MASTER FRANCIS RABELAIS

FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES, HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF

GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL

Translated into English by

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty

and

Peter Antony Motteux

The text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from thefirst edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled 'M. 'are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are by thetranslator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. Appeared posthumously in1693, 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 (asthe footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored fromthe 1738 copy edited by Ozell. 

CONTENTS. 

Introduction

THE FIRST BOOK. 

J. De la Salle, to the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais. 

Rablophila

The Author's Prologue to the First Book

Rabelais to the Reader

Chapter 1. I. --Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua

Chapter 1. II. --The Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia of extravagantConceits found in an ancient Monument

Chapter 1. III. --How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother'sbelly

Chapter 1. IV. --How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a hugedeal of tripes

Chapter 1. V. --The Discourse of the Drinkers

Chapter 1. VI. --How Gargantua was born in a strange manner

Chapter 1. VII. --After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and howhe tippled, bibbed, and curried the can

Chapter 1. VIII. --How they apparelled Gargantua

Chapter 1. IX. --The colours and liveries of Gargantua

Chapter 1. X. --Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue

Chapter 1. XI. --Of the youthful age of Gargantua

Chapter 1. XII. --Of Gargantua's wooden horses

Chapter 1. XIII. --How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known tohis father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech

Chapter 1. XIV. --How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister

Chapter 1. XV. --How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters

Chapter 1. XVI. --How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great marethat he rode on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce

Chapter 1. XVII. --How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and howhe took away the great bells of Our Lady's Church

Chapter 1. XVIII. --How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recoverthe great bells

Chapter 1. XIX. --The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery ofthe bells

Chapter 1. XX. --How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had asuit in law against the other masters

Chapter 1. XXI. --The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of hisschoolmasters the Sophisters

Chapter 1. XXII. --The games of Gargantua

Chapter 1. XXIII. --How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, and in suchsort disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day

Chapter 1. XXIV. --How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather

Chapter 1. XXV. --How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt thecake-bakers of Lerne, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon werewaged great wars

Chapter 1. XXVI. --How the inhabitants of Lerne, by the commandment ofPicrochole their king, assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua unexpectedlyand on a sudden

Chapter 1. XXVII. --How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey frombeing ransacked by the enemy

Chapter 1. XXVIII. --How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rockClermond, and of Grangousier's unwillingness and aversion from theundertaking of war

Chapter 1. XXIX. --The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to hisson Gargantua

Chapter 1. XXX. --How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole

Chapter 1. XXXI. --The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole

Chapter 1. XXXII. --How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to berestored

Chapter 1. XXXIII. --How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrainedcounsel, put him in extreme danger

Chapter 1. XXXIV. --How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour hiscountry, and how Gymnast encountered with the enemy

Chapter 1. XXXV. --How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed CaptainTripet and others of Picrochole's men

Chapter 1. XXXVI. --How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how they passed the ford

Chapter 1. XXXVII. --How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the greatcannon-balls fall out of his hair

Chapter 1. XXXVIII. --How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad

Chapter 1. XXXIX. --How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovialdiscourse they had at supper

Chapter 1. XL. --Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore somehave bigger noses than others

Chapter 1. XLI. --How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours andbreviaries

Chapter 1. XLII. --How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how hehanged upon a tree

Chapter 1. XLIII. --How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met withby Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth, and then was takenprisoner by his enemies

Chapter 1. XLIV. --How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and howPicrochole's forlorn hope was defeated

Chapter 1. XLV. --How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and ofthe good words that Grangousier gave them

Chapter 1. XLVI. --How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet hisprisoner

Chapter 1. XLVII. --How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucetslew Rashcalf, and was afterwards executed by the command of Picrochole

Chapter 1. XLVIII. --How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rockClermond, and utterly defeated the army of the said Picrochole

Chapter 1. XLIX. --How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and what Gargantua did after the battle

Chapter 1. L. --Gargantua's speech to the vanquished

Chapter 1. LI. --How the victorious Gargantuists were recompensed after thebattle

Chapter 1. LII. --How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey ofTheleme

Chapter 1. LIII. --How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed

Chapter 1. LIV. --The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme

Chapter 1. LV. --What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had

Chapter 1. LVI. --How the men and women of the religious order of Thelemewere apparelled

Chapter 1. LVII. --How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner ofliving

Chapter 1. LVIII. --A prophetical Riddle

THE SECOND BOOK. 

For the Reader

Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais

The Author's Prologue

Chapter 2. I. --Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel

Chapter 2. II. --Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel

Chapter 2. III. --Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the deceaseof his wife Badebec

Chapter 2. IV. --Of the infancy of Pantagruel

Chapter 2. V. --Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age

Chapter 2. VI. --How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affectedly didcounterfeit the French language

Chapter 2. VII. --How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books ofthe Library of St. Victor

Chapter 2. VIII. --How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from hisfather Gargantua, and the copy of them

Chapter 2. IX. --How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime

Chapter 2. X. --How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, whichwas wonderfully obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decreetherein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment

Chapter 2. XI. --How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead beforePantagruel without an attorney

Chapter 2. XII. --How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel

Chapter 2. XIII. --How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of thetwo lords

Chapter 2. XIV. --How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of thehands of the Turks

Chapter 2. XV. --How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls ofParis

Chapter 2. XVI. --Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge

Chapter 2. XVII. --How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suit in law which he had at Paris

Chapter 2. XVIII. --How a great scholar of England would have argued againstPantagruel, and was overcome by Panurge

Chapter 2. XIX. --How Panurge put to a nonplus the Englishman that argued bysigns

Chapter 2. XX. --How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge

Chapter 2. XXI. --How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris

Chapter 2. XXII. --How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleasedher not very well

Chapter 2. XXIII. --How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that theDipsodes had invaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause wherefore theleagues are so short in France

Chapter 2. XXIV. --A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from alady of Paris, together with the exposition of a posy written in a goldring

Chapter 2. XXV. --How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, thegentlemen attendants of Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six hundredand threescore horsemen very cunningly

Chapter 2. XXVI. --How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating stillsalt meats; and how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison

Chapter 2. XXVII. --How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of theirvalour, and Panurge another in remembrance of the hares. How Pantagruellikewise with his farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women;and how Panurge broke a great staff over two glasses

Chapter 2. XXVIII. --How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over theDipsodes and the Giants

Chapter 2. XXIX. --How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armedwith free-stone, and Loupgarou their captain

Chapter 2. XXX. --How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healedby Panurge, and of the news which he brought from the devils, and of thedamned people in hell

Chapter 2. XXXI. --How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, andhow Panurge married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and madehim a crier of green sauce

Chapter 2. XXXII. --How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, andwhat the author saw in his mouth

Chapter 2. XXXIII. --How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he wasrecovered

Chapter 2. XXXIV. --The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse ofthe author

THE THIRD BOOK. 

Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre

The Author's Prologue

Chapter 3. I. --How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody

Chapter 3. II. --How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, anddid waste his revenue before it came in

Chapter 3. III. --How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers

Chapter 3. IV. --Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowersand lenders

Chapter 3. V. --How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers

Chapter 3. VI. --Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars

Chapter 3. VII. --How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear anylonger his magnificent codpiece

Chapter 3. VIII. --Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armouramongst warriors

Chapter 3. IX. --How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he shouldmarry, yea, or no

Chapter 3. X. --How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty ofgiving advice in the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentionethsomewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries

Chapter 3. XI. --How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by thethrowing of dice to be unlawful

Chapter 3. XII. --How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery whatfortune Panurge shall have in his marriage

Chapter 3. XIII. --How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good orbad luck of his marriage by dreams

Chapter 3. XIV. --Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof

Chapter 3. XV. --Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mysteryconcerning powdered beef

Chapter 3. XVI. --How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibylof Panzoust

Chapter 3. XVII. --How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust

Chapter 3. XVIII. --How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound theverses of the Sibyl of Panzoust

Chapter 3. XIX. --How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men

Chapter 3. XX. --How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge

Chapter 3. XXI. --How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, namedRaminagrobis

Chapter 3. XXII. --How Panurge patrocinates and defendeth the Order of theBegging Friars

Chapter 3. XXIII. --How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis

Chapter 3. XXIV. --How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon

Chapter 3. XXV. --How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa

Chapter 3. XXVI. --How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels

Chapter 3. XXVII. --How Friar John merrily and sportingly counselleth Panurge

Chapter 3. XXVIII. --How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matterof cuckoldry

Chapter 3. XXIX. --How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician, lawyer, and philosopher, for extricating Panurge out of theperplexity wherein he was

Chapter 3. XXX. --How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurgein the matter and business of his nuptial enterprise

Chapter 3. XXXI. --How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge

Chapter 3. XXXII. --How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one ofthe appendances of marriage

Chapter 3. XXXIII. --Rondibilis the physician's cure of cuckoldry

Chapter 3. XXXIV. --How women ordinarily have the greatest longing afterthings prohibited

Chapter 3. XXXV. --How the philosopher Trouillogan handleth the difficulty ofmarriage

Chapter 3. XXXVI. --A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic andPyrrhonian philosopher Trouillogan

Chapter 3. XXXVII. --How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of afool

Chapter 3. XXXVIII. --How Triboulet is set forth and blazed by Pantagruel andPanurge

Chapter 3. XXXIX. --How Pantagruel was present at the trial of JudgeBridlegoose, who decided causes and controversies in law by the chance andfortune of the dice

Chapter 3. XL. --How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions which he decided by the chance of the dice

Chapter 3. XLI. --How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers ofparties at variance in matters of law

Chapter 3. XLII. --How suits at law are bred at first, and how they comeafterwards to their perfect growth

Chapter 3. XLIII. --How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter ofsentencing actions at law by the chance of the dice

Chapter 3. XLIV. --How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of theperplexity of human judgment

Chapter 3. XLV. --How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet

Chapter 3. XLVI. --How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the wordsof Triboulet

Chapter 3. XLVII. --How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit tothe Oracle of the Holy Bottle

Chapter 3. XLVIII. --How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not tomarry without the special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers

Chapter 3. XLIX. --How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go tosea; and of the herb named Pantagruelion

Chapter 3. L. --How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought

Chapter 3. LI. --Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtuesthereof

Chapter 3. LII. --How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature thatthe fire is not able to consume it

THE FOURTH BOOK. 

The Translator's Preface

The Author's Epistle Dedicatory

The Author's Prologue

Chapter 4. I. --How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the Holy Bottle

Chapter 4. II. --How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island ofMedamothy

Chapter 4. III. --How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of the strange way to have speedy news from far distant places

Chapter 4. IV. --How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent himseveral curiosities

Chapter 4. V. --How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning fromLantern-land

Chapter 4. VI. --How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one ofDingdong's sheep

Chapter 4. VII. --Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained withDingdong

Chapter 4. VIII. --How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned inthe sea

Chapter 4. IX. --How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of thestrange ways of being akin in that country

Chapter 4. X. --How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where hesaw King St. Panigon

Chapter 4. XI. --Why monks love to be in kitchens

Chapter 4. XII. --How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and ofthe strange way of living among the Catchpoles

Chapter 4. XIII. --How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Baschecommended his servants

Chapter 4. XIV. --A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed atBasche's house

Chapter 4. XV. --How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by thecatchpole

Chapter 4. XVI. --How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles

Chapter 4. XVII. --How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; andof the strange death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills

Chapter 4. XVIII. --How Pantagruel met with a great storm at sea

Chapter 4. XIX. --What countenances Panurge and Friar John kept during thestorm

Chapter 4. XX. --How the pilots were forsaking their ships in the greateststress of weather

Chapter 4. XXI. --A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on thesubject of making testaments at sea

Chapter 4. XXII. --An end of the storm

Chapter 4. XXIII. --How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm wasover

Chapter 4. XXIV. --How Panurge was said to have been afraid without reasonduring the storm

Chapter 4. XXV. --How, after the storm, Pantagruel went on shore in theislands of the Macreons

Chapter 4. XXVI. --How the good Macrobius gave us an account of the mansionand decease of the heroes

Chapter 4. XXVII. --Pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls;and of the dreadful prodigies that happened before the death of the lateLord de Langey

Chapter 4. XXVIII. --How Pantagruel related a very sad story of the death ofthe heroes

Chapter 4. XXIX. --How Pantagruel sailed by the Sneaking Island, whereShrovetide reigned

Chapter 4. XXX. --How Shrovetide is anatomized and described by Xenomanes

Chapter 4. XXXI. --Shrovetide's outward parts anatomized

Chapter 4. XXXII. --A continuation of Shrovetide's countenance

Chapter 4. XXXIII. --How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, orwhirlpool, near the Wild Island

Chapter 4. XXXIV. --How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel

Chapter 4. XXXV. --How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, theancient abode of the Chitterlings

Chapter 4. XXXVI. --How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado forPantagruel

Chapter 4. XXXVII. --How Pantagruel sent for Colonel Maul-chitterling andColonel Cut-pudding; with a discourse well worth your hearing about thenames of places and persons

Chapter 4. XXXVIII. --How Chitterlings are not to be slighted by men

Chapter 4. XXXIX. --How Friar John joined with the cooks to fight theChitterlings

Chapter 4. XL. --How Friar John fitted up the sow; and of the valiant cooksthat went into it

Chapter 4. XLI. --How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees

Chapter 4. XLII. --How Pantagruel held a treaty with Niphleseth, Queen of theChitterlings

Chapter 4. XLIII. --How Pantagruel went into the island of Ruach

Chapter 4. XLIV. --How small rain lays a high wind

Chapter 4. XLV. --How Pantagruel went ashore in the island of Pope-Figland

Chapter 4. XLVI. --How a junior devil was fooled by a husbandman of Pope-Figland

Chapter 4. XLVII. --How the devil was deceived by an old woman of Pope-Figland

Chapter 4. XLVIII. --How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany

Chapter 4. XLIX. --How Homenas, Bishop of Papimany, showed us the Uranopetdecretals

Chapter 4. L. --How Homenas showed us the archetype, or representation of apope

Chapter 4. LI. --Table-talk in praise of the decretals

Chapter 4. LII. --A continuation of the miracles caused by the decretals

Chapter 4. LIII. --How, by the virtue of the decretals, gold is subtilelydrawn out of France to Rome

Chapter 4. LIV. --How Homenas gave Pantagruel some bon-Christian pears

Chapter 4. LV. --How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words

Chapter 4. LVI. --How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones

Chapter 4. LVII. --How Pantagruel went ashore at the dwelling of Gaster, thefirst master of arts in the world

Chapter 4. LVIII. --How, at the court of the master of ingenuity, Pantagrueldetested the Engastrimythes and the Gastrolaters

Chapter 4. LIX. --Of the ridiculous statue Manduce; and how and what theGastrolaters sacrifice to their ventripotent god

Chapter 4. LX. --What the Gastrolaters sacrificed to their god on interlardedfish-days

Chapter 4. LXI. --How Gaster invented means to get and preserve corn

Chapter 4. LXII. --How Gaster invented an art to avoid being hurt or touchedby cannon-balls

Chapter 4. LXIII. --How Pantagruel fell asleep near the island of Chaneph, and of the problems proposed to be solved when he waked

Chapter 4. LXIV. --How Pantagruel gave no answer to the problems

Chapter 4. LXV. --How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants

Chapter 4. LXVI. --How, by Pantagruel's order, the Muses were saluted nearthe isle of Ganabim

Chapter 4. LXVII. --How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge catRodilardus, which he took for a puny devil

THE FIFTH BOOK. 

The Author's Prologue

Chapter 5. I. --How Pantagruel arrived at the Ringing Island, and of thenoise that we heard

Chapter 5. II. --How the Ringing Island had been inhabited by the Siticines, who were become birds

Chapter 5. III. --How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island

Chapter 5. IV. --How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers

Chapter 5. V. --Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island

Chapter 5. VI. --How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island

Chapter 5. VII. --How Panurge related to Master Aedituus the fable of thehorse and the ass

Chapter 5. VIII. --How with much ado we got a sight of the pope-hawk

Chapter 5. IX. --How we arrived at the island of Tools

Chapter 5. X. --How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping

Chapter 5. XI. --How we passed through the wicket inhabited by Gripe-men-all, Archduke of the Furred Law-cats

Chapter 5. XII. --How Gripe-men-all propounded a riddle to us

Chapter 5. XIII. --How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle

Chapter 5. XIV. --How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption

Chapter 5. XV. --How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats

Chapter 5. XVI. --How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, orIgnoramuses, with long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventuresand monsters there

Chapter 5. XVII. --How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to havebeen killed

Chapter 5. XVIII. --How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by somepeople that were subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte)

Chapter 5. XIX. --How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy

Chapter 5. XX. --How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song

Chapter 5. XXI. --How the Queen passed her time after dinner

Chapter 5. XXII. --How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the saidlady retained us among her abstractors

Chapter 5. XXIII. --How the Queen was served at dinner, and of her way ofeating

Chapter 5. XXIV. --How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, atwhich Queen Whims was present

Chapter 5. XXV. --How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought

Chapter 5. XXVI. --How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go upand down

Chapter 5. XXVII. --How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order ofSemiquaver Friars

Chapter 5. XXVIII. --How Panurge asked a Semiquaver Friar many questions, andwas only answered in monosyllables

Chapter 5. XXIX. --How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent

Chapter 5. XXX. --How we came to the land of Satin

Chapter 5. XXXI. --How in the land of Satin we saw Hearsay, who kept a schoolof vouching

Chapter 5. XXXII. --How we came in sight of Lantern-land

Chapter 5. XXXIII. --How we landed at the port of the Lychnobii, and came toLantern-land

Chapter 5. XXXIV. --How we arrived at the Oracle of the Bottle

Chapter 5. XXXV. --How we went underground to come to the Temple of the HolyBottle, and how Chinon is the oldest city in the world

Chapter 5. XXXVI. --How we went down the tetradic steps, and of Panurge'sfear

Chapter 5. XXXVII. --How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened ofthemselves

Chapter 5. XXXVIII. --Of the temple's admirable pavement

Chapter 5. XXXIX. --How we saw Bacchus's army drawn up in battalia in mosaicwork

Chapter 5. XL. --How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew theIndians was represented in mosaic work

Chapter 5. XLI. --How the temple was illuminated with a wonderful lamp

Chapter 5. XLII. --How the Priestess Bacbuc showed us a fantastic fountain inthe temple, and how the fountain-water had the taste of wine, according tothe imagination of those who drank of it

Chapter 5. XLIII. --How the Priestess Bacbuc equipped Panurge in order tohave the word of the Bottle

Chapter 5. XLIV. --How Bacbuc, the high-priestess, brought Panurge before theHoly Bottle

Chapter 5. XLV. --How Bacbuc explained the word of the Goddess-Bottle

Chapter 5. XLVI. --How Panurge and the rest rhymed with poetic fury

Chapter 5. XLVII. --How we took our leave of Bacbuc, and left the Oracle ofthe Holy Bottle

Introduction. 

Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one wouldever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands outsideother things--a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, ofchildishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, ofpopular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, ofbaseness and nobility, of personalities and broad generalization, of thecomic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar. Throughout thewhole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of goodsense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with thegreatest; and his peers are not many. You may like him or not, may attackhim or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him. He is of those thatdie hard. Be as fastidious as you will; make up your mind to recognizeonly those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above allothers; 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 weread it. After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we may returnagain to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning. Yet there isno possibility of knowing his own life in the same fashion. In spite ofall the efforts, often successful, that have been made to throw light onit, to bring forward a fresh document, or some obscure mention in aforgotten book, to add some little fact, to fix a date more precisely, itremains nevertheless full of uncertainty and of gaps. Besides, it has beenburdened and sullied by all kinds of wearisome stories and foolishanecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out than to add. 

This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the sixteenth century, inthe furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, whoseems 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 inthe Forest of Meudon, whereas the presbytery was close to the chateau. From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has completely travestiedhim, till, bit by bit, it has made of him a buffoon, a veritable clown, avagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard. 

The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He hasbeen credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of anincorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because alwayslaughing. The picture would have surprised his friends no less thanhimself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen manysuch. They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater number areconceived in this jovial and popular style. 

As a matter of fact there is only one portrait of him that counts, that hasmore than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the Chronologiecollee or coupee. Under this double name is known and cited a large sheetdivided by lines and cross lines into little squares, containing about ahundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen. This sheet was stuck on pasteboardfor hanging on the wall, and was cut in little pieces, so that theportraits might be sold separately. The majority of the portraits are ofknown persons and can therefore be verified. Now it can be seen that thesehave been selected with care, and taken from the most authentic sources;from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass, for the persons of mostdistinction, from earlier engravings for the others. Moreover, those ofwhich no other copies exist, and which are therefore the most valuable, have each an individuality very distinct, in the features, the hair, thebeard, as well as in the costume. Not one of them is like another. Therehas been no tampering with them, no forgery. On the contrary, there is ineach a difference, a very marked personality. Leonard Gaultier, whopublished this engraving towards the end of the sixteenth century, reproduced a great many portraits besides from chalk drawings, in the styleof his master, Thomas de Leu. It must have been such drawings that werethe originals of those portraits which he alone has issued, and which maytherefore be as authentic and reliable as the others whose correctness weare in a position to verify. 

Now Rabelais has here nothing of the Roger Bontemps of low degree abouthim. His features are strong, vigorously cut, and furrowed with deepwrinkles; his beard is short and scanty; his cheeks are thin and alreadyworn-looking. On his head he wears the square cap of the doctors and theclerks, and his dominant expression, somewhat rigid and severe, is that ofa physician and a scholar. And this is the only portrait to which we needattach any importance. 

This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaustivestudy. At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to fixa few certain dates, to hang some general observations. The date ofRabelais' birth is very doubtful. For long it was placed as far back as1483: now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495. Thereason, 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 thefifteenth century. And, indeed, it is in the references in his romance tonames, persons, and places, that the most certain and valuable evidence isto be found of his intercourse, his patrons, his friendships, hissojournings, and his travels: his own work is the best and richest mine inwhich to search for the details of his life. 

Like Descartes and Balzac, he was a native of Touraine, and Tours andChinon have only done their duty in each of them erecting in recent years astatue to his honour, a twofold homage reflecting credit both on theprovince and on the town. But the precise facts about his birth arenevertheless vague. Huet speaks of the village of Benais, near Bourgeuil, of whose vineyards Rabelais makes mention. As the little vineyard of LaDeviniere, near Chinon, and familiar to all his readers, is supposed tohave belonged to his father, Thomas Rabelais, some would have him bornthere. It is better to hold to the earlier general opinion that Chinon washis native town; Chinon, whose praises he sang with such heartiness andaffection. There he might well have been born in the Lamproie house, whichbelonged to his father, who, to judge from this circumstance, must havebeen in easy circumstances, with the position of a well-to-do citizen. AsLa Lamproie in the seventeenth century was a hostelry, the father ofRabelais has been set down as an innkeeper. More probably he was anapothecary, which would fit in with the medical profession adopted by hisson in after years. Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself. Perhaps because he was the youngest, his father destined him for theChurch. 

The time he spent while a child with the Benedictine monks at Seuille isuncertain. There he might have made the acquaintance of the prototype ofhis Friar John, a brother of the name of Buinart, afterwards Prior ofSermaize. 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 DuBellay, who were later his Maecenases, were then studying at the Universityof Angers, where it is certain he was not a student, it is doubtless fromthis youthful period that his acquaintance and alliance with them shoulddate. Voluntarily, or induced by his family, Rabelais now embraced theecclesiastical profession, and entered the monastery of the FranciscanCordeliers at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou, which was honoured by hislong 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 histroubles. 

In spite of the wide-spread ignorance among the monks of that age, theencyclopaedic movement of the Renaissance was attracting all the loftyminds. Rabelais threw himself into it with enthusiasm, and Latin antiquitywas not enough for him. Greek, a study discountenanced by the Church, which looked on it as dangerous and tending to freethought and heresy, tookpossession of him. To it he owed the warm friendship of Pierre Amy and ofthe celebrated Guillaume Bude. In fact, the Greek letters of the latterare the best source of information concerning this period of Rabelais'life. It was at Fontenay-le-Comte also that he became acquainted with theBrissons and the great jurist Andre Tiraqueau, whom he never mentions butwith admiration and deep affection. Tiraqueau's treatise, De legibusconnubialibus, published for the first time in 1513, has an importantbearing on the life of Rabelais. There we learn that, dissatisfied withthe incomplete translation of Herodotus by Laurent Valla, Rabelais hadretranslated into Latin the first book of the History. That translationunfortunately is lost, as so many other of his scattered works. It isprobably in this direction that the hazard of fortune has most discoveriesand surprises in store for the lucky searcher. Moreover, as in this lawtreatise Tiraqueau attacked women in a merciless fashion, President AmauryBouchard published in 1522 a book in their defence, and Rabelais, who was afriend of both the antagonists, took the side of Tiraqueau. It should beobserved also in passing, that there are several pages of such audaciousplain-speaking, that Rabelais, though he did not copy these in his Marriageof 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 abook which was meant to amuse. 

The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want ofreserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness, which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value. LaBruyere, in the chapter Des ouvrages de l'esprit, not in the first editionof the Caracteres, but in the fifth, that is to say in 1690, at the end ofthe great century, gives us on this subject his own opinion and that of hisage:

'Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable in their habit of scattering filthabout their writings. Both of them had genius enough and wit enough to dowithout any such expedient, even for the amusement of those persons wholook more to the laugh to be got out of a book than to what is admirable init. Rabelais especially is incomprehensible. His book is an enigma, --onemay say inexplicable. It is a Chimera; it is like the face of a lovelywoman with the feet and the tail of a reptile, or of some creature stillmore loathsome. It is a monstrous confusion of fine and rare morality withfilthy corruption. Where it is bad, it goes beyond the worst; it is thedelight 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 ofwhom one is of very little importance compared with the other, this isotherwise very admirably said, and the judgment is a very just one, exceptwith regard to one point--the misunderstanding of the atmosphere in whichthe book was created, and the ignoring of the examples of a similartendency furnished by literature as well as by the popular taste. Was itnot the Ancients that began it? Aristophanes, Catullus, Petronius, Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas as well as in the wordsthey used, and they dragged after them in this direction not a few of theLatin poets of the Renaissance, who believed themselves bound to imitatethem. Is Italy without fault in this respect? Her story-tellers in proselie open to easy accusation. Her Capitoli in verse go to incrediblelengths; and the astonishing success of Aretino must not be forgotten, northe licence of the whole Italian comic theatre of the sixteenth century. The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards a Cardinal, and the Mandragolaof Machiavelli, are evidence enough, and these were played before Popes, who were not a whit embarrassed. Even in England the drama went very farfor a time, and the comic authors of the reign of Charles II. , evidentlyfrom a reaction, and to shake off the excess and the wearisomeness ofPuritan 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 downhere; 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 theveins, so to speak, of our literature. The art that addresses itself tothe eye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptureson the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness ofcertain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was, withoutany doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet she used to goup the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes were not offended atseeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent carving of a monk and anun. Neither did she tear out of her book of Hours the large miniature ofthe winter month, in which, careless of her neighbours' eyes, the mistressof the house, sitting before her great fireplace, warms herself in afashion 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 atFontainebleau, has behind it an attribute which would have been more inplace 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 insetting themselves in opposition to it. The worthy Chevalier deLa-Tour-Landry, in his Instructions to his own daughters, without a thoughtof harm, gives examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton'stranslation these are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed atBruges by Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers thatthey were the little society diversions of the Duchesses of Burgundy and ofthe great ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the Frenchcourt, which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis XI. Rabelais' pleasantry about the woman folle a la messe is exactly in thestyle of the Adevineaux. 

A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept inmind--for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated intoFrench--as also the Dames Galantes of Brantome. Read the Journal ofHeroard, that honest doctor, who day by day wrote down the detailsconcerning the health of Louis XIII. From his birth, and you willunderstand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV. The jokes at acountry wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness. Le Moyende Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the toocelebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII. , could bewritten, printed, and read. The collection of songs formed by Clairambaultshows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no purer than thesixteenth. Some of the most ribald songs are actually the work ofPrincesses of the royal House. 

It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, tocharge him alone with the sins of everybody else. He spoke as those of histime used to speak; when amusing them he used their language to makehimself understood, and to slip in his asides, which without this saucewould 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 athing is gaiety!--has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it; and this istoo often overlooked. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty? Where, even indirectly, does he give pernicious advice? Whom has he led to evilways? Does he ever inspire feelings that breed misconduct and vice, or ishe ever the apologist of these? Many poets and romance writers, undercover of a fastidious style, without one coarse expression, have beenreally and actively hurtful; and of that it is impossible to accuseRabelais. Women in particular quickly revolt from him, and turn awayrepulsed at once by the archaic form of the language and by theoutspokenness of the words. But if he be read aloud to them, omitting therougher parts and modernizing the pronunciation, it will be seen that theytoo are impressed by his lively wit as by the loftiness of his thought. Itwould be possible, too, to extract, for young persons, withoutmodification, admirable passages of incomparable force. But those who havebrought out expurgated editions of him, or who have thought to improve himby trying to rewrite him in modern French, have been fools for their pains, and their insulting attempts have had, and always will have, the successthey deserve. 

His dedications prove to what extent his whole work was accepted. Not tospeak of his epistolary relations with Bude, with the Cardinal d'Armagnacand with Pellissier, the ambassador of Francis I. And Bishop of Maguelonne, or of his dedication to Tiraqueau of his Lyons edition of the EpistolaeMedicinales of Giovanni Manardi of Ferrara, of the one addressed to thePresident 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 thethree news letters, which alone have been preserved; and in 1534 hededicated from Lyons his edition of the Latin book of Marliani on thetopography of Rome to Jean du Bellay (at that time Bishop of Paris) who wasraised to the Cardinalate in 1535. Beside these dedications we must setthe privilege of Francis I. Of September, 1545, and the new privilegegranted by Henry II. On August 6th, 1550, Cardinal de Chatillon present, for the third book, which was dedicated, in an eight-lined stanza, to theSpirit of the Queen of Navarre. These privileges, from the praises andeulogies they express in terms very personal and very exceptional, are asimportant in Rabelais' life as were, in connection with other matters, theApostolic Pastorals in his favour. Of course, in these the popes had notto introduce his books of diversions, which, nevertheless, would haveseemed in their eyes but very venial sins. The Sciomachie of 1549, anaccount of the festivities arranged at Rome by Cardinal du Bellay in honourof the birth of the second son of Henry II. , was addressed to Cardinal deGuise, and in 1552 the fourth book was dedicated, in a new prologue, toCardinal de Chatillon, the brother of Admiral de Coligny. 

These are no unknown or insignificant personages, but the greatest lordsand princes of the Church. They loved and admired and protected Rabelais, and put no restrictions in his way. Why should we be more fastidious andsevere than they were? Their high contemporary appreciation gives muchfood for thought. 

There are few translations of Rabelais in foreign tongues; and certainlythe task is no light one, and demands more than a familiarity with ordinaryFrench. It would have been easier in Italy than anywhere else. Italian, from its flexibility and its analogy to French, would have lent itselfadmirably to the purpose; the instrument was ready, but the hand was notforthcoming. Neither is there any Spanish translation, a fact which can bemore easily understood. The Inquisition would have been a far more seriousopponent than the Paris' Sorbonne, and no one ventured on the experiment. Yet Rabelais forces comparison with Cervantes, whose precursor he was inreality, though the two books and the two minds are very different. Theyhave only one point in common, their attack and ridicule of the romances ofchivalry and of the wildly improbable adventures of knight-errants. But inDon Quixote there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantesknew Rabelais' book or owed anything to it whatsoever, even thestarting-point of his subject. Perhaps it was better he should not havebeen influenced by him, in however slight a degree; his originality is themore 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, withcopious notes, a close and faithful translation. The first one cannot beso described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz or Strasburg, whodied in 1614. He was a Protestant controversialist, and a satirist offantastic and abundant imagination. In 1575 appeared his translation ofRabelais' first book, and in 1590 he published the comic catalogue of thelibrary of Saint Victor, borrowed from the second book. It is not atranslation, but a recast in the boldest style, full of alterations and ofexaggerations, both as regards the coarse expressions which he took uponhimself to develop and to add to, and in the attacks on the Roman CatholicChurch. According to Jean Paul Richter, Fischart is much superior toRabelais in style and in the fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal inerudition and in the invention of new expressions after the manner ofAristophanes. He is sure that his work was successful, because it wasoften reprinted during his lifetime; but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul wouldhardly carry conviction in France. Who treads in another's footprints mustfollow in the rear. Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator. Thosewho take the ideas of others to modify them, and make of them creations oftheir own, like Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France, may be superior to those who have served them with suggestions; but thenthe new works must be altogether different, must exist by themselves. Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to havedestroyed their models. These copyists, if we call them so, created suchworks of genius that the only pity is they are so rare. This is not thecase with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some onethoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at least, by long extracts from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German tastewhen it thought it could do better than Rabelais. It is dangerous totamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk ofburning his fingers. 

England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have broughther success. But, before speaking of Urquhart's translation, it is butright to mention the English-French Dictionary of Randle Cotgrave, thefirst edition of which dates from 1611. It is in every way exceedinglyvaluable, and superior to that of Nicot, because instead of keeping to theplane of classic and Latin French, it showed an acquaintance with andmastery of the popular tongue as well as of the written and learnedlanguage. 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 ofthe fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Thus words outof Rabelais, which he always translates with admirable skill, are frequent, and he attaches to them their author's name. So Rabelais had alreadycrossed the Channel, and was read in his own tongue. Somewhat later, during the full sway of the Commonwealth--and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier musthave been a surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity--CaptainUrquhart undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely inEngland. 

Thomas Urquhart belonged to a very old family of good standing in the Northof Scotland. After studying in Aberdeen he travelled in France, Spain, andItaly, where his sword was as active as that intelligent curiosity of hiswhich is evidenced by his familiarity with three languages and the largelibrary which he brought back, according to his own account, from sixteencountries he had visited. 

On his return to England he entered the service of Charles I. , who knightedhim in 1641. Next year, after the death of his father, he went to Scotlandto 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 freehimself from pecuniary embarrassments were unavailing. At the king's deathhis Scottish loyalty caused him to side with those who opposed theParliament. Formally proscribed in 1649, taken prisoner at the defeat ofWorcester in 1651, stripped of all his belongings, he was brought toLondon, but was released on parole at Cromwell's recommendation. Afterreceiving permission to spend five months in Scotland to try once more tosettle 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. Itprobably took place after 1653, the date of the publication of the twofirst books, and after having written the translation of the third, whichwas not printed from his manuscript till the end of the seventeenthcentury. 

His life was therefore not without its troubles, and literary activity musthave been almost his only consolation. His writings reveal him as thestrangest character, fantastic, and full of a naive vanity, which, even atthe time he was translating the genealogy of Gargantua--surely wellcalculated to cure any pondering on his own--caused him to trace hisunbroken descent from Adam, and to state that his family name was derivedfrom his ancestor Esormon, Prince of Achaia, 2139 B. C. , who was surnamedOurochartos, that is to say the Fortunate and the Well-beloved. A Gasconcould not have surpassed this. 

Gifted as he was, learned in many directions, an enthusiasticmathematician, master of several languages, occasionally full of wit andhumour, and even good sense, yet he gave his books the strangest titles, and his ideas were no less whimsical. His style is mystic, fastidious, andtoo often of a wearisome length and obscurity; his verses rhyme anyhow, ornot at all; but vivacity, force and heat are never lacking, and theMaitland Club did well in reprinting, in 1834, his various works, which arevery rare. Yet, in spite of their curious interest, he owes his realdistinction and the survival of his name to his translation of Rabelais. 

The first two books appeared in 1653. The original edition, exceedinglyscarce, was carefully reprinted in 1838, only a hundred copies beingissued, by an English bibliophile T(heodore) M(artin), whose interestingpreface I regret to sum up so cursorily. At the end of the seventeenthcentury, in 1693, a French refugee, Peter Antony Motteux, whose Englishverses and whose plays are not without value, published in a little octavovolume a reprint, very incorrect as to the text, of the first two books, towhich he added the third, from the manuscript found amongst Urquhart'spapers. The success which attended this venture suggested to Motteux theidea of completing the work, and a second edition, in two volumes, appearedin 1708, with the translation of the fourth and fifth books, and notes. Nineteen years after his death, John Ozell, translator on a large scale ofFrench, Italian, and Spanish authors, revised Motteux's edition, which hepublished in five volumes in 1737, adding Le Duchat's notes; and thisversion 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 notalways so closely literal and exact. Nevertheless, it is much superior toMotteux's. If Urquhart does not constantly adhere to the form of theexpression, if he makes a few slight additions, not only has he anunderstanding of the original, but he feels it, and renders the sense witha force and a vivacity full of warmth and brilliancy. His own learningmade the comprehension of the work easy to him, and his anglicization ofwords fabricated by Rabelais is particularly successful. The necessity ofkeeping to his text prevented his indulgence in the convolutions anddivagations dictated by his exuberant fancy when writing on his ownaccount. His style, always full of life and vigour, is here balanced, lucid, and picturesque. Never elsewhere did he write so well. And thusthe translation reproduces the very accent of the original, besidespossessing a very remarkable character of its own. Such a literary toneand such literary qualities are rarely found in a translation. Urquhart's, very useful for the interpretation of obscure passages, may, and indeedshould be read as a whole, both for Rabelais and for its own merits. 

Holland, too, possesses a translation of Rabelais. They knew French inthat country in the seventeenth century better than they do to-day, andthere Rabelais' works were reprinted when no editions were appearing inFrance. This Dutch translation was published at Amsterdam in 1682, by J. Tenhoorn. The name attached to it, Claudio Gallitalo (ClaudiusFrench-Italian) must certainly be a pseudonym. Only a Dutch scholar couldidentify the translator, and state the value to be assigned to his work. 

Rabelais' style has many different sources. Besides its force andbrilliancy, its gaiety, wit, and dignity, its abundant richness is no lessremarkable. It would be impossible and useless to compile a glossary ofVoltaire's words. No French writer has used so few, and all of them are ofthe simplest. There is not one of them that is not part of the commonspeech, or which demands a note or an explanation. Rabelais' vocabulary, on the other hand, is of an astonishing variety. Where does it all comefrom? 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 wishedto produce. 

First of all, of course, he had ready to his hand the whole speech of histime, which had no secrets for him. Provincials have been too eager toappropriate 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 thecauses, one of the factors of his genius. Every neighbourhood where heever lived has declared that his distinction was due to his knowledge ofits popular speech. But these dialect-patriots have fallen out amongthemselves. To which dialect was he indebted? Was it that of Touraine, orBerri, or Poitou, or Paris? It is too often forgotten, in regard to Frenchpatois--leaving out of count the languages of the South--that the words orexpressions that are no longer in use to-day are but a survival, a stillliving trace of the tongue and the pronunciation of other days. Rabelais, more than any other writer, took advantage of the happy chances and therichness of the popular speech, but he wrote in French, and nothing butFrench. That is why he remains so forcible, so lucid, and so living, moreliving even--speaking only of his style out of charity to the others--thanany of his contemporaries. 

It has been said that great French prose is solely the work of theseventeenth century. There were nevertheless, before that, two men, certainly very different and even hostile, who were its initiators and itsmasters, Calvin on the one hand, on the other Rabelais. 

Rabelais had a wonderful knowledge of the prose and the verse of thefifteenth century: he was familiar with Villon, Pathelin, the Quinze Joiesde Mariage, the Cent Nouvelles, the chronicles and the romances, and evenearlier works, too, such as the Roman de la Rose. Their words, their turnsof expression came naturally to his pen, and added a piquancy and, as itwere, a kind of gloss of antique novelty to his work. He fabricated words, too, on Greek and Latin models, with great ease, sometimes audaciously andwith needless frequency. These were for him so many means, so manyelements of variety. Sometimes he did this in mockery, as in the humorousdiscourse of the Limousin scholar, for which he is not a little indebted toGeoffroy 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 heinvented and forged words for himself. Following the example ofAristophanes, he coined an enormous number of interminable words, drollexpressions, sudden and surprising constructions. What had made Greece andthe Athenians laugh was worth transporting to Paris. 

With an instrument so rich, resources so endless, and the skill to usethem, it is no wonder that he could give voice to anything, be as humorousas he could be serious, as comic as he could be grave, that he couldexpress himself and everybody else, from the lowest to the highest. He hadevery colour on his palette, and such skill was in his fingers that hecould 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 cannotwith certainty be attributed to him. His letters are bombastic and thin;his few attempts at verse are heavy, lumbering, and obscure, altogetherlacking 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 theyare in regard to the matter, are as dull, bare, flat, and dry in style aspossible. Without his signature no one would possibly have thought ofattributing them to him. He is only a literary artist when he wishes to besuch; and in his romance he changes the style completely every othermoment: it has no constant character or uniform manner, and thereforeunity is almost entirely wanting in his work, while his endeavours aftercontrast are unceasing. There is throughout the whole the evidence ofcareful and conscious elaboration. 

Hence, however lucid and free be the style of his romance, and though itsflexibility 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 thetoil, in hiding the seams. He could not have reached this perfection at afirst attempt. He must have worked long at the task, revised it again andagain, corrected much, and added rather than cut away. The aptness of formand expression has been arrived at by deliberate means, and owes nothing tochance. Apart from the toning down of certain bold passages, to softentheir effect, and appease the storm--for these were not literaryalterations, but were imposed on him by prudence--one can see how numerousare the variations in his text, how necessary it is to take account ofthem, and to collect them. A good edition, of course, would make noattempt at amalgamating these. That would give a false impression and endin 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 belost, made the mistake of collecting and placing side by side things whichhad no connection with each other, which had even been substituted for eachother. The result was a fabricated text, full of contradictions naturally. But since the edition issued by M. Jannet, the well-known publisher of theBibliotheque Elzevirienne, who was the first to get rid of this patchwork, this mosaic, Rabelais' latest text has been given, accompanied by all theearlier variations, to show the changes he made, as well as hissuppressions and additions. It would also be possible to reverse themethod. It would be interesting to take his first text as the basis, noting the later modifications. This would be quite as instructive andreally worth doing. Perhaps one might then see more clearly with what carehe made his revisions, after what fashion he corrected, and especially whatwere the additions he made. 

No more striking instance can be quoted than the admirable chapter aboutthe 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 somepassage that he wishes to revise, he does so by rewriting the whole, or atleast by interpolating passages at one stroke, so to speak. Nothing of thekind is seen here. Rabelais suppressed nothing, modified nothing; he didnot change his plan at all. What he did was to make insertions, to slip inbetween two clauses a new one. He expressed his meaning in a lengthierway, and the former clause is found in its integrity along with theadditional one, of which it forms, as it were, the warp. It was by thismethod of touching up the smallest details, by making here and there suchlittle noticeable additions, that he succeeded in heightening the effectwithout either change or loss. In the end it looks as if he had alterednothing, added nothing new, as if it had always been so from the first, andhad 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 factwhich is generally too much overlooked, and how instead of leaving anytrace which would reveal toil and study, it has on the contrary amarvellous cohesion, precision, and brilliancy. It was modelled andremodelled, repaired, touched up, and yet it has all the appearance ofhaving been created at a single stroke, or of having been run like moltenwax 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. Theromance in verse by Baudouin de Sebourc, printed in recent years, was aparody of the Chansons de Geste. In the Moniage Guillaume, and especiallyin the Moniage Rainouart, in which there is a kind of giant, andoccasionally a comic giant, there are situations and scenes which remind usof Rabelais. The kind of Fabliaux in mono-rhyme quatrains of the oldAubery anticipate his coarse and popular jests. But all that is beside thequestion; Rabelais did not know these. Nothing is of direct interest savewhat was known to him, what fell under his eyes, what lay to his hand--asthe Facetiae of Poggio, and the last sermonnaires. In the course of one'sreading one may often enough come across the origin of some of Rabelais'witticisms; here and there we may discover how he has developed asituation. While gathering his materials wherever he could find them, hewas nevertheless profoundly original. 

On this point much research and investigation might be employed. But thereis 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 isa solar myth, and the statement that Rabelais only collected populartraditions and gave new life to ancient legends is said to be proved by thelarge number of megalithic monuments to which is attached the name ofGargantua. It was, of course, quite right to make a list of these, to drawup, as it were, a chart of them, but the conclusion is not justified. Thename, instead of being earlier, is really later, and is a witness, not tothe origin, but to the success and rapid popularity of his novel. No onehas ever yet produced a written passage or any ancient testimony to provethe existence of the name before Rabelais. To place such a tradition on asure basis, positive traces must be forthcoming; and they cannot be adducedeven for the most celebrated of these monuments, since he mentions himselfthe great menhir near Poitiers, which he christened by the name ofPasselourdin. That there is something in the theory is possible. Perraultfound 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 theywere, he seized them, worked them up, gave them shape, and yet of scarcelyany of them is there to be found before his time a single trace. So wemust resign ourselves to know just as little of what Gargantua andPantagruel were before the sixteenth century. 

In a book of a contemporary of Rabelais, the Legende de Pierre Faifeu bythe Angevin, Charles de Bourdigne, the first edition of which dates from1526 and the second 1531--both so rare and so forgotten that the work isonly known since the eighteenth century by the reprint of Custelier--in theintroductory ballad which recommends this book to readers, occur theselines 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 notsuggested the phrase--and the exigencies of the strict form of the balladeand its forced repetitions often imposed an idea which had its whole originin the rhyme--we might here see a dramatic trace found nowhere else. Thename of Pantagruel is mentioned too, incidentally, in a Mystery of thefifteenth century. These are the only references to the names which uptill now have been discovered, and they are, as one sees, of but littleaccount. 

On the other hand, the influence of Aristophanes and of Lucian, hisintimate acquaintance with nearly all the writers of antiquity, Greek aswell as Latin, with whom Rabelais is more permeated even than Montaigne, were a mine of inspiration. The proof of it is everywhere. Plinyespecially was his encyclopaedia, his constant companion. All he says ofthe Pantagruelian herb, though he amply developed it for himself, is takenfrom Pliny's chapter on flax. And there is a great deal more of this kindto be discovered, for Rabelais does not always give it as quotation. Onthe other hand, when he writes, 'Such an one says, ' it would be difficultenough 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 byRabelais or by someone else? Both theories are defensible, and can besupported by good reasons. In the Chronique everything is heavy, occasionally meaningless, and nearly always insipid. Can the same man havewritten the Chronique and Gargantua, replaced a book really commonplace bya masterpiece, changed the facts and incidents, transformed a heavy icypleasantry into a work glowing with wit and life, made it no longer a massof laborious trifling and cold-blooded exaggerations but a satire on humanlife 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 heshows literary skill. The conception of it would have entered his mindfirst only in a bare and summary fashion. It would have been taken upagain, expanded, developed, metamorphosed. That is possible, and, for mypart, I am of those who, like Brunet and Nodier, are inclined to think thatthe Chronique, in spite of its inferiority, is really a first attempt, condemned as soon as the idea was conceived in another form. As itsearlier date is incontestable, we must conclude that if the Chronique isnot by him, his Gargantua and its continuation would not have existedwithout it. This would be a great obligation to stand under to someunknown author, and in that case it is astonishing that his enemies did notreproach him during his lifetime with being merely an imitator and aplagiarist. So there are reasons for and against his authorship of it, andit would be dangerous to make too bold an assertion. 

One fact which is absolutely certain and beyond all controversy, is thatRabelais owed much to one of his contemporaries, an Italian, to theHistoire Macaronique of Merlin Coccaie. Its author, Theophilus Folengo, who was also a monk, was born in 1491, and died only a short time beforeRabelais, in 1544. But his burlesque poem was published in 1517. It wasin Latin verse, written in an elaborately fabricated style. It is not dogLatin, but Latin ingeniously italianized, or rather Italian, even Mantuan, latinized. The contrast between the modern form of the word and its Romangarb produces the most amusing effect. In the original it is sometimesdifficult to read, for Folengo has no objection to using the mostcolloquial words and phrases. 

The subject is quite different. It is the adventures of Baldo, son of Guyde Montauban, the very lively history of his youth, his trial, imprisonmentand deliverance, his journey in search of his father, during which hevisits the Planets and Hell. The narration is constantly interrupted byincidental adventures. Occasionally they are what would be called to-dayvery naturalistic, and sometimes they are madly extravagant. 

But Fracasso, Baldo's friend, is a giant; another friend, Cingar, whodelivers him, is Panurge exactly, and quite as much given to practicaljoking. The women in the senile amour of the old Tognazzo, the judges, andthe poor sergeants, are no more gently dealt with by Folengo than by themonk of the Iles d'Hyeres. If Dindenaut's name does not occur, there arethe sheep. The tempest is there, and the invocation to all the saints. Rabelais improves all he borrows, but it is from Folengo he starts. Hedoes not reproduce the words, but, like the Italian, he revels in drinkingscenes, junkettings, gormandizing, battles, scuffles, wounds and corpses, magic, witches, speeches, repeated enumerations, lengthiness, and asolemnly minute precision of impossible dates and numbers. The atmosphere, the tone, the methods are the same, and to know Rabelais well, you mustknow Folengo well too. 

Detailed proof of this would be too lengthy a matter; one would have toquote too many passages, but on this question of sources nothing is moreinteresting than a perusal of the Opus Macaronicorum. It was translatedinto French only in 1606--Paris, Gilley Robinot. This translation ofcourse cannot reproduce all the many amusing forms of words, but it isuseful, nevertheless, in showing more clearly the points of resemblancebetween the two works, --how far in form, ideas, details, and phrasesRabelais was permeated by Folengo. The anonymous translator saw this quitewell, and said so in his title, 'Histoire macaronique de Merlin Coccaie, prototype of Rabelais. ' It is nothing but the truth, and Rabelais, whodoes not hide it from himself, on more than one occasion mentions the nameof Merlin Coccaie. 

Besides, Rabelais was fed on the Italians of his time as on the Greeks andRomans. Panurge, who owes much to Cingar, is also not free fromobligations to the miscreant Margutte in the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci. Had Rabelais in his mind the tale from the Florentine Chronicles, how inthe Savonarola riots, when the Piagnoni and the Arrabiati came to blows inthe church of the Dominican convent of San-Marco, Fra Pietro in the scufflebroke the heads of the assailants with the bronze crucifix he had takenfrom 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 evenquite modern instances might be quoted. 

But other Italian sources are absolutely certain. There are few morewonderful chapters in Rabelais than the one about the drinkers. It is nota dialogue: those short exclamations exploding from every side, allreferring to the same thing, never repeating themselves, and yet alwaysvarying the same theme. At the end of the Novelle of Gentile Sermini ofSiena, 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. --Allemantella, 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 probablytranslated or directly imitated it. He changed the scene; there was nogiuooco della pugna in France. He transferred to a drinking-bout thisclatter of exclamations which go off by themselves, which cross each otherand get no answer. He made a wonderful thing of it. But though he did notcopy 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 devilwho had flavoured his dry bread with the smoke of the roast, and thejudgment of Seyny John, truly worthy of Solomon? It comes from the CentoNovelle Antiche, rewritten from tales older than Boccaccio, and moreover ofan extreme brevity and dryness. They are only the framework, the notes, the skeleton of tales. The subject is often wonderful, but nothing is madeof 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 theSaracens, and the cook is called Fabrac. But the surprise at the end, thesagacious judgment by which the sound of a piece of money was made theprice of the smoke, is the same. Now the first dated edition of the CentoNovelle (which were frequently reprinted) appeared at Bologna in 1525, andit is certain that Rabelais had read the tales. And there would be muchelse 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 cameamiss to him. He must have known, and even copied the Latin Chronicle ofthe Counts of Anjou. It is accepted, and rightly so, as an historicaldocument, but that is no reason for thinking that the truth may not havebeen manipulated and adorned. The Counts of Anjou were not saints. Theywere proud, quarrelsome, violent, rapacious, and extravagant, as greedy asthey were charitable to the Church, treacherous and cruel. Yet theiranonymous panegyrist has made them patterns of all the virtues. In realityit is both a history and in some sort a romance; especially is it acollection of examples worthy of being followed, in the style of theCyropaedia, our Juvenal of the fifteenth century, and a little likeFenelon's Telemaque. Now in it there occurs the address of one of thecounts to those who rebelled against him and who were at his mercy. Rabelais must have known it, for he has copied it, or rather, literallytranslated whole lines of it in the wonderful speech of Gargantua to thevanquished. His contemporaries, who approved of his borrowing fromantiquity, could not detect this one, because the book was not printed tillmuch later. But Rabelais lived in Maine. In Anjou, which often figuresamong the localities he names, he must have met with and read theChronicles of the Counts in manuscript, probably in some monastery library, whether at Fontenay-le-Comte or elsewhere it matters little. There is notonly a likeness in the ideas and tone, but in the words too, which cannotbe a mere matter of chance. He must have known the Chronicles of theCounts 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 themmust probably always escape us. 

When, as has been done for Moliere, a critical bibliography of the worksrelating to Rabelais is drawn up--which, by the bye, will entail a verygreat amount of labour--the easiest part will certainly be the bibliographyof the old editions. That is the section that has been most satisfactorilyand most completely worked out. M. Brunet said the last word on thesubject in his Researches in 1852, and in the important article in thefifth edition of his Manuel du Libraire (iv. , 1863, pp. 1037-1071). 

The facts about the fifth book cannot be summed up briefly. It was printedas a whole at first, without the name of the place, in 1564, and next yearat Lyons by Jean Martin. It has given, and even still gives rise to twocontradictory opinions. Is it Rabelais' or not?

First of all, if he had left it complete, would sixteen years have gone bybefore it was printed? Then, does it bear evident marks of hisworkmanship? Is the hand of the master visible throughout? Antoine DuVerdier in the 1605 edition of his Prosopographie writes: '(Rabelais')misfortune has been that everybody has wished to "pantagruelize!" andseveral books have appeared under his name, and have been added to hisworks, which are not by him, as, for instance, l'Ile Sonnante, written by acertain scholar of Valence and others. '

The scholar of Valence might be Guillaume des Autels, to whom with morecertainty can be ascribed the authorship of a dull imitation of Rabelais, the History of Fanfreluche and Gaudichon, published in 1578, which, to saythe least of it, is very much inferior to the fifth book. 

Louis Guyon, in his Diverses Lecons, is still more positive: 'As to thelast 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 membersand the authorities of the Catholic Church, I protest that he did notcompose it, for it was written long after his death. I was at Paris whenit was written, and I know quite well who was its author; he was not adoctor. ' That is very emphatic, and it is impossible to ignore it. 

Yet everyone must recognize that there is a great deal of Rabelais in thefifth book. He must have planned it and begun it. Remembering that in1548 he had published, not as an experiment, but rather as a bait and as anannouncement, the first eleven chapters of the fourth book, we may concludethat the first sixteen chapters of the fifth book published by themselvesnine years after his death, in 1562, represent the remainder of hisdefinitely finished work. This is the more certain because these firstchapters, which contain the Apologue of the Horse and the Ass and theterrible Furred Law-cats, are markedly better than what follows them. Theyare not the only ones where the master's hand may be traced, but they arethe only ones where no other hand could possibly have interfered. 

In the remainder the sentiment is distinctly Protestant. Rabelais was muchstruck by the vices of the clergy and did not spare them. Whether we areunable to forgive his criticisms because they were conceived in a spirit ofraillery, or whether, on the other hand, we feel admiration for him on thispoint, yet Rabelais was not in the least a sectary. If he strongly desireda moral reform, indirectly pointing out the need of it in his mockingfashion, he was not favourable to a political reform. Those who would makeof him a Protestant altogether forget that the Protestants of his time werenot for him, but against him. Henri Estienne, for instance, Ramus, Theodore de Beze, and especially Calvin, should know how he was to beregarded. 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 twoextremes. He was neither Lutheran nor Calvinist, neither German norGenevese, and it is quite natural that his work was not reprinted inSwitzerland, which would certainly have happened had the Protestants lookedon him as one of themselves. 

That Rabelais collected the materials for the fifth book, had begun it, andgot on some way, there can be no doubt: the excellence of a large numberof passages prove it, but--taken as a whole--the fifth book has not thevalue, the verve, and the variety of the others. The style is quitedifferent, less rich, briefer, less elaborate, drier, in parts evenwearisome. In the first four books Rabelais seldom repeats himself. Thefifth book contains from the point of view of the vocabulary really theleast novelty. On the contrary, it is full of words and expressionsalready met with, which is very natural in an imitation, in a copy, forcedto keep to a similar tone, and to show by such reminders and likenessesthat it is really by the same pen. A very striking point is the profounddifference in the use of anatomical terms. In the other books they aremost frequently used in a humorous sense, and nonsensically, with a quiteother meaning than their own; in the fifth they are applied correctly. Itwas necessary to include such terms to keep up the practice, but the writerhas not thought of using them to add to the comic effect: one cannotalways think of everything. Trouble has been taken, of course, to includeenumerations, but there are much fewer fabricated and fantastic words. Inshort, the hand of the maker is far from showing the same suppleness andstrength. 

A eulogistic quatrain is signed Nature quite, which, it is generallyagreed, is an anagram of Jean Turquet. Did the adapter of the fifth booksign his work in this indirect fashion? He might be of the Genevese familyto whom Louis Turquet and his son Theodore belonged, both well-known, andboth strong Protestants. The obscurity relating to this matter is far frombeing cleared up, and perhaps never will be. 

It fell to my lot--here, unfortunately, I am forced to speak of a personalmatter--to print for the first time the manuscript of the fifth book. Atfirst it was hoped it might be in Rabelais' own hand; afterwards that itmight be at least a copy of his unfinished work. The task was a difficultone, for the writing, extremely flowing and rapid, is execrable, and mostdifficult to decipher and to transcribe accurately. Besides, it oftenhappens in the sixteenth and the end of the fifteenth century, thatmanuscripts are much less correct than the printed versions, even when theyhave not been copied by clumsy and ignorant hands. In this case, it is thewriting of a clerk executed as quickly as possible. The farther it goesthe 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 orfragments prepared by Rabelais than of a first attempt at revision. It isnot an author's rough draft; still less is it his manuscript. If I had notprinted this enigmatical text with scrupulous and painful fidelity, I woulddo it now. It was necessary to do it so as to clear the way. But as thething is done, and accessible to those who may be interested, and who wishto critically examine it, there is no further need of reprinting it. Allthe editions of Rabelais continue, and rightly, to reproduce the edition of1564. It is not the real Rabelais, but however open to criticism it maybe, it was under that form that the fifth book appeared in the sixteenthcentury, under that form it was accepted. Consequently it is convenientand 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 beensuppressed of what existed; it was evidently thought that everything shouldbe admitted with the final revision; but the tone was changed, additionswere made, and 'improvements. ' Adapters are always strangely vain. 

