyranny out of the land.  Mawmet's tutor swallow me body and
    soul, tripes and guts, if I would stay to ask your help or advice in the
    matter were I but as strong as he was.  Come, he that would be thought a
    gentleman, let him storm a town; well, then, shall we go?  I dare swear
    we'll do their business for them with a wet finger; they'll bear it, never
    fear; since they could swallow down more foul language that came from us
    than ten sows and their babies could swill hogwash.  Damn 'em, they don't
    value all the ill words or dishonour in the world at a rush, so they but
    get the coin into their purses, though they were to have it in a shitten
    clout.  Come, we may chance to kill 'em all, as Hercules would have done
    had they lived in his time.  We only want to be set to work by another
    Eurystheus, and nothing else for the present, unless it be what I heartily
    wish them, that Jupiter may give 'em a short visit, only some two or three
    hours long, and walk among their lordships in the same equipage that
    attended him when he came last to his Miss Semele, jolly Bacchus's mother.

    'Tis a very great mercy, quoth Panurge, that you have got out of their
    clutches.  For my part, I have no stomach to go there again; I'm hardly
    come to myself yet, so scared and appalled I was.  My hair still stands up
    an end when I think on't; and most damnably troubled I was there, for three
    very weighty reasons.  First, because I was troubled.  Secondly, because I
    was troubled.  Thirdly and lastly, because I was troubled.  Hearken to me a
    little on thy right side, Friar John, my left cod, since thou'lt not hear
    at the other.  Whenever the maggot bites thee to take a trip down to hell
    and visit the tribunal of Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, (and Dis,) do but
    tell me, and I'll be sure to bear thee company, and never leave thee as
    long as my name's Panurge, but will wade over Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus,
    drink whole bumpers of Lethe's water—though I mortally hate that element—
    and even pay thy passage to that bawling, cross-grained ferryman, Charon.
    But as for the damned wicket, if thou art so weary of thy life as to go
    thither again, thou mayst e'en look for somebody else to bear thee company,
    for I'll not move one step that way; e'en rest satisfied with this positive
    answer.  By my good will I'll not stir a foot to go thither as long as I
    live, any more than Calpe will come over to Abyla (Here Motteux adds the
    following note:  'Calpe is a mountain in Spain that faces another, called
    Abyla, in Mauritania, both said to have been severed by Hercules.').  Was
    Ulysses so mad as to go back into the Cyclop's cave to fetch his sword?
    No, marry was he not.  Now I have left nothing behind me at the wicket
    through forgetfulness; why then should I think of going thither?

    Well, quoth Friar John, as good sit still as rise up and fall; what cannot
    be cured must be endured.  But, prithee, let's hear one another speak.
    Come, wert thou not a wise doctor to fling away a whole purse of gold on
    those mangy scoundrels?  Ha!  A squinsy choke thee! we were too rich, were
    we?  Had it not been enough to have thrown the hell-hounds a few cropped
    pieces of white cash?

    How could I help it? returned Panurge.  Did you not see how Gripe-men-all
    held his gaping velvet pouch, and every moment roared and bellowed, By
    gold, give me out of hand; by gold, give, give, give me presently?  Now,
    thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free.  I'll e'en stop
    their mouths with gold, that the wicket may be opened, and we may get out;
    the sooner the better.  And I judged that lousy silver would not do the
    business; for, d'ye see, velvet pouches do not use to gape for little
    paltry clipt silver and small cash; no, they are made for gold, my friend
    John; that they are, my dainty cod.  Ah! when thou hast been larded,
    basted, and roasted, as I was, thou wilt hardly talk at this rate, I doubt.
    But now what is to be done?  We are enjoined by them to go forwards.

    The scabby slabberdegullions still waited for us at the port, expecting to
    be greased in the fist as well as their masters.  Now when they perceived
    that we were ready to put to sea, they came to Friar John and begged that
    we would not forget to gratify the apparitors before we went off, according
    to the assessment for the fees at our discharge.  Hell and damnation! cried
    Friar John; are ye here still, ye bloodhounds, ye citing, scribbling imps
    of Satan?  Rot you, am I not vexed enough already, but you must have the
    impudence to come and plague me, ye scurvy fly-catchers you?  By cob's-
    body, I'll gratify your ruffianships as you deserve; I'll apparitorize you
    presently with a wannion, that I will.  With this, he lugged out his
    slashing cutlass, and in a mighty heat came out of the ship to cut the
    cozening varlets into steaks, but they scampered away and got out of sight
    in a trice.

    However, there was somewhat more to do, for some of our sailors, having got
    leave of Pantagruel to go ashore while we were had before Gripe-men-all,
    had been at a tavern near the haven to make much of themselves, and roar
    it, as seamen will do when they come into some port.  Now I don't know
    whether they had paid their reckoning to the full or no, but, however it
    was, an old fat hostess, meeting Friar John on the quay, was making a
    woeful complaint before a sergeant, son-in-law to one of the furred law-
    cats, and a brace of bums, his assistants.

    The friar, who did not much care to be tired with their impertinent
    prating, said to them, Harkee me, ye lubberly gnat-snappers! do ye presume
    to say that our seamen are not honest men?  I'll maintain they are, ye
    dotterels, and will prove it to your brazen faces, by justice—I mean, this
    trusty piece of cold iron by my side.  With this he lugged it out and
    flourished with it.  The forlorn lobcocks soon showed him their backs,
    betaking themselves to their heels; but the old fusty landlady kept her
    ground, swearing like any butter-whore that the tarpaulins were very honest
    cods, but that they only forgot to pay for the bed on which they had lain
    after dinner, and she asked fivepence, French money, for the said bed.  May
    I never sup, said the friar, if it be not dog-cheap; they are sorry guests
    and unkind customers, that they are; they do not know when they have a
    pennyworth, and will not always meet with such bargains.  Come, I myself
    will pay you the money, but I would willingly see it first.

    The hostess immediately took him home with her, and showed him the bed, and
    having praised it for all its good qualifications, said that she thought as
    times went she was not out of the way in asking fivepence for it.  Friar
    John then gave her the fivepence; and she no sooner turned her back but he
    presently began to rip up the ticking of the feather-bed and bolster, and
    threw all the feathers out at the window.  In the meantime the old hag came
    down and roared out for help, crying out murder to set all the
    neighbourhood in an uproar.  Yet she also fell to gathering the feathers
    that flew up and down in the air, being scattered by the wind.  Friar John
    let her bawl on, and, without any further ado, marched off with the
    blanket, quilt, and both the sheets, which he brought aboard undiscovered,
    for the air was darkened with the feathers, as it uses sometimes to be with
    snow.  He gave them away to the sailors; then said to Pantagruel that beds
    were much cheaper at that place than in Chinnonois, though we have there
    the famous geese of Pautile; for the old beldam had asked him but fivepence
    for a bed which in Chinnonois had been worth about twelve francs.  (As soon
    as Friar John and the rest of the company were embarked, Pantagruel set
    sail.  But there arose a south-east wind, which blew so vehemently they
    lost their way, and in a manner going back to the country of the Furred
    Law-cats, they entered into a huge gulf, where the sea ran so high and
    terrible that the shipboy on the top of the mast cried out he again saw the
    habitation of Gripe-men-all; upon which Panurge, frightened almost out of
    his wits, roared out, Dear master, in spite of the wind and waves, change
    your course, and turn the ship's head about.  O my friend, let us come no
    more into that cursed country where I left my purse.  So the wind carried
    them near an island, where however they did not dare at first to land, but
    entered about a mile off.  (Motteux omitted this passage altogether in the
    edition of 1694.  It was restored by Ozell in the edition of 1738.))

    Chapter 5.XVI. How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or Ignoramuses, with
    long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventures and monsters there.

    As soon as we had cast anchor and had moored the ship, the pinnace was put
    over the ship's side and manned by the coxswain's crew.  When the good
    Pantagruel had prayed publicly, and given thanks to the Lord that had
    delivered him from so great a danger, he stepped into it with his whole
    company to go on shore, which was no ways difficult to do, for, as the sea
    was calm and the winds laid, they soon got to the cliffs.  When they were
    set on shore, Epistemon, who was admiring the situation of the place and
    the strange shape of the rocks, discovered some of the natives.  The first
    he met had on a short purple gown, a doublet cut in panes, like a Spanish
    leather jerkin, half sleeves of satin, and the upper part of them leather,
    a coif like a black pot tipped with tin.  He was a good likely sort of a
    body, and his name, as we heard afterwards, was Double-fee.  Epistemon
    asked him how they called those strange craggy rocks and deep valleys.  He
    told them it was a colony brought out of Attorneyland, and called Process,
    and that if we forded the river somewhat further beyond the rocks we should
    come into the island of the Apedefers.  By the memory of the decretals,
    said Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on?
    Could not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine?  I can
    see nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens.  We live on
    nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come
    through my hands.  How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then?  Do you
    fleece 'em?  Ay, ay, their purse, answered Double-fee; nothing else.  By
    the foot of Pharaoh, cried Panurge, the devil a sou will you get of me.
    However, sweet sir, be so kind as to show an honest man the way to those
    Apedefers, or ignorant people, for I come from the land of the learned,
    where I did not learn over much.

    Still talking on, they got to the island of the Apedefers, for they were
    soon got over the ford.  Pantagruel was not a little taken up with admiring
    the structure and habitation of the people of the place.  For they live in
    a swingeing wine-press, fifty steps up to it.  You must know there are some
    of all sorts, little, great, private, middle-sized, and so forth.  You go
    through a large peristyle, alias a long entry set about with pillars, in
    which you see, in a kind of landscape, the ruins of almost the whole world,
    besides so many great robbers' gibbets, so many gallows and racks, that
    'tis enough to fright you out of your seven senses.  Double-fee perceiving
    that Pantagruel was taken up with contemplating those things, Let us go
    further, sir, said he to him; all this is nothing yet.  Nothing, quotha,
    cried Friar John; by the soul of my overheated codpiece, friend Panurge and
    I here shake and quiver for mere hunger.  I had rather be drinking than
    staring at these ruins.  Pray come along, sir, said Double-fee.  He then
    led us into a little wine-press that lay backwards in a blind corner, and
    was called Pithies in the language of the country.  You need not ask
    whether Master John and Panurge made much of their sweet selves there; it
    is enough that I tell you there was no want of Bolognia sausages, turkey
    poots, capons, bustards, malmsey, and all other sorts of good belly-timber,
    very well dressed.

    A pimping son of ten fathers, who, for want of a better, did the office of
    a butler, seeing that Friar John had cast a sheep's eye at a choice bottle
    that stood near a cupboard by itself, at some distance from the rest of the
    bottellic magazine, like a jack-in-an-office said to Pantagruel, Sir, I
    perceive that one of your men here is making love to this bottle.  He ogles
    it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle with it;
    for it is reserved for their worships.  How, cried Panurge, there are some
    grandees here then, I see.  It is vintage time with you, I perceive.

    Then Double-fee led us up to a private staircase, and showed us into a
    room, whence, without being seen, out at a loophole we could see their
    worships in the great wine-press, where none could be admitted without
    their leave.  Their worships, as he called them, were about a score of
    fusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all posted before a
    bar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs.  Their paws were as
    long as a crane's foot, and their claws four-and-twenty inches long at
    least; for you must know they are enjoined never to pare off the least chip
    of them, so that they grow as crooked as a Welsh hook or a hedging-bill.

    We saw a swingeing bunch of grapes that are gathered and squeezed in that
    country, brought in by them.  As soon as it was laid down, they clapped it
    into the press, and there was not a bit of it out of which each of them did
    not squeeze some oil of gold; insomuch that the poor grape was tried with a
    witness, and brought off so drained and picked, and so dry, that there was
    not the least moisture, juice, or substance left in it; for they had
    pressed out its very quintessence.

    Double-fee told us they had not often such huge bunches; but, let the worst
    come to the worst, they were sure never to be without others in their
    press.  But hark you me, master of mine, asked Panurge, have they not some
    of different growth?  Ay, marry have they, quoth Double-fee.  Do you see
    here this little bunch, to which they are going to give t'other wrench?  It
    is of tithe-growth, you must know; they crushed, wrung, squeezed and
    strained out the very heart's blood of it but the other day; but it did not
    bleed freely; the oil came hard, and smelt of the priest's chest; so that
    they found there was not much good to be got out of it.  Why then, said
    Pantagruel, do they put it again into the press?  Only, answered Double-
    fee, for fear there should still lurk some juice among the husks and
    hullings in the mother of the grape.  The devil be damned! cried Friar
    John; do you call these same folks illiterate lobcocks and duncical
    doddipolls?  May I be broiled like a red herring if I do not think they are
    wise enough to skin a flint and draw oil out of a brick wall.  So they are,
    said Double-fee; for they sometimes put castles, parks, and forests into
    the press, and out of them all extract aurum potabile.  You mean portabile,
    I suppose, cried Epistemon, such as may be borne.  I mean as I said,
    replied Double-fee, potabile, such as may be drunk; for it makes them drink
    many a good bottle more than otherwise they should.

    But I cannot better satisfy you as to the growth of the vine-tree sirup
    that is here squeezed out of grapes, than in desiring you to look yonder in
    that back-yard, where you will see above a thousand different growths that
    lie waiting to be squeezed every moment.  Here are some of the public and
    some of the private growth; some of the builders' fortifications, loans,
    gifts, and gratuities, escheats, forfeitures, fines, and recoveries, penal
    statutes, crown lands, and demesne, privy purse, post-offices, offerings,
    lordships of manors, and a world of other growths, for which we want names.
    Pray, quoth Epistemon, tell me of what growth is that great one, with all
    those little grapelings about it.  Oh, oh! returned Double-fee, that plump
    one is of the treasury, the very best growth in the whole country.
    Whenever anyone of that growth is squeezed, there is not one of their
    worships but gets juice enough of it to soak his nose six months together.
    When their worships were up, Pantagruel desired Double-fee to take us into
    that great wine-press, which he readily did.  As soon as we were in,
    Epistemon, who understood all sorts of tongues, began to show us many
    devices on the press, which was large and fine, and made of the wood of the
    cross—at least Double-fee told us so.  On each part of it were names of
    everything in the language of the country.  The spindle of the press was
    called receipt; the trough, cost and damages; the hole for the vice-pin,
    state; the side-boards, money paid into the office; the great beam, respite
    of homage; the branches, radietur; the side-beams, recuperetur; the fats,
    ignoramus; the two-handled basket, the rolls; the treading-place,
    acquittance; the dossers, validation; the panniers, authentic decrees; the
    pailes, potentials; the funnels, quietus est.

    By the Queen of the Chitterlings, quoth Panurge, all the hieroglyphics of
    Egypt are mine a— to this jargon.  Why! here are a parcel of words full as
    analogous as chalk and cheese, or a cat and a cart-wheel!  But why,
    prithee, dear Double-fee, do they call these worshipful dons of yours
    ignorant fellows?  Only, said Double-fee, because they neither are, nor
    ought to be, clerks, and all must be ignorant as to what they transact
    here; nor is there to be any other reason given, but, The court hath said
    it; The court will have it so; The court has decreed it.  Cop's body, quoth
    Pantagruel, they might full as well have called 'em necessity; for
    necessity has no law.

    From thence, as he was leading us to see a thousand little puny presses, we
    spied another paltry bar, about which sat four are five ignorant waspish
    churls, of so testy, fuming a temper, (like an ass with squibs and crackers
    tied to its tail,) and so ready to take pepper in the nose for yea and nay,
    that a dog would not have lived with 'em.  They were hard at it with the
    lees and dregs of the grapes, which they gripped over and over again, might
    and main, with their clenched fists.  They were called contractors in the
    language of the country.  These are the ugliest, misshapen, grim-looking
    scrubs, said Friar John, that ever were beheld, with or without spectacles.
    Then we passed by an infinite number of little pimping wine-presses all
    full of vintage-mongers, who were picking, examining, and raking the grapes
    with some instruments called bills-of-charge.

    Finally we came into a hall downstairs, where we saw an overgrown cursed
    mangy cur with a pair of heads, a wolf's belly, and claws like the devil of
    hell.  The son of a bitch was fed with costs, for he lived on a
    multiplicity of fine amonds and amerciaments by order of their worships, to
    each of whom the monster was worth more than the best farm in the land.  In
    their tongue of ignorance they called him Twofold.  His dam lay by him, and
    her hair and shape was like her whelp's, only she had four heads, two male
    and two female, and her name was Fourfold.  She was certainly the most
    cursed and dangerous creature of the place, except her grandam, which we
    saw, and had been kept locked up in a dungeon time out of mind, and her
    name was Refusing-of-fees.

    Friar John, who had always twenty yards of gut ready empty to swallow a
    gallimaufry of lawyers, began to be somewhat out of humour, and desired
    Pantagruel to remember he had not dined, and bring Double-fee along with
    him.  So away we went, and as we marched out at the back-gate whom should
    we meet but an old piece of mortality in chains.  He was half ignorant and
    half learned, like an hermaphrodite of Satan.  The fellow was all
    caparisoned with spectacles as a tortoise is with shells, and lived on
    nothing but a sort of food which, in their gibberish, was called appeals.
    Pantagruel asked Double-fee of what breed was that prothonotary, and what
    name they gave him.  Double-fee told us that time out of mind he had been
    kept there in chains, to the great grief of their worships, who starved
    him, and his name was Review.  By the pope's sanctified two-pounders, cried
    Friar John, I do not much wonder at the meagre cheer which this old chuff
    finds among their worships.  Do but look a little on the weather-beaten
    scratch-toby, friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I'll lay five
    pounds to a hazel-nut the foul thief has the very looks of Gripe-me-now.
    These same fellows here, ignorant as they be, are as sharp and knowing as
    other folk.  But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib in
    his breech like a rogue as he is.  By my oriental barnacles, quoth Panurge,
    honest friar, thou art in the right; for if we but examine that treacherous
    Review's ill-favoured phiz, we find that the filthy snudge is yet more
    mischievous and ignorant than these ignorant wretches here, since they
    (honest dunces) grapple and glean with as little harm and pother as they
    can, without any long fiddle-cum-farts or tantalizing in the case; nor do
    they dally and demur in your suit, but in two or three words, whip-stitch,
    in a trice, they finish the vintage of the close, bating you all these
    damned tedious interlocutories, examinations, and appointments which fret
    to the heart's blood your furred law-cats.

    Chapter 5.XVII. How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.

    We put to sea that very moment, steering our course forwards, and gave
    Pantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck him
    with compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to divert
    himself during the voyage.  When we were safe in the port we took some
    refreshment, and took in fresh water and wood.  The people of the place,
    who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions, were all of
    them forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat.  And we saw some who
    slashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the fat, that it might
    swell out at the slits and gashes which they made; neither more nor less
    than the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink and cut open their
    breeches that the taffety on the inside may stand out and be puffed up.
    They said that what they did was not out of pride or ostentation, but
    because otherwise their skins would not hold them without much pain.
    Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow much bigger, like the
    young trees on whose barks the gardeners make incisions that they may grow
    the better.

    Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine and
    stately.  We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of the
    forward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought some
    notable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all that
    throng were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all his
    friends and relations to hasten thither.

    We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that country by
    that bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as we do in ours by
    betrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching (of women), shearing
    (of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home), and many other junketting
    bouts that end in—ing.  But we soon heard that there was no such matter in
    hand.

    The master of the house, you must know, had been a good fellow in his time,
    loved heartily to wind up his bottom, to bang the pitcher, and lick his
    dish.  He used to be a very fair swallower of gravy soup, a notable
    accountant in matter of hours, and his whole life was one continual dinner,
    like mine host at Rouillac (in Perigord).  But now, having farted out much
    fat for ten years together, according to the custom of the country, he was
    drawing towards his bursting hour; for neither the inner thin kell
    wherewith the entrails are covered, nor his skin that had been jagged and
    mangled so many years, were able to hold and enclose his guts any longer,
    or hinder them from forcing their way out.  Pray, quoth Panurge, is there
    no remedy, no help for the poor man, good people?  Why don't you swaddle
    him round with good tight girths, or secure his natural tub with a strong
    sorb-apple-tree hoop?  Nay, why don't you iron-bind him, if needs be?  This
    would keep the man from flying out and bursting.  The word was not yet out
    of his mouth when we heard something give a loud report, as if a huge
    sturdy oak had been split in two.  Then some of the neighbours told us that
    the bursting was over, and that the clap or crack which we heard was the
    last fart, and so there was an end of mine host.