In the seventeenth century, the French printing-press, save for an editionissued at Troyes in 1613, gave up publishing Rabelais, and the work passedto foreign countries. Jean Fuet reprinted him at Antwerp in 1602. Afterthe Amsterdam edition of 1659, where for the first time appears 'TheAlphabet of the French Author, ' comes the Elzevire edition of 1663. Thetype, an imitation of what made the reputation of the little volumes of theGryphes of Lyons, is charming, the printing is perfect, and the paper, which is French--the development of paper-making in Holland and England didnot take place till after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes--isexcellent. They are pretty volumes to the eye, but, as in all the reprintsof the seventeenth century, the text is full of faults and mostuntrustworthy. 

France, through a representative in a foreign land, however, comes intoline again in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in a reallyserious fashion, thanks to the very considerable learning of a Frenchrefugee, Jacob Le Duchat, who died in 1748. He had a most thoroughknowledge of the French prose-writers of the sixteenth century, and he madethem accessible by his editions of the Quinze Joies du Mariage, of HenriEstienne, of Agrippa d'Aubigne, of L'Etoile, and of the Satyre Menippee. In 1711 he published an edition of Rabelais at Amsterdam, through HenryBordesius, in five duodecimo volumes. The reprint in quarto which heissued in 1741, seven years before his death, is, with its engravings byBernard Picot, a fine library edition. Le Duchat's is the first of thecritical editions. It takes account of differences in the texts, andbegins to point out the variations. His very numerous notes areremarkable, and are still worthy of most serious consideration. He was thefirst 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 editionof 1752, also an Amsterdam production, has made use of Le Duchat's but doesnot take its place. Finally, at the end of the century, Cazin printedRabelais in his little volume, in 1782, and Bartiers issued two editions(of no importance) at Paris in 1782 and 1798. Fortunately the nineteenthcentury has occupied itself with the great 'Satyrique' in a more competentand useful fashion. 

In 1820 L'Aulnaye published through Desoer his three little volumes, printed in exquisite style, and which have other merits besides. Hisvolume of annotations, in which, that nothing might be lost of his ownnotes, he has included many things not directly relating to Rabelais, isfull of observations and curious remarks which are very useful additions toLe Duchat. One fault to be found with him is his further complication ofthe spelling. This he did in accordance with a principle that the wordsshould be referred to their real etymology. Learned though he was, Rabelais had little care to be so etymological, and it is not his theoriesbut those of the modern scholar that have been ventilated. 

Somewhat later, from 1823 to 1826, Esmangart and Johanneau issued avariorum edition in nine volumes, in which the text is often encumbered bynotes which are really too numerous, and, above all, too long. The workwas an enormous one, but the best part of it is Le Duchat's, and what isnot his is too often absolutely hypothetical and beside the truth. LeDuchat had already given too much importance to the false historicalexplanation. 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 discoverthe meaning of subtle allusions. He is neither so complicated nor so fullof riddles. We know how he has scattered the names of contemporaries abouthis work, sometimes of friends, sometimes of enemies, and withoutdisguising them under any mask. He is no more Panurge than Louis XII. IsGargantua or Francis I. Pantagruel. Rabelais says what he wants, all hewants, 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 thehistorical explanations are purely imaginary, utterly without proof, andshould the more emphatically be looked on as baseless and dismissed. Theyare radically false, and therefore both worthless and harmful. 

In 1840 there appeared in the Bibliotheque Charpentier the Rabelais in asingle duodecimo volume, begun by Charles Labiche, and, after his death, completed by M. Paul Lacroix, whose share is the larger. The text is thatof L'Aulnaye; the short footnotes, with all their brevity, contain usefulexplanations of difficult words. Amongst the editions of Rabelais this isone of the most important, because it brought him many readers andadmirers. No other has made him so well and so widely known as thisportable volume, which has been constantly reprinted. No other has been sowidely circulated, and the sale still goes on. It was, and must still belooked 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 theydeserve the foolish prejudices which have made Rabelais misunderstood, andM. 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 notbristling with the nonsensical and superfluous consonants which have givenrise to the idea that Rabelais is difficult to read, he took the troublefirst of all to note the spelling of each word. Whenever in a singleinstance he found it in accordance with modern spelling, he made it thesame throughout. The task was a hard one, and Rabelais certainly gained inclearness, but over-zeal is often fatal to a reform. In respect to itsprecision and the value of its notes, which are short and very judicious, Burgaud des Marets' edition is valuable, and is amongst those which shouldbe known and taken into account. 

Since Le Duchat all the editions have a common fault. They are not exactlyguilty of fabricating, but they set up an artificial text in the sensethat, in order to lose as little as possible, they have collected andunited what originally were variations--the revisions, in short, of theoriginal editions. Guided by the wise counsels given by Brunet in 1852 inhis Researches on the old editions of Rabelais, Pierre Jannet published thefirst three books in 1858; then, when the publication of the BibliothequeElzevirienne was discontinued, he took up the work again and finished theedition in Picard's blue library, in little volumes, each book quitedistinct. It was M. Jannet who in our days first restored the pure andexact text of Rabelais, not only without retouching it, but without makingadditions or insertions, or juxtaposition of things that were not formerlyfound together. For each of the books he has followed the last editionissued by Rabelais, and all the earlier differences he gives as variations. It is astonishing that a thing so simple and so fitting should not havebeen done before, and the result is that this absolutely exact fidelity hasrestored a lucidity which was not wanting in Rabelais's time, but which hadsince been obscured. All who have come after Jannet have followed in hispath, 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 itHad 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 appearAntic and Gottish, and dull souls forbearTo turn them o'er, lest they should only findNothing but savage monsters of a mind, --No shapen beauteous thoughts; yet when the wiseSeriously 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 writIn the old Egyptian hieroglyphic wit;Where, though you monsters and grotescoes see, You meet all mysteries of philosophy. For he was wise and sovereignly bredTo know what mankind is, how 't may be led:He stoop'd unto them, like that wise man, whoRid on a stick, when 's children would do so. For we are easy sullen things, and mustBe laugh'd aright, and cheated into trust;Whilst a black piece of phlegm, that lays aboutDull menaces, and terrifies the rout, And cajoles it, with all its peevish strengthPiteously stretch'd and botch'd up into length, Whilst the tired rabble sleepily obeySuch 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 manMade up of all that art and nature canForm from a fiery genius, --he was oneWhose soul so universally was thrownThrough all the arts of life, who understoodEach 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 tameFierce man, and moralize him into shame;Thus brave romances, while they seem to layGreat trains of lust, platonic love display;Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chanceShow'd a drunk slave, teach children temperance;Thus did the later poets nobly bringThe scene to height, making the fool the king. And, noble sir, you vigorously have trodIn this hard path, unknown, un-understoodBy its own countrymen, 'tis you appearOur 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 mustMake better mankind and embalm your dust, So undeceiving us, that now we seeAll 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 praiseOf 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 hailWith all thy art and metaphors, which must prevail. 

Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri. Imparibus restat danda secunda modis. Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam, Cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais. 

 Malevolus. 

(Reader, the Errata, which in this book are not a few, are casually lost;and therefore the Translator, not having leisure to collect them again, craves thy pardon for such as thou may'st meet with. )

The Author's Prologue to the First Book. 

Most noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice precious pockifiedblades (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 wassetting forth the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates (without allquestion the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to thatpurpose, said that he resembled the Silenes. Silenes of old were littleboxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted onthe outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and othersuch-like counterfeited pictures at discretion, to excite people untolaughter, as Silenus himself, who was the foster-father of good Bacchus, waswont to do; but within those capricious caskets were carefully preserved andkept many rich jewels and fine drugs, such as balm, ambergris, amomon, musk, civet, with several kinds of precious stones, and other things of greatprice. 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 thepeel of an onion for him, so deformed he was in body, and ridiculous in hisgesture. He had a sharp pointed nose, with the look of a bull, andcountenance of a fool: he was in his carriage simple, boorish in hisapparel, in fortune poor, unhappy in his wives, unfit for all offices in thecommonwealth, always laughing, tippling, and merrily carousing to everyone, with continual gibes and jeers, the better by those means to conceal hisdivine knowledge. Now, opening this box you would have found within it aheavenly and inestimable drug, a more than human understanding, an admirablevirtue, matchless learning, invincible courage, unimitable sobriety, certaincontentment of mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible misregard of allthat for which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail, fight, travel, toiland 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 easeand leisure, reading the pleasant titles of some books of our invention, asGargantua, Pantagruel, Whippot (Fessepinte. ), the Dignity of Codpieces, ofPease and Bacon with a Commentary, &c. , are too ready to judge that thereis nothing in them but jests, mockeries, lascivious discourse, andrecreative lies; because the outside (which is the title) is usually, without any farther inquiry, entertained with scoffing and derision. Buttruly 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, manybeing monasterially accoutred, who inwardly are nothing less than monachal, and that there are of those that wear Spanish capes, who have but little ofthe valour of Spaniards in them. Therefore is it, that you must open thebook, and seriously consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall youfind that it containeth things of far higher value than the box didpromise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so foolish as bythe title at the first sight it would appear to be. 

And put the case, that in the literal sense you meet with purposes merryand solacious enough, and consequently very correspondent to theirinscriptions, yet must not you stop there as at the melody of the charmingsyrens, but endeavour to interpret that in a sublimer sense which possiblyyou intended to have spoken in the jollity of your heart. Did you everpick the lock of a cupboard to steal a bottle of wine out of it? Tell metruly, 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 ofall other, says Plato, lib. 2, de Republica, the most philosophical? Ifyou have seen him, you might have remarked with what devotion andcircumspectness he wards and watcheth it: with what care he keeps it: howfervently he holds it: how prudently he gobbets it: with what affectionhe 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 itis, that this little is more savoury and delicious than the greatquantities of other sorts of meat, because the marrow (as Galen testifieth, 5. Facult. Nat. & 11. De usu partium) is a nourishment most perfectlyelaboured by nature. 

In imitation of this dog, it becomes you to be wise, to smell, feel andhave in estimation these fair goodly books, stuffed with high conceptions, which, though seemingly easy in the pursuit, are in the cope and encountersomewhat 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 bythese Pythagorical symbols, with assured hope, that in so doing you will atlast 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 willdisclose unto you the most glorious sacraments and dreadful mysteries, aswell in what concerneth your religion, as matters of the public state, andlife economical. 

Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was a-couchinghis Iliads and Odysses, had any thought upon those allegories, whichPlutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Cornutus squeezed out of him, and which Politian filched again from them? If you trust it, with neitherhand nor foot do you come near to my opinion, which judgeth them to havebeen as little dreamed of by Homer, as the Gospel sacraments were by Ovidin his Metamorphoses, though a certain gulligut friar (Frere Lubincroquelardon. ) and true bacon-picker would have undertaken to prove it, ifperhaps 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 newchronicles of mine? Albeit when I did dictate them, I thought upon no morethan you, who possibly were drinking the whilst as I was. For in thecomposing of this lordly book, I never lost nor bestowed any more, nor anyother time than what was appointed to serve me for taking of my bodilyrefection, that is, whilst I was eating and drinking. And indeed that isthe fittest and most proper hour wherein to write these high matters anddeep sciences: as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologues, and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, although acertain sneaking jobernol alleged that his verses smelled more of the winethan 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 ofoil! And I will glory as much when it is said of me, that I have spentmore on wine than oil, as did Demosthenes, when it was told him, that hisexpense on oil was greater than on wine. I truly hold it for an honour andpraise 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 hisOrations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthyoil-vessel. For this cause interpret you all my deeds and sayings in theperfectest sense; reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with thesefair billevezees and trifling jollities, and do what lies in you to keep mealways merry. Be frolic now, my lads, cheer up your hearts, and joyfullyread 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 drinka 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 birthOf any value, but in point of mirth;Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mindConsume, I could no apter subject find;One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;Because to laugh is proper to the man. 

Chapter 1. I. 

Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua. 

I must refer you to the great chronicle of Pantagruel for the knowledge ofthat 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 thisworld, and how from them by a direct line issued Gargantua, the father ofPantagruel: 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 moreit would please your worshipful Seniorias; according to which you have theauthority of Plato in Philebo and Gorgias; and of Flaccus, who says thatthere 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 thetime of the ark of Noah until this age. I think many are at this dayemperors, kings, dukes, princes, and popes on the earth, whose extractionis from some porters and pardon-pedlars; as, on the contrary, many are nowpoor wandering beggars, wretched and miserable, who are descended of theblood and lineage of great kings and emperors, occasioned, as I conceiveit, by the transport and revolution of kingdoms and empires, from theAssyrians to the Medes, from the Medes to the Persians, from the Persiansto the Macedonians, from the Macedonians to the Romans, from the Romans tothe Greeks, from the Greeks to the French. 

And to give you some hint concerning myself, who speaks unto you, I cannotthink but I am come of the race of some rich king or prince in formertimes; for never yet saw you any man that had a greater desire to be aking, and to be rich, than I have, and that only that I may make goodcheer, do nothing, nor care for anything, and plentifully enrich myfriends, 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 thispresent I dare wish. As for you, with the same or a better conceitconsolate yourselves in your distresses, and drink fresh if you can come byit. 

To return to our wethers, I say that by the sovereign gift of heaven, theantiquity and genealogy of Gargantua hath been reserved for our use morefull and perfect than any other except that of the Messias, whereof I meannot to speak; for it belongs not unto my purpose, and the devils, that isto say, the false accusers and dissembled gospellers, will therein opposeme. This genealogy was found by John Andrew in a meadow, which he had nearthe pole-arch, under the olive-tree, as you go to Narsay: where, as he wasmaking cast up some ditches, the diggers with their mattocks struck againsta great brazen tomb, and unmeasurably long, for they could never find theend thereof, by reason that it entered too far within the sluices ofVienne. Opening this tomb in a certain place thereof, sealed on the topwith the mark of a goblet, about which was written in Etrurian letters HicBibitur, they found nine flagons set in such order as they use to ranktheir kyles in Gascony, of which that which was placed in the middle hadunder it a big, fat, great, grey, pretty, small, mouldy, little pamphlet, smelling stronger, but no better than roses. In that book the saidgenealogy was found written all at length, in a chancery hand, not inpaper, not in parchment, nor in wax, but in the bark of an elm-tree, yet soworn with the long tract of time, that hardly could three letters togetherbe there perfectly discerned. 

I (though unworthy) was sent for thither, and with much help of thosespectacles, whereby the art of reading dim writings, and letters that donot clearly appear to the sight, is practised, as Aristotle teacheth it, did translate the book as you may see in your Pantagruelizing, that is tosay, in drinking stiffly to your own heart's desire, and reading thedreadful and horrific acts of Pantagruel. At the end of the book there wasa little treatise entitled the Antidoted Fanfreluches, or a Galimatia ofextravagant conceits. The rats and moths, or (that I may not lie) otherwicked beasts, had nibbled off the beginning: the rest I have heretosubjoined, for the reverence I bear to antiquity. 

Chapter 1. II. 

The Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia of extravagant Conceits foundin an ancient Monument. 

No sooner did the Cymbrians' overcomerPass 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 caveYou'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 holdMy 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 madeOf 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 ravenWas 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 moreOf 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 fretsAt the safe pass of tricksy crackarets:The boulter, the grand Cyclops' cousin, thoseDid 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 JoveResolved 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 pliedThat she had almost been bethwacked by it. The bargain was, that, of that throatful, sheShould 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 beefTo 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 dockShall pepper'd be under an hermit's frock. Ah! that for one she hypocrite you mustPermit 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 reignWith 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 doomTo 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 memberClose 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 todrink neat, as much as any man that then was in the world, and wouldwillingly eat salt meat. To this intent he was ordinarily well furnishedwith gammons of bacon, both of Westphalia, Mayence and Bayonne, with storeof dried neat's tongues, plenty of links, chitterlings and puddings intheir season; together with salt beef and mustard, a good deal of hard roesof powdered mullet called botargos, great provision of sausages, not ofBolonia (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-mouthedwench. These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfullyrubbing and frotting their bacon 'gainst one another, in so far, that atlast she became great with child of a fair son, and went with him unto theeleventh month; for so long, yea longer, may a woman carry her great belly, especially when it is some masterpiece of nature, and a personpredestinated to the performance, in his due time, of great exploits. AsHomer says, that the child, which Neptune begot upon the nymph, was born awhole year after the conception, that is, in the twelfth month. For, asAulus Gellius saith, lib. 3, this long time was suitable to the majesty ofNeptune, that in it the child might receive his perfect form. For the likereason Jupiter made the night, wherein he lay with Alcmena, lastforty-eight hours, a shorter time not being sufficient for the forging ofHercules, who cleansed the world of the monsters and tyrants wherewith itwas suppressed. My masters, the ancient Pantagruelists, have confirmedthat which I say, and withal declared it to be not only possible, but alsomaintained the lawful birth and legitimation of the infant born of a womanin 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 thispurpose 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, Matrilonga decem, &c. , and a thousand other fools, whose number hath beenincreased 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 uponthese grounds they have foisted in their Robidilardic, or Lapiturolive law. Gallus ff. De lib. Et posth. L. Sept. Ff. De stat. Hom. , and some otherlaws, which at this time I dare not name. By means whereof the honestwidows may without danger play at the close buttock game with might andmain, and as hard as they can, for the space of the first two months afterthe decease of their husbands. I pray you, my good lusty springal lads, ifyou find any of these females, that are worth the pains of untying thecodpiece-point, get up, ride upon them, and bring them to me; for, if theyhappen within the third month to conceive, the child should be heir to thedeceased, if, before he died, he had no other children, and the mothershall 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 ofthe Emperor Octavian, never prostituted herself to her belly-bumpers, butwhen she found herself with child, after the manner of ships, that receivenot their steersman till they have their ballast and lading. And if anyblame them for this their rataconniculation, and reiterated lechery upontheir pregnancy and big-belliedness, seeing beasts, in the like exigent oftheir fulness, will never suffer the male-masculant to encroach them, theiranswer will be, that those are beasts, but they are women, very wellskilled in the pretty vales and small fees of the pleasant trade andmysteries of superfetation: as Populia heretofore answered, according tothe relation of Macrobius, lib. 2. Saturnal. If the devil will not havethem 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 ofher child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gutfall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escapedher in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten atdinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros. Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls, or in the freshguimo meadows. Guimo meadows are those that for their fruitfulness may bemowed twice a year. Of those fat beeves they had killed three hundredsixty-seven thousand and fourteen, to be salted at Shrovetide, that in theentering of the spring they might have plenty of powdered beef, wherewithto season their mouths at the beginning of their meals, and to taste theirwine the better. 

They had abundance of tripes, as you have heard, and they were sodelicious, that everyone licked his fingers. But the mischief was this, that, for all men could do, there was no possibility to keep them long inthat relish; for in a very short while they would have stunk, which hadbeen an undecent thing. It was therefore concluded, that they should beall of them gulched up, without losing anything. To this effect theyinvited all the burghers of Sainais, of Suille, of the Roche-Clermaud, ofVaugaudry, without omitting the Coudray, Monpensier, the Gue de Vede, andother their neighbours, all stiff drinkers, brave fellows, and good playersat the kyles. The good man Grangousier took great pleasure in theircompany, 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, saidhe, be at the chewing of ordure, that would eat the case wherein it was. Notwithstanding these admonitions, she did eat sixteen quarters, twobushels, three pecks and a pipkin full. O the fair fecality wherewith sheswelled, 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 pleasantbagpipes, they danced so gallantly, that it was a sweet and heavenly sportto see them so frolic. 

Chapter 1. V. 

The Discourse of the Drinkers. 

Then did they fall upon the chat of victuals and some belly furniture to besnatched at in the very same place. Which purpose was no sooner mentioned, but forthwith began flagons to go, gammons to trot, goblets to fly, greatbowls to ting, glasses to ring. Draw, reach, fill, mix, give it me withoutwater. So, my friend, so, whip me off this glass neatly, bring me hithersome claret, a full weeping glass till it run over. A cessation and trucewith 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 socurrently 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 drinkbut at my hours, like the Pope's mule. And I never drink but in mybreviary, like a fair father guardian. Which was first, thirst ordrinking? Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would have drunkwithout being athirst? Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatiopraesupponit habitum. I am learned, you see: Foecundi calices quem nonfecere disertum? We poor innocents drink but too much without thirst. NotI truly, who am a sinner, for I never drink without thirst, either presentor future. To prevent it, as you know, I drink for the thirst to come. Idrink eternally. This is to me an eternity of drinking, and drinking ofeternity. Let us sing, let us drink, and tune up our roundelays. Where ismy funnel? What, it seems I do not drink but by an attorney? Do you wetyourselves to dry, or do you dry to wet you? Pish, I understand not therhetoric (theoric, I should say), but I help myself somewhat by thepractice. Baste! enough! I sup, I wet, I humect, I moisten my gullet, Idrink, 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 deadwithout drink, and my soul ready to fly into some marsh amongst frogs; thesoul never dwells in a dry place, drouth kills it. O you butlers, creatorsof new forms, make me of no drinker a drinker, a perennity andeverlastingness of sprinkling and bedewing me through these my parched andsinewy bowels. He drinks in vain that feels not the pleasure of it. Thisentereth into my veins, --the pissing tools and urinal vessels shall havenothing of it. I would willingly wash the tripes of the calf which Iapparelled this morning. I have pretty well now ballasted my stomach andstuffed my paunch. If the papers of my bonds and bills could drink as wellas I do, my creditors would not want for wine when they come to see me, orwhen they are to make any formal exhibition of their rights to what of methey can demand. This hand of yours spoils your nose. O how many othersuch will enter here before this go out! What, drink so shallow? It isenough to break both girds and petrel. This is called a cup ofdissimulation, 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 avice (La bouteille est fermee a bouchon, et le flaccon a vis. ). Bravelyand well played upon the words! Our fathers drank lustily, and emptiedtheir cans. Well cacked, well sung! Come, let us drink: will you sendnothing to the river? Here is one going to wash the tripes. I drink nomore than a sponge. I drink like a Templar knight. And I, tanquamsponsus. And I, sicut terra sine aqua. Give me a synonymon for a gammonof bacon. It is the compulsory of drinkers: it is a pulley. By apulley-rope wine is let down into a cellar, and by a gammon into thestomach. Hey! now, boys, hither, some drink, some drink. There is notrouble in it. Respice personam, pone pro duos, bus non est in usu. If Icould get up as well as I can swallow down, I had been long ere now veryhigh in the air. 

Thus became Tom Tosspot rich, --thus went in the tailor's stitch. Thus didBacchus conquer th' Inde--thus Philosophy, Melinde. A little rain allays agreat deal of wind: long tippling breaks the thunder. But if there camesuch liquor from my ballock, would you not willingly thereafter suck theudder whence it issued? Here, page, fill! I prithee, forget me not whenit comes to my turn, and I will enter the election I have made of thee intothe very register of my heart. Sup, Guillot, and spare not, there issomewhat 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 glassmust follow its leader. I was wont heretofore to drink out all, but now Ileave nothing. Let us not make too much haste; it is requisite we carryall along with us. Heyday, here are tripes fit for our sport, and, inearnest, excellent godebillios of the dun ox (you know) with the blackstreak. 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 vousprie. ). Sparrows will not eat unless you bob them on the tail, nor can Idrink if I be not fairly spoke to. The concavities of my body are likeanother Hell for their capacity. Lagonaedatera (lagon lateris cavitas:aides orcus: and eteros alter. ). There is not a corner, nor coney-burrow inall my body, where this wine doth not ferret out my thirst. Ho, this willbang it soundly. But this shall banish it utterly. Let us wind our hornsby the sound of flagons and bottles, and cry aloud, that whoever hath losthis thirst come not hither to seek it. Long clysters of drinking are to bevoided without doors. The great God made the planets, and we make theplatters neat. I have the word of the gospel in my mouth, Sitio. Thestone called asbestos is not more unquenchable than the thirst of mypaternity. Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston, but the thirst goesaway with drinking. I have a remedy against thirst, quite contrary to thatwhich 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 willnever come upon you. There I catch you, I awake you. Argus had a hundredeyes for his sight, a butler should have (like Briareus) a hundred handswherewith to fill us wine indefatigably. Hey now, lads, let us moistenourselves, 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; tothee, countryman, I drink to thee, good fellow, comrade to thee, lusty, lively! Ha, la, la, that was drunk to some purpose, and bravely gulpedover. 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 taffetaswine, --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 thisbout, for I have got one trick. Ex hoc in hoc. There is no enchantmentnor charm there, every one of you hath seen it. My 'prenticeship is out, Iam a free man at this trade. I am prester mast (Prestre mace, maistrepasse. ), Prish, Brum! I should say, master past. O the drinkers, thosethat are a-dry, O poor thirsty souls! Good page, my friend, fill me heresome, and crown the wine, I pray thee. Like a cardinal! Natura abhorretvacuum. Would you say that a fly could drink in this? This is after thefashion 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; whereuponGrangousier arose from off the grass, and fell to comfort her very honestlyand kindly, suspecting that she was in travail, and told her that it wasbest for her to sit down upon the grass under the willows, because she waslike very shortly to see young feet, and that therefore it was convenientshe should pluck up her spirits, and take a good heart of new at the fresharrival of her baby; saying to her withal, that although the pain wassomewhat grievous to her, it would be but of short continuance, and thatthe succeeding joy would quickly remove that sorrow, in such sort that sheshould 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 ofanother. Ha! said she, so well as you speak at your own ease, you that aremen! Well, then, in the name of God, I'll do my best, seeing that you willhave it so, but would to God that it were cut off from you! What? saidGrangousier. Ha, said she, you are a good man indeed, you understand itwell enough. What, my member? said he. By the goat's blood, if it pleaseyou, that shall be done instantly; cause bring hither a knife. Alas, saidshe, the Lord forbid, and pray Jesus to forgive me! I did not say it frommy heart, therefore let it alone, and do not do it neither more nor lessany kind of harm for my speaking so to you. But I am like to have workenough 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 fourforemost oxen do the work. I will yet go drink one whiff more, and if inthe mean time anything befall you that may require my presence, I will beso near to you, that, at the first whistling in your fist, I shall be withyou 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 tastetruly bad enough. This they thought had been the child, but it was herfundament, that was slipped out with the mollification of her straightentrail, which you call the bum-gut, and that merely by eating of too manytripes, as we have showed you before. Whereupon an old ugly trot in thecompany, who had the repute of an expert she-physician, and was come fromBrisepaille, near to Saint Genou, three score years before, made her sohorrible a restrictive and binding medicine, and whereby all her larris, arse-pipes, and conduits were so oppilated, stopped, obstructed, andcontracted, that you could hardly have opened and enlarged them with yourteeth, which is a terrible thing to think upon; seeing the Devil at themass at Saint Martin's was puzzled with the like task, when with his teethhe had lengthened out the parchment whereon he wrote the tittle-tattle oftwo young mangy whores. By this inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrixwere presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped, andso, entering into the hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even aboveher shoulders, where the vein divides itself into two, and from thencetaking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear. Assoon 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, Somedrink, 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 thecountries at once of Beauce and Bibarois. I doubt me, that you do notthoroughly believe the truth of this strange nativity. Though you believeit 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. Buttell me, if it had been the will of God, would you say that he could not doit? Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock or inpulregafizeyour spirits with these vain thoughts and idle conceits; for I tell you, itis not impossible with God, and, if he pleased, all women henceforth shouldbring forth their children at the ear. Was not Bacchus engendered out ofthe very thigh of Jupiter? Did not Roquetaillade come out at his mother'sheel, and Crocmoush from the slipper of his nurse? Was not Minerva born ofthe brain, even through the ear of Jove? Adonis, of the bark of a myrrhtree; and Castor and Pollux of the doupe of that egg which was laid andhatched by Leda? But you would wonder more, and with far greateramazement, if I should now present you with that chapter of Plinius, wherein he treateth of strange births, and contrary to nature, and yet amnot I so impudent a liar as he was. Read the seventh book of his NaturalHistory, chap. 3, and trouble not my head any more about this. 

Chapter 1. VII. 

After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled, bibbed, and curried the can. 

The good man Grangousier, drinking and making merry with the rest, heardthe horrible noise which his son had made as he entered into the light ofthis 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 isto say, How great and nimble a throat thou hast. Which the companyhearing, said that verily the child ought to be called Gargantua; becauseit was the first word that after his birth his father had spoke, inimitation, and at the example of the ancient Hebrews; whereunto hecondescended, and his mother was very well pleased therewith. In themeanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a tirelaregot, thatis, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he carried to thefont, and there baptized, according to the manner of good Christians. 

Immediately thereafter were appointed for him seventeen thousand, ninehundred, and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and Brehemond, tofurnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible to find a nursesufficient for him in all the country, considering the great quantity ofmilk that was requisite for his nourishment; although there were notwanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who affirmed that his ownmother gave him suck, and that she could draw out of her breasts onethousand, four hundred, two pipes, and nine pails of milk at every time. 

Which indeed is not probable, and this point hath been found duggishlyscandalous and offensive to tender ears, for that it savoured a little ofheresy. 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 forhim 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 worththe seeing, for he was a fine boy, had a burly physiognomy, and almost tenchins. He cried very little, but beshit himself every hour: for, to speaktruly of him, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors, both byreason of his natural complexion and the accidental disposition which hadbefallen him by his too much quaffing of the Septembral juice. Yet withouta 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, andwhat grievous quarter soever he kept, in bringing him some drink, he wouldbe 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 (swearingby her fig), how he was so accustomed to this kind of way, that, at thesound of pints and flagons, he would on a sudden fall into an ecstasy, asif he had then tasted of the joys of paradise; so that they, uponconsideration of this, his divine complexion, would every morning, to cheerhim up, play with a knife upon the glasses, on the bottles with theirstopples, and on the pottle-pots with their lids and covers, at the soundwhereof he became gay, did leap for joy, would loll and rock himself in thecradle, then nod with his head, monochordizing with his fingers, andbarytonizing with his tail. 

Chapter 1. VIII. 

How they apparelled Gargantua. 

Being of this age, his father ordained to have clothes made to him in hisown livery, which was white and blue. To work then went the tailors, andwith great expedition were those clothes made, cut, and sewed, according tothe fashion that was then in request. I find by the ancient records orpancarts, to be seen in the chamber of accounts, or court of the exchequerat Montsoreau, that he was accoutred in manner as followeth. To make himevery shirt of his were taken up nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud linen, and two hundred for the gussets, in manner of cushions, which they putunder his armpits. His shirt was not gathered nor plaited, for theplaiting of shirts was not found out till the seamstresses (when the pointof their needle (Besongner du cul, Englished The eye of the needle. ) wasbroken) began to work and occupy with the tail. There were taken up forhis doublet, eight hundred and thirteen ells of white satin, and for hispoints fifteen hundred and nine dogs' skins and a half. Then was it thatmen began to tie their breeches to their doublets, and not their doubletsto their breeches: for it is against nature, as hath most amply beenshowed by Ockham upon the exponibles of Master Haultechaussade. 

For his breeches were taken up eleven hundred and five ells and a third ofwhite broadcloth. They were cut in the form of pillars, chamfered, channelled and pinked behind that they might not over-heat his reins: andwere, within the panes, puffed out with the lining of as much blue damaskas 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 gallantlyfastened with two enamelled clasps, in each of which was set a greatemerald, as big as an orange; for, as says Orpheus, lib. De lapidibus, andPlinius, libro ultimo, it hath an erective virtue and comfortative of thenatural member. The exiture, outjecting or outstanding, of his codpiecewas of the length of a yard, jagged and pinked, and withal bagging, andstrutting out with the blue damask lining, after the manner of hisbreeches. But had you seen the fair embroidery of the small needleworkpurl, and the curiously interlaced knots, by the goldsmith's art set outand trimmed with rich diamonds, precious rubies, fine turquoises, costlyemeralds, and Persian pearls, you would have compared it to a faircornucopia, or horn of abundance, such as you see in antiques, or as Rheagave 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, fullof juice, full of flower, full of fruit, and all manner of delight. I avowGod, it would have done one good to have seen him, but I will tell you moreof him in the book which I have made of the dignity of codpieces. Onething I will tell you, that as it was both long and large, so was it wellfurnished and victualled within, nothing like unto the hypocriticalcodpieces of some fond wooers and wench-courtiers, which are stuffed onlywith wind, to the great prejudice of the female sex. 

For his shoes were taken up four hundred and six ells of bluecrimson-velvet, and were very neatly cut by parallel lines, joined inuniform cylinders. For the soling of them were made use of eleven hundredhides of brown cows, shapen like the tail of a keeling. 

For his coat were taken up eighteen hundred ells of blue velvet, dyed ingrain, embroidered in its borders with fair gilliflowers, in the middledecked with silver purl, intermixed with plates of gold and store ofpearls, hereby showing that in his time he would prove an especial goodfellow and singular whipcan. 

His girdle was made of three hundred ells and a half of silken serge, halfwhite 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 hidalgosborrachos 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 mancould wish. 

His purse was made of the cod of an elephant, which was given him by HerrPracontal, proconsul of Lybia. 

For his gown were employed nine thousand six hundred ells, wantingtwo-thirds, of blue velvet, as before, all so diagonally purled, that bytrue perspective issued thence an unnamed colour, like that you see in thenecks of turtle-doves or turkey-cocks, which wonderfully rejoiced the eyesof the beholders. For his bonnet or cap were taken up three hundred, twoells 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 theMarrabaise fashion, made like the cover of a pasty, would one time or otherbring a mischief on those that wore them. For his plume, he wore a fairgreat blue feather, plucked from an onocrotal of the country of Hircania thewild, very prettily hanging down over his right ear. For the jewel orbrooch which in his cap he carried, he had in a cake of gold, weighing threescore and eight marks, a fair piece enamelled, wherein was portrayed a man'sbody with two heads, looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, twoarses, such as Plato, in Symposio, says was the mystical beginning of man'snature; 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 mulierjunctim propriissime homo. To wear about his neck, he had a golden chain, weighing twenty-five thousand and sixty-three marks of gold, the linksthereof being made after the manner of great berries, amongst which were setin work green jaspers engraven and cut dragon-like, all environed with beamsand sparks, as king Nicepsos of old was wont to wear them: and it reacheddown to the very bust of the rising of his belly, whereby he reaped greatbenefit all his life long, as the Greek physicians know well enough. Forhis gloves were put in work sixteen otters' skins, and three of theloupgarous, or men-eating wolves, for the bordering of them: and of thisstuff were they made, by the appointment of the Cabalists of Sanlouand. Asfor the rings which his father would have him to wear, to renew the ancientmark of nobility, he had on the forefinger of his left hand a carbuncle asbig as an ostrich's egg, enchased very daintily in gold of the fineness of aTurkey seraph. Upon the middle finger of the same hand he had a ring madeof four metals together, of the strangest fashion that ever was seen; sothat the steel did not crash against the gold, nor the silver crush thecopper. All this was made by Captain Chappuys, and Alcofribas his goodagent. On the medical finger of his right hand he had a ring madespire-wise, wherein was set a perfect Balas ruby, a pointed diamond, anda Physon emerald, of an inestimable value. For Hans Carvel, the king ofMelinda's jeweller, esteemed them at the rate of threescore nine millions, eight hundred ninety-four thousand, and eighteen French crowns of Berry, andat 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, bywhich his father would give us to understand that his son to him was aheavenly joy; for the white did signify gladness, pleasure, delight, andrejoicing, and the blue, celestial things. I know well enough that, inreading this, you laugh at the old drinker, and hold this exposition ofcolours to be very extravagant, and utterly disagreeable to reason, becausewhite 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 Iuse towards you, or any else; only now and then I will mention a word ortwo of my bottle. What is it that induceth you, what stirs you up tobelieve, 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 wisein that he did not set his name to it. But, besides, I know not what Ishould rather admire in him, his presumption or his sottishness. Hispresumption and overweening, for that he should without reason, withoutcause, or without any appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by hisprivate authority, what things should be denotated and signified by thecolour: which is the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bearsway in stead of equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with theevidence of reason satisfy their readers. His sottishness and want ofspirit, in that he thought that, without any other demonstration orsufficient argument, the world would be pleased to make his blockish andridiculous impositions the rule of their devices. In effect, according tothe 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 highround 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 theirpages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves, fringed thecurtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns, composed songs, and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jugglings and unworthy basetricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest matrons and most reverendsciences. In the like darkness and mist of ignorance are wrapped up thesevain-glorious courtiers and name-transposers, who, going about in theirimpresas to signify esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere--andbirds' pennes for pains--l'ancholie (which is the flower colombine) formelancholy--a waning moon or crescent, to show the increasing or rising ofone's fortune--a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt--non and acorslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabit, it shall not last), unlit sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, agraduated person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; whichare equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that afox's tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of acowsherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after therestitution 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 signifythat I am in pain--a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much for't--onepissing upwards for a bishop--the bottom of a pair of breeches for a vesselfull of fart-hings--a codpiece for the office of the clerks of thesentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English bears it, forthe tail of a codfish--and a dog's turd for the dainty turret wherein liesthe love of my sweetheart. Far otherwise did heretofore the sages ofEgypt, when they wrote by letters, which they called hieroglyphics, whichnone understood who were not skilled in the virtue, property, and nature ofthe things represented by them. Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greekcomposed 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 LordAdmiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus. But mylittle skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail nofurther, therefore must I return to the port from whence I came. Yet do Ihope one day to write more at large of these things, and to show both byphilosophical arguments and authorities, received and approved of by andfrom all antiquity, what, and how many colours there are in nature, andwhat may be signified by every one of them, if God save the mould of mycap, 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 atrandom, but upon just and very good grounds: which you may perceive to betrue, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give ear towhat presently I shall expound unto you. 

Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as goodand evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure andpain, joy and grief, --and so of others, --if you couple them in such mannerthat the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the contrary of theother, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary must answer tothe 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 ofthe contraries of the first kind be consonant to one of those of thesecond, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue is good, soshall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice, have the sameconnection, for vice is evil. 

This logical rule being understood, take these two contraries, joy andsadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are physicallycontrary. If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by good reason thenshould white import joy. Nor is this signification instituted by humanimposition, but by the universal consent of the world received, whichphilosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an uncontrollableright of force in all countries whatsoever. For you know well enough thatall people, and all languages and nations, except the ancient Syracusansand certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when they meanoutwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and all mourningis done with black. Which general consent is not without some argument andreason in nature, the which every man may by himself very suddenlycomprehend, without the instruction of any--and this we call the law ofnature. By virtue of the same natural instinct we know that by white allthe world hath understood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight. Informer times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, andfortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunateones with black. Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic? It isblack and dark by the privation of light. Doth not the light comfort allthe world? And it is more white than anything else. Which to prove, Icould direct you to the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but anevangelical testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that, at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicutlux, his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsomewhiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure ofthe eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to theword of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, waswont 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 seethe light of Heaven? In that colour did the angels testify the joy of thewhole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20, and at hisascension, Acts 1. With the like colour of vesture did St. John theEvangelist, Apoc. 4. 7, see the faithful clothed in the heavenly and blessedJerusalem. 

Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories, and you shall find thatthe town of Alba (the first pattern of Rome) was founded and so named byreason of a white sow that was seen there. You shall likewise find inthose stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished his enemies, wasby decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he usually rode ina chariot drawn by white horses: which in the ovation triumph was also thecustom; for by no sign or colour would they so significantly express thejoy of their coming as by the white. You shall there also find, howPericles, the general of the Athenians, would needs have that part of hisarmy unto whose lot befell the white beans, to spend the whole day inmirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were a-fighting. A thousandother examples and places could I allege to this purpose, but that it isnot here where I should do it. 

By understanding hereof, you may resolve one problem, which AlexanderAphrodiseus hath accounted unanswerable: why the lion, who with his onlycry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth only a white cock?For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is because thepresence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of allterrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a whitecock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specificalquality, than with a lion. He saith, furthermore, that devils have beenoften seen in the shape of lions, which at the sight of a white cock havepresently vanished. This is the cause why Galli or Gallices (so are theFrenchmen called, because they are naturally white as milk, which theGreeks call Gala, ) do willingly wear in their caps white feathers, for bynature they are of a candid disposition, merry, kind, gracious, andwell-beloved, and for their cognizance and arms have the whitest flowerof any, the Flower de luce or Lily. 

If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand joy andgladness, I answer, that the analogy and uniformity is thus. For, as thewhite doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the sight, wherebythe optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the opinion ofAristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you may likewiseperceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered with snow, howyou will complain that you cannot see well; as Xenophon writes to havehappened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth, lib. 10, de usupartium: just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, andsuffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so faron that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequenceof life itself, by this perichary or extremity of gladness, as Galen saith, lib. 12, method, lib. 5, de locis affectis, and lib. 2, de symptomatumcausis. And as it hath come to pass in former times, witness MarcusTullius, lib. 1, Quaest. Tuscul. , Verrius, Aristotle, Titus Livius, in hisrelation 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 asAvicen speaketh, in 2 canon et lib. De virib. Cordis, of the saffron, thatit doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of it excessively, it willby a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it altogether of life. Here peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. 1, Probl. , cap. 19, and that for acause. But what? It seems I am entered further into this point than Iintended at the first. Here, therefore, will I strike sail, referring therest to that book of mine which handleth this matter to the full. Meanwhile, in a word I will tell you, that blue doth certainly signifyheaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and symbols that whitesignifieth joy and pleasure. 

Chapter 1. XI. 

Of the youthful age of Gargantua. 

Gargantua, from three years upwards unto five, was brought up andinstructed 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: andin sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed and rolled up anddown himself in the mire and dirt--he blurred and sullied his nose withfilth--he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of scurvy stuff--hetrod down his shoes in the heel--at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, andran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to hisfather. He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his nose onhis sleeve--he did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage, anddabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere--he would drink in his slipper, and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier. He sharpened his teethwith a top, washed his hands with his broth, and combed his head with abowl. 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. Hedid eat his cake sometimes without bread, would bite in laughing, and laughin biting. Oftentimes did he spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, pissagainst the sun, and hide himself in the water for fear of rain. He wouldstrike out of the cold iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggleit. 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, putthe plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pumpone 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 aself-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 foundit very convenient so to do. He would eat cabbage, and shite beets, --knewflies in a dish of milk, and would make them lose their feet. He wouldscrape paper, blur parchment, then run away as hard as he could. He wouldpull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then reckon without hishost. He would beat the bushes without catching the birds, thought themoon was made of green cheese, and that bladders are lanterns. Out of onesack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass'spart to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet. He took thecranes at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made linkafter link. He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from thecock to the ass, and put one ripe between two green. By robbing Peter hepaid Paul, he kept the moon from the wolves, and hoped to catch larks ifever the heavens should fall. He did make of necessity virtue, of suchbread 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 eatout of the dish with him, and he with them. He would bite their ears, andthey would scratch his nose--he would blow in their arses, and they wouldlick his chaps. 

But hearken, good fellows, the spigot ill betake you, and whirl round yourbrains, if you do not give ear! This little lecher was always groping hisnurses and governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsyturvy, harribourriquet, with a Yacco haick, hyck gio! handling them very rudely injumbling and tumbling them to keep them going; for he had already begun toexercise the tools, and put his codpiece in practice. Which codpiece, orbraguette, his governesses did every day deck up and adorn with fairnosegays, curious rubies, sweet flowers, and fine silken tufts, and verypleasantly would pass their time in taking you know what between theirfingers, and dandling it, till it did revive and creep up to the bulk andstiffness of a suppository, or street magdaleon, which is a hard rolled-upsalve spread upon leather. Then did they burst out in laughing, when theysaw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them wouldcall it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin, her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, hermembretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, herfemale adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel forladies. And some of the other women would give it these names, --mybunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my prettyborer, my coney-burrow-ferret, my little piercer, my augretine, my danglinghangers, 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 myfaith, 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 bethen Monsieur sans queue, the curtailed master. And that he might play andsport 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 ofMyrebalais. 

Chapter 1. XII. 

Of Gargantua's wooden horses. 

Afterwards, that he might be all his lifetime a good rider, they made tohim a fair great horse of wood, which he did make leap, curvet, jerk outbehind, 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 themonks of Coultibo (according to the variety of their holidays) use to dotheir clothes, from bay brown, to sorrel, dapple-grey, mouse-dun, deer-colour, roan, cow-colour, gingioline, skewed colour, piebald, and thecolour of the savage elk. 

Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for dailyservice 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 twelvespare horses, and seven horses for post; and all these were lodged in hisown chamber, close by his bedside. One day the Lord of Breadinbag(Painensac. ) came to visit his father in great bravery, and with a gallanttrain: and, at the same time, to see him came likewise the Duke ofFreemeal (Francrepas. ) and the Earl of Wetgullet (Mouillevent. ). The housetruly for so many guests at once was somewhat narrow, but especially thestables; whereupon the steward and harbinger of the said Lord Breadinbag, to know if there were any other empty stable in the house, came toGargantua, a little young lad, and secretly asked him where the stables ofthe 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 secondhall 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 tothe steward, This child deceives us, for the stables are never on the topof the house. You may be mistaken, said the steward, for I know someplaces at Lyons, at the Basmette, at Chaisnon, and elsewhere, which havetheir stables at the very tops of the houses: so it may be that behind thehouse there is a way to come to this ascent. But I will question with himfurther. Then said he to Gargantua, My pretty little boy, whither do youlead us? To the stable, said he, of my great horses. We are almost cometo it; we have but these stairs to go up at. Then leading them alongstanother great hall, he brought them into his chamber, and, opening thedoor, 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 onthem with a great lever. I will bestow upon you, said he, this Frieslandhorse; I had him from Frankfort, yet will I give him you; for he is apretty little nag, and will go very well, with a tessel of goshawks, half adozen of spaniels, and a brace of greyhounds: thus are you king of thehares and partridges for all this winter. By St. John, said they, now weare 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 tolaugh at the jest. As they were going down again thus amazed, he askedthem, Will you have a whimwham (Aubeliere. )? What is that, said they? Itis, 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 prettywell quipped and larded, in my opinion. O my jolly dapper boy, thou hastgiven us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die. I think so, saidhe, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay aperfect papelard, that is, dissembler. Well, well, said the harbinger. But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother'ssmock. Sixteen, quoth the harbinger. You do not speak gospel, saidGargantua, for there is cent before, and cent behind, and you did notreckon them ill, considering the two under holes. When? said theharbinger. Even then, said Gargantua, when they made a shovel of your noseto take up a quarter of dirt, and of your throat a funnel, wherewith to putit into another vessel, because the bottom of the old one was out. Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater. Farewell, mastertattler, God keep you, so goodly are the words which you come out with, andso 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 fallthe great lever, which he had put upon their backs; whereupon Gargantuasaid, What a devil! you are, it seems, but bad horsemen, that suffer yourbilder to fail you when you need him most. If you were to go from hence toCahusac, whether had you rather, ride on a gosling or lead a sow in aleash? I had rather drink, said the harbinger. With this they enteredinto the lower hall, where the company was, and relating to them this newstory, they made them laugh like a swarm of flies. 

Chapter 1. XIII. 

How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his fatherGrangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech. 

About the end of the fifth year, Grangousier returning from the conquest ofthe Canarians, went by the way to see his son Gargantua. There was hefilled with joy, as such a father might be at the sight of such a child ofhis: and whilst he kissed and embraced him, he asked many childishquestions of him about divers matters, and drank very freely with him andwith his governesses, of whom in great earnest he asked, amongst otherthings, whether they had been careful to keep him clean and sweet. To thisGargantua answered, that he had taken such a course for that himself, thatin all the country there was not to be found a cleanlier boy than he. Howis that? said Grangousier. I have, answered Gargantua, by a long andcurious experience, found out a means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, themost 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 begood; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to myfundament. Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner thatwas comfortable. At another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after thatI wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but therewas such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a poxtake 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 madethem, and of her that wore them! This hurt I cured by wiping myself with apage's cap, garnished with a feather after the Switzers' fashion. 

Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it Iwiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched andexulcerated all my perinee. Of this I recovered the next morningthereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most excellentperfume and scent of the Arabian Benin. After that I wiped me with sage, with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with gourd-leaves, withbeets, 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 thesheets, in the coverlet, in the curtains, with a cushion, with arrashangings, with a green carpet, with a table-cloth, with a napkin, with ahandkerchief, with a combing-cloth; in all which I found more pleasure thando the mangy dogs when you rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, whichtorchecul 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 andknot of the matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, withthatch-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, thatthou dost rhyme already? Yes, yes, my lord the king, answered Gargantua, Ican rhyme gallantly, and rhyme till I become hoarse with rheum. Hark, whatour privy says to the skiters:

Shittard, Squirtard, Crackard, Turdous, Thy bungHath flungSome dung On us:Filthard, Cackard, Stinkard, St. Antony's fire seize on thy toane (bone?), If thyDirtyDounby Thou do not wipe, ere thou be gone. 

Will you have any more of it? Yes, yes, answered Grangousier. Then, saidGargantua, A Roundelay. 

In shitting yes'day I did knowThe 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 SignorBrought 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 guardedMy 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 eversince have retained them in the budget of my memory. 

Let us return to our purpose, said Grangousier. What, said Gargantua, toskite? 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 blankand gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus? Yes, truly, saidGrangousier. 

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 mustbefore we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, saidGrangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee veryshortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, byG--, for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in thistorcheculative, or wipe-bummatory discourse, and by my beard I swear, forone puncheon, thou shalt have threescore pipes, I mean of the good Bretonwine, 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 andunpleasant torchecul; then with a hat. Of hats, note that some are shorn, and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered with taffeties, and otherswith satin. The best of all these is the shaggy hat, for it makes a veryneat abstersion of the fecal matter. 

Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with acalf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with anattorney'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 isnone 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 minehonour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderfulpleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of thetemporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gutand the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions ofthe heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes anddemigods 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 agoose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion ofMaster 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 withadmiration, considering the high reach and marvellous understanding of hisson Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip, king of Macedon, knewthe great wit of his son Alexander by his skilful managing of a horse; forhis horse Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventureto 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, andputting another out of his jawbone. This by Alexander being considered, one day in the hippodrome (which was a place appointed for the breaking andmanaging of great horses), he perceived that the fury of the horseproceeded merely from the fear he had of his own shadow, whereupon gettingon 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 hisfather, knowing the divine judgment that was in him, caused him mostcarefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highlyrenowned above all the philosophers of Greece. After the same manner Itell you, that by this only discourse, which now I have here had before youwith my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth participate ofsome divinity, and that, if he be well taught, and have that educationwhich is fitting, he will attain to a supreme degree of wisdom. Thereforewill I commit him to some learned man, to have him indoctrinated accordingto his capacity, and will spare no cost. Presently they appointed him agreat sophister-doctor, called Master Tubal Holofernes, who taught him hisABC so well, that he could say it by heart backwards; and about this he wasfive years and three months. Then read he to him Donat, Le Facet, Theodolet, and Alanus in parabolis. About this he was thirteen years, sixmonths, and two weeks. But you must remark that in the mean time he didlearn to write in Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books--forthe art of printing was not then in use--and did ordinarily carry a greatpen and inkhorn, weighing about seven thousand quintals (that is, 700, 000pound weight), the penner whereof was as big and as long as the greatpillars of Enay, and the horn was hanging to it in great iron chains, itbeing of the wideness of a tun of merchant ware. After that he read untohim the book de modis significandi, with the commentaries of Hurtbise, ofFasquin, of Tropdieux, of Gualhaut, of John Calf, of Billonio, ofBerlinguandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more thaneighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that, to trymasteries in school disputes with his condisciples, he would recite it byheart 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 thecompost for knowing the age of the moon, the seasons of the year, and tidesof the sea, on which he spent sixteen years and two months, and that justlyat the time that his said preceptor died of the French pox, which was inthe year one thousand four hundred and twenty. Afterwards he got an oldcoughing 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, andDormi secure for the holidays, and some other of such like mealy stuff, byreading 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 DeputeKing of Papeligosse, he found that it were better for him to learn nothingat all, than to be taught such-like books, under such schoolmasters;because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness, and their wisdom butblunt foppish toys, serving only to bastardize good and noble spirits, andto corrupt all the flower of youth. That it is so, take, said he, anyyoung boy of this time who hath only studied two years, --if he have not abetter judgment, a better discourse, and that expressed in better termsthan your son, with a completer carriage and civility to all manner ofpersons, account me for ever hereafter a very clounch and bacon-slicer ofBrene. This pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that it shouldbe done. At night at supper, the said Des Marays brought in a young pageof his, of Ville-gouges, called Eudemon, so neat, so trim, so handsome inhis apparel, so spruce, with his hair in so good order, and so sweet andcomely in his behaviour, that he had the resemblance of a little angel morethan of a human creature. Then he said to Grangousier, Do you see thisyoung boy? He is not as yet full twelve years old. Let us try, if itplease you, what difference there is betwixt the knowledge of the dotingMateologians of old time and the young lads that are now. The trialpleased 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 hishand, a clear and open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyessteady, 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 withall due observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up. In theend he prayed him, that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst theleast of his servants; for other favour at that time desired he none ofheaven, but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service. Allthis was by him delivered with such proper gestures, such distinctpronunciation, so pleasant a delivery, in such exquisite fine terms, and sogood Latin, that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an Aemilius of thetime past, than a youth of this age. But all the countenance thatGargantua kept was, that he fell to crying like a cow, and cast down hisface, hiding it with his cap, nor could they possibly draw one word fromhim, no more than a fart from a dead ass. Whereat his father was sogrievously vexed that he would have killed Master Jobelin, but the said DesMarays withheld him from it by fair persuasions, so that at length hepacified his wrath. Then Grangousier commanded he should be paid hiswages, that they should whittle him up soundly, like a sophister, with gooddrink, 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 dieas drunk as a Switzer. Master Jobelin being gone out of the house, Grangousier consulted with the Viceroy what schoolmaster they should choosefor him, and it was betwixt them resolved that Ponocrates, the tutor ofEudemon, should have the charge, and that they should go altogether toParis, to know what was the study of the young men of France at that time. 

Chapter 1. XVI. 

How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rodeon; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce. 

In the same season Fayoles, the fourth King of Numidia, sent out of thecountry of Africa to Grangousier the most hideously great mare that everwas seen, and of the strangest form, for you know well enough how it issaid that Africa always is productive of some new thing. She was as big assix elephants, and had her feet cloven into fingers, like Julius Caesar'shorse, with slouch-hanging ears, like the goats in Languedoc, and a littlehorn on her buttock. She was of a burnt sorrel hue, with a little mixtureof dapple-grey spots, but above all she had a horrible tail; for it waslittle 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 orhair-plaits wrought within one another, no otherwise than as the beards areupon 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, itis so long and heavy. You female lechers in the plain countries have nosuch tails. And she was brought by sea in three carricks and a brigantineunto the harbour of Olone in Thalmondois. When Grangousier saw her, Hereis, said he, what is fit to carry my son to Paris. So now, in the name ofGod, all will be well. He will in times coming be a great scholar. If itwere not, my masters, for the beasts, we should live like clerks. The nextmorning--after they had drunk, you must understand--they took theirjourney; Gargantua, his pedagogue Ponocrates, and his train, and with themEudemon, 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 thembuskins. Thus did they merrily pass their time in travelling on their highway, always making good cheer, and were very pleasant till they came alittle above Orleans, in which place there was a forest of five-and-thirtyleagues long, and seventeen in breadth, or thereabouts. This forest wasmost horribly fertile and copious in dorflies, hornets, and wasps, so thatit was a very purgatory for the poor mares, asses, and horses. ButGargantua's mare did avenge herself handsomely of all the outrages thereincommitted upon beasts of her kind, and that by a trick whereof they had nosuspicion. For as soon as ever they were entered into the said forest, andthat the wasps had given the assault, she drew out and unsheathed her tail, and therewith skirmishing, did so sweep them that she overthrew all thewood alongst and athwart, here and there, this way and that way, longwiseand sidewise, over and under, and felled everywhere the wood with as muchease as a mower doth the grass, in such sort that never since hath therebeen there neither wood nor dorflies: for all the country was therebyreduced to a plain champaign field. Which Gargantua took great pleasure tobehold, and said to his company no more but this: Je trouve beau ce (Ifind this pretty); whereupon that country hath been ever since that timecalled Beauce. But all the breakfast the mare got that day was but alittle yawning and gaping, in memory whereof the gentlemen of Beauce do asyet to this day break their fast with gaping, which they find to be verygood, and do spit the better for it. At last they came to Paris, whereGargantua refreshed himself two or three days, making very merry with hisfolks, and inquiring what men of learning there were then in the city, andwhat wine they drunk there. 

Chapter 1. XVII. 

How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away thegreat bells of Our Lady's Church. 

Some few days after that they had refreshed themselves, he went to see thecity, and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for thepeople 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 withcymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross lane, shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an evangelicalpreacher. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained torest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At which place, seeingso many about him, he said with a loud voice, I believe that these buzzardswill have me to pay them here my welcome hither, and my Proficiat. It isbut good reason. I will now give them their wine, but it shall be only insport. Then smiling, he untied his fair braguette, and drawing out hismentul into the open air, he so bitterly all-to-bepissed them, that hedrowned two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen, besidesthe women and little children. Some, nevertheless, of the company escapedthis piss-flood by mere speed of foot, who, when they were at the higherend of the university, sweating, coughing, spitting, and out of breath, they began to swear and curse, some in good hot earnest, and others injest. Carimari, carimara: golynoly, golynolo. By my sweet Sanctess, weare washed in sport, a sport truly to laugh at;--in French, Par ris, forwhich that city hath been ever since called Paris; whose name formerly wasLeucotia, as Strabo testifieth, lib. Quarto, from the Greek word leukotes, whiteness, --because of the white thighs of the ladies of that place. Andforasmuch as, at this imposition of a new name, all the people that werethere swore everyone by the Sancts of his parish, the Parisians, which arepatched up of all nations and all pieces of countries, are by nature bothgood jurors and good jurists, and somewhat overweening; whereupon Joanninusde Barrauco, libro de copiositate reverentiarum, thinks that they arecalled Parisians from the Greek word parresia, which signifies boldness andliberty in speech. This done, he considered the great bells, which were inthe said towers, and made them sound very harmoniously. Which whilst hewas doing, it came into his mind that they would serve very well fortingling tantans and ringing campanels to hang about his mare's neck whenshe should be sent back to his father, as he intended to do, loaded withBrie cheese and fresh herring. And indeed he forthwith carried them to hislodging. 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 hoggishstuff, who, that he might be heard afar off, and to make the bacon he wasin quest of shake in the very chimneys, made account to filch them awayprivily. Nevertheless, he left them behind very honestly, not for thatthey 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 thecity was risen up in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slightoccasion, so ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nationswonder at the patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justicerestrain them from such tumultuous courses, seeing the manifoldinconveniences which thence arise from day to day. Would to God I knew theshop wherein are forged these divisions and factious combinations, that Imight bring them to light in the confraternities of my parish! Believe fora truth, that the place wherein the people gathered together, were thussulphured, hopurymated, moiled, and bepissed, was called Nesle, where thenwas, but now is no more, the oracle of Leucotia. There was the caseproposed, and the inconvenience showed of the transporting of the bells. After they had well ergoted pro and con, they concluded in baralipton, thatthey should send the oldest and most sufficient of the faculty untoGargantua, to signify unto him the great and horrible prejudice theysustain by the want of those bells. And notwithstanding the good reasonsgiven in by some of the university why this charge was fitter for an oratorthan a sophister, there was chosen for this purpose our Master Janotus deBragmardo. 