    This made me call to mind a saying of the venerable abbot of Castilliers,
    the very same who never cared to hump his chambermaids but when he was in
    pontificalibus.  That pious person, being much dunned, teased, and
    importuned by his relations to resign his abbey in his old age, said and
    professed that he would not strip till he was ready to go to bed, and that
    the last fart which his reverend paternity was to utter should be the fart
    of an abbot.

    Chapter 5.XVIII. How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people that were
    subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte).

    We weighed and set sail with a merry westerly gale.  When about seven
    leagues off (twenty-two miles) some gusts or scuds of wind suddenly arose,
    and the wind veering and shifting from point to point, was, as they say,
    like an old woman's breech, at no certainty; so we first got our starboard
    tacks aboard, and hauled off our lee-sheets.  Then the gusts increased, and
    by fits blowed all at once from several quarters, yet we neither settled
    nor braided up close our sails, but only let fly the sheets, not to go
    against the master of the ship's direction; and thus having let go amain,
    lest we should spend our topsails, or the ship's quick-side should lie in
    the water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that is, in a
    landloper's phrase, we temporized it.  For he assured us that, as these
    gusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could not do us
    much harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as also the
    clearness of the sky and calmness of the current.  So that we were to
    observe the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or go
    according to the time.

    However, these whirlwinds and gusts lasted so long that we persuaded the
    master to let us go and lie at trie with our main course; that is, to haul
    the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the bowline set up, and the helm tied
    close aboard; so, after a stormy gale of wind, we broke through the
    whirlwind.  But it was like falling into Scylla to avoid Charybdis (out of
    the frying-pan into the fire).  For we had not sailed a league ere our
    ships were stranded upon some sands such as are the flats of St. Maixent.

    All our company seemed mightily disturbed except Friar John, who was not a
    jot daunted, and with sweet sugar-plum words comforted now one and then
    another, giving them hopes of speedy assistance from above, and telling
    them that he had seen Castor at the main-yardarm.  Oh! that I were but now
    ashore, cried Panurge, that is all I wish for myself at present, and that
    you who like the sea so well had each man of you two hundred thousand
    crowns.  I would fairly let you set up shop on these sands, and would get a
    fat calf dressed and a hundred of faggots (i.e. bottles of wine) cooled for
    you against you come ashore.  I freely consent never to mount a wife, so
    you but set me ashore and mount me on a horse, that I may go home.  No
    matter for a servant, I will be contented to serve myself; I am never
    better treated than when I am without a man.  Faith, old Plautus was in the
    right on't when he said the more servants the more crosses; for such they
    are, even supposing they could want what they all have but too much of, a
    tongue, that most busy, dangerous, and pernicious member of servants.
    Accordingly, 'twas for their sakes alone that the racks and tortures for
    confession were invented, though some foreign civilians in our time have
    drawn alogical and unreasonable consequences from it.

    That very moment we spied a sail that made towards us.  When it was close
    by us, we soon knew what was the lading of the ship and who was aboard of
    her.  She was full freighted with drums.  I was acquainted with many of the
    passengers that came in her, who were most of 'em of good families; among
    the rest Harry Cotiral, an old toast, who had got a swinging ass's touch-
    tripe (penis) fastened to his waist, as the good women's beads are to their
    girdle.  In his left hand he held an old overgrown greasy foul cap, such as
    your scald-pated fellows wear, and in the right a huge cabbage-stump.

    As soon as he saw me he was overjoyed, and bawled out to me, What cheer,
    ho?  How dost like me now?  Behold the true Algamana (this he said showing
    me the ass's tickle-gizzard).  This doctor's cap is my true elixir; and
    this (continued he, shaking the cabbage-stump in his fist) is lunaria
    major, you old noddy.  I have 'em, old boy, I have 'em; we'll make 'em when
    thou'rt come back.  But pray, father, said I, whence come you?  Whither are
    you bound?  What's your lading?  Have you smelt the salt deep?  To these
    four questions he answered, From Queen Whims; for Touraine; alchemy; to the
    very bottom.

    Whom have you got o' board? said I.  Said he, Astrologers, fortune-tellers,
    alchemists, rhymers, poets, painters, projectors, mathematicians,
    watchmakers, sing-songs, musicianers, and the devil and all of others that
    are subject to Queen Whims (Motteux gives the following footnote:—'La
    Quinte, This means a fantastic Humour, Maggots, or a foolish Giddiness of
    Brains; and also, a fifth, or the Proportion of Five in music, &c.').  They
    have very fair legible patents to show for't, as anybody may see.  Panurge
    had no sooner heard this but he was upon the high-rope, and began to rail
    at them like mad.  What o' devil d'ye mean, cried he, to sit idly here like
    a pack of loitering sneaksbies, and see us stranded, while you may help us,
    and tow us off into the current?  A plague o' your whims! you can make all
    things whatsoever, they say, so much as good weather and little children;
    yet won't make haste to fasten some hawsers and cables, and get us off.  I
    was just coming to set you afloat, quoth Harry Cotiral; by Trismegistus,
    I'll clear you in a trice.  With this he caused 7,532,810 huge drums to be
    unheaded on one side, and set that open side so that it faced the end of
    the streamers and pendants; and having fastened them to good tacklings and
    our ship's head to the stern of theirs, with cables fastened to the bits
    abaft the manger in the ship's loof, they towed us off ground at one pull
    so easily and pleasantly that you'd have wondered at it had you been there.
    For the dub-a-dub rattling of the drums, with the soft noise of the gravel
    which murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the
    sailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when
    they roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the
    celestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.

    We scorned to be behindhand with 'em in civility, and gratefully gave 'em
    store of our sausages and chitterlings, with which we filled their drums;
    and we were just a-hoisting two-and-sixty hogsheads of wine out of the
    hold, when two huge whirlpools with great fury made towards their ship,
    spouting more water than is in the river Vienne (Vigenne) from Chinon to
    Saumur; to make short, all their drums, all their sails, their concerns,
    and themselves were soused, and their very hose were watered by the collar.

    Panurge was so overjoyed, seeing this, and laughed so heartily, that he was
    forced to hold his sides, and it set him into a fit of the colic for two
    hours and more.  I had a mind, quoth he, to make the dogs drink, and those
    honest whirlpools, egad, have saved me that labour and that cost.  There's
    sauce for them; ariston men udor.  Water is good, saith a poet; let 'em
    Pindarize upon't.  They never cared for fresh water but to wash their hands
    or their glasses.  This good salt water will stand 'em in good stead for
    want of sal ammoniac and nitre in Geber's kitchen.

    We could not hold any further discourse with 'em; for the former whirlwind
    hindered our ship from feeling the helm.  The pilot advised us
    henceforwards to let her run adrift and follow the stream, not busying
    ourselves with anything, but making much of our carcasses.  For our only
    way to arrive safe at the queendom of Whims was to trust to the whirlwind
    and be led by the current.

    Chapter 5.XIX. How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy.

    We did as he directed us for about twelve hours, and on the third day the
    sky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the port of
    Mateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the Quintessence.

    We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other military
    men that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat frighted at first
    because they made us all lay down our arms, and in a haughty manner asked
    us whence we came.

    Cousin, quoth Panurge to him that asked the question, we are of Touraine,
    and come from France, being ambitious of paying our respects to the Lady
    Quintessence and visit this famous realm of Entelechy.

    What do you say? cried they; do you call it Entelechy or Endelechy?  Truly,
    truly, sweet cousins, quoth Panurge, we are a silly sort of grout-headed
    lobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we chance to
    knock words out of joint.  As for anything else, we are downright honest
    fellows and true hearts.

    We have not asked you this question without a cause, said they; for a great
    number of others who have passed this way from your country of Touraine
    seemed as mere jolt-headed doddipolls as ever were scored o'er the coxcomb,
    yet spoke as correct as other folks.  But there has been here from other
    countries a pack of I know not what overweening self-conceited prigs, as
    moody as so many mules and as stout as any Scotch lairds, and nothing would
    serve these, forsooth, but they must wilfully wrangle and stand out against
    us at their coming; and much they got by it after all.  Troth, we e'en
    fitted them and clawed 'em off with a vengeance, for all they looked so big
    and so grum.

    Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that you
    do not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently talking,
    disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady?  There was much need that
    your Tully, the consul, should go and leave the care of his commonwealth to
    busy himself idly about her; and after him your Diogenes Laertius, the
    biographer, and your Theodorus Gaza, the philosopher, and your Argiropilus,
    the emperor, and your Bessario, the cardinal, and your Politian, the
    pedant, and your Budaeus, the judge, and your Lascaris, the ambassador, and
    the devil and all of those you call lovers of wisdom; whose number, it
    seems, was not thought great enough already, but lately your Scaliger,
    Bigot, Chambrier, Francis Fleury, and I cannot tell how many such other
    junior sneaking fly-blows must take upon 'em to increase it.

    A squinsy gripe the cod's-headed changelings at the swallow and eke at the
    cover-weasel; we shall make 'em—But the deuce take 'em!  (They flatter the
    devil here, and smoothify his name, quoth Panurge, between his teeth.)  You
    don't come here, continued the captain, to uphold 'em in their folly; you
    have no commission from 'em to this effect; well then, we will talk no more
    on't.

    Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, was
    our sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the name
    of Entelechy.  Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in tail
    beshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family, who
    dares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her wrong, and
    is a very impudent person.  You are heartily welcome, gentlemen.  With
    this they colled and clipped us about the neck, which was no small comfort
    to us, I'll assure you.

    Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not been
    somewhat afraid this bout?  A little, said I.  To tell you the truth of it,
    quoth he, never were the Ephraimites in a greater fear and quandary when
    the Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth instead of
    shibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps there is not a
    man in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have stopped my
    bunghole with a cartload of hay.

    The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silently
    with great formality.  Pantagruel would have said something to him, but the
    other, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder or a
    very long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereign
    lady's will, we would be as tall as you; well, we shall when she pleases.

    In the first galleries we saw great numbers of sick persons, differently
    placed according to their maladies.  The leprous were apart; those that
    were poisoned on one side; those that had got the plague on another; those
    that had the pox in the first rank, and the rest accordingly.

    Chapter 5.XX. How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song.

    The captain showed us the queen, attended with her ladies and gentlemen, in
    the second gallery.  She looked young, though she was at least eighteen
    hundred years old, and was handsome, slender, and as fine as a queen, that
    is, as hands could make her.  He then said to us:  It is not yet a fit time
    to speak to the queen; be you but mindful of her doings in the meanwhile.

    You have kings in your world that fantastically pretend to cure some
    certain diseases, as, for example, scrofula or wens, swelled throats,
    nicknamed the king's evil, and quartan agues, only with a touch; now our
    queen cures all manner of diseases without so much as touching the sick,
    but barely with a song, according to the nature of the distemper.  He then
    showed us a set of organs, and said that when it was touched by her those
    miraculous cures were performed.  The organ was indeed the strangest that
    ever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula in the cod; the top
    and cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the pedas of turbith, and
    the clavier or keys of scammony.

    While we were examining this wonderful new make of an organ, the leprous
    were brought in by her abstractors, spodizators, masticators, pregustics,
    tabachins, chachanins, neemanins, rabrebans, nercins, rozuins, nebidins,
    tearins, segamions, perarons, chasinins, sarins, soteins, aboth, enilins,
    archasdarpenins, mebins, chabourins, and other officers, for whom I want
    names; so she played 'em I don't know what sort of a tune or song, and they
    were all immediately cured.

    Then those who were poisoned were had in, and she had no sooner given them
    a song but they began to find a use for their legs, and up they got.  Then
    came on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too were restored to
    their lost faculties and senses with the same remedy; which did so
    strangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that down we fell on
    our faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in ecstasy, and were not
    able to utter one word through the excess of our admiration, till she came,
    and having touched Pantagruel with a fine fragrant nosegay of white roses
    which she held in her hand, thus made us recover our senses and get up.
    Then she made us the following speech in byssin words, such as Parisatis
    desired should be spoken to her son Cyrus, or at least of crimson alamode:

    The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my
    ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues
    latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds.  For,
    contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet reverences,
    it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither your
    affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation of
    liberal and exalted sciences.  Far from it, all must judge that in you are
    lodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable profundity of
    knowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines, so frequently the
    admiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the imperite vulgar.  This
    gently compels me, who in preceding times indefatigably kept my private
    affections absolutely subjugated, to condescend to make my application to
    you in the trivial phrase of the plebeian world, and assure you that you
    are well, more than most heartily welcome.

    I have no hand at making of speeches, quoth Panurge to me privately;
    prithee, man, make answer to her for us, if thou canst.  This would not
    work with me, however; neither did Pantagruel return a word.  So that Queen
    Whims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving that we stood
    as mute as fishes, said:  Your taciturnity speaks you not only disciples of
    Pythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my progenitors in
    successive propagation was emaned and derives its original, but also
    discovers, that through the revolution of many retrograde moons, you have
    in Egypt pressed the extremities of your fingers with the hard tenants of
    your mouths, and scalptized your heads with frequent applications of your
    unguicules.  In the school of Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol of
    abstracted and superlative knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians was
    agnited as an expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused the
    pontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence,
    impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound.  My design is
    not to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious
    formality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to
    you my cogitations.

    Having spoken this, she only said to her officers, Tabachins, a panacea;
    and straight they desired us not to take it amiss if the queen did not
    invite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but some
    categories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins, chelemins,
    second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses, transcendent
    prolepsies, and such other light food.

    Then they took us into a little closet lined through with alarums, where we
    were treated God knows how.  It is said that Jupiter writes whatever is
    transacted in the world on the dipthera or skin of the Amalthaean goat that
    suckled him in Crete, which pelt served him instead of a shield against the
    Titans, whence he was nicknamed Aegiochos.  Now, as I hate to drink water,
    brother topers, I protest it would be impossible to make eighteen goatskins
    hold the description of all the good meat they brought before us, though it
    were written in characters as small as those in which were penned Homer's
    Iliads, which Tully tells us he saw enclosed in a nutshell.

    For my part, had I one hundred mouths, as many tongues, a voice of iron, a
    heart of oak, and lungs of leather, together with the mellifluous abundance
    of Plato, yet I never could give you a full account of a third part of a
    second of the whole.

    Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic
    word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said
    to her tabachins, A panacea; just as Lucullus used to say, In Apollo, when
    he designed to give his friends a singular treat; though sometimes they
    took him at unawares, as, among the rest, Cicero and Hortensius sometimes
    used to do.

    Chapter 5.XXI. How the Queen passed her time after dinner.

    When we had dined, a chachanin led us into the queen's hall, and there we
    saw how, after dinner, with the ladies and the princes of her court, she
    used to sift, searce, bolt, range, and pass away time with a fine large
    white and blue silk sieve.  We also perceived how they revived ancient
    sports, diverting themselves together at—

    
    1.  Cordax.      6.  Phrygia.        11.  Monogas.
    2.  Emmelia.     7.  Thracia.        12.  Terminalia.
    3.  Sicinnia.    8.  Calabrisme.     13.  Floralia.
    4.  Jambics.     9.  Molossia.       14.  Pyrrhice.
    5.  Persica.    10.  Cernophorum.    15.  (Nicatism.)
                And a thousand other dances.
    

    (Motteux has the following footnote:—'1. A sort of country-dance.  2. A
    still tragic dance.  3. Dancing and singing used at funerals.  4. Cutting
    sarcasms and lampoons.  5. The Persian dance.  6. Tunes, whose measure
    inspired men with a kind of divine fury.  7. The Thracian movement.  8.
    Smutty verses.  9. A measure to which the Molossi of Epirus danced a
    certain morrice.  10. A dance with bowls or pots in their hands.  11. A
    song where one sings alone.  12. Sports at the holidays of the god of
    bounds.  13. Dancing naked at Flora's holidays.  14. The Trojan dance in
    armour.')

    Afterwards she gave orders that they should show us the apartments and
    curiosities in her palace.  Accordingly we saw there such new, strange, and
    wonderful things, that I am still ravished in admiration every time I think
    of't.  However, nothing surprised us more than what was done by the
    gentlemen of her household, abstractors, parazons, nebidins, spodizators,
    and others, who freely and without the least dissembling told us that the
    queen their mistress did all impossible things, and cured men of incurable
    diseases; and they, her officers, used to do the rest.

    I saw there a young parazon cure many of the new consumption, I mean the
    pox, though they were never so peppered.  Had it been the rankest Roan ague
    (Anglice, the Covent-garden gout), 'twas all one to him; touching only
    their dentiform vertebrae thrice with a piece of a wooden shoe, he made
    them as wholesome as so many sucking-pigs.

    Another did thoroughly cure folks of dropsies, tympanies, ascites, and
    hyposarcides, striking them on the belly nine times with a Tenedian
    hatchet, without any solution of the continuum.

    Another cured all manner of fevers and agues on the spot, only with hanging
    a fox-tail on the left side of the patient's girdle.

    One removed the toothache only with washing thrice the root of the aching
    tooth with elder-vinegar, and letting it dry half-an-hour in the sun.

    Another the gout, whether hot or cold, natural or accidental, by barely
    making the gouty person shut his mouth and open his eyes.

    I saw another ease nine gentlemen of St. Francis's distemper ('A
    consumption in the pocket, or want of money; those of St. Francis's order
    must carry none about 'em.'—Motteux.) in a very short space of time,
    having clapped a rope about their necks, at the end of which hung a box
    with ten thousand gold crowns in't.

    One with a wonderful engine threw the houses out at the windows, by which
    means they were purged of all pestilential air.

    Another cured all the three kinds of hectics, the tabid, atrophes, and
    emaciated, without bathing, Tabian milk, dropax, alias depilatory, or other
    such medicaments, only turning the consumptive for three months into monks;
    and he assured me that if they did not grow fat and plump in a monastic way
    of living, they never would be fattened in this world, either by nature or
    by art.

    I saw another surrounded with a crowd of two sorts of women.  Some were
    young, quaint, clever, neat, pretty, juicy, tight, brisk, buxom, proper,
    kind-hearted, and as right as my leg, to any man's thinking.  The rest were
    old, weather-beaten, over-ridden, toothless, blear-eyed, tough, wrinkled,
    shrivelled, tawny, mouldy, phthisicky, decrepit hags, beldams, and walking
    carcasses.  We were told that his office was to cast anew those she-pieces
    of antiquity, and make them such as the pretty creatures whom we saw, who
    had been made young again that day, recovering at once the beauty, shape,
    size, and disposition which they enjoyed at sixteen; except their heels,
    that were now much shorter than in their former youth.

    This made them yet more apt to fall backwards whenever any man happened to
    touch 'em, than they had been before.  As for their counterparts, the old
    mother-scratch-tobies, they most devoutly waited for the blessed hour when
    the batch that was in the oven was to be drawn, that they might have their
    turns, and in a mighty haste they were pulling and hauling the man like
    mad, telling him that 'tis the most grievous and intolerable thing in
    nature for the tail to be on fire and the head to scare away those who
    should quench it.

    The officer had his hands full, never wanting patients; neither did his
    place bring him in little, you may swear.  Pantagruel asked him whether he
    could also make old men young again.  He said he could not.  But the way to
    make them new men was to get 'em to cohabit with a new-cast female; for
    this they caught that fifth kind of crinckams, which some call pellade, in
    Greek, ophiasis, that makes them cast off their old hair and skin, just as
    the serpents do, and thus their youth is renewed like the Arabian
    phoenix's.  This is the true fountain of youth, for there the old and
    decrepit become young, active, and lusty.

    Just so, as Euripides tells us, Iolaus was transmogrified; and thus Phaon,
    for whom kind-hearted Sappho run wild, grew young again, for Venus's use;
    so Tithon by Aurora's means; so Aeson by Medea, and Jason also, who, if
    you'll believe Pherecides and Simonides, was new-vamped and dyed by that
    witch; and so were the nurses of jolly Bacchus, and their husbands, as
    Aeschylus relates.

    Chapter 5.XXII. How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the said lady retained us
    among her abstractors.

    I then saw a great number of the queen's officers, who made blackamoors
    white as fast as hops, just rubbing their bellies with the bottom of a
    pannier.

    Others, with three couples of foxes in one yoke, ploughed a sandy shore,
    and did not lose their seed.

    Others washed burnt tiles, and made them lose their colour.

    Others extracted water out of pumice-stones, braying them a good while in a
    mortar, and changed their substance.

    Others sheared asses, and thus got long fleece wool.

    Others gathered barberries and figs off of thistles.

    Others stroked he-goats by the dugs, and saved their milk in a sieve; and
    much they got by it.

    (Others washed asses' heads without losing their soap.)

    Others taught cows to dance, and did not lose their fiddling.

    Others pitched nets to catch the wind, and took cock-lobsters in them.

    I saw a spodizator, who very artificially got farts out of a dead ass, and
    sold 'em for fivepence an ell.

    Another did putrefy beetles.  O the dainty food!

    Poor Panurge fairly cast up his accounts, and gave up his halfpenny (i.e.
    vomited), seeing an archasdarpenin who laid a huge plenty of chamber lye to
    putrefy in horsedung, mishmashed with abundance of Christian sir-reverence.
    Pugh, fie upon him, nasty dog!  However, he told us that with this sacred
    distillation he watered kings and princes, and made their sweet lives a
    fathom or two the longer.

    Others built churches to jump over the steeples.

    Others set carts before the horses, and began to flay eels at the tail;
    neither did the eels cry before they were hurt, like those of Melun.

    Others out of nothing made great things, and made great things return to
    nothing.

    Others cut fire into steaks with a knife, and drew water with a fish-net.

    Others made chalk of cheese, and honey of a dog's t—d.

    We saw a knot of others, about a baker's dozen in number, tippling under an
    arbour.  They toped out of jolly bottomless cups four sorts of cool,
    sparkling, pure, delicious, vine-tree sirup, which went down like mother's
    milk; and healths and bumpers flew about like lightning.  We were told that
    these true philosophers were fairly multiplying the stars by drinking till
    the seven were fourteen, as brawny Hercules did with Atlas.

    Others made a virtue of necessity, and the best of a bad market, which
    seemed to me a very good piece of work.

    Others made alchemy (i.e. sir-reverence) with their teeth, and clapping
    their hind retort to the recipient, made scurvy faces, and then squeezed.

    Others, in a large grass plot, exactly measured how far the fleas could go
    at a hop, a step, and jump; and told us that this was exceedingly useful
    for the ruling of kingdoms, the conduct of armies, and the administration
    of commonwealths; and that Socrates, who first got philosophy out of
    heaven, and from idling and trifling made it profitable and of moment, used
    to spend half his philosophizing time in measuring the leaps of fleas, as
    Aristophanes the quintessential affirms.

    I saw two gibroins by themselves keeping watch on the top of a tower, and
    we were told they guarded the moon from the wolves.

    In a blind corner I met four more very hot at it, and ready to go to
    loggerheads.  I asked what was the cause of the stir and ado, the mighty
    coil and pother they made.  And I heard that for four livelong days those
    overwise roisters had been at it ding-dong, disputing on three high, more
    than metaphysical propositions, promising themselves mountains of gold by
    solving them.  The first was concerning a he-ass's shadow; the second, of
    the smoke of a lantern; and the third of goat's hair, whether it were wool
    or no.  We heard that they did not think it a bit strange that two
    contradictions in mode, form, figure, and time should be true; though I
    will warrant the sophists of Paris had rather be unchristened than own so
    much.

    While we were admiring all those men's wonderful doings, the evening star
    already twinkling, the queen (God bless her!) appeared, attended with her
    court, and again amazed and dazzled us.  She perceived it, and said to us:

    What occasions the aberrations of human cogitations through the perplexing
    labyrinths and abysses of admiration, is not the source of the effects,
    which sagacious mortals visibly experience to be the consequential result
    of natural causes.  'Tis the novelty of the experiment which makes
    impressions on their conceptive, cogitative faculties; that do not previse
    the facility of the operation adequately, with a subact and sedate
    intellection, associated with diligent and congruous study.  Consequently
    let all manner of perturbation abdicate the ventricles of your brains, if
    anyone has invaded them while they were contemplating what is transacted by
    my domestic ministers.  Be spectators and auditors of every particular
    phenomenon and every individual proposition within the extent of my
    mansion; satiate yourselves with all that can fall here under the
    consideration of your visual or auscultating powers, and thus emancipate
    yourselves from the servitude of crassous ignorance.  And that you may be
    induced to apprehend how sincerely I desire this in consideration of the
    studious cupidity that so demonstratively emicates at your external organs,
    from this present particle of time I retain you as my abstractors.  Geber,
    my principal Tabachin, shall register and initiate you at your departing.

    We humbly thanked her queenship without saying a word, accepting of the
    noble office she conferred on us.

    Chapter 5.XXIII. How the Queen was served at dinner, and of her way of eating.

    Queen Whims after this said to her gentlemen:  The orifice of the
    ventricle, that ordinary embassador for the alimentation of all members,
    whether superior or inferior, importunes us to restore, by the apposition
    of idoneous sustenance, what was dissipated by the internal calidity's
    action on the radical humidity.  Therefore spodizators, gesinins, memains,
    and parazons, be not culpable of dilatory protractions in the apposition of
    every re-roborating species, but rather let them pullulate and superabound
    on the tables.  As for you, nobilissim praegustators, and my gentilissim
    masticators, your frequently experimented industry, internected with
    perdiligent sedulity and sedulous perdiligence, continually adjuvates you
    to perficiate all things in so expeditious a manner that there is no
    necessity of exciting in you a cupidity to consummate them.  Therefore I
    can only suggest to you still to operate as you are assuefacted
    indefatigably to operate.

    Having made this fine speech, she retired for a while with part of her
    women, and we were told that 'twas to bathe, as the ancients did more
    commonly than we use nowadays to wash our hands before we eat.  The tables
    were soon placed, the cloth spread, and then the queen sat down.  She ate
    nothing but celestial ambrosia, and drank nothing but divine nectar.  As
    for the lords and ladies that were there, they, as well as we, fared on as
    rare, costly, and dainty dishes as ever Apicius wot or dreamed of in his
    life.

    When we were as round as hoops, and as full as eggs, with stuffing the gut,
    an olla podrida ('Some call it an Olio.  Rabelais Pot-pourry.'—Motteux.)
    was set before us to force hunger to come to terms with us, in case it had
    not granted us a truce; and such a huge vast thing it was that the plate
    which Pythius Althius gave King Darius would hardly have covered it.  The
    olla consisted of several sorts of pottages, salads, fricassees,
    saugrenees, cabirotadoes, roast and boiled meat, carbonadoes, swingeing
    pieces of powdered beef, good old hams, dainty somates, cakes, tarts, a
    world of curds after the Moorish way, fresh cheese, jellies, and fruit of
    all sorts.  All this seemed to me good and dainty; however, the sight of it
    made me sigh; for alas! I could not taste a bit on't, so full I had filled
    my puddings before, and a bellyful is a bellyful you know.  Yet I must tell
    you what I saw that seemed to me odd enough o' conscience; 'twas some
    pasties in paste; and what should those pasties in paste be, d'ye think,
    but pasties in pots?  At the bottom I perceived store of dice, cards,
    tarots ('Great cards on which many different things are figured.'—
    Motteux.), luettes ('Pieces of ivory to play withal.'—Motteux.), chessmen,
    and chequers, besides full bowls of gold crowns, for those who had a mind
    to have a game or two and try their chance.  Under this I saw a jolly
    company of mules in stately trappings, with velvet footcloths, and a troop
    of ambling nags, some for men and some for women; besides I don't know how
    many litters all lined with velvet, and some coaches of Ferrara make; all
    this for those who had a mind to take the air.

    This did not seem strange to me; but if anything did 'twas certainly the
    queen's way of eating, and truly 'twas very new, and very odd; for she
    chewed nothing, the good lady; not but that she had good sound teeth, and
    her meat required to be masticated, but such was her highness's custom.
    When her praegustators had tasted the meat, her masticators took it and
    chewed it most nobly; for their dainty chops and gullets were lined through
    with crimson satin, with little welts and gold purls, and their teeth were
    of delicate white ivory.  Thus, when they had chewed the meat ready for her
    highness's maw, they poured it down her throat through a funnel of fine
    gold, and so on to her craw.  For that reason they told us she never
    visited a close-stool but by proxy.

    Chapter 5.XXIV. How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, at which Queen Whims
    was present.

    After supper there was a ball in the form of a tilt or a tournament, not
    only worth seeing, but also never to be forgotten.  First, the floor of the
    hall was covered with a large piece of velveted white and yellow chequered
    tapestry, each chequer exactly square, and three full spans in breadth.

    Then thirty-two young persons came into the hall; sixteen of them arrayed
    in cloth of gold, and of these eight were young nymphs such as the ancients
    described Diana's attendants; the other eight were a king, a queen, two
    wardens of the castle, two knights, and two archers.  Those of the other
    band were clad in cloth of silver.

    They posted themselves on the tapestry in the following manner:  the kings
    on the last line on the fourth square; so that the golden king was on a
    white square, and the silvered king on a yellow square, and each queen by
    her king; the golden queen on a yellow square, and the silvered queen on a
    white one:  and on each side stood the archers to guide their kings and
    queens; by the archers the knights, and the wardens by them.  In the next
    row before 'em stood the eight nymphs; and between the two bands of nymphs
    four rows of squares stood empty.

    Each band had its musicians, eight on each side, dressed in its livery; the
    one with orange-coloured damask, the other with white; and all played on
    different instruments most melodiously and harmoniously, still varying in
    time and measure as the figure of the dance required.  This seemed to me an
    admirable thing, considering the numerous diversity of steps, back-steps,
    bounds, rebounds, jerks, paces, leaps, skips, turns, coupes, hops,
    leadings, risings, meetings, flights, ambuscadoes, moves, and removes.

    I was also at a loss when I strove to comprehend how the dancers could so
    suddenly know what every different note meant; for they no sooner heard
    this or that sound but they placed themselves in the place which was
    denoted by the music, though their motions were all different.  For the
    nymphs that stood in the first file, as if they designed to begin the
    fight, marched straight forwards to their enemies from square to square,
    unless it were the first step, at which they were free to move over two
    steps at once.  They alone never fall back (which is not very natural to
    other nymphs), and if any of them is so lucky as to advance to the opposite
    king's row, she is immediately crowned queen of her king, and after that
    moves with the same state and in the same manner as the queen; but till
    that happens they never strike their enemies but forwards, and obliquely in
    a diagonal line.  However, they make it not their chief business to take
    their foes; for, if they did, they would leave their queen exposed to the
    adverse parties, who then might take her.

    The kings move and take their enemies on all sides square-ways, and only
    step from a white square into a yellow one, and vice versa, except at their
    first step the rank should want other officers than the wardens; for then
    they can set 'em in their place, and retire by him.

    The queens take a greater liberty than any of the rest; for they move
    backwards and forwards all manner of ways, in a straight line as far as
    they please, provided the place be not filled with one of her own party,
    and diagonally also, keeping to the colour on which she stands.

    The archers move backwards or forwards, far and near, never changing the
    colour on which they stand.  The knights move and take in a lineal manner,
    stepping over one square, though a friend or foe stand upon it, posting
    themselves on the second square to the right or left, from one colour to
    another, which is very unwelcome to the adverse party, and ought to be
    carefully observed, for they take at unawares.

    The wardens move and take to the right or left, before or behind them, like
    the kings, and can advance as far as they find places empty; which liberty
    the kings take not.

    The law which both sides observe is, at the end of the fight, to besiege
    and enclose the king of either party, so that he may not be able to move;
    and being reduced to that extremity, the battle is over, and he loses the
    day.

    Now, to avoid this, there is none of either sex of each party but is
    willing to sacrifice his or her life, and they begin to take one another on
    all sides in time, as soon as the music strikes up.  When anyone takes a
    prisoner, he makes his honours, and striking him gently in the hand, puts
    him out of the field and combat, and encamps where he stood.

    If one of the kings chance to stand where he might be taken, it is not
    lawful for any of his adversaries that had discovered him to lay hold on
    him; far from it, they are strictly enjoined humbly to pay him their
    respects, and give him notice, saying, God preserve you, sir! that his
    officers may relieve and cover him, or he may remove, if unhappily he could
    not be relieved.  However, he is not to be taken, but greeted with a Good-
    morrow, the others bending the knee; and thus the tournament uses to end.

    Chapter 5.XXV. How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought.

    The two companies having taken their stations, the music struck up, and
    with a martial sound, which had something of horrid in it, like a point of
    war, roused and alarmed both parties, who now began to shiver, and then
    soon were warmed with warlike rage; and having got in readiness to fight
    desperately, impatient of delay stood waiting for the charge.

    Then the music of the silvered band ceased playing, and the instruments of
    the golden side alone were heard, which denoted that the golden party
    attacked.  Accordingly, a new movement was played for the onset, and we saw
    the nymph who stood before the queen turn to the left towards her king, as
    it were to ask leave to fight; and thus saluting her company at the same
    time, she moved two squares forwards, and saluted the adverse party.

    Now the music of the golden brigade ceased playing, and their antagonists
    began again.  I ought to have told you that the nymph who began by saluting
    her company, had by that formality also given them to understand that they
    were to fall on.  She was saluted by them in the same manner, with a full
    turn to the left, except the queen, who went aside towards her king to the
    right; and the same manner of salutation was observed on both sides during
    the whole ball.

    The silvered nymph that stood before her queen likewise moved as soon as
    the music of her party sounded a charge; her salutations, and those of her
    side, were to the right, and her queen's to the left.  She moved in the
    second square forwards, and saluted her antagonists, facing the first
    golden nymph; so that there was not any distance between them, and you
    would have thought they two had been going to fight; but they only strike
    sideways.

    Their comrades, whether silvered or golden, followed 'em in an intercalary
    figure, and seemed to skirmish a while, till the golden nymph who had first
    entered the lists, striking a silvered nymph in the hand on the right, put
    her out of the field, and set herself in her place.  But soon the music
    playing a new measure, she was struck by a silvered archer, who after that
    was obliged himself to retire.  A silvered knight then sallied out, and the
    golden queen posted herself before her king.

    Then the silvered king, dreading the golden queen's fury, removed to the
    right, to the place where his warden stood, which seemed to him strong and
    well guarded.

    The two knights on the left, whether golden or silvered, marched up, and on
    either side took up many nymphs who could not retreat; principally the
    golden knight, who made this his whole business; but the silvered knight
    had greater designs, dissembling all along, and even sometimes not taking a
    nymph when he could have done it, still moving on till he was come up to
    the main body of the enemies in such a manner that he saluted their king
    with a God save you, sir!

    The whole golden brigade quaked for fear and anger, those words giving
    notice of their king's danger; not but that they could soon relieve him,
    but because their king being thus saluted they were to lose their warden on
    the right wing without any hopes of a recovery.  Then the golden king
    retired to the left, and the silvered knight took the golden warden, which
    was a mighty loss to that party.  However, they resolved to be revenged,
    and surrounded the knight that he might not escape.  He tried to get off,
    behaving himself with a great deal of gallantry, and his friends did what
    they could to save him; but at last he fell into the golden queen's hands,
    and was carried off.

    Her forces, not yet satisfied, having lost one of her best men, with more
    fury than conduct moved about, and did much mischief among their enemies.
    The silvered party warily dissembled, watching their opportunity to be even
    with them, and presented one of their nymphs to the golden queen, having
    laid an ambuscado; so that the nymph being taken, a golden archer had like
    to have seized the silvered queen.  Then the golden knight undertakes to
    take the silvered king and queen, and says, Good-morrow!  Then the silvered
    archer salutes them, and was taken by a golden nymph, and she herself by a
    silvered one.

    The fight was obstinate and sharp.  The wardens left their posts, and
    advanced to relieve their friends.  The battle was doubtful, and victory
    hovered over both armies.  Now the silvered host charge and break through
    their enemy's ranks as far as the golden king's tent, and now they are
    beaten back.  The golden queen distinguishes herself from the rest by her
    mighty achievements still more than by her garb and dignity; for at once
    she takes an archer, and, going sideways, seizes a silvered warden.  Which
    thing the silvered queen perceiving, she came forwards, and, rushing on
    with equal bravery, takes the last golden warden and some nymphs.  The two
    queens fought a long while hand to hand; now striving to take each other by
    surprise, then to save themselves, and sometimes to guard their kings.
    Finally, the golden queen took the silvered queen; but presently after she
    herself was taken by the silvered archer.

    Then the silvered king had only three nymphs, an archer, and a warden left,
    and the golden only three nymphs and the right knight, which made them
    fight more slowly and warily than before.  The two kings seemed to mourn
    for the loss of their loving queens, and only studied and endeavoured to
    get new ones out of all their nymphs to be raised to that dignity, and thus
    be married to them.  This made them excite those brave nymphs to strive to
    reach the farthest rank, where stood the king of the contrary party,
    promising them certainly to have them crowned if they could do this.  The
    golden nymphs were beforehand with the others, and out of their number was
    created a queen, who was dressed in royal robes, and had a crown set on her
    head.  You need not doubt the silvered nymphs made also what haste they
    could to be queens.  One of them was within a step of the coronation place,
    but there the golden knight lay ready to intercept her, so that she could
    go no further.

    The new golden queen, resolved to show herself valiant and worthy of her
    advancement to the crown, achieved great feats of arms.  But in the
    meantime the silvered knight takes the golden warden who guarded the camp;
    and thus there was a new silvered queen, who, like the other, strove to
    excel in heroic deeds at the beginning of her reign.  Thus the fight grew
    hotter than before.  A thousand stratagems, charges, rallyings, retreats,
    and attacks were tried on both sides; till at last the silvered queen,
    having by stealth advanced as far as the golden king's tent, cried, God
    save you, sir!  Now none but his new queen could relieve him; so she
    bravely came and exposed herself to the utmost extremity to deliver him out
    of it.  Then the silvered warden with his queen reduced the golden king to
    such a stress that, to save himself, he was forced to lose his queen; but
    the golden king took him at last.  However, the rest of the golden party
    were soon taken; and that king being left alone, the silvered party made
    him a low bow, crying, Good morrow, sir! which denoted that the silvered
    king had got the day.

    This being heard, the music of both parties loudly proclaimed the victory.
    And thus the first battle ended to the unspeakable joy of all the
    spectators.

    After this the two brigades took their former stations, and began to tilt a
    second time, much as they had done before, only the music played somewhat
    faster than at the first battle, and the motions were altogether different.
    I saw the golden queen sally out one of the first, with an archer and a
    knight, as it were angry at the former defeat, and she had like to have
    fallen upon the silvered king in his tent among his officers; but having
    been baulked in her attempt, she skirmished briskly, and overthrew so many
    silvered nymphs and officers that it was a most amazing sight.  You would
    have sworn she had been another Penthesilea; for she behaved herself with
    as much bravery as that Amazonian queen did at Troy.

    But this havoc did not last long; for the silvered party, exasperated by
    their loss, resolved to perish or stop her progress; and having posted an
    archer in ambuscado on a distant angle, together with a knight-errant, her
    highness fell into their hands and was carried out of the field.  The rest
    were soon routed after the taking of their queen, who, without doubt, from
    that time resolved to be more wary and keep near her king, without
    venturing so far amidst her enemies unless with more force to defend her.
    Thus the silvered brigade once more got the victory.

    This did not dishearten or deject the golden party; far from it.  They soon
    appeared again in the field to face their enemies; and being posted as
    before, both the armies seemed more resolute and cheerful than ever.  Now
    the martial concert began, and the music was above a hemiole the quicker,
    according to the warlike Phrygian mode, such as was invented by Marsyas.

    Then our combatants began to wheel about, and charge with such a swiftness
    that in an instant they made four moves, besides the usual salutations.  So
    that they were continually in action, flying, hovering, jumping, vaulting,
    curvetting, with petauristical turns and motions, and often intermingled.

    Seeing them then turn about on one foot after they had made their honours,
    we compared them to your tops or gigs, such as boys use to whip about,
    making them turn round so swiftly that they sleep, as they call it, and
    motion cannot be perceived, but resembles rest, its contrary; so that if
    you make a point or mark on some part of one of those gigs, 'twill be
    perceived not as a point, but a continual line, in a most divine manner, as
    Cusanus has wisely observed.

    While they were thus warmly engaged, we heard continually the claps and
    episemapsies which those of the two bands reiterated at the taking of their
    enemies; and this, joined to the variety of their motions and music, would
    have forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the never-laughing Crassus,
    the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even whining Heraclitus, though he
    abhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man.  For who could
    have forborne? seeing those young warriors, with their nymphs and queens,
    so briskly and gracefully advance, retire, jump, leap, skip, spring, fly,
    vault, caper, move to the right, to the left, every way still in time, so
    swiftly, and yet so dexterously, that they never touched one another but
    methodically.