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 hismost antique accoutrement liripipionated with a graduate's hood, and havingsufficiently antidoted his stomach with oven-marmalades, that is, bread andholy water of the cellar, transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua, driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragging after him fiveor six artless masters, all thoroughly bedaggled with the mire of thestreets. At their entry Ponocrates met them, who was afraid, seeing themso 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 thecompany what this mummery meant. It was answered him, that they desired tohave their bells restored to them. As soon as Ponocrates heard that, heran in all haste to carry the news unto Gargantua, that he might be readyto answer them, and speedily resolve what was to be done. Gargantua beingadvertised hereof, called apart his schoolmaster Ponocrates, Philotimus, steward of his house, Gymnastes, his esquire, and Eudemon, and verysummarily conferred with them, both of what he should do and what answer heshould give. They were all of opinion that they should bring them unto thegoblet-office, which is the buttery, and there make them drink likeroysters and line their jackets soundly. And that this cougher might notbe puffed up with vain-glory by thinking the bells were restored at hisrequest, they sent, whilst he was chopining and plying the pot, for themayor 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 hadpropounded his commission. After that, in their hearing, he shouldpronounce his gallant oration, which was done; and they being come, thesophister 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 butreason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need ofthem. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused goodmoney for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux inBrie, who would have bought them for the substantific quality of theelementary complexion, which is intronificated in the terrestreity of theirquidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists and whirlwinds uponour vines, indeed not ours, but these round about us. For if we lose thepiot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both sense and law. If yourestore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by it six basketfuls ofsausages and a fine pair of breeches, which will do my legs a great deal ofgood, or else they will not keep their promise to me. Ho by gob, Domine, apair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non abhorrebit eam. Ha, ha, apair of breeches is not so easily got; I have experience of it myself. Consider, Domine, I have been these eighteen days in matagrabolizing thisbrave 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 occiditunumporcum, et ego habet bonum vino: but of good wine we cannot make badLatin. Well, de parte Dei date nobis bellas nostras. Hold, I give you inthe name of the faculty a Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give usour bells. Vultis etiam pardonos? Per diem vos habebitis, et nihilpayabitis. O, sir, Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily, est bonum vobis. They are useful to everybody. If they fit your mare well, so do they doour faculty; quae comparata est jumentis insipientibus, et similis factaest eis, Psalmo nescio quo. Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et estunum 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, bellarefacit, bellabiliter bellantes. Parisius habet bellas. Ergo gluc, Ha, ha, ha. This is spoken to some purpose. It is in tertio primae, in Darii, orelsewhere. By my soul, I have seen the time that I could play the devil inarguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward want nothing but a cupof good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire, my belly to the table, and agood deep dish. Hei, Domine, I beseech you, in nomine Patris, Filii, etSpiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us our bells: and God keep you fromevil, and our Lady from health, qui vivit et regnat per omnia seculaseculorum, 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, anass 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 acrupper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals. A certainlatinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said since, producing theauthority 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 afoxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the bowels of hisbrain, when he was about the composing of his carminiformal lines. But nacpetetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot kipipur kipipot put pantsemalf, he was declared an heretic. We make them as of wax. And no moresaith the deponent. Valete et plaudite. Calepinus recensui. 

Chapter 1. XX. 

How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in lawagainst the other masters. 

The sophister had no sooner ended, but Ponocrates and Eudemon burst out ina laughing so heartily, that they had almost split with it, and given upthe 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 asseat those figs which were provided for his own dinner, died with force oflaughing. Together with them Master Janotus fell a-laughing too as fast ashe could, in which mood of laughing they continued so long, that their eyesdid water by the vehement concussion of the substance of the brain, bywhich these lachrymal humidities, being pressed out, glided through theoptic nerves, and so to the full represented Democritus Heraclitizing andHeraclitus Democritizing. 

When they had done laughing, Gargantua consulted with the prime of hisretinue what should be done. There Ponocrates was of opinion that theyshould make this fair orator drink again; and seeing he had showed themmore 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 hispleasant speech, with a pair of hose, three hundred great billets oflogwood, five-and-twenty hogsheads of wine, a good large down-bed, and adeep capacious dish, which he said were necessary for his old age. Allthis was done as they did appoint: only Gargantua, doubting that theycould not quickly find out breeches fit for his wearing, because he knewnot what fashion would best become the said orator, whether the martingalefashion of breeches, wherein is a spunghole with a drawbridge for the moreeasy caguing: or the fashion of the mariners, for the greater solace andcomfort of his kidneys: or that of the Switzers, which keeps warm thebedondaine 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 hisreins:--all which considered, he caused to be given him seven ells of whitecloth for the linings. The wood was carried by the porters, the masters ofarts carried the sausages and the dishes, and Master Janotus himself wouldcarry the cloth. One of the said masters, called Jousse Bandouille, showedhim 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 etfigura. For lo, to this end serve the suppositions and parva logicalia. Pannus, pro quo supponit? Confuse, said Bandouille, et distributive. I donot ask thee, said Janotus, blockhead, quomodo supponit, but pro quo? Itis, blockhead, pro tibiis meis, and therefore I will carry it, Egomet, sicut suppositum portat appositum. So did he carry it away very close andcovertly, as Patelin the buffoon did his cloth. The best was, that whenthis cougher, in a full act or assembly held at the Mathurins, had withgreat confidence required his breeches and sausages, and that they wereflatly denied him, because he had them of Gargantua, according to theinformations thereupon made, he showed them that this was gratis, and outof his liberality, by which they were not in any sort quit of theirpromises. Notwithstanding this, it was answered him that he should becontent with reason, without expectation of any other bribe there. Reason?said Janotus. We use none of it here. Unlucky traitors, you are not worththe hanging. The earth beareth not more arrant villains than you are. Iknow it well enough; halt not before the lame. I have practised wickednesswith you. By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abusesthat 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 andseducers, enemies to God and virtue. 

Upon these words they framed articles against him: he on the other sidewarned them to appear. In sum, the process was retained by the court, andis there as yet. Hereupon the magisters made a vow never to decrottthemselves 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; forthe court hath not garbled, sifted, and fully looked into all the pieces asyet. The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the nextGreek 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 toGod 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 thickmist-swallowers make the suits in law depending before them both infiniteand immortal. In doing whereof, they have given occasion to, and verifiedthe saying of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, consecrated to the oracle at Delphos, that misery is the inseparable companion of law-debates; and that pleadersare miserable; for sooner shall they attain to the end of their lives, thanto the final decision of their pretended rights. 

Chapter 1. XXI. 

The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmastersthe Sophisters. 

The first day being thus spent, and the bells put up again in their ownplace, the citizens of Paris, in acknowledgment of this courtesy, offeredto maintain and feed his mare as long as he pleased, which Gargantua tookin good part, and they sent her to graze in the forest of Biere. I thinkshe is not there now. This done, he with all his heart submitted his studyto the discretion of Ponocrates; who for the beginning appointed that heshould do as he was accustomed, to the end he might understand by whatmeans, in so long time, his old masters had made him so sottish andignorant. He disposed therefore of his time in such fashion, thatordinarily he did awake betwixt eight and nine o'clock, whether it was dayor not, for so had his ancient governors ordained, alleging that whichDavid saith, Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere. Then did he tumble andtoss, wag his legs, and wallow in the bed some time, the better to stir upand rouse his vital spirits, and apparelled himself according to theseason: 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 tocomb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat, was to lose time inthis 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 goodfried tripes, fair rashers on the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, storeof fine minced meat, and a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fatof the beef-pot, laid upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewedtogether. Ponocrates showed him that he ought not to eat so soon afterrising out of his bed, unless he had performed some exercise beforehand. Gargantua answered, What! have not I sufficiently well exercised myself? Ihave 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 hisphysician, and lived till his dying day in despite of his enemies. Myfirst masters have used me to it, saying that to breakfast made a goodmemory, and therefore they drank first. I am very well after it, and dinebut 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: sodoth not the total welfare of our humanity depend upon perpetual drinkingin a ribble rabble, like ducks, but on drinking early in the morning; undeversus, 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 theycarried to him, in a great basket, a huge impantoufled or thick-coveredbreviary, weighing, what in grease, clasps, parchment and cover, littlemore or less than eleven hundred and six pounds. There he heardsix-and-twenty or thirty masses. This while, to the same place came hisorison-mutterer impaletocked, or lapped up about the chin like a tuftedwhoop, and his breath pretty well antidoted with store of thevine-tree-syrup. With him he mumbled all his kiriels and dunsicalbreborions, which he so curiously thumbed and fingered, that there fell notso much as one grain to the ground. As he went from the church, theybrought him, upon a dray drawn with oxen, a confused heap of paternostersand aves of St. Claude, every one of them being of the bigness of ahat-block; and thus walking through the cloisters, galleries, or garden, hesaid more in turning them over than sixteen hermits would have done. Thendid 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 fullurinal, he sat down at table; and because he was naturally phlegmatic, hebegan his meal with some dozens of gammons, dried neat's tongues, hard roesof mullet, called botargos, andouilles or sausages, and such otherforerunners of wine. In the meanwhile, four of his folks did cast into hismouth one after another continually mustard by whole shovelfuls. Immediately after that, he drank a horrible draught of white wine for theease of his kidneys. When that was done, he ate according to the seasonmeat agreeable to his appetite, and then left off eating when his bellybegan to strout, and was like to crack for fulness. As for his drinking, hehad in that neither end nor rule. For he was wont to say, That the limitsand bounds of drinking were, when the cork of the shoes of him that drinkethswelleth 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 ofchequers 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 allAt 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 adoreAt 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 theAt 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 himAt the queens. Forward. 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 theAt 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 wasthought fit to drink a little, and that was eleven glassfuls the man, and, immediately after making good cheer again, he would stretch himself upon afair bench, or a good large bed, and there sleep two or three hourstogether, without thinking or speaking any hurt. After he was awakened hewould shake his ears a little. In the mean time they brought him freshwine. There he drank better than ever. Ponocrates showed him that it wasan ill diet to drink so after sleeping. It is, answered Gargantua, thevery 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. Thenbegan he to study a little, and out came the paternosters or rosary ofbeads, which the better and more formally to despatch, he got upon an oldmule, which had served nine kings, and so mumbling with his mouth, noddingand 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 thespit, and what otherwise was to be dressed for supper. And supped verywell, upon my conscience, and commonly did invite some of his neighboursthat were good drinkers, with whom carousing and drinking merrily, theytold stories of all sorts from the old to the new. Amongst others he hadfor 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 thebooks of the four kings, that is to say, many pairs of tables and cards--orthe fair flush, one, two, three--or at all, to make short work; or elsethey went to see the wenches thereabouts, with little small banquets, intermixed with collations and rear-suppers. Then did he sleep, withoutunbridling, until eight o'clock in the next morning. 

Chapter 1. XXIII. 

How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, and in such sort disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day. 

When Ponocrates knew Gargantua's vicious manner of living, he resolved tobring him up in another kind; but for a while he bore with him, consideringthat nature cannot endure a sudden change, without great violence. Therefore, to begin his work the better, he requested a learned physicianof that time, called Master Theodorus, seriously to perpend, if it werepossible, how to bring Gargantua into a better course. The said physicianpurged him canonically with Anticyrian hellebore, by which medicine hecleansed all the alteration and perverse habitude of his brain. By thismeans also Ponocrates made him forget all that he had learned under hisancient preceptors, as Timotheus did to his disciples, who had beeninstructed under other musicians. To do this the better, they brought himinto the company of learned men, which were there, in whose imitation hehad a great desire and affection to study otherwise, and to improve hisparts. 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 inlearning and honest knowledge. Gargantua awaked, then, about four o'clockin the morning. Whilst they were in rubbing of him, there was read untohim some chapter of the holy Scripture aloud and clearly, with apronunciation fit for the matter, and hereunto was appointed a young pageborn in Basche, named Anagnostes. According to the purpose and argument ofthat lesson, he oftentimes gave himself to worship, adore, pray, and sendup his supplications to that good God, whose Word did show his majesty andmarvellous judgment. Then went he unto the secret places to make excretionof 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 itthe night before, and into what signs the sun was entering, as also themoon for that day. This done, he was apparelled, combed, curled, trimmed, and perfumed, during which time they repeated to him the lessons of the daybefore. He himself said them by heart, and upon them would ground somepractical cases concerning the estate of man, which he would prosecutesometimes two or three hours, but ordinarily they ceased as soon as he wasfully clothed. Then for three good hours he had a lecture read unto him. This done they went forth, still conferring of the substance of thelecture, either unto a field near the university called the Brack, or untothe meadows, where they played at the ball, the long-tennis, and at thepiletrigone (which is a play wherein we throw a triangular piece of iron ata ring, to pass it), most gallantly exercising their bodies, as formerlythey had done their minds. All their play was but in liberty, for theyleft off when they pleased, and that was commonly when they did sweat overall their body, or were otherwise weary. Then were they very well wipedand rubbed, shifted their shirts, and, walking soberly, went to see ifdinner was ready. Whilst they stayed for that, they did clearly andeloquently pronounce some sentences that they had retained of the lecture. In the meantime Master Appetite came, and then very orderly sat they downat table. At the beginning of the meal there was read some pleasanthistory of the warlike actions of former times, until he had taken a glassof wine. Then, if they thought good, they continued reading, or began todiscourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety, efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at the table; of bread, ofwine, of water, of salt, of fleshes, fishes, fruits, herbs, roots, and oftheir dressing. By means whereof he learned in a little time all thepassages 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, manytimes, to be the more certain, they caused the very books to be brought tothe table, and so well and perfectly did he in his memory retain the thingsabove said, that in that time there was not a physician that knew half somuch as he did. Afterwards they conferred of the lessons read in themorning, and, ending their repast with some conserve or marmalade ofquinces, he picked his teeth with mastic tooth-pickers, washed his handsand eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some finecantiques, made in praise of the divine bounty and munificence. This done, they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricksand new inventions, which were all grounded upon arithmetic. By this meanshe fell in love with that numerical science, and every day after dinner andsupper he passed his time in it as pleasantly as he was wont to do at cardsand dice; so that at last he understood so well both the theory andpractical part thereof, that Tunstall the Englishman, who had written verylargely of that purpose, confessed that verily in comparison of him he hadno skill at all. And not only in that, but in the other mathematicalsciences, as geometry, astronomy, music, &c. For in waiting on theconcoction and attending the digestion of his food, they made a thousandpretty instruments and geometrical figures, and did in some measurepractise the astronomical canons. 

After this they recreated themselves with singing musically, in four orfive parts, or upon a set theme or ground at random, as it best pleasedthem. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play upon the lute, the virginals, the harp, the Almain flute with nine holes, the viol, andthe sackbut. This hour thus spent, and digestion finished, he did purgehis body of natural excrements, then betook himself to his principal studyfor three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal lecturesas to proceed in the book wherein he was, as also to write handsomely, todraw and form the antique and Roman letters. This being done, they wentout of their house, and with them a young gentleman of Touraine, named theEsquire Gymnast, who taught him the art of riding. Changing then hisclothes, he rode a Naples courser, a Dutch roussin, a Spanish jennet, abarded or trapped steed, then a light fleet horse, unto whom he gave ahundred carieres, made him go the high saults, bounding in the air, freethe ditch with a skip, leap over a stile or pale, turn short in a ring bothto the right and left hand. There he broke not his lance; for it is thegreatest foolery in the world to say, I have broken ten lances at tilts orin fight. A carpenter can do even as much. But it is a glorious andpraise-worthy action with one lance to break and overthrow ten enemies. Therefore, with a sharp, stiff, strong, and well-steeled lance would heusually force up a door, pierce a harness, beat down a tree, carry away thering, lift up a cuirassier saddle, with the mail-coat and gauntlet. Allthis he did in complete arms from head to foot. As for the prancingflourishes and smacking popisms for the better cherishing of the horse, commonly used in riding, none did them better than he. The cavallerize ofFerrara was but as an ape compared to him. He was singularly skilful inleaping nimbly from one horse to another without putting foot to ground, and these horses were called desultories. He could likewise from eitherside, with a lance in his hand, leap on horseback without stirrups, andrule the horse at his pleasure without a bridle, for such things are usefulin military engagements. Another day he exercised the battle-axe, which heso dexterously wielded, both in the nimble, strong, and smooth managementof that weapon, and that in all the feats practicable by it, that he passedknight of arms in the field, and at all essays. 

Then tossed he the pike, played with the two-handed sword, with thebacksword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, witha buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart, theroebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant, the partridge, and the bustard. He played at the balloon, and made itbound in the air, both with fist and foot. He wrestled, ran, jumped--notat three steps and a leap, called the hops, nor at clochepied, called thehare's leap, nor yet at the Almains; for, said Gymnast, these jumps are forthe wars altogether unprofitable, and of no use--but at one leap he wouldskip over a ditch, spring over a hedge, mount six paces upon a wall, rampand grapple after this fashion up against a window of the full height of alance. 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 heheld a book, crossing thus the breadth of the river of Seine withoutwetting it, and dragged along his cloak with his teeth, as did JuliusCaesar; then with the help of one hand he entered forcibly into a boat, from whence he cast himself again headlong into the water, sounded thedepths, hollowed the rocks, and plunged into the pits and gulfs. Thenturned he the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or slowly with thestream and against the stream, stopped it in his course, guided it with onehand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoistedthe sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the edge of thedecks, set the compass in order, tackled the bowlines, and steered thehelm. Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, andwith the same alacrity and swiftness ran down again. He climbed up attrees like a cat, and leaped from the one to the other like a squirrel. Hedid pull down the great boughs and branches like another Milo; then withtwo sharp well-steeled daggers and two tried bodkins would he run up by thewall to the very top of a house like a rat; then suddenly came down fromthe top to the bottom, with such an even composition of members that by thefall 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 bowsin drawing, bended against his breast the greatest crossbows of steel, tookhis aim by the eye with the hand-gun, and shot well, traversed and plantedthe cannon, shot at butt-marks, at the papgay from below upwards, or to aheight 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 ahigh tower, by one end whereof hanging near the ground he wrought himselfwith his hands to the very top; then upon the same track came down sosturdily and firm that you could not on a plain meadow have run with moreassurance. They set up a great pole fixed upon two trees. There would hehang by his hands, and with them alone, his feet touching at nothing, wouldgo back and fore along the foresaid rope with so great swiftness thathardly could one overtake him with running; and then, to exercise hisbreast and lungs, he would shout like all the devils in hell. I heard himonce call Eudemon from St. Victor's gate to Montmartre. Stentor had neversuch a voice at the siege of Troy. Then for the strengthening of hisnerves or sinews they made him two great sows of lead, each of themweighing eight thousand and seven hundred quintals, which they calledalteres. Those he took up from the ground, in each hand one, then liftedthem up over his head, and held them so without stirring three quarters ofan hour and more, which was an inimitable force. He fought at barrierswith the stoutest and most vigorous champions; and when it came to thecope, he stood so sturdily on his feet that he abandoned himself unto thestrongest, in case they could remove him from his place, as Milo was wontto do of old. In whose imitation, likewise, he held a pomegranate in hishand, to give it unto him that could take it from him. The time being thusbestowed, and himself rubbed, cleansed, wiped, and refreshed with otherclothes, he returned fair and softly; and passing through certain meadows, or other grassy places, beheld the trees and plants, comparing them withwhat is written of them in the books of the ancients, such as Theophrast, Dioscorides, Marinus, Pliny, Nicander, Macer, and Galen, and carried hometo the house great handfuls of them, whereof a young page called Rizotomoshad 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 repeatedcertain passages of that which hath been read, and sat down to table. Hereremark, that his dinner was sober and thrifty, for he did then eat only toprevent 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 brabblingshop of sophisters, counsel the contrary. During that repast was continuedthe lesson read at dinner as long as they thought good; the rest was spentin good discourse, learned and profitable. After that they had giventhanks, he set himself to sing vocally, and play upon harmoniousinstruments, or otherwise passed his time at some pretty sports, made withcards or dice, or in practising the feats of legerdemain with cups andballs. There they stayed some nights in frolicking thus, and makingthemselves merry till it was time to go to bed; and on other nights theywould go make visits unto learned men, or to such as had been travellers instrange and remote countries. When it was full night before they retiredthemselves, they went unto the most open place of the house to see the faceof the sky, and there beheld the comets, if any were, as likewise thefigures, situations, aspects, oppositions, and conjunctions of both thefixed stars and planets. 

Then with his master did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of thePythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done, and understoodin the whole course of that day. 

Then prayed they unto God the Creator, in falling down before him, andstrengthening their faith towards him, and glorifying him for his boundlessbounty; and, giving thanks unto him for the time that was past, theyrecommended themselves to his divine clemency for the future. Which beingdone, 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, allthe forenoon was employed, as before specified, according to custom, withthis difference only, that they had a good clear fire lighted to correctthe distempers of the air. But after dinner, instead of their wontedexercitations, they did abide within, and, by way of apotherapy (that is, amaking the body healthful by exercise), did recreate themselves in bottlingup of hay, in cleaving and sawing of wood, and in threshing sheaves of cornat the barn. Then they studied the art of painting or carving; or broughtinto use the antique play of tables, as Leonicus hath written of it, and asour good friend Lascaris playeth at it. In playing they examined thepassages of ancient authors wherein the said play is mentioned or anymetaphor 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 thegoldsmiths and cutters of precious stones. Nor did they omit to visit thealchemists, money-coiners, upholsterers, weavers, velvet-workers, watchmakers, looking-glass framers, printers, organists, and other suchkind of artificers, and, everywhere giving them somewhat to drink, didlearn and consider the industry and invention of the trades. They wentalso to hear the public lectures, the solemn commencements, therepetitions, the acclamations, the pleadings of the gentle lawyers, andsermons of evangelical preachers. He went through the halls and placesappointed for fencing, and there played against the masters themselves atall 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 shopsof druggists, herbalists, and apothecaries, and diligently considered thefruits, roots, leaves, gums, seeds, the grease and ointments of someforeign parts, as also how they did adulterate them. He went to see thejugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered theircunning, their shifts, their somersaults and smooth tongue, especially ofthose of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great praters, and bravegivers 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 intemperatemoisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive, might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive anyprejudice for want of their ordinary bodily exercise. Thus was Gargantuagoverned, and kept on in this course of education, from day to dayprofiting, as you may understand such a young man of his age may, of apregnant judgment, with good discipline well continued. Which, although atthe 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 thestudy of a scholar. Nevertheless Ponocrates, to divert him from thisvehement intension of the spirits, thought fit, once in a month, upon somefair and clear day, to go out of the city betimes in the morning, eithertowards Gentilly, or Boulogne, or to Montrouge, or Charanton bridge, or toVanves, or St. Clou, and there spend all the day long in making thegreatest cheer that could be devised, sporting, making merry, drinkinghealths, 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 notspent without profit; for in the said meadows they usually repeated certainpleasant verses of Virgil's agriculture, of Hesiod and of Politian'shusbandry, would set a-broach some witty Latin epigrams, then immediatelyturned them into roundelays and songs for dancing in the French language. In their feasting they would sometimes separate the water from the winethat was therewith mixed, as Cato teacheth, De re rustica, and Pliny withan ivy cup would wash the wine in a basinful of water, then take it outagain with a funnel as pure as ever. They made the water go from one glassto another, and contrived a thousand little automatory engines, that is tosay, moving of themselves. 

Chapter 1. XXV. 

How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the cake-bakers ofLerne, 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 thestarlings from eating up the grapes, as some cake-bakers of Lerne happenedto pass along in the broad highway, driving into the city ten or twelvehorses loaded with cakes, the said shepherds courteously entreated them togive them some for their money, as the price then ruled in the market. Forhere it is to be remarked, that it is a celestial food to eat for breakfasthot fresh cakes with grapes, especially the frail clusters, the great redgrapes, the muscadine, the verjuice grape, and the laskard, for those thatare costive in their belly, because it will make them gush out, and squirtthe length of a hunter's staff, like the very tap of a barrel; andoftentimes, thinking to let a squib, they did all-to-besquatter andconskite themselves, whereupon they are commonly called the vintagethinkers. The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable totheir request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangyrascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsyloiterers, 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, baseloons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolishloggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammerflycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and othersuchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them toeat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with thecoarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf. Towhich provoking words, one amongst them, called Forgier, an honest fellowof his person and a notable springal, made answer very calmly thus: Howlong is it since you have got horns, that you are become so proud? Indeedformerly you were wont to give us some freely, and will you not now let ushave any for our money? This is not the part of good neighbours, neitherdo we serve you thus when you come hither to buy our good corn, whereof youmake your cakes and buns. Besides that, we would have given you to thebargain some of our grapes, but, by his zounds, you may chance to repentit, and possibly have need of us at another time, when we shall use youafter the like manner, and therefore remember it. Then Marquet, a primeman in the confraternity of the cake-bakers, said unto him, Yea, sir, thouart pretty well crest-risen this morning, thou didst eat yesternight toomuch millet and bolymong. Come hither, sirrah, come hither, I will givethee some cakes. Whereupon Forgier, dreading no harm, in all simplicitywent towards him, and drew a sixpence out of his leather satchel, thinkingthat 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 themarks of the whipcord knots were apparent in them, then would have fledaway; 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 hecarried under his arm, wherewith he hit him in the coronal joint of hishead, 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 walnutsnear 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 upongreen rye. The other shepherds and shepherdesses, hearing the lamentableshout of Forgier, came with their slings and slackies following them, andthrowing great stones at them, as thick as if it had been hail. At lastthey overtook them, and took from them about four or five dozen of theircakes. Nevertheless they paid for them the ordinary price, and gave themover and above one hundred eggs and three baskets full of mulberries. Thendid the cake-bakers help to get up to his mare Marquet, who was mostshrewdly wounded, and forthwith returned to Lerne, changing the resolutionthey had to go to Pareille, threatening very sharp and boisterously thecowherds, shepherds, and farmers of Seville and Sinays. This done, theshepherds 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 daymet with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in themorning. Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great redmedicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed it and bound it up that he wasquickly 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 dideither eat or drink, to the Capitol, and there before their king, calledPicrochole, the third of that name, made their complaint, showing theirpanniers broken, their caps all crumpled, their coats torn, their cakestaken away, but, above all, Marquet most enormously wounded, saying thatall that mischief was done by the shepherds and herdsmen of Grangousier, near the broad highway beyond Seville. Picrochole incontinent grew angryand 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 thehalter, come, in the best arms they could, unto the great place before thecastle, at the hour of noon, and, the better to strengthen his design, hecaused the drum to be beat about the town. Himself, whilst his dinner wasmaking ready, went to see his artillery mounted upon the carriage, todisplay his colours, and set up the great royal standard, and loaded wainswith store of ammunition both for the field and the belly, arms andvictuals. At dinner he despatched his commissions, and by his expressedict my Lord Shagrag was appointed to command the vanguard, wherein werenumbered sixteen thousand and fourteen arquebusiers or firelocks, togetherwith thirty thousand and eleven volunteer adventurers. The greatTouquedillon, master of the horse, had the charge of the ordnance, whereinwere reckoned nine hundred and fourteen brazen pieces, in cannons, doublecannons, basilisks, serpentines, culverins, bombards or murderers, falcons, bases or passevolins, spirols, and other sorts of great guns. Therearguard was committed to the Duke of Scrapegood. In the main battle wasthe 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 theavenues, and see whether there was any ambush laid for them. But, afterthey had made diligent search, they found all the land round about in peaceand quiet, without any meeting or convention at all; which Picrocholeunderstanding, commanded that everyone should march speedily under hiscolours. Then immediately in all disorder, without keeping either rank orfile, they took the fields one amongst another, wasting, spoiling, destroying, and making havoc of all wherever they went, not sparing poornor rich, privileged or unprivileged places, church nor laity, drove awayoxen and cows, bulls, calves, heifers, wethers, ewes, lambs, goats, kids, hens, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, goslings, hogs, swine, pigs, andsuch like; beating down the walnuts, plucking the grapes, tearing thehedges, shaking the fruit-trees, and committing such incomparable abuses, that the like abomination was never heard of. Nevertheless, they met withnone to resist them, for everyone submitted to their mercy, beseeching themthat they might be dealt with courteously in regard that they had alwayscarried themselves as became good and loving neighbours, and that they hadnever been guilty of any wrong or outrage done upon them, to be thussuddenly surprised, troubled, and disquieted, and that, if they would notdesist, God would punish them very shortly. To which expostulations andremonstrances no other answer was made, but that they would teach them toeat cakes. 

Chapter 1. XXVII. 

How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being ransacked bythe enemy. 

So much they did, and so far they went pillaging and stealing, that at lastthey came to Seville, where they robbed both men and women, and took allthey 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, theynevertheless entered everywhere, then plundered and carried away all thatwas within, and yet for all this not one of them took any hurt, which is amost wonderful case. For the curates, vicars, preachers, physicians, chirurgeons, and apothecaries, who went to visit, to dress, to cure, toheal, to preach unto and admonish those that were sick, were all dead ofthe infection, and these devilish robbers and murderers caught never anyharm at all. Whence comes this to pass, my masters? I beseech you thinkupon it. The town being thus pillaged, they went unto the abbey with ahorrible noise and tumult, but they found it shut and made fast againstthem. Whereupon the body of the army marched forward towards a pass orford called the Gue de Vede, except seven companies of foot and two hundredlancers, 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. Themonks (poor devils) knew not in that extremity to which of all their sanctsthey should vow themselves. Nevertheless, at all adventures they rang thebells ad capitulum capitulantes. There it was decreed that they shouldmake a fair procession, stuffed with good lectures, prayers, and litaniescontra hostium insidias, and jolly responses pro pace. 

There was then in the abbey a claustral monk, called Friar John of thefunnels 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, unbridlerof 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 amonkery: 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 ofthe vineyard, went out to see what they were doing; and perceiving thatthey were cutting and gathering the grapes, whereon was grounded thefoundation of all their next year's wine, returned unto the choir of thechurch where the other monks were, all amazed and astonished like so manybell-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 snatchme, if they be not already within the middle of our close, and cut so wellboth vines and grapes, that, by Cod's body, there will not be found forthese four years to come so much as a gleaning in it. By the belly ofSanct James, what shall we poor devils drink the while? Lord God! da mihipotum. Then said the prior of the convent: What should this drunkenfellow do here? let him be carried to prison for troubling the divineservice. Nay, said the monk, the wine service, let us behave ourselves sothat it be not troubled; for you yourself, my lord prior, love to drink ofthe best, and so doth every honest man. Never yet did a man of worthdislike good wine, it is a monastical apophthegm. But these responses thatyou chant here, by G--, are not in season. Wherefore is it, that ourdevotions 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, ofour religion, told me, and I remember it well, how the reason was, that inthis 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; forSanct Anthony burn me as freely as a faggot, if they get leave to taste onedrop 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, SanctThomas of England was well content to die for them; if I died in the samecause, should not I be a sanct likewise? Yes. Yet shall not I die therefor all this, for it is I that must do it to others and send thema-packing. 

As he spake this he threw off his great monk's habit, and laid hold uponthe staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of a sorbapple-tree, itbeing of the length of a lance, round, of a full grip, and a littlepowdered with lilies called flower de luce, the workmanship whereof wasalmost all defaced and worn out. Thus went he out in a fair long-skirtedjacket, putting his frock scarfwise athwart his breast, and in thisequipage, with his staff, shaft or truncheon of the cross, laid on solustily, brisk, and fiercely upon his enemies, who, without any order, orensign, or trumpet, or drum, were busied in gathering the grapes of thevineyard. For the cornets, guidons, and ensign-bearers had laid down theirstandards, banners, and colours by the wall sides: the drummers hadknocked 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 ofclusters: 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, strikingathwart and alongst, and by one means or other laid so about him, after theold fashion of fencing, that to some he beat out their brains, to others hecrushed their arms, battered their legs, and bethwacked their sides tilltheir ribs cracked with it. To others again he unjointed the spondyles orknuckles of the neck, disfigured their chaps, gashed their faces, madetheir cheeks hang flapping on their chin, and so swinged and balammed themthat they fell down before him like hay before a mower. To some others hespoiled the frame of their kidneys, marred their backs, broke theirthigh-bones, pashed in their noses, poached out their eyes, cleft theirmandibles, tore their jaws, dung in their teeth into their throat, shookasunder their omoplates or shoulder-blades, sphacelated their shins, mortified their shanks, inflamed their ankles, heaved off of the hingestheir ishies, their sciatica or hip-gout, dislocated the joints of theirknees, squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs, andso thumped, mauled and belaboured them everywhere, that never was corn sothick and threefold threshed upon by ploughmen's flails as were thepitifully disjointed members of their mangled bodies under the mercilessbaton of the cross. If any offered to hide himself amongst the thickest ofthe 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, hemade his head to fly in pieces by the lamboidal commissure, which is a seamin 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 atthe 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 thouwouldst or no, and withal render and yield up thy soul to all the devils inhell; then suddenly gave them dronos, that is, so many knocks, thumps, raps, dints, thwacks, and bangs, as sufficed to warn Pluto of their comingand despatch them a-going. If any was so rash and full of temerity as toresist him to his face, then was it he did show the strength of hismuscles, for without more ado he did transpierce him, by running him in atthe breast, through the mediastine and the heart. Others, again, he soquashed and bebumped, that, with a sound bounce under the hollow of theirshort ribs, he overturned their stomachs so that they died immediately. Tosome, with a smart souse on the epigaster, he would make their midriffswag, then, redoubling the blow, gave them such a homepush on the navelthat he made their puddings to gush out. To others through their ballockshe pierced their bumgut, and left not bowel, tripe, nor entrail in theirbody that had not felt the impetuosity, fierceness, and fury of hisviolence. Believe, that it was the most horrible spectacle that ever onesaw. Some cried unto Sanct Barbe, others to St. George. O the holy LadyNytouch, 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 toSt. James, and others to the holy handkerchief at Chamberry, which threemonths after that burnt so well in the fire that they could not get onethread of it saved. Others sent up their vows to St. Cadouin, others toSt. John d'Angely, and to St. Eutropius of Xaintes. Others again invokedSt. Mesmes of Chinon, St. Martin of Candes, St. Clouaud of Sinays, the holyrelics of Laurezay, with a thousand other jolly little sancts and santrels. Some died without speaking, others spoke without dying; some died inspeaking, others spoke in dying. Others shouted as loud as they couldConfession, Confession, Confiteor, Miserere, In manus! So great was thecry of the wounded, that the prior of the abbey with all his monks cameforth, who, when they saw these poor wretches so slain amongst the vines, and wounded to death, confessed some of them. But whilst the priests werebusied in confessing them, the little monkies ran all to the place whereFriar John was, and asked him wherein he would be pleased to require theirassistance. To which he answered that they should cut the throats of thosehe had thrown down upon the ground. They presently, leaving their outerhabits and cowls upon the rails, began to throttle and make an end of thosewhom he had already crushed. Can you tell with what instruments they didit? With fair gullies, which are little hulchbacked demi-knives, the irontool whereof is two inches long, and the wooden handle one inch thick, andthree inches in length, wherewith the little boys in our country cut ripewalnuts 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-slittingexploit. In the meantime Friar John, with his formidable baton of thecross, got to the breach which the enemies had made, and there stood tosnatch up those that endeavoured to escape. Some of the monkitos carriedthe standards, banners, ensigns, guidons, and colours into their cells andchambers to make garters of them. But when those that had been shrivenwould have gone out at the gap of the said breach, the sturdy monk quashedand felled them down with blows, saying, These men have had confession andare 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 werediscomfited all those of the army that entered into the close of the abbey, unto the number of thirteen thousand, six hundred, twenty and two, besidesthe women and little children, which is always to be understood. Never didMaugis the Hermit bear himself more valiantly with his bourdon or pilgrim'sstaff against the Saracens, of whom is written in the Acts of the four sonsof Aymon, than did this monk against his enemies with the staff of thecross. 

Chapter 1. XXVIII. 

How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock Clermond, and ofGrangousier's unwillingness and aversion from the undertaking of war. 

Whilst the monk did thus skirmish, as we have said, against those whichwere entered within the close, Picrochole in great haste passed the ford ofVede--a very especial pass--with all his soldiers, and set upon the rockClermond, where there was made him no resistance at all; and, because itwas already night, he resolved to quarter himself and his army in thattown, and to refresh himself of his pugnative choler. In the morning hestormed and took the bulwarks and castle, which afterwards he fortifiedwith rampiers, and furnished with all ammunition requisite, intending tomake his retreat there, if he should happen to be otherwise worsted; for itwas a strong place, both by art and nature, in regard of the stance andsituation of it. But let us leave them there, and return to our goodGargantua, who is at Paris very assiduous and earnest at the study of goodletters and athletical exercitations, and to the good old man Grangousierhis father, who after supper warmeth his ballocks by a good, clear, greatfire, and, waiting upon the broiling of some chestnuts, is very serious indrawing 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 ofthe 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 abuseswhich 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; andthat at the same present time the said king was in the rock Clermond, andthere, with great industry and circumspection, was strengthening himselfand 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, myancient friend of old time, of my own kindred and alliance, comes he toinvade me? What moves him? What provokes him? What sets him on? Whatdrives him to it? Who hath given him this counsel? Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, myGod, my Saviour, help me, inspire me, and advise me what I shall do! Iprotest, I swear before thee, so be thou favourable to me, if ever I didhim or his subjects any damage or displeasure, or committed any the leastrobbery in his country; but, on the contrary, I have succoured and suppliedhim with men, money, friendship, and counsel, upon any occasion wherein Icould be steadable for the improvement of his good. That he hath thereforeat this nick of time so outraged and wronged me, it cannot be but by themalevolent and wicked spirit. Good God, thou knowest my courage, fornothing can be hidden from thee. If perhaps he be grown mad, and that thouhast sent him hither to me for the better recovery and re-establishment ofhis brain, grant me power and wisdom to bring him to the yoke of thy holywill by good discipline. Ho, ho, ho, ho, my good people, my friends and myfaithful servants, must I hinder you from helping me? Alas, my old agerequired hence-forward nothing else but rest, and all the days of my life Ihave 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 mytrembling hand the lance and horseman's mace, to succour and protect myhonest subjects. Reason will have it so; for by their labour am Ientertained, and with their sweat am I nourished, I, my children and myfamily. This notwithstanding, I will not undertake war, until I have firsttried 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 untoPicrochole, to know wherefore he had thus suddenly broken the peace andinvaded those lands unto which he had no right nor title. Furthermore, that they should send for Gargantua, and those under his command, for thepreservation of the country, and defence thereof now at need. All thispleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that so it should be done. Presently therefore he sent the Basque his lackey to fetch Gargantua withall 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 timerecall thee from that philosophical rest thou now enjoyest, if theconfidence reposed in our friends and ancient confederates had not at thispresent disappointed the assurance of my old age. But seeing such is myfatal destiny, that I should be now disquieted by those in whom I trustedmost, I am forced to call thee back to help the people and goods which bythe right of nature belong unto thee. For even as arms are weak abroad, ifthere be not counsel at home, so is that study vain and counselunprofitable which in a due and convenient time is not by virtue executedand put in effect. My deliberation is not to provoke, but to appease--notto assault, but to defend--not to conquer, but to preserve my faithfulsubjects and hereditary dominions, into which Picrochole is entered in ahostile manner without any ground or cause, and from day to day pursuethhis furious enterprise with that height of insolence that is intolerable tofreeborn spirits. I have endeavoured to moderate his tyrannical choler, offering him all that which I thought might give him satisfaction; andoftentimes 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 otheranswer but a mere defiance, and that in my lands he did pretend only to theright of a civil correspondency and good behaviour, whereby I knew that theeternal God hath left him to the disposure of his own free will and sensualappetite--which cannot choose but be wicked, if by divine grace it be notcontinually guided--and to contain him within his duty, and bring him toknow 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, repairhither with all diligence, to succour not me so much, which nevertheless bynatural piety thou oughtest to do, as thine own people, which by reasonthou mayest save and preserve. The exploit shall be done with as littleeffusion of blood as may be. And, if possible, by means far moreexpedient, such as military policy, devices, and stratagems of war, weshall save all the souls, and send them home as merry as crickets untotheir own houses. My dearest son, the peace of Jesus Christ our Redeemerbe with thee. Salute from me Ponocrates, Gymnastes, and Eudemon. Thetwentieth of September. Thy Father Grangousier. 

Chapter 1. XXX. 

How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole. 

The letters being dictated, signed, and sealed, Grangousier ordained thatUlric Gallet, master of the requests, a very wise and discreet man, ofwhose prudence and sound judgment he had made trial in several difficultand debateful matters, (should) go unto Picrochole, to show what had beendecreed amongst them. At the same hour departed the good man Gallet, andhaving passed the ford, asked at the miller that dwelt there in whatcondition Picrochole was: who answered him that his soldiers had left himneither cock nor hen, that they were retired and shut up into the rockClermond, and that he would not advise him to go any further for fear ofthe scouts, because they were enormously furious. Which he easilybelieved, and therefore lodged that night with the miller. 

The next morning he went with a trumpeter to the gate of the castle, andrequired the guards he might be admitted to speak with the king of somewhatthat concerned him. These words being told unto the king, he would by nomeans consent that they should open the gate; but, getting upon the top ofthe bulwark, said unto the ambassador, What is the news, what have you tosay? 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 theyreceive hurt and damage where they may justly expect for favour and goodwill; and not without cause, though without reason, have many, after theyhad fallen into such a calamitous accident, esteemed this indignity lesssupportable than the loss of their own lives, in such sort that, if theyhave not been able by force of arms nor any other means, by reach of wit orsubtlety, to stop them in their course and restrain their fury, they havefallen into desperation, and utterly deprived themselves of this light. Itis therefore no wonder if King Grangousier, my master, be full of highdispleasure and much disquieted in mind upon thy outrageous and hostilecoming; but truly it would be a marvel if he were not sensible of and movedwith the incomparable abuses and injuries perpetrated by thee and thineupon those of his country, towards whom there hath been no example ofinhumanity omitted. Which in itself is to him so grievous, for the cordialaffection wherewith he hath always cherished his subjects, that more itcannot be to any mortal man; yet in this, above human apprehension, is itto him the more grievous that these wrongs and sad offences have beencommitted by thee and thine, who, time out of mind, from all antiquity, thou and thy predecessors have been in a continual league and amity withhim and all his ancestors; which, even until this time, you have as sacredtogether inviolably preserved, kept, and entertained, so well, that not heand his only, but the very barbarous nations of the Poictevins, Bretons, Manceaux, and those that dwell beyond the isles of the Canaries, and thatof Isabella, have thought it as easy to pull down the firmament, and to setup the depths above the clouds, as to make a breach in your alliance; andhave been so afraid of it in their enterprises that they have never daredto provoke, incense, or endamage the one for fear of the other. Nay, whichis more, this sacred league hath so filled the world, that there are fewnations at this day inhabiting throughout all the continent and isles ofthe ocean, who have not ambitiously aspired to be received into it, uponyour own covenants and conditions, holding your joint confederacy in ashigh esteem as their own territories and dominions, in such sort, that fromthe memory of man there hath not been either prince or league so wild andproud that durst have offered to invade, I say not your countries, but notso 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 thename and title of your alliance, they have suddenly desisted from theirenterprises. What rage and madness, therefore, doth now incite thee, allold alliance infringed, all amity trod under foot, and all right violated, thus in a hostile manner to invade his country, without having been by himor his in anything prejudiced, wronged, or provoked? Where is faith?Where is law? Where is reason? Where is humanity? Where is the fear ofGod? Dost thou think that these atrocious abuses are hidden from theeternal spirit and the supreme God who is the just rewarder of all ourundertakings? If thou so think, thou deceivest thyself; for all thingsshall 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 endto thy so long enjoyed ease and rest? For that all things have their endand period, so as that, when they are come to the superlative point oftheir greatest height, they are in a trice tumbled down again, as not beingable to abide long in that state. This is the conclusion and end of thosewho cannot by reason and temperance moderate their fortunes andprosperities. But if it be predestinated that thy happiness and ease mustnow come to an end, must it needs be by wronging my king, --him by whom thouwert established? If thy house must come to ruin, should it therefore inits fall crush the heels of him that set it up? The matter is sounreasonable, and so dissonant from common sense, that hardly can it beconceived by human understanding, and altogether incredible unto strangers, till by the certain and undoubted effects thereof it be made apparent thatnothing is either sacred or holy to those who, having emancipatedthemselves from God and reason, do merely follow the perverse affections oftheir own depraved nature. If any wrong had been done by us to thysubjects and dominions--if we had favoured thy ill-willers--if we had notassisted thee in thy need--if thy name and reputation had been wounded byus--or, to speak more truly, if the calumniating spirit, tempting to inducethee to evil, had, by false illusions and deceitful fantasies, put into thyconceit the impression of a thought that we had done unto thee anythingunworthy of our ancient correspondence and friendship, thou oughtest firstto have inquired out the truth, and afterwards by a seasonable warning toadmonish us thereof; and we should have so satisfied thee, according tothine own heart's desire, that thou shouldst have had occasion to becontented. But, O eternal God, what is thy enterprise? Wouldst thou, likea perfidious tyrant, thus spoil and lay waste my master's kingdom? Hastthou found him so silly and blockish, that he would not--or so destitute ofmen and money, of counsel and skill in military discipline, that he cannotwithstand thy unjust invasion? March hence presently, and to-morrow, sometime of the day, retreat unto thine own country, without doing any kind ofviolence or disorderly act by the way; and pay withal a thousand besans ofgold (which, in English money, amounteth to five thousand pounds), forreparation of the damages thou hast done in this country. Half thou shaltpay to-morrow, and the other half at the ides of May next coming, leavingwith us in the mean time, for hostages, the Dukes of Turnbank, Lowbuttock, and Smalltrash, together with the Prince of Itches and Viscount ofSnatchbit (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 hisdiscourse answered nothing but Come and fetch them, come and fetch them, --they have ballocks fair and soft, --they will knead and provide some cakesfor you. Then returned he to Grangousier, whom he found upon his kneesbareheaded, crouching in a little corner of his cabinet, and humbly prayingunto God that he would vouchsafe to assuage the choler of Picrochole, andbring him to the rule of reason without proceeding by force. When the goodman 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 hiswits, and forsaken of God. Yea, but, said Grangousier, my friend, whatcause doth he pretend for his outrages? He did not show me any cause atall, 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 uponwhat is to be done. Then sent he to learn concerning that business, andfound by true information that his men had taken violently some cakes fromPicrochole's people, and that Marquet's head was broken with a slacky orshort cudgel; that, nevertheless, all was well paid, and that the saidMarquet 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 withall his might. Notwithstanding all this, said Grangousier, seeing thequestion is but about a few cakes, I will labour to content him; for I amvery unwilling to wage war against him. He inquired then what quantity ofcakes they had taken away, and understanding that it was but some four orfive dozen, he commanded five cartloads of them to be baked that samenight; 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 uponMarquet, unto whom likewise he directed to be given seven hundred thousandand three Philips (that is, at three shillings the piece, one hundred fivethousand pounds and nine shillings of English money), for reparation of hislosses and hindrances, and for satisfaction of the chirurgeon that haddressed his wound; and furthermore settled upon him and his for ever infreehold the apple-orchard called La Pomardiere. For the conveyance andpassing of all which was sent Gallet, who by the way as they went made themgather 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, therebyto give all men to understand that they demanded but peace, and that theycame to buy it. 

Being come to the gate, they required to speak with Picrochole fromGrangousier. Picrochole would not so much as let them in, nor go to speakwith them, but sent them word that he was busy, and that they shoulddeliver their mind to Captain Touquedillon, who was then planting a pieceof ordnance upon the wall. Then said the good man unto him, My lord, toease you of all this labour, and to take away all excuses why you may notreturn unto our former alliance, we do here presently restore unto you thecakes 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 youfive cartloads, of which this cart shall be for Marquet, who doth mostcomplain. Besides, to content him entirely, here are seven hundredthousand and three Philips, which I deliver to him, and, for the losses hemay pretend to have sustained, I resign for ever the farm of thePomardiere, to be possessed in fee-simple by him and his for ever, withoutthe payment of any duty, or acknowledgement of homage, fealty, fine, orservice whatsoever, and here is the tenour of the deed. And, for God'ssake, let us live henceforward in peace, and withdraw yourselves merrilyinto your own country from within this place, unto which you have no rightat all, as yourselves must needs confess, and let us be good friends asbefore. Touquedillon related all this to Picrochole, and more and moreexasperated his courage, saying to him, These clowns are afraid to somepurpose. By G--, Grangousier conskites himself for fear, the poor drinker. He is not skilled in warfare, nor hath he any stomach for it. He knowsbetter how to empty the flagons, --that is his art. I am of opinion that itis fit we send back the carts and the money, and, for the rest, that veryspeedily 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 youhave had with them heretofore hath made you contemptible in their eyes. Anoint a villain, he will prick you: prick a villain, and he will anointyou (Ungentem pungit, pungentem rusticus ungit. ). 

Sa, sa, sa, said Picrochole, by St. James you have given a true characterof them. One thing I will advise you, said Touquedillon. We are here butbadly victualled, and furnished with mouth-harness very slenderly. IfGrangousier should come to besiege us, I would go presently, and pluck outof all your soldiers' heads and mine own all the teeth, except three toeach of us, and with them alone we should make an end of our provision buttoo soon. We shall have, said Picrochole, but too much sustenance andfeeding-stuff. Came we hither to eat or to fight? To fight, indeed, saidTouquedillon; yet from the paunch comes the dance, and where famine rulesforce is exiled. Leave off your prating, said Picrochole, and forthwithseize upon what they have brought. Then took they money and cakes, oxenand carts, and sent them away without speaking one word, only that theywould come no more so near, for a reason that they would give them themorrow after. Thus, without doing anything, returned they to Grangousier, and related the whole matter unto him, subjoining that there was no hopeleft to draw them to peace but by sharp and fierce wars. 

Chapter 1. XXXIII. 

How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrained counsel, put him inextreme danger. 

The carts being unloaded, and the money and cakes secured, there camebefore Picrochole the Duke of Smalltrash, the Earl Swashbuckler, andCaptain Dirt-tail (Menuail, Spadassin, Merdaille. ), who said unto him, Sir, this day we make you the happiest, the most warlike and chivalrous princethat ever was since the death of Alexander of Macedonia. Be covered, becovered, said Picrochole. Gramercy, said they, we do but our duty. Themanner is thus. You shall leave some captain here to have the charge ofthis garrison, with a party competent for keeping of the place, which, besides its natural strength, is made stronger by the rampiers andfortresses 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 uponGrangousier and his forces. By it shall he be easily at the very firstshock routed, and then shall you get money by heaps, for the clown hathstore of ready coin. Clown we call him, because a noble and generousprince hath never a penny, and that to hoard up treasure is but a clownishtrick. The other part of the army, in the meantime, shall draw towardsOnys, Xaintonge, Angomois, and Gascony. Then march to Perigot, Medoc, andElanes, taking wherever you come, without resistance, towns, castles, andforts; afterwards to Bayonne, St. John de Luc, to Fontarabia, where youshall seize upon all the ships, and coasting along Galicia and Portugal, shall pillage all the maritime places, even unto Lisbon, where you shall besupplied with all necessaries befitting a conqueror. By copsody, Spainwill yield, for they are but a race of loobies. Then are you to pass bythe Straits of Gibraltar, where you shall erect two pillars more statelythan those of Hercules, to the perpetual memory of your name, and thenarrow entrance there shall be called the Picrocholinal sea. 

Having passed the Picrocholinal sea, behold, Barbarossa yields himself yourslave. 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 shallconquer 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 andBalearian seas. Going alongst on the left hand, you shall rule all GalliaNarbonensis, Provence, the Allobrogians, Genoa, Florence, Lucca, and thenGod b'w'ye, Rome. (Our poor Monsieur the Pope dies now for fear. ) By myfaith, said Picrochole, I will not then kiss his pantoufle. 

Italy being thus taken, behold Naples, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily, allransacked, and Malta too. I wish the pleasant Knights of the Rhodesheretofore would but come to resist you, that we might see their urine. Iwould, said Picrochole, very willingly go to Loretto. No, no, said they, that shall be at our return. From thence we will sail eastwards, and takeCandia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclade Islands, and set upon (the) Morea. It is ours, by St. Trenian. The Lord preserve Jerusalem; for the greatSoldan is not comparable to you in power. I will then, said he, causeSolomon's temple to be built. No, said they, not yet, have a littlepatience, stay awhile, be never too sudden in your enterprises. Can youtell what Octavian Augustus said? Festina lente. It is requisite that youfirst 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 andMount Sinai? There is no need, said they, at this time. Have we nothurried up and down, travelled and toiled enough, in having transfrettedand passed over the Hircanian sea, marched alongst the two Armenias and thethree Arabias? Ay, by my faith, said he, we have played the fools, and areundone. Ha, poor souls! What's the matter? said they. What shall wehave, said he, to drink in these deserts? For Julian Augustus with hiswhole 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 andfourteen great ships laden with the best wines in the world. They arrivedat Port Joppa. There they found two-and-twenty thousand camels and sixteenhundred elephants, which you shall have taken at one hunting aboutSigelmes, when you entered into Lybia; and, besides this, you had all theMecca 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 afish, a valiant man, a conqueror, who pretends and aspires to the monarchyof the world, cannot always have his ease. God be thanked that you andyour 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 overthrowsthat unworthy swillpot Grangousier? They are not idle, said they. Weshall meet with them by-and-by. They shall have won you Brittany, Normandy, Flanders, Hainault, Brabant, Artois, Holland, Zealand; they havepassed the Rhine over the bellies of the Switzers and lansquenets, and aparty of these hath subdued Luxembourg, Lorraine, Champagne, and Savoy, even to Lyons, in which place they have met with your forces returning fromthe naval conquests of the Mediterranean sea; and have rallied again inBohemia, 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, evenunto the frozen sea. This done, they conquered the Isles of Orkney andsubdued Scotland, England, and Ireland. From thence sailing through thesandy 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 usgo join with them quickly, for I will be Emperor of Trebizond also. Shallwe not kill all these dogs, Turks and Mahometans? What a devil should wedo else? said they. And you shall give their goods and lands to such asshall have served you honestly. Reason, said he, will have it so, that isbut 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 anold gentleman well experienced in the wars, a stern soldier, and who hadbeen in many great hazards, named Echephron, who, hearing this discourse, said, I do greatly doubt that all this enterprise will be like the tale orinterlude of the pitcher full of milk wherewith a shoemaker made himselfrich in conceit; but, when the pitcher was broken, he had not whereupon todine. What do you pretend by these large conquests? What shall be the endof so many labours and crosses? Thus it shall be, said Picrochole, thatwhen we are returned we shall sit down, rest, and be merry. But, saidEchephron, if by chance you should never come back, for the voyage is longand dangerous, were it not better for us to take our rest now, thanunnecessarily to expose ourselves to so many dangers? O, saidSwashbuckler, by G--, here is a good dotard; come, let us go hide ourselvesin the corner of a chimney, and there spend the whole time of our lifeamongst ladies, in threading of pearls, or spinning, like Sardanapalus. Hethat nothing ventures hath neither horse nor mule, says Solomon. He whoadventureth too much, said Echephron, loseth both horse and mule, answeredMalchon. Enough, said Picrochole, go forward. I fear nothing but thatthese devilish legions of Grangousier, whilst we are in Mesopotamia, willcome 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 littlecommission, which you must send unto the Muscovites, shall bring you intothe 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 thelightest faults of any inflict great punishments. I fret, I charge, Istrike, 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 howGymnast encountered with the enemy. 

In this same very hour Gargantua, who was gone out of Paris as soon as hehad read his father's letters, coming upon his great mare, had alreadypassed the Nunnery-bridge, himself, Ponocrates, Gymnast, and Eudemon, whoall three, the better to enable them to go along with him, tookpost-horses. The rest of his train came after him by even journeys at aslower pace, bringing with them all his books and philosophical instruments. As soon as he had alighted at Parille, he was informed by a farmer ofGouguet how Picrochole had fortified himself within the rock Clermond, andhad sent Captain Tripet with a great army to set upon the wood of Vede andVaugaudry, and that they had already plundered the whole country, notleaving cock nor hen, even as far as to the winepress of Billard. Thesestrange and almost incredible news of the enormous abuses thus committedover all the land, so affrighted Gargantua that he knew not what to say nordo. But Ponocrates counselled him to go unto the Lord of Vauguyon, who atall times had been their friend and confederate, and that by him they shouldbe better advised in their business. Which they did incontinently, andfound him very willing and fully resolved to assist them, and therefore wasof opinion that they should send some one of his company to scout along anddiscover 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 hissafety and the better expedition, he should have with him someone that knewthe ways, avenues, turnings, windings, and rivers thereabout. Then away wenthe and Prelingot, the equerry or gentleman of Vauguyon's horse, who scoutedand espied as narrowly as they could upon all quarters without any fear. Inthe meantime Gargantua took a little refreshment, ate somewhat himself, thelike did those who were with him, and caused to give to his mare a picotineof 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'sforces, all scattered and out of order, plundering, stealing, robbing, andpillaging all they could lay their hands on. And, as far off as they couldperceive him, they ran thronging upon the back of one another in all hastetowards him, to unload him of his money, and untruss his portmantles. Thencried he out unto them, My masters, I am a poor devil, I desire you to spareme. I have yet one crown left. Come, we must drink it, for it is aurumpotabile, and this horse here shall be sold to pay my welcome. Afterwardstake me for one of your own, for never yet was there any man that knewbetter how to take, lard, roast, and dress, yea, by G--, to tear asunder anddevour a hen, than I that am here: and for my proficiat I drink to all goodfellows. With that he unscrewed his borracho (which was a great Dutchleathern bottle), and without putting in his nose drank very honestly. Themaroufle rogues looked upon him, opening their throats a foot wide, andputting out their tongues like greyhounds, in hopes to drink after him; butCaptain Tripet, in the very nick of that their expectation, came running tohim 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 ofLa Faye Monjau. What! said Tripet, this fellow gibes and flouts us? Whoart 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 thoushouldst be permitted to go whithersoever thou wilt, for all poor devilspass everywhere without toll or tax. But it is not the custom of poordevils to be so well mounted; therefore, sir devil, come down, and let mehave your horse, and if he do not carry me well, you, master devil, must doit: 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 ofPicrochole's men. 