    As the number of the combatants lessened, the pleasure of the spectators
    increased; for the stratagems and motions of the remaining forces were more
    singular.  I shall only add that this pleasing entertainment charmed us to
    such a degree that our minds were ravished with admiration and delight, and
    the martial harmony moved our souls so powerfully that we easily believed
    what is said of Ismenias's having excited Alexander to rise from table and
    run to his arms, with such a warlike melody.  At last the golden king
    remained master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, Queen
    Whims vanished, so that we saw her no more from that day to this.

    Then Geber's michelots conducted us, and we were set down among her
    abstractors, as her queenship had commanded.  After that we returned to the
    port of Mateotechny, and thence straight aboard our ships; for the wind was
    fair, and had we not hoisted out of hand, we could hardly have got off in
    three quarters of a moon in the wane.

    Chapter 5.XXVI. How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and down.

    We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days made
    the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing.  The ways
    there are animals; so true is Aristotle's saying, that all self-moving
    things are animals.  Now the ways walk there.  Ergo, they are then animals.
    Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those of the planets; others
    are highways, crossways, and byways.  I perceived that the travellers and
    inhabitants of that country asked, Whither does this way go?  Whither does
    that way go?  Some answered, Between Midy and Fevrolles, to the parish
    church, to the city, to the river, and so forth.  Being thus in their right
    way, they used to reach their journey's end without any further trouble,
    just like those who go by water from Lyons to Avignon or Arles.

    Now, as you know that nothing is perfect here below, we heard there was a
    sort of people whom they called highwaymen, waybeaters, and makers of
    inroads in roads; and that the poor ways were sadly afraid of them, and
    shunned them as you do robbers.  For these used to waylay them, as people
    lay trains for wolves, and set gins for woodcocks.  I saw one who was taken
    up with a lord chief justice's warrant for having unjustly, and in spite of
    Pallas, taken the schoolway, which is the longest.  Another boasted that he
    had fairly taken his shortest, and that doing so he first compassed his
    design.  Thus, Carpalin, meeting once Epistemon looking upon a wall with
    his fiddle-diddle, or live urinal, in his hand, to make a little maid's
    water, cried that he did not wonder now how the other came to be still the
    first at Pantagruel's levee, since he held his shortest and least used.

    I found Bourges highway among these.  It went with the deliberation of an
    abbot, but was made to scamper at the approach of some waggoners, who
    threatened to have it trampled under their horses' feet, and make their
    waggons run over it, as Tullia's chariot did over her father's body.

    I also espied there the old way between Peronne and St. Quentin, which
    seemed to me a very good, honest, plain way, as smooth as a carpet, and as
    good as ever was trod upon by shoe of leather.

    Among the rocks I knew again the good old way to La Ferrare, mounted on a
    huge bear.  This at a distance would have put me in mind of St. Jerome's
    picture, had but the bear been a lion; for the poor way was all mortified,
    and wore a long hoary beard uncombed and entangled, which looked like the
    picture of winter, or at least like a white-frosted bush.

    On that way were store of beads or rosaries, coarsely made of wild pine-
    tree; and it seemed kneeling, not standing, nor lying flat; but its sides
    and middle were beaten with huge stones, insomuch that it proved to us at
    once an object of fear and pity.

    While we were examining it, a runner, bachelor of the place, took us aside,
    and showing us a white smooth way, somewhat filled with straw, said,
    Henceforth, gentlemen, do not reject the opinion of Thales the Milesian,
    who said that water is the beginning of all things, nor that of Homer, who
    tells us that all things derive their original from the ocean; for this
    same way which you see here had its beginning from water, and is to return
    whence she came before two months come to an end; now carts are driven here
    where boats used to be rowed.

    Truly, said Pantagruel, you tell us no news; we see five hundred such
    changes, and more, every year, in our world.  Then reflecting on the
    different manner of going of those moving ways, he told us he believed that
    Philolaus and Aristarchus had philosophized in this island, and that
    Seleucus (Motteux reads—'that some, indeed, were of opinion.'), indeed,
    was of opinion the earth turns round about its poles, and not the heavens,
    whatever we may think to the contrary; as, when we are on the river Loire,
    we think the trees and the shore moves, though this is only an effect of
    our boat's motion.

    As we went back to our ships, we saw three waylayers, who, having been
    taken in ambuscado, were going to be broken on the wheel; and a huge
    fornicator was burned with a lingering fire for beating a way and breaking
    one of its sides; we were told it was the way of the banks of the Nile in
    Egypt.

    Chapter 5.XXVII. How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of Semiquaver
    Friars.

    Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothing
    but ling-broth.  However, we were very kindly received and entertained by
    Benius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had made us drink, took
    us with him to show us a spick-and-span new monastery which he had
    contrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he called the religious men whom he
    had there.  For he said that on t'other side the water lived friars who
    styled themselves her sweet ladyship's most humble servants.  Item, the
    goodly Friar-minors, who are semibreves of bulls; the smoked-herring tribe
    of Minim Friars; then the Crotchet Friars.  So that these diminutives could
    be no more than Semiquavers.  By the statutes, bulls, and patents of Queen
    Whims, they were all dressed like so many house-burners, except that, as in
    Anjou your bricklayers use to quilt their knees when they tile houses, so
    these holy friars had usually quilted bellies, and thick quilted paunches
    were among them in much repute.  Their codpieces were cut slipper-fashion,
    and every monk among them wore two—one sewed before and another behind—
    reporting that some certain dreadful mysteries were duly represented by
    this duplicity of codpieces.

    They wore shoes as round as basins, in imitation of those who inhabit the
    sandy sea.  Their chins were close-shaved, and their feet iron-shod; and to
    show they did not value fortune, Benius made them shave and poll the hind
    part of their polls as bare as a bird's arse, from the crown to the
    shoulder-blades; but they had leave to let their hair grow before, from the
    two triangular bones in the upper part of the skull.

    Thus did they not value fortune a button, and cared no more for the goods
    of this world than you or I do for hanging.  And to show how much they
    defied that blind jilt, all of them wore, not in their hands like her, but
    at their waist, instead of beads, sharp razors, which they used to new-
    grind twice a day and set thrice a night.

    Each of them had a round ball on their feet, because Fortune is said to
    have one under hers.

    The flap of their cowls hanged forward, and not backwards, like those of
    others.  Thus none could see their noses, and they laughed without fear
    both at fortune and the fortunate; neither more nor less than our ladies
    laugh at barefaced trulls when they have those mufflers on which they call
    masks, and which were formerly much more properly called charity, because
    they cover a multitude of sins.

    The hind part of their faces were always uncovered, as are our faces, which
    made them either go with their belly or the arse foremost, which they
    pleased.  When their hind face went forwards, you would have sworn this had
    been their natural gait, as well on account of their round shoes as of the
    double codpiece, and their face behind, which was as bare as the back of my
    hand, and coarsely daubed over with two eyes and a mouth, such as you see
    on some Indian nuts.  Now, if they offered to waddle along with their
    bellies forwards, you would have thought they were then playing at
    blindman's buff.  May I never be hanged if 'twas not a comical sight.

    Their way of living was thus:  about owl-light they charitably began to
    boot and spur one another.  This being done, the least thing they did was
    to sleep and snore; and thus sleeping, they had barnacles on the handles of
    their faces, or spectacles at most.

    You may swear we did not a little wonder at this odd fancy; but they
    satisfied us presently, telling us that the day of judgment is to take
    mankind napping; therefore, to show they did not refuse to make their
    personal appearance as fortune's darlings use to do, they were always thus
    booted and spurred, ready to mount whenever the trumpet should sound.

    At noon, as soon as the clock struck, they used to awake.  You must know
    that their clock-bell, church-bells, and refectory-bells were all made
    according to the pontial device, that is, quilted with the finest down, and
    their clappers of fox-tails.

    Having then made shift to get up at noon, they pulled off their boots, and
    those that wanted to speak with a maid, alias piss, pissed; those that
    wanted to scumber, scumbered; and those that wanted to sneeze, sneezed.
    But all, whether they would or no (poor gentlemen!), were obliged largely
    and plentifully to yawn; and this was their first breakfast (O rigorous
    statute!).  Methought 'twas very comical to observe their transactions;
    for, having laid their boots and spurs on a rack, they went into the
    cloisters.  There they curiously washed their hands and mouths; then sat
    them down on a long bench, and picked their teeth till the provost gave the
    signal, whistling through his fingers; then every he stretched out his jaws
    as much as he could, and they gaped and yawned for about half-an-hour,
    sometimes more, sometimes less, according as the prior judged the breakfast
    to be suitable to the day.

    After that they went in procession, two banners being carried before them,
    in one of which was the picture of Virtue, and that of Fortune in the
    other.  The last went before, carried by a semi-quavering friar, at whose
    heels was another, with the shadow or image of Virtue in one hand and an
    holy-water sprinkle in the other—I mean of that holy mercurial water which
    Ovid describes in his Fasti.  And as the preceding Semiquaver rang a
    handbell, this shaked the sprinkle with his fist.  With that says
    Pantagruel, This order contradicts the rule which Tully and the academics
    prescribed, that Virtue ought to go before, and Fortune follow.  But they
    told us they did as they ought, seeing their design was to breech, lash,
    and bethwack Fortune.

    During the processions they trilled and quavered most melodiously betwixt
    their teeth I do not know what antiphones, or chantings, by turns.  For my
    part, 'twas all Hebrew-Greek to me, the devil a word I could pick out on't;
    at last, pricking up my ears, and intensely listening, I perceived they
    only sang with the tip of theirs.  Oh, what a rare harmony it was!  How
    well 'twas tuned to the sound of their bells!  You'll never find these to
    jar, that you won't.  Pantagruel made a notable observation upon the
    processions; for says he, Have you seen and observed the policy of these
    Semiquavers?  To make an end of their procession they went out at one of
    their church doors and came in at the other; they took a deal of care not
    to come in at the place whereat they went out.  On my honour, these are a
    subtle sort of people, quoth Panurge; they have as much wit as three folks,
    two fools and a madman; they are as wise as the calf that ran nine miles to
    suck a bull, and when he came there 'twas a steer.  This subtlety and
    wisdom of theirs, cried Friar John, is borrowed from the occult philosophy.
    May I be gutted like an oyster if I can tell what to make on't.  Then the
    more 'tis to be feared, said Pantagruel; for subtlety suspected, subtlety
    foreseen, subtlety found out, loses the essence and very name of subtlety,
    and only gains that of blockishness.  They are not such fools as you take
    them to be; they have more tricks than are good, I doubt.

    After the procession they went sluggingly into the fratery-room, by the way
    of walk and healthful exercise, and there kneeled under the tables, leaning
    their breasts on lanterns.  While they were in that posture, in came a huge
    Sandal, with a pitchfork in his hand, who used to baste, rib-roast,
    swaddle, and swinge them well-favouredly, as they said, and in truth
    treated them after a fashion.  They began their meal as you end yours, with
    cheese, and ended it with mustard and lettuce, as Martial tells us the
    ancients did.  Afterwards a platterful of mustard was brought before every
    one of them, and thus they made good the proverb, After meat comes mustard.

          Their diet was this:

    O' Sundays they stuffed their puddings with puddings, chitterlings, links,
    Bologna sausages, forced-meats, liverings, hogs' haslets, young quails, and
    teals.  You must also always add cheese for the first course, and mustard
    for the last.

    O' Mondays they were crammed with peas and pork, cum commento, and
    interlineary glosses.

    O' Tuesdays they used to twist store of holy-bread, cakes, buns, puffs,
    lenten loaves, jumbles, and biscuits.

    O' Wednesdays my gentlemen had fine sheep's heads, calves' heads, and
    brocks' heads, of which there's no want in that country.

    O' Thursdays they guzzled down seven sorts of porridge, not forgetting
    mustard.

    O' Fridays they munched nothing but services or sorb-apples; neither were
    these full ripe, as I guessed by their complexion.

    O' Saturdays they gnawed bones; not that they were poor or needy, for every
    mother's son of them had a very good fat belly-benefice.

    As for their drink, 'twas an antifortunal; thus they called I don't know
    what sort of a liquor of the place.

    When they wanted to eat or drink, they turned down the back-points or flaps
    of their cowls forwards below their chins, and that served 'em instead of
    gorgets or slabbering-bibs.

    When they had well dined, they prayed rarely all in quavers and shakes; and
    the rest of the day, expecting the day of judgment, they were taken up with
    acts of charity, and particularly—

    O' Sundays, rubbers at cuffs.

    O' Mondays, lending each other flirts and fillips on the nose.

    O' Tuesdays, clapperclawing one another.

    O' Wednesdays, sniting and fly-flapping.

    O' Thursdays, worming and pumping.

    O' Fridays, tickling.

    O' Saturdays, jerking and firking one another.

    Such was their diet when they resided in the convent, and if the prior of
    the monk-house sent any of them abroad, then they were strictly enjoined
    neither to touch nor eat any manner of fish as long as they were on sea or
    rivers, and to abstain from all manner of flesh whenever they were at land,
    that everyone might be convinced that, while they enjoyed the object, they
    denied themselves the power, and even the desire, and were no more moved
    with it than the Marpesian rock.

    All this was done with proper antiphones, still sung and chanted by ear, as
    we have already observed.

    When the sun went to bed, they fairly booted and spurred each other as
    before, and having clapped on their barnacles e'en jogged to bed too.  At
    midnight the Sandal came to them, and up they got, and having well whetted
    and set their razors, and been a-processioning, they clapped the tables
    over themselves, and like wire-drawers under their work fell to it as
    aforesaid.

    Friar John des Entoumeures, having shrewdly observed these jolly Semiquaver
    Friars, and had a full account of their statutes, lost all patience, and
    cried out aloud:  Bounce tail, and God ha' mercy guts; if every fool should
    wear a bauble, fuel would be dear.  A plague rot it, we must know how many
    farts go to an ounce.  Would Priapus were here, as he used to be at the
    nocturnal festivals in Crete, that I might see him play backwards, and
    wriggle and shake to the purpose.  Ay, ay, this is the world, and t'other
    is the country; may I never piss if this be not an antichthonian land, and
    our very antipodes.  In Germany they pull down monasteries and unfrockify
    the monks; here they go quite kam, and act clean contrary to others,
    setting new ones up, against the hair.

    Chapter 5.XXVIII. How Panurge asked a Semiquaver Friar many questions, and was only answered
    in monosyllables.

    5-28-600.jpg (136K)

    Panurge, who had since been wholly taken up with staring at these royal
    Semiquavers, at last pulled one of them by the sleeve, who was as lean as a
    rake, and asked him,—

    Hearkee me, Friar Quaver, Semiquaver, Demisemiquavering quaver, where is
    the punk?

    The Friar, pointing downwards, answered, There.

    Pan.  Pray, have you many?  Fri.  Few.

    Pan.  How many scores have you?  Fri.  One.

    Pan.  How many would you have?  Fri.  Five.

    Pan.  Where do you hide 'em?  Fri.  Here.

    Pan.  I suppose they are not all of one age; but, pray, how is their shape?
    Fri.  Straight.

    Pan.  Their complexion?  Fri.  Clear.

    Pan.  Their hair?  Fri.  Fair.

    Pan.  Their eyes?  Fri.  Black.

    Pan.  Their features?  Fri.  Good.

    Pan.  Their brows?  Fri.  Small.

    Pan.  Their graces?  Fri.  Ripe.

    Pan.  Their looks?  Fri.  Free.

    Pan.  Their feet?  Fri.  Flat.

    Pan.  Their heels?  Fri.  Short.

    Pan.  Their lower parts?  Fri.  Rare.

    Pan.  And their arms?  Fri.  Long.

    Pan.  What do they wear on their hands?  Fri.  Gloves.

    Pan.  What sort of rings on their fingers?  Fri.  Gold.

    Pan.  What rigging do you keep 'em in?  Fri.  Cloth.

    Pan.  What sort of cloth is it?  Fri.  New.

    Pan.  What colour?  Fri.  Sky.

    Pan.  What kind of cloth is it?  Fri.  Fine.

    Pan.  What caps do they wear?  Fri.  Blue.

    Pan.  What's the colour of their stockings?  Fri.  Red.

    Pan.  What wear they on their feet?  Fri.  Pumps.

    Pan.  How do they use to be?  Fri.  Foul.

    Pan.  How do they use to walk?  Fri.  Fast.

    Pan.  Now let us talk of the kitchen, I mean that of the harlots, and
    without going hand over head let's a little examine things by particulars.
    What is in their kitchens?  Fri.  Fire.

    Pan.  What fuel feeds it?  Fri.  Wood.

    Pan.  What sort of wood is't?  Fri.  Dry.

    Pan.  And of what kind of trees?  Fri.  Yews.

    Pan.  What are the faggots and brushes of?  Fri.  Holm.

    Pan.  What wood d'ye burn in your chambers?  Fri.  Pine.

    Pan.  And of what other trees?  Fri.  Lime.

    Pan.  Hearkee me; as for the buttocks, I'll go your halves.  Pray, how do
    you feed 'em?  Fri.  Well.

    Pan.  First, what do they eat?  Fri.  Bread.

    Pan.  Of what complexion?  Fri.  White.

    Pan.  And what else?  Fri.  Meat.

    Pan.  How do they love it dressed?  Fri.  Roast.

    Pan.  What sort of porridge?  Fri.  None.

    Pan.  Are they for pies and tarts?  Fri.  Much.

    Pan.  Then I'm their man.  Will fish go down with them?  Fri.  Well.

    Pan.  And what else?  Fri.  Eggs.

    Pan.  How do they like 'em?  Fri.  Boiled.

    Pan.  How must they be done?  Fri.  Hard.

    Pan.  Is this all they have?  Fri.  No.

    Pan.  What have they besides, then?  Fri.  Beef.

    Pan.  And what else?  Fri.  Pork.

    Pan.  And what more?  Fri.  Geese.

    Pan.  What then?  Fri.  Ducks.

    Pan.  And what besides?  Fri.  Cocks.

    Pan.  What do they season their meat with?  Fri.  Salt.

    Pan.  What sauce are they most dainty for?  Fri.  Must.

    Pan.  What's their last course?  Fri.  Rice.

    Pan.  And what else?  Fri.  Milk.

    Pan.  What besides?  Fri.  Peas.

    Pan.  What sort?  Fri.  Green.

    Pan.  What do they boil with 'em?  Fri.  Pork.

    Pan.  What fruit do they eat?  Fri.  Good.

    Pan.  How?  Fri.  Raw.

    Pan.  What do they end with?  Fri.  Nuts.

    Pan.  How do they drink?  Fri.  Neat.

    Pan.  What liquor?  Fri.  Wine.

    Pan.  What sort?  Fri.  White.

    Pan.  In winter?  Fri.  Strong.

    Pan.  In the spring.  Fri.  Brisk.

    Pan.  In summer?  Fri.  Cool.

    Pan.  In autumn?  Fri.  New.

    Buttock of a monk! cried Friar John; how plump these plaguy trulls, these
    arch Semiquavering strumpets, must be!  That damned cattle are so high fed
    that they must needs be high-mettled, and ready to wince and give two ups
    for one go-down when anyone offers to ride them below the crupper.

    Prithee, Friar John, quoth Panurge, hold thy prating tongue; stay till I
    have done.

    Till what time do the doxies sit up?  Fri.  Night.

    Pan.  When do they get up?  Fri.  Late.

    Pan.  May I ride on a horse that was foaled of an acorn, if this be not as
    honest a cod as ever the ground went upon, and as grave as an old gate-post
    into the bargain.  Would to the blessed St. Semiquaver, and the blessed
    worthy virgin St. Semiquavera, he were lord chief president (justice) of
    Paris!  Ods-bodikins, how he'd despatch!  With what expedition would he
    bring disputes to an upshot!  What an abbreviator and clawer off of
    lawsuits, reconciler of differences, examiner and fumbler of bags, peruser
    of bills, scribbler of rough drafts, and engrosser of deeds would he not
    make!  Well, friar, spare your breath to cool your porridge.  Come, let's
    now talk with deliberation, fairly and softly, as lawyers go to heaven.
    Let's know how you victual the venereal camp.  How is the snatchblatch?  
    Fri.  Rough.

    Pan.  How is the gateway?  Fri.  Free.

    Pan.  And how is it within?  Fri.  Deep.

    Pan.  I mean, what weather is it there?  Fri.  Hot.

    Pan.  What shadows the brooks?  Fri.  Groves.

    Pan.  Of what's the colour of the twigs?  Fri.  Red.

    Pan.  And that of the old?  Fri.  Grey.

    Pan.  How are you when you shake?  Fri.  Brisk.

    Pan.  How is their motion?  Fri.  Quick.

    Pan.  Would you have them vault or wriggle more?  Fri.  Less.

    Pan.  What kind of tools are yours?  Fri.  Big.

    Pan.  And in their helves?  Fri.  Round.

    Pan.  Of what colour is the tip?  Fri.  Red.

    Pan.  When they've even used, how are they?  Fri.  Shrunk.

    Pan.  How much weighs each bag of tools?  Fri.  Pounds.

    Pan.  How hang your pouches?  Fri.  Tight.

    Pan.  How are they when you've done?  Fri.  Lank.

    Pan.  Now, by the oath you have taken, tell me, when you have a mind to
    cohabit, how you throw 'em?  Fri.  Down.

    Pan.  And what do they say then?  Fri.  Fie.

    Pan.  However, like maids, they say nay, and take it; and speak the less,
    but think the more, minding the work in hand; do they not?  Fri.  True.

    Pan.  Do they get you bairns?  Fri.  None.

    Pan.  How do you pig together?  Fri.  Bare.

    Pan.  Remember you're upon your oath, and tell me justly and bona fide how
    many times a day you monk it?  Fri.  Six.

    Pan.  How many bouts a-nights?  Fri.  Ten.

    Catso, quoth Friar John, the poor fornicating brother is bashful, and
    sticks at sixteen, as if that were his stint.  Right, quoth Panurge, but
    couldst thou keep pace with him, Friar John, my dainty cod?  May the
    devil's dam suck my teat if he does not look as if he had got a blow over
    the nose with a Naples cowl-staff.

    Pan.  Pray, Friar Shakewell, does your whole fraternity quaver and shake at
    that rate?  Fri.  All.

    Pan.  Who of them is the best cock o' the game?  Fri.  I.

    Pan.  Do you never commit dry-bobs or flashes in the pan?  Fri.  None.

    Pan.  I blush like any black dog, and could be as testy as an old cook when
    I think on all this; it passes my understanding.  But, pray, when you have
    been pumped dry one day, what have you got the next?  Fri.  More.

    Pan.  By Priapus, they have the Indian herb of which Theophrastus spoke, or
    I'm much out.  But, hearkee me, thou man of brevity, should some
    impediment, honestly or otherwise, impair your talents and cause your
    benevolence to lessen, how would it fare with you, then?  Fri.  Ill.

    Pan.  What would the wenches do?  Fri.  Rail.

    Pan.  What if you skipped, and let 'em fast a whole day?  Fri.  Worse.

    Pan.  What do you give 'em then?  Fri.  Thwacks.

    Pan.  What do they say to this?  Fri.  Bawl.

    Pan.  And what else?  Fri.  Curse.

    Pan.  How do you correct 'em?  Fri.  Hard.

    Pan.  What do you get out of 'em then?  Fri.  Blood.

    Pan.  How's their complexion then?  Fri.  Odd.

    Pan.  What do they mend it with?  Fri.  Paint.

    Pan.  Then what do they do?  Fri.  Fawn.

    Pan.  By the oath you have taken, tell me truly what time of the year do
    you do it least in?  Fri.  Now (August.).

    Pan.  What season do you do it best in?  Fri.  March.

    Pan.  How is your performance the rest of the year?  Fri.  Brisk.

    Then quoth Panurge, sneering, Of all, and of all, commend me to Ball; this
    is the friar of the world for my money.  You've heard how short, concise,
    and compendious he is in his answers.  Nothing is to be got out of him but
    monosyllables.  By jingo, I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.

    Damn him, cried Friar John, that's as true as I am his uncle.  The dog
    yelps at another gate's rate when he is among his bitches; there he is
    polysyllable enough, my life for yours.  You talk of making three bites of
    a cherry!  God send fools more wit and us more money!  May I be doomed to
    fast a whole day if I don't verily believe he would not make above two
    bites of a shoulder of mutton and one swoop of a whole pottle of wine.
    Zoons, do but see how down o' the mouth the cur looks!  He's nothing but
    skin and bones; he has pissed his tallow.

    Truly, truly, quoth Epistemon, this rascally monastical vermin all over the
    world mind nothing but their gut, and are as ravenous as any kites, and
    then, forsooth, they tell us they've nothing but food and raiment in this
    world.  'Sdeath, what more have kings and princes?

    Chapter 5.XXIX. How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent.

    Pray did you observe, continued Epistemon, how this damned ill-favoured
    Semiquaver mentioned March as the best month for caterwauling?  True, said
    Pantagruel; yet Lent and March always go together, and the first was
    instituted to macerate and bring down our pampered flesh, to weaken and
    subdue its lusts, to curb and assuage the venereal rage.

    By this, said Epistemon, you may guess what kind of a pope it was who first
    enjoined it to be kept, since this filthy wooden-shoed Semiquaver owns that
    his spoon is never oftener nor deeper in the porringer of lechery than in
    Lent.  Add to this the evident reasons given by all good and learned
    physicians, affirming that throughout the whole year no food is eaten that
    can prompt mankind to lascivious acts more than at that time.

    As, for example, beans, peas, phasels, or long-peason, ciches, onions,
    nuts, oysters, herrings, salt-meats, garum (a kind of anchovy), and salads
    wholly made up of venereous herbs and fruits, as—

    
    Rocket,         Parsley,        Hop-buds,
    Nose-smart,     Rampions,       Figs,
    Taragon,        Poppy,          Rice,
    Cresses,        Celery,         Raisins, and others.
    
    

    It would not a little surprise you, said Pantagruel, should a man tell you
    that the good pope who first ordered the keeping of Lent, perceiving that
    at that time o' year the natural heat (from the centre of the body, whither
    it was retired during the winter's cold) diffuses itself, as the sap does
    in trees, through the circumference of the members, did therefore in a
    manner prescribe that sort of diet to forward the propagation of mankind.
    What makes me think so, is that by the registers of christenings at Touars
    it appears that more children are born in October and November than in the
    other ten months of the year, and reckoning backwards 'twill be easily
    found that they were all made, conceived, and begotten in Lent.

    I listen to you with both my ears, quoth Friar John, and that with no small
    pleasure, I'll assure you.  But I must tell you that the vicar of Jambert
    ascribed this copious prolification of the women, not to that sort of food
    that we chiefly eat in Lent, but to the little licensed stooping mumpers,
    your little booted Lent-preachers, your little draggle-tailed father
    confessors, who during all that time of their reign damn all husbands that
    run astray three fathom and a half below the very lowest pit of hell.  So
    the silly cod's-headed brothers of the noose dare not then stumble any more
    at the truckle-bed, to the no small discomfort of their maids, and are even
    forced, poor souls, to take up with their own bodily wives.  Dixi; I have
    done.

    You may descant on the institution of Lent as much as you please, cried
    Epistemon; so many men so many minds; but certainly all the physicians will
    be against its being suppressed, though I think that time is at hand.  I
    know they will, and have heard 'em say were it not for Lent their art would
    soon fall into contempt, and they'd get nothing, for hardly anybody would
    be sick.

    All distempers are sowed in lent; 'tis the true seminary and native bed of
    all diseases; nor does it only weaken and putrefy bodies, but it also makes
    souls mad and uneasy.  For then the devils do their best, and drive a
    subtle trade, and the tribe of canting dissemblers come out of their holes.
    'Tis then term-time with your cucullated pieces of formality that have one
    face to God and another to the devil; and a wretched clutter they make with
    their sessions, stations, pardons, syntereses, confessions, whippings,
    anathematizations, and much prayer with as little devotion.  However, I'll
    not offer to infer from this that the Arimaspians are better than we are in
    that point; yet I speak to the purpose.

    Well, quoth Panurge to the Semiquaver friar, who happened to be by, dear
    bumbasting, shaking, trilling, quavering cod, what thinkest thou of this
    fellow?  Is he a rank heretic?  Fri.  Much.

    Pan.  Ought he not to be singed?  Fri.  Well.

    Pan.  As soon as may be?  Fri.  Right.

    Pan.  Should not he be scalded first?  Fri.  No.

    Pan.  How then, should he be roasted?  Fri.  Quick.

    Pan.  Till at last he be?  Fri.  Dead.

    Pan.  What has he made you?  Fri.  Mad.

    Pan.  What d'ye take him to be?  Fri.  Damned.

    Pan.  What place is he to go to?  Fri.  Hell.

    Pan.  But, first, how would you have 'em served here?  Fri.  Burnt.

    Pan.  Some have been served so?  Fri.  Store.

    Pan.  That were heretics?  Fri.  Less.

    Pan.  And the number of those that are to be warmed thus hereafter is?
    Fri.  Great.

    Pan.  How many of 'em do you intend to save?  Fri.  None.

    Pan.  So you'd have them burned?  Fri.  All.

    I wonder, said Epistemon to Panurge, what pleasure you can find in talking
    thus with this lousy tatterdemalion of a monk.  I vow, did I not know you
    well, I might be ready to think you had no more wit in your head than he
    has in both his shoulders.  Come, come, scatter no words, returned Panurge;
    everyone as they like, as the woman said when she kissed her cow.  I wish I
    might carry him to Gargantua; when I'm married he might be my wife's fool.
    And make you one, cried Epistemon.  Well said, quoth Friar John.  Now, poor
    Panurge, take that along with thee, thou'rt e'en fitted; 'tis a plain case
    thou'lt never escape wearing the bull's feather; thy wife will be as common
    as the highway, that's certain.

    Chapter 5.XXX. How we came to the land of Satin.

    Having pleased ourselves with observing that new order of Semiquaver
    Friars, we set sail, and in three days our skipper made the finest and most
    delightful island that ever was seen.  He called it the island of Frieze,
    for all the ways were of frieze.

    In that island is the land of Satin, so celebrated by our court pages.  Its
    trees and herbage never lose their leaves or flowers, and are all damask
    and flowered velvet.  As for the beasts and birds, they are all of tapestry
    work.  There we saw many beasts, birds on trees, of the same colour,
    bigness, and shape of those in our country; with this difference, however,
    that these did eat nothing, and never sung or bit like ours; and we also
    saw there many sorts of creatures which we never had seen before.

    Among the rest, several elephants in various postures; twelve of which were
    the six males and six females that were brought to Rome by their governor
    in the time of Germanicus, Tiberius's nephew.  Some of them were learned
    elephants, some musicians, others philosophers, dancers, and showers of
    tricks; and all sat down at table in good order, silently eating and
    drinking like so many fathers in a fratery-room.

    With their snouts or proboscises, some two cubits long, they draw up water
    for their own drinking, and take hold of palm leaves, plums, and all manner
    of edibles, using them offensively or defensively as we do our fists; with
    them tossing men high into the air in fight, and making them burst with
    laughing when they come to the ground.

    They have joints (in their legs), whatever some men, who doubtless never
    saw any but painted, may have written to the contrary.  Between their teeth
    they have two huge horns; thus Juba called 'em, and Pausanias tells us they
    are not teeth, but horns; however, Philostratus will have 'em to be teeth,
    and not horns.  'Tis all one to me, provided you will be pleased to own
    them to be true ivory.  These are some three or four cubits long, and are
    fixed in the upper jawbone, and consequently not in the lowermost.  If you
    hearken to those who will tell you to the contrary, you will find yourself
    damnably mistaken, for that's a lie with a latchet; though 'twere Aelian,
    that long-bow man, that told you so, never believe him, for he lies as fast
    as a dog can trot.  'Twas in this very island that Pliny, his brother tell-
    truth, had seen some elephants dance on the rope with bells, and whip over
    the tables, presto, begone, while people were at feasts, without so much as
    touching the toping topers or the topers toping.

    I saw a rhinoceros there, just such a one as Harry Clerberg had formerly
    showed me.  Methought it was not much unlike a certain boar which I had
    formerly seen at Limoges, except the sharp horn on its snout, that was
    about a cubit long; by the means of which that animal dares encounter with
    an elephant, that is sometimes killed with its point thrust into its belly,
    which is its most tender and defenceless part.

    I saw there two and thirty unicorns.  They are a curst sort of creatures,
    much resembling a fine horse, unless it be that their heads are like a
    stag's, their feet like an elephant's, their tails like a wild boar's, and
    out of each of their foreheads sprouts out a sharp black horn, some six or
    seven feet long; commonly it dangles down like a turkey-cock's comb.  When
    a unicorn has a mind to fight, or put it to any other use, what does it do
    but make it stand, and then 'tis as straight as an arrow.

    I saw one of them, which was attended with a throng of other wild beasts,
    purify a fountain with its horn.  With that Panurge told me that his
    prancer, alias his nimble-wimble, was like the unicorn, not altogether in
    length indeed, but in virtue and propriety; for as the unicorn purified
    pools and fountains from filth and venom, so that other animals came and
    drank securely there afterwards, in the like manner others might water
    their nags, and dabble after him without fear of shankers, carnosities,
    gonorrhoeas, buboes, crinkams, and such other plagues caught by those who
    venture to quench their amorous thirst in a common puddle; for with his
    nervous horn he removed all the infection that might be lurking in some
    blind cranny of the mephitic sweet-scented hole.

    Well, quoth Friar John, when you are sped, that is, when you are married,
    we will make a trial of this on thy spouse, merely for charity sake, since
    you are pleased to give us so beneficial an instruction.

    Ay, ay, returned Panurge, and then immediately I'll give you a pretty
    gentle aggregative pill of God, made up of two and twenty kind stabs with a
    dagger, after the Caesarian way.  Catso, cried Friar John, I had rather
    take off a bumper of good cool wine.

    I saw there the golden fleece formerly conquered by Jason, and can assure
    you, on the word of an honest man, that those who have said it was not a
    fleece but a golden pippin, because melon signifies both an apple and a
    sheep, were utterly mistaken.

    I saw also a chameleon, such as Aristotle describes it, and like that which
    had been formerly shown me by Charles Maris, a famous physician of the
    noble city of Lyons on the Rhone; and the said chameleon lived on air just
    as the other did.

    I saw three hydras, like those I had formerly seen.  They are a kind of
    serpent, with seven different heads.

    I saw also fourteen phoenixes.  I had read in many authors that there was
    but one in the whole world in every century; but, if I may presume to speak
    my mind, I declare that those who said this had never seen any, unless it
    were in the land of Tapestry; though 'twere vouched by Claudian or
    Lactantius Firmianus.

    I saw the skin of Apuleius's golden ass.

    I saw three hundred and nine pelicans.

    Item, six thousand and sixteen Seleucid birds marching in battalia, and
    picking up straggling grasshoppers in cornfields.

    Item, some cynamologi, argatiles, caprimulgi, thynnunculs, onocrotals, or
    bitterns, with their wide swallows, stymphalides, harpies, panthers,
    dorcasses, or bucks, cemades, cynocephalises, satyrs, cartasans, tarands,
    uri, monopses, or bonasi, neades, steras, marmosets, or monkeys, bugles,
    musimons, byturoses, ophyri, screech-owls, goblins, fairies, and griffins.

    I saw Mid-Lent o' horseback, with Mid-August and Mid-March holding its
    stirrups.

    I saw some mankind wolves, centaurs, tigers, leopards, hyenas,
    camelopardals, and orixes, or huge wild goats with sharp horns.

    I saw a remora, a little fish called echineis by the Greeks, and near it a
    tall ship that did not get ahead an inch, though she was in the offing with
    top and top-gallants spread before the wind.  I am somewhat inclined to
    believe that 'twas the very numerical ship in which Periander the tyrant
    happened to be when it was stopped by such a little fish in spite of wind
    and tide.  It was in this land of Satin, and in no other, that Mutianus had
    seen one of them.

    Friar John told us that in the days of yore two sorts of fishes used to
    abound in our courts of judicature, and rotted the bodies and tormented the
    souls of those who were at law, whether noble or of mean descent, high or
    low, rich or poor:  the first were your April fish or mackerel (pimps,
    panders, and bawds); the others your beneficial remoras, that is, the
    eternity of lawsuits, the needless lets that keep 'em undecided.

    I saw some sphynges, some raphes, some ounces, and some cepphi, whose fore-
    feet are like hands and their hind-feet like man's.

    Also some crocutas and some eali as big as sea-horses, with elephants'
    tails, boars' jaws and tusks, and horns as pliant as an ass's ears.

    The crocutas, most fleet animals, as big as our asses of Mirebalais, have
    necks, tails, and breasts like a lion's, legs like a stag's, have mouths up
    to the ears, and but two teeth, one above and one below; they speak with
    human voices, but when they do they say nothing.

    Some people say that none e'er saw an eyrie, or nest of sakers; if you'll
    believe me, I saw no less than eleven, and I'm sure I reckoned right.

    I saw some left-handed halberds, which were the first that I had ever seen.

    I saw some manticores, a most strange sort of creatures, which have the
    body of a lion, red hair, a face and ears like a man's, three rows of teeth
    which close together as if you joined your hands with your fingers between
    each other; they have a sting in their tails like a scorpion's, and a very
    melodious voice.

    I saw some catablepases, a sort of serpents, whose bodies are small, but
    their heads large, without any proportion, so that they've much ado to lift
    them up; and their eyes are so infectious that whoever sees 'em dies upon
    the spot, as if he had seen a basilisk.

    I saw some beasts with two backs, and those seemed to me the merriest
    creatures in the world.  They were most nimble at wriggling the buttocks,
    and more diligent in tail-wagging than any water-wagtails, perpetually
    jogging and shaking their double rumps.

    I saw there some milched crawfish, creatures that I never had heard of
    before in my life.  These moved in very good order, and 'twould have done
    your heart good to have seen 'em.

    Chapter 5.XXXI. How in the land of Satin we saw Hearsay, who kept a school of vouching.

    We went a little higher up into the country of Tapestry, and saw the
    Mediterranean Sea open to the right and left down to the very bottom; just
    as the Red Sea very fairly left its bed at the Arabian Gulf to make a lane
    for the Jews when they left Egypt.

    There I found Triton winding his silver shell instead of a horn, and also
    Glaucus, Proteus, Nereus, and a thousand other godlings and sea monsters.

    I also saw an infinite number of fish of all kinds, dancing, flying,
    vaulting, fighting, eating, breathing, billing, shoving, milting, spawning,
    hunting, fishing, skirmishing, lying in ambuscado, making truces,
    cheapening, bargaining, swearing, and sporting.

    In a blind corner we saw Aristotle holding a lantern in the posture in
    which the hermit uses to be drawn near St. Christopher, watching, prying,
    thinking, and setting everything down.

    Behind him stood a pack of other philosophers, like so many bums by a head-
    bailiff, as Appian, Heliodorus, Athenaeus, Porphyrius, Pancrates, Arcadian,
    Numenius, Possidonius, Ovidius, Oppianus, Olympius, Seleucus, Leonides,
    Agathocles, Theophrastus, Damostratus, Mutianus, Nymphodorus, Aelian, and
    five hundred other such plodding dons, who were full of business, yet had
    little to do; like Chrysippus or Aristarchus of Soli, who for eight-and-
    fifty years together did nothing in the world but examine the state and
    concerns of bees.

    I spied Peter Gilles among these, with a urinal in his hand, narrowly
    watching the water of those goodly fishes.

    When we had long beheld everything in this land of Satin, Pantagruel said,
    I have sufficiently fed my eyes, but my belly is empty all this while, and
    chimes to let me know 'tis time to go to dinner.  Let's take care of the
    body lest the soul abdicate it; and to this effect let's taste some of
    these anacampserotes ('An herb, the touching of which is said to reconcile
    lovers.'—Motteux.) that hang over our heads.  Psha, cried one, they are
    mere trash, stark naught, o' my word; they're good for nothing.

    I then went to pluck some mirobolans off of a piece of tapestry whereon
    they hung, but the devil a bit I could chew or swallow 'em; and had you had
    them betwixt your teeth you would have sworn they had been thrown silk;
    there was no manner of savour in 'em.

    One might be apt to think Heliogabalus had taken a hint from thence, to
    feast those whom he had caused to fast a long time, promising them a
    sumptuous, plentiful, and imperial feast after it; for all the treat used
    to amount to no more than several sorts of meat in wax, marble,
    earthenware, painted and figured tablecloths.

    While we were looking up and down to find some more substantial food, we
    heard a loud various noise, like that of paper-mills (or women bucking of
    linen); so with all speed we went to the place whence the noise came, where
    we found a diminutive, monstrous, misshapen old fellow, called Hearsay.
    His mouth was slit up to his ears, and in it were seven tongues, each of
    them cleft into seven parts.  However, he chattered, tattled, and prated
    with all the seven at once, of different matters, and in divers languages.

    He had as many ears all over his head and the rest of his body as Argus
    formerly had eyes, and was as blind as a beetle, and had the palsy in his
    legs.