When they heard these words, some amongst them began to be afraid, andblessed themselves with both hands, thinking indeed that he had been adevil disguised, insomuch that one of them, named Good John, captain of thetrained bands of the country bumpkins, took his psalter out of hiscodpiece, 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 hewent not away. Which words being heard by all the soldiers that werethere, divers of them being a little inwardly terrified, departed from theplace. All this did Gymnast very well remark and consider, and thereforemaking as if he would have alighted from off his horse, as he was poisinghimself on the mounting side, he most nimbly, with his short sword by histhigh, shifting his foot in the stirrup, performed the stirrup-leatherfeat, whereby, after the inclining of his body downwards, he forthwithlaunched himself aloft in the air, and placed both his feet together on thesaddle, standing upright with his back turned towards the horse's head. Now, said he, my case goes backward. Then suddenly in the same veryposture wherein he was, he fetched a gambol upon one foot, and, turning tothe left hand, failed not to carry his body perfectly round, just into itsformer stance, without missing one jot. Ha, said Tripet, I will not dothat at this time, and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I havefailed, I will undo this leap. Then with a marvellous strength andagility, turning towards the right hand, he fetched another frisking gambolas before, which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the hind-bow of thesaddle, raised himself up, and sprung in the air, poising and upholding hiswhole body upon the muscle and nerve of the said thumb, and so turned andwhirled himself about three times. At the fourth, reversing his body, andoverturning it upside down, and foreside back, without touching anything, he brought himself betwixt the horse's two ears, springing with all hisbody 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 calledthe miller's pass. After this, clapping his right hand flat upon themiddle of the saddle, he gave himself such a jerking swing that he therebyseated himself upon the crupper, after the manner of gentlewomen sitting onhorseback. This done, he easily passed his right leg over the saddle, andplaced himself like one that rides in croup. But, said he, it were betterfor me to get into the saddle; then putting the thumbs of both hands uponthe crupper before him, and thereupon leaning himself, as upon the onlysupporters of his body, he incontinently turned heels over head in the air, and straight found himself betwixt the bow of the saddle in a goodsettlement. Then with a somersault springing into the air again, he fellto stand with both his feet close together upon the saddle, and there madeabove a hundred frisks, turns, and demipommads, with his arms held outacross, and in so doing cried out aloud, I rage, I rage, devils, I am starkmad, 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 oneanother, By cock's death, he is a goblin or a devil thus disguised. Abhoste maligno libera nos, Domine, and ran away in a full flight, as if theyhad been routed, looking now and then behind them, like a dog that carriethaway a goose-wing in his mouth. Then Gymnast, spying his advantage, alighted from his horse, drew his sword, and laid on great blows upon thethickset and highest crested among them, and overthrew them in great heaps, hurt, wounded, and bruised, being resisted by nobody, they thinking he hadbeen 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 poordevil. Only Tripet would have traitorously cleft his head with hishorseman's sword, or lance-knight falchion; but he was well armed, and feltnothing of the blow but the weight of the stroke. Whereupon, turningsuddenly 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 thebreast with a hit, which at once cut his stomach, the fifth gut called thecolon, and the half of his liver, wherewith he fell to the ground, and infalling gushed forth above four pottles of pottage, and his soul mingledwith the pottage. 

This done, Gymnast withdrew himself, very wisely considering that a case ofgreat 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 Prelinguandwith him. 

Chapter 1. XXXVI. 

How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how theypassed the ford. 

As soon as he came, he related the estate and condition wherein they hadfound the enemy, and the stratagem which he alone had used against alltheir multitude, affirming that they were but rascally rogues, plunderers, thieves, and robbers, ignorant of all military discipline, and that theymight boldly set forward unto the field; it being an easy matter to felland 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 greattree, which commonly was called by the name of St. Martin's tree, becauseheretofore St. Martin planted a pilgrim's staff there, which in tract oftime 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 pulledit up easily, plucked off the boughs, and trimmed it at his pleasure. Inthe meantime his mare pissed to ease her belly, but it was in suchabundance that it did overflow the country seven leagues, and all the pissof that urinal flood ran glib away towards the ford of Vede, wherewith thewater was so swollen that all the forces the enemy had there were withgreat horror drowned, except some who had taken the way on the left handtowards 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 withinthe castle, which to know, Gargantua cried out as loud as he was able, Areyou there, or are you not there? If you be there, be there no more; and ifyou are not there, I have no more to say. But a ruffian gunner, whosecharge was to attend the portcullis over the gate, let fly a cannon-ball athim, and hit him with that shot most furiously on the right temple of hishead, yet did him no more hurt than if he had but cast a prune or kernel ofa wine-grape at him. What is this? said Gargantua; do you throw at usgrape-kernels here? The vintage shall cost you dear; thinking indeed thatthe bullet had been the kernel of a grape, or raisin-kernel. 

Those who were within the castle, being till then busy at the pillage, whenthey heard this noise ran to the towers and fortresses, from whence theyshot at him above nine thousand and five-and-twenty falconshot andarquebusades, aiming all at his head, and so thick did they shoot at himthat he cried out, Ponocrates, my friend, these flies here are like to putout 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 hadbeen but dunflies. Ponocrates looked and saw that there were no otherflies but great shot which they had shot from the castle. Then was it thathe rushed with his great tree against the castle, and with mighty blowsoverthrew both towers and fortresses, and laid all level with the ground, by which means all that were within were slain and broken in pieces. Goingfrom thence, they came to the bridge at the mill, where they found all theford covered with dead bodies, so thick that they had choked up the milland stopped the current of its water, and these were those that weredestroyed 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 shallpass there. Yes, yes, said Gymnastes, or I shall stick in the way. Thensetting spurs to his horse, he passed through freely, his horse not fearingnor being anything affrighted at the sight of the dead bodies; for he hadaccustomed 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 didthe Thracians, or as Ulysses did in throwing the corpses of his enemies athis horse's feet, as Homer saith, but by putting a Jack-a-lent amongst hishay, and making him go over it ordinarily when he gave him his oats. Theother three followed him very close, except Eudemon only, whose horse'sfore-right or far forefoot sank up to the knee in the paunch of a great fatchuff who lay there upon his back drowned, and could not get it out. Therewas he pestered, until Gargantua, with the end of his staff, thrust downthe rest of the villain's tripes into the water whilst the horse pulled outhis foot; and, which is a wonderful thing in hippiatry, the said horse wasthoroughly cured of a ringbone which he had in that foot by this touch ofthe burst guts of that great looby. 

Chapter 1. XXXVII. 

How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out ofhis hair. 

Being come out of the river of Vede, they came very shortly after toGrangousier's castle, who waited for them with great longing. At theircoming they were entertained with many congees, and cherished withembraces. Never was seen a more joyful company, for SupplementumSupplementi Chronicorum saith that Gargamelle died there with joy; for mypart, truly I cannot tell, neither do I care very much for her, nor foranybody else. The truth was, that Gargantua, in shifting his clothes, andcombing his head with a comb, which was nine hundred foot long of theJewish 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 ofthe wood of Vede. Which his father Grangousier seeing, thought they hadbeen lice, and said unto him, What, my dear son, hast thou brought us thisfar some short-winged hawks of the college of Montague? I did not meanthat thou shouldst reside there. Then answered Ponocrates, My sovereignlord, think not that I have placed him in that lousy college which theycall Montague; I had rather have put him amongst the grave-diggers of SanctInnocent, 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 Iwere King of Paris, the devil take me if I would not set it on fire, andburn both principal and regents, for suffering this inhumanity to beexercised before their eyes. Then, taking up one of these bullets, hesaid, These are cannon-shot, which your son Gargantua hath lately receivedby the treachery of your enemies, as he was passing before the wood ofVede. 

But they have been so rewarded, that they are all destroyed in the ruin ofthe castle, as were the Philistines by the policy of Samson, and those whomthe tower of Silohim slew, as it is written in the thirteenth of Luke. Myopinion is, that we pursue them whilst the luck is on our side; foroccasion hath all her hair on her forehead; when she is passed, you may notrecall her, --she hath no tuft whereby you can lay hold on her, for she isbald in the hind-part of her head, and never returneth again. Truly, saidGrangousier, it shall not be at this time; for I will make you a feastthis night, and bid you welcome. 

This said, they made ready supper, and, of extraordinary besides his dailyfare, were roasted sixteen oxen, three heifers, two and thirty calves, three score and three fat kids, four score and fifteen wethers, threehundred farrow pigs or sheats soused in sweet wine or must, eleven scorepartridges, seven hundred snipes and woodcocks, four hundred Loudun andCornwall capons, six thousand pullets, and as many pigeons, six hundredcrammed hens, fourteen hundred leverets, or young hares and rabbits, threehundred 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 Lordof Gramount bestowed; together with seven score pheasants, which were sentby the Lord of Essars; and some dozens of queests, coushats, ringdoves, andwoodculvers; 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, andwater-wagtails, with a great deal of cream, curds, and fresh cheese, andstore of soup, pottages, and brewis with great variety. Without doubt therewas meat enough, and it was handsomely dressed by Snapsauce, Hotchpot, andBrayverjuice, Grangousier's cooks. Jenkin Trudgeapace and Cleanglass werevery 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 pilgrimswho came from Sebastian near to Nantes, and who for shelter that night, being afraid of the enemy, had hid themselves in the garden upon thechichling peas, among the cabbages and lettuces. Gargantua finding himselfsomewhat 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, forthey were as great as plum-trees or as walnut-trees, he would go thitherhimself, and brought thence in his hand what he thought good, and withalcarried away the six pilgrims, who were in so great fear that they did notdare to speak nor cough. 

Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one toanother softly, What shall we do? We are almost drowned here amongst theselettuce, 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 thelettuce into a platter of the house, as large as the huge tun of the WhiteFriars of the Cistercian order; which done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, heate them up, to refresh himself a little before supper, and had alreadyswallowed up five of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totallyhid under a lettuce, except his bourdon or staff that appeared, and nothingelse. Which Grangousier seeing, said to Gargantua, I think that is thehorn of a shell-snail, do not eat it. Why not? said Gargantua, they aregood 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 aterrible draught of excellent white wine. The pilgrims, thus devoured, made shift to save themselves as well as they could, by withdrawing theirbodies out of the reach of the grinders of his teeth, but could not escapefrom thinking they had been put in the lowest dungeon of a prison. Andwhen Gargantua whiffed the great draught, they thought to have been drownedin his mouth, and the flood of wine had almost carried them away into thegulf of his stomach. Nevertheless, skipping with their bourdons, as St. Michael's palmers use to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger ofthat 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 insafety or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit themandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very greatpain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To ease himselftherefore of his smarting ache, he called for his toothpicker, and rubbingtowards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you mygentlemen 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 poorfellow that had hurt him with the bourdon, him he hooked to him by thecodpiece, which snatch nevertheless did him a great deal of good, for itpierced unto him a pocky botch he had in the groin, which grievouslytormented him ever since they were past Ancenis. The pilgrims, thusdislodged, ran away athwart the plain a pretty fast pace, and the painceased, even just at the time when by Eudemon he was called to supper, forall was ready. I will go then, said he, and piss away my misfortune; whichhe did do in such a copious measure, that the urine taking away the feetfrom the pilgrims, they were carried along with the stream unto the bank ofa tuft of trees. Upon which, as soon as they had taken footing, and thatfor their self-preservation they had run a little out of the road, they ona sudden fell all six, except Fourniller, into a trap that had been made totake wolves by a train, out of which, nevertheless, they escaped by theindustry of the said Fourniller, who broke all the snares and ropes. Beinggone from thence, they lay all the rest of that night in a lodge near untoCoudray, where they were comforted in their miseries by the gracious wordsof one of their company, called Sweer-to-go, who showed them that thisadventure had been foretold by the prophet David, Psalm. Quum exsurgerenthomines in nos, forte vivos deglutissent nos; when we were eaten in thesalad, with salt, oil, and vinegar. Quum irasceretur furor eorum in nos, forsitan aqua absorbuisset nos; when he drank the great draught. Torrentempertransivit anima nostra; when the stream of his water carried us to thethicket. Forsitan pertransisset anima nostra aquam intolerabilem; that is, the water of his urine, the flood whereof, cutting our way, took our feetfrom us. Benedictus Dominus qui non dedit nos in captionem dentibus eorum. Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est de laqueo venantium; when we fell inthe 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 hadat supper. 

When Gargantua was set down at table, after all of them had somewhat stayedtheir stomachs by a snatch or two of the first bits eaten heartily, Grangousier began to relate the source and cause of the war raised betweenhim and Picrochole; and came to tell how Friar John of the Funnels hadtriumphed at the defence of the close of the abbey, and extolled him forhis valour above Camillus, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar, and Themistocles. ThenGargantua desired that he might be presently sent for, to the end that withhim they might consult of what was to be done. Whereupon, by a jointconsent, his steward went for him, and brought him along merrily, with hisstaff of the cross, upon Grangousier's mule. When he was come, a thousandhuggings, a thousand embracements, a thousand good days were given. Ha, Friar John, my friend Friar John, my brave cousin Friar John from thedevil! Let me clip thee, my heart, about the neck; to me an armful. Imust grip thee, my ballock, till thy back crack with it. Come, my cod, letme coll thee till I kill thee. And Friar John, the gladdest man in theworld, never was man made welcomer, never was any more courteously andgraciously received than Friar John. Come, come, said Gargantua, a stoolhere close by me at this end. I am content, said the monk, seeing you willhave it so. Some water, page; fill, my boy, fill; it is to refresh myliver. Give me some, child, to gargle my throat withal. Deposita cappa, said Gymnast, let us pull off this frock. Ho, by G--, gentlemen, said themonk, there is a chapter in Statutis Ordinis which opposeth my laying of itdown. Pish! said Gymnast, a fig for your chapter! This frock breaks bothyour shoulders, put it off. My friend, said the monk, let me alone withit; for, by G--, I'll drink the better that it is on. It makes all my bodyjocund. If I should lay it aside, the waggish pages would cut tothemselves 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 downat table, I will drink, by G--, both to thee and to thy horse, and socourage, frolic, God save the company! I have already supped, yet will Ieat never a whit the less for that; for I have a paved stomach, as hollowas a butt of malvoisie or St. Benedictus' boot (butt), and always open likea lawyer's pouch. Of all fishes but the tench take the wing of a partridgeor the thigh of a nun. Doth not he die like a good fellow that dies with astiff 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, andpullets which they carry away they never eat the white. Why? said themonk. Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, ifthey be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; theredness 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'sfeast-gazers, said the monk, the porter of our abbey then hath not his headwell boiled, for his eyes are as red as a mazer made of an alder-tree. Thethigh of this leveret is good for those that have the gout. To the purposeof the truel, --what is the reason that the thighs of a gentlewoman arealways fresh and cool? This problem, said Gargantua, is neither inAristotle, in Alexander Aphrodiseus, nor in Plutarch. There are threecauses, said the monk, by which that place is naturally refreshed. Primo, because the water runs all along by it. Secundo, because it is a shadyplace, obscure and dark, upon which the sun never shines. And thirdly, because it is continually flabbelled, blown upon, and aired by the northwinds of the hole arstick, the fan of the smock, and flipflap of thecodpiece. And lusty, my lads. Some bousing liquor, page! So! crack, crack, crack. O how good is God, that gives us of this excellent juice! Icall him to witness, if I had been in the time of Jesus Christ, I wouldhave kept him from being taken by the Jews in the garden of Olivet. Andthe devil fail me, if I should have failed to cut off the hams of thesegentlemen apostles who ran away so basely after they had well supped, andleft their good master in the lurch. I hate that man worse than poisonthat offers to run away when he should fight and lay stoutly about him. Ohthat I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G--, Ishould 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 princein that pinch and necessity? Is it not better and more honourable toperish in fighting valiantly than to live in disgrace by a cowardly runningaway? 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 radixJesse. Je renie ma vie, je meurs de soif; I renounce my life, I rage forthirst. This wine is none of the worst. What wine drink you at Paris? Igive myself to the devil, if I did not once keep open house at Paris forall comers six months together. Do you know Friar Claude of the highkilderkins? Oh the good fellow that he is! But I do not know what flyhath stung him of late, he is become so hard a student. For my part, Istudy not at all. In our abbey we never study for fear of the mumps, whichdisease in horses is called the mourning in the chine. Our late abbot waswont 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 anywherecome by a goshawk nor tassel of falcon. My Lord Belloniere promised me alanner, but he wrote to me not long ago that he was become pursy. Thepartridges will so multiply henceforth, that they will go near to eat upour ears. I take no delight in the stalking-horse, for I catch such coldthat 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 leapingover the hedges and bushes my frock leaves always some of its wool behindit. I have recovered a dainty greyhound; I give him to the devil, if hesuffer a hare to escape him. A groom was leading him to my LordHuntlittle, and I robbed him of him. Did I ill? No, Friar John, saidGymnast, no, by all the devils that are, no! So, said the monk, do Iattest 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 ofG--, 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 themonk, but to grace and adorn my speech. They are colours of a Ciceronianrhetoric. 

Chapter 1. XL. 

Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some have biggernoses than others. 

By the faith of a Christian, said Eudemon, I do wonderfully dote and enterin a great ecstasy when I consider the honesty and good fellowship of thismonk, for he makes us here all merry. How is it, then, that they excludethe monks from all good companies, calling them feast-troublers, marrers ofmirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation, as the bees drive away thedrones from their hives? Ignavum fucos pecus, said Maro, a praesepibusarcent. Hereunto, answered Gargantua, there is nothing so true as that thefrock and cowl draw unto itself the opprobries, injuries, and maledictionsof the world, just as the wind called Cecias attracts the clouds. Theperemptory reason is, because they eat the ordure and excrements of theworld, that is to say, the sins of the people, and, like dung-chewers andexcrementitious eaters, they are cast into the privies and secessiveplaces, that is, the convents and abbeys, separated from politicalconversation, as the jakes and retreats of a house are. But if youconceive 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 andold. The ape keeps not the house as a dog doth, he draws not in the ploughas the ox, he yields neither milk nor wool as the sheep, he carrieth noburden 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--dothnot labour and work, as do the peasant and artificer; doth not ward anddefend the country, as doth the man of war; cureth not the sick anddiseased, as the physician doth; doth neither preach nor teach, as do theevangelical doctors and schoolmasters; doth not import commodities andthings necessary for the commonwealth, as the merchant doth. Therefore isit 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, answeredGargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells theytrouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said themonk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble outgreat store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they saymany paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon orapprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which truly I call mockingof God, and not prayers. But so help them God, as they pray for us, andnot for being afraid to lose their victuals, their manchots, and good fatpottage. All true Christians, of all estates and conditions, in all placesand at all times, send up their prayers to God, and the Mediator prayethand intercedeth for them, and God is gracious to them. Now such a one isour good Friar John; therefore every man desireth to have him in hiscompany. He is no bigot or hypocrite; he is not torn and divided betwixtreality and appearance; no wretch of a rugged and peevish disposition, buthonest, jovial, resolute, and a good fellow. He travels, he labours, hedefends the oppressed, comforts the afflicted, helps the needy, and keepsthe close of the abbey. Nay, said the monk, I do a great deal more thanthat; for whilst we are in despatching our matins and anniversaries in thechoir, I make withal some crossbow-strings, polish glass bottles and bolts, I twist lines and weave purse nets wherein to catch coneys. I am neveridle. 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 ableto make you a fine cracker and composer of bum-sonnets. You are not asyet, 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 orpromoter's horse. Friar John, said Gymnast, take away the snot that hangsat 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 somewater come out from thence, there never goes in any; for it is wellantidoted with pot-proof armour and syrup of the vine-leaf. 

Oh, my friend, he that hath winter-boots made of such leather may boldlyfish for oysters, for they will never take water. What is the cause, saidGargantua, that Friar John hath such a fair nose? Because, saidGrangousier, that God would have it so, who frameth us in such form and forsuch end as is most agreeable with his divine will, even as a potterfashioneth his vessels. Because, said Ponocrates, he came with the firstto the fair of noses, and therefore made choice of the fairest and thegreatest. Pish, said the monk, that is not the reason of it, but, according to the true monastical philosophy, it is because my nurse hadsoft teats, by virtue whereof, whilst she gave me suck, my nose did sink inas in so much butter. The hard breasts of nurses make childrenshort-nosed. But hey, gay, Ad formam nasi cognoscitur ad te levavi. Inever eat any confections, page, whilst I am at the bibbery. Item, bringme 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 concludedthat about midnight they should fall unawares upon the enemy, to know whatmanner of watch and ward they kept, and that in the meanwhile they shouldtake a little rest the better to refresh themselves. But Gargantua couldnot sleep by any means, on which side soever he turned himself. Whereuponthe monk said to him, I never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon orprayers. Let us therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms, to try whether you shall not quickly fall asleep. The conceit pleasedGargantua very well, and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon asthey came to the words Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and theother. But the monk, for his being formerly accustomed to the hour ofclaustral matins, failed not to awake a little before midnight, and, beingup himself, awaked all the rest, in singing aloud, and with a full clearvoice, 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 usualsaying, that we begin matins with coughing and supper with drinking. Letus now, in doing clean contrarily, begin our matins with drinking, and atnight before supper we shall cough as hard as we can. What, saidGargantua, to drink so soon after sleep? This is not to live according tothe diet and prescript rule of the physicians, for you ought first to scourand cleanse your stomach of all its superfluities and excrements. Oh, wellphysicked, said the monk; a hundred devils leap into my body, if there benot more old drunkards than old physicians! I have made this paction andcovenant with my appetite, that it always lieth down and goes to bed withmyself, for to that I every day give very good order; then the next morningit 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 mydrawer; in terms of falconry, my tiring. What drawer or tiring do youmean? said Gargantua. My breviary, said the monk, for just as thefalconers, before they feed their hawks, do make them draw at a hen's legto purge their brains of phlegm and sharpen them to a good appetite, so, bytaking this merry little breviary in the morning, I scour all my lungs andam presently ready to drink. 

After what manner, said Gargantua, do you say these fair hours and prayersof yours? After the manner of Whipfield (Fessecamp, and corruptly Fecan. ), said the monk, by three psalms and three lessons, or nothing at all, hethat will. I never tie myself to hours, prayers, and sacraments; for theyare made for the man and not the man for them. Therefore is it that I makemy prayers in fashion of stirrup-leathers; I shorten or lengthen them whenI think good. Brevis oratio penetrat caelos et longa potatio evacuatscyphos. Where is that written? By my faith, said Ponocrates, I cannottell, my pillicock, but thou art more worth than gold. Therein, said themonk, I am like you; but, venite, apotemus. Then made they ready store ofcarbonadoes, or rashers on the coals, and good fat soups, or brewis withsippets; and the monk drank what he pleased. Some kept him company, andthe rest did forbear, for their stomachs were not as yet opened. Afterwards every man began to arm and befit himself for the field. And theyarmed the monk against his will; for he desired no other armour for backand breast but his frock, nor any other weapon in his hand but the staff ofthe cross. Yet at their pleasure was he completely armed cap-a-pie, andmounted upon one of the best horses in the kingdom, with a good slashingshable by his side, together with Gargantua, Ponocrates, Gymnast, Eudemon, and five-and-twenty more of the most resolute and adventurous ofGrangousier's house, all armed at proof with their lances in their hands, mounted like St. George, and everyone of them having an arquebusier behindhim. 

Chapter 1. XLII. 

How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon atree. 

Thus went out those valiant champions on their adventure, in fullresolution to know what enterprise they should undertake, and what to takeheed of and look well to in the day of the great and horrible battle. Andthe monk encouraged them, saying, My children, do not fear nor doubt, Iwill conduct you safely. God and Sanct Benedict be with us! If I hadstrength answerable to my courage, by's death, I would plume them for youlike ducks. I fear nothing but the great ordnance; yet I know of a charmby way of prayer, which the subsexton of our abbey taught me, that willpreserve a man from the violence of guns and all manner of fire-weapons andengines; 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 devilishpranks amongst them. By G--, whoever of our party shall offer to play theduck, and shrink when blows are a-dealing, I give myself to the devil, if Ido 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 LordMeurles his greyhound, which was not worth a straw in the fields? He put afrock about his neck: by the body of G--, there was neither hare nor foxthat could escape him, and, which is more, he lined all the bitches in thecountry, though before that he was feeble-reined and ex frigidis etmaleficiatis. 

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 thestump of a great branch of the said tree. Nevertheless, he set his spursso 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 monkleft hanging on the walnut-tree, and crying for help, murder, murder, swearing also that he was betrayed. Eudemon perceived him first, andcalling Gargantua said, Sir, come and see Absalom hanging. Gargantua, being come, considered the countenance of the monk, and in what posture hehanged; wherefore he said to Eudemon, You were mistaken in comparing him toAbsalom; for Absalom hung by his hair, but this shaveling monk hangeth bythe ears. Help me, said the monk, in the devil's name; is this a time foryou to prate? You seem to me to be like the decretalist preachers, who saythat whosoever shall see his neighbour in the danger of death, ought, uponpain of trisulk excommunication, rather choose to admonish him to make hisconfession to a priest, and put his conscience in the state of peace, thanotherwise to help and relieve him. 

And therefore when I shall see them fallen into a river, and ready to bedrowned, I shall make them a fair long sermon de contemptu mundi, et fugaseculi; and when they are stark dead, shall then go to their aid andsuccour in fishing after them. Be quiet, said Gymnast, and stir not, myminion. I am now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom, forthou art a pretty little gentle monachus. Monachus in claustro non valetova duo; sed quando est extra, bene valet triginta. I have seen above fivehundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better countenance in hisdangling and pendilatory swagging. Truly, if I had so good a one, I wouldwillingly hang thus all my lifetime. What, said the monk, have you almostdone preaching? Help me, in the name of God, seeing you will not in thename of the other spirit, or, by the habit which I wear, you shall repentit, 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 thearmpits, and with the other undid his vizor from the stump of the brokenbranch; which done, he let him fall to the ground and himself after. Assoon as the monk was down, he put off all his armour, and threw away onepiece after another about the field, and, taking to him again his staff ofthe cross, remounted up to his horse, which Eudemon had caught in hisrunning away. Then went they on merrily, riding along on the highway. 

Chapter 1. XLIII. 

How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gargantua, andhow the Monk slew Captain Drawforth (Tirevant. ), and then was takenprisoner by his enemies. 

Picrochole, at the relation of those who had escaped out of the broil anddefeat wherein Tripet was untriped, grew very angry that the devils shouldhave so run upon his men, and held all that night a counsel of war, atwhich Rashcalf and Touchfaucet (Hastiveau, Touquedillon. ), concluded hispower to be such that he was able to defeat all the devils of hell if theyshould come to jostle with his forces. This Picrochole did not fullybelieve, though he doubted not much of it. Therefore sent he under thecommand and conduct of the Count Drawforth, for discovering of the country, the number of sixteen hundred horsemen, all well mounted upon light horsesfor skirmish and thoroughly besprinkled with holy water; and everyone fortheir field-mark or cognizance had the sign of a star in his scarf, toserve at all adventures in case they should happen to encounter withdevils, that by the virtue, as well of that Gregorian water as of the starswhich they wore, they might make them disappear and evanish. 

In this equipage they made an excursion upon the country till they camenear to the Vauguyon, which is the valley of Guyon, and to the spital, butcould never find anybody to speak unto; whereupon they returned a littleback, and took occasion to pass above the aforesaid hospital to try whatintelligence they could come by in those parts. In which resolution ridingon, and by chance in a pastoral lodge or shepherd's cottage near to Coudrayhitting upon the five pilgrims, they carried them way-bound and manacled, as if they had been spies, for all the exclamations, adjurations, andrequests that they could make. Being come down from thence towardsSeville, they were heard by Gargantua, who said then unto those that werewith 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 theirnumber rather than by their valour and prowess? With this he cried out, Charge, devils, charge! Which when the enemies heard, they thoughtcertainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began allof 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 monkwith all his force on the very middle of his breast, but, coming againsthis horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the blow either brokeoff or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you had struck againstan anvil with a little wax-candle. 

Then did the monk with his staff of the cross give him such a sturdy thumpand whirret betwixt his neck and shoulders, upon the acromion bone, that hemade him lose both sense and motion and fall down stone dead at his horse'sfeet; and, seeing the sign of the star which he wore scarfwise, he saidunto Gargantua, These men are but priests, which is but the beginning of amonk; 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 therear, and felled them down like tree-leaves, striking athwart and alongstand every way. Gymnast presently asked Gargantua if they should pursuethem. To whom Gargantua answered, By no means; for, according to rightmilitary discipline, you must never drive your enemy unto despair, for thatsuch a strait doth multiply his force and increase his courage, which wasbefore broken and cast down; neither is there any better help or outrage ofrelief for men that are amazed, out of heart, toiled, and spent, than tohope for no favour at all. How many victories have been taken out of thehands of the victors by the vanquished, when they would not rest satisfiedwith reason, but attempt to put all to the sword, and totally to destroytheir enemies, without leaving so much as one to carry home news of thedefeat of his fellows. Open, therefore, unto your enemies all the gatesand ways, and make to them a bridge of silver rather than fail, that youmay be rid of them. Yea, but, said Gymnast, they have the monk. Have theythe monk? said Gargantua. Upon mine honour, then, it will prove to theircost. But to prevent all dangers, let us not yet retreat, but halt herequietly as in an ambush; for I think I do already understand the policy andjudgment of our enemies. They are truly more directed by chance and merefortune than by good advice and counsel. In the meanwhile, whilst thesemade a stop under the walnut-trees, the monk pursued on the chase, chargingall he overtook, and giving quarter to none, until he met with a trooperwho carried behind him one of the poor pilgrims, and there would haverifled him. The pilgrim, in hope of relief at the sight of the monk, criedout, Ha, my lord prior, my good friend, my lord prior, save me, I beseechyou, save me! Which words being heard by those that rode in the van, theyinstantly faced about, and seeing there was nobody but the monk that madethis great havoc and slaughter among them, they loaded him with blows asthick 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. Thenthey committed him to two of the marshal's men to keep, and, looking about, saw nobody coming against them, whereupon they thought that Gargantua andhis party were fled. Then was it that they rode as hard as they couldtowards the walnut-trees to meet with them, and left the monk there allalone, with his two foresaid men to guard him. Gargantua heard the noiseand neighing of the horses, and said to his men, Comrades, I hear the trackand beating of the enemy's horse-feet, and withal perceive that some ofthem come in a troop and full body against us. Let us rally and closehere, then set forward in order, and by this means we shall be able toreceive their charge to their loss and our honour. 

Chapter 1. XLIV. 

How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's forlorn hopewas defeated. 

The monk, seeing them break off thus without order, conjectured that theywere to set upon Gargantua and those that were with him, and waswonderfully grieved that he could not succour them. Then considered he thecountenance of the two keepers in whose custody he was, who would havewillingly run after the troops to get some booty and plunder, and werealways looking towards the valley unto which they were going. Farther, hesyllogized, saying, These men are but badly skilled in matters of war, forthey have not required my parole, neither have they taken my sword from me. Suddenly hereafter he drew his brackmard or horseman's sword, wherewith hegave the keeper which held him on the right side such a sound slash that hecut clean through the jugulary veins and the sphagitid or transparentarteries of the neck, with the fore-part of the throat called thegargareon, even unto the two adenes, which are throat kernels; and, redoubling the blow, he opened the spinal marrow betwixt the second andthird 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, criedwith a loud voice, Ha, my lord prior, quarter; I yield, my lord prior, quarter; quarter, my good friend, my lord prior. And the monk criedlikewise, My lord posterior, my friend, my lord posterior, you shall haveit 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 themonk, which I wear, I will here make you a cardinal. What! do you use topay ransoms to religious men? You shall therefore have by-and-by a red hatof my giving. And the fellow cried, Ha, my lord prior, my lord prior, mylord 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 delivermyself up to you. And I deliver thee, said the monk, to all the devils inhell. Then at one stroke he cut off his head, cutting his scalp upon thetemple-bones, and lifting up in the upper part of the skull the twotriangulary bones called sincipital, or the two bones bregmatis, togetherwith the sagittal commissure or dartlike seam which distinguisheth theright side of the head from the left, as also a great part of the coronalor forehead bone, by which terrible blow likewise he cut the two meningesor films which enwrap the brain, and made a deep wound in the brain's twoposterior ventricles, and the cranium or skull abode hanging upon hisshoulders by the skin of the pericranium behind, in form of a doctor'sbonnet, black without and red within. Thus fell he down also to the groundstark dead. 

And presently the monk gave his horse the spur, and kept the way that theenemy held, who had met with Gargantua and his companions in the broadhighway, and were so diminished of their number for the enormous slaughterthat Gargantua had made with his great tree amongst them, as also Gymnast, Ponocrates, Eudemon, and the rest, that they began to retreat disorderlyand in great haste, as men altogether affrighted and troubled in both senseand understanding, and as if they had seen the very proper species and formof death before their eyes; or rather, as when you see an ass with a brizzeor gadbee under his tail, or fly that stings him, run hither and thitherwithout 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 mancan tell what ails him, for they see not anything touch him. So fled thesepeople destitute of wit, without knowing any cause of flying, only pursuedby 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, andwith main strength fetching a compass with his arm without feigning orsparing, 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 abattle-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 amongstthe 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 toalight, and gave their horses unto the said pilgrims, keeping them therewith 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 wordsthat Grangousier gave them. 

This skirmish being ended, Gargantua retreated with his men, excepting themonk, and about the dawning of the day they came unto Grangousier, who inhis bed was praying unto God for their safety and victory. And seeing themall safe and sound, he embraced them lovingly, and asked what was become ofthe monk. Gargantua answered him that without doubt the enemies had themonk. Then have they mischief and ill luck, said Grangousier; which wasvery true. Therefore is it a common proverb to this day, to give a man themonk, or, as in French, lui bailler le moine, when they would express thedoing unto one a mischief. Then commanded he a good breakfast to beprovided 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 wouldneither eat nor drink. In the meanwhile the monk comes, and from the gateof the outer court cries out aloud, Fresh wine, fresh wine, Gymnast myfriend! Gymnast went out and saw that it was Friar John, who brought alongwith him five pilgrims and Touchfaucet prisoners; whereupon Gargantualikewise went forth to meet him, and all of them made him the best welcomethat possibly they could, and brought him before Grangousier, who asked himof all his adventures. The monk told him all, both how he was taken, howhe rid himself of his keepers, of the slaughter he had made by the way, andhow he had rescued the pilgrims and brought along with him CaptainTouchfaucet. Then did they altogether fall to banqueting most merrily. Inthe meantime Grangousier asked the pilgrims what countrymen they were, whence they came, and whither they went. Sweer-to-go in the name of therest answered, My sovereign lord, I am of Saint Genou in Berry, this man isof Palvau, this other is of Onzay, this of Argy, this of St. Nazarand, andthis man of Villebrenin. We come from Saint Sebastian near Nantes, and arenow returning, as we best may, by easy journeys. Yea, but, saidGrangousier, what went you to do at Saint Sebastian? We went, saidSweer-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 SaintSebastian? Yes, truly, answered Sweer-to-go, our preachers tell us soindeed. But is it so, said Grangousier, do the false prophets teach yousuch abuses? Do they thus blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as tomake them like unto the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind, --asHomer writeth, that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks byApollo, and as the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievousgods. So did a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay, that Saint Anthony sent the fire into men's legs, that Saint Eutropius mademen hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish. But I punished him so exemplarily, though he called me heretic for it, thatsince that time no such hypocritical rogue durst set his foot within myterritories. And truly I wonder that your king should suffer them in theirsermons to publish such scandalous doctrine in his dominions; for theydeserve to be chastised with greater severity than those who, by magicalart, or any other device, have brought the pestilence into a country. Thepest killeth but the bodies, but such abominable imposters empoison ourvery souls. As he spake these words, in came the monk very resolute, andasked 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 themonks, what cheer make they? By G-- body, they'll have a fling at yourwives, and breast them to some purpose, whilst you are upon your roamingrant and gadding pilgrimage. Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraidof mine, for he that shall see her by day will never break his neck to cometo 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 nearto her; for a good carpenter will make use of any kind of timber. Let mebe peppered with the pox, if you find not all your wives with child at yourreturn; 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 andPliny, Lib. 7, cap. 3. What virtue will there be then, said the monk, intheir bullets of concupiscence, their habits and their bodies?

Then, said Grangousier, go your ways, poor men, in the name of God theCreator, to whom I pray to guide you perpetually, and henceforward be notso ready to undertake these idle and unprofitable journeys. Look to yourfamilies, labour every man in his vocation, instruct your children, andlive as the good apostle St. Paul directeth you; in doing whereof, God, hisangels and sancts, will guard and protect you, and no evil or plague at anytime shall befall you. Then Gargantua led them into the hall to take theirrefection; but the pilgrims did nothing but sigh, and said to Gargantua, Ohow happy is that land which hath such a man for their lord! We have beenmore edified and instructed by the talk which he had with us, than by allthe sermons that ever were preached in our town. This is, said Gargantua, that which Plato saith, Lib. 5 de Republ. , that those commonwealths arehappy, whose rulers philosophate, and whose philosophers rule. Then causedhe 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 withsome 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 theenterprise and attempt of Picrochole, what it was he could pretend to, oraim at, by the rustling stir and tumultuary coil of this his suddeninvasion. Whereunto he answered, that his end and purpose was to conquerall the country, if he could, for the injury done to his cake-bakers. Itis too great an undertaking, said Grangousier; and, as the proverb is, Hethat grips too much, holds fast but little. The time is not now asformerly, to conquer the kingdoms of our neighbour princes, and to build upour own greatness upon the loss of our nearest Christian Brother. Thisimitation of the ancient Herculeses, Alexanders, Hannibals, Scipios, Caesars, and other such heroes, is quite contrary to the profession of thegospel of Christ, by which we are commanded to preserve, keep, rule, andgovern every man his own country and lands, and not in a hostile manner toinvade others; and that which heretofore the Barbars and Saracens calledprowess and valour, we do now call robbing, thievery, and wickedness. Itwould have been more commendable in him to have contained himself withinthe bounds of his own territories, royally governing them, than to insultand domineer in mine, pillaging and plundering everywhere like a mostunmerciful enemy; for, by ruling his own with discretion, he might haveincreased his greatness, but by robbing me he cannot escape destruction. Go your ways in the name of God, prosecute good enterprises, show your kingwhat is amiss, and never counsel him with regard unto your own particularprofit, for the public loss will swallow up the private benefit. As foryour ransom, I do freely remit it to you, and will that your arms and horsebe restored to you; so should good neighbours do, and ancient friends, seeing this our difference is not properly war. As Plato, Lib. 5 deRepub. , would not have it called war, but sedition, when the Greeks took uparms against one another, and that therefore, when such combustions shouldarise amongst them, his advice was to behave themselves in the managing ofthem with all discretion and modesty. Although you call it war, it is butsuperficial; it entereth not into the closet and inmost cabinet of ourhearts. For neither of us hath been wronged in his honour, nor is thereany 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 quarrelsomepersons deserve rather to be contemned than mentioned, especially seeing Ioffered them satisfaction according to the wrong. God shall be the justjudge of our variances, whom I beseech by death rather to take me out ofthis life, and to permit my goods to perish and be destroyed before mineeyes, than that by me or mine he should in any sort be wronged. Thesewords 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 CaptainTouchfaucet here present? Sir, said the monk, seeing himself is here, andthat he is of the years of discretion, I had rather you should know it byhis confession than by any words of mine. Then said Touchfaucet, Mysovereign lord it is he indeed that took me, and I do therefore most freelyyield myself his prisoner. Have you put him to any ransom? saidGrangousier to the monk. No, said the monk, of that I take no care. Howmuch 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 commandedthat, in presence of Touchfaucet, should be delivered to the monk fortaking him the sum of three score and two thousand saluts (in Englishmoney, fifteen thousand and five hundred pounds), which was done, whilstthey made a collation or little banquet to the said Touchfaucet, of whomGrangousier asked if he would stay with him, or if he loved rather toreturn to his king. Touchfaucet answered that he was content to takewhatever course he would advise him to. Then, said Grangousier, returnunto your king, and God be with you. 

Then he gave him an excellent sword of a Vienne blade, with a goldenscabbard wrought with vine-branch-like flourishes, of fair goldsmith'swork, and a collar or neck-chain of gold, weighing seven hundred and twothousand marks (at eight ounces each), garnished with precious stones ofthe finest sort, esteemed at a hundred and sixty thousand ducats, and tenthousand crowns more, as an honourable donative, by way of present. 

After this talk Touchfaucet got to his horse, and Gargantua for his safetyallowed him the guard of thirty men-at-arms and six score archers to attendhim, under the conduct of Gymnast, to bring him even unto the gate of therock Clermond, if there were need. As soon as he was gone, the monkrestored unto Grangousier the three score and two thousand saluts which hehad received, saying, Sir, it is not as yet the time for you to give suchgifts; stay till this war be at an end, for none can tell what accidentsmay occur, and war begun without good provision of money beforehand forgoing through with it, is but as a breathing of strength, and blast thatwill quickly pass away. Coin is the sinews of war. Well then, saidGrangousier, at the end I will content you by some honest recompense, asalso 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, ofthe 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, ofChose, of Varenes, of Bourgueil, of the Bouchard Island, of the Croullay, of Narsay, of Cande, of Montsoreau, and other bordering places, sentambassadors unto Grangousier, to tell him that they were advised of thegreat wrongs which Picrochole had done him, and, in regard of their ancientconfederacy, offered him what assistance they could afford, both in men, money, victuals, and ammunition, and other necessaries for war. The moneywhich by the joint agreement of them all was sent unto him, amounted to sixscore and fourteen millions, two crowns and a half of pure gold. Theforces wherewith they did assist him did consist in fifteen thousandcuirassiers, two-and-thirty thousand light horsemen, four score and ninethousand dragoons, and a hundred-and-forty thousand volunteer adventurers. These had with them eleven thousand and two hundred cannons, doublecannons, long pieces of artillery called basilisks, and smaller sized onesknown by the name of spirols, besides the mortar-pieces and grenadoes. Ofpioneers they had seven-and-forty thousand, all victualled and paid for sixmonths and four days of advance. Which offer Gargantua did not altogetherrefuse, nor wholly accept of; but, giving them hearty thanks, said that hewould compose and order the war by such a device, that there should not befound great need to put so many honest men to trouble in the managing ofit; and therefore was content at that time to give order only for bringingalong the legions which he maintained in his ordinary garrison towns of theDeviniere, of Chavigny, of Gravot, and of the Quinquenais, amounting to thenumber of two thousand cuirassiers, three score and six thousandfoot-soldiers, six-and-twenty thousand dragoons, attended by two hundredpieces of great ordnance, two-and-twenty thousand pioneers, and six thousandlight horsemen, all drawn up in troops, so well befitted and accommodatedwith their commissaries, sutlers, farriers, harness-makers, and other suchlike necessary members in a military camp, so fully instructed in the art ofwarfare, so perfectly knowing and following their colours, so ready to hearand obey their captains, so nimble to run, so strong at their charging, soprudent in their adventures, and every day so well disciplined, that theyseemed rather to be a concert of organ-pipes, or mutual concord of thewheels of a clock, than an infantry and cavalry, or army of soldiers. 

Touchfaucet immediately after his return presented himself beforePicrochole, and related unto him at large all that he had done and seen, and at last endeavoured to persuade him with strong and forcible argumentsto capitulate and make an agreement with Grangousier, whom he found to bethe honestest man in the world; saying further, that it was neither rightnor reason thus to trouble his neighbours, of whom they had never receivedanything but good. And in regard of the main point, that they should neverbe able to go through stitch with that war, but to their great damage andmischief; for the forces of Picrochole were not so considerable but thatGrangousier could easily overthrow them. 

He had not well done speaking when Rashcalf said out aloud, Unhappy is thatprince which is by such men served, who are so easily corrupted, as I knowTouchfaucet is. For I see his courage so changed that he had willinglyjoined with our enemies to fight against us and betray us, if they wouldhave received him; but as virtue is of all, both friends and foes, praisedand esteemed, so is wickedness soon known and suspected, and although ithappen the enemies to make use thereof for their profit, yet have theyalways the wicked and the traitors in abomination. 

Touchfaucet being at these words very impatient, drew out his sword, andtherewith ran Rashcalf through the body, a little under the nipple of hisleft side, whereof he died presently, and pulling back his sword out of hisbody said boldly, So let him perish that shall a faithful servant blame. Picrochole incontinently grew furious, and seeing Touchfaucet's new swordand his scabbard so richly diapered with flourishes of most excellentworkmanship, said, Did they give thee this weapon so feloniously therewithto kill before my face my so good friend Rashcalf? Then immediatelycommanded he his guard to hew him in pieces, which was instantly done, andthat so cruelly that the chamber was all dyed with blood. Afterwards heappointed the corpse of Rashcalf to be honourably buried, and that ofTouchfaucet to be cast over the walls into the ditch. 

The news of these excessive violences were quickly spread through all thearmy; whereupon many began to murmur against Picrochole, in so far thatPinchpenny said to him, My sovereign lord, I know not what the issue ofthis enterprise will be. I see your men much dejected, and not wellresolved in their minds, by considering that we are here very ill providedof victual, and that our number is already much diminished by three or foursallies. Furthermore, great supplies and recruits come daily in to yourenemies; but we so moulder away that, if we be once besieged, I do not seehow we can escape a total destruction. Tush, pish, said Picrochole, youare 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 utterlydefeated the army of the said Picrochole. 

Gargantua had the charge of the whole army, and his father Grangousierstayed in his castle, who, encouraging them with good words, promised greatrewards unto those that should do any notable service. Having thus setforward, as soon as they had gained the pass at the ford of Vede, withboats and bridges speedily made they passed over in a trice. Thenconsidering the situation of the town, which was on a high and advantageousplace, Gargantua thought fit to call his council, and pass that night indeliberation upon what was to be done. But Gymnast said unto him, Mysovereign lord, such is the nature and complexion of the French, that theyare worth nothing but at the first push. Then are they more fierce thandevils. But if they linger a little and be wearied with delays, they'llprove more faint and remiss than women. My opinion is, therefore, that nowpresently, after your men have taken breath and some small refection, yougive order for a resolute assault, and that we storm them instantly. Hisadvice was found very good, and for effectuating thereof he brought forthhis army into the plain field, and placed the reserves on the skirt orrising of a little hill. The monk took along with him six companies offoot and two hundred horsemen well armed, and with great diligence crossedthe marsh, and valiantly got upon the top of the green hillock even untothe highway which leads to Loudun. Whilst the assault was thus begun, Picrochole's men could not tell well what was best, to issue out andreceive the assailants, or keep within the town and not to stir. Himselfin the mean time, without deliberation, sallied forth in a rage with thecavalry of his guard, who were forthwith received and royally entertainedwith great cannon-shot that fell upon them like hail from the high groundson which the artillery was planted. Whereupon the Gargantuists betookthemselves unto the valleys, to give the ordnance leave to play and rangewith the larger scope. 

Those of the town defended themselves as well as they could, but their shotpassed over us without doing us any hurt at all. Some of Picrochole's menthat had escaped our artillery set most fiercely upon our soldiers, butprevailed little; for they were all let in betwixt the files, and thereknocked down to the ground, which their fellow-soldiers seeing, they wouldhave retreated, but the monk having seized upon the pass by the which theywere to return, they ran away and fled in all the disorder and confusionthat could be imagined. 

Some would have pursued after them and followed the chase, but the monkwithheld them, apprehending that in their pursuit the pursuers might losetheir ranks, and so give occasion to the besieged to sally out of the townupon them. Then staying there some space and none coming against him, hesent the Duke Phrontist to advise Gargantua to advance towards the hillupon the left hand, to hinder Picrochole's retreat at that gate; whichGargantua did with all expedition, and sent thither four brigades under theconduct of Sebast, which had no sooner reached the top of the hill, butthey met Picrochole in the teeth, and those that were with him scattered. 

Then charged they upon them stoutly, yet were they much endamaged by thosethat were upon the walls, who galled them with all manner of shot, bothfrom the great ordnance, small guns, and bows. Which Gargantua perceiving, he went with a strong party to their relief, and with his artillery beganto thunder so terribly upon that canton of the wall, and so long, that allthe strength within the town, to maintain and fill up the breach, was drawnthither. The monk seeing that quarter which he kept besieged void of menand competent guards, and in a manner altogether naked and abandoned, didmost magnanimously on a sudden lead up his men towards the fort, and neverleft it till he had got up upon it, knowing that such as come to thereserve in a conflict bring with them always more fear and terror thanthose that deal about them with they hands in the fight. 

Nevertheless, he gave no alarm till all his soldiers had got within thewall, except the two hundred horsemen, whom he left without to secure hisentry. Then did he give a most horrible shout, so did all these who werewith him, and immediately thereafter, without resistance, putting to theedge of the sword the guard that was at that gate, they opened it to thehorsemen, with whom most furiously they altogether ran towards the eastgate, where all the hurlyburly was, and coming close upon them in the rearoverthrew all their forces. 

The besieged, seeing that the Gargantuists had won the town upon them, andthat they were like to be secure in no corner of it, submitted themselvesunto the mercy of the monk, and asked for quarter, which the monk verynobly granted to them, yet made them lay down their arms; then, shuttingthem up within churches, gave order to seize upon all the staves of thecrosses, and placed men at the doors to keep them from coming forth. Thenopening that east gate, he issued out to succour and assist Gargantua. ButPicrochole, thinking it had been some relief coming to him from the town, adventured more forwardly than before, and was upon the giving of a mostdesperate home-charge, when Gargantua cried out, Ha, Friar John, my friendFriar John, you are come in a good hour. Which unexpected accident soaffrighted Picrochole and his men, that, giving all for lost, they betookthemselves to their heels, and fled on all hands. Gargantua chased themtill they came near to Vaugaudry, killing and slaying all the way, and thensounded the retreat. 

Chapter 1. XLIX. 

How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and whatGargantua did after the battle. 

Picrochole thus in despair fled towards the Bouchard Island, and in the wayto Riviere his horse stumbled and fell down, whereat he on a sudden was soincensed, 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 anass at the mill that was thereby; but the miller's men did so baste hisbones and so soundly bethwack him that they made him both black and bluewith strokes; then stripping him of all his clothes, gave him a scurvy oldcanvas jacket wherewith to cover his nakedness. Thus went along this poorcholeric wretch, who, passing the water at Port-Huaulx, and relating hismisadventurous disasters, was foretold by an old Lourpidon hag that hiskingdom should be restored to him at the coming of the Cocklicranes, whichshe called Coquecigrues. What is become of him since we cannot certainlytell, yet was I told that he is now a porter at Lyons, as testy and pettishin humour as ever he was before, and would be always with great lamentationinquiring at all strangers of the coming of the Cocklicranes, expectingassuredly, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at their coming heshall be re-established in his kingdom. The first thing Gargantua didafter 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 orwounded, only some few foot of Captain Tolmere's company, and Ponocrates, who was shot with a musket-ball through the doublet. Then he caused themall at and in their several posts and divisions to take a littlerefreshment, which was very plenteously provided for them in the best drinkand victuals that could be had for money, and gave order to the treasurersand commissaries of the army to pay for and defray that repast, and thatthere should be no outrage at all nor abuse committed in the town, seeingit was his own. And furthermore commanded, that immediately after thesoldiers had done with eating and drinking for that time sufficiently andto their own hearts' desire, a gathering should be beaten for bringing themaltogether, to be drawn up on the piazza before the castle, there toreceive six months' pay completely. All which was done. After this, byhis direction, were brought before him in the said place all those thatremained 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 anddisposition, that, upon the winning of a battle, they have chosen rather, for a sign and memorial of their triumphs and victories, to erect trophiesand monuments in the hearts of the vanquished by clemency than byarchitecture in the lands which they had conquered. For they did hold ingreater estimation the lively remembrance of men purchased by liberalitythan the dumb inscription of arches, pillars, and pyramids, subject to theinjury of storms and tempests, and to the envy of everyone. You may verywell remember of the courtesy which by them was used towards the Bretons inthe battle of St. Aubin of Cormier and at the demolishing of Partenay. Youhave heard, and hearing admire, their gentle comportment towards those atthe barriers (the barbarians) of Spaniola, who had plundered, wasted, andransacked the maritime borders of Olone and Thalmondois. All thishemisphere of the world was filled with the praises and congratulationswhich yourselves and your fathers made, when Alpharbal, King of Canarre, not satisfied with his own fortunes, did most furiously invade the land ofOnyx, and with cruel piracies molest all the Armoric Islands and confineregions of Britany. Yet was he in a set naval fight justly taken andvanquished by my father, whom God preserve and protect. But what? Whereasother kings and emperors, yea, those who entitle themselves Catholics, would have dealt roughly with him, kept him a close prisoner, and put himto an extreme high ransom, he entreated him very courteously, lodged himkindly with himself in his own palace, and out of his incredible mildnessand gentle disposition sent him back with a safe conduct, laden with gifts, laden with favours, laden with all offices of friendship. What fell outupon it? Being returned into his country, he called a parliament, whereall the princes and states of his kingdom being assembled, he showed themthe humanity which he had found in us, and therefore wished them to takesuch course by way of compensation therein as that the whole world might beedified by the example, as well of their honest graciousness to us as ofour gracious honesty towards them. The result hereof was, that it wasvoted and decreed by an unanimous consent, that they should offer upentirely their lands, dominions, and kingdoms, to be disposed of by usaccording to our pleasure. 

Alpharbal in his own person presently returned with nine thousand andthirty-eight great ships of burden, bringing with him the treasures, notonly 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, everyonein 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'sson 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 hisfeet. That action was found too submissively low, and therefore was notpermitted, but in exchange he was most cordially embraced. He offered hispresents; they were not received, because they were too excessive: heyielded himself voluntarily a servant and vassal, and was content his wholeposterity should be liable to the same bondage; this was not accepted of, because it seemed not equitable: he surrendered, by virtue of the decreeof his great parliamentary council, his whole countries and kingdoms tohim, offering the deed and conveyance, signed, sealed, and ratified by allthose that were concerned in it; this was altogether refused, and theparchments cast into the fire. In end, this free goodwill and simplemeaning of the Canarians wrought such tenderness in my father's heart thathe could not abstain from shedding tears, and wept most profusely; then, bychoice words very congruously adapted, strove in what he could to diminishthe estimation of the good offices which he had done them, saying, that anycourtesy he had conferred upon them was not worth a rush, and what favoursoever he had showed them he was bound to do it. But so much the more didAlpharbal augment the repute thereof. What was the issue? Whereas for hisransom, 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, theymade themselves perpetual tributaries, and obliged to give us every yeartwo millions of gold at four-and-twenty carats fine. The first year wereceived the whole sum of two millions; the second year of their own accordthey paid freely to us three-and-twenty hundred thousand crowns; the thirdyear, six-and-twenty hundred thousand; the fourth year, three millions, anddo so increase it always out of their own goodwill that we shall beconstrained to forbid them to bring us any more. This is the nature ofgratitude and true thankfulness. For time, which gnaws and diminisheth allthings else, augments and increaseth benefits; because a noble action ofliberality, done to a man of reason, doth grow continually by his generousthinking of it and remembering it. 

Being unwilling therefore any way to degenerate from the hereditarymildness and clemency of my parents, I do now forgive you, deliver you fromall fines and imprisonments, fully release you, set you at liberty, andevery way make you as frank and free as ever you were before. Moreover, atyour 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 safeconvoy of six hundred cuirassiers and eight thousand foot under the conductof Alexander, esquire of my body, that the clubmen of the country may notdo you any injury. God be with you! I am sorry from my heart thatPicrochole is not here; for I would have given him to understand that thiswar was undertaken against my will and without any hope to increase eithermy goods or renown. But seeing he is lost, and that no man can tell wherenor how he went away, it is my will that his kingdom remain entire to hisson; 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 menof 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 toadminister justice in it be not curbed and restrained, I ordain and willhave it so, that Ponocrates be overseer and superintendent above all hisgovernors, with whatever power and authority is requisite thereto, and thathe be continually with the child until he find him able and capable to ruleand govern by himself. 

Now I must tell you, that you are to understand how a too feeble anddissolute facility in pardoning evildoers giveth them occasion to commitwickedness afterwards more readily, upon this pernicious confidence ofreceiving favour. I consider that Moses, the meekest man that was in histime upon the earth, did severely punish the mutinous and seditious peopleof Israel. I consider likewise that Julius Caesar, who was so gracious anemperor that Cicero said of him that his fortune had nothing more excellentthan that he could, and his virtue nothing better than that he would alwayssave and pardon every man--he, notwithstanding all this, did in certainplaces most rigorously punish the authors of rebellion. After the exampleof these good men, it is my will and pleasure that you deliver over unto mebefore you depart hence, first, that fine fellow Marquet, who was the primecause, origin, and groundwork of this war by his vain presumption andoverweening; secondly, his fellow cake-bakers, who were neglective inchecking and reprehending his idle hairbrained humour in the instant time;and lastly, all the councillors, captains, officers, and domestics ofPicrochole, 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 requiredwere delivered up unto him, except Swashbuckler, Dirt-tail, and Smalltrash, who ran away six hours before the battle--one of them as far as toLainiel-neck at one course, another to the valley of Vire, and the thirdeven unto Logroine, without looking back or taking breath by the way--andtwo of the cake-bakers who were slain in the fight. Gargantua did them noother hurt but that he appointed them to pull at the presses of hisprinting-house which he had newly set up. Then those who died there hecaused to be honourably buried in Black-soile valley and Burn-hag field, andgave order that the wounded should be dressed and had care of in his greathospital or nosocome. After this, considering the great prejudice done tothe town and its inhabitants, he reimbursed their charges and repaired allthe losses that by their confession upon oath could appear they hadsustained; and, for their better defence and security in times comingagainst all sudden uproars and invasions, commanded a strong citadel to bebuilt there with a competent garrison to maintain it. At his departure hedid very graciously thank all the soldiers of the brigades that had been atthis overthrow, and sent them back to their winter-quarters in their severalstations and garrisons; the decumane legion only excepted, whom in the fieldon that day he saw do some great exploit, and their captains also, whom hebrought along with himself unto Grangousier. 

At the sight and coming of them, the good man was so joyful, that it is notpossible fully to describe it. He made them a feast the most magnificent, plentiful, and delicious that ever was seen since the time of the kingAhasuerus. At the taking up of the table he distributed amongst them hiswhole cupboard of plate, which weighed eight hundred thousand and fourteenbezants (Each bezant is worth five pounds English money. ) of gold, in greatantique 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 allmen's estimation was more worth than the matter of the gold. Then untoevery one of them out of his coffers caused he to be given the sum oftwelve hundred thousand crowns ready money. And, further, he gave to eachof them for ever and in perpetuity, unless he should happen to deceasewithout heirs, such castles and neighbouring lands of his as were mostcommodious 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 madeAbbot of Seville, but he refused it. He would have given him the Abbey ofBourgueil, or of Sanct Florent, which was better, or both, if it pleasedhim; but the monk gave him a very peremptory answer, that he would nevertake 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 ofmyself? If you think I have done you, or may hereafter do any acceptableservice, give me leave to found an abbey after my own mind and fancy. Themotion pleased Gargantua very well, who thereupon offered him all thecountry of Theleme by the river of Loire till within two leagues of thegreat forest of Port-Huaulx. The monk then requested Gargantua toinstitute his religious order contrary to all others. First, then, saidGargantua, you must not build a wall about your convent, for all otherabbeys are strongly walled and mured about. See, said the monk, and notwithout 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 theworld whereof the custom is, if any woman come in, I mean chaste and honestwomen, they immediately sweep the ground which they have trod upon;therefore was it ordained, that if any man or woman entered into religiousorders should by chance come within this new abbey, all the rooms should bethoroughly washed and cleansed through which they had passed. And becausein all other monasteries and nunneries all is compassed, limited, andregulated by hours, it was decreed that in this new structure there shouldbe neither clock nor dial, but that according to the opportunities andincident occasions all their hours should be disposed of; for, saidGargantua, 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 worldthan for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, andnot by his own judgment and discretion. 