    About him stood an innumerable number of men and women, gaping, listening,
    and hearing very intensely.  Among 'em I observed some who strutted like
    crows in a gutter, and principally a very handsome bodied man in the face,
    who held then a map of the world, and with little aphorisms compendiously
    explained everything to 'em; so that those men of happy memories grew
    learned in a trice, and would most fluently talk with you of a world of
    prodigious things, the hundredth part of which would take up a man's whole
    life to be fully known.

    Among the rest they descanted with great prolixity on the pyramids and
    hieroglyphics of Egypt, of the Nile, of Babylon, of the Troglodytes, the
    Hymantopodes, or crump-footed nation, the Blemiae, people that wear their
    heads in the middle of their breasts, the Pigmies, the Cannibals, the
    Hyperborei and their mountains, the Egypanes with their goat's feet, and
    the devil and all of others; every individual word of it by hearsay.

    I am much mistaken if I did not see among them Herodotus, Pliny, Solinus,
    Berosus, Philostratus, Pomponius Mela, Strabo, and God knows how many other
    antiquaries.

    Then Albert, the great Jacobin friar, Peter Tesmoin, alias Witness, Pope
    Pius the Second, Volaterranus, Paulus Jovius the valiant, Jemmy Cartier,
    Chaton the Armenian, Marco Polo the Venetian, Ludovico Romano, Pedro
    Aliares, and forty cartloads of other modern historians, lurking behind a
    piece of tapestry, where they were at it ding-dong, privately scribbling
    the Lord knows what, and making rare work of it; and all by hearsay.

    Behind another piece of tapestry (on which Naboth and Susanna's accusers
    were fairly represented), I saw close by Hearsay, good store of men of the
    country of Perce and Maine, notable students, and young enough.

    I asked what sort of study they applied themselves to; and was told that
    from their youth they learned to be evidences, affidavit-men, and vouchers,
    and were instructed in the art of swearing; in which they soon became such
    proficients, that when they left that country, and went back into their
    own, they set up for themselves and very honestly lived by their trade of
    evidencing, positively giving their testimony of all things whatsoever to
    those who feed them most roundly to do a job of journey-work for them; and
    all this by hearsay.

    You may think what you will of it; but I can assure you they gave some of
    us corners of their cakes, and we merrily helped to empty their hogsheads.
    Then, in a friendly manner, they advised us to be as sparing of truth as
    possibly we could if ever we had a mind to get court preferment.

    Chapter 5.XXXII. How we came in sight of Lantern-land.

    Having been but scurvily entertained in the land of Satin, we went o'
    board, and having set sail, in four days came near the coast of Lantern-
    land.  We then saw certain little hovering fires on the sea.

    For my part, I did not take them to be lanterns, but rather thought they
    were fishes which lolled their flaming tongues on the surface of the sea,
    or lampyrides, which some call cicindelas, or glowworms, shining there as
    ripe barley does o' nights in my country.

    But the skipper satisfied us that they were the lanterns of the watch, or,
    more properly, lighthouses, set up in many places round the precinct of the
    place to discover the land, and for the safe piloting in of some outlandish
    lanterns, which, like good Franciscan and Jacobin friars, were coming to
    make their personal appearance at the provincial chapter.

    However, some of us were somewhat suspicious that these fires were the
    forerunners of some storm, but the skipper assured us again they were not.

    Chapter 5.XXXIII. How we landed at the port of the Lychnobii, and came to Lantern-land.

    Soon after we arrived at the port of Lantern-land, where Pantagruel
    discovered on a high tower the lantern of Rochelle, that stood us in good
    stead, for it cast a great light.  We also saw the lantern of Pharos, that
    of Nauplion, and that of Acropolis at Athens, sacred to Pallas.

    Near the port there's a little hamlet inhabited by the Lychnobii, that live
    by lanterns, as the gulligutted friars in our country live by nuns; they
    are studious people, and as honest men as ever shit in a trumpet.
    Demosthenes had formerly lanternized there.

    We were conducted from that place to the palace by three obeliscolichnys
    ('A kind of beacons.'—Motteux.), military guards of the port, with high-
    crowned hats, whom we acquainted with the cause of our voyage, and our
    design, which was to desire the queen of the country to grant us a lantern
    to light and conduct us during our voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.

    They promised to assist us in this, and added that we could never have come
    in a better time, for then the lanterns held their provincial chapter.

    When we came to the royal palace we had audience of her highness the Queen
    of Lantern-land, being introduced by two lanterns of honour, that of
    Aristophanes and that of Cleanthes (Motteux adds here—'Mistresses of the
    ceremonies.').  Panurge in a few words acquainted her with the causes of
    our voyage, and she received us with great demonstrations of friendship,
    desiring us to come to her at supper-time that we might more easily make
    choice of one to be our guide; which pleased us extremely.  We did not fail
    to observe intensely everything we could see, as the garbs, motions, and
    deportment of the queen's subjects, principally the manner after which she
    was served.

    The bright queen was dressed in virgin crystal of Tutia wrought damaskwise,
    and beset with large diamonds.

    The lanterns of the royal blood were clad partly with bastard-diamonds,
    partly with diaphanous stones; the rest with horn, paper, and oiled cloth.

    The cresset-lights took place according to the antiquity and lustre of
    their families.

    An earthen dark-lantern, shaped like a pot, notwithstanding this took place
    of some of the first quality; at which I wondered much, till I was told it
    was that of Epictetus, for which three thousand drachmas had been formerly
    refused.

    Martial's polymix lantern (Motteux gives a footnote:—'A lamp with many
    wicks, or a branch'd candlestick with many springs coming out of it, that
    supply all the branches with oil.') made a very good figure there.  I took
    particular notice of its dress, and more yet of the lychnosimity formerly
    consecrated by Canopa, the daughter of Tisias.

    I saw the lantern pensile formerly taken out of the temple of Apollo
    Palatinus at Thebes, and afterwards by Alexander the Great (carried to the
    town of Cymos).  (The words in brackets have been omitted by Motteux.)

    I saw another that distinguished itself from the rest by a bushy tuft of
    crimson silk on its head.  I was told 'twas that of Bartolus, the lantern
    of the civilians.

    Two others were very remarkable for glister-pouches that dangled at their
    waist.  We were told that one was the greater light and the other the
    lesser light of the apothecaries.

    When 'twas supper-time, the queen's highness first sat down, and then the
    lady lanterns, according to their rank and dignity.  For the first course
    they were all served with large Christmas candles, except the queen, who
    was served with a hugeous, thick, stiff, flaming taper of white wax,
    somewhat red towards the tip; and the royal family, as also the provincial
    lantern of Mirebalais, who were served with nutlights; and the provincial
    of Lower Poitou, with an armed candle.

    After that, God wot, what a glorious light they gave with their wicks!  I
    do not say all, for you must except a parcel of junior lanterns, under the
    government of a high and mighty one.  These did not cast a light like the
    rest, but seemed to me dimmer than any long-snuff farthing candle whose
    tallow has been half melted away in a hothouse.

    After supper we withdrew to take some rest, and the next day the queen made
    us choose one of the most illustrious lanterns to guide us; after which we
    took our leave.

    Chapter 5.XXXIV. How we arrived at the Oracle of the Bottle.

    Our glorious lantern lighting and directing us to heart's content, we at
    last arrived at the desired island where was the Oracle of the Bottle.  As
    soon as friend Panurge landed, he nimbly cut a caper with one leg for joy,
    and cried to Pantagruel, Now we are where we have wished ourselves long
    ago.  This is the place we've been seeking with such toil and labour.  He
    then made a compliment to our lantern, who desired us to be of good cheer,
    and not be daunted or dismayed whatever we might chance to see.

    To come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle we were to go through a large
    vineyard, in which were all sorts of vines, as the Falernian, Malvoisian,
    the Muscadine, those of Taige, Beaune, Mirevaux, Orleans, Picardent,
    Arbois, Coussi, Anjou, Grave, Corsica, Vierron, Nerac, and others.  This
    vineyard was formerly planted by the good Bacchus, with so great a blessing
    that it yields leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year round, like the
    orange trees at Suraine.

    Our magnificent lantern ordered every one of us to eat three grapes, to put
    some vine-leaves in his shoes, and take a vine-branch in his left hand.

    At the end of the close we went under an arch built after the manner of
    those of the ancients.  The trophies of a toper were curiously carved on
    it.

    First, on one side was to be seen a long train of flagons, leathern
    bottles, flasks, cans, glass bottles, barrels, nipperkins, pint pots, quart
    pots, pottles, gallons, and old-fashioned semaises (swingeing wooden pots,
    such as those out of which the Germans fill their glasses); these hung on a
    shady arbour.

    On another side was store of garlic, onions, shallots, hams, botargos,
    caviare, biscuits, neat's tongues, old cheese, and such like comfits, very
    artificially interwoven, and packed together with vine-stocks.

    On another were a hundred sorts of drinking glasses, cups, cisterns, ewers,
    false cups, tumblers, bowls, mazers, mugs, jugs, goblets, talboys, and such
    other Bacchic artillery.

    On the frontispiece of the triumphal arch, under the zoophore, was the
    following couplet:

      You who presume to move this way,
      Get a good lantern, lest you stray.

    We took special care of that, cried Pantagruel when he had read them; for
    there is not a better or a more divine lantern than ours in all Lantern-
    land.

    This arch ended at a fine large round alley covered over with the interlaid
    branches of vines, loaded and adorned with clusters of five hundred
    different colours, and of as many various shapes, not natural, but due to
    the skill of agriculture; some were golden, others bluish, tawny, azure,
    white, black, green, purple, streaked with many colours, long, round,
    triangular, cod-like, hairy, great-headed, and grassy.  That pleasant alley
    ended at three old ivy-trees, verdant, and all loaden with rings.  Our
    enlightened lantern directed us to make ourselves hats with some of their
    leaves, and cover our heads wholly with them, which was immediately done.

    Jupiter's priestess, said Pantagruel, in former days would not like us have
    walked under this arbour.  There was a mystical reason, answered our most
    perspicuous lantern, that would have hindered her; for had she gone under
    it, the wine, or the grapes of which 'tis made, that's the same thing, had
    been over her head, and then she would have seemed overtopped and mastered
    by wine.  Which implies that priests, and all persons who devote themselves
    to the contemplation of divine things, ought to keep their minds sedate and
    calm, and avoid whatever might disturb and discompose their tranquillity,
    which nothing is more apt to do than drunkenness.

    You also, continued our lantern, could not come into the Holy Bottle's
    presence, after you have gone through this arch, did not that noble
    priestess Bacbuc first see your shoes full of vine-leaves; which action is
    diametrically opposite to the other, and signifies that you despise wine,
    and having mastered it, as it were, tread it under foot.

    I am no scholar, quoth Friar John, for which I'm heartily sorry, yet I find
    by my breviary that in the Revelation a woman was seen with the moon under
    her feet, which was a most wonderful sight.  Now, as Bigot explained it to
    me, this was to signify that she was not of the nature of other women; for
    they have all the moon at their heads, and consequently their brains are
    always troubled with a lunacy.  This makes me willing to believe what you
    said, dear Madam Lantern.

    Chapter 5.XXXV. How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle, and how
    Chinon is the oldest city in the world.

    5-35-618.jpg (143K)

    We went underground through a plastered vault, on which was coarsely
    painted a dance of women and satyrs waiting on old Silenus, who was
    grinning o' horseback on his ass.  This made me say to Pantagruel, that
    this entry put me in mind of the painted cellar in the oldest city in the
    world, where such paintings are to be seen, and in as cool a place.

    Which is the oldest city in the world? asked Pantagruel.  'Tis Chinon, sir,
    or Cainon in Touraine, said I.  I know, returned Pantagruel, where Chinon
    lies, and the painted cellar also, having myself drunk there many a glass
    of cool wine; neither do I doubt but that Chinon is an ancient town—
    witness its blazon.  I own 'tis said twice or thrice:

          Chinon,
        Little town,
        Great renown,
        On old stone
        Long has stood;
      There's the Vienne, if you look down;
      If you look up, there's the wood.

    But how, continued he, can you make it out that 'tis the oldest city in the
    world?  Where did you find this written?  I have found it in the sacred
    writ, said I, that Cain was the first that built a town; we may then
    reasonably conjecture that from his name he gave it that of Cainon.  Thus,
    after his example, most other founders of towns have given them their
    names:  Athena, that's Minerva in Greek, to Athens; Alexander to
    Alexandria; Constantine to Constantinople; Pompey to Pompeiopolis in
    Cilicia; Adrian to Adrianople; Canaan, to the Canaanites; Saba, to the
    Sabaeans; Assur, to the Assyrians; and so Ptolemais, Caesarea, Tiberias,
    and Herodium in Judaea got their names.

    While we were thus talking, there came to us the great flask whom our
    lantern called the philosopher, her holiness the Bottle's governor.  He was
    attended with a troop of the temple-guards, all French bottles in wicker
    armour; and seeing us with our javelins wrapped with ivy, with our
    illustrious lantern, whom he knew, he desired us to come in with all manner
    of safety, and ordered we should be immediately conducted to the Princess
    Bacbuc, the Bottle's lady of honour, and priestess of all the mysteries;
    which was done.

    Chapter 5.XXXVI. How we went down the tetradic steps, and of Panurge's fear.

    We went down one marble step under ground, where there was a resting, or,
    as our workmen call it, a landing-place; then, turning to the left, we went
    down two other steps, where there was another resting-place; after that we
    came to three other steps, turning about, and met a third; and the like at
    four steps which we met afterwards.  There quoth Panurge, Is it here?  How
    many steps have you told? asked our magnificent lantern.  One, two, three,
    four, answered Pantagruel.  How much is that? asked she.  Ten, returned he.
    Multiply that, said she, according to the same Pythagorical tetrad.  That
    is, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, cried Pantagruel.  How much is the whole?
    said she.  One hundred, answered Pantagruel.  Add, continued she, the first
    cube—that's eight.  At the end of that fatal number you'll find the temple
    gate; and pray observe, this is the true psychogony of Plato, so celebrated
    by the Academics, yet so little understood; one moiety of which consists of
    the unity of the two first numbers full of two square and two cubic
    numbers.  We then went down those numerical stairs, all under ground, and I
    can assure you, in the first place, that our legs stood us in good stead;
    for had it not been for 'em, we had rolled just like so many hogsheads into
    a vault.  Secondly, our radiant lantern gave us just so much light as is in
    St. Patrick's hole in Ireland, or Trophonius's pit in Boeotia; which caused
    Panurge to say to her, after we had got down some seventy-eight steps:

    Dear madam, with a sorrowful, aching heart, I most humbly beseech your
    lanternship to lead us back.  May I be led to hell if I be not half dead
    with fear; my heart is sunk down into my hose; I am afraid I shall make
    buttered eggs in my breeches.  I freely consent never to marry.  You have
    given yourself too much trouble on my account.  The Lord shall reward you
    in his great rewarder; neither will I be ungrateful when I come out of this
    cave of Troglodytes.  Let's go back, I pray you.  I'm very much afraid this
    is Taenarus, the low way to hell, and methinks I already hear Cerberus
    bark.  Hark! I hear the cur, or my ears tingle.  I have no manner of
    kindness for the dog, for there never is a greater toothache than when dogs
    bite us by the shins.  And if this be only Trophonius's pit, the lemures,
    hobthrushes, and goblins will certainly swallow us alive, just as they
    devoured formerly one of Demetrius's halberdiers for want of bridles.  Art
    thou here, Friar John?  Prithee, dear, dear cod, stay by me; I'm almost
    dead with fear.  Hast thou got thy bilbo?  Alas! poor pilgarlic's
    defenceless.  I'm a naked man, thou knowest; let's go back.  Zoons, fear
    nothing, cried Friar John; I'm by thee, and have thee fast by the collar;
    eighteen devils shan't get thee out of my clutches, though I were unarmed.
    Never did a man yet want weapons who had a good arm with as stout a heart.
    Heaven would sooner send down a shower of them; even as in Provence, in the
    fields of La Crau, near Mariannes, there rained stones (they are there to
    this day) to help Hercules, who otherwise wanted wherewithal to fight
    Neptune's two bastards.  But whither are we bound?  Are we a-going to the
    little children's limbo?  By Pluto, they'll bepaw and conskite us all.  Or
    are we going to hell for orders?  By cob's body, I'll hamper, bethwack, and
    belabour all the devils, now I have some vine-leaves in my shoes.  Thou
    shalt see me lay about me like mad, old boy.  Which way? where the devil
    are they?  I fear nothing but their damned horns; but cuckoldy Panurge's
    bull-feather will altogether secure me from 'em.  Lo! in a prophetic spirit
    I already see him, like another Actaeon, horned, horny, hornified.
    Prithee, quoth Panurge, take heed thyself, dear frater, lest, till monks
    have leave to marry, thou weddest something thou dostn't like, as some cat-
    o'-nine-tails or the quartan ague; if thou dost, may I never come safe and
    sound out of this hypogeum, this subterranean cave, if I don't tup and ram
    that disease merely for the sake of making thee a cornuted, corniferous
    property; otherwise I fancy the quartan ague is but an indifferent
    bedfellow.  I remember Gripe-men-all threatened to wed thee to some such
    thing; for which thou calledest him heretic.

    Here our splendid lantern interrupted them, letting us know this was the
    place where we were to have a taste of the creature, and be silent; bidding
    us not despair of having the word of the Bottle before we went back, since
    we had lined our shoes with vine-leaves.

    Come on then, cried Panurge, let's charge through and through all the
    devils of hell; we can but perish, and that's soon done.  However, I
    thought to have reserved my life for some mighty battle.  Move, move, move
    forwards; I am as stout as Hercules, my breeches are full of courage; my
    heart trembles a little, I own, but that's only an effect of the coldness
    and dampness of this vault; 'tis neither fear nor ague.  Come on, move on,
    piss, pish, push on.  My name's William Dreadnought.

    Chapter 5.XXXVII. How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened of themselves.

    After we were got down the steps, we came to a portal of fine jasper, of
    Doric order, on whose front we read this sentence in the finest gold,
    EN OINO ALETHEIA—that is, In wine truth.  The gates were of Corinthian-
    like brass, massy, wrought with little vine-branches, finely embossed
    and engraven, and were equally joined and closed together in their
    mortise without padlock, key-chain, or tie whatsoever.  Where they
    joined, there hanged an Indian loadstone as big as an Egyptian bean, set
    in gold, having two points, hexagonal, in a right line; and on each side,
    towards the wall, hung a handful of scordium (garlic germander).

    There our noble lantern desired us not to take it amiss that she went no
    farther with us, leaving us wholly to the conduct of the priestess Bacbuc;
    for she herself was not allowed to go in, for certain causes rather to be
    concealed than revealed to mortals.  However, she advised us to be resolute
    and secure, and to trust to her for the return.  She then pulled the
    loadstone that hung at the folding of the gates, and threw it into a silver
    box fixed for that purpose; which done, from the threshold of each gate she
    drew a twine of crimson silk about nine feet long, by which the scordium
    hung, and having fastened it to two gold buckles that hung at the sides,
    she withdrew.

    Immediately the gates flew open without being touched; not with a creaking
    or loud harsh noise like that made by heavy brazen gates, but with a soft
    pleasing murmur that resounded through the arches of the temple.

    Pantagruel soon knew the cause of it, having discovered a small cylinder or
    roller that joined the gates over the threshold, and, turning like them
    towards the wall on a hard well-polished ophites stone, with rubbing and
    rolling caused that harmonious murmur.

    I wondered how the gates thus opened of themselves to the right and left,
    and after we were all got in, I cast my eye between the gates and the wall
    to endeavour to know how this happened; for one would have thought our kind
    lantern had put between the gates the herb aethiopis, which they say opens
    some things that are shut.  But I perceived that the parts of the gates
    that joined on the inside were covered with steel, and just where the said
    gates touched when they were opened I saw two square Indian loadstones of a
    bluish hue, well polished, and half a span broad, mortised in the temple
    wall.  Now, by the hidden and admirable power of the loadstones, the steel
    plates were put into motion, and consequently the gates were slowly drawn;
    however, not always, but when the said loadstone on the outside was
    removed, after which the steel was freed from its power, the two bunches of
    scordium being at the same time put at some distance, because it deadens
    the magnes and robs it of its attractive virtue.

    On the loadstone that was placed on the right side the following iambic
    verse was curiously engraven in ancient Roman characters:

      Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

      Fate leads the willing, and th' unwilling draws.

    The following sentence was neatly cut in the loadstone that was on the
    left:

        ALL THINGS TEND TO THEIR END.

    Chapter 5.XXXVIII. Of the Temple's admirable pavement.

    When I had read those inscriptions, I admired the beauty of the temple, and
    particularly the disposition of its pavement, with which no work that is
    now, or has been under the cope of heaven, can justly be compared; not that
    of the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste in Sylla's time, or the pavement of
    the Greeks, called asarotum, laid by Sosistratus at Pergamus.  For this
    here was wholly in compartments of precious stones, all in their natural
    colours: one of red jasper, most charmingly spotted; another of ophites; a
    third of porphyry; a fourth of lycophthalmy, a stone of four different
    colours, powdered with sparks of gold as small as atoms; a fifth of agate,
    streaked here and there with small milk-coloured waves; a sixth of costly
    chalcedony or onyx-stone; and another of green jasper, with certain red and
    yellowish veins.  And all these were disposed in a diagonal line.

    At the portico some small stones were inlaid and evenly joined on the
    floor, all in their native colours, to embellish the design of the figures;
    and they were ordered in such a manner that you would have thought some
    vine-leaves and branches had been carelessly strewed on the pavement; for
    in some places they were thick, and thin in others.  That inlaying was very
    wonderful everywhere.  Here were seen, as it were in the shade, some snails
    crawling on the grapes; there, little lizards running on the branches.  On
    this side were grapes that seemed yet greenish; on another, some clusters
    that seemed full ripe, so like the true that they could as easily have
    deceived starlings and other birds as those which Zeuxis drew.

    Nay, we ourselves were deceived; for where the artist seemed to have
    strewed the vine-branches thickest, we could not forbear walking with great
    strides lest we should entangle our feet, just as people go over an unequal
    stony place.

    I then cast my eyes on the roof and walls of the temple, that were all
    pargetted with porphyry and mosaic work, which from the left side at the
    coming in most admirably represented the battle in which the good Bacchus
    overthrew the Indians; as followeth.

    Chapter 5.XXXIX. How we saw Bacchus's army drawn up in battalia in mosaic work.

    At the beginning, divers towns, hamlets, castles, fortresses, and forests
    were seen in flames; and several mad and loose women, who furiously ripped
    up and tore live calves, sheep, and lambs limb from limb, and devoured
    their flesh.  There we learned how Bacchus, at his coming into India,
    destroyed all things with fire and sword.

    Notwithstanding this, he was so despised by the Indians that they did not
    think it worth their while to stop his progress, having been certainly
    informed by their spies that his camp was destitute of warriors, and that
    he had only with him a crew of drunken females, a low-built, old,
    effeminate, sottish fellow, continually addled, and as drunk as a
    wheelbarrow, with a pack of young clownish doddipolls, stark naked, always
    skipping and frisking up and down, with tails and horns like those of young
    kids.

    For this reason the Indians had resolved to let them go through their
    country without the least opposition, esteeming a victory over such enemies
    more dishonourable than glorious.

    In the meantime Bacchus marched on, burning everything; for, as you know,
    fire and thunder are his paternal arms, Jupiter having saluted his mother
    Semele with his thunder, so that his maternal house was ruined by fire.
    Bacchus also caused a great deal of blood to be spilt; which, when he is
    roused and angered, principally in war, is as natural to him as to make
    some in time of peace.

    Thus the plains of the island of Samos are called Panema, which signifies
    bloody, because Bacchus there overtook the Amazons, who fled from the
    country of Ephesus, and there let 'em blood, so that they all died of
    phlebotomy.  This may give you a better insight into the meaning of an
    ancient proverb than Aristotle has done in his problems, viz., Why 'twas
    formerly said, Neither eat nor sow any mint in time of war.  The reason is,
    that blows are given then without any distinction of parts or persons, and
    if a man that's wounded has that day handled or eaten any mint, 'tis
    impossible, or at least very hard, to stanch his blood.

    After this, Bacchus was seen marching in battalia, riding in a stately
    chariot drawn by six young leopards.  He looked as young as a child, to
    show that all good topers never grow old.  He was as red as a cherry, or a
    cherub, which you please, and had no more hair on his chin than there's in
    the inside of my hand.  His forehead was graced with pointed horns, above
    which he wore a fine crown or garland of vine-leaves and grapes, and a
    mitre of crimson velvet, having also gilt buskins on.

    He had not one man with him that looked like a man; his guards and all his
    forces consisted wholly of Bassarides, Evantes, Euhyades, Edonides,
    Trietherides, Ogygiae, Mimallonides, Maenades, Thyades, and Bacchae,
    frantic, raving, raging, furious, mad women, begirt with live snakes and
    serpents instead of girdles, dishevelled, their hair flowing about their
    shoulders, with garlands of vine-branches instead of forehead-cloths, clad
    with stag's or goat's skins, and armed with torches, javelins, spears, and
    halberds whose ends were like pineapples.  Besides, they had certain small
    light bucklers that gave a loud sound if you touched 'em never so little,
    and these served them instead of drums.  They were just seventy-nine
    thousand two hundred and twenty-seven.

    Silenus, who led the van, was one on whom Bacchus relied very much, having
    formerly had many proofs of his valour and conduct.  He was a diminutive,
    stooping, palsied, plump, gorbellied old fellow, with a swingeing pair of
    stiff-standing lugs of his own, a sharp Roman nose, large rough eyebrows,
    mounted on a well-hung ass.  In his fist he held a staff to lean upon, and
    also bravely to fight whenever he had occasion to alight; and he was
    dressed in a woman's yellow gown.  His followers were all young, wild,
    clownish people, as hornified as so many kids and as fell as so many
    tigers, naked, and perpetually singing and dancing country-dances.  They
    were called tityri and satyrs, and were in all eighty-five thousand one
    hundred and thirty-three.

    Pan, who brought up the rear, was a monstrous sort of a thing; for his
    lower parts were like a goat's, his thighs hairy, and his horns bolt
    upright; a crimson fiery phiz, and a beard that was none of the shortest.
    He was a bold, stout, daring, desperate fellow, very apt to take pepper in
    the nose for yea and nay.

    In his left hand he held a pipe, and a crooked stick in his right.  His
    forces consisted also wholly of satyrs, aegipanes, agripanes, sylvans,
    fauns, lemures, lares, elves, and hobgoblins, and their number was seventy-
    eight thousand one hundred and fourteen.  The signal or word common to all
    the army was Evohe.

    Chapter 5.XL. How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians was
    represented in mosaic work.

    In the next place we saw the representation of the good Bacchus's
    engagement with the Indians.  Silenus, who led the van, was sweating,
    puffing, and blowing, belabouring his ass most grievously.  The ass
    dreadfully opened its wide jaws, drove away the flies that plagued it,
    winced, flounced, went back, and bestirred itself in a most terrible
    manner, as if some damned gad-bee had stung it at the breech.

    The satyrs, captains, sergeants, and corporals of companies, sounding the
    orgies with cornets, in a furious manner went round the army, skipping,
    capering, bounding, jerking, farting, flying out at heels, kicking and
    prancing like mad, encouraging their companions to fight bravely; and all
    the delineated army cried out Evohe!

    First, the Maenades charged the Indians with dreadful shouts, and a horrid
    din of their brazen drums and bucklers; the air rung again all around, as
    the mosaic work well expressed it.  And pray for the future don't so much
    admire Apelles, Aristides the Theban, and others who drew claps of thunder,
    lightnings, winds, words, manners, and spirits.

    We then saw the Indian army, who had at last taken the field to prevent the
    devastation of the rest of their country.  In the front were the elephants,
    with castles well garrisoned on their backs.  But the army and themselves
    were put into disorder; the dreadful cries of the Bacchae having filled
    them with consternation, and those huge animals turned tail and trampled on
    the men of their party.

    There you might have seen gaffer Silenus on his ass, putting on as hard as
    he could, striking athwart and alongst, and laying about him lustily with
    his staff after the old fashion of fencing.  His ass was prancing and
    making after the elephants, gaping and martially braying, as it were to
    sound a charge, as he did when formerly in the Bacchanalian feasts he waked
    the nymph Lottis, when Priapus, full of priapism, had a mind to priapize
    while the pretty creature was taking a nap.

    There you might have seen Pan frisk it with his goatish shanks about the
    Maenades, and with his rustic pipe excite them to behave themselves like
    Maenades.

    A little further you might have blessed your eyes with the sight of a young
    satyr who led seventeen kings his prisoners; and a Bacchis, who with her
    snakes hauled along no less than two and forty captains; a little faun, who
    carried a whole dozen of standards taken from the enemy; and goodman
    Bacchus on his chariot, riding to and fro fearless of danger, making much
    of his dear carcass, and cheerfully toping to all his merry friends.

    Finally, we saw the representation of his triumph, which was thus:  first,
    his chariot was wholly lined with ivy gathered on the mountain Meros; this
    for its scarcity, which you know raises the price of everything, and
    principally of those leaves in India.  In this Alexander the Great followed
    his example at his Indian triumph.  The chariot was drawn by elephants
    joined together, wherein he was imitated by Pompey the Great at Rome in his
    African triumph.  The good Bacchus was seen drinking out of a mighty urn,
    which action Marius aped after his victory over the Cimbri near Aix in
    Provence.  All his army were crowned with ivy; their javelins, bucklers,
    and drums were also wholly covered with it; there was not so much as
    Silenus's ass but was betrapped with it.

    The Indian kings were fastened with chains of gold close by the wheels of
    the chariot.  All the company marched in pomp with unspeakable joy, loaded
    with an infinite number of trophies, pageants, and spoils, playing and
    singing merry epiniciums, songs of triumph, and also rural lays and
    dithyrambs.

    At the farthest end was a prospect of the land of Egypt; the Nile with its
    crocodiles, marmosets, ibides, monkeys, trochiloses, or wrens, ichneumons,
    or Pharoah's mice, hippopotami, or sea-horses, and other creatures, its
    guests and neighbours.  Bacchus was moving towards that country under the
    conduct of a couple of horned beasts, on one of which was written in gold,
    Apis, and Osiris on the other; because no ox or cow had been seen in Egypt
    till Bacchus came thither.

    Chapter 5.XLI. How the temple was illuminated with a wonderful lamp.

    Before I proceed to the description of the Bottle, I'll give you that of an
    admirable lamp that dispensed so large a light over all the temple that,
    though it lay underground, we could distinguish every object as clearly as
    above it at noonday.

    In the middle of the roof was fixed a ring of massive gold, as thick as my
    clenched fist.  Three chains somewhat less, most curiously wrought, hung
    about two feet and a half below it, and in a triangle supported a round
    plate of fine gold whose diameter or breadth did not exceed two cubits and
    half a span.  There were four holes in it, in each of which an empty ball
    was fastened, hollow within, and open o' top, like a little lamp; its
    circumference about two hands' breadth.  Each ball was of precious stone;
    one an amethyst, another an African carbuncle, the third an opal, and the
    fourth an anthracites.  They were full of burning water five times
    distilled in a serpentine limbec, and inconsumptible, like the oil formerly
    put into Pallas' golden lamp at Acropolis of Athens by Callimachus.  In
    each of them was a flaming wick, partly of asbestine flax, as of old in the
    temple of Jupiter Ammon, such as those which Cleombrotus, a most studious
    philosopher, saw, and partly of Carpasian flax (Ozell's correction.
    Motteux reads, 'which Cleombrotus, a most studious philosopher, and
    Pandelinus of Carpasium had, which were,' &c.), which were rather renewed
    than consumed by the fire.

    About two foot and a half below that gold plate, the three chains were
    fastened to three handles that were fixed to a large round lamp of most
    pure crystal, whose diameter was a cubit and a half, and opened about two
    hands' breadths o' top; by which open place a vessel of the same crystal,
    shaped somewhat like the lower part of a gourd-like limbec, or an urinal,
    was put at the bottom of the great lamp, with such a quantity of the afore-
    mentioned burning water, that the flame of the asbestine wick reached the
    centre of the great lamp.  This made all its spherical body seem to burn
    and be in a flame, because the fire was just at the centre and middle
    point, so that it was not more easy to fix the eye on it than on the disc
    of the sun, the matter being wonderfully bright and shining, and the work
    most transparent and dazzling by the reflection of the various colours of
    the precious stones whereof the four small lamps above the main lamp were
    made, and their lustre was still variously glittering all over the temple.
    Then this wandering light being darted on the polished marble and agate
    with which all the inside of the temple was pargetted, our eyes were
    entertained with a sight of all the admirable colours which the rainbow can
    boast when the sun darts his fiery rays on some dropping clouds.

    The design of the lamp was admirable in itself, but, in my opinion, what
    added much to the beauty of the whole, was that round the body of the
    crystal lamp there was carved in cataglyphic work a lively and pleasant
    battle of naked boys, mounted on little hobby-horses, with little whirligig
    lances and shields that seemed made of vine-branches with grapes on them;
    their postures generally were very different, and their childish strife and
    motions were so ingeniously expressed that art equalled nature in every
    proportion and action.  Neither did this seem engraved, but rather hewed
    out and embossed in relief, or at least like grotesque, which, by the
    artist's skill, has the appearance of the roundness of the object it
    represents.  This was partly the effect of the various and most charming
    light, which, flowing out of the lamp, filled the carved places with its
    glorious rays.

    Chapter 5.XLII ('This and the next chapter make really but one, tho' Mr. eux has made two of them; the first of which contains but eight lines,
    according to him, and ends at the words fantastic fountain.'—Ozell.).

    How the Priestess Bacbuc showed us a fantastic fountain in the temple, and
    how the fountain-water had the taste of wine, according to the imagination
    of those who drank of it.

    While we were admiring this incomparable lamp and the stupendous structure
    of the temple, the venerable priestess Bacbuc and her attendants came to us
    with jolly smiling looks, and seeing us duly accoutred, without the least
    difficulty took us into the middle of the temple, where, just under the
    aforesaid lamp, was the fine fantastic fountain.  She then ordered some
    cups, goblets, and talboys of gold, silver, and crystal to be brought, and
    kindly invited us to drink of the liquor that sprung there, which we
    readily did; for, to say the truth, this fantastic fountain was very
    inviting, and its materials and workmanship more precious, rare, and
    admirable than anything Plato ever dreamt of in limbo.

    Its basis or groundwork was of most pure and limpid alabaster, and its
    height somewhat more than three spans, being a regular heptagon on the
    outside, with its stylobates or footsteps, arulets, cymasults or blunt
    tops, and Doric undulations about it.  It was exactly round within.  On the
    middle point of each angle brink stood a pillar orbiculated in form of
    ivory or alabaster solid rings.  These were seven in number, according to
    the number of the angles (This sentence, restored by Ozell, is omitted by
    Motteux.).

    Each pillar's length from the basis to the architraves was near seven
    hands, taking an exact dimension of its diameter through the centre of its
    circumference and inward roundness; and it was so disposed that, casting
    our eyes behind one of them, whatever its cube might be, to view its
    opposite, we found that the pyramidal cone of our visual line ended at the
    said centre, and there, by the two opposites, formed an equilateral
    triangle whose two lines divided the pillar into two equal parts.

    That which we had a mind to measure, going from one side to another, two
    pillars over, at the first third part of the distance between them, was met
    by their lowermost and fundamental line, which, in a consult line drawn as
    far as the universal centre, equally divided, gave, in a just partition,
    the distance of the seven opposite pillars in a right line, beginning at
    the obtuse angle on the brink, as you know that an angle is always found
    placed between two others in all angular figures odd in number.

    This tacitly gave us to understand that seven semidiameters are in
    geometrical proportion, compass, and distance somewhat less than the
    circumference of a circle, from the figure of which they are extracted;
    that is to say, three whole parts, with an eighth and a half, a little
    more, or a seventh and a half, a little less, according to the instructions
    given us of old by Euclid, Aristotle, Archimedes, and others.

    The first pillar, I mean that which faced the temple gate, was of azure,
    sky-coloured sapphire.

    The second, of hyacinth, a precious stone exactly of the colour of the
    flower into which Ajax's choleric blood was transformed; the Greek letters
    A I being seen on it in many places.

    The third, an anachite diamond, as bright and glittering as lightning.

    The fourth, a masculine ruby balas (peach-coloured) amethystizing, its
    flame and lustre ending in violet or purple like an amethyst.

    The fifth, an emerald, above five hundred and fifty times more precious
    than that of Serapis in the labyrinth of the Egyptians, and more verdant
    and shining than those that were fixed, instead of eyes, in the marble
    lion's head near King Hermias's tomb.

    The sixth, of agate, more admirable and various in the distinctions of its
    veins, clouds, and colours than that which Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, so
    mightily esteemed.

    The seventh, of syenites, transparent, of the colour of a beryl and the
    clear hue of Hymetian honey; and within it the moon was seen, such as we
    see it in the sky, silent, full, new, and in the wane.

    These stones were assigned to the seven heavenly planets by the ancient
    Chaldaeans; and that the meanest capacities might be informed of this, just
    at the central perpendicular line, on the chapter of the first pillar,
    which was of sapphire, stood the image of Saturn in elutian (Motteux reads
    'Eliacim.') lead, with his scythe in his hand, and at his feet a crane of
    gold, very artfully enamelled, according to the native hue of the saturnine
    bird.

    On the second, which was of hyacinth, towards the left, Jupiter was seen in
    jovetian brass, and on his breast an eagle of gold enamelled to the life.

    On the third was Phoebus of the purest gold, and a white cock in his right
    hand.

    On the fourth was Mars in Corinthian brass, and a lion at his feet.

    On the fifth was Venus in copper, the metal of which Aristonides made
    Athamas's statue, that expressed in a blushing whiteness his confusion at
    the sight of his son Learchus, who died at his feet of a fall.

    On the sixth was Mercury in hydrargyre.  I would have said quicksilver, had
    it not been fixed, malleable, and unmovable.  That nimble deity had a stork
    at his feet.

    On the seventh was the Moon in silver, with a greyhound at her feet.

    The size of these statues was somewhat more than a third part of the
    pillars on which they stood, and they were so admirably wrought according
    to mathematical proportion that Polycletus's canon could hardly have stood
    in competition with them.

    The bases of the pillars, the chapters, the architraves, zoophores, and
    cornices were Phrygian work of massive gold, purer and finer than any that
    is found in the rivers Leede near Montpellier, Ganges in India, Po in
    Italy, Hebrus in Thrace, Tagus in Spain, and Pactolus in Lydia.

    The small arches between the pillars were of the same precious stone of
    which the pillars next to them were.  Thus, that arch was of sapphire which
    ended at the hyacinth pillar, and that was of hyacinth which went towards
    the diamond, and so on.

    Above the arches and chapters of the pillars, on the inward front, a cupola
    was raised to cover the fountain.  It was surrounded by the planetary
    statues, heptagonal at the bottom, and spherical o' top, and of crystal so
    pure, transparent, well-polished, whole and uniform in all its parts,
    without veins, clouds, flaws, or streaks, that Xenocrates never saw such a
    one in his life.

    Within it were seen the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve months of
    the year, with their properties, the two equinoxes, the ecliptic line, with
    some of the most remarkable fixed stars about the antartic pole and
    elsewhere, so curiously engraven that I fancied them to be the workmanship
    of King Necepsus, or Petosiris, the ancient mathematician.

    On the top of the cupola, just over the centre of the fountain, were three
    noble long pearls, all of one size, pear fashion, perfectly imitating a
    tear, and so joined together as to represent a flower-de-luce or lily, each
    of the flowers seeming above a hand's breadth.  A carbuncle jetted out of
    its calyx or cup as big as an ostrich's egg, cut seven square (that number
    so beloved of nature), and so prodigiously glorious that the sight of it
    had like to have made us blind, for the fiery sun or the pointed lightning
    are not more dazzling and unsufferably bright.

    Now, were some judicious appraisers to judge of the value of this
    incomparable fountain, and the lamp of which we have spoke, they would
    undoubtedly affirm it exceeds that of all the treasures and curiosities in
    Europe, Asia, and Africa put together.  For that carbuncle alone would have
    darkened the pantarbe of Iarchus (Motteux reads 'Joachas.') the Indian
    magician, with as much ease as the sun outshines and dims the stars with
    his meridian rays.

    Nor let Cleopatra, that Egyptian queen, boast of her pair of pendants,
    those two pearls, one of which she caused to be dissolved in vinegar, in
    the presence of Antony the Triumvir, her gallant.

    Or let Pompeia Plautina be proud of her dress covered all over with
    emeralds and pearls curiously intermixed, she who attracted the eyes of all
    Rome, and was said to be the pit and magazine of the conquering robbers of
    the universe.