Item, Because at that time they put no women into nunneries but such aswere either purblind, blinkards, lame, crooked, ill-favoured, misshapen, fools, senseless, spoiled, or corrupt; nor encloistered any men but thosethat were either sickly, subject to defluxions, ill-bred louts, simplesots, or peevish trouble-houses. But to the purpose, said the monk. Awoman that is neither fair nor good, to what use serves she? To make a nunof, said Gargantua. Yea, said the monk, and to make shirts and smocks. Therefore was it ordained that into this religious order should be admittedno women that were not fair, well-featured, and of a sweet disposition; normen 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 beno 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 ordersafter the expiring of their noviciate or probation year were constrainedand forced perpetually to stay there all the days of their life, it wastherefore ordered that all whatever, men or women, admitted within thisabbey, should have full leave to depart with peace and contentmentwhensoever 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 thereforeconstituted and appointed that in this convent they might be honourablymarried, that they might be rich, and live at liberty. In regard of thelegitimate time of the persons to be initiated, and years under and abovewhich they were not capable of reception, the women were to be admittedfrom 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 deliveredout in ready money seven-and-twenty hundred thousand, eight hundred andone-and-thirty of those golden rams of Berry which have a sheep stamped onthe one side and a flowered cross on the other; and for every year, untilthe whole work were completed, he allotted threescore nine thousand crownsof the sun, and as many of the seven stars, to be charged all upon thereceipt of the custom. For the foundation and maintenance thereof forever, 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, andpayable every year at the gate of the abbey; and of this by letters patentpassed a very good grant. The architecture was in a figure hexagonal, andin such a fashion that in every one of the six corners there was built agreat round tower of threescore foot in diameter, and were all of a likeform and bigness. Upon the north side ran along the river of Loire, on thebank whereof was situated the tower called Arctic. Going towards the east, there was another called Calaer, --the next following Anatole, --the nextMesembrine, --the next Hesperia, and the last Criere. Every tower wasdistant from other the space of three hundred and twelve paces. The wholeedifice was everywhere six storeys high, reckoning the cellars undergroundfor one. The second was arched after the fashion of a basket-handle; therest were ceiled with pure wainscot, flourished with Flanders fretwork, inthe form of the foot of a lamp, and covered above with fine slates, with anendorsement of lead, carrying the antique figures of little puppets andanimals of all sorts, notably well suited to one another, and gilt, together with the gutters, which, jutting without the walls from betwixtthe crossbars in a diagonal figure, painted with gold and azure, reached tothe very ground, where they ended into great conduit-pipes, which carriedall away unto the river from under the house. 

This same building was a hundred times more sumptuous and magnificent thanever was Bonnivet, Chambourg, or Chantilly; for there were in it ninethousand, three hundred and two-and-thirty chambers, every one whereof hada withdrawing-room, a handsome closet, a wardrobe, an oratory, and neatpassage, leading into a great and spacious hall. Between every tower inthe midst of the said body of building there was a pair of winding, such aswe now call lantern stairs, whereof the steps were part of porphyry, whichis a dark red marble spotted with white, part of Numidian stone, which is akind of yellowishly-streaked marble upon various colours, and part ofserpentine marble, with light spots on a dark green ground, each of thosesteps being two-and-twenty foot in length and three fingers thick, and thejust number of twelve betwixt every rest, or, as we now term it, landing-place. In every resting-place were two fair antique arches wherethe light came in: and by those they went into a cabinet, made even withand of the breadth of the said winding, and the reascending above the roofsof the house ended conically in a pavilion. By that vise or winding theyentered on every side into a great hall, and from the halls into thechambers. From the Arctic tower unto the Criere were the fair greatlibraries in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish, respectively distributed in their several cantons, according to thediversity of these languages. In the midst there was a wonderful scalier orwinding-stair, the entry whereof was without the house, in a vault or archsix fathom broad. It was made in such symmetry and largeness that sixmen-at-arms with their lances in their rests might together in a breast rideall up to the very top of all the palace. From the tower Anatole to theMesembrine were fair spacious galleries, all coloured over and painted withthe ancient prowesses, histories, and descriptions of the world. In themidst thereof there was likewise such another ascent and gate as we saidthere was on the river-side. Upon that gate was written in great antiqueletters 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 outOn those excessive courses, which may drawA 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 chestsVast 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 demursIn 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 shallAfford wherewith to entertain you all. Were you a thousand, here you shall not wantFor 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, trueExpounders of the Scriptures old and new. Whose glosses do not blind our reason, butMake it to see the clearer, and who shutIts 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 celestialHath 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 fairalabaster. Upon the top thereof stood the three Graces, with theircornucopias, or horns of abundance, and did jet out the water at theirbreasts, mouth, ears, eyes, and other open passages of the body. Theinside of the buildings in this lower court stood upon great pillars ofchalcedony stone and porphyry marble made archways after a goodly antiquefashion. Within those were spacious galleries, long and large, adornedwith curious pictures, the horns of bucks and unicorns: with rhinoceroses, water-horses called hippopotames, the teeth and tusks of elephants, andother things well worth the beholding. The lodging of the ladies, for sowe may call those gallant women, took up all from the tower Arctic unto thegate Mesembrine. The men possessed the rest. Before the said lodging ofthe ladies, that they might have their recreation, between the two firsttowers, on the outside, were placed the tiltyard, the barriers or lists fortournaments, the hippodrome or riding-court, the theatre or publicplayhouse, and natatory or place to swim in, with most admirable baths inthree stages, situated above one another, well furnished with all necessaryaccommodation, and store of myrtle-water. By the river-side was the fairgarden of pleasure, and in the midst of that the glorious labyrinth. Between the two other towers were the courts for the tennis and theballoon. Towards the tower Criere stood the orchard full of allfruit-trees, set and ranged in a quincuncial order. At the end of that wasthe great park, abounding with all sort of venison. Betwixt the thirdcouple 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-houseswere without the tower Hesperia, of one storey high. The stables werebeyond the offices, and before them stood the falconry, managed byostrich-keepers and falconers very expert in the art, and it was yearlysupplied and furnished by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmates, now calledMuscoviters, with all sorts of most excellent hawks, eagles, gerfalcons, goshawks, sacres, lanners, falcons, sparrowhawks, marlins, and other kindsof them, so gentle and perfectly well manned, that, flying of themselvessometimes from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail tocatch whatever they encountered. The venery, where the beagles and houndswere kept, was a little farther off, drawing towards the park. 

All the halls, chambers, and closets or cabinets were richly hung withtapestry and hangings of divers sorts, according to the variety of theseasons of the year. All the pavements and floors were covered with greencloth. The beds were all embroidered. In every back-chamber orwithdrawing-room there was a looking-glass of pure crystal set in a frameof fine gold, garnished all about with pearls, and was of such greatnessthat it would represent to the full the whole lineaments and proportion ofthe person that stood before it. At the going out of the halls whichbelong to the ladies' lodgings were the perfumers and trimmers throughwhose hands the gallants passed when they were to visit the ladies. Thosesweet artificers did every morning furnish the ladies' chambers with thespirit of roses, orange-flower-water, and angelica; and to each of themgave a little precious casket vapouring forth the most odoriferousexhalations 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 ownpleasure and liking; but, since that of their own accord and free will theyhave reformed themselves, their accoutrement is in manner as followeth. They wore stockings of scarlet crimson, or ingrained purple dye, whichreached just three inches above the knee, having a list beautified withexquisite embroideries and rare incisions of the cutter's art. Theirgarters were of the colour of their bracelets, and circled the knee alittle both over and under. Their shoes, pumps, and slippers were eitherof 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 silkcamlet: above that went the taffety or tabby farthingale, of white, red, tawny, grey, or of any other colour. Above this taffety petticoat they hadanother of cloth of tissue or brocade, embroidered with fine gold andinterlaced with needlework, or as they thought good, and according to thetemperature 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 ofcloth of gold, cloth of silver, or some other choice stuff, enriched withpurl, or embroidered according to the dignity of the festival days andtimes wherein they wore them. 

Their gowns, being still correspondent to the season, were either of clothof gold frizzled with a silver-raised work; of red satin, covered with goldpurl; of tabby, or taffety, white, blue, black, tawny, &c. , of silk serge, silk camlet, velvet, cloth of silver, silver tissue, cloth of gold, goldwire, figured velvet, or figured satin tinselled and overcast with goldenthreads, 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, ofviolet velvet frizzled, with a raised work of gold upon silver purl, orwith a knotted cord-work of gold embroidery, everywhere garnished withlittle Indian pearls. They always carried a fair panache, or plume offeathers, of the colour of their muff, bravely adorned and tricked out withglistering spangles of gold. In the winter time they had their taffetygowns of all colours, as above-named, and those lined with the richfurrings of hind-wolves, or speckled lynxes, black-spotted weasels, martletskins of Calabria, sables, and other costly furs of an inestimable value. Their beads, rings, bracelets, collars, carcanets, and neck-chains were allof precious stones, such as carbuncles, rubies, baleus, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, turquoises, garnets, agates, beryls, and excellentmargarites. Their head-dressing also varied with the season of the year, according to which they decked themselves. In winter it was of the Frenchfashion; in the spring, of the Spanish; in summer, of the fashion ofTuscany, except only upon the holy days and Sundays, at which times theywere accoutred in the French mode, because they accounted it morehonourable and better befitting the garb of a matronal pudicity. 

The men were apparelled after their fashion. Their stockings were oftamine or of cloth serge, of white, black, scarlet, or some other ingrainedcolour. Their breeches were of velvet, of the same colour with theirstockings, 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 suitablytrimmed up in perfection. The points were of silk of the same colours; thetags were of gold well enamelled. Their coats and jerkins were of cloth ofgold, cloth of silver, gold, tissue or velvet embroidered, as they thoughtfit. Their gowns were every whit as costly as those of the ladies. Theirgirdles were of silks, of the colour of their doublets. Every one had agallant sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and thescabbard 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 orbonnets were of black velvet, adorned with jewels and buttons of gold. Upon that they wore a white plume, most prettily and minion-like parted byso many rows of gold spangles, at the end whereof hung dangling in a moresparkling resplendency fair rubies, emeralds, diamonds, &c. , but there wassuch a sympathy betwixt the gallants and the ladies, that every day theywere apparelled in the same livery. And that they might not miss, therewere certain gentlemen appointed to tell the youths every morning whatvestments the ladies would on that day wear: for all was done according tothe pleasure of the ladies. In these so handsome clothes, and habilimentsso rich, think not that either one or other of either sex did waste anytime at all; for the masters of the wardrobes had all their raiments andapparel 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 fromhead 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 aleague, 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 owntrade, 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 LordNausiclete, who every year brought them seven ships from the Perlas andCannibal Islands, laden with ingots of gold, with raw silk, with pearls andprecious stones. And if any margarites, called unions, began to grow old andlose somewhat of their natural whiteness and lustre, those with their artthey did renew by tendering them to eat to some pretty cocks, as they use togive 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 totheir own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when theythought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind toit and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer toconstrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so hadGargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of theirorder 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 honestcompanies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them untovirtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are broughtunder and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which theyformerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond ofservitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeablewith the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what isdenied us. 

By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation to do all ofthem what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants or ladies shouldsay, Let us drink, they would all drink. If any one of them said, Let usplay, they all played. If one said, Let us go a-walking into the fieldsthey went all. If it were to go a-hawking or a-hunting, the ladies mountedupon dainty well-paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle, carried ontheir lovely fists, miniardly begloved every one of them, either asparrowhawk or a laneret or a marlin, and the young gallants carried theother kinds of hawks. So nobly were they taught, that there was neither henor she amongst them but could read, write, sing, play upon several musicalinstruments, speak five or six several languages, and compose in them allvery quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never were seen so valiantknights, so noble and worthy, so dexterous and skilful both on foot anda-horse-back, more brisk and lively, more nimble and quick, or betterhandling all manner of weapons than were there. Never were seen ladies soproper and handsome, so miniard and dainty, less froward, or more readywith their hand and with their needle in every honest and free actionbelonging to that sex, than were there. For this reason, when the timecame 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 withhim one of the ladies, namely, her whom he had before that chosen for hismistress, and (they) were married together. And if they had formerly inTheleme lived in good devotion and amity, they did continue therein andincrease it to a greater height in their state of matrimony; and didentertain that mutual love till the very last day of their life, in no lessvigour and fervency than at the very day of their wedding. Here must not Iforget to set down unto you a riddle which was found under the ground asthey 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 believeThat the celestial bodies can us giveWisdom to judge of things that are not yet;Or if from heaven such wisdom we may getAs may with confidence make us discourseOf years to come, their destiny and course;I to my hearers give to understandThat this next winter, though it be at hand, Yea and before, there shall appear a raceOf men who, loth to sit still in one place, Shall boldly go before all people's eyes, Suborning men of divers qualitiesTo 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 coilsSet down as yet, such tumults and garboils. Then shall you many gallant men see byValour 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 contentionHave 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 seeThe waters issue out, with whose streams theMost moderate of all shall moistened be, And justly too; because they did not spareThe 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 haveNo 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 impetuousAs 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 itTo other men that after come shall leave it. Then shall it be high time to cease from thisSo 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, fetchinga very deep sigh, said unto those that stood by, It is not now only, Iperceive, that people called to the faith of the gospel, and convinced withthe certainty of evangelical truths, are persecuted. But happy is that manthat shall not be scandalized, but shall always continue to the end inaiming at that mark which God by his dear Son hath set before us, withoutbeing distracted or diverted by his carnal affections and depraved nature. 

The monk then said, What do you think in your conscience is meant andsignified by this riddle? What? said Gargantua, --the progress and carryingon of the divine truth. By St. Goderan, said the monk, that is not myexposition. It is the style of the prophet Merlin. Make upon it as manygrave allegories and glosses as you will, and dote upon it you and the restof the world as long as you please; for my part, I can conceive no othermeaning in it but a description of a set at tennis in dark and obscureterms. The suborners of men are the makers of matches, which are commonlyfriends. After the two chases are made, he that was in the upper end ofthe tennis-court goeth out, and the other cometh in. They believe thefirst that saith the ball was over or under the line. The waters are theheats that the players take till they sweat again. The cords of therackets are made of the guts of sheep or goats. The globe terrestrial isthe tennis-ball. After playing, when the game is done, they refreshthemselves before a clear fire, and change their shirts; and very willinglythey 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 bythe 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 quantitiesin the Latin, the abusive strain of the English, and extravagantsubscription to both), and as such, by a friend of the translator's, at thedesire of some frolic gentlemen of his acquaintance, more for a trial ofskill than prejudicacy to any, composed in his jollity to please theirfancies, 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 forsatisfying the curiosity of a company of just that number; and that, therefore, the charging of the whole impression with it is merely to beimputed to the negligence of the pressmen, who, receiving it about thelatter end of the night, were so eager before the next morning to affordcomplete books, that, as they began, they went on, without animadvertingwhat was recommended to their discretion. This is hoped will suffice toassure the ingenuous Reader that in no treatise of the translator's, whether original or translatitious, shall willingly be offered the meanestrub to the reputation of any worthy gentleman, and that, however providencedispose of him, no misfortune shall be able to induce his mind to anycomplacency in the disparagement of another. 

Again. 

The Pentateuch of Rabelais mentioned in the title-page of the first book ofthis translation being written originally in the French tongue (as itcomprehendeth some of its brusquest dialects), with so much ingeniosity andwit, that more impressions have been sold thereof in that language than ofany other book that hath been set forth at any time within these fifteenhundred years; so difficult nevertheless to be turned into any other speechthat many prime spirits in most of the nations of Europe, since the year1573, which was fourscore years ago, after having attempted it, wereconstrained with no small regret to give it over as a thing impossible tobe done, is now in its translation thus far advanced, and the remainderfaithfully undertaken with the same hand to be rendered into English by aperson of quality, who (though his lands be sequestered, his housegarrisoned, his other goods sold, and himself detained a prisoner of war atLondon, for his having been at Worcester fight) hath, at the most earnestentreaty of some of his especial friends well acquainted with hisinclination to the performance of conducible singularities, promised, besides his version of these two already published, very speedily to offerup unto this Isle of Britain the virginity of the translation of the otherthree most admirable books of the aforesaid author; provided that by theplurality of judicious and understanding men it be not declared he hathalready proceeded too far, or that the continuation of the rigour wherebyhe is dispossessed of all his both real and personal estate, by pressingtoo hard upon him, be not an impediment thereto, and to other more eminentundertakings of his, as hath been oftentimes very fully mentioned by thesaid translator in several original treatises of his own penning, lately byhim so numerously dispersed that there is scarce any, who being skilful inthe English idiom, or curious of any new ingenious invention, hath noteither read them or heard of them. 

Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais. 

If profit mixed with pleasure may sufficeT' extol an author's worth above the skies, Thou certainly for both must praised be:I know it; for thy judgment hath in theContexture of this book set down such highContentments, mingled with utility, That (as I think) I see DemocritusLaughing 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, whowillingly apply your minds to the entertainment of pretty conceits andhonest harmless knacks of wit; you have not long ago seen, read, andunderstood the great and inestimable Chronicle of the huge and mighty giantGargantua, and, like upright faithfullists, have firmly believed all to betrue that is contained in them, and have very often passed your time withthem amongst honourable ladies and gentlewomen, telling them fair longstories, when you were out of all other talk, for which you are worthy ofgreat praise and sempiternal memory. And I do heartily wish that every manwould lay aside his own business, meddle no more with his profession nortrade, and throw all affairs concerning himself behind his back, to attendthis wholly, without distracting or troubling his mind with anything else, until he have learned them without book; that if by chance the art ofprinting should cease, or in case that in time to come all books shouldperish, every man might truly teach them unto his children, and deliverthem over to his successors and survivors from hand to hand as a religiouscabal; for there is in it more profit than a rabble of great pockyloggerheads are able to discern, who surely understand far less in theselittle merriments than the fool Raclet did in the Institutions ofJustinian. 

I have known great and mighty lords, and of those not a few, who, goinga-deer-hunting, or a-hawking after wild ducks, when the chase had notencountered 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, havebeen much chafed and vexed, as you understand well enough; but the comfortunto which they had refuge, and that they might not take cold, was torelate the inestimable deeds of the said Gargantua. There are others inthe world--these are no flimflam stories, nor tales of a tub--who, beingmuch troubled with the toothache, after they had spent their goods uponphysicians without receiving at all any ease of their pain, have found nomore ready remedy than to put the said Chronicles betwixt two pieces oflinen cloth made somewhat hot, and so apply them to the place thatsmarteth, sinapizing them with a little powder of projection, otherwisecalled doribus. 

But what shall I say of those poor men that are plagued with the pox andthe gout? O how often have we seen them, even immediately after they wereanointed and thoroughly greased, till their faces did glister like thekeyhole of a powdering tub, their teeth dance like the jacks of a pair oflittle organs or virginals when they are played upon, and that they foamedfrom their very throats like a boar which the mongrel mastiff-hounds havedriven in and overthrown amongst the toils, --what did they then? All theirconsolation 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 ofold devils, in case that they did not feel a manifest ease and assuagementof pain at the hearing of the said book read, even when they were kept in apurgatory of torment; no more nor less than women in travail use to findtheir sorrow abated when the life of St. Margaret is read unto them. Isthis nothing? Find me a book in any language, in any faculty or sciencewhatsoever, that hath such virtues, properties, and prerogatives, and Iwill be content to pay you a quart of tripes. No, my masters, no; it ispeerless, incomparable, and not to be matched; and this am I resolved forever to maintain even unto the fire exclusive. And those that willpertinaciously hold the contrary opinion, let them be accounted abusers, predestinators, impostors, and seducers of the people. It is very truethat there are found in some gallant and stately books, worthy of highestimation, certain occult and hid properties; in the number of which arereckoned Whippot, Orlando Furioso, Robert the Devil, Fierabras, Williamwithout Fear, Huon of Bordeaux, Monteville, and Matabrune: but they are notcomparable to that which we speak of, and the world hath well known byinfallible experience the great emolument and utility which it hathreceived by this Gargantuine Chronicle, for the printers have sold more ofthem 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 solaceand recreation yet a little more, do offer you for a present another bookof the same stamp, only that it is a little more reasonable and worthy ofcredit than the other was. For think not, unless you wilfully will erragainst your knowledge, that I speak of it as the Jews do of the Law. Iwas not born under such a planet, neither did it ever befall me to lie, oraffirm a thing for true that was not. I speak of it like a lusty froliconocrotary (Onocratal is a bird not much unlike a swan, which sings like anass's braying. ), I should say crotenotary (Crotenotaire or notaire crotte, croquenotaire or notaire croque are but allusions in derision ofprotonotaire, which signifieth a pregnotary. ) of the martyrized lovers, andcroquenotary of love. Quod vidimus, testamur. It is of the horrible anddreadful feats and prowesses of Pantagruel, whose menial servant I havebeen ever since I was a page, till this hour that by his leave I ampermitted to visit my cow-country, and to know if any of my kindred therebe alive. 

And therefore, to make an end of this Prologue, even as I give myself to ahundred panniersful of fair devils, body and soul, tripes and guts, in casethat I lie so much as one single word in this whole history; after the likemanner, St. Anthony's fire burn you, Mahoom's disease whirl you, thesquinance with a stitch in your side and the wolf in your stomach trussyou, the bloody flux seize upon you, the cursed sharp inflammations ofwild-fire, as slender and thin as cow's hair strengthened with quicksilver, enter into your fundament, and, like those of Sodom and Gomorrah, may youfall into sulphur, fire, and bottomless pits, in case you do not firmlybelieve 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, toput you in mind of the fountain and original source whence is derived untous the good Pantagruel. For I see that all good historiographers have thushandled their chronicles, not only the Arabians, Barbarians, and Latins, but also the gentle Greeks, who were eternal drinkers. You must thereforeremark that at the beginning of the world--I speak of a long time; it isabove forty quarantains, or forty times forty nights, according to thesupputation of the ancient Druids--a little after that Abel was killed byhis brother Cain, the earth, imbrued with the blood of the just, was oneyear so exceeding fertile in all those fruits which it usually produceth tous, and especially in medlars, that ever since throughout all ages it hathbeen called the year of the great medlars; for three of them did fill abushel. In it the kalends were found by the Grecian almanacks. There wasthat year nothing of the month of March in the time of Lent, and the middleof August was in May. In the month of October, as I take it, or at leastSeptember, that I may not err, for I will carefully take heed of that, wasthe week so famous in the annals, which they call the week of the threeThursdays; for it had three of them by means of their irregular leap-years, called Bissextiles, occasioned by the sun's having tripped and stumbled alittle towards the left hand, like a debtor afraid of sergeants, comingright upon him to arrest him: and the moon varied from her course abovefive fathom, and there was manifestly seen the motion of trepidation in thefirmament of the fixed stars, called Aplanes, so that the middle Pleiade, leaving her fellows, declined towards the equinoctial, and the star namedSpica left the constellation of the Virgin to withdraw herself towards theBalance, known by the name of Libra, which are cases very terrible, andmatters so hard and difficult that astrologians cannot set their teeth inthem; and indeed their teeth had been pretty long if they could havereached thither. 

However, account you it for a truth that everybody then did most heartilyeat 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 thatnectarian, delicious, precious, heavenly, joyful, and deific liquor whichthey call the piot or tiplage, was deceived in the drinking of it, for hewas ignorant of the great virtue and power thereof; so likewise the men andwomen 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 fellupon them all in their bodies a most terrible swelling, but not upon all inthe same place, for some were swollen in the belly, and their bellystrouted out big like a great tun, of whom it is written, Ventremomnipotentem, who were all very honest men, and merry blades. And of thisrace came St. Fatgulch and Shrove Tuesday (Pansart, Mardigras. ). Othersdid swell at the shoulders, who in that place were so crump and knobby thatthey were therefore called Montifers, which is as much to say asHill-carriers, of whom you see some yet in the world, of divers sexes anddegrees. Of this race came Aesop, some of whose excellent words and deedsyou have in writing. Some other puffs did swell in length by the memberwhich they call the labourer of nature, in such sort that it grewmarvellous long, fat, great, lusty, stirring, and crest-risen, in theantique fashion, so that they made use of it as of a girdle, winding itfive or six times about their waist: but if it happened the foresaidmember to be in good case, spooming with a full sail bunt fair before thewind, then to have seen those strouting champions, you would have takenthem for men that had their lances settled on their rest to run at the ringor tilting whintam (quintain). Of these, believe me, the race is utterlylost and quite extinct, as the women say; for they do lament continuallythat there are none extant now of those great, &c. You know the rest ofthe song. Others did grow in matter of ballocks so enormously that threeof them would well fill a sack able to contain five quarters of wheat. From them are descended the ballocks of Lorraine, which never dwell incodpieces, but fall down to the bottom of the breeches. Others grew in thelegs, and to see them you would have said they had been cranes, or thereddish-long-billed-storklike-scrank-legged sea-fowls called flamans, orelse men walking upon stilts or scatches. The little grammar-school boys, known by the name of Grimos, called those leg-grown slangams Jambus, inallusion 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, inevery part thereof most variously diapered with the twinkling sparkles ofcrimson blisters budding forth, and purpled with pimples all enamelled withthickset wheals of a sanguine colour, bordered with gules; and such haveyou seen the Canon or Prebend Panzoult, and Woodenfoot, the physician ofAngiers. Of which race there were few that looked the ptisane, but all ofthem were perfect lovers of the pure Septembral juice. Naso and Ovid hadtheir extraction from thence, and all those of whom it is written, Nereminiscaris. Others grew in ears, which they had so big that out of onewould have been stuff enough got to make a doublet, a pair of breeches, anda jacket, whilst with the other they might have covered themselves as witha 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 themPantagruel. 

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 possiblethat this relation can be true, seeing at the time of the flood all theworld was destroyed, except Noah and seven persons more with him in theark, into whose number Hurtali is not admitted. Doubtless the demand iswell made and very apparent, but the answer shall satisfy you, or my wit isnot rightly caulked. And because I was not at that time to tell youanything of my own fancy, I will bring unto you the authority of theMassorets, good honest fellows, true ballockeering blades and exactHebraical bagpipers, who affirm that verily the said Hurtali was not withinthe ark of Noah, neither could he get in, for he was too big, but he satastride upon it, with one leg on the one side and another on the other, aslittle children use to do upon their wooden horses; or as the great bull ofBerne, which was killed at Marinian, did ride for his hackney the greatmurdering piece called the canon-pevier, a pretty beast of a fair andpleasant amble without all question. 

In that posture, he, after God, saved the said ark from danger, for withhis legs he gave it the brangle that was needful, and with his foot turnedit whither he pleased, as a ship answereth her rudder. Those that werewithin sent him up victuals in abundance by a chimney, as people verythankfully acknowledging the good that he did them. And sometimes they didtalk together as Icaromenippus did to Jupiter, according to the report ofLucian. Have you understood all this well? Drink then one good draughtwithout 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 begathis son Pantagruel, upon his wife named Badebec, daughter to the king ofthe Amaurots in Utopia, who died in childbirth; for he was so wonderfullygreat and lumpish that he could not possibly come forth into the light ofthe world without thus suffocating his mother. But that we may fullyunderstand the cause and reason of the name of Pantagruel which at hisbaptism was given him, you are to remark that in that year there was sogreat drought over all the country of Africa that there passed thirty andsix months, three weeks, four days, thirteen hours and a little morewithout rain, but with a heat so vehement that the whole earth was parchedand withered by it. Neither was it more scorched and dried up with heat inthe days of Elijah than it was at that time; for there was not a tree to beseen that had either leaf or bloom upon it. The grass was without verdureor greenness, the rivers were drained, the fountains dried up, the poorfishes, abandoned and forsaken by their proper element, wandering andcrying upon the ground most horribly. The birds did fall down from the airfor 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 mouthsopen. In respect of men, there was the pity, you should have seen them layout their tongues like hares that have been run six hours. Many did throwthemselves into the wells. Others entered within a cow's belly to be inthe shade; those Homer calls Alibants. All the country was idle, and coulddo no virtue. It was a most lamentable case to have seen the labour ofmortals in defending themselves from the vehemency of this horrificdrought; for they had work enough to do to save the holy water in thechurches from being wasted; but there was such order taken by the counselof my lords the cardinals and of our holy Father, that none did dare totake above one lick. Yet when anyone came into the church, you should haveseen above twenty poor thirsty fellows hang upon him that was thedistributor of the water, and that with a wide open throat, gaping for somelittle drop, like the rich glutton in Luke, that might fall by, lestanything should be lost. O how happy was he in that year who had a coolcellar under ground, well plenished with fresh wine!

The philosopher reports, in moving the question, Wherefore it is that thesea-water is salt, that at the time when Phoebus gave the government of hisresplendent chariot to his son Phaeton, the said Phaeton, unskilful in theart, and not knowing how to keep the ecliptic line betwixt the two tropicsof the latitude of the sun's course, strayed out of his way, and came sonear 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, andhigh-crested poets affirm that to be the place where Juno's milk fell whenshe gave suck to Hercules. The earth at that time was so excessivelyheated that it fell into an enormous sweat, yea, such a one as made itsweat out the sea, which is therefore salt, because all sweat is salt; andthis you cannot but confess to be true if you will taste of your own, or ofthose that have the pox, when they are put into sweating, it is all one tome. 

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 goodlyprocessions, with store of litanies, and fair preachings, and beseechingsof God Almighty to look down with his eye of mercy upon their miserable anddisconsolate condition, there was even then visibly seen issue out of theground great drops of water, such as fall from a puff-bagged man in a topsweat, and the poor hoidens began to rejoice as if it had been a thing veryprofitable unto them; for some said that there was not one drop of moisturein the air whence they might have any rain, and that the earth did supplythe default of that. Other learned men said that it was a shower of theantipodes, 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 butpickle and the very brine of salt, more brackish in taste than the saltestwater of the sea. And because in that very day Pantagruel was born, hisfather gave him that name; for Panta in Greek is as much to say as all, andGruel in the Hagarene language doth signify thirsty, inferring hereby thatat his birth the whole world was a-dry and thirsty, as likewise foreseeingthat he would be some day supreme lord and sovereign of the thirstyEthrappels, which was shown to him at that very same hour by a more evidentsign. For when his mother Badebec was in the bringing of him forth, andthat the midwives did wait to receive him, there came first out of herbelly three score and eight tregeneers, that is, salt-sellers, every one ofthem leading in a halter a mule heavy laden with salt; after whom issuedforth nine dromedaries, with great loads of gammons of bacon and driedneat's tongues on their backs. Then followed seven camels loaded withlinks and chitterlings, hogs' puddings, and sausages. After them came outfive great wains, full of leeks, garlic, onions, and chibots, drawn withfive-and-thirty strong cart-horses, which was six for every one, besidesthe thiller. At the sight hereof the said midwives were much amazed, yetsome of them said, Lo, here is good provision, and indeed we need it; forwe drink but lazily, as if our tongues walked on crutches, and not lustilylike Lansman Dutches. Truly this is a good sign; there is nothing here butwhat is fit for us; these are the spurs of wine, that set it a-going. Asthey were tattling thus together after their own manner of chat, behold!out comes Pantagruel all hairy like a bear, whereupon one of them, inspiredwith a prophetical spirit, said, This will be a terrible fellow; he is bornwith all his hair; he is undoubtedly to do wonderful things, and if he livehe shall have age. 

Chapter 2. III. 

Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wifeBadebec. 

When Pantagruel was born, there was none more astonished and perplexed thanwas 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, heknew not what to say nor what to do. And the doubt that troubled his brainwas to know whether he should cry for the death of his wife or laugh forthe 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 resolvethem, remaining pestered and entangled by this means, like a mouse caughtin 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 everwas in the world. Never shall I see her, never shall I recover suchanother; it is unto me an inestimable loss! O my good God, what had I donethat thou shouldest thus punish me? Why didst thou not take me away beforeher, 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, mylittle c-- (yet it had in circumference full six acres, three rods, fivepoles, 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 goodmother, thy sweet nurse, thy well-beloved lady! O false death, howinjurious and despiteful hast thou been to me! How malicious andoutrageous 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-laughinglike a calf, when Pantagruel came into his mind. Ha, my little son, saidhe, 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 hathbeen pleased to bestow on me a son so fair, so spriteful, so lively, sosmiling, so pleasant, and so gentle! Ho, ho, ho, ho, how glad I am! Letus drink, ho, and put away melancholy! Bring of the best, rinse theglasses, lay the cloth, drive out these dogs, blow this fire, lightcandles, shut that door there, cut this bread in sippets for brewis, sendaway these poor folks in giving them what they ask, hold my gown. I willstrip myself into my doublet (en cuerpo), to make the gossips merry, andkeep them company. 

As he spake this, he heard the litanies and the mementos of the prieststhat carried his wife to be buried, upon which he left the good purpose hewas in, and was suddenly ravished another way, saying, Lord God! must Iagain 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 befoiled, if not quite undone. By the faith of a gentleman, it were betterto cry less, and drink more. My wife is dead, well, by G--! (da jurandi) Ishall not raise her again by my crying: she is well, she is in paradise atleast, if she be no higher: she prayeth to God for us, she is happy, sheis above the sense of our miseries, nor can our calamities reach her. Whatthough she be dead, must not we also die? The same debt which she hathpaid hangs over our heads; nature will require it of us, and we must all ofus some day taste of the same sauce. Let her pass then, and the Lordpreserve 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 Francecalled wise women (where be they, good folks? I cannot see them): Go youto my wife's interment, and I will the while rock my son; for I find myselfsomewhat altered and distempered, and should otherwise be in danger offalling sick; but drink one good draught first, you will be the better forit. And believe me, upon mine honour, they at his request went to herburial and funeral obsequies. In the meanwhile, poor Gargantua staying athome, and willing to have somewhat in remembrance of her to be engravenupon 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 bornin this world after very strange manners, which would be too long torepeat; read therefore the seventh chapter of Pliny, if you have so muchleisure. Yet have you never heard of any so wonderful as that ofPantagruel; for it is a very difficult matter to believe, how in the littletime he was in his mother's belly he grew both in body and strength. Thatwhich Hercules did was nothing, when in his cradle he slew two serpents, for those serpents were but little and weak, but Pantagruel, being yet inthe cradle, did far more admirable things, and more to be amazed at. Ipass by here the relation of how at every one of his meals he supped up themilk of four thousand and six hundred cows, and how, to make him a skilletto boil his milk in, there were set a-work all the braziers of Somure inAnjou, of Villedieu in Normandy, and of Bramont in Lorraine. And theyserved in this whitepot-meat to him in a huge great bell, which is yet tobe seen in the city of Bourges in Berry, near the palace, but his teethwere already so well grown, and so strengthened with vigour, that of thesaid bell he bit off a great morsel, as very plainly doth appear till thishour. 

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 ofhis arms loose from the swaddling bands wherewith he was kept fast in thecradle, laid hold on the said cow under the left foreham, and grasping herto him ate up her udder and half of her paunch, with the liver and thekidneys, and had devoured all up if she had not cried out most horribly, asif the wolves had held her by the legs, at which noise company came in andtook away the said cow from Pantagruel. Yet could they not so well do itbut that the quarter whereby he caught her was left in his hand, of whichquarter he gulped up the flesh in a trice, even with as much ease as youwould eat a sausage, and that so greedily with desire of more, that, whenthey 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 tosay, Good, good, good--for he could not yet speak plain--giving them tounderstand thereby that he had found it very good, and that he did lack butso much more. Which when they saw that attended him, they bound him withgreat cable-ropes, like those that are made at Tain for the carriage ofsalt to Lyons, or such as those are whereby the great French ship rides atanchor in the road of Newhaven in Normandy. But, on a certain time, agreat bear, which his father had bred, got loose, came towards him, beganto lick his face, for his nurses had not thoroughly wiped his chaps, atwhich unexpected approach being on a sudden offended, he as lightly ridhimself of those great cables as Samson did of the hawser ropes wherewiththe Philistines had tied him, and, by your leave, takes me up my lord thebear, and tears him to you in pieces like a pullet, which served him for agorgeful or good warm bit for that meal. 

Whereupon Gargantua, fearing lest the child should hurt himself, causedfour great chains of iron to be made to bind him, and so many strong woodenarches unto his cradle, most firmly stocked and morticed in huge frames. Of those chains you have one at Rochelle, which they draw up at nightbetwixt the two great towers of the haven. Another is at Lyons, --a thirdat 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 didextraordinarily torment him, taken with eating a sergeant's soul fried forhis breakfast. And therefore you may believe that which Nicholas de Lyrasaith upon that place of the Psalter where it is written, Et Og RegemBasan, 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. Thuscontinued Pantagruel for a while very calm and quiet, for he was not ableso easily to break those chains, especially having no room in the cradle togive a swing with his arms. But see what happened once upon a greatholiday that his father Gargantua made a sumptuous banquet to all theprinces of his court. I am apt to believe that the menial officers of thehouse 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 withhis arms, but could not, for they were too strong for him. Then did hekeep with his feet such a stamping stir, and so long, that at last he beatout the lower end of his cradle, which notwithstanding was made of a greatpost five foot in square; and as soon as he had gotten out his feet, heslid down as well as he could till he had got his soles to the ground, andthen 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 haveseen him, you would have thought it had been a great carrick of fivehundred tons upon one end. In this manner he entered into the great hallwhere they were banqueting, and that very boldly, which did much affrightthe company; yet, because his arms were tied in, he could not reachanything to eat, but with great pain stooped now and then a little to takewith the whole flat of his tongue some lick, good bit, or morsel. Whichwhen his father saw, he knew well enough that they had left him withoutgiving him anything to eat, and therefore commanded that he should beloosed from the said chains, by the counsel of the princes and lords therepresent. Besides that also the physicians of Gargantua said that, if theydid thus keep him in the cradle, he would be all his lifetime subject tothe stone. When he was unchained, they made him to sit down, where, afterhe had fed very well, he took his cradle and broke it into more than fivehundred thousand pieces with one blow of his fist that he struck in themidst 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 andmore in all his dimensions, which made his father to rejoice by a naturalaffection. Therefore caused he to be made for him, whilst he was yetlittle, a pretty crossbow wherewith to shoot at small birds, which now theycall the great crossbow at Chantelle. Then he sent him to the school tolearn, and to spend his youth in virtue. In the prosecution of whichdesign he came first to Poictiers, where, as he studied and profited verymuch, he saw that the scholars were oftentimes at leisure and knew not howto bestow their time, which moved him to take such compassion on them, thatone day he took from a long ledge of rocks, called there Passelourdin, ahuge great stone, of about twelve fathom square and fourteen handfulsthick, and with great ease set it upon four pillars in the midst of afield, to no other end but that the said scholars, when they had nothingelse to do, might pass their time in getting up on that stone, and feast itwith store of gammons, pasties, and flagons, and carve their names upon itwith a knife, in token of which deed till this hour the stone is called thelifted stone. And in remembrance hereof there is none entered into theregister and matricular book of the said university, or accounted capableof taking any degree therein, till he have first drunk in the caballinefountain of Croustelles, passed at Passelourdin, and got up upon the liftedstone. 

Afterwards, reading the delectable chronicles of his ancestors, he foundthat Geoffrey of Lusignan, called Geoffrey with the great tooth, grandfather to the cousin-in-law of the eldest sister of the aunt of theson-in-law of the uncle of the good daughter of his stepmother, wasinterred at Maillezais; therefore one day he took campos (which is a littlevacation from study to play a while), that he might give him a visit asunto an honest man. And going from Poictiers with some of his companions, they passed by the Guge (Leguge), visiting the noble Abbot Ardillon; thenby 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 greattooth; which made him somewhat afraid, looking upon the picture, whoselively draughts did set him forth in the representation of a man in anextreme fury, drawing his great Malchus falchion half way out of hisscabbard. When the reason hereof was demanded, the canons of the saidplace told him that there was no other cause of it but that Pictoribusatque Poetis, &c. , that is to say, that painters and poets have liberty topaint and devise what they list after their own fancy. But he was notsatisfied with their answer, and said, He is not thus painted without acause, and I suspect that at his death there was some wrong done him, whereof he requireth his kindred to take revenge. I will inquire furtherinto it, and then do what shall be reasonable. Then he returned not toPoictiers, 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 somemariners and lightermen a-wrestling on the quay or strand by theriver-side. From thence he came to Toulouse, where he learned to dance verywell, and to play with the two-handed sword, as the fashion of the scholarsof the said university is to bestir themselves in games whereof they mayhave their hands full; but he stayed not long there when he saw that theydid cause burn their regents alive like red herring, saying, Now God forbidthat 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 thestudy of physic; but he considered that that calling was too troublesomeand melancholic, and that physicians did smell of glisters like old devils. Therefore he resolved he would study the laws; but seeing that there werebut three scald- and one bald-pated legist in that place, he departed fromthence, and in his way made the bridge of Guard and the amphitheatre ofNimes in less than three hours, which, nevertheless, seems to be a moredivine than human work. After that he came to Avignon, where he was notabove three days before he fell in love; for the women there take greatdelight in playing at the close-buttock game, because it is papal ground. Which his tutor and pedagogue Epistemon perceiving, he drew him out of thatplace, and brought him to Valence in the Dauphiny, where he saw no greatmatter of recreation, only that the lubbers of the town did beat thescholars, which so incensed him with anger, that when, upon a certain veryfair Sunday, the people being at their public dancing in the streets, andone of the scholars offering to put himself into the ring to partake ofthat sport, the foresaid lubberly fellows would not permit him theadmittance into their society, he, taking the scholar's part, so belabouredthem with blows, and laid such load upon them, that he drove them allbefore him, even to the brink of the river Rhone, and would have theredrowned them, but that they did squat to the ground, and there lay close afull 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 cameto Angiers, where he found himself very well, and would have continuedthere some space, but that the plague drove them away. So from thence hecame to Bourges, where he studied a good long time, and profited very muchin the faculty of the laws, and would sometimes say that the books of thecivil law were like unto a wonderfully precious, royal, and triumphant robeof cloth of gold edged with dirt; for in the world are no goodlier books tobe seen, more ornate, nor more eloquent than the texts of the Pandects, butthe bordering of them, that is to say, the gloss of Accursius, is soscurvy, vile, base, and unsavoury, that it is nothing but filthiness andvillainy. 

Going from Bourges, he came to Orleans, where he found store of swaggeringscholars that made him great entertainment at his coming, and with whom helearned to play at tennis so well that he was a master at that game. Forthe students of the said place make a prime exercise of it; and sometimesthey carried him unto Cupid's houses of commerce (in that city termedislands, because of their being most ordinarily environed with otherhouses, and not contiguous to any), there to recreate his person at thesport of poussavant, which the wenches of London call the ferkers in andin. As for breaking his head with over-much study, he had an especial carenot to do it in any case, for fear of spoiling his eyes. Which he therather observed, for that it was told him by one of his teachers, therecalled regents, that the pain of the eyes was the most hurtful thing of anyto the sight. For this cause, when he one day was made a licentiate, orgraduate in law, one of the scholars of his acquaintance, who of learninghad not much more than his burden, though instead of that he could dancevery well and play at tennis, made the blazon and device of the licentiatesin 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 theFrench language. 

Upon a certain day, I know not when, Pantagruel walking after supper withsome of his fellow-students without that gate of the city through which weenter on the road to Paris, encountered with a young spruce-like scholarthat was coming upon the same very way, and, after they had saluted oneanother, asked him thus, My friend, from whence comest thou now? Thescholar answered him, From the alme, inclyte, and celebrate academy, whichis vocitated Lutetia. What is the meaning of this? said Pantagruel to oneof 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 thestudents of Paris? The scholar answered, We transfretate the Sequan at thedilucul and crepuscul; we deambulate by the compites and quadrives of theurb; we despumate the Latial verbocination; and, like verisimilaryamorabons, we captat the benevolence of the omnijugal, omniform andomnigenal feminine sex. Upon certain diecules we invisat the lupanares, and in a venerian ecstasy inculcate our veretres into the penitissimerecesses of the pudends of these amicabilissim meretricules. Then do wecauponisate in the meritory taberns of the Pineapple, the Castle, theMagdalene, and the Mule, goodly vervecine spatules perforaminated withpetrocile. And if by fortune there be rarity or penury of pecune in ourmarsupies, and that they be exhausted of ferruginean metal, for the shot wedimit our codices and oppignerat our vestments, whilst we prestolate thecoming of the tabellaries from the Penates and patriotic Lares. To whichPantagruel answered, What devilish language is this? By the Lord, I thinkthou art some kind of heretick. My lord, no, said the scholar; forlibentissimally, as soon as it illucesceth any minutule slice of the day, Idemigrate into one of these so well architected minsters, and there, irrorating myself with fair lustral water, I mumble off little parcels ofsome missic precation of our sacrificuls, and, submurmurating my horaryprecules, I elevate and absterge my anime from its nocturnal inquinations. I revere the Olympicols. I latrially venere the supernal Astripotent. Idilige and redame my proxims. I observe the decalogical precepts, and, according to the facultatule of my vires, I do not discede from them onelate unguicule. Nevertheless, it is veriform, that because Mammona dothnot supergurgitate anything in my loculs, that I am somewhat rare and lentto supererogate the elemosynes to those egents that hostially queritatetheir stipe. 

Prut, tut, said Pantagruel, what doth this fool mean to say? I think he isupon the forging of some diabolical tongue, and that enchanter-like hewould charm us. To whom one of his men said, Without doubt, sir, thisfellow would counterfeit the language of the Parisians, but he doth onlyflay the Latin, imagining by so doing that he doth highly Pindarize it inmost eloquent terms, and strongly conceiteth himself to be therefore agreat orator in the French, because he disdaineth the common manner ofspeaking. To which Pantagruel said, Is it true? The scholar answered, Myworshipful lord, my genie is not apt nate to that which this flagitiousnebulon saith, to excoriate the cut(ic)ule of our vernacular Gallic, butvice-versally I gnave opere, and by veles and rames enite to locupletate itwith the Latinicome redundance. By G--, said Pantagruel, I will teach youto speak. But first come hither, and tell me whence thou art. To this thescholar answered, The primeval origin of my aves and ataves was indigenaryof the Lemovic regions, where requiesceth the corpor of the hagiotat St. Martial. I understand thee very well, said Pantagruel. When all comes toall, thou art a Limousin, and thou wilt here by thy affected speechcounterfeit the Parisians. Well now, come hither, I must show thee a newtrick, and handsomely give thee the combfeat. With this he took him by thethroat, saying to him, Thou flayest the Latin; by St. John, I will makethee flay the fox, for I will now flay thee alive. Then began the poorLimousin 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, saidPantagruel, thou speakest naturally, and so let him go, for the poorLimousin had totally bewrayed and thoroughly conshit his breeches, whichwere not deep and large enough, but round straight cannioned gregs, havingin 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, whatcivet? Fie! to the devil with this turnip-eater, as he stinks! and so lethim go. But this hug of Pantagruel's was such a terror to him all the daysof his life, and took such deep impression in his fancy, that very often, distracted with sudden affrightments, he would startle and say thatPantagruel held him by the neck. Besides that, it procured him a continualdrought and desire to drink, so that after some few years he died of thedeath Roland, in plain English called thirst, a work of divine vengeance, showing us that which saith the philosopher and Aulus Gellius, that itbecometh us to speak according to the common language; and that we should, as said Octavian Augustus, strive to shun all strange and unknown termswith as much heedfulness and circumspection as pilots of ships use to avoidthe 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 seethe great University at Paris; but, before his departure, he was informedthat 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 fourteenyears, for it was so great that they could not by any device get it so muchas above the ground, although they used all the means that are found inVitruvius 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 andinhabitants of the said town, he determined to remove it to the tower thatwas erected for it. With that he came to the place where it was, andlifted it out of the ground with his little finger as easily as you wouldhave done a hawk's bell or bellwether's tingle-tangle; but, before he wouldcarry it to the foresaid tower or steeple appointed for it, he would needsmake some music with it about the town, and ring it alongst all the streetsas he carried it in his hand, wherewith all the people were very glad. Butthere happened one great inconveniency, for with carrying it so, andringing it about the streets, all the good Orleans wine turned instantly, waxed flat and was spoiled, which nobody there did perceive till the nightfollowing; for every man found himself so altered and a-dry with drinkingthese flat wines, that they did nothing but spit, and that as white asMalta cotton, saying, We have of the Pantagruel, and our very throats aresalted. This done, he came to Paris with his retinue. And at his entryeveryone came out to see him--as you know well enough that the people ofParis is sottish by nature, by B flat and B sharp--and beheld him withgreat astonishment, mixed with no less fear that he would carry away thepalace into some other country, a remotis, and far from them, as his fatherformerly had done the great peal of bells at Our Lady's Church to tie abouthis mare's neck. Now after he had stayed there a pretty space, and studiedvery well in all the seven liberal arts, he said it was a good town to livein, but not to die; for that the grave-digging rogues of St. Innocent usedin frosty nights to warm their bums with dead men's bones. In his abodethere he found the library of St. Victor a very stately and magnific one, especially in some books which were there, of which followeth the Repertoryand 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 atthe 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 profitedaccordingly; for he had an excellent understanding and notable wit, together with a capacity in memory equal to the measure of twelve oilbudgets or butts of olives. And, as he was there abiding one day, hereceived a letter from his father in manner as followeth. 

Most dear Son, --Amongst the gifts, graces, and prerogatives, with which thesovereign plasmator God Almighty hath endowed and adorned human nature atthe beginning, that seems to me most singular and excellent by which we mayin a mortal state attain to a kind of immortality, and in the course ofthis transitory life perpetuate our name and seed, which is done by aprogeny issued from us in the lawful bonds of matrimony. Whereby that insome measure is restored unto us which was taken from us by the sin of ourfirst parents, to whom it was said that, because they had not obeyed thecommandment of God their Creator, they should die, and by death should bebrought to nought that so stately frame and plasmature wherein the man atfirst had been created. 

But by this means of seminal propagation there ("Which continueth" in theold copy. ) continueth in the children what was lost in the parents, and inthe grandchildren that which perished in their fathers, and so successivelyuntil the day of the last judgment, when Jesus Christ shall have renderedup to God the Father his kingdom in a peaceable condition, out of alldanger and contamination of sin; for then shall cease all generations andcorruptions, and the elements leave off their continual transmutations, seeing the so much desired peace shall be attained unto and enjoyed, andthat 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 Saviourand Preserver, for that he hath enabled me to see my bald old agereflourish in thy youth; for when, at his good pleasure, who rules andgoverns all things, my soul shall leave this mortal habitation, I shall notaccount 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 inthe world, visiting and conversing with people of honour, and other my goodfriends, as I was wont to do. Which conversation of mine, although it wasnot without sin, because we are all of us trespassers, and therefore oughtcontinually to beseech his divine majesty to blot our transgressions out ofhis memory, yet was it, by the help and grace of God, without all manner ofreproach before men. 

Wherefore, if those qualities of the mind but shine in thee wherewith I amendowed, as in thee remaineth the perfect image of my body, thou wilt beesteemed by all men to be the perfect guardian and treasure of theimmortality of our name. But, if otherwise, I shall truly take but smallpleasure to see it, considering that the lesser part of me, which is thebody, 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 degenerateand abastardized. This I do not speak out of any distrust that I have ofthy virtue, which I have heretofore already tried, but to encourage theeyet more earnestly to proceed from good to better. And that which I nowwrite unto thee is not so much that thou shouldst live in this virtuouscourse, as that thou shouldst rejoice in so living and having lived, andcheer up thyself with the like resolution in time to come; to theprosecution and accomplishment of which enterprise and generous undertakingthou mayst easily remember how that I have spared nothing, but have sohelped thee, as if I had had no other treasure in this world but to seethee once in my life completely well-bred and accomplished, as well invirtue, honesty, and valour, as in all liberal knowledge and civility, andso to leave thee after my death as a mirror representing the person of methy 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 hisbest endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and politicalknowledge, and that my labour and study was fully correspondent to, yea, went beyond his desire, nevertheless, as thou mayest well understand, thetime 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 timewas darksome, obscured with clouds of ignorance, and savouring a little ofthe infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had, wherever they setfooting, destroyed all good literature, which in my age hath by the divinegoodness been restored unto its former light and dignity, and that withsuch amendment and increase of the knowledge, that now hardly should I beadmitted 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 ofthat age. Which I do not speak in vain boasting, although I might lawfullydo it in writing unto thee--in verification whereof thou hast the authorityof Marcus Tullius in his book of old age, and the sentence of Plutarch inthe book entitled How a man may praise himself without envy--but to givethee an emulous encouragement to strive yet further. 

Now is it that the minds of men are qualified with all manner ofdiscipline, 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 ascholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaean, and Latin. Printing likewise is now inuse, so elegant and so correct that better cannot be imagined, although itwas found out but in my time by divine inspiration, as by a diabolicalsuggestion on the other side was the invention of ordnance. All the worldis 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, norCicero's, nor Papinian's, there was ever such conveniency for studying aswe see at this day there is. Nor must any adventure henceforward to comein public, or present himself in company, that hath not been pretty wellpolished in the shop of Minerva. I see robbers, hangmen, freebooters, tapsters, ostlers, and such like, of the very rubbish of the people, morelearned now than the doctors and preachers were in my time. 

What shall I say? The very women and children have aspired to this praiseand celestial manner of good learning. Yet so it is that, in the age I amnow of, I have been constrained to learn the Greek tongue--which Icontemned not like Cato, but had not the leisure in my younger years toattend the study of it--and take much delight in the reading of Plutarch'sMorals, the pleasant Dialogues of Plato, the Monuments of Pausanias, andthe Antiquities of Athenaeus, in waiting on the hour wherein God my Creatorshall call me and command me to depart from this earth and transitorypilgrimage. Wherefore, my son, I admonish thee to employ thy youth toprofit as well as thou canst, both in thy studies and in virtue. Thou artat Paris, where the laudable examples of many brave men may stir up thymind to gallant actions, and hast likewise for thy tutor and pedagogue thelearned Epistemon, who by his lively and vocal documents may instruct theein 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 andArabic likewise, and that thou frame thy style in Greek in imitation ofPlato, and for the Latin after Cicero. Let there be no history which thoushalt not have ready in thy memory; unto the prosecuting of which design, books of cosmography will be very conducible and help thee much. Of theliberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave thee some tastewhen thou wert yet little, and not above five or six years old. Proceedfurther in them, and learn the remainder if thou canst. As for astronomy, study all the rules thereof. Let pass, nevertheless, the divining andjudicial astrology, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plainabuses and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would have thee toknow 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 theeto study that exactly, and that so there be no sea, river, nor fountain, ofwhich thou dost not know the fishes; all the fowls of the air; all theseveral kinds of shrubs and trees, whether in forests or orchards; all thesorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground; all the variousmetals that are hid within the bowels of the earth; together with all thediversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and southparts of the world. Let nothing of all these be hidden from thee. Thenfail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, andLatin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and byfrequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the other world, called the microcosm, which is man. And at some hours of the day apply thymind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first in Greek, the NewTestament, with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament inHebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit ofknowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learnchivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby todefend my house and our friends, and to succour and protect them at alltheir 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 andconclusions in all arts against all persons whatsoever, and by haunting thecompany of learned men, both at Paris and otherwhere. But because, as thewise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and thatknowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, it behoveth theeto serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to cast all thy thoughts and allthy hope, and by faith formed in charity to cleave unto him, so that thoumayst never be separated from him by thy sins. Suspect the abuses of theworld. Set not thy heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory, but theWord of the Lord endureth for ever. Be serviceable to all thy neighbours, and love them as thyself. Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversationof those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain thegraces which God hath bestowed upon thee. And, when thou shalt see thatthou hast attained to all the knowledge that is to be acquired in thatpart, return unto me, that I may see thee and give thee my blessing beforeI 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 inhis 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 ofhis spirit amidst the books was like a great fire amongst dry wood, soactive 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 andsome other scholars, (he) met with a young man of very comely stature andsurpassing handsome in all the lineaments of his body, but in several partsthereof most pitifully wounded; in such bad equipage in matter of hisapparel, which was but tatters and rags, and every way so far out of orderthat he seemed to have been a-fighting with mastiff-dogs, from whose furyhe had made an escape; or to say better, he looked, in the conditionwherein 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 yousee that man there, who is a-coming hither upon the road from Charentonbridge? By my faith, he is only poor in fortune; for I may assure you thatby his physiognomy it appeareth that nature hath extracted him from somerich and noble race, and that too much curiosity hath thrown him uponadventures which possibly have reduced him to this indigence, want, andpenury. Now as he was just amongst them, Pantagruel said unto him, Let meentreat you, friend, that you may be pleased to stop here a little andanswer me to that which I shall ask you, and I am confident you will notthink your time ill bestowed; for I have an extreme desire, according to myability, 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 greatpity. Therefore, my friend, tell me who you are; whence you come; whitheryou go; what you desire; and what your name is. The companion answered himin the German (The first edition reads "Dutch. ") tongue, thus:

'Junker, Gott geb euch gluck und heil. Furwahr, lieber Junker, ich laszeuch 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 zuerzelen wer, wiewol die Poeten und Oratorn vorzeiten haben gesagt in ihrenSpruchen und Sentenzen, dasz die gedechtniss des Elends und Armuthvorlangst erlitten ist eine grosse Lust. ' My friend, said Pantagruel, Ihave no skill in that gibberish of yours; therefore, if you would have usto understand you, speak to us in some other language. Then did the drollanswer 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, pruchdalmaisoulum hol moth danfrihim lupaldas in voldemoth. Nin hur diavosthmnarbotim dalgousch palfrapin duch im scoth pruch galeth dal chinon, minfoulchrich al conin brutathen doth dal prin. ' Do you understand none ofthis? said Pantagruel to the company. I believe, said Epistemon, that thisis the language of the Antipodes, and such a hard one that the devilhimself knows not what to make of it. Then said Pantagruel, Gossip, I knownot if the walls do comprehend the meaning of your words, but none of ushere doth so much as understand one syllable of them. Then said my bladeagain:

'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 lemie fortune, se prima il tribulato ventre non ha la solita refettione. Alquale e adviso che le mani et li denti habbiano perso il loro ordinenaturale et del tutto annichilati. ' To which Epistemon answered, As muchof 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 relievedto the body, you should have pity of me. For nature hath made us equal, but fortune hath some exalted and others deprived; nevertheless is virtueoften deprived and the virtuous men despised; for before the last end noneis good. ' (The following is the passage as it stands in the first edition. Urquhart seems to have rendered Rabelais' indifferent English into worseScotch, and this, with probably the use of contractions in his MS. , or 'theoddness' of handwriting which he owns to in his Logopandecteision (p. 419, Mait. Club. Edit. ), has led to a chaotic jumble, which it is nearlyimpossible to reduce to order. --Instead of any attempt to do so, it is heregiven verbatim: 'Lard gestholb besua virtuisbe intelligence: ass yi bodyscalbisbe natural reloth cholb suld osme pety have; for natur hass visseequaly maide bot fortune sum exaiti hesse andoyis deprevit: non yelessiviss mou virtiuss deprevit, and virtuiss men decreviss for anen yeladeniss non quid. ' Here is a morsel for critical ingenuity to fix itsteeth in. --M. ) Yet less, said Pantagruel. Then said my jolly Panurge:

'Jona andie guaussa goussy etan beharda er remedio beharde versela ysserlanda. Anbat es otoy y es nausu ey nessassust gourray proposian ordineden. Non yssena bayta facheria egabe gen herassy badia sadassu nouraassia. Aran hondavan gualde cydassu naydassuna. Estou oussyc eg vinansoury hien er darstura eguy harm. Genicoa plasar vadu. ' Are you there, said Eudemon, Genicoa? To this said Carpalim, St. Trinian's rammerunstitch your bum, for I had almost understood it. Then answered Panurge:

'Prust frest frinst sorgdmand strochdi drhds pag brlelang Gravot ChavignyPomardiere rusth pkaldracg Deviniere pres Nays. Couille kalmuch monachdrupp del meupplist rincq drlnd dodelb up drent loch minc stz rinq jald devins ders cordelis bur jocst stzampenards. ' Do you speak Christian, saidEpistemon, or the buffoon language, otherwise called Patelinois? Nay, itis the puzlatory tongue, said another, which some call Lanternois. Thensaid Panurge:

'Heere, ik en spreeke anders geen taele dan kersten taele: my dunktnoghtans, al en seg ik u niet een wordt, mynen noot verklaert genoegh watik 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 vuestrareverentia que mire a los preceptos evangelicos, para que ellos movanvuestra reverentia a lo que es de conscientia; y si ellos non bastaren, para mouer vuestra reverentia a piedad, yo suplico que mire a la piedadnatural, la qual yo creo que le movera como es de razon: y con esso nondigo mas. ' Truly, my friend, (said Pantagruel, ) I doubt not but you canspeak divers languages; but tell us that which you would have us to do foryou in some tongue which you conceive we may understand. Then said thecompanion:

'Min Herre, endog ieg med ingen tunge talede, ligesom baern, oc uskelligecreatuure: Mine klaedebon oc mit legoms magerhed uduiser alligeuel klarlighuad ting mig best behof gioris, som er sandelig mad oc dricke: Huorforforbarme dig ofuer mig, oc befal at giue mig noguet, af huilcket ieg kandslyre 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 allof us speak so with our tails. Then again said Panurge:

'Adon, scalom lecha: im ischar harob hal hebdeca bimeherah thithen likikar lehem: chanchat ub laah al Adonai cho nen ral. ' To which answeredEpistemon, At this time have I understood him very well; for it is theHebrew tongue most rhetorically pronounced. Then again said the gallant:

'Despota tinyn panagathe, diati sy mi ouk artodotis? horas gar limoanaliscomenon eme athlion, ke en to metaxy me ouk eleis oudamos, zetis depar emou ha ou chre. Ke homos philologi pantes homologousi tote logous teke remata peritta hyparchin, hopote pragma afto pasi delon esti. Entha garanankei monon logi isin, hina pragmata (hon peri amphisbetoumen), meprosphoros epiphenete. ' What? Said Carpalim, Pantagruel's footman, It isGreek, I have understood him. And how? hast thou dwelt any while inGreece? Then said the droll again:

'Agonou dont oussys vous desdagnez algorou: nou den farou zamist vousmariston ulbrou, fousques voubrol tant bredaguez moupreton dengoulhoust, daguez daguez non cropys fost pardonnoflist nougrou. Agou paston tolnalprissys hourtou los echatonous, prou dhouquys brol pany gou den bascrounoudous caguons goulfren goul oustaroppassou. ' (In this and the precedingspeeches of Panurge, the Paris Variorum Edition of 1823 has been followedin correcting Urquhart's text, which is full of inaccuracies. --M. )Methinks I understand him, said Pantagruel; for either it is the languageof my country of Utopia, or sounds very like it. And, as he was about tohave begun some purpose, the companion said:

'Jam toties vos per sacra, perque deos deasque omnes obtestatus sum, ut siquae vos pietas permovet, egestatem meam solaremini, nec hilum proficioclamans et ejulans. Sinite, quaeso, sinite, viri impii, quo me fata vocantabire; nec ultra vanis vestris interpellationibus obtundatis, memoresveteris illius adagii, quo venter famelicus auriculis carere dicitur. 'Well, my friend, said Pantagruel, but cannot you speak French? That I cando, sir, very well, said the companion, God be thanked. It is my naturallanguage and mother tongue, for I was born and bred in my younger years inthe garden of France, to wit, Touraine. Then, said Pantagruel, tell uswhat is your name, and from whence you are come; for, by my faith, I havealready 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 mycompany, and you and I shall make up another couple of friends such asAeneas and Achates were. Sir, said the companion, my true and properChristian name is Panurge, and now I come out of Turkey, to which country Iwas carried away prisoner at that time when they went to Metelin with amischief. And willingly would I relate unto you my fortunes, which aremore wonderful than those of Ulysses were; but, seeing that it pleaseth youto retain me with you, I most heartily accept of the offer, protestingnever to leave you should you go to all the devils in hell. We shall havetherefore more leisure at another time, and a fitter opportunity wherein toreport 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 fierceand burning, all is ready. If you will but set me to work, it will be asgood as a balsamum for sore eyes to see me gulch and raven it. For God'ssake, give order for it. Then Pantagruel commanded that they should carryhim home and provide him good store of victuals; which being done, he atevery well that evening, and, capon-like, went early to bed; then sleptuntil dinner-time the next day, so that he made but three steps and oneleap from the bed to the board. 

Chapter 2. X. 

How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was wonderfullyobscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree therein, he wasreputed 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 thecarrefours, that is, throughout all the four quarters, streets, and cornersof the city, he set up conclusions to the number of nine thousand sevenhundred sixty and four, in all manner of learning, touching in them thehardest doubts that are in any science. And first of all, in the FodderStreet he held dispute against all the regents or fellows of colleges, artists or masters of arts, and orators, and did so gallantly that heoverthrew them and set them all upon their tails. He went afterwards tothe Sorbonne, where he maintained argument against all the theologians ordivines, for the space of six weeks, from four o'clock in the morning untilsix in the evening, except an interval of two hours to refresh themselvesand take their repast. And at this were present the greatest part of thelords of the court, the masters of requests, presidents, counsellors, thoseof the accompts, secretaries, advocates, and others; as also the sheriffsof the said town, with the physicians and professors of the canon law. Amongst which, it is to be remarked, that the greatest part were stubbornjades, and in their opinions obstinate; but he took such course with themthat, 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 theworld that, compared to him, they were but monkeys and a knot of muffledcalves. Whereupon everybody began to keep a bustling noise and talk of hisso marvellous knowledge, through all degrees of persons of both sexes, evento the very laundresses, brokers, roast-meat sellers, penknife makers, andothers, who, when he passed along in the street, would say, This is he! inwhich he took delight, as Demosthenes, the prince of Greek orators, did, when an old crouching wife, pointing at him with her fingers, said, That isthe man. 

Now at this same very time there was a process or suit in law depending incourt between two great lords, of which one was called my Lord Kissbreech, plaintiff of one side, and the other my Lord Suckfist, defendant of theother; whose controversy was so high and difficult in law that the court ofparliament could make nothing of it. And therefore, by the commandment ofthe king, there were assembled four of the greatest and most learned of allthe parliaments of France, together with the great council, and all theprincipal regents of the universities, not only of France, but of Englandalso and Italy, such as Jason, Philippus Decius, Petrus de Petronibus, anda rabble of other old Rabbinists. Who being thus met together, after theyhad thereupon consulted for the space of six-and-forty weeks, finding thatthey could not fasten their teeth in it, nor with such clearness understandthe case as that they might in any manner of way be able to right it, ortake up the difference betwixt the two aforesaid parties, it did sogrievously vex them that they most villainously conshit themselves forshame. In this great extremity one amongst them, named Du Douhet, thelearnedest of all, and more expert and prudent than any of the rest, whilstone day they were thus at their wits' end, all-to-be-dunced andphilogrobolized in their brains, said unto them, We have been here, mymasters, a good long space, without doing anything else than trifle awayboth our time and money, and can nevertheless find neither brim nor bottomin this matter, for the more we study about it the less we understandtherein, which is a great shame and disgrace to us, and a heavy burden toour consciences; yea, such that in my opinion we shall not rid ourselves ofit without dishonour, unless we take some other course; for we do nothingbut dote in our consultations. 

See, therefore, what I have thought upon. You have heard much talking ofthat worthy personage named Master Pantagruel, who hath been found to belearned above the capacity of this present age, by the proofs he gave inthose great disputations which he held publicly against all men. Myopinion 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 itnot. 

Hereunto all the counsellors and doctors willingly agreed, and according tothat their result having instantly sent for him, they entreated him to bepleased to canvass the process and sift it thoroughly, that, after a deepsearch and narrow examination of all the points thereof, he might forthwithmake the report unto them such as he shall think good in true and legalknowledge. To this effect they delivered into his hands the bags whereinwere the writs and pancarts concerning that suit, which for bulk and weightwere almost enough to lade four great couillard or stoned asses. ButPantagruel said unto them, Are the two lords between whom this debate andprocess 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 whichyou give me? Is it not better to hear their controversy from their ownmouths whilst they are face to face before us, than to read these vilefopperies, which are nothing but trumperies, deceits, diabolical cozenagesof Cepola, pernicious slights and subversions of equity? For I am surethat you, and all those through whose hands this process has passed, haveby 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 atfirst, 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 theleast law of the Pandects, they being but mere blockheads and great tithecalves, ignorant of all that which was needful for the understanding of thelaws; for, as it is most certain, they had not the knowledge either of theGreek or Latin tongue, but only of the Gothic and barbarian. The laws, nevertheless, were first taken from the Greeks, according to the testimonyof Ulpian, L. Poster. De origine juris, which we likewise may perceive bythat all the laws are full of Greek words and sentences. And then we findthat they are reduced into a Latin style the most elegant and ornate thatwhole language is able to afford, without excepting that of any that everwrote therein, nay, not of Sallust, Varro, Cicero, Seneca, Titus Livius, nor Quintilian. How then could these old dotards be able to understandaright the text of the laws who never in their time had looked upon a goodLatin 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, thanfor a jurisconsult and doctor in the laws?

Furthermore, seeing the laws are excerpted out of the middle of moral andnatural philosophy, how should these fools have understood it, that have, by G--, studied less in philosophy than my mule? In respect of humanlearning and the knowledge of antiquities and history they were truly ladenwith those faculties as a toad is with feathers. And yet of all this thelaws are so full that without it they cannot be understood, as I intendmore fully to show unto you in a peculiar treatise which on that purpose Iam about to publish. Therefore, if you will that I take any meddling inthis process, first cause all these papers to be burnt; secondly, make thetwo gentlemen come personally before me, and afterwards, when I shall haveheard them, I will tell you my opinion freely without any feignedness ordissimulation whatsoever. 

Some amongst them did contradict this motion, as you know that in allcompanies there are more fools than wise men, and that the greater partalways surmounts the better, as saith Titus Livius in speaking of theCarthaginians. But the foresaid Du Douhet held the contrary opinion, maintaining that Pantagruel had said well, and what was right, in affirmingthat these records, bills of inquest, replies, rejoinders, exceptions, depositions, and other such diableries of truth-entangling writs, were butengines wherewith to overthrow justice and unnecessarily to prolong suchsuits as did depend before them; and that, therefore, the devil would carrythem all away to hell if they did not take another course and proceeded notin times coming according to the prescripts of evangelical andphilosophical equity. In fine, all the papers were burnt, and the twogentlemen summoned and personally convented. At whose appearance beforethe court Pantagruel said unto them, Are you they that have this greatdifference betwixt you? Yes, my lord, said they. Which of you, saidPantagruel, 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 topoint, according to the real truth, or else, by cock's body, if I find youto lie so much as in one word, I will make you shorter by the head, andtake it from off your shoulders to show others by your example that injustice and judgment men ought to speak nothing but the truth. Thereforetake 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 Pantagruelwithout an attorney. 

Then began Kissbreech in manner as followeth. My lord, it is true that agood woman of my house carried eggs to the market to sell. Be covered, Kissbreech, said Pantagruel. Thanks to you, my lord, said the LordKissbreech; but to the purpose. There passed betwixt the two tropics thesum of threepence towards the zenith and a halfpenny, forasmuch as theRiphaean mountains had been that year oppressed with a great sterility ofcounterfeit gudgeons and shows without substance, by means of the babblingtattle and fond fibs seditiously raised between the gibblegabblers andAccursian gibberish-mongers for the rebellion of the Switzers, who hadassembled themselves to the full number of the bumbees and myrmidons to goa-handsel-getting on the first day of the new year, at that very time whenthey give brewis to the oxen and deliver the key of the coals to thecountry-girls for serving in of the oats to the dogs. All the night longthey did nothing else, keeping their hands still upon the pot, butdespatch, both on foot and horseback, leaden-sealed writs or letters, towit, papal commissions commonly called bulls, to stop the boats; for thetailors and seamsters would have made of the stolen shreds and clippings agoodly sagbut to cover the face of the ocean, which then was great withchild of a potful of cabbage, according to the opinion of thehay-bundle-makers. But the physicians said that by the urine theycould discern no manifest sign of the bustard's pace, nor how to eatdouble-tongued mattocks with mustard, unless the lords and gentlemen of thecourt should be pleased to give by B. Mol express command to the pox not torun about any longer in gleaning up of coppersmiths and tinkers; for thejobbernolls had already a pretty good beginning in their dance of theBritish jig called the estrindore, to a perfect diapason, with one foot inthe 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 hispleasure, 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 fromthe little paltry town, even then when Master Antitus of Cressplots waslicentiated, and had passed his degrees in all dullery and blockishness, according to this sentence of the canonists, Beati Dunces, quoniam ipsistumblaverunt. But that which makes Lent to be so high, by St. Fiacre ofBry, 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 mustthink so, seeing that the sergeant hath propounded the matter so far abovemy reach, that the clerks and secondaries could not with the benefitthereof lick their fingers, feathered with ganders, so orbicularly as theywere wont in other things to do. And we do manifestly see that everyoneacknowledgeth himself to be in the error wherewith another hath beencharged, reserving only those cases whereby we are obliged to take anocular inspection in a perspective glass of these things towards the placein the chimney where hangeth the sign of the wine of forty girths, whichhave been always accounted very necessary for the number of twenty pannelsand pack-saddles of the bankrupt protectionaries of five years' respite. Howsoever, at least, he that would not let fly the fowl before thecheesecakes ought in law to have discovered his reason why not, for thememory is often lost with a wayward shoeing. Well, God keep TheobaldMitain from all danger! Then said Pantagruel, Hold there! Ho, my friend, soft and fair, speak at leisure and soberly without putting yourself incholer. I understand the case, --go on. Now then, my lord, saidKissbreech, the foresaid good woman saying her gaudez and audi nos, couldnot cover herself with a treacherous backblow, ascending by the wounds andpassions of the privileges of the universities, unless by the virtue of awarming-pan she had angelically fomented every part of her body in coveringthem 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 thepainters of Flanders make great use when they are about neatly to clap onshoes on grasshoppers, locusts, cigals, and such like fly-fowls, so strangeto us that I am wonderfully astonished why the world doth not lay, seeingit 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 itbecome thee to speak without command? I sweat here with the extremity oflabour and exceeding toil I take to understand the proceeding of yourmutual difference, and yet thou comest to trouble and disquiet me. Peace, in the devil's name, peace. Thou shalt be permitted to speak thy bellyfulwhen 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 makeno mention of it, and that the holy Pope to everyone gave liberty to fartat his own ease, if that the blankets had no streaks wherein the liars wereto be crossed with a ruffian-like crew, and, the rainbow being newlysharpened at Milan to bring forth larks, gave his full consent that thegood woman should tread down the heel of the hip-gut pangs, by virtue of asolemn protestation put in by the little testiculated or codsted fishes, which, to tell the truth, were at that time very necessary forunderstanding the syntax and construction of old boots. Therefore JohnCalf, her cousin gervais once removed with a log from the woodstack, veryseriously advised her not to put herself into the hazard of quagswagging inthe lee, to be scoured with a buck of linen clothes till first she hadkindled the paper. This counsel she laid hold on, because he desired herto take nothing and throw out, for Non de ponte vadit, qui cum sapientiacadit. Matters thus standing, seeing the masters of the chamber ofaccompts or members of that committee did not fully agree amongstthemselves in casting up the number of the Almany whistles, whereof wereframed those spectacles for princes which have been lately printed atAntwerp, I must needs think that it makes a bad return of the writ, andthat the adverse party is not to be believed, in sacer verbo dotis. Forthat, having a great desire to obey the pleasure of the king, I armedmyself from toe to top with belly furniture, of the soles of goodvenison-pasties, to go see how my grape-gatherers and vintagers had pinkedand 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 comingfrom the fair, in so far that many trained bowmen were cast at the musterand quite rejected, although the chimney-tops were high enough, according tothe 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 thestory of Ronypatifam or Lamibaudichon, interpreted by some to be the tale ofa tub or of a roasted horse, savours of apocrypha, and is not an authentichistory. And by this means there was that year great abundance, throughoutall the country of Artois, of tawny buzzing beetles, to the no small profitof the gentlemen-great-stick-faggot-carriers, when they did eat withoutdisdaining the cocklicranes, till their belly was like to crack with itagain. As for my own part, such is my Christian charity towards myneighbours, that I could wish from my heart everyone had as good a voice; itwould make us play the better at the tennis and the balloon. And truly, mylord, to express the real truth without dissimulation, I cannot but say thatthose petty subtle devices which are found out in the etymologizing ofpattens would descend more easily into the river of Seine, to serve for everat the millers' bridge upon the said water, as it was heretofore decreed bythe king of the Canarians, according to the sentence or judgment giventhereupon, which is to be seen in the registry and records within theclerk's office of this house. 

And, therefore, my lord, I do most humbly require, that by your lordshipthere may be said and declared upon the case what is reasonable, withcosts, damages, and interests. Then said Pantagruel, My friend, is thisall you have to say? Kissbreech answered, Yes, my lord, for I have toldall the tu autem, and have not varied at all upon mine honour in so much asone single word. You then, said Pantagruel, my Lord of Suckfist, say whatyou will, and be brief, without omitting, nevertheless, anything that mayserve 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 mymasters, if the iniquity of men were as easily seen in categorical judgmentas we can discern flies in a milkpot, the world's four oxen had not been soeaten up with rats, nor had so many ears upon the earth been nibbled awayso scurvily. For although all that my adversary hath spoken be of a verysoft and downy truth, in so much as concerns the letter and history of thefactum, yet nevertheless the crafty slights, cunning subtleties, slycozenages, 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, andthat without either thinking or speaking any manner of ill, they rudelycome to vex, trouble, and perplex my brains with that antique proverb whichsaith, 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 thesanctified bread of the confraternity, the more honestly to nod theirheads, play on the lute, and crack with their tails, to make pretty littleplatform leaps in keeping level by the ground? But now the world isunshackled from the corners of the packs of Leicester. One flies outlewdly and becomes debauched; another, likewise, five, four, and two, andthat at such random that, if the court take not some course therein, itwill 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 toilluminate his muzzle with a cowsherd or to buy winter-boots, and that thesergeants passing by, or those of the watch, happen to receive thedecoction of a clyster or the fecal matter of a close-stool upon theirrustling-wrangling-clutter-keeping masterships, should any because of thatmake 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 iswholly set all beasts are in the shade. Let me never be believed again, ifI do not gallantly prove it by several people who have seen the light ofthe day. 

In the year thirty and six, buying a Dutch curtail, which was a middle-sizedhorse, both high and short, of a wool good enough and dyed in grain, as thegoldsmiths assured me, although the notary put an &c. In it, I told reallythat I was not a clerk of so much learning as to snatch at the moon with myteeth; but, as for the butter-firkin where Vulcanian deeds and evidenceswere sealed, the rumour was, and the report thereof went current, thatsalt-beef will make one find the way to the wine without a candle, though itwere hid in the bottom of a collier's sack, and that with his drawers on hewere 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 ofa swaggering sauciness. Here is a sheep's head, and it is well they make aproverb of this, that it is good to see black cows in burnt wood when oneattains to the enjoyment of his love. I had a consultation upon this pointwith my masters the clerks, who for resolution concluded in frisesomorumthat there is nothing like to mowing in the summer, and sweeping clean awayin water, well garnished with paper, ink, pens, and penknives, of Lyons uponthe river of Rhone, dolopym dolopof, tarabin tarabas, tut, prut, pish; for, incontinently after that armour begins to smell of garlic, the rust will gonear to eat the liver, not of him that wears it, and then do they nothingelse but withstand others' courses, and wryneckedly set up their bristles'gainst one another, in lightly passing over their afternoon's sleep, andthis is that which maketh salt so dear. My lords, believe not when the saidgood woman had with birdlime caught the shoveler fowl, the better before asergeant's witness to deliver the younger son's portion to him, that thesheep'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 thecannibals 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 haveprovided, (and) that they daub and do over with clay, as also calcinate andburn to dust these pantoufles, muff in muff out, mouflin mouflard, with thefine sauce of the juice of the rabble rout, whilst they hide themselves insome petty mouldwarphole, saving always the little slices of bacon. Now, ifthe dice will not favour you with any other throw but ambes-ace and thechance 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 ofthe best, despicando grenovillibus, in despite of the frogs, whose faircoarse bebuskined stockings shall be set apart for the little green geese ormewed goslings, which, fattened in a coop, take delight to sport themselvesat the wagtail game, waiting for the beating of the metal and heating of thewax by the slavering drivellers of consolation. 

Very true it is, that the four oxen which are in debate, and whereofmention was made, were somewhat short in memory. Nevertheless, tounderstand the game aright, they feared neither the cormorant nor mallardof Savoy, which put the good people of my country in great hope that theirchildren some time should become very skilful in algorism. Therefore isit, that by a law rubric and special sentence thereof, that we cannot failto take the wolf if we make our hedges higher than the windmill, whereofsomewhat was spoken by the plaintiff. But the great devil did envy it, andby that means put the High Dutches far behind, who played the devils inswilling 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 thissaying, that at Paris upon a little bridge the hen is proportionable, andwere they as copped and high-crested as marsh whoops, if veritably they didnot sacrifice the printer's pumpet-balls at Moreb, with a new edge set uponthem 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 putthe case that, at the coupling together of the buckhounds, the littlepuppies shall have waxed proud before the notary could have given anaccount of the serving of his writ by the cabalistic art, it willnecessarily follow, under correction of the better judgment of the court, that six acres of meadow ground of the greatest breadth will make threebutts of fine ink, without paying ready money; considering that, at thefuneral of King Charles, we might have had the fathom in open market forone 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 thecounterfeiting of the chirping of small birds, by swinging a broom threetimes about a chimney, and putting his name upon record, they do nothingbut 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 thesight of the letters, the cows were restored to him. Such another sentenceafter the homeliest manner was pronounced in the seventeenth year, becauseof the bad government of Louzefougarouse, whereunto it may please the courtto have regard. I desire to be rightly understood; for truly, I say notbut that in all equity, and with an upright conscience, those may very wellbe 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 theterms 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 andwipes his nose in a full concert of music without blowing in the cobbler'sstitches, should in the time of the nightmare sublimate the penury of hismember by moss gathered when people are like to founder themselves at themess at midnight, to give the estrapade to these white wines of Anjou thatdo the fear of the leg in lifting it by horsemen called the gambetta, andthat neck to neck after the fashion of Brittany, concluding as before withcosts, damages, and interests. 

After that the Lord of Suckfist had ended, Pantagruel said to the Lord ofKissbreech, 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, andnothing but the truth. Therefore, put an end for God's sake to ourdifference, for we are here at great charge. 

Chapter 2. XIII. 

How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords. 

Then Pantagruel, rising up, assembled all the presidents, counsellors, anddoctors that were there, and said unto them, Come now, my masters, you haveheard vivae vocis oraculo, the controversy that is in question; what do youthink of it? They answered him, We have indeed heard it, but have notunderstood the devil so much as one circumstance of the case; and thereforewe beseech you, una voce, and in courtesy request you that you would givesentence as you think good, and, ex nunc prout ex tunc, we are satisfiedwith it, and do ratify it with our full consents. Well, my masters, saidPantagruel, seeing you are so pleased, I will do it; but I do not trulyfind the case so difficult as you make it. Your paragraph Caton, the lawFrater, the law Gallus, the law Quinque pedum, the law Vinum, the law SiDominus, the law Mater, the law Mulier bona, to the law Si quis, the lawPomponius, the law Fundi, the law Emptor, the law Praetor, the lawVenditor, 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, ploddingvery profoundly, as one may think; for he did groan like an ass whilst theygirth him too hard, with the very intensiveness of considering how he wasbound in conscience to do right to both parties, without varying oraccepting of persons. Then he returned, sat down, and began to pronouncesentence as followeth. 

Having seen, heard, calculated, and well considered of the differencebetween the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist, the court saith unto them, that in regard of the sudden quaking, shivering, and hoariness of theflickermouse, bravely declining from the estival solstice, to attempt byprivate means the surprisal of toyish trifles in those who are a littleunwell for having taken a draught too much, through the lewd demeanour andvexation of the beetles that inhabit the diarodal (diarhomal) climate of anhypocritical ape on horseback, bending a crossbow backwards, the plaintifftruly had just cause to calfet, or with oakum to stop the chinks of thegalleon which the good woman blew up with wind, having one foot shod andthe other bare, reimbursing and restoring to him, low and stiff in hisconscience, as many bladder-nuts and wild pistaches as there is of hair ineighteen cows, with as much for the embroiderer, and so much for that. Heis likewise declared innocent of the case privileged from the knapdardies, into the danger whereof it was thought he had incurred; because he couldnot jocundly and with fulness of freedom untruss and dung, by the decisionof a pair of gloves perfumed with the scent of bum-gunshot at thewalnut-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 greatstore of pulse interquilted with the dormouse, whose hawk's-bells were madewith a puntinaria, after the manner of Hungary or Flanders lace, and whichhis brother-in-law carried in a pannier, lying near to three chevrons orbordered gules, whilst he was clean out of heart, drooping and crestfallenby the too narrow sifting, canvassing, and curious examining of the matterin the angularly doghole of nasty scoundrels, from whence we shoot at thevermiformal 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 tumblewas not found true, as by the defendant was very well discussed. 

The court, therefore, doth condemn and amerce him in three porringers ofcurds, well cemented and closed together, shining like pearls, andcodpieced after the fashion of the country, to be paid unto the saiddefendant about the middle of August in May. But, on the other part, thedefendant shall be bound to furnish him with hay and stubble for stoppingthe caltrops of his throat, troubled and impulregafized, with gabardinesgarbled shufflingly, and friends as before, without costs and for cause. 

Which sentence being pronounced, the two parties departed both contentedwith the decree, which was a thing almost incredible. For it never came topass since the great rain, nor shall the like occur in thirteen jubileeshereafter, that two parties contradictorily contending in judgment beequally satisfied and well pleased with the definitive sentence. As forthe counsellors and other doctors in the law that were there present, theywere all so ravished with admiration at the more than human wisdom ofPantagruel, which they did most clearly perceive to be in him by his soaccurate decision of this so difficult and thorny cause, that their spiritswith the extremity of the rapture being elevated above the pitch ofactuating the organs of the body, they fell into a trance and suddenecstasy, wherein they stayed for the space of three long hours, and hadbeen so as yet in that condition had not some good people fetched store ofvinegar and rose-water to bring them again unto their former sense andunderstanding, 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 theTurks. 

The great wit and judgment of Pantagruel was immediately after this madeknown unto all the world by setting forth his praises in print, and puttingupon record this late wonderful proof he hath given thereof amongst therolls of the crown and registers of the palace, in such sort that everybodybegan to say that Solomon, who by a probable guess only, without anyfurther certainty, caused the child to be delivered to its own mother, showed never in his time such a masterpiece of wisdom as the goodPantagruel hath done. Happy are we, therefore, that have him in ourcountry. And indeed they would have made him thereupon master of therequests and president in the court; but he refused all, very graciouslythanking them for their offer. For, said he, there is too much slavery inthese offices, and very hardly can they be saved that do exercise them, considering the great corruption that is amongst men. Which makes mebelieve, if the empty seats of angels be not filled with other kind ofpeople than those, we shall not have the final judgment these seventhousand, sixty and seven jubilees yet to come, and so Cusanus will bedeceived in his conjecture. Remember that I have told you of it, and givenyou fair advertisement in time and place convenient. 

But if you have any hogsheads of good wine, I willingly will accept of apresent of that. Which they very heartily did do, in sending him of thebest that was in the city, and he drank reasonably well, but poor Panurgebibbed and boused of it most villainously, for he was as dry as ared-herring, as lean as a rake, and, like a poor, lank, slender cat, walkedgingerly 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 claretwith 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 littletippling sippers of Paris, that drink no more than the little bird called aspink or chaffinch, and never take in their beakful of liquor till they bebobbed on the tails after the manner of the sparrows. O companion! if Icould mount up as well as I can get down, I had been long ere this abovethe sphere of the moon with Empedocles. But I cannot tell what a devilthis means. This wine is so good and delicious, that the more I drinkthereof the more I am athirst. I believe that the shadow of my masterPantagruel engendereth the altered and thirsty men, as the moon doth thecatarrhs and defluxions. At which word the company began to laugh, whichPantagruel perceiving, said, Panurge, what is that which moves you to laughso? Sir, said he, I was telling them that these devilish Turks are veryunhappy in that they never drink one drop of wine, and that though therewere no other harm in all Mahomet's Alcoran, yet for this one base point ofabstinence from wine which therein is commanded, I would not submit myselfunto their law. But now tell me, said Pantagruel, how you escaped out oftheir 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 madebut very bad meat, and in this manner began to roast me alive. As theywere thus roasting me, I recommended myself unto the divine grace, havingin my mind the good St. Lawrence, and always hoped in God that he woulddeliver me out of this torment. Which came to pass, and that verystrangely. 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 painand hellish torture, wherein these traitorous dogs detain me for mysincerity in the maintenance of thy law! The roaster or turnspit fellasleep by the divine will, or else by the virtue of some good Mercury, whocunningly brought Argus into a sleep for all his hundred eyes. When I sawthat he did no longer turn me in roasting, I looked upon him, and perceivedthat he was fast asleep. Then took I up in my teeth a firebrand by the endwhere it was not burnt, and cast it into the lap of my roaster, and anotherdid I throw as well as I could under a field-couch that was placed near tothe chimney, wherein was the straw-bed of my master turnspit. Presentlythe fire took hold in the straw, and from the straw to the bed, and fromthe bed to the loft, which was planked and ceiled with fir, after thefashion of the foot of a lamp. But the best was, that the fire which I hadcast into the lap of my paltry roaster burnt all his groin, and wasbeginning to cease (seize) upon his cullions, when he became sensible ofthe danger, for his smelling was not so bad but that he felt it sooner thanhe could have seen daylight. Then suddenly getting up, and in a greatamazement running to the window, he cried out to the streets as high as hecould, Dal baroth, dal baroth, dal baroth, which is as much to say as Fire, fire, fire. Incontinently turning about, he came straight towards me tothrow me quite into the fire, and to that effect had already cut the ropeswherewith 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 smokefrom the very street where he was walking with some other Bashaws andMustaphas, ran with all the speed he had to save what he could, and tocarry away his jewels. Yet such was his rage, before he could well resolvehow to go about it, that he caught the broach whereon I was spitted andtherewith killed my roaster stark dead, of which wound he died there forwant of government or otherwise; for he ran him in with the spit a littleabove the navel, towards the right flank, till he pierced the third lappetof his liver, and the blow slanting upwards from the midriff or diaphragm, through which it had made penetration, the spit passed athwart thepericardium 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 theleft homoplat, which we call the shoulder-blade. 

True it is, for I will not lie, that, in drawing the spit out of my body Ifell to the ground near unto the andirons, and so by the fall took somehurt, which indeed had been greater, but that the lardons, or little slicesof bacon wherewith I was stuck, kept off the blow. My Bashaw then seeingthe case to be desperate, his house burnt without remission, and all hisgoods lost, gave himself over unto all the devils in hell, calling uponsome 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 authoritywhich you have of the philosopher Jamblicus, and Murmault, in the Apologyof Bossutis, adulterated pro magistros nostros. But for my better securityI made the sign of the cross, crying, Hageos, athanatos, ho theos, and nonecame. At which my rogue Bashaw being very much aggrieved would, intranspiercing his heart with my spit, have killed himself, and to thatpurpose had set it against his breast, but it could not enter, because itwas not sharp enough. Whereupon I perceiving that he was not like to workupon his body the effect which he intended, although he did not spare allthe force he had to thrust it forward, came up to him and said, MasterBugrino, thou dost here but trifle away thy time, or rashly lose it, forthou wilt never kill thyself thus as thou doest. Well, thou mayst hurt orbruise somewhat within thee, so as to make thee languish all thy lifetimemost pitifully amongst the hands of the chirurgeons; but if thou wilt becounselled by me, I will kill thee clear outright, so that thou shalt notso 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, Iprithee 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 finediamonds and most excellent rubies. And where are they? said Epistemon. By St. John, said Panurge, they are a good way hence, if they always keepgoing. But where is the last year's snow? This was the greatest care thatVillon the Parisian poet took. Make an end, said Pantagruel, that we mayknow how thou didst dress thy Bashaw. By the faith of an honest man, saidPanurge, I do not lie in one word. I swaddled him in a scurvyswathel-binding which I found lying there half burnt, and with my cords tiedhim roister-like both hand and foot, in such sort that he was not able towince; then passed my spit through his throat, and hanged him thereon, fastening the end thereof at two great hooks or crampirons, upon which theydid hang their halberds; and then, kindling a fair fire under him, did flameyou 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, Iran away a fair gallop-rake, and God he knows how I did smell my shoulder ofmutton. 

When I was come down into the street, I found everybody come to put out thefire with store of water, and seeing me so half-roasted, they did naturallypity my case, and threw all their water upon me, which, by a most joyfulrefreshing of me, did me very much good. Then did they present me withsome victuals, but I could not eat much, because they gave me nothing todrink but water after their fashion. Other hurt they did me none, only onelittle villainous Turkey knobbreasted rogue came thiefteously to snatchaway some of my lardons, but I gave him such a sturdy thump and sound rapon the fingers with all the weight of my javelin, that he came no more thesecond time. Shortly after this there came towards me a pretty youngCorinthian wench, who brought me a boxful of conserves, of round Mirabolanplums, called emblicks, and looked upon my poor robin with an eye of greatcompassion, as it was flea-bitten and pinked with the sparkles of the firefrom whence it came, for it reached no farther in length, believe me, thanmy knees. But note that this roasting cured me entirely of a sciatica, whereunto I had been subject above seven years before, upon that side whichmy roaster by falling asleep suffered to be burnt. 

Now, whilst they were thus busy about me, the fire triumphed, never askhow? For it took hold on above two thousand houses, which one of themespying cried out, saying, By Mahoom's belly, all the city is on fire, andwe 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 towardsthe gate. When I was got upon the knap of a little hillock not far off, Iturned me about as did Lot's wife, and, looking back, saw all the cityburning in a fair fire, whereat I was so glad that I had almost beshitmyself 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 willhave a bad winter of it this year; the fire is in your reeks, it is in yourbed-straw--out come more than six, yea, more than thirteen hundred andeleven dogs, great and small, altogether out of the town, flying away fromthe fire. At the first approach they ran all upon me, being carried on bythe scent of my lecherous half-roasted flesh, and had even then devoured mein a trice, if my good angel had not well inspired me with the instructionof a remedy very sovereign against the toothache. And wherefore, saidPantagruel, wert thou afraid of the toothache or pain of the teeth? Wertthou not cured of thy rheums? By Palm Sunday, said Panurge, is there anygreater pain of the teeth than when the dogs have you by the legs? But ona sudden, as my good angel directed me, I thought upon my lardons, andthrew them into the midst of the field amongst them. Then did the dogsrun, and fight with one another at fair teeth which should have thelardons. By this means they left me, and I left them also bustling withand hairing one another. Thus did I escape frolic and lively, gramercyroastmeat 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 towardsSt. Marcel's suburbs, to see the extravagancy of the Gobeline building, andto taste of their spiced bread. Panurge was with him, having always aflagon under his gown and a good slice of a gammon of bacon; for withoutthis he never went, saying that it was as a yeoman of the guard to him, topreserve his body from harm. Other sword carried he none; and, whenPantagruel would have given him one, he answered that he needed none, forthat it would but heat his milt. Yea but, said Epistemon, if thou shouldstbe set upon, how wouldst thou defend thyself? With great buskinades orbrodkin blows, answered he, provided thrusts were forbidden. At theirreturn, Panurge considered the walls of the city of Paris, and in derisionsaid 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 mybeard, they are competently scurvy for such a city as this is; for a cowwith one fart would go near to overthrow above six fathoms of them. O myfriend, said Pantagruel, dost thou know what Agesilaus said when he wasasked why the great city of Lacedaemon was not enclosed with walls? Lohere, said he, the walls of the city! in showing them the inhabitants andcitizens thereof, so strong, so well armed, and so expert in militarydiscipline; signifying thereby that there is no wall but of bones, and thattowns and cities cannot have a surer wall nor better fortification than theprowess and virtue of the citizens and inhabitants. So is this city sostrong, by the great number of warlike people that are in it, that theycare not for making any other walls. Besides, whosoever would go about towall it, as Strasbourg, Orleans, or Ferrara, would find it almostimpossible, the cost and charges would be so excessive. Yea but, saidPanurge, it is good, nevertheless, to have an outside of stone when we areinvaded by our enemies, were it but to ask, Who is below there? As for theenormous expense which you say would be needful for undertaking the greatwork of walling this city about, if the gentlemen of the town will bepleased 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? saidPantagruel. Do not speak of it then, answered Panurge, and I will tell ityou. I see that the sine quo nons, kallibistris, or contrapunctums of thewomen of this country are better cheap than stones. Of them should thewalls be built, ranging them in good symmetry by the rules of architecture, and placing the largest in the first ranks, then sloping downwardsridge-wise, like the back of an ass. The middle-sized ones must be rankednext, and last of all the least and smallest. This done, there must be afine little interlacing of them, like points of diamonds, as is to be seenin the great tower of Bourges, with a like number of the nudinnudos, nilnisistandos, and stiff bracmards, that dwell in amongst the claustralcodpieces. What devil were able to overthrow such walls? There is no metallike it to resist blows, in so far that, if culverin-shot should come tograze upon it, you would incontinently see distil from thence the blessedfruit 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 oneinconveniency 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 andexcretions, and so all the work would be spoiled. But see how that might beremedied: 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 thispurpose I will tell you, as we go to supper, a brave example set down byFrater Lubinus, Libro de compotationibus mendicantium. 

In the time that the beasts did speak, which is not yet three days since, apoor lion, walking through the forest of Bieure, and saying his own littleprivate devotions, passed under a tree where there was a roguish colliergotten up to cut down wood, who, seeing the lion, cast his hatchet at himand 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 forestto find help, that at last he met with a carpenter, who willingly lookedupon 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 dotheir excrements in it, whilst he should go search for some yarrow ormillefoil, commonly called the carpenter's herb. The lion, being thushealed, walked along in the forest at what time a sempiternous crone andold 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 suchsort that the wind blew up her gown, coats, and smock, even as far as aboveher shoulders; which the lion perceiving, for pity ran to see whether shehad taken any hurt by the fall, and thereupon considering her how do youcall it, said, O poor woman, who hath thus wounded thee? Which words whenhe 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 herebetween the legs most villainously, and there is a manifest solution ofcontinuity. See how great a wound it is, even from the tail up to thenavel, in measure four, nay full five handfuls and a half. This is theblow of a hatchet, I doubt me; it is an old wound, and therefore, that theflies may not get into it, wipe it lustily well and hard, I prithee, bothwithin 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 putinto 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 abigness proportionable; wipe hard, and be not weary. A good wiper, who, inwiping continually, wipeth with his wipard, by wasps shall never bewounded. Wipe, my pretty minion; wipe, my little bully; I will not staylong. 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 putthee into service to be wiper to Don Pedro de Castile; wipe, only wipe, andno more. The poor fox wiped as hard as he could, here and there, withinand without; but the false old trot did so fizzle and fist that she stunklike 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 unsavouryperfume of this old woman's postern blasts. And whilst to that effect hewas shifting hither and thither, without knowing how to shun the annoyanceof 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 andinfectious air. The lion at last returned, bringing with him of moss morethan eighteen packs would hold, and began to put into the wound with astaff which he had provided for that purpose, and had already put in fullsixteen 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. Thefox, perceiving this, said unto the lion, O gossip lion, my friend, I praythee do not put in all thy moss there; keep somewhat, for there is yet hereanother little hole, that stinks like five hundred devils; I am almostchoked with the smell thereof, it is so pestiferous and empoisoning. 

Thus must these walls be kept from the flies, and wages allowed to some forwiping of them. Then said Pantagruel, How dost thou know that the privyparts of women are at such a cheap rate? For in this city there are manyvirtuous, honest, and chaste women besides the maids. Et ubi prenus? saidPanurge. I will give you my opinion of it, and that upon certain andassured knowledge. I do not brag that I have bumbasted four hundred andseventeen since I came into this city, though it be but nine days ago; butthis very morning I met with a good fellow, who, in a wallet such asAesop's was, carried two little girls of two or three years old at themost, one before and the other behind. He demanded alms of me, but I madehim answer that I had more cods than pence. Afterwards I asked him, Goodman, these two girls, are they maids? Brother, said he, I have carriedthem thus these two years, and in regard of her that is before, whom I seecontinually, in my opinion she is a virgin, nevertheless I will not put myfinger in the fire for it; as for her that is behind, doubtless I can saynothing. 

Indeed, said Pantagruel, thou art a gentle companion; I will have thee tobe apparelled in my livery. And therefore caused him to be clothed mostgallantly according to the fashion that then was, only that Panurge wouldhave the codpiece of his breeches three foot long, and in shape square, notround; which was done, and was well worth the seeing. Oftentimes was hewont to say, that the world had not yet known the emolument and utilitythat 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, thegood fellow whose long codpiece or braguet hath saved his life! God keepfrom hurt him whose long braguet hath been worth to him in one day onehundred threescore thousand and nine crowns! God keep from hurt him who byhis 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 moreleisure. And indeed he composed a fair great book with figures, but it isnot printed as yet that I know of. 

Chapter 2. XVI. 

Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge. 

Panurge was of a middle stature, not too high nor too low, and had somewhatan aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor. He was at that timefive and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leadendagger--for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher--he was a verygallant 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 calledlack of money--it is an incomparable grief, yet, notwithstanding, he hadthree score and three tricks to come by it at his need, of which the mosthonourable and most ordinary was in manner of thieving, secret purloiningand filching, for he was a wicked lewd rogue, a cozener, drinker, roister, rover, and a very dissolute and debauched fellow, if there were any inParis; otherwise, and in all matters else, the best and most virtuous manin the world; and he was still contriving some plot, and devising mischiefagainst the sergeants and the watch. 

At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and roaringboys, made them in the evening drink like Templars, afterwards led themtill 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 puttinghis sword upon the pavement, and his ear by it, and, when he heard hissword shake, it was an infallible sign that the watch was near at thatinstant--then he and his companions took a tumbrel or dung-cart, and gaveit the brangle, hurling it with all their force down the hill, and sooverthrew all the poor watchmen like pigs, and then ran away upon the otherside; for in less than two days he knew all the streets, lanes, andturnings in Paris as well as his Deus det. 

At another time he made in some fair place, where the said watch was topass, 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 hadin running away, thinking that St. Anthony's fire had caught them by thelegs. As for the poor masters of arts, he did persecute them above allothers. When he encountered with any of them upon the street, he would notnever fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bitof a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on littlefoxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank. Oneday 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 ofgarlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, of dogs' turds very warm, which hesteeped, tempered, and liquefied in the corrupt matter of pocky boils andpestiferous botches; and, very early in the morning therewith anointed allthe pavement, in such sort that the devil could not have endured it, whichmade all these good people there to lay up their gorges, and vomit what wasupon 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 notcare a button for it. He commonly carried a whip under his gown, wherewithhe whipped without remission the pages whom he found carrying wine to theirmasters, to make them mend their pace. In his coat he had above six andtwenty little fobs and pockets always full; one with some lead-water, and alittle knife as sharp as a glover's needle, wherewith he used to cutpurses; another with some kind of bitter stuff, which he threw into theeyes of those he met; another with clotburrs, penned with little geese' orcapon'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 hoodswould he stick in the hind part somewhat made in the shape of a man'smember. In another, he had a great many little horns full of fleas andlice, which he borrowed from the beggars of St. Innocent, and cast themwith small canes or quills to write with into the necks of the daintiestgentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church, for he neverseated himself above in the choir, but always sat in the body of the churchamongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and at sermon. In another, heused to have good store of hooks and buckles, wherewith he would couple menand women together that sat in company close to one another, but especiallythose that wore gowns of crimson taffeties, that, when they were about togo away, they might rend all their gowns. In another, he had a squibfurnished with tinder, matches, stones to strike fire, and all othertackling necessary for it. In another, two or three burning glasses, wherewith he made both men and women sometimes mad, and in the church putthem quite out of countenance; for he said that there was but anantistrophe, or little more difference than of a literal inversion, betweena woman folle a la messe and molle a la fesse, that is, foolish at the massand of a pliant buttock. 

In another, he had a good deal of needles and thread, wherewith he did athousand little devilish pranks. One time, at the entry of the palace untothe great hall, where a certain grey friar or cordelier was to say mass tothe counsellors, he did help to apparel him and put on his vestments, butin the accoutring of him he sewed on his alb, surplice, or stole, to hisgown and shirt, and then withdrew himself when the said lords of the courtor 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 thevery shoulders showed his bel vedere to all the world, together with hisDon Cypriano, which was no small one, as you may imagine. And the friarstill kept haling, but so much the more did he discover himself and layopen 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 histail to kiss it? Nay, St. Anthony's fire kiss it for us! From thenceforthit was ordained that the poor fathers should never disrobe themselves anymore before the world, but in their vestry-room, or sextry, as they callit; especially in the presence of women, lest it should tempt them to thesin of longing and disordinate desire. The people then asked why it wasthe friars had so long and large genitories? The said Panurge resolved theproblem very neatly, saying, That which makes asses to have such great earsis that their dams did put no biggins on their heads, as Alliaco mentionethin his Suppositions. By the like reason, that which makes the genitoriesor generation-tools of those so fair fraters so long is, for that they wearno bottomed breeches, and therefore their jolly member, having noimpediment, hangeth dangling at liberty as far as it can reach, with awiggle-waggle down to their knees, as women carry their paternoster beads. And the cause wherefore they have it so correspondently great is, that inthis constant wig-wagging the humours of the body descend into the saidmember. For, according to the Legists, agitation and continual motion iscause 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 tobe most beautiful and stately, which did so ticklishly gall them, that somewould strip themselves in the open view of the world, and others dance likea cock upon hot embers, or a drumstick on a tabor. Others, again, ranabout the streets, and he would run after them. To such as were in thestripping vein he would very civilly come to offer his attendance, andcover 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 oftouching them, saying, This is good cloth; this is good satin; goodtaffeties! Madam, God give you all that your noble heart desireth! Youhave a new suit, pretty sir;--and you a new gown, sweet mistress;--God giveyou joy of it, and maintain you in all prosperity! And with this would layhis hand upon their shoulder, at which touch such a villainous spot wasleft 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 yourfoot, you will quite spoil yourself. 

Another he had all full of euphorbium, very finely pulverized. In thatpowder did he lay a fair handkerchief curiously wrought, which he hadstolen from a pretty seamstress of the palace, in taking away a louse fromoff her bosom which he had put there himself, and, when he came into thecompany of some good ladies, he would trifle them into a discourse of somefine workmanship of bone-lace, then immediately put his hand into theirbosom, asking them, And this work, is it of Flanders, or of Hainault? andthen drew out his handkerchief, and said, Hold, hold, look what work hereis, 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 wouldfart 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 songof 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 therewas no door nor coffer which he would not pick open. He had another fullof little cups, wherewith he played very artificially, for he had hisfingers made to his hand, like those of Minerva or Arachne, and hadheretofore cried treacle. And when he changed a teston, cardecu, or anyother piece of money, the changer had been more subtle than a fox ifPanurge had not at every time made five or six sols (that is, some six orseven pence, ) vanish away invisibly, openly, and manifestly, without makingany hurt or lesion, whereof the changer should have felt nothing but thewind. 

Chapter 2. XVII. 

How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suitin law which he had at Paris. 

One day I found Panurge very much out of countenance, melancholic, andsilent; which made me suspect that he had no money; whereupon I said untohim, 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, whichshall not be wanting, no more than the pox, in your necessity. Whereuntohe 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 pursesas 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--ifI shall be any such in the other, I cannot tell; yet let us go, in God'sname; it is but one farthing more or less; But, said he, lend me then afarthing upon interest. No, no, said I; I will give it you freely, andfrom my heart. Grates vobis dominos, said he. 

So we went along, beginning at St. Gervase, and I got the pardons at thefirst box only, for in those matters very little contenteth me. Then did Isay my small suffrages and the prayers of St. Brigid; but he gained themall at the boxes, and always gave money to everyone of the pardoners. Fromthence we went to Our Lady's Church, to St. John's, to St. Anthony's, andso to the other churches, where there was a banquet (bank) of pardons. Formy part, I gained no more of them, but he at all the boxes kissed therelics, and gave at everyone. To be brief, when we were returned, hebrought me to drink at the castle-tavern, and there showed me ten or twelveof his little bags full of money, at which I blessed myself, and made thesign of the cross, saying, Where have you recovered so much money in solittle time? Unto which he answered me that he had taken it out of thebasins of the pardons. For in giving them the first farthing, said he, Iput it in with such sleight of hand and so dexterously that it appeared tobe a threepence; thus with one hand I took threepence, ninepence, orsixpence at the least, and with the other as much, and so through all thechurches where we have been. Yea but, said I, you damn yourself like asnake, and are withal a thief and sacrilegious person. True, said he, inyour 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 spokenaccording to the manner of the Hebrews, who use the future tense instead ofthe imperative, as you have in the law, Diliges Dominum, that is, Dilige. Even so, when the pardon-bearer says to me, Centuplum accipies, his meaningis, Centuplum accipe; and so doth Rabbi Kimy and Rabbi Aben Ezra expoundit, and all the Massorets, et ibi Bartholus. Moreover, Pope Sixtus gave mefifteen hundred francs of yearly pension, which in English money is ahundred and fifty pounds, upon his ecclesiastical revenues and treasure, for having cured him of a cankerous botch, which did so torment him that hethought to have been a cripple by it all his life. Thus I do pay myself atmy own hand, for otherwise I get nothing upon the said ecclesiasticaltreasure. Ho, my friend! said he, if thou didst know what advantage Imade, 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 thousandflorins, in English coin six hundred pounds. And what a devil is become ofthem? said I; for of that money thou hast not one halfpenny. They returnedfrom 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 hundredpounds English, in marrying--not young virgins, for they find but too manyhusbands--but great old sempiternous trots which had not so much as onetooth in their heads; and that out of the consideration I had that thesegood old women had very well spent the time of their youth in playing atthe close-buttock game to all comers, serving the foremost first, till noman would have any more dealing with them. And, by G--, I will have theirskin-coat shaken once yet before they die. By this means, to one I gave ahundred florins, to another six score, to another three hundred, accordingto that they were infamous, detestable, and abominable. For, by how muchthe more horrible and execrable they were, so much the more must I needshave given them, otherwise the devil would not have jummed them. PresentlyI went to some great and fat wood-porter, or such like, and did myself makethe match. But, before I did show him the old hags, I made a fair musterto him of the crowns, saying, Good fellow, see what I will give thee ifthou wilt but condescend to duffle, dinfredaille, or lecher it one goodtime. Then began the poor rogues to gape like old mules, and I caused tobe provided for them a banquet, with drink of the best, and store ofspiceries, to put the old women in rut and heat of lust. To be short, theyoccupied all, like good souls; only, to those that were horribly ugly andill-favoured, I caused their head to be put within a bag, to hide theirface. 

Besides all this, I have lost a great deal in suits of law. And whatlawsuits couldst thou have? said I; thou hast neither house nor lands. Myfriend, said he, the gentlewomen of this city had found out, by theinstigation of the devil of hell, a manner of high-mounted bands andneckerchiefs for women, which did so closely cover their bosoms that mencould no more put their hands under. For they had put the slit behind, andthose neckcloths were wholly shut before, whereat the poor sadcontemplative lovers were much discontented. Upon a fair Tuesday Ipresented a petition to the court, making myself a party against the saidgentlewomen, and showing the great interest that I pretended therein, protesting that by the same reason I would cause the codpiece of mybreeches to be sewed behind, if the court would not take order for it. Insum, the gentlewomen put in their defences, showing the grounds they wentupon, and constituted their attorney for the prosecuting of the cause. ButI pursued them so vigorously, that by a sentence of the court it wasdecreed those high neckcloths should be no longer worn if they were not alittle cleft and open before; but it cost me a good sum of money. I hadanother very filthy and beastly process against the dung-farmer calledMaster Fifi and his deputies, that they should no more read privily thepipe, puncheon, nor quart of sentences, but in fair full day, and that inthe Fodder schools, in face of the Arrian (Artitian) sophisters, where Iwas ordained to pay the charges, by reason of some clause mistaken in therelation of the sergeant. Another time I framed a complaint to the courtagainst the mules of the presidents, counsellors, and others, tending tothis purpose, that, when in the lower court of the palace they left them tochamp on their bridles, some bibs were made for them (by the counsellors'wives), that with their drivelling they might not spoil the pavement; tothe end that the pages of the palace what play upon it with their dice, orat the game of coxbody, at their own ease, without spoiling their breechesat the knees. And for this I had a fair decree, but it cost me dear. Nowreckon up what expense I was at in little banquets which from day to day Imade to the pages of the palace. And to what end? said I. My friend, saidhe, 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 onetime 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 tosomeone I cut the stirrup-leather of the mounting side till it hang but bya thin strap or thread, that when the great puffguts of the counsellor orsome other hath taken his swing to get up, he may fall flat on his sidelike 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-comingthe master-page is to be whipped like green rye, which makes me not torepent what I have bestowed in feasting them. In brief, he had, as I saidbefore, three score and three ways to acquire money, but he had two hundredand fourteen to spend it, besides his drinking. 

Chapter 2. XVIII. 

How a great scholar of England would have argued against Pantagruel, andwas overcome by Panurge. 

In that same time a certain learned man named Thaumast, hearing the fameand renown of Pantagruel's incomparable knowledge, came out of his owncountry of England with an intent only to see him, to try thereby and provewhether his knowledge in effect was so great as it was reported to be. Inthis resolution being arrived at Paris, he went forthwith unto the house ofthe said Pantagruel, who was lodged in the palace of St. Denis, and wasthen walking in the garden thereof with Panurge, philosophizing after thefashion of the Peripatetics. At his first entrance he startled, and wasalmost out of his wits for fear, seeing him so great and so tall. Then didhe salute him courteously as the manner is, and said unto him, Very true itis, saith Plato the prince of philosophers, that if the image and knowledgeof wisdom were corporeal and visible to the eyes of mortals, it would stirup all the world to admire her. Which we may the rather believe that thevery bare report thereof, scattered in the air, if it happen to be receivedinto the ears of men, who, for being studious and lovers of virtuous thingsare 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 wherethe person is, in whom the said knowledge is said to have built her templeand uttered her oracles. As it was manifestly shown unto us in the Queenof Sheba, who came from the utmost borders of the East and Persian Sea, tosee the order of Solomon's house and to hear his wisdom; in Anacharsis, whocame out of Scythia, even unto Athens, to see Solon; in Pythagoras, whotravelled far to visit the memphitical vaticinators; in Plato, who went agreat way off to see the magicians of Egypt, and Architus of Tarentum; inApollonius Tyaneus, who went as far as unto Mount Caucasus, passed alongthe Scythians, the Massagetes, the Indians, and sailed over the great riverPhison, even to the Brachmans to see Hiarchus; as likewise unto Babylon, Chaldea, Media, Assyria, Parthia, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Palestina, andAlexandria, even unto Aethiopia, to see the Gymnosophists. The likeexample have we of Titus Livius, whom to see and hear divers studiouspersons came to Rome from the confines of France and Spain. I dare notreckon myself in the number of those so excellent persons, but well wouldbe called studious, and a lover, not only of learning, but of learned menalso. And indeed, having heard the report of your so inestimableknowledge, 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, thetediousness of the sea, nor strangeness of the land, and that only to seeyou and to confer with you about some passages in philosophy, of geomancy, and of the cabalistic art, whereof I am doubtful and cannot satisfy mymind; which if you can resolve, I yield myself unto you for a slavehenceforward, together with all my posterity, for other gift have I nonethat I can esteem a recompense sufficient for so great a favour. I willreduce them into writing, and to-morrow publish them to all the learned menin the city, that we may dispute publicly before them. 

But see in what manner I mean that we shall dispute. I will not argue proet contra, as do the sottish sophisters of this town and other places. Likewise I will not dispute after the manner of the Academics bydeclamation; nor yet by numbers, as Pythagoras was wont to do, and as Picusde la Mirandula did of late at Rome. But I will dispute by signs onlywithout speaking, for the matters are so abstruse, hard, and arduous, thatwords proceeding from the mouth of man will never be sufficient forunfolding of them to my liking. May it, therefore, please yourmagnificence to be there; it shall be at the great hall of Navarre at seveno'clock in the morning. When he had spoken these words, Pantagruel veryhonourably said unto him: Sir, of the graces that God hath bestowed uponme, I would not deny to communicate unto any man to my power. For whatevercomes from him is good, and his pleasure is that it should be increasedwhen we come amongst men worthy and fit to receive this celestial manna ofhonest literature. In which number, because that in this time, as I doalready very plainly perceive, thou holdest the first rank, I give theenotice that at all hours thou shalt find me ready to condescend to everyone of thy requests according to my poor ability; although I ought ratherto learn of thee than thou of me. But, as thou hast protested, we willconfer of these doubts together, and will seek out the resolution, evenunto the bottom of that undrainable well where Heraclitus says the truthlies hidden. And I do highly commend the manner of arguing which thou hastproposed, to wit, by signs without speaking; for by this means thou and Ishall understand one another well enough, and yet shall be free from thisclapping of hands which these blockish sophisters make when any of thearguers hath gotten the better of the argument. Now to-morrow I will notfail to meet thee at the place and hour that thou hast appointed, but letme entreat thee that there be not any strife or uproar between us, and thatwe seek not the honour and applause of men, but the truth only. To whichThaumast answered: The Lord God maintain you in his favour and grace, and, instead of my thankfulness to you, pour down his blessings upon you, forthat your highness and magnificent greatness hath not disdained to descendto the grant of the request of my poor baseness. So farewell tillto-morrow! Farewell, said Pantagruel. 