    The fountain had three tubes or channels of right pearl, seated in three
    equilateral angles already mentioned, extended on the margin, and those
    channels proceeded in a snail-like line, winding equally on both sides.

    We looked on them a while, and had cast our eyes on another side, when
    Bacbuc directed us to watch the water.  We then heard a most harmonious
    sound, yet somewhat stopped by starts, far distant, and subterranean, by
    which means it was still more pleasing than if it had been free,
    uninterrupted, and near us, so that our minds were as agreeably entertained
    through our ears with that charming melody as they were through the windows
    of our eyes with those delightful objects.

    Bacbuc then said, Your philosophers will not allow that motion is begot by
    the power of figures; look here, and see the contrary.  By that single
    snail-like motion, equally divided as you see, and a fivefold infoliature,
    movable at every inward meeting, such as is the vena cava where it enters
    into the right ventricle of the heart; just so is the flowing of this
    fountain, and by it a harmony ascends as high as your world's ocean.

    She then ordered her attendants to make us drink; and, to tell you the
    truth of the matter as near as possible, we are not, heaven be praised! of
    the nature of a drove of calf-lollies, who (as your sparrows can't feed
    unless you bob them on the tail) must be rib-roasted with tough crabtree
    and firked into a stomach, or at least into an humour to eat or drink.  No,
    we know better things, and scorn to scorn any man's civility who civilly
    invites us to a drinking bout.  Bacbuc asked us then how we liked our tiff.
    We answered that it seemed to us good harmless sober Adam's liquor, fit to
    keep a man in the right way, and, in a word, mere element; more cool and
    clear than Argyrontes in Aetolia, Peneus in Thessaly, Axius in Mygdonia, or
    Cydnus in Cilicia, a tempting sight of whose cool silver stream caused
    Alexander to prefer the short-lived pleasure of bathing himself in it to
    the inconveniences which he could not but foresee would attend so ill-
    termed an action.

    This, said Bacbuc, comes of not considering with ourselves, or
    understanding the motions of the musculous tongue, when the drink glides on
    it in its way to the stomach.  Tell me, noble strangers, are your throats
    lined, paved, or enamelled, as formerly was that of Pithyllus, nicknamed
    Theutes, that you can have missed the taste, relish, and flavour of this
    divine liquor?  Here, said she, turning towards her gentlewomen, bring my
    scrubbing-brushes, you know which, to scrape, rake, and clear their
    palates.

    They brought immediately some stately, swingeing, jolly hams, fine
    substantial neat's tongues, good hung-beef, pure and delicate botargos,
    venison, sausages, and such other gullet-sweepers.  And, to comply with her
    invitation, we crammed and twisted till we owned ourselves thoroughly cured
    of thirst, which before did damnably plague us.

    We are told, continued she, that formerly a learned and valiant Hebrew
    chief, leading his people through the deserts, where they were in danger of
    being famished, obtained of God some manna, whose taste was to them, by
    imagination, such as that of meat was to them before in reality; thus,
    drinking of this miraculous liquor, you'll find it taste like any wine that
    you shall fancy you drink.  Come, then, fancy and drink.  We did so, and
    Panurge had no sooner whipped off his brimmer but he cried, By Noah's open
    shop, 'tis vin de Beaune, better than ever was yet tipped over tongue, or
    may ninety-six devils swallow me.  Oh! that to keep its taste the longer,
    we gentlemen topers had but necks some three cubits long or so, as
    Philoxenus desired to have, or, at least, like a crane's, as Melanthius
    wished his.

    On the faith of true lanterners, quoth Friar John, 'tis gallant, sparkling
    Greek wine.  Now, for God's sake, sweetheart, do but teach me how the devil
    you make it.  It seems to me Mirevaux wine, said Pantagruel; for before I
    drank I supposed it to be such.  Nothing can be misliked in it, but that
    'tis cold; colder, I say, than the very ice; colder than the Nonacrian and
    Dercean (Motteux reads 'Deraen.') water, or the Conthoporian (Motteux,
    'Conthopian.') spring at Corinth, that froze up the stomach and nutritive
    parts of those that drank of it.

    Drink once, twice, or thrice more, said Bacbuc, still changing your
    imagination, and you shall find its taste and flavour to be exactly that on
    which you shall have pitched.  Then never presume to say that anything is
    impossible to God.  We never offered to say such a thing, said I; far from
    it, we maintain he is omnipotent.

    Chapter 5.XLIII. How the Priestess Bacbuc equipped Panurge in order to have the word of the
    Bottle.

    When we had thus chatted and tippled, Bacbuc asked, Who of you here would
    have the word of the Bottle?  I, your most humble little funnel, an't
    please you, quoth Panurge.  Friend, saith she, I have but one thing to tell
    you, which is, that when you come to the Oracle, you take care to hearken
    and hear the word only with one ear.  This, cried Friar John, is wine of
    one ear, as Frenchmen call it.

    She then wrapped him up in a gaberdine, bound his noddle with a goodly
    clean biggin, clapped over it a felt such as those through which hippocras
    is distilled, at the bottom of which, instead of a cowl, she put three
    obelisks, made him draw on a pair of old-fashioned codpieces instead of
    mittens, girded him about with three bagpipes bound together, bathed his
    jobbernowl thrice in the fountain; then threw a handful of meal on his
    phiz, fixed three cock's feathers on the right side of the hippocratical
    felt, made him take a jaunt nine times round the fountain, caused him to
    take three little leaps and to bump his a— seven times against the ground,
    repeating I don't know what kind of conjurations all the while in the
    Tuscan tongue, and ever and anon reading in a ritual or book of ceremonies,
    carried after her by one of her mystagogues.

    For my part, may I never stir if I don't really believe that neither Numa
    Pompilius, the second King of the Romans, nor the Cerites of Tuscia, and
    the old Hebrew captain ever instituted so many ceremonies as I then saw
    performed; nor were ever half so many religious forms used by the
    soothsayers of Memphis in Egypt to Apis, or by the Euboeans, at Rhamnus
    (Motteux gives 'or by the Embrians, or at Rhamnus.'), to Rhamnusia, or to
    Jupiter Ammon, or to Feronia.

    When she had thus accoutred my gentleman, she took him out of our company,
    and led him out of the temple, through a golden gate on the right, into a
    round chapel made of transparent speculary stones, by whose solid clearness
    the sun's light shined there through the precipice of the rock without any
    windows or other entrance, and so easily and fully dispersed itself through
    the greater temple that the light seemed rather to spring out of it than to
    flow into it.

    The workmanship was not less rare than that of the sacred temple at
    Ravenna, or that in the island of Chemnis in Egypt.  Nor must I forget to
    tell you that the work of that round chapel was contrived with such a
    symmetry that its diameter was just the height of the vault.

    In the middle of it was an heptagonal fountain of fine alabaster most
    artfully wrought, full of water, which was so clear that it might have
    passed for element in its purity and singleness.  The sacred Bottle was in
    it to the middle, clad in pure fine crystal of an oval shape, except its
    muzzle, which was somewhat wider than was consistent with that figure.

    Chapter 5.XLIV. How Bacbuc, the high-priestess, brought Panurge before the Holy Bottle.

    There the noble priestess Bacbuc made Panurge stoop and kiss the brink of
    the fountain; then bade him rise and dance three ithymbi ('Dances in the
    honour of Bacchus.'—Motteux.).  Which done, she ordered him to sit down
    between two stools placed there for that purpose, his arse upon the ground.
    Then she opened her ceremonial book, and, whispering in his left ear, made
    him sing an epileny, inserted here in the figure of the bottle.

        Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep
      Do's ten thousand Secrets keep,
      With attentive Ear I wait;
      Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.
      Soul of Joy!  Like Bacchus, we
      More than India gain by thee.
      Truths unborn thy Juice reveals,
      Which Futurity conceals.
      Antidote to Frauds and Lies,
      Wine, that mounts us to the Skies,
      May thy Father Noah's Brood
      Like him drown, but in thy Flood.
      Speak, so may the Liquid Mine
      Of Rubies, or of Diamonds shine.
        Bottle, whose Mysterious Deep
      Do's ten thousand Secrets keep,
      With attentive Ear I wait;
      Ease my Mind, and speak my Fate.

    When Panurge had sung, Bacbuc threw I don't know what into the fountain,
    and straight its water began to boil in good earnest, just for the world as
    doth the great monastical pot at Bourgueil when 'tis high holiday there.
    Friend Panurge was listening with one ear, and Bacbuc kneeled by him, when
    such a kind of humming was heard out of the Bottle as is made by a swarm of
    bees bred in the flesh of a young bull killed and dressed according to
    Aristaeus's art, or such as is made when a bolt flies out of a crossbow, or
    when a shower falls on a sudden in summer.  Immediately after this was
    heard the word Trinc.  By cob's body, cried Panurge, 'tis broken, or
    cracked at least, not to tell a lie for the matter; for even so do crystal
    bottles speak in our country when they burst near the fire.

    Bacbuc arose, and gently taking Panurge under the arms, said, Friend, offer
    your thanks to indulgent heaven, as reason requires.  You have soon had the
    word of the Goddess-Bottle; and the kindest, most favourable, and certain
    word of answer that I ever yet heard her give since I officiated here at
    her most sacred oracle.  Rise, let us go to the chapter, in whose gloss
    that fine word is explained.  With all my heart, quoth Panurge; by jingo, I
    am just as wise as I was last year.  Light, where's the book?  Turn it
    over, where's the chapter?  Let's see this merry gloss.

    Chapter 5.XLV. How Bacbuc explained the word of the Goddess-Bottle.

    Bacbuc having thrown I don't know what into the fountain, straight the
    water ceased to boil; and then she took Panurge into the greater temple, in
    the central place, where there was the enlivening fountain.

    There she took out a hugeous silver book, in the shape of a half-tierce, or
    hogshead, of sentences, and, having filled it at the fountain, said to him,
    The philosophers, preachers, and doctors of your world feed you up with
    fine words and cant at the ears; now, here we really incorporate our
    precepts at the mouth.  Therefore I'll not say to you, read this chapter,
    see this gloss; no, I say to you, taste me this fine chapter, swallow me
    this rare gloss.  Formerly an ancient prophet of the Jewish nation ate a
    book and became a clerk even to the very teeth!  Now will I have you drink
    one, that you may be a clerk to your very liver.  Here, open your
    mandibules.

    Panurge gaping as wide as his jaws would stretch, Bacbuc took the silver
    book—at least we took it for a real book, for it looked just for the world
    like a breviary—but in truth it was a breviary, a flask of right Falernian
    wine as it came from the grape, which she made him swallow every drop.

    By Bacchus, quoth Panurge, this was a notable chapter, a most authentic
    gloss, o' my word.  Is this all that the trismegistian Bottle's word means?
    I' troth, I like it extremely; it went down like mother's milk.  Nothing
    more, returned Bacbuc; for Trinc is a panomphean word, that is, a word
    understood, used and celebrated by all nations, and signifies drink.

    Some say in your world that sack is a word used in all tongues, and justly
    admitted in the same sense among all nations; for, as Aesop's fable hath
    it, all men are born with a sack at the neck, naturally needy and begging
    of each other; neither can the most powerful king be without the help of
    other men, or can anyone that's poor subsist without the rich, though he be
    never so proud and insolent; as, for example, Hippias the philosopher, who
    boasted he could do everything.  Much less can anyone make shift without
    drink than without a sack.  Therefore here we hold not that laughing, but
    that drinking is the distinguishing character of man.  I don't say
    drinking, taking that word singly and absolutely in the strictest sense;
    no, beasts then might put in for a share; I mean drinking cool delicious
    wine.  For you must know, my beloved, that by wine we become divine;
    neither can there be a surer argument or a less deceitful divination.  Your
    ('Varro.'—Motteux) academics assert the same when they make the etymology
    of wine, which the Greeks call OINOS, to be from vis, strength, virtue,
    and power; for 'tis in its power to fill the soul with all truth, learning,
    and philosophy.

    If you observe what is written in Ionic letters on the temple gate, you may
    have understood that truth is in wine.  The Goddess-Bottle therefore
    directs you to that divine liquor; be yourself the expounder of your
    undertaking.

    It is impossible, said Pantagruel to Panurge, to speak more to the purpose
    than does this true priestess; you may remember I told you as much when you
    first spoke to me about it.

    Trinc then:  what says your heart, elevated by Bacchic enthusiasm?

    With this quoth Panurge:

      Trinc, trinc; by Bacchus, let us tope,
      And tope again; for, now I hope
      To see some brawny, juicy rump
      Well tickled with my carnal stump.
      Ere long, my friends, I shall be wedded,
      Sure as my trap-stick has a red-head;
      And my sweet wife shall hold the combat
      Long as my baws can on her bum beat.
      O what a battle of a— fighting
      Will there be, which I much delight in!
      What pleasing pains then shall I take
      To keep myself and spouse awake!
      All heart and juice, I'll up and ride,
      And make a duchess of my bride.
      Sing Io paean! loudly sing
      To Hymen, who all joys will bring.
      Well, Friar John, I'll take my oath,
      This oracle is full of troth;
      Intelligible truth it bears,
      More certain than the sieve and shears.

    Chapter 5.XLVI. How Panurge and the rest rhymed with poetic fury.

    What a pox ails the fellow? quoth Friar John.  Stark staring mad, or
    bewitched, o' my word!  Do but hear the chiming dotterel gabble in rhyme.
    What o' devil has he swallowed?  His eyes roll in his loggerhead just for
    the world like a dying goat's.  Will the addle-pated wight have the grace
    to sheer off?  Will he rid us of his damned company, to go shite out his
    nasty rhyming balderdash in some bog-house?  Will nobody be so kind as to
    cram some dog's-bur down the poor cur's gullet? or will he, monk-like, run
    his fist up to the elbow into his throat to his very maw, to scour and
    clear his flanks?  Will he take a hair of the same dog?

    Pantagruel chid Friar John, and said:

      Bold monk, forbear! this, I'll assure ye,
      Proceeds all from poetic fury;
      Warmed by the god, inspired with wine,
      His human soul is made divine.
        For without jest,
        His hallowed breast,
        With wine possessed,
        Could have no rest
        Till he'd expressed
        Some thoughts at least
        Of his great guest.
        Then straight he flies
        Above the skies,
        And mortifies,
        With prophecies,
        Our miseries.
      And since divinely he's inspired,
      Adore the soul by wine acquired,
      And let the tosspot be admired.

    How, quoth the friar, the fit rhyming is upon you too?  Is't come to that?
    Then we are all peppered, or the devil pepper me.  What would I not give to
    have Gargantua see us while we are in this maggotty crambo-vein!  Now may I
    be cursed with living on that damned empty food, if I can tell whether I
    shall scape the catching distemper.  The devil a bit do I understand which
    way to go about it; however, the spirit of fustian possesses us all, I
    find.  Well, by St. John, I'll poetize, since everybody does; I find it
    coming.  Stay, and pray pardon me if I don't rhyme in crimson; 'tis my
    first essay.

      Thou, who canst water turn to wine,
      Transform my bum, by power divine,
      Into a lantern, that may light
      My neighbour in the darkest night.

    Panurge then proceeds in his rapture, and says:

      From Pythian Tripos ne'er were heard
      More truths, nor more to be revered.
      I think from Delphos to this spring
      Some wizard brought that conjuring thing.
      Had honest Plutarch here been toping,
      He then so long had ne'er been groping
      To find, according to his wishes,
      Why oracles are mute as fishes
      At Delphos.  Now the reason's clear;
      No more at Delphos they're, but here.
      Here is the tripos, out of which
      Is spoke the doom of poor and rich.
      For Athenaeus does relate
      This Bottle is the Womb of Fate;
      Prolific of mysterious wine,
      And big with prescience divine,
      It brings the truth with pleasure forth;
      Besides you ha't a pennyworth.
      So, Friar John, I must exhort you
      To wait a word that may import you,
      And to inquire, while here we tarry,
      If it shall be your luck to marry.

    Friar John answers him in a rage, and says:

      How, marry!  By St. Bennet's boot,
      And his gambadoes, I'll never do't.
      No man that knows me e'er shall judge
      I mean to make myself a drudge;
      Or that pilgarlic e'er will dote
      Upon a paltry petticoat.
      I'll ne'er my liberty betray
      All for a little leapfrog play;
      And ever after wear a clog
      Like monkey or like mastiff-dog.
      No, I'd not have, upon my life,
      Great Alexander for my wife,
      Nor Pompey, nor his dad-in-law,
      Who did each other clapperclaw.
      Not the best he that wears a head
      Shall win me to his truckle-bed.

    Panurge, pulling off his gaberdine and mystical accoutrements, replied:

      Wherefore thou shalt, thou filthy beast,
      Be damned twelve fathoms deep at least;
      While I shall reign in Paradise,
      Whence on thy loggerhead I'll piss.
      Now when that dreadful hour is come,
      That thou in hell receiv'st thy doom,
      E'en there, I know, thou'lt play some trick,
      And Proserpine shan't scape a prick
      Of the long pin within thy breeches.
      But when thou'rt using these capriches,
      And caterwauling in her cavern,
      Send Pluto to the farthest tavern
      For the best wine that's to be had,
      Lest he should see, and run horn-mad.
      She's kind, and ever did admire
      A well-fed monk or well-hung friar.

    Go to, quoth Friar John, thou old noddy, thou doddipolled ninny, go to the
    devil thou'rt prating of.  I've done with rhyming; the rheum gripes me at
    the gullet.  Let's talk of paying and going; come.

    Chapter 5.XLVII. How we took our leave of Bacbuc, and left the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.

    Do not trouble yourself about anything here, said the priestess to the
    friar; if you be but satisfied, we are.  Here below, in these circumcentral
    regions, we place the sovereign good, not in taking and receiving, but in
    bestowing and giving; so that we esteem ourselves happy, not if we take and
    receive much of others, as perhaps the sects of teachers do in your world,
    but rather if we impart and give much.  All I have to beg of you is that
    you leave us here your names in writing, in this ritual.  She then opened a
    fine large book, and as we gave our names one of her mystagogues with a
    gold pin drew some lines on it, as if she had been writing; but we could
    not see any characters.

    This done, she filled three glasses with fantastic water, and giving them
    into our hands, said, Now, my friends, you may depart, and may that
    intellectual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere,
    whom we call GOD, keep you in his almighty protection.  When you come into
    your world, do not fail to affirm and witness that the greatest treasures
    and most admirable things are hidden underground, and not without reason.

    Ceres was worshipped because she taught mankind the art of husbandry, and
    by the use of corn, which she invented, abolished that beastly way of
    feeding on acorns; and she grievously lamented her daughter's banishment
    into our subterranean regions, certainly foreseeing that Proserpine would
    meet with more excellent things, more desirable enjoyments, below, than she
    her mother could be blessed with above.

    What do you think is become of the art of forcing the thunder and celestial
    fire down, which the wise Prometheus had formerly invented?  'Tis most
    certain you have lost it; 'tis no more on your hemisphere; but here below
    we have it.  And without a cause you sometimes wonder to see whole towns
    burned and destroyed by lightning and ethereal fire, and are at a loss
    about knowing from whom, by whom, and to what end those dreadful mischiefs
    were sent.  Now, they are familiar and useful to us; and your philosophers
    who complain that the ancients have left them nothing to write of or to
    invent, are very much mistaken.  Those phenomena which you see in the sky,
    whatever the surface of the earth affords you, and the sea, and every river
    contain, is not to be compared with what is hid within the bowels of the
    earth.

    For this reason the subterranean ruler has justly gained in almost every
    language the epithet of rich.  Now when your sages shall wholly apply their
    minds to a diligent and studious search after truth, humbly begging the
    assistance of the sovereign God, whom formerly the Egyptians in their
    language called The Hidden and the Concealed, and invoking him by that
    name, beseech him to reveal and make himself known to them, that Almighty
    Being will, out of his infinite goodness, not only make his creatures, but
    even himself known to them.

    Thus will they be guided by good lanterns.  For all the ancient
    philosophers and sages have held two things necessary safely and pleasantly
    to arrive at the knowledge of God and true wisdom; first, God's gracious
    guidance, then man's assistance.

    So, among the philosophers, Zoroaster took Arimaspes for the companion of
    his travels; Aesculapius, Mercury; Orpheus, Musaeus; Pythagoras,
    Aglaophemus; and, among princes and warriors, Hercules in his most
    difficult achievements had his singular friend Theseus; Ulysses, Diomedes;
    Aeneas, Achates.  You followed their examples, and came under the conduct
    of an illustrious lantern.  Now, in God's name depart, and may he go along
    with you!