Gentlemen, you that read this present discourse, think not that ever menwere more elevated and transported in their thoughts than all this nightwere both Thaumast and Pantagruel; for the said Thaumast said to the keeperof the house of Cluny, where he was lodged, that in all his life he hadnever known himself so dry as he was that night. I think, said he, thatPantagruel held me by the throat. Give order, I pray you, that we may havesome drink, and see that some fresh water be brought to us, to gargle mypalate. On the other side, Pantagruel stretched his wits as high as hecould, entering into very deep and serious meditations, and did nothing allthat night but dote upon and turn over the book of Beda, De numeris etsignis; 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, periAnekphoneton, 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 yourspirits to be so troubled by a too intensive bending of them, that you mayeasily fall into some quotidian fever with this so excessive thinking andplodding. But, having first drunk five and twenty or thirty good draughts, retire yourself and sleep your fill, for in the morning I will argueagainst and answer my master the Englishman, and if I drive him not admetam 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? Verywell, 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 haveargued against them, gravelled and blanked them in disputation, and laidthem so squat upon their tails that I have made them look like monkeys. Therefore be assured that to-morrow I will make this vain-gloriousEnglishman to skite vinegar before all the world. So Panurge spent thenight with tippling amongst the pages, and played away all the points ofhis breeches at primus secundus and at peck point, in French called LaVergette. Yet, when the condescended on time was come, he failed not toconduct his master Pantagruel to the appointed place, unto which, believeme, there was neither great nor small in Paris but came, thinking withthemselves that this devilish Pantagruel, who had overthrown and vanquishedin dispute all these doting fresh-water sophisters, would now get fullpayment and be tickled to some purpose. For this Englishman is a terriblebustler and horrible coil-keeper. We will see who will be conqueror, forhe never met with his match before. 

Thus all being assembled, Thaumast stayed for them, and then, whenPantagruel and Panurge came into the hall, all the schoolboys, professorsof arts, senior sophisters, and bachelors began to clap their hands, astheir scurvy custom is. But Pantagruel cried out with a loud voice, as ifit had been the sound of a double cannon, saying, Peace, with a devil toyou, peace! By G--, you rogues, if you trouble me here, I will cut off theheads of everyone of you. At which words they remained all daunted andastonished like so many ducks, and durst not do so much as cough, althoughthey had swallowed fifteen pounds of feathers. Withal they grew so drywith this only voice, that they laid out their tongues a full half footbeyond their mouths, as if Pantagruel had salted all their throats. Thenbegan Panurge to speak, saying to the Englishman, Sir, are you come hitherto 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 learnand to know that of which I have doubted all my life long, and have neitherfound book nor man able to content me in the resolution of those doubtswhich I have proposed. And, as for disputing contentiously, I will not doit, for it is too base a thing, and therefore leave it to those sottishsophisters who in their disputes do not search for the truth, but forcontradiction only and debate. Then said Panurge, If I, who am but a meanand inconsiderable disciple of my master my lord Pantagruel, content andsatisfy you in all and everything, it were a thing below my said masterwherewith to trouble him. Therefore is it fitter that he be chairman, andsit as a judge and moderator of our discourse and purpose, and give yousatisfaction in many things wherein perhaps I shall be wanting to yourexpectation. Truly, said Thaumast, it is very well said; begin then. Nowyou must note that Panurge had set at the end of his long codpiece a prettytuft of red silk, as also of white, green, and blue, and within it had puta 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, theEnglishman lift up on high into the air his two hands severally, clunchingin all the tops of his fingers together, after the manner which, a laChinonnese, they call the hen's arse, and struck the one hand on the otherby the nails four several times. Then he, opening them, struck the onewith the flat of the other till it yielded a clashing noise, and that onlyonce. Again, in joining them as before, he struck twice, and afterwardsfour times in opening them. Then did he lay them joined, and extended theone towards the other, as if he had been devoutly to send up his prayersunto God. Panurge suddenly lifted up in the air his right hand, and putthe thumb thereof into the nostril of the same side, holding his fourfingers straight out, and closed orderly in a parallel line to the point ofhis nose, shutting the left eye wholly, and making the other wink with aprofound depression of the eyebrows and eyelids. Then lifted he up hisleft hand, with hard wringing and stretching forth his four fingers andelevating his thumb, which he held in a line directly correspondent to thesituation of his right hand, with the distance of a cubit and a halfbetween them. This done, in the same form he abased towards the groundabout the one and the other hand. Lastly, he held them in the midst, asaiming right at the Englishman's nose. And if Mercury, --said theEnglishman. There Panurge interrupted him, and said, You have spoken, Mask. 

Then made the Englishman this sign. His left hand all open he lifted upinto 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 abasedand bent it downwards, putting the thumb thereof in the very place wherethe little finger of the left hand did close in the fist, and the fourright-hand fingers he softly moved in the air. Then contrarily he did withthe right hand what he had done with the left, and with the left what hehad done with the right. 

Panurge, being not a whit amazed at this, drew out into the air histrismegist codpiece with the left hand, and with his right drew forth atruncheon of a white ox-rib, and two pieces of wood of a like form, one ofblack ebony and the other of incarnation brasil, and put them betwixt thefingers of that hand in good symmetry; then, knocking them together, madesuch a noise as the lepers of Brittany use to do with their clapperingclickets, yet better resounding and far more harmonious, and with histongue contracted in his mouth did very merrily warble it, always lookingfixedly upon the Englishman. The divines, physicians, and chirurgeons thatwere there thought that by this sign he would have inferred that theEnglishman was a leper. The counsellors, lawyers, and decretalistsconceived that by doing this he would have concluded some kind of mortalfelicity to consist in leprosy, as the Lord maintained heretofore. 

The Englishman for all this was nothing daunted, but holding up his twohands in the air, kept them in such form that he closed the threemaster-fingers in his fist, and passing his thumbs through his indical orforemost and middle fingers, his auriculary or little fingers remainedextended and stretched out, and so presented he them to Panurge. Thenjoined he them so that the right thumb touched the left, and the left littlefinger touched the right. Hereat Panurge, without speaking one word, liftup his hands and made this sign. 

He put the nail of the forefinger of his left hand to the nail of the thumbof the same, making in the middle of the distance as it were a buckle, andof his right hand shut up all the fingers into his fist, except theforefinger, which he often thrust in and out through the said two others ofthe left hand. Then stretched he out the forefinger and middle finger ormedical of his right hand, holding them asunder as much as he could, andthrusting them towards Thaumast. Then did he put the thumb of his lefthand upon the corner of his left eye, stretching out all his hand like thewing of a bird or the fin of a fish, and moving it very daintily this wayand that way, he did as much with his right hand upon the corner of hisright eye. Thaumast began then to wax somewhat pale, and to tremble, andmade him this sign. 

With the middle finger of his right hand he struck against the muscle ofthe palm or pulp which is under the thumb. Then put he the forefinger ofthe right hand in the like buckle of the left, but he put it under, and notover, as Panurge did. Then Panurge knocked one hand against another, andblowed in his palm, and put again the forefinger of his right hand into theoverture or mouth of the left, pulling it often in and out. Then held heout his chin, most intentively looking upon Thaumast. The people there, which understood nothing in the other signs, knew very well that therein hedemanded, 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 thespectators a man strangely ravished in high contemplation. Then hebethought himself, and put all the nails of his left hand against those ofhis right, opening his fingers as if they had been semicircles, and withthis sign lift up his hands as high as he could. Whereupon Panurgepresently put the thumb of his right hand under his jaws, and the littlefinger thereof in the mouth of the left hand, and in this posture made histeeth to sound very melodiously, the upper against the lower. With thisThaumast, with great toil and vexation of spirit, rose up, but in risinglet a great baker's fart, for the bran came after, and pissing withal verystrong vinegar, stunk like all the devils in hell. The company began tostop their noses; for he had conskited himself with mere anguish andperplexity. Then lifted he up his right hand, clunching it in such sortthat he brought the ends of all his fingers to meet together, and his lefthand he laid flat upon his breast. Whereat Panurge drew out his longcodpiece with his tuff, and stretched it forth a cubit and a half, holdingit 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 thefist of his right hand, holding it steadily up on high, and then began toshake his fair codpiece, showing it to Thaumast. 

After that, Thaumast began to puff up his two cheeks like a player on abagpipe, and blew as if he had been to puff up a pig's bladder. WhereuponPanurge put one finger of his left hand in his nockandrow, by some calledSt. Patrick's hole, and with his mouth sucked in the air, in such a manneras when one eats oysters in the shell, or when we sup up our broth. Thisdone, 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 thesuperficies of the midriff through the trachiartery or pipe of the lungs, and this he did for sixteen times; but Thaumast did always keep blowinglike a goose. Then Panurge put the forefinger of his right hand into hismouth, 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 thepot-cannons made of the hollow sticks of the branch of an alder-tree, andhe did it nine times. 

Then Thaumast cried out, Ha, my masters, a great secret! With this he putin his hand up to the elbow, then drew out a dagger that he had, holding itby the point downwards. Whereat Panurge took his long codpiece, and shookit as hard as he could against his thighs; then put his two hands entwinedin manner of a comb upon his head, laying out his tongue as far as he wasable, 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 putthe haft of his dagger against his breast, and upon the point thereof theflat of his hand, turning in a little the ends of his fingers. WhereatPanurge held down his head on the left side, and put his middle finger intohis right ear, holding up his thumb bolt upright. Then he crossed his twoarms upon his breast and coughed five times, and at the fifth time hestruck 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 hisforehead, striking with his right hand six times against his breast. ButThaumast, as not content therewith, put the thumb of his left hand upon thetop of his nose, shutting the rest of his said hand, whereupon Panurge sethis two master-fingers upon each side of his mouth, drawing it as much ashe was able, and widening it so that he showed all his teeth, and with histwo thumbs plucked down his two eyelids very low, making therewith a veryill-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 thesaid Panurge, and with a loud voice said unto all the people that werethere: My lords, gentlemen, and others, at this time may I to some goodpurpose speak that evangelical word, Et ecce plus quam Salomon hic! Youhave here in your presence an incomparable treasure, that is, my lordPantagruel, whose great renown hath brought me hither, out of the veryheart of England, to confer with him about the insoluble problems, both inmagic, alchemy, the cabal, geomancy, astrology, and philosophy, which I hadin my mind. But at present I am angry even with fame itself, which I thinkwas envious to him, for that it did not declare the thousandth part of theworth that indeed is in him. You have seen how his disciple only hathsatisfied me, and hath told me more than I asked of him. Besides, he hathopened unto me, and resolved other inestimable doubts, wherein I can assureyou he hath to me discovered the very true well, fountain, and abyss of theencyclopaedia of learning; yea, in such a sort that I did not think Ishould ever have found a man that could have made his skill appear in somuch as the first elements of that concerning which we disputed by signs, without speaking either word or half word. But, in fine, I will reduceinto writing that which we have said and concluded, that the world may nottake 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 hadbeen able to say, seeing the disciple hath done so valiantly; for, Non estdiscipulus super magistrum. Howsoever, God be praised! and I do veryhumbly thank you for the honour that you have done us at this act. Godreward you for it eternally! The like thanks gave Pantagruel to all thecompany, 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 thephrase is, with unbuttoned bellies (for in that age they made fast theirbellies 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. BlessedLady, 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 fiveand 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 matterof the exposition of the propositions set down by Thaumast, and thesignification of the signs which they used in their disputation, I wouldhave set them down for you according to their own relation, but I have beentold that Thaumast made a great book of it, imprinted at London, wherein hehath set down all, without omitting anything, and therefore at this time Ido pass by it. 

Chapter 2. XXI. 

How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris. 

Panurge began to be in great reputation in the city of Paris by means ofthis disputation wherein he prevailed against the Englishman, and fromthenceforth made his codpiece to be very useful to him. To which effect hehad 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 madeof him, which little children did use to sing when they were to fetchmustard. He was withal made welcome in all companies of ladies andgentlewomen, so that at last he became presumptuous, and went about tobring to his lure one of the greatest ladies in the city. And, indeed, leaving a rabble of long prologues and protestations, which ordinarilythese dolent contemplative lent-lovers make who never meddle with theflesh, one day he said unto her, Madam, it would be a very great benefit tothe commonwealth, delightful to you, honourable to your progeny, andnecessary for me, that I cover you for the propagating of my race, andbelieve it, for experience will teach it you. The lady at this word thrusthim back above a hundred leagues, saying, You mischievous fool, is it foryou 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 haveyour legs and arms cut off. Well, said he, that were all one to me, towant both legs and arms, provided you and I had but one merry bout togetherat the brangle-buttock game; for herewithin is--in showing her his longcodpiece--Master John Thursday, who will play you such an antic that youshall feel the sweetness thereof even to the very marrow of your bones. Heis 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 thereneeds no broom, he'll sweep so well before, and leave nothing to hisfollowers to work upon. Whereunto the lady answered, Go, villain, go. Ifyou speak to me one such word more, I will cry out and make you to beknocked 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 earthmount 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 greatbeauty and neatness as in you is there should be one drop of gall ormalice. They say, indeed, that hardly shall a man ever see a fair womanthat is not also stubborn. Yet that is spoke only of those vulgarbeauties; but yours is so excellent, so singular, and so heavenly, that Ibelieve 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 allher power. There is nothing in you but honey, but sugar, but a sweet andcelestial manna. To you it was to whom Paris ought to have adjudged thegolden apple, not to Venus, no, nor to Juno, nor to Minerva, for never wasthere so much magnificence in Juno, so much wisdom in Minerva, nor so muchcomeliness 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 embraceher, 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, andso was I predestinated to it by the fairies. And therefore, that we loseno time, put on, thrust out your gammons!--and would have embraced her, butshe made as if she would put out her head at the window to call herneighbours for help. Then Panurge on a sudden ran out, and in his runningaway 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 therepulse he had got, nor made he any whit the worse cheer for it. The nextday he came to the church at the time she went to mass. At the door hegave 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 mealone to say my prayers. Ay but, said he, equivocate upon this: a beaumont 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 nobleheart desireth, and I pray you give me these paternosters. Take them, saidshe, and trouble me no longer. This done, she would have taken off herpaternosters, which were made of a kind of yellow stone called cestrin, andadorned with great spots of gold, but Panurge nimbly drew out one of hisknives, wherewith he cut them off very handsomely, and whilst he was goingaway 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 herpaternosters, for they were one of her implements to keep her countenanceby in the church; then thought with herself, This bold flouting roister issome giddy, fantastical, light-headed fool of a strange country. I shallnever recover my paternosters again. What will my husband say? He will nodoubt be angry with me. But I will tell him that a thief hath cut them offfrom my hands in the church, which he will easily believe, seeing the endof the ribbon left at my girdle. After dinner Panurge went to see her, carrying in his sleeve a great purse full of palace-crowns, calledcounters, and began to say unto her, Which of us two loveth other best, youme, 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; arenot you in love with me? I have, said she, told you so many times alreadythat you should talk so no more to me, and if you speak of it again I willteach you that I am not one to be talked unto dishonestly. Get you hencepacking, and deliver me my paternosters, that my husband may not ask me forthem. 

How now, madam, said he, your paternosters? Nay, by mine oath, I will notdo so, but I will give you others. Had you rather have them of gold wellenamelled in great round knobs, or after the manner of love-knots, or, otherwise, all massive, like great ingots, or if you had rather have themof ebony, of jacinth, or of grained gold, with the marks of fineturquoises, or of fair topazes, marked with fine sapphires, or of baleurubies, 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, markedwith spotted ambergris, and at the buckle a Persian pearl as big as anorange. It will not cost above five and twenty thousand ducats. I willmake you a present of it, for I have ready coin enough, --and withal he madea 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 crimsondyed in grain, or a piece of broached or crimson satin? Will you havechains, gold, tablets, rings? You need no more but say, Yes; so far asfifty thousand ducats may reach, it is but as nothing to me. By the virtueof 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 willhave 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 forlodging!--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 hisfalse visage, and said unto her, You will not then otherwise let me do alittle? A turd for you! You do not deserve so much good, nor so muchhonour; but, by G--, I will make the dogs ride you;--and with this he ranaway as fast as he could, for fear of blows, whereof he was naturallyfearful. 

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 CorpusChristi, called the Sacre, wherein all women put on their best apparel, andon 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 sideand another that he found a hot or salt bitch, which, when he had tied herwith his girdle, he led to his chamber and fed her very well all that dayand night. In the morning thereafter he killed her, and took that part ofher which the Greek geomancers know, and cut it into several small piecesas small as he could. Then, carrying it away as close as might be, he wentto the place where the lady was to come along to follow the procession, asthe custom is upon the said holy day; and when she came in Panurgesprinkled some holy water on her, saluting her very courteously. Then, alittle while after she had said her petty devotions, he sat down close byher upon the same bench, and gave her this roundelay in writing, in manneras 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 verypromptly and lightly scattered the drug that he had upon her in diversplaces, but especially in the plaits of her sleeves and of her gown. Thensaid he unto her, Madam, the poor lovers are not always at ease. As forme, I hope that those heavy nights, those pains and troubles, which Isuffer for love of you, shall be a deduction to me of so much pain inpurgatory; 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 churchcame running to this lady with the smell of the drugs that he had strewedupon her, both small and great, big and little, all came, laying out theirmember, smelling to her, and pissing everywhere upon her--it was thegreatest villainy in the world. Panurge made the fashion of driving themaway; then took his leave of her and withdrew himself into some chapel ororatory of the said church to see the sport; for these villainous dogs didcompiss all her habiliments, and left none of her attire unbesprinkled withtheir staling; insomuch that a tall greyhound pissed upon her head, othersin her sleeves, others on her crupper-piece, and the little ones pissedupon her pataines; so that all the women that were round about her had muchado to save her. Whereat Panurge very heartily laughing, he said to one ofthe lords of the city, I believe that same lady is hot, or else that somegreyhound hath covered her lately. And when he saw that all the dogs wereflocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their access to her, andevery way keeping such a coil with her as they are wont to do about a proudor salt bitch, he forthwith departed from thence, and went to callPantagruel, not forgetting in his way alongst the streets through which hewent, 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 areassembled about a lady, the fairest in the city, and would duffle and lineher. Whereunto Pantagruel willingly condescended, and saw the mystery, which he found very pretty and strange. But the best was at theprocession, in which were seen above six hundred thousand and fourteen dogsabout her, which did very much trouble and molest her, and whithersoevershe passed, those dogs that came afresh, tracing her footsteps, followedher at the heels, and pissed in the way where her gown had touched. Allthe world stood gazing at this spectacle, considering the countenance ofthose dogs, who, leaping up, got about her neck and spoiled all hergorgeous accoutrements, for the which she could find no remedy but toretire unto her house, which was a palace. Thither she went, and the dogsafter her; she ran to hide herself, but the chambermaids could not abstainfrom laughing. When she was entered into the house and had shut the doorupon herself, all the dogs came running of half a league round, and did sowell bepiss the gate of her house that there they made a stream with theirurine wherein a duck might have very well swimmed, and it is the samecurrent that now runs at St. Victor, in which Gobelin dyeth scarlet, forthe specifical virtue of these piss-dogs, as our master Doribus didheretofore preach publicly. So may God help you, a mill would have groundcorn 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 hadinvaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause wherefore the leagues areso short in France. 

A little while after Pantagruel heard news that his father Gargantua hadbeen translated into the land of the fairies by Morgue, as heretofore wereOgier and Arthur; as also, (In the original edition it stands 'together, and that. '--M. ) that the report of his translation being spread abroad, theDipsodes had issued out beyond their borders, with inroads had wasted agreat part of Utopia, and at that very time had besieged the great city ofthe Amaurots. Whereupon departing from Paris without bidding any manfarewell, for the business required diligence, he came to Rouen. 

Now Pantagruel in his journey seeing that the leagues of that littleterritory about Paris called France were very short in regard of those ofother countries, demanded the cause and reason of it from Panurge, who toldhim a story which Marotus of the Lac, monachus, set down in the Acts of theKings of Canarre, saying that in old times countries were not distinguishedinto leagues, miles, furlongs, nor parasangs, until that King Pharamonddivided them, which was done in manner as followeth. The said king choseat Paris a hundred fair, gallant, lusty, brisk young men, all resolute andbold adventurers in Cupid's duels, together with a hundred comely, pretty, handsome, lovely and well-complexioned wenches of Picardy, all which hecaused 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 hiswench, with store of money to defray their charges, and this injunctionbesides, to go unto divers places here and there. And wheresoever theyshould biscot and thrum their wenches, that, they setting a stone there, itshould be accounted for a league. Thus went away those brave fellows andsprightly blades most merrily, and because they were fresh and had been atrest, 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 whenthey had gone a great way, and were now as weary as poor devils, all theoil in their lamps being almost spent, they did not chink and duffle sooften, but contented themselves (I mean for the men's part) with one scurvypaltry 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 giveother reasons for it, but this seems to me of all other the best. To whichPantagruel willingly adhered. Parting from Rouen, they arrived atHonfleur, 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 andentertained 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, andtherefore 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 otherwiseenclosed, but only a gold ring, with a square table diamond. Wondering atthis, he called Panurge to him, and showed him the case. Whereupon Panurgetold him that the leaf of paper was written upon, but with such cunning andartifice 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 salammoniac soaked in water. Then put he it into the water, to see if theletter was written with the juice of tithymalle. After that he held it upagainst the candle, to see if it was written with the juice of whiteonions. 

Then he rubbed one part of it with oil of nuts, to see if it were notwritten with the lee of a fig-tree, and another part of it with the milk ofa woman giving suck to her eldest daughter, to see if it was written withthe blood of red toads or green earth-frogs. Afterwards he rubbed onecorner with the ashes of a swallow's nest, to see if it were not writtenwith the dew that is found within the herb alcakengy, called thewinter-cherry. He rubbed, after that, one end with ear-wax, to see if itwere 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. Afterthat he greased it with the fat of a bat or flittermouse, to see if it wasnot written with the sperm of a whale, which some call ambergris. Then putit very fairly into a basinful of fresh water, and forthwith took it out, tosee whether it were written with stone-alum. But after all experiments, when he perceived that he could find out nothing, he called the messengerand asked him, Good fellow, the lady that sent thee hither, did she not givethee a staff to bring with thee? thinking that it had been according to theconceit whereof Aulus Gellius maketh mention. And the messenger answeredhim, No, sir. Then Panurge would have caused his head to be shaven, to seewhether the lady had written upon his bald pate, with the hard lye whereofsoap is made, that which she meant; but, perceiving that his hair was verylong, he forbore, considering that it could not have grown to so great alength in so short a time. 

Then he said to Pantagruel, Master, by the virtue of G--, I cannot tellwhat to do nor say in it. For, to know whether there be anything writtenupon this or no, I have made use of a good part of that which MasterFrancisco di Nianto, the Tuscan, sets down, who hath written the manner ofreading letters that do not appear; that which Zoroastes published, Perigrammaton acriton; and Calphurnius Bassus, De literis illegibilibus. But Ican see nothing, nor do I believe that there is anything else in it thanthe ring. Let us, therefore, look upon it. Which when they had done, theyfound this in Hebrew written within, Lamach saba(ch)thani; whereupon theycalled Epistemon, and asked him what that meant. To which he answered thatthey were Hebrew words, signifying, Wherefore hast thou forsaken me? Uponthat Panurge suddenly replied, I know the mystery. Do you see thisdiamond? It is a false one. This, then, is the exposition of that whichthe lady means, Diamant faux, that is, false lover, why hast thou forsakenme? Which interpretation Pantagruel presently understood, and withalremembering that at his departure he had not bid the lady farewell, he wasvery sorry, and would fain have returned to Paris to make his peace withher. But Epistemon put him in mind of Aeneas's departure from Dido, andthe saying of Heraclitus of Tarentum, That the ship being at anchor, whenneed requireth we must cut the cable rather than lose time about untying ofit, --and that he should lay aside all other thoughts to succour the city ofhis nativity, which was then in danger. And, indeed, within an hour afterthat the wind arose at the north-north-west, wherewith they hoist sail, andput out, even into the main sea, so that within few days, passing by PortoSancto and by the Madeiras, they went ashore in the Canary Islands. Parting from thence, they passed by Capobianco, by Senege, by Capoverde, byGambre, by Sagres, by Melli, by the Cap di Buona Speranza, and set ashoreagain in the kingdom of Melinda. Parting from thence, they sailed awaywith a tramontane or northerly wind, passing by Meden, by Uti, by Uden, byGelasim, 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 ofthe 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 notlike the Athenians, who never took counsel until after the fact? Are youresolved to live and die with me? Yes, sir, said they all, and be asconfident of us as of your own fingers. Well, said he, there is but onething that keeps my mind in great doubt and suspense, which is this, that Iknow not in what order nor of what number the enemy is that layeth siege tothe city; for, if I were certain of that, I should go forward and set onwith the better assurance. Let us therefore consult together, and bethinkourselves by what means we may come to this intelligence. Whereunto theyall said, Let us go thither and see, and stay you here for us; for thisvery day, without further respite, do we make account to bring you acertain report thereof. 

Myself, said Panurge, will undertake to enter into their camp, within thevery midst of their guards, unespied by their watch, and merrily feast andlecher it at their cost, without being known of any, to see the artilleryand the tents of all the captains, and thrust myself in with a grave andmagnific carriage amongst all their troops and companies, without beingdiscovered. The devil would not be able to peck me out with all hiscircumventions, for I am of the race of Zopyrus. 

And I, said Epistemon, know all the plots and strategems of the valiantcaptains and warlike champions of former ages, together with all the tricksand subtleties of the art of war. I will go, and, though I be detected andrevealed, 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 spiteof their sentries and all their guards; for I will tread upon their belliesand break their legs and arms, yea, though they were every whit as strongas 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 sonimble of body, and light withal, that I shall have leaped over theirtrenches, and ran clean through all their camp, before that they perceiveme; neither do I fear shot, nor arrow, nor horse, how swift soever, were hethe Pegasus of Perseus or Pacolet, being assured that I shall be able tomake a safe and sound escape before them all without any hurt. I willundertake to walk upon the ears of corn or grass in the meadows, withoutmaking either of them do so much as bow under me, for I am of the race ofCamilla the Amazon. 

Chapter 2. XXV. 

How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the gentlemen attendantsof Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six hundred and threescorehorsemen very cunningly. 

As he was speaking this, they perceived six hundred and threescore lighthorsemen, gallantly mounted, who made an outroad thither to see what shipit was that was newly arrived in the harbour, and came in a full gallop totake them if they had been able. Then said Pantagruel, My lads, retireyourselves unto the ship; here are some of our enemies coming apace, but Iwill kill them here before you like beasts, although they were ten times somany; 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, forI alone will here discomfit them; but we must not linger; come, setforward. Whereunto the others said, It is well advised, sir; withdrawyourself, and we will help Panurge here, so shall you know what we are ableto do. Then said Pantagruel, Well, I am content; but, if that you be tooweak, I will not fail to come to your assistance. With this Panurge tooktwo great cables of the ship and tied them to the kemstock or capstan whichwas on the deck towards the hatches, and fastened them in the ground, making a long circuit, the one further off, the other within that. Thensaid he to Epistemon, Go aboard the ship, and, when I give you a call, turnabout the capstan upon the orlop diligently, drawing unto you the twocable-ropes; and said to Eusthenes and to Carpalin, My bullies, stay youhere, and offer yourselves freely to your enemies. Do as they bid you, andmake as if you would yield unto them, but take heed you come not within thecompass of the ropes--be sure to keep yourselves free of them. Andpresently he went aboard the ship, and took a bundle of straw and a barrelof gunpowder, strewed it round about the compass of the cords, and stood bywith a brand of fire or match lighted in his hand. Presently came thehorsemen 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 theirhorses, to the number of four and forty; which the rest seeing, came on, thinking that resistance had been made them at their arrival. But Panurgesaid unto them, My masters, I believe that you have hurt yourselves; I prayyou pardon us, for it is not our fault, but the slipperiness of thesea-water that is always flowing; we submit ourselves to your good pleasure. So said likewise his two other fellows, and Epistemon that was upon thedeck. In the meantime Panurge withdrew himself, and seeing that they wereall within the compass of the cables, and that his two companions wereretired, making room for all those horses which came in a crowd, throngingupon the neck of one another to see the ship and such as were in it, criedout on a sudden to Epistemon, Draw, draw! Then began Epistemon to windabout the capstan, by doing whereof the two cables so entangled andempestered the legs of the horses, that they were all of them thrown downto the ground easily, together with their riders. But they, seeing that, drew their swords, and would have cut them; whereupon Panurge set fire tothe train, and there burnt them up all like damned souls, both men andhorses, not one escaping save one alone, who being mounted on a fleetTurkey courser, by mere speed in flight got himself out of the circle ofthe ropes. But when Carpalin perceived him, he ran after him with suchnimbleness and celerity that he overtook him in less than a hundred paces;then, leaping close behind him upon the crupper of his horse, clasped himin his arms, and brought him back to the ship. 

This exploit being ended, Pantagruel was very jovial, and wondrouslycommended the industry of these gentlemen, whom he called hisfellow-soldiers, and made them refresh themselves and feed well and merrilyupon the seashore, and drink heartily with their bellies upon the ground, and their prisoner with them, whom they admitted to that familiarity; onlythat the poor devil was somewhat afraid that Pantagruel would have eaten himup whole, which, considering the wideness of his mouth and capacity of histhroat was no great matter for him to have done; for he could have done itas easily as you would eat a small comfit, he showing no more in his throatthan 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; andhow Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison. 

Thus as they talked and chatted together, Carpalin said, And, by the bellyof St. Quenet, shall we never eat any venison? This salt meat makes mehorribly dry. I will go fetch you a quarter of one of those horses whichwe have burnt; it is well roasted already. As he was rising up to go aboutit, he perceived under the side of a wood a fair great roebuck, which wascome out of his fort, as I conceive, at the sight of Panurge's fire. Himdid he pursue and run after with as much vigour and swiftness as if it hadbeen a bolt out of a crossbow, and caught him in a moment; and whilst hewas 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-leggedones, sixteen pheasants, nine woodcocks, nineteen herons, two and thirtycushats and ringdoves; and with his feet killed ten or twelve hares andrabbits, which were then at relief and pretty big withal, eighteen rails ina knot together, with fifteen young wild-boars, two little beavers, andthree great foxes. So, striking the kid with his falchion athwart thehead, he killed him, and, bearing him on his back, he in his return took uphis hares, rails, and young wild-boars, and, as far off as he could beheard, cried out and said, Panurge, my friend, vinegar, vinegar! Then thegood Pantagruel, thinking he had fainted, commanded them to provide himsome 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 backa fair roebuck, and all his girdle bordered with hares. Then immediatelydid Epistemon make, in the name of the nine Muses, nine antique woodenspits. Eusthenes did help to flay, and Panurge placed two great cuirassiersaddles in such sort that they served for andirons, and making theirprisoner to be their cook, they roasted their venison by the fire whereinthe horsemen were burnt; and making great cheer with a good deal ofvinegar, the devil a one of them did forbear from his victuals--it was atriumphant and incomparable spectacle to see how they ravened and devoured. Then said Pantagruel, Would to God every one of you had two pairs of littleanthem or sacring bells hanging at your chin, and that I had at mine thegreat clocks of Rennes, of Poictiers, of Tours, and of Cambray, to see whata 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 wemight get the upper hand of our enemies. That is well remembered, saidPantagruel. Therefore spoke he thus to the prisoner, My friend, tell ushere the truth, and do not lie to us at all, if thou wouldst not be flayedalive, for it is I that eat the little children. Relate unto us at fullthe order, the number, and the strength of the army. To which the prisoneranswered, Sir, know for a truth that in the army there are three hundredgiants, 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, onehundred three score and three thousand foot, all armed with the skins ofhobgoblins, strong and valiant men; eleven thousand four hundredmen-at-arms or cuirassiers; three thousand six hundred double cannons, andarquebusiers without number; four score and fourteen thousand pioneers; onehundred and fifty thousand whores, fair like goddesses--(That is for me, said Panurge)--whereof some are Amazons, some Lionnoises, othersParisiennes, Taurangelles, Angevines, Poictevines, Normandes, and HighDutch--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 morethirsty, 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 gowith me? To which Panurge answered, God confound him that leaves you! Ihave already bethought myself how I will kill them all like pigs, and sothe devil one leg of them shall escape. But I am somewhat troubled aboutone thing. And what is that? said Pantagruel. It is, said Panurge, how Ishall be able to set forward to the justling and bragmardizing of all thewhores that be there this afternoon, in such sort that there escape not oneunbumped by me, breasted and jummed after the ordinary fashion of man andwomen in the Venetian conflict. Ha, ha, ha, ha, said Pantagruel. 

And Carpalin said: The devil take these sink-holes, if, by G--, I do notbumbaste some one of them. Then said Eusthenes: What! shall not I haveany, whose paces, since we came from Rouen, were never so well winded up asthat my needle could mount to ten or eleven o'clock, till now that I haveit 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 thebest case. 

How now! said Epistemon; everyone shall ride, and I must lead the ass? Thedevil take him that will do so. We will make use of the right of war, Quipotest 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 nogreat stomach to ride, but more like to be rode upon with sound blows ofpike and lance. Baste, said Epistemon, enough of that! I will not fail tobring them to you, either to roast or boil, to fry or put in paste. Theyare not so many in number as were in the army of Xerxes, for he had thirtyhundred thousand fighting-men, if you will believe Herodotus and TrogusPompeius, and yet Themistocles with a few men overthrew them all. ForGod'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 theirbacks. 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 Panurgeanother in remembrance of the hares. How Pantagruel likewise with hisfarts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women; and how Panurgebroke a great staff over two glasses. 

Before we depart hence, said Pantagruel, in remembrance of the exploit thatyou have now performed I will in this place erect a fair trophy. Thenevery man amongst them, with great joy and fine little country songs, setup a huge big post, whereunto they hanged a great cuirassier saddle, thefronstal of a barbed horse, bridle-bosses, pulley-pieces for the knees, stirrup-leathers, spurs, stirrups, a coat of mail, a corslet tempered withsteel, a battle-axe, a strong, short, and sharp horseman's sword, agauntlet, a horseman's mace, gushet-armour for the armpits, leg-harness, and a gorget, with all other furniture needful for the decorement of atriumphant arch, in sign of a trophy. And then Pantagruel, for an eternalmemorial, 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 andfixed upon a great stake the horns of a roebuck, together with the skin andthe right forefoot thereof, the ears of three leverets, the chine of aconey, the jaws of a hare, the wings of two bustards, the feet of fourqueest-doves, a bottle or borracho full of vinegar, a horn wherein to putsalt, a wooden spit, a larding stick, a scurvy kettle full of holes, adripping-pan to make sauce in, an earthen salt-cellar, and a goblet ofBeauvais. Then, in imitation of Pantagruel's verses and trophy, wrote thatwhich 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 toolong about our victuals; for very seldom doth it fall out that the greatesteaters do the most martial exploits. There is no shadow like that offlying colours, no smoke like that of horses, no clattering like that ofarmour. At this Epistemon began to smile, and said, There is no shadowlike that of the kitchen, no smoke like that of pasties, and no clatteringlike that of goblets. Unto which answered Panurge, There is no shadow likethat of curtains, no smoke like that of women's breasts, and no clatteringlike 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 fartthat he let the earth trembled nine leagues about, wherewith and with thecorrupted air he begot above three and fifty thousand little men, ill-favoured dwarfs, and with one fisg that he let he made as many littlewomen, crouching down, as you shall see in divers places, which never growbut like cow's tails, downwards, or, like the Limosin radishes, round. Hownow! said Panurge, are your farts so fertile and fruitful? By G--, here bebrave farted men and fisgued women; let them be married together; they willbeget fine hornets and dorflies. So did Pantagruel, and called thempigmies. Those he sent to live in an island thereby, where since that timethey are increased mightily. But the cranes make war with themcontinually, against which they do most courageously defend themselves; forthese little ends of men and dandiprats (whom in Scotland they callwhiphandles and knots of a tar-barrel) are commonly very testy andcholeric; the physical reason whereof is, because their heart is near theirspleen. 

At this same time Panurge took two drinking glasses that were there, bothof one bigness, and filled them with water up to the brim, and set one ofthem upon one stool and the other upon another, placing them about one footfrom one another. Then he took the staff of a javelin, about five foot anda half long, and put it upon the two glasses, so that the two ends of thestaff did come just to the brims of the glasses. This done, he took agreat stake or billet of wood, and said to Pantagruel and to the rest, Mymasters, behold how easily we shall have the victory over our enemies; forjust as I shall break this staff here upon these glasses, without eitherbreaking or crazing of them, nay, which is more, without spilling one dropof the water that is within them, even so shall we break the heads of ourDipsodes without receiving any of us any wound or loss in our person orgoods. 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 thislog. Eusthenes did so, and the staff broke in two pieces, and not one dropof the water fell out of the glasses. Then said he, I know a great manysuch 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 theGiants. 

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 whatthou 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, Iwill prove unto him by eighteen hundred thousand fighting-men and seventhousand giants, all of them greater than I am, that he hath done foolishlyand against reason thus to invade my country. Wherein Pantagruel feignedthat he had an army at sea. But the prisoner answered that he would yieldhimself to be his slave, and that he was content never to return to his ownpeople, but rather with Pantagruel to fight against them, and for God'ssake besought him that he might be permitted so to do. WhereuntoPantagruel would not give consent, but commanded him to depart thencespeedily and begone as he had told him, and to that effect gave him aboxful of euphorbium, together with some grains of the black chameleonthistle, steeped into aqua vitae, and made up into the condiment of a wetsucket, commanding him to carry it to his king, and to say unto him, thatif he were able to eat one ounce of that without drinking after it, hemight then be able to resist him without any fear or apprehension ofdanger. 

The prisoner then besought him with joined hands that in the hour of thebattle he would have compassion upon him. Whereat Pantagruel said untohim, After that thou hast delivered all unto the king, put thy wholeconfidence in God, and he will not forsake thee; because, although for mypart I be mighty, as thou mayst see, and have an infinite number of men inarms, I do nevertheless trust neither in my force nor in mine industry, butall my confidence is in God my protector, who doth never forsake those thatin him do put their trust and confidence. This done, the prisonerrequested him that he would afford him some reasonable composition for hisransom. To which Pantagruel answered, that his end was not to rob norransom men, but to enrich them and reduce them to total liberty. Go thyway, said he, in the peace of the living God, and never follow evilcompany, lest some mischief befall thee. The prisoner being gone, Pantagruel said to his men, Gentlemen, I have made this prisoner believethat we have an army at sea; as also that we will not assault them tillto-morrow at noon, to the end that they, doubting of the great arrival ofour men, may spend this night in providing and strengthening themselves, but in the meantime my intention is that we charge them about the hourof the first sleep. 

Let us leave Pantagruel here with his apostles, and speak of King Anarchusand his army. When the prisoner was come he went unto the king and toldhim how there was a great giant come, called Pantagruel, who had overthrownand made to be cruelly roasted all the six hundred and nine and fiftyhorsemen, and he alone escaped to bring the news. Besides that, he wascharged by the said giant to tell him that the next day, about noon, hemust make a dinner ready for him, for at that hour he was resolved to setupon 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 takenwith such a heat in the throat, together with an ulceration in the flap ofthe 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 drinkingonly without cessation; for as soon as ever he took the goblet from hishead, his tongue was on a fire, and therefore they did nothing but stillpour 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 totry whether they were so thirst-procuring and alterative or no. But it sobefell them as it had done their king, and they plied the flagon so wellthat 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 hiscaptains did already prepare themselves for it, together with his guards, and that with carousing lustily and quaffing as hard as they could. Everyman, therefore, in the army began to tipple, ply the pot, swill and guzzleit as fast as they could. In sum, they drunk so much, and so long, thatthey 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 himselfin this business. Departing from the place of the trophies, he took themast of their ship in his hand like a pilgrim's staff, and put within thetop of it two hundred and seven and thirty puncheons of white wine ofAnjou, the rest was of Rouen, and tied up to his girdle the bark all fullof salt, as easily as the lansquenets carry their little panniers, and soset onward on his way with his fellow-soldiers. When he was come near tothe enemy's camp, Panurge said unto him, Sir, if you would do well, letdown 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 thatthere was not so much as one poor drop left of two hundred and seven andthirty puncheons, except one boracho or leathern bottle of Tours whichPanurge filled for himself, for he called that his vademecum, and somescurvy lees of wine in the bottom, which served him instead of vinegar. After they had whittled and curried the can pretty handsomely, Panurge gavePantagruel to eat some devilish drugs compounded of lithotripton, which isa 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 kindsof diuretic or piss-procuring simples. This done, Pantagruel said toCarpalin, Go into the city, scrambling like a cat against the wall, as youcan well do, and tell them that now presently they come out and chargetheir enemies as rudely as they can, and having said so, come down, takinga lighted torch with you, wherewith you shall set on fire all the tents andpavilions in the camp; then cry as loud as you are able with your greatvoice, and then come away from thence. Yea but, said Carpalin, were it notgood to cloy all their ordnance? No, no, said Pantagruel, only blow up alltheir powder. Carpalin, obeying him, departed suddenly and did as he wasappointed by Pantagruel, and all the combatants came forth that were in thecity, and when he had set fire in the tents and pavilions, he passed solightly through them, and so highly and profoundly did they snort andsleep, that they never perceived him. He came to the place where theirartillery 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 hadit not been for his wonderful agility he had been fried like a roastingpig. But he departed away so speedily that a bolt or arrow out of acrossbow could not have had a swifter motion. When he was clear of theirtrenches, he shouted aloud, and cried out so dreadfully, and with suchamazement to the hearers, that it seemed all the devils of hell had beenlet loose. At which noise the enemies awaked, but can you tell how? Evenno less astonished than are monks at the ringing of the first peal tomatins, 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 theirthroats with it, so that those poor wretches were by it made to cough likefoxes. Ha, Pantagruel, how thou addest greater heat to the firebrand thatis in us! Suddenly Pantagruel had will to piss, by means of the drugswhich Panurge had given him, and pissed amidst the camp so well and socopiously that he drowned them all, and there was a particular deluge tenleagues round about, of such considerable depth that the history saith, ifhis father's great mare had been there, and pissed likewise, it wouldundoubtedly have been a more enormous deluge than that of Deucalion; forshe did never piss but she made a river greater than is either the Rhone orthe Danube. Which those that were come out of the city seeing, said, Theyare all cruelly slain; see how the blood runs along. But they weredeceived in thinking Pantagruel's urine had been the blood of theirenemies, for they could not see but by the light of the fire of thepavilions and some small light of the moon. 

The enemies, after that they were awaked, seeing on one side the fire inthe camp, and on the other the inundation of the urinal deluge, could nottell what to say nor what to think. Some said that it was the end of theworld and the final judgment, which ought to be by fire. Others againthought 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 andsalt. 

O who were able now condignly to relate how Pantagruel did demean himselfagainst the three hundred giants! O my Muse, my Calliope, my Thalia, inspire me at this time, restore unto me my spirits; for this is thelogical bridge of asses! Here is the pitfall, here is the difficulty, tohave 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 drankwho shall read this so veridical history!

Chapter 2. XXIX. 

How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed with free-stone, and Loupgarou their captain. 

The giants, seeing all their camp drowned, carried away their king Anarchusupon their backs as well as they could out of the fort, as Aeneas did tohis father Anchises, in the time of the conflagration of Troy. WhenPanurge perceived them, he said to Pantagruel, Sir, yonder are the giantscoming forth against you; lay on them with your mast gallantly, like an oldfencer; for now is the time that you must show yourself a brave man and anhonest. And for our part we will not fail you. I myself will kill to youa good many boldly enough; for why, David killed Goliath very easily; andthen this great lecher, Eusthenes, who is stronger than four oxen, will notspare himself. Be of good courage, therefore, and valiant; charge amongstthem with point and edge, and by all manner of means. Well, saidPantagruel, of courage I have more than for fifty francs, but let us bewise, for Hercules first never undertook against two. That is well cacked, well scummered, said Panurge; do you compare yourself with Hercules? Youhave, by G--, more strength in your teeth, and more scent in your bum, thanever Hercules had in all his body and soul. So much is a man worth as heesteems himself. Whilst they spake those words, behold! Loupgarou was comewith all his giants, who, seeing Pantagruel in a manner alone, was carriedaway with temerity and presumption, for hopes that he had to kill the goodman. Whereupon he said to his companions the giants, You wenchers of thelow country, by Mahoom! if any of you undertake to fight against these menhere, I will put you cruelly to death. It is my will that you let me fightsingle. 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 theflagons stood, and Panurge and his comrades with them, who counterfeitedthose that have had the pox, for he wreathed about his mouth, shrunk up hisfingers, 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 atall. Give us somewhat to eat with you whilest our masters fight againstone another. To this the king and giants jointly condescended, andaccordingly made them to banquet with them. In the meantime Panurge toldthem the follies of Turpin, the examples of St. Nicholas, and the tale of atub. Loupgarou then set forward towards Pantagruel, with a mace all ofsteel, and that of the best sort, weighing nine thousand seven hundredquintals and two quarterons, at the end whereof were thirteen pointeddiamonds, the least whereof was as big as the greatest bell of Our Lady'sChurch at Paris--there might want perhaps the thickness of a nail, or atmost, that I may not lie, of the back of those knives which they callcutlugs or earcutters, but for a little off or on, more or less, it is nomatter--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 heapproached with great fierceness and pride of heart, Pantagruel, casting uphis eyes to heaven, recommended himself to God with all his soul, makingsuch a vow as followeth. 

O thou Lord God, who hast always been my protector and my saviour! thouseest the distress wherein I am at this time. Nothing brings me hither buta natural zeal, which thou hast permitted unto mortals, to keep and defendthemselves, their wives and children, country and family, in case thy ownproper cause were not in question, which is the faith; for in such abusiness thou wilt have no coadjutors, only a catholic confession andservice of thy word, and hast forbidden us all arming and defence. Forthou art the Almighty, who in thine own cause, and where thine own businessis taken to heart, canst defend it far beyond all that we can conceive, thou who hast thousand thousands of hundreds of millions of legions ofangels, the least of which is able to kill all mortal men, and turn aboutthe heavens and earth at his pleasure, as heretofore it very plainlyappeared in the army of Sennacherib. If it may please thee, therefore, atthis 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 anypower or authority, whether in this of Utopia or elsewhere, I will causethy holy gospel to be purely, simply, and entirely preached, so that theabuses of a rabble of hypocrites and false prophets, who by humanconstitutions and depraved inventions have empoisoned all the world, shallbe quite exterminated from about me. 

This vow was no sooner made, but there was heard a voice from heavensaying, Hoc fac et vinces; that is to say, Do this, and thou shaltovercome. Then Pantagruel, seeing that Loupgarou with his mouth wide openwas drawing near to him, went against him boldly, and cried out as loud ashe was able, Thou diest, villain, thou diest! purposing by his horrible cryto make him afraid, according to the discipline of the Lacedaemonians. Withal, he immediately cast at him out of his bark, which he wore at hisgirdle, eighteen cags and four bushels of salt, wherewith he filled bothhis mouth, throat, nose, and eyes. At this Loupgarou was so highlyincensed that, most fiercely setting upon him, he thought even then with ablow of his mace to have beat out his brains. But Pantagruel was verynimble, and had always a quick foot and a quick eye, and therefore with hisleft 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, seeingthat, most gallantly displayed the vigour of his arms, and, according tothe art of the axe, gave him with the great end of his mast a homethrust alittle 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 theupper end of his said mast, wherewith breaking the scuttle on the topthereof, he spilt three or four puncheons of wine that were left therein. 

Upon that Loupgarou thought that he had pierced his bladder, and that thewine that came forth had been his urine. Pantagruel, being not contentwith this, would have doubled it by a side-blow; but Loupgarou, liftingup his mace, advanced one step upon him, and with all his force wouldhave dashed it upon Pantagruel, wherein, to speak the truth, he sosprightfully carried himself, that, if God had not succoured the goodPantagruel, he had been cloven from the top of his head to the bottom ofhis milt. But the blow glanced to the right side by the brisk nimblenessof Pantagruel, and his mace sank into the ground above threescore andthirteen foot, through a huge rock, out of which the fire did issue greaterthan nine thousand and six tons. Pantagruel, seeing him busy aboutplucking out his mace, which stuck in the ground between the rocks, ranupon him, and would have clean cut off his head, if by mischance his masthad not touched a little against the stock of Loupgarou's mace, which wasenchanted, as we have said before. By this means his mast broke off aboutthree handfuls above his hand, whereat he stood amazed like a bell-founder, and cried out, Ah, Panurge, where art thou? Panurge, seeing that, said tothe king and the giants, By G--, they will hurt one another if they be notparted. 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 ofthe giants said unto him, By Golfarin, the nephew of Mahoom, if thou stirhence I will put thee in the bottom of my breeches instead of asuppository, which cannot choose but do me good. For in my belly I am verycostive, and cannot well cagar without gnashing my teeth and making manyfilthy faces. Then Pantagruel, thus destitute of a staff, took up the endof his mast, striking athwart and alongst upon the giant, but he did him nomore 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, havingalready plucked it out, was ready therewith to have struck Pantagruel, who, being very quick in turning, avoided all his blows in taking only thedefensive part in hand, until on a sudden he saw that Loupgarou didthreaten him with these words, saying, Now, villain, will not I fail tochop thee as small as minced meat, and keep thee henceforth from evermaking any more poor men athirst! For then, without any more ado, Pantagruel struck him such a blow with his foot against the belly that hemade him fall backwards, his heels over his head, and dragged him thusalong at flay-buttock above a flight-shot. Then Loupgarou cried out, bleeding at the throat, Mahoom, Mahoom, Mahoom! at which noise all thegiants arose to succour him. But Panurge said unto them, Gentlemen, do notgo, if will believe me, for our master is mad, and strikes athwart andalongst, he cares not where; he will do you a mischief. But the giantsmade no account of it, seeing that Pantagruel had never a staff. 

And when Pantagruel saw those giants approach very near unto him, he tookLoupgarou 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 amongstthose giants armed with free-stone, that, striking them down as a masondoth little knobs of stones, there was not one of them that stood beforehim whom he threw not flat to the ground. And by the breaking of thisstony armour there was made such a horrible rumble as put me in mind of thefall of the butter-tower of St. Stephen's at Bourges when it melted beforethe sun. Panurge, with Carpalin and Eusthenes, did cut in the mean timethe throats of those that were struck down, in such sort that there escapednot one. Pantagruel to any man's sight was like a mower, who with hisscythe, which was Loupgarou, cut down the meadow grass, to wit, the giants;but with this fencing of Pantagruel's Loupgarou lost his head, whichhappened when Pantagruel struck down one whose name was Riflandouille, orPudding-plunderer, who was armed cap-a-pie with Grison stones, one chipwhereof splintering abroad cut off Epistemon's neck clean and fair. Forotherwise the most part of them were but lightly armed with a kind of sandybrittle stone, and the rest with slates. At last, when he saw that theywere all dead, he threw the body of Loupgarou as hard as he could againstthe city, where falling like a frog upon his belly in the great Piazzathereof, he with the said fall killed a singed he-cat, a wet she-cat, afarting duck, and a bridled goose. 

Chapter 2. XXX. 

How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healed by Panurge, andof the news which he brought from the devils, and of the damned people inhell. 

This gigantal victory being ended, Pantagruel withdrew himself to the placeof the flagons, and called for Panurge and the rest, who came unto him safeand sound, except Eusthenes, whom one of the giants had scratched a littlein 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 wouldhave 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 hishead between his arms all bloody. Then Eusthenes cried out, Ah, crueldeath! hast thou taken from me the perfectest amongst men? At which wordsPantagruel rose up with the greatest grief that ever any man did see, andsaid to Panurge, Ha, my friend! the prophecy of your two glasses and thejavelin staff was a great deal too deceitful. But Panurge answered, Mydear bullies all, weep not one drop more, for, he being yet all hot, I willmake him as sound as ever he was. In saying this, he took the head andheld it warm foregainst his codpiece, that the wind might not enter intoit. Eusthenes and Carpalin carried the body to the place where they hadbanqueted, not out of any hope that ever he would recover, but thatPantagruel might see it. 

Nevertheless Panurge gave him very good comfort, saying, If I do not healhim, I will be content to lose my head, which is a fool's wager. Leaveoff, therefore, crying, and help me. Then cleansed he his neck very wellwith pure white wine, and, after that, took his head, and into it synapisedsome powder of diamerdis, which he always carried about him in one of hisbags. Afterwards he anointed it with I know not what ointment, and set iton very just, vein against vein, sinew against sinew, and spondyle againstspondyle, that he might not be wry-necked--for such people he mortallyhated. This done, he gave it round about some fifteen or sixteen stitcheswith a needle that it might not fall off again; then, on all sides andeverywhere, 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 fullglass of strong white wine, with a sugared toast. In this fashion wasEpistemon finely healed, only that he was somewhat hoarse for above threeweeks together, and had a dry cough of which he could not be rid but by theforce of continual drinking. And now he began to speak, and said that hehad seen the devil, had spoken with Lucifer familiarly, and had been verymerry in hell and in the Elysian fields, affirming very seriously beforethem all that the devils were boon companions and merry fellows. But, inrespect of the damned, he said he was very sorry that Panurge had so sooncalled him back into this world again; for, said he, I took wonderfuldelight to see them. How so? said Pantagruel. Because they do not usethem there, said Epistemon, so badly as you think they do. Their estateand condition of living is but only changed after a very strange manner;for I saw Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts uponold 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 rowover the rivers of Cocytus, Phlegeton, Styx, Acheron, and Lethe, when mylords the devils had a mind to recreate themselves upon the water, as inthe like occasion are hired the boatmen at Lyons, the gondoliers of Venice, and oars at London. But with this difference, that these poor knights haveonly for their fare a bob or flirt on the nose, and in the evening a morselof 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 awindbroach. Fierabras was his serving-man, who did him a thousandmischievous tricks, and would make him eat of the brown bread and drink ofthe 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-rubbersin 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 hisgreat 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, saidEpistemon, I never saw so many: there are there, I think, above a hundredmillions; for believe, that those who have not had the pox in this worldmust have it in the other. 

Cotsbody, said Panurge, then I am free; for I have been as far as the holeof Gibraltar, reached unto the outmost bounds of Hercules, and gathered ofthe 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 buta poor scurvy wretched living there below. And, on the contrary, thephilosophers and others, who in this world had been altogether indigent andwanting, were great lords there in their turn. I saw Diogenes there strutit out most pompously, and in great magnificence, with a rich purple gownon him, and a golden sceptre in his right hand. And, which is more, hewould now and then make Alexander the Great mad, so enormously would heabuse him when he had not well patched his breeches; for he used to pay hisskin with sound bastinadoes. I saw Epictetus there, most gallantlyapparelled after the French fashion, sitting under a pleasant arbour, withstore of handsome gentlewomen, frolicking, drinking, dancing, and makinggood cheer, with abundance of crowns of the sun. Above the lattice werewritten 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 Ibeing willing to be entreated, we tippled and chopined together mosttheologically. In the meantime came Cyrus to beg one farthing of him forthe 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 wasexceeding 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 itaway from him by night. I saw Pathelin, the treasurer of Rhadamanthus, who, in cheapening the pudding-pies that Pope Julius cried, asked him howmuch a dozen. Three blanks, said the Pope. Nay, said Pathelin, threeblows 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, thepie-maker, told him that they had taken away his pudding-pies. Whereuponhis master gave him such a sound lash with an eel-skin, that his own wouldhave been worth nothing to make bag-pipe-bags of. I saw Master John LeMaire there personate the Pope in such fashion that he made all the poorkings and popes of this world kiss his feet, and, taking great state uponhim, gave them his benediction, saying, Get the pardons, rogues, get thepardons; they are good cheap. I absolve you of bread and pottage, anddispense with you to be never good for anything. Then, calling Caillet andTriboulet to him, he spoke these words, My lords the cardinals, despatchtheir bulls, to wit, to each of them a blow with a cudgel upon the reins. Which accordingly was forthwith performed. I heard Master Francis Villonask Xerxes, How much the mess of mustard? A farthing, said Xerxes. Towhich the said Villon answered, The pox take thee for a villain! As much ofsquare-eared wheat is not worth half that price, and now thou offerest toenhance the price of victuals. With this he pissed in his pot, as themustard-makers of Paris used to do. I saw the trained bowman of the bathingtub, known by the name of the Francarcher de Baignolet, who, being one ofthe trustees of the Inquisition, when he saw Perce-Forest making wateragainst a wall in which was painted the fire of St. Anthony, declared himheretic, and would have caused him to be burnt alive had it not been forMorgant, who, for his proficiat and other small fees, gave him nine tuns ofbeer. 

Well, said Pantagruel, reserve all these fair stories for another time, only tell us how the usurers are there handled. I saw them, saidEpistemon, all very busily employed in seeking of rusty pins and old nailsin the kennels of the streets, as you see poor wretched rogues do in thisworld. But the quintal, or hundredweight, of this old ironware is therevalued but at the price of a cantle of bread, and yet they have but a verybad despatch and riddance in the sale of it. Thus the poor misers aresometimes 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, socursedly active they are in the prosecution of that their base calling, inhopes, 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. Thendid they uncase their flagons by heaps and dozens, and with theirleaguer-provision made excellent good cheer. But the poor King Anarchuscould not all this while settle himself towards any fit of mirth; whereuponPanurge said, Of what trade shall we make my lord the king here, that he maybe skilful in the art when he goes thither to sojourn amongst all the devilsof hell? Indeed, said Pantagruel, that was well advised of thee. Do withhim what thou wilt, I give him to thee. Gramercy, said Panurge, the presentis not to be refused, and I love it from you. 

Chapter 2. XXXI. 

How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how Panurgemarried King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and made him a crierof green sauce. 

After this wonderful victory, Pantagruel sent Carpalin unto the city of theAmaurots to declare and signify unto them how the King Anarchus was takenprisoner and all the enemies of the city overthrown. Which news when theyheard 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 intothe city, where innumerable bonfires were set on through all the partsthereof, and fair round tables, which were furnished with store of goodvictuals, set out in the middle of the streets. This was a renewing of thegolden age in the time of Saturn, so good was the cheer which then theymade. 

But Pantagruel, having assembled the whole senate and common councilmen ofthe 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 howto assault and take the whole kingdom of the Dipsodes. To which effect letthose that will go with me provide themselves against to-morrow afterdrinking, for then will I begin to march. Not that I need any more menthan I have to help me to conquer it, for I could make it as sure that wayas if I had it already; but I see this city is so full of inhabitants thatthey scarce can turn in the streets. I will, therefore, carry them as acolony into Dipsody, and will give them all that country, which is fair, wealthy, fruitful, and pleasant, above all other countries in the world, asmany 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 morningthere assembled in the piazza before the palace to the number of eighteenhundred fifty-six thousand and eleven, besides women and little children. Thus began they to march straight into Dipsody, in such good order as didthe people of Israel when they departed out of Egypt to pass over the RedSea. 

But before we proceed any further in this purpose, I will tell you howPanurge handled his prisoner the King Anarchus; for, having remembered thatwhich Epistemon had related, how the kings and rich men in this world wereused in the Elysian fields, and how they got their living there by base andignoble trades, he, therefore, one day apparelled his king in a prettylittle canvas doublet, all jagged and pinked like the tippet of a lighthorseman's cap, together with a pair of large mariner's breeches, andstockings 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--Ilie, for I think he had two--and a very handsome girdle of a sky-colour andgreen (in French called pers et vert), saying that such a livery did becomehim well, for that he had always been perverse, and in this plight bringinghim before Pantagruel, said unto him, Do you know this roister? No, indeed, said Pantagruel. It is, said Panurge, my lord the king of thethree batches, or threadbare sovereign. I intend to make him an honestman. 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 mischiefsto their poor subjects, and to trouble all the world with war for theirunjust and detestable pleasure. I will put him to a trade, and make him acrier 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 bythe ear, saying, Sing higher in Ge, sol, re, ut. So, so poor devil, thouhast a good throat; thou wert never so happy as to be no longer king. AndPantagruel made himself merry with all this; for I dare boldly say that hewas the best little gaffer that was to be seen between this and the end ofa staff. Thus was Anarchus made a good crier of green sauce. Two daysthereafter Panurge married him with an old lantern-carrying hag, and hehimself made the wedding with fine sheep's heads, brave haslets withmustard, gallant salligots with garlic, of which he sent five horseloadsunto 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 somesorbapple-cider. And, to make them dance, he hired a blind man thatmade music to them with a wind-broach. 

After dinner he led them to the palace and showed them to Pantagruel, andsaid, 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 upalready. What do you mean by that? said Pantagruel. Do not you see, saidPanurge, that the chestnuts which are roasted in the fire, if they be wholethey crack as if they were mad, and, to keep them from cracking, they makean incision in them and slit them? So this new bride is in her lower partswell slit before, and therefore will not crack behind. 

Pantagruel gave them a little lodge near the lower street and a mortar ofstone wherein to bray and pound their sauce, and in this manner did they dotheir little business, he being as pretty a crier of green sauce as everwas seen in the country of Utopia. But I have been told since that hiswife 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 authorsaw in his mouth. 

Thus, as Pantagruel with all his army had entered into the country of theDipsodes, everyone was glad of it, and incontinently rendered themselvesunto him, bringing him out of their own good wills the keys of all thecities where he went, the Almirods only excepted, who, being resolved tohold out against him, made answer to his heralds that they would not yieldbut upon very honourable and good conditions. 

What! said Pantagruel, do they ask any better terms than the hand at thepot and the glass in their fist? Come, let us go sack them, and put themall to the sword. Then did they put themselves in good order, as beingfully determined to give an assault, but by the way, passing through alarge field, they were overtaken with a great shower of rain, whereat theybegan to shiver and tremble, to crowd, press, and thrust close to oneanother. When Pantagruel saw that, he made their captains tell them thatit was nothing, and that he saw well above the clouds that it would benothing but a little dew; but, howsoever, that they should put themselvesin order, and he would cover them. Then did they put themselves in a closeorder, and stood as near to (each) other as they could, and Pantagruel drewout his tongue only half-way and covered them all, as a hen doth herchickens. In the meantime, I, who relate to you these so veritablestories, hid myself under a burdock-leaf, which was not much less inlargeness than the arch of the bridge of Montrible, but when I saw themthus covered, I went towards them to shelter myself likewise; which I couldnot do, for that they were so, as the saying is, At the yard's end there isno cloth left. Then, as well as I could, I got upon it, and went alongfull two leagues upon his tongue, and so long marched that at last I cameinto his mouth. But, O gods and goddesses! what did I see there? Jupiterconfound me with his trisulc lightning if I lie! I walked there as they doin Sophia (at) Constantinople, and saw there great rocks, like themountains in Denmark--I believe that those were his teeth. I saw also fairmeadows, large forests, great and strong cities not a jot less than Lyonsor Poictiers. The first man I met with there was a good honest fellowplanting coleworts, whereat being very much amazed, I asked him, My friend, what dost thou make here? I plant coleworts, said he. But how, andwherewith? said I. Ha, sir, said he, everyone cannot have his ballocks asheavy as a mortar, neither can we be all rich. Thus do I get my poorliving, and carry them to the market to sell in the city which is herebehind. Jesus! said I, is there here a new world? Sure, said he, it isnever a jot new, but it is commonly reported that, without this, there isan earth, whereof the inhabitants enjoy the light of a sun and a moon, andthat it is full of and replenished with very good commodities; but yet thisis more ancient than that. Yea but, said I, my friend, what is the name ofthat city whither thou carriest thy coleworts to sell? It is calledAspharage, 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, ofwhom I asked, My friend, from whence come these pigeons? Sir, said he, they come from the other world. Then I thought that, when Pantagruelyawned, the pigeons went into his mouth in whole flocks, thinking that ithad been a pigeon-house. 

Then I went into the city, which I found fair, very strong, and seated in agood 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 anydanger of the plague here? O Lord! said they, they die hard by here sofast 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 twogreat cities such as Rouen and Nantes, rich and of great trading. And thecause of the plague was by a stinking and infectious exhalation whichlately vapoured out of the abysms, whereof there have died above two andtwenty hundred and threescore thousand and sixteen persons within thissevennight. Then I considered, calculated, and found that it was a rankand unsavoury breathing which came out of Pantagruel's stomach when he dideat so much garlic, as we have aforesaid. 

Parting from thence, I passed amongst the rocks, which were his teeth, andnever left walking till I got up on one of them; and there I found thepleasantest places in the world, great large tennis-courts, fair galleries, sweet meadows, store of vines, and an infinite number of banqueting summerouthouses in the fields, after the Italian fashion, full of pleasure anddelight, where I stayed full four months, and never made better cheer in mylife as then. After that I went down by the hinder teeth to come to thechaps. But in the way I was robbed by thieves in a great forest that is inthe territory towards the ears. Then, after a little further travelling, Ifell upon a pretty petty village--truly I have forgot the name of it--whereI was yet merrier than ever, and got some certain money to live by. Canyou 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 atleast ninepence. How I had been robbed in the valley I informed thesenators, who told me that, in very truth, the people of that side were badlivers and naturally thievish, whereby I perceived well that, as we havewith us the countries Cisalpine and Transalpine, that is, behither andbeyond the mountains, so have they there the countries Cidentine andTradentine, that is, behither and beyond the teeth. But it is far betterliving on this side, and the air is purer. Then I began to think that itis very true which is commonly said, that the one half of the world knowethnot how the other half liveth; seeing none before myself had ever writtenof that country, wherein are above five-and-twenty kingdoms inhabited, besides deserts, and a great arm of the sea. Concerning which purpose Ihave composed a great book, entitled, The History of the Throttias, becausethey dwell in the throat of my master Pantagruel. 

At last I was willing to return, and, passing by his beard, I cast myselfupon his shoulders, and from thence slid down to the ground, and fellbefore him. As soon as I was perceived by him, he asked me, Whence comestthou, Alcofribas? I answered him, Out of your mouth, my lord. And howlong hast thou been there? said he. Since the time, said I, that you wentagainst the Almirods. That is about six months ago, said he. Andwherewith didst thou live? What didst thou drink? I answered, My lord, ofthe same that you did, and of the daintiest morsels that passed throughyour throat I took toll. Yea but, said he, where didst thou shite? Inyour 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 willgive thee the Chastelleine, or Lairdship of Salmigondin. Gramercy, mylord, 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 anobstruction in his stomach that he could neither eat nor drink; and, because mischief seldom comes alone, a hot piss seized on him, whichtormented him more than you would believe. His physicians neverthelesshelped him very well, and with store of lenitives and diuretic drugs madehim piss away his pain. His urine was so hot that since that time it isnot yet cold, and you have of it in divers places of France, according tothe 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, whospend 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, thatis within the mine. For they do nothing but dote, and better were it forthem to rub their arse against a thistle than to waste away their time thusin disputing of that whereof they know not the original; for the resolutionis easy, neither need we to inquire any further than that the said bathscame by a hot piss of the good Pantagruel. 

Now to tell you after what manner he was cured of his principal disease. Ilet pass how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred poundweight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen cartloads of cassia, an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight of rhubarb, besides otherconfuse jumblings of sundry drugs. You must understand that by the adviceof the physicians it was ordained that what did offend his stomach shouldbe 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 midstand shut with a spring. Into one of them entered one of his men carrying alantern and a torch lighted, and so Pantagruel swallowed him down like alittle pill. Into seven others went seven country-fellows, having everyone of them a shovel on his neck. Into nine others entered ninewood-carriers, having each of them a basket hung at his neck, and so werethey swallowed down like pills. When they were in his stomach, every oneundid his spring, and came out of their cabins. The first whereof was hethat carried the lantern, and so they fell more than half a league into amost horrible gulf, more stinking and infectious than ever was Mephitis, orthe marshes of the Camerina, or the abominably unsavoury lake of Sorbona, whereof Strabo maketh mention. And had it not been that they had very wellantidoted their stomach, heart, and wine-pot, which is called the noddle, they had been altogether suffocated and choked with these detestablevapours. O what a perfume! O what an evaporation wherewith to bewray themasks or mufflers of young mangy queans. After that, with groping andsmelling they came near to the faecal matter and the corrupted humours. Finally, they found a montjoy or heap of ordure and filth. Then fell thepioneers to work to dig it up, and the rest with their shovels filled thebaskets; and when all was cleansed every one retired himself into his ball. 

This done, Pantagruel enforcing himself to vomit, very easily brought themout, 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 Grecianscoming out of the Trojan horse. By this means was he healed and broughtunto his former state and convalescence; and of these brazen pills, orrather copper balls, you have one at Orleans, upon the steeple of the HolyCross 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 mylord and master Pantagruel. Here will I make an end of the first book. Myhead aches a little, and I perceive that the registers of my brain aresomewhat jumbled and disordered with this Septembral juice. You shall havethe rest of the history at Frankfort mart next coming, and there shall yousee how Panurge was married and made a cuckold within a month after hiswedding; how Pantagruel found out the philosopher's stone, the manner howhe found it, and the way how to use it; how he passed over the Caspianmountains, and how he sailed through the Atlantic sea, defeated theCannibals, and conquered the isles of Pearls; how he married the daughterof the King of India, called Presthan; how he fought against the devil andburnt up five chambers of hell, ransacked the great black chamber, threwProserpina into the fire, broke five teeth to Lucifer, and the horn thatwas in his arse; how he visited the regions of the moon to know whetherindeed the moon were not entire and whole, or if the women had threequarters of it in their heads, and a thousand other little merriments allveritable. These are brave things truly. Good night, gentlemen. Perdonate mi, and think not so much upon my faults that you forget yourown. 

If you say to me, Master, it would seem that you were not very wise inwriting 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 ofpastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon than agreat 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 todeceive the world. For, whilst they give the common people to understandthat they are busied about nothing but contemplation and devotion infastings and maceration of their sensuality--and that only to sustain andaliment the small frailty of their humanity--it is so far otherwise that, on the contrary, God knows what cheer they make; Et Curios simulant, sedBacchanalia vivunt. You may read it in great letters in the colouring oftheir red snouts, and gulching bellies as big as a tun, unless it be whenthey perfume themselves with sulphur. As for their study, it is whollytaken up in reading of Pantagruelian books, not so much to pass the timemerrily as to hurt someone or other mischievously, to wit, in articling, sole-articling, wry-neckifying, buttock-stirring, ballocking, anddiabliculating, that is, calumniating. Wherein they are like unto the poorrogues of a village that are busy in stirring up and scraping in the ordureand filth of little children, in the season of cherries and guinds, andthat only to find the kernels, that they may sell them to the druggists tomake thereof pomander oil. Fly from these men, abhor and hate them as muchas I do, and upon my faith you will find yourselves the better for it. Andif you desire to be good Pantagruelists, that is to say, to live in peace, joy, health, making yourselves always merry, never trust those men thatalways peep out at one hole. 

End of Book II. 

BOOK III. 

THE THIRD BOOK

Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre. 

 Abstracted soul, ravished with ecstasies, Gone back, and now familiar in the skies, Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite, Which to obey thee always took delight, -- Obsequious, ready, --now from motion free, Senseless, and as it were in apathy, Wouldst thou not issue forth for a short space, From that divine, eternal, heavenly place, To see the third part, in this earthy cell, Of the brave acts of good Pantagruel?

The Author's Prologue. 

Good people, most illustrious drinkers, and you, thrice precious goutygentlemen, did you ever see Diogenes, and cynic philosopher? If you haveseen him, you then had your eyes in your head, or I am very much out of myunderstanding and logical sense. It is a gallant thing to see theclearness of (wine, gold, ) the sun. I'll be judged by the blind born sorenowned in the sacred Scriptures, who, having at his choice to askwhatever he would from him who is Almighty, and whose word in an instant iseffectually performed, asked nothing else but that he might see. Item, youare not young, which is a competent quality for you to philosophate morethan physically in wine, not in vain, and henceforwards to be of theBacchic Council; to the end that, opining there, you may give your opinionfaithfully of the substance, colour, excellent odour, eminency, propriety, faculty, virtue, and effectual dignity of the said blessed and desiredliquor. 

If you have not seen him, as I am easily induced to believe that you havenot, at least you have heard some talk of him. For through the air, andthe whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report andfame, 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 knownot what, of him, which the Persians of old esteemed more of in all theirotacusts, and which was more desired by the Emperor Antonine, and gaveoccasion 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 makeyour wine relish. Drink then, --so, to the purpose. Hearken now whilst Igive you notice, to the end that you may not, like infidels, be by yoursimplicity abused, that in his time he was a rare philosopher and thecheerfullest of a thousand. If he had some imperfection, so have you, sohave 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 instructorand domestic, was he held in such estimation, that he wished, if he had notbeen 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 hewith a numerous army in battle-rank was coming against them, were all ofthem, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and therefore were notneglective of their duty in doing their best endeavours to put themselvesin 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, fencedthemselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricadedthe false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticedbarbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol. Everyonedid watch and ward, and not one was exempted from carrying the basket. Some polished corslets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned theheadpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs. Others madeready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls, firebrands, balists, scorpions, and other such warlike engines expugnatoryand 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. Theyset 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 hisnatural hanger; nor was there a woman amongst them, though never soreserved or old, who made not her harness to be well furbished; as you knowthe Corinthian women of old were reputed very courageous combatants. 

Diogenes seeing them all so warm at work, and himself not employed by themagistrates in any business whatsoever, he did very seriously, for manydays together, without speaking one word, consider and contemplate thecountenance of his fellow-citizens. 

Then on a sudden, as if he had been roused up and inspired by a martialspirit, he girded his cloak scarfwise about his left arm, tucked up hissleeves 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 Corinthcalled (the) Cranie; and there on the strand, a pretty level place, did heroll his jolly tub, which served him for a house to shelter him from theinjuries of the weather: there, I say, in a great vehemency of spirit, didhe 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, throwit, overthrow it, upside down, topsy-turvy, arsiturvy, tread it, trampleit, 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 thenagain in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittledit, 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 precipitatedit from the very height of the Cranie; then from the foot to the top (likeanother Sisyphus with his stone) bore it up again, and every way so bangedit and belaboured it that it was ten thousand to one he had not struck thebottom of it out. 

Which when one of his friends had seen, and asked him why he did so toilhis body, perplex his spirit, and torment his tub, the philosopher's answerwas that, not being employed in any other charge by the Republic, hethought 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 mightnot seem a loitering slug and lazy fellow. To the same purpose may I sayof 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 atrust of any great concernment, and considering that through all the partsof this most noble kingdom of France, both on this and on the other side ofthe mountains, everyone is most diligently exercised and busied, some inthe fortifying of their own native country for its defence, others in therepulsing of their enemies by an offensive war; and all this with a policyso excellent and such admirable order, so manifestly profitable for thefuture, whereby France shall have its frontiers most magnifically enlarged, and the French assured of a long and well-grounded peace, that very littlewithholds me from the opinion of good Heraclitus, which affirmeth war to bethe father of all good things; and therefore do I believe that war is inLatin called bellum, not by antiphrasis, as some patchers of old rustyLatin would have us to think, because in war there is little beauty to beseen, but absolutely and simply; for that in war appeareth all that is goodand graceful, and that by the wars is purged out all manner of wickednessand deformity. For proof whereof the wise and pacific Solomon could nobetter represent the unspeakable perfection of the divine wisdom, than bycomparing 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 mycompatriots 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 butto carry burthens, fill ditches, or break clods, either whereof had been tome indifferent, I held it not a little disgraceful to be only an idlespectator of so many valorous, eloquent, and warlike persons, who in theview and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragi-comedy, and not make some effort towards the performance of this, nothing at allremains for me to be done ('And not exert myself, and contribute theretothis nothing, my all, which remained for me to do. '--Ozell. ). In myopinion, little honour is due to such as are mere lookers-on, liberal oftheir eyes, and of their crowns, and hide their silver; scratching theirhead with one finger like grumbling puppies, gaping at the flies like tithecalves; clapping down their ears like Arcadian asses at the melody ofmusicians, who with their very countenances in the depth of silence expresstheir consent to the prosopopoeia. Having made this choice and election, it seemed to me that my exercise therein would be neither unprofitable nortroublesome 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 formermisfortunes. 

At this dingle dangle wagging of my tub, what would you have me to do? Bythe 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; itis my Caballine fountain; it is my sole enthusiasm. Drinking thus, Imeditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude. After that the epilogue ismade, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again. Ennius drinking wrote, and writing drank. Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his Symposiacs merit anyfaith, drank composing, and drinking composed. Homer never wrote fasting, and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk. These passages I havebrought before you to the end you may not say that I lived without theexample of men well praised and better prized. It is good and freshenough, 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 praisedfor it eternally! If you after the same manner would take one greatdraught, or two little ones, whilst you have your gown about you, I trulyfind no kind of inconveniency in it, provided you send up to God for allsome small scantling of thanks. 

Since then my luck or destiny is such as you have heard--for it is not foreverybody to go to Corinth--I am fully resolved to be so little idle andunprofitable, that I will set myself to serve the one and the other sort ofpeople. Amongst the diggers, pioneers, and rampire-builders, I will do asdid Neptune and Apollo at Troy under Laomedon, or as did Renault ofMontauban in his latter days: I will serve the masons, I'll set on the potto boil for the bricklayers; and, whilst the minced meat is making ready atthe 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 thegreat and renowned city of Thebes. 

For the use of the warriors I am about to broach of new my barrel to givethem a taste (which by two former volumes of mine, if by the deceitfulnessand falsehood of printers they had not been jumbled, marred, and spoiled, you would have very well relished), and draw unto them, of the growth ofour own trippery pastimes, a gallant third part of a gallon, andconsequently a jolly cheerful quart of Pantagruelic sentences, which youmay lawfully call, if you please, Diogenical: and shall have me, seeing Icannot be their fellow-soldier, for their faithful butler, refreshing andcheering, according to my little power, their return from the alarms of theenemy; as also for an indefatigable extoller of their martial exploits andglorious achievements. I shall not fail therein, par lapathium acutum dedieu; 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, oneday, amongst the many spoils and booties which by his victories he hadacquired, presenting to the Egyptians, in the open view of the people, aBactrian camel all black, and a party-coloured slave, in such sort as thatthe one half of his body was black and the other white, not in partition ofbreadth by the diaphragma, as was that woman consecrated to the IndianVenus whom the Tyanean philosopher did see between the river Hydaspes andMount Caucasus, but in a perpendicular dimension of altitude; which werethings never before that seen in Egypt. He expected by the show of thesenovelties to win the love of the people. But what happened thereupon? Atthe production of the camel they were all affrighted, and offended at thesight of the party-coloured man--some scoffed at him as a detestablemonster brought forth by the error of nature; in a word, of the hope whichhe had to please these Egyptians, and by such means to increase theaffection which they naturally bore him, he was altogether frustrate anddisappointed; understanding fully by their deportments that they took morepleasure and delight in things that were proper, handsome, and perfect, than in misshapen, monstrous, and ridiculous creatures. Since which timehe had both the slave and the camel in such dislike, that very shortlythereafter, 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, misdoubtingthat, for the contentment which I aim at, I will but reap what shall bemost distasteful to me: my cake will be dough, and for my Venus I shallhave but some deformed puppy: instead of serving them, I shall but vexthem, and offend them whom I purpose to exhilarate; resembling in thisdubious adventure Euclion's cook, so renowned by Plautus in his Pot, and byAusonius in his Griphon, and by divers others; which cook, for having byhis scraping discovered a treasure, had his hide well curried. Put thecase I get no anger by it, though formerly such things fell out, and thelike may occur again. Yet, by Hercules! it will not. So I perceive inthem all one and the same specifical form, and the like individualproperties, which our ancestors called Pantagruelism; by virtue whereofthey will bear with anything that floweth from a good, free, and loyalheart. I have seen them ordinarily take goodwill in part of payment, andremain satisfied therewith when one was not able to do better. Havingdespatched this point, I return to my barrel. 

Up, my lads, to this wine, spare it not! Drink, boys, and trowl it off atfull bowls! If you do not think it good, let it alone. I am not likethose officious and importunate sots, who by force, outrage, and violence, constrain an easy good-natured fellow to whiffle, quaff, carouse, and whatis worse. All honest tipplers, all honest gouty men, all such as area-dry, coming to this little barrel of mine, need not drink thereof if itplease them not; but if they have a mind to it, and that the wine proveagreeable to the tastes of their worshipful worships, let them drink, frankly, freely, and boldly, without paying anything, and welcome. This ismy decree, my statute and ordinance. 

And let none fear there shall be any want of wine, as at the marriage ofCana in Galilee; for how much soever you shall draw forth at the faucet, somuch shall I tun in at the bung. Thus shall the barrel remaininexhaustible; it hath a lively spring and perpetual current. Such was thebeverage contained within the cup of Tantalus, which was figurativelyrepresented amongst the Brachman sages. Such was in Iberia the mountain ofsalt so highly written of by Cato. Such was the branch of gold consecratedto the subterranean goddess, which Virgil treats of so sublimely. It is atrue cornucopia of merriment and raillery. If at any time it seem to youto be emptied to the very lees, yet shall it not for all that be drawnwholly 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 Ihave said, and what manner of people they be whom I do invite; for, to theend that none be deceived, I, in imitation of Lucilius, who did protestthat he wrote only to his own Tarentines and Consentines, have not piercedthis vessel for any else but you honest men, who are drinkers of the firstedition, and gouty blades of the highest degree. The great dorophages, bribe-mongers, have on their hands occupation enough, and enough on thehooks for their venison. There may they follow their prey; here is nogarbage for them. You pettifoggers, garblers, and masters of chicanery, speak not to me, I beseech you, in the name of, and for the reverence youbear to the four hips that engendered you and to the quickening peg whichat that time conjoined them. As for hypocrites, much less; although theywere all of them unsound in body, pockified, scurvy, furnished withunquenchable thirst and insatiable eating. (And wherefore?) Becauseindeed they are not of good but of evil, and of that evil from which wedaily pray to God to deliver us. And albeit we see them sometimescounterfeit devotion, yet never did old ape make pretty moppet. Hence, mastiffs; dogs in a doublet, get you behind; aloof, villains, out of mysunshine; curs, to the devil! Do you jog hither, wagging your tails, topant at my wine, and bepiss my barrel? Look, here is the cudgel whichDiogenes, in his last will, ordained to be set by him after his death, forbeating away, crushing the reins, and breaking the backs of these bustuaryhobgoblins and Cerberian hellhounds. Pack you hence, therefore, youhypocrites, to your sheep-dogs; get you gone, you dissemblers, to thedevil! Hay! What, are you there yet? I renounce my part of Papimanie, ifI snatch you, Grr, Grrr, Grrrrrr. Avaunt, avaunt! Will you not be gone?May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, neverpiss 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, transportedthereunto a colony of Utopians, to the number of 9, 876, 543, 210 men, besidesthe women and little children, artificers of all trades, and professors ofall sciences, to people, cultivate, and improve that country, whichotherwise was ill inhabited, and in the greatest part thereof but a meredesert and wilderness; and did transport them (not) so much for theexcessive multitude of men and women, which were in Utopia multiplied, fornumber, like grasshoppers upon the face of the land. You understand wellenough, nor is it needful further to explain it to you, that the Utopianmen had so rank and fruitful genitories, and that the Utopian women carriedmatrixes so ample, so gluttonous, so tenaciously retentive, and soarchitectonically cellulated, that at the end of every ninth month sevenchildren at the least, what male what female, were brought forth by everymarried woman, in imitation of the people of Israel in Egypt, if Anthony(Nicholas) de Lyra be to be trusted. Nor yet was this transplantation madeso much for the fertility of the soil, the wholesomeness of the air, orcommodity of the country of Dipsody, as to retain that rebellious peoplewithin the bounds of their duty and obedience, by this new transport of hisancient and most faithful subjects, who, from all time out of mind, neverknew, acknowledged, owned, or served any other sovereign lord but him; andwho likewise, from the very instant of their birth, as soon as they wereentered into this world, had, with the milk of their mothers and nurses, sucked in the sweetness, humanity, and mildness of his government, to whichthey were all of them so nourished and habituated, that there was nothingsurer than that they would sooner abandon their lives than swerve from thissingular 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 fromtheir blood, be such, but also would keep and maintain in this same fealtyand obsequious observance all the nations lately annexed to his empire;which so truly came to pass that therein he was not disappointed of hisintent. For if the Utopians were before their transplantation thitherdutiful and faithful subjects, the Dipsodes, after some few days conversingwith them, were every whit as, if not more, loyal than they; and that byvirtue of I know not what natural fervency incident to all human creaturesat the beginning of any labour wherein they take delight: solemnlyattesting the heavens and supreme intelligences of their being only sorrythat no sooner unto their knowledge had arrived the great renown of thegood Pantagruel. 

Remark therefore here, honest drinkers, that the manner of preserving andretaining countries newly conquered in obedience is not, as hath been theerroneous opinion of some tyrannical spirits to their own detriment anddishonour, to pillage, plunder, force, spoil, trouble, oppress, vex, disquiet, ruin and destroy the people, ruling, governing and keeping themin awe with rods of iron; and, in a word, eating and devouring them, afterthe fashion that Homer calls an unjust and wicked king, Demoboron, that isto say, a devourer of his people. 

I will not bring you to this purpose the testimony of ancient writers. Itshall 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 givensuck to, rocked in a cradle, and dandled. Trees newly planted must besupported, underpropped, strengthened and defended against all tempests, mischiefs, injuries, and calamities. And one lately saved from a long anddangerous sickness, and new upon his recovery, must be forborn, spared, andcherished, in such sort that they may harbour in their own breasts thisopinion, that there is not in the world a king or a prince who does notdesire fewer enemies and more friends. Thus Osiris, the great king of theEgyptians, conquered almost the whole earth, not so much by force of armsas by easing the people of their troubles, teaching them how to live well, and honestly giving them good laws, and using them with all possibleaffability, courtesy, gentleness, and liberality. Therefore was he by allmen 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 themangels if you will, or geniuses, ) as intercessors and mediators betwixt thegods and men, they being of a degree inferior to the gods, but superior tomen. And for that through their hands the riches and benefits we get fromheaven are dealt to us, and that they are continually doing us good andstill protecting us from evil, he saith that they exercise the offices ofkings; because to do always good, and never ill, is an act most singularlyroyal. 

Just such another was the emperor of the universe, Alexander theMacedonian. After this manner was Hercules sovereign possessor of thewhole continent, relieving men from monstrous oppressions, exactions, andtyrannies; governing them with discretion, maintaining them in equity andjustice, instructing them with seasonable policies and wholesome laws, convenient for and suitable to the soil, climate, and disposition of thecountry, supplying what was wanting, abating what was superfluous, andpardoning all that was past, with a sempiternal forgetfulness of allpreceding offences, as was the amnesty of the Athenians, when by theprowess, valour, and industry of Thrasybulus the tyrants wereexterminated; afterwards at Rome by Cicero exposed, and renewed under theEmperor Aurelian. These are the philtres, allurements, iynges, inveiglements, baits, and enticements of love, by the means whereof thatmay be peaceably revived which was painfully acquired. Nor can aconqueror 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 appearin the goodwill and affection of the people, when he maketh laws, publisheth ordinances, establisheth religion, and doth what is right toeveryone, 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 greatking Kosmetora laon, that is, the ornament of the people. 

Such was the consideration of Numa Pompilius, the second king of theRomans, a just politician and wise philosopher, when he ordained that togod Terminus, on the day of his festival called Terminales, nothing shouldbe 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 dothotherwise, shall not only lose what he hath gained, but also be loaded withthis scandal and reproach, that he is an unjust and wicked purchaser, andhis acquests perish with him; Juxta illud, male parta, male dilabuntur. And although during his whole lifetime he should have peaceable possessionthereof, yet if what hath been so acquired moulder away in the hands of hisheirs, the same opprobry, scandal, and imputation will be charged upon thedefunct, and his memory remain accursed for his unjust and unwarrantableconquest; Juxta illud, de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres. 

Remark, likewise, gentlemen, you gouty feoffees, in this main point worthyof your observation, how by these means Pantagruel of one angel made two, which was a contingency opposite to the counsel of Charlemagne, who madetwo devils of one when he transplanted the Saxons into Flanders and theFlemings into Saxony. For, not being able to keep in such subjection theSaxons, whose dominion he had joined to the empire, but that ever and anonthey would break forth into open rebellion if he should casually be drawninto Spain or other remote kingdoms, he caused them to be brought unto hisown 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 transplantedinto a strange land. But it happened that the Saxons persisted in theirrebellion and primitive obstinacy, and the Flemings dwelling in Saxony didimbibe the stubborn manners and conditions of the Saxons. 

Chapter 3. II. 

How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did waste hisrevenue before it came in. 

Whilst Pantagruel was giving order for the government of all Dipsody, heassigned to Panurge the lairdship of Salmigondin, which was yearly worth6, 789, 106, 789 reals of certain rent, besides the uncertain revenue of thelocusts and periwinkles, amounting, one year with another, to the value of435, 768, or 2, 435, 769 French crowns of Berry. Sometimes it did amount to1, 230, 554, 321 seraphs, when it was a good year, and that locusts andperiwinkles were in request; but that was not every year. 

Now his worship, the new laird, husbanded this his estate so providentlywell and prudently, that in less than fourteen days he wasted anddilapidated all the certain and uncertain revenue of his lairdship forthree whole years. Yet did not he properly dilapidate it, as you mightsay, in founding of monasteries, building of churches, erecting ofcolleges, and setting up of hospitals, or casting his bacon-flitches to thedogs; 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 thesale 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 noway offended at the matter, angry nor sorry; for I once told you, and againtell it you, that he was the best, little, great goodman that ever girded asword to his side. He took all things in good part, and interpreted everyaction to the best sense. He never vexed nor disquieted himself with theleast pretence of dislike to anything, because he knew that he must havemost grossly abandoned the divine mansion of reason if he had permitted hismind to be never so little grieved, afflicted, or altered at any occasionwhatsoever. For all the goods that the heaven covereth, and that the earthcontaineth, 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 ouraffections, trouble or perplex our senses or spirits. 

He drew only Panurge aside, and then, making to him a sweet remonstranceand mild admonition, very gently represented before him in strongarguments, that, if he should continue in such an unthrifty course ofliving, and not become a better mesnagier, it would prove altogetherimpossible for him, or at least hugely difficult, at any time to make himrich. Rich! answered Panurge; have you fixed your thoughts there? Haveyou undertaken the task to enrich me in this world? Set your mind to livemerrily, in the name of God and good folks; let no other cark nor care beharboured within the sacrosanctified domicile of your celestial brain. Maythe calmness and tranquillity thereof be never incommodated with, orovershadowed by any frowning clouds of sullen imaginations and displeasingannoyance! For if you live joyful, merry, jocund, and glad, I cannot bebut 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 thatvirtue of mesnagery who know not what belongs to it. It is by me that theymust be advised. From me, therefore, take this advertisement andinformation, that what is imputed to me for a vice hath been done inimitation of the university and parliament of Paris, places in which is tobe found the true spring and source of the lively idea of Pantheology andall 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 isinstalled. 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 fourcardinal virtues. Of prudence in borrowing money beforehand; for noneknows what may fall out. Who is able to tell if the world shall last yetthree years? But although it should continue longer, is there any man sofoolish 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 sellinggoods cheap, that is, for ready money. What says Cato in his Book ofHusbandry to this purpose? The father of a family, says he, must be aperpetual seller; by which means it is impossible but that at last he shallbecome 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, likeUlysses, 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 thepleasure 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 forthemselves alone, but that in their proper persons their acquaintance mayclaim one share, and their friends another. 

The virtue of fortitude appears therein by the cutting down andoverthrowing of the great trees, like a second Milo making havoc of thedark forest, which did serve only to furnish dens, caves, and shelter towolves, wild boars, and foxes, and afford receptacles, withdrawing corners, and refuges to robbers, thieves, and murderers, lurking holes and skulkingplaces for cutthroat assassinators, secret obscure shops for coiners offalse money, and safe retreats for heretics, laying them even and levelwith the plain champaign fields and pleasant heathy ground, at the sound ofthe hautboys and bagpipes playing reeks with the high and stately timber, and preparing seats and benches for the eve of the dreadful day ofjudgment. 

I gave thereby proof of my temperance in eating my corn whilst it was butgrass, like a hermit feeding upon salads and roots, that, so affranchisingmyself from the yoke of sensual appetites to the utter disclaiming of theirsovereignty, I might the better reserve somewhat in store for the relief ofthe lame, blind, crippled, maimed, needy, poor, and wanting wretches. 

In taking this course I save the expense of the weed-grubbers, who gainmoney, --of the reapers in harvest-time, who drink lustily, and withoutwater, --of gleaners, who will expect their cakes and bannocks, --ofthreshers, who leave no garlic, scallions, leeks, nor onions in ourgardens, by the authority of Thestilis in Virgil, --and of the millers, whoare generally thieves, --and of the bakers, who are little better. Is thissmall saving or frugality? Besides the mischief and damage of thefield-mice, the decay of barns, and the destruction usually made byweasels and other vermin. 

Of corn in the blade you may make good green sauce of a light concoctionand easy digestion, which recreates the brain and exhilarates the animalspirits, 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 theblood, disburdens the midriff, refresheth the liver, disobstructs thespleen, easeth the kidneys, suppleth the reins, quickens the joints of theback, cleanseth the urine-conduits, dilates the spermatic vessels, shortensthe cremasters, purgeth the bladder, puffeth up the genitories, correcteththe prepuce, hardens the nut, and rectifies the member. It will make youhave 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, saysPantagruel; you would thereby infer that those of a mean spirit and shallowcapacity have not the skill to spend much in a short time. You are not thefirst in whose conceit that heresy hath entered. Nero maintained it, andabove all mortals admired most his uncle Caius Caligula, for having in afew days, by a most wonderfully pregnant invention, totally spent all thegoods 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 wereinhibited, under pain of great punishment, not to spend more in one yearthan their annual revenue did amount to, you have offered up the oblationof Protervia, which was with the Romans such a sacrifice as the paschallamb was amongst the Jews, wherein all that was eatable was to be eaten, and the remainder to be thrown into the fire, without reserving anythingfor 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 meansand possessions he had to one only house, he fairly set it on fire, that hemight the better say, Consummatum est. Even just as since his time St. Thomas Aquinas did, when he had eaten up the whole lamprey, although therewas 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 ensuingterm of the Greek kalends, answered Panurge, when all the world shall becontent, and that it be your fate to become your own heir. The Lord forbidthat I should be out of debt, as if, indeed, I could not be trusted. Wholeaves not some leaven over night, will hardly have paste the next morning. 

Be still indebted to somebody or other, that there may be somebody alwaysto pray for you, that the giver of all good things may grant unto you ablessed, long, and prosperous life; fearing, if fortune should deal crosslywith 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 purchasenew creditors unto you; to the end, that through their means you may make ashift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and with other folk's earth fillup his ditch. When of old, in the region of the Gauls, by the institutionof the Druids, the servants, slaves, and bondmen were burnt quick at thefunerals and obsequies of their lords and masters, had not they fearenough, think you, that their lords and masters should die? For, perforce, they were to die with them for company. Did not they incessantly send uptheir supplications to their great god Mercury, as likewise unto Dis, thefather of wealth, to lengthen out their days, and to preserve them long inhealth? Were not they very careful to entertain them well, punctually tolook unto them, and to attend them faithfully and circumspectly? For bythose means were they to live together at least until the hour of death. Believe me, your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseechAlmighty God to prolong your life, they being of nothing more afraid thanthat you should die; for that they are more concerned for the sleeve thanthe arm, and love silver better than their own lives. As it evidentlyappeareth by the usurers of Landerousse, who not long since hangedthemselves because the price of the corn and wines was fallen by the returnof a gracious season. To this Pantagruel answering nothing, Panurge wenton in his discourse, saying, Truly and in good sooth, sir, when I ponder mydestiny 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 andcreditors. And yet did I, in this only respect and consideration of beinga debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable. For againstthe opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth nothing, yet, without having bottomed on so much as that which is called the FirstMatter, did I out of nothing become such (a) maker and creator, that I havecreated--what?--a gay number of fair and jolly creditors. Nay, creditors, I will maintain it, even to the very fire itself exclusively, are fair andgoodly creatures. Who lendeth nothing is an ugly and wicked creature, andan 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, Isay, surmounting the number of syllables which may result from thecombinations of all the consonants, with each of the vowels heretoforeprojected, reckoned, and calculated by the noble Xenocrates. To judge ofthe perfection of debtors by the numerosity of their creditors is thereadiest way for entering into the mysteries of practical arithmetic. 

You can hardly imagine how glad I am, when every morning I perceive myselfenvironed and surrounded with brigades of creditors--humble, fawning, andfull of their reverences. And whilst I remark that, as I look morefavourably upon and give a cheerfuller countenance to one than to another, the fellow thereupon buildeth a conceit that he shall be the firstdespatched and the foremost in the date of payment, and he valueth mysmiles at the rate of ready money, it seemeth unto me that I then act andpersonate the god of the passion of Saumure, accompanied with his angelsand cherubims. 

These are my flatterers, my soothers, my clawbacks, my smoothers, myparasites, my saluters, my givers of good-morrows, and perpetual orators;which makes me verily think that the supremest height of heroic virtuedescribed by Hesiod consisteth in being a debtor, wherein I held the firstdegree in my commencement. Which dignity, though all human creatures seemto aim at and aspire thereto, few nevertheless, because of the difficultiesin the way and encumbrances of hard passages, are able to reach it, as iseasily perceivable by the ardent desire and vehement longing harboured inthe 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 acquirecreditors is not at the disposure of each man's arbitrament. Younevertheless would deprive me of this sublime felicity. You ask me when Iwill be out of debt. Well, to go yet further on, and possibly worse inyour conceit, may Saint Bablin, the good saint, snatch me, if I have notall my lifetime held debt to be as a union or conjunction of the heavenswith the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of mankind is kepttogether; yea, of such virtue and efficacy that, I say, the whole progenyof Adam would very suddenly perish without it. Therefore, perhaps, I donot 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 ofthings. In confirmation whereof, that you may the better believe it to beso, represent unto yourself, without any prejudicacy of spirit, in a clearand serene fancy, the idea and form of some other world than this; take, ifyou please, and lay hold on the thirtieth of those which the philosopherMetrodorus did enumerate, wherein it is to be supposed there is no debtoror creditor, that is to say, a world without debts. 

There amongst the planets will be no regular course, all will be indisorder. Jupiter, reckoning himself to be nothing indebted unto Saturn, will go near to detrude him out of his sphere, and with the Homeric chainwill 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 ofconfusion. 

Mercury then would be no more subjected to the other planets; he wouldscorn to be any longer their Camillus, as he was of old termed in theEtrurian tongue. For it is to be imagined that he is no way a debtor tothem. 

Venus will be no more venerable, because she shall have lent nothing. Themoon will remain bloody and obscure. For to what end should the sun impartunto her any of his light? He owed her nothing. Nor yet will the sunshine upon the earth, nor the stars send down any good influence, becausethe terrestrial globe hath desisted from sending up their wontednourishment by vapours and exhalations, wherewith Heraclitus said, theStoics proved, Cicero maintained, they were cherished and alimented. Therewould likewise be in such a world no manner of symbolization, alteration, nor transmutation amongst the elements; for the one will not esteem itselfobliged to the other, as having borrowed nothing at all from it. Earththen will not become water, water will not be changed into air, of air willbe made no fire, and fire will afford no heat unto the earth; the earthwill produce nothing but monsters, Titans, giants; no rain will descendupon it, nor light shine thereon; no wind will blow there, nor will therebe in it any summer or harvest. Lucifer will break loose, and issuingforth of the depth of hell, accompanied with his furies, fiends, and horneddevils, will go about to unnestle and drive out of heaven all the gods, aswell of the greater as of the lesser nations. Such a world without lendingwill 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 anhurlyburly, and more disordered confusion than that of the plagues ofDouay. Men will not then salute one another; it will be but lost labour toexpect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murder, for nonewill put to their helping hand. Why? He lent no money, there is nothingdue to him. Nobody is concerned in his burning, in his shipwreck, in hisruin, or in his death; and that because he hitherto had lent nothing, andwould never thereafter have lent anything. In short, Faith, Hope, andCharity would be quite banished from such a world--for men are born torelieve and assist one another; and in their stead should succeed and beintroduced Defiance, Disdain, and Rancour, with the most execrable troop ofall evils, all imprecations, and all miseries. Whereupon you will think, and that not amiss, that Pandora had there spilt her unlucky bottle. Menunto 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, orTimon the Athenian, who for that cause was named Misanthropos, in suchsort that it would prove much more easy in nature to have fish entertainedin the air and bullocks fed in the bottom of the ocean, than to support ortolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend. These fellows, Ivow, do I hate with a perfect hatred; and if, conform to the pattern ofthis grievous, peevish, and perverse world which lendeth nothing, youfigure and liken the little world, which is man, you will find in him aterrible justling coil and clutter. The head will not lend the sight ofhis eyes to guide the feet and hands; the legs will refuse to bear up thebody; the hands will leave off working any more for the rest of themembers; the heart will be weary of its continual motion for the beating ofthe pulse, and will no longer lend his assistance; the lungs will withdrawthe use of their bellows; the liver will desist from convoying any moreblood through the veins for the good of the whole; the bladder will not beindebted to the kidneys, so that the urine thereby will be totally stopped. The brains, in the interim, considering this unnatural course, will fallinto a raving dotage, and withhold all feeling from the sinews and motionfrom the muscles. Briefly, in such a world without order and array, owingnothing, lending nothing, and borrowing nothing, you would see a moredangerous conspiration than that which Aesop exposed in his Apologue. Sucha world will perish undoubtedly; and not only perish, but perish veryquickly. Were it Aesculapius himself, his body would immediately rot, andthe chafing soul, full of indignation, take its flight to all the devils ofhell 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 allcreditors. O how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby resultfrom the regular motions of the heavens! Methinks I hear it every whit aswell 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 withflowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear air, wholesome andpleasant. 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 befound 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 apinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch, or churlish hard-hearted refuser. GoodGod! Will not this be the golden age in the reign of Saturn? the true ideaof the Olympic regions, wherein all (other) virtues cease, charity aloneruleth, governeth, domineereth, and triumpheth? All will be fair andgoodly people there, all just and virtuous. 

O happy world! O people of that world most happy! Yea, thrice and fourtimes 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 aforesaidworld had a pope, abounding with cardinals, that so he might have theassociation of a sacred college, in the space of very few years you shouldbe sure to see the saints much thicker in the roll, more numerous, wonder-working and mirific, more services, more vows, more staves andwax-candles than are all those in the nine bishoprics of Britany, St. Yvesonly excepted. Consider, sir, I pray you, how the noble Patelin, having amind to deify and extol even to the third heavens the father of WilliamJosseaulme, said no more but this, And he did lend his goods to those whowere desirous of them. 

O the fine saying! Now let our microcosm be fancied conform to this modelin all its members; lending, borrowing, and owing, that is to say, according to its own nature. For nature hath not to any other end createdman, but to owe, borrow, and lend; no greater is the harmony amongst theheavenly 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 thereinto 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 seatof the soul; therefore the chiefest work of the microcosm is, to be makingblood continually. 

At this forge are exercised all the members of the body; none is exemptedfrom labour, each operates apart, and doth its proper office. And such istheir heirarchy, that perpetually the one borrows from the other, the onelends the other, and the one is the other's debtor. The stuff and matterconvenient, which nature giveth to be turned into blood, is bread and wine. All kind of nourishing victuals is understood to be comprehended in thesetwo, and from hence in the Gothish tongue is called companage. To find outthis meat and drink, to prepare and boil it, the hands are put to work, thefeet do walk and bear up the whole bulk of the corporal mass; the eyesguide and conduct all; the appetite in the orifice of the stomach, by meansof (a) little sourish black humour, called melancholy, which is transmittedthereto from the milt, giveth warning to shut in the food. The tongue dothmake the first essay, and tastes it; the teeth do chew it, and the stomachdoth receive, digest, and chylify it. The mesaraic veins suck out of itwhat is good and fit, leaving behind the excrements, which are, throughspecial conduits for that purpose, voided by an expulsive faculty. Thereafter it is carried to the liver, where it being changed again, it bythe virtue of that new transmutation becomes blood. What joy, conjectureyou, will then be found amongst those officers when they see this rivuletof gold, which is their sole restorative? No greater is the joy ofalchemists, when after long travail, toil, and expense they see in theirfurnaces the transmutation. Then is it that every member doth prepareitself, and strive anew to purify and to refine this treasure. The kidneysthrough the emulgent veins draw that aquosity from thence which you callurine, 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 iskept, and stayeth there until an opportunity to void it out in his duetime. The spleen draweth from the blood its terrestrial part, viz. , thegrounds, lees, or thick substance settled in the bottom thereof, which youterm melancholy. The bottle of the gall subtracts from thence all thesuperfluous choler; whence it is brought to another shop or work-house tobe yet better purified and fined, that is, the heart, which by itsagitation of diastolic and systolic motions so neatly subtilizeth andinflames 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 bodydraws it then unto itself, and after its own fashion is cherished andalimented by it. Feet, hands, thighs, arms, eyes, ears, back, breast, yea, all; and then it is, that who before were lenders, now become debtors. Theheart doth in its left side ventricle so thinnify the blood, that itthereby obtains the name of spiritual; which being sent through thearteries to all the members of the body, serveth to warm and winnow theother blood which runneth through the veins. The lights never cease withits lappets and bellows to cool and refresh it, in acknowledgment of whichgood the heart, through the arterial vein, imparts unto it the choicest ofits 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, bymeans whereof the imagination, discourse, judgment, resolution, deliberation, ratiocination, and memory have their rise, actings, andoperations. 

Cops body, I sink, I drown, I perish, I wander astray, and quite fly out ofmyself when I enter into the consideration of the profound abyss of thisworld, thus lending, thus owing. Believe me, it is a divine thing tolend, --to owe, an heroic virtue. Yet is not this all. This little worldthus lending, owing, and borrowing, is so good and charitable, that nosooner is the above-specified alimentation finished, but that it forthwithprojecteth, and hath already forecast, how it shall lend to those who arenot 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 endevery member doth of the choicest and most precious of its nourishment pareand cut off a portion, then instantly despatcheth it downwards to thatplace where nature hath prepared for it very fit vessels and receptacles, through which descending to the genitories by long ambages, circuits, andflexuosities, it receiveth a competent form, and rooms apt enough both inman 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 hencehave we this word, the debt of marriage. Nature doth reckon pain to therefuser, with a most grievous vexation to his members and an outrageousfury amidst his senses. But, on the other part, to the lender a setreward, 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 goodat 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, evenfrom hence to the next Whitsuntide, if you please so to do, yet in the endyou will be astonished to find how you shall have gained no ground at allupon me, nor persuaded me by your fair speeches and smooth talk to enternever so little into the thraldom of debt. You shall owe to none, saiththe 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 tellyou, if you will represent unto your fancy an impudent blustering bully andan importunate borrower, entering afresh and newly into a town alreadyadvertised of his manners, you shall find that at his ingress the citizenswill be more hideously affrighted and amazed, and in a greater terror andfear, dread, and trembling, than if the pest itself should step into it inthe very same garb and accoutrement wherein the Tyanean philosopher foundit 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 lyingare ordinarily joined together. I will nevertheless not from hence inferthat none must owe anything or lend anything. For who so rich can be thatsometimes may not owe, or who can be so poor that sometimes may not lend?

Let the occasion, notwithstanding, in that case, as Plato very wiselysayeth and ordaineth in his laws, be such that none be permitted to drawany water out of his neighbour's well until first they by continual diggingand delving into their own proper ground shall have hit upon a kind ofpotter's earth, which is called ceramite, and there had found no source ordrop of water; for that sort of earth, by reason of its substance, which isfat, strong, firm, and close, so retaineth its humidity, that it doth noteasily evaporate it by any outward excursion or evaporation. 

In good sooth, it is a great shame to choose rather to be still borrowingin all places from everyone, than to work and win. Then only in myjudgment should one lend, when the diligent, toiling, and industriousperson is no longer able by his labour to make any purchase unto himself, or otherwise, when by mischance he hath suddenly fallen into an unexpectedloss of his goods. 

Howsoever, let us leave this discourse, and from henceforwards do not hangupon creditors, nor tie yourself to them. I make account for the time pastto rid you freely of them, and from their bondage to deliver you. Theleast I should in this point, quoth Panurge, is to thank you, though it bethe most I can do. And if gratitude and thanksgiving be to be estimatedand prized by the affection of the benefactor, that is to be doneinfinitely and sempiternally; for the love which you bear me of your ownaccord and free grace, without any merit of mine, goeth far beyond thereach of any price or value. It transcends all weight, all number, allmeasure; it is endless and everlasting; therefore, should I offer tocommensurate and adjust it, either to the size and proportion of your ownnoble and gracious deeds, or yet to the contentment and delight of theobliged receivers, I would come off but very faintly and flaggingly. Youhave verily done me a great deal of good, and multiplied your favours on memore frequently than was fitting to one of my condition. You have beenmore bountiful towards me than I have deserved, and your courtesies have byfar surpassed the extent of my merits, I must needs confess it. But it isnot, as you suppose, in the proposed matter. For there it is not where Iitch, 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 tokeep? 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 amvery much afraid of it. Furthermore, there shall not one hereafter, nativeof 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 posternpetarades, use commonly to say, Voila pour les quittes, that is, For thequit. My life will be of very short continuance, I do foresee it. Irecommend to you the making of my epitaph; for I perceive I will dieconfected in the very stench of farts. If, at any time to come, by way ofrestorative to such good women as shall happen to be troubled with thegrievous pain of the wind-colic, the ordinary medicaments prove nothingeffectual, the mummy of all my befarted body will straight be as a presentremedy appointed by the physicians; whereof they, taking any small modicum, it will incontinently for their ease afford them a rattle of bumshot, likea sal of muskets. 

Therefore would I beseech you to leave me some few centuries of debts; asKing Louis the Eleventh, exempting from suits in law the Reverend Milesd'Illiers, Bishop of Chartres, was by the said bishop most earnestlysolicited to leave him some few for the exercise of his mind. I had rathergive them all my revenue of the periwinkles, together with the otherincomes of the locusts, albeit I should not thereby have any parcel abatedfrom off the principal sums which I owe. Let us waive this matter, quothPantagruel, 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, thosethat should build a new house, and the new married men, should be exemptedand 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; mycondition, at this present, induceth me to remain satisfied with the careof vintage, finishing and turning the grapes into wine. Nor are thesepretty new builders of dead stones written or pricked down in my Book ofLife. It is all with live stones that I set up and erect the fabrics of myarchitecture, to wit, men. It was, according to my opinion, quothPantagruel, to the end, first, that the fresh married folks should for thefirst year reap a full and complete fruition of their pleasures in theirmutual exercise of the act of love, in such sort, that in waiting more atleisure 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 ofsome military adventure, happen to be killed, their names and coats-of-armsmight continue with their children in the same families. And next, that, the wives thereby coming to know whether they were barren or fruitful--forone year's trial, in regard of the maturity of age wherein of old theymarried, was held sufficient for the discovery--they might pitch the moresuitably, 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 oftheir own lineage, choose them only for their virtues, learning, genteelbehaviour, domestic consolation, management of the house, and matrimonialconveniences and comforts, and such like. The preachers of Varennes, saithPanurge, detest and abhor the second marriages, as altogether foolish anddishonest. 

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 thereinabominating the reiteration of marriage and the entering again in the bondsof a nuptial tie, did swear and heartily give himself to the swiftest devilin hell, if he had not rather choose, and would much more willinglyundertake the unmaidening or depucelating of a hundred virgins, than thesimple drudgery of one widow. Truly I find your reason in that point rightgood and strongly grounded. 

But what would you think, if the cause why this exemption or immunity wasgranted had no other foundation but that, during the whole space of thesaid first year, they so lustily bobbed it with their female consorts, asboth reason and equity require they should do, that they had drained andevacuated their spermatic vessels; and were become thereby altogetherfeeble, weak, emasculated, drooping, and flaggingly pithless; yea, in suchsort that they in the day of battle, like ducks which plunge over head andears, would sooner hide themselves behind the baggage, than, in the companyof valiant fighters and daring military combatants, appear where sternBellona 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 muchas once strike a fair stroke, because their most considerable knocks havebeen already jerked and whirrited within the curtains of his sweetheartVenus. 

In confirmation whereof, amongst other relics and monuments of antiquity, we now as yet often see, that in all great houses, after the expiring ofsome few days, these young married blades are readily sent away to visittheir uncles, that in the absence of their wives reposing themselves alittle they may recover their decayed strength by the recruit of a freshsupply, the more vigorous to return again and face about to renew theduelling shock and conflict of an amorous dalliance, albeit for the greaterpart they have neither uncle nor aunt to go to. 

Just so did the King Crackart, after the battle of the Cornets, not cashierus (speaking properly), I mean me and the Quail-caller, but for ourrefreshment remanded us to our houses; and he is as yet seeking after hisown. 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 didseldom eat of the grapes, or drink of the wine of their labour, till thefirst year was wholly elapsed. During all which time also the builders didhardly inhabit their new-structured dwelling-places, for fear of dyingsuffocated through want of respiration; as Galen hath most learnedlyremarked, in the second book of the Difficulty of Breathing. Under favour, sir, I have not asked this question without cause causing and reason trulyvery ratiocinant. Be not offended, I pray you. 

Chapter 3. VII. 

How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer hismagnificent codpiece. 

Panurge, the day thereafter, caused pierce his right ear after the Jewishfashion, and thereto clasped a little gold ring, of a ferny-like kind ofworkmanship, 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 fleawas black. O, what a brave thing it is, in every case and circumstance ofa 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, wasfound to amount to no more quarterly than the charge of the nuptials of aHircanian tigress; even, as you would say, 600, 000 maravedis. At thesevast costs and excessive disbursements, as soon as he perceived himself tobe out of debt, he fretted much; and afterwards, as tyrants and lawyers useto do, he nourished and fed her with the sweat and blood of his subjectsand clients. 

He then took four French ells of a coarse brown russet cloth, and thereinapparelling himself, as with a long, plain-seamed, and single-stitchedgown, left off the wearing of his breeches, and tied a pair of spectaclesto his cap. In this equipage did he present himself before Pantagruel; towhom this disguise appeared the more strange, that he did not, as before, see that goodly, fair, and stately codpiece, which was the sole anchor ofhope wherein he was wonted to rely, and last refuge he had midst all thewaves and boisterous billows which a stormy cloud in a cross fortune wouldraise up against him. Honest Pantagruel, not understanding the mystery, asked him, by way of interrogatory, what he did intend to personate in thatnew-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 toldme joyful tidings. Yet would not I hold a red-hot iron in my hand for allthe gladness of them. But it is not the fashion of lovers to be accoutredin such dangling vestments, so as to have their shirts flagging down overtheir knees, without breeches, and with a long robe of a dark brown mingledhue, which is a colour never used in Talarian garments amongst any personsof honour, quality, or virtue. If some heretical persons and schismaticalsectaries have at any time formerly been so arrayed and clothed (thoughmany have imputed such a kind of dress to cosenage, cheat, imposture, andan affectation of tyranny upon credulous minds of the rude multitude), Iwill nevertheless not blame them for it, nor in that point judge rashly orsinistrously of them. Everyone overflowingly aboundeth in his own senseand fancy; yea, in things of a foreign consideration, altogetherextrinsical and indifferent, which in and of themselves are neithercommendable nor bad, because they proceed not from the interior of thethoughts and heart, which is the shop of all good and evil; of goodness, ifit be upright, and that its affections be regulated by the pure and cleanspirit of righteousness; and, on the other side, of wickedness, if itsinclinations, straying beyond the bounds of equity, be corrupted anddepraved by the malice and suggestions of the devil. It is only thenovelty and new-fangledness thereof which I dislike, together with thecontempt of common custom and the fashion which is in use. 

The colour, answered Panurge, is convenient, for it is conform to thatof my council-board carpet; therefore will I henceforth hold me with it, and more narrowly and circumspectly than ever hitherto I have done look tomy affairs and business. Seeing I am once out of debt, you never yet sawman more unpleasing than I will be, if God help me not. Lo, here be myspectacles. 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 shallonce more preach the Crusade. Bounce, buckram. Do you see this russet?Doubt not but there lurketh under it some hid property and occult virtueknown 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, andvehemently hot upon untying the codpiece-point; I itch, I tingle, Iwriggle, and long exceedingly to be married, that, without the danger ofcudgel-blows, I may labour my female copes-mate with the hard push of abull-horned devil. O the provident and thrifty husband that I then willbe! After my death, with all honour and respect due to my frugality, willthey burn the sacred bulk of my body, of purpose to preserve the ashesthereof, in memory of the choicest pattern that ever was of a perfectlywary and complete householder. Cops body, this is not the carpet whereonmy treasurer shall be allowed to play false in his accounts with me, bysetting down an X for a V, or an L for an S. For in that case should Imake a hail of fisticuffs to fly into his face. Look upon me, sir, bothbefore and behind, --it is made after the manner of a toga, which was theancient 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 Archof Septimus Severus. I am tired of the wars, weary of wearing buff-coats, cassocks, and hoquetons. My shoulders are pitifully worn and bruised withthe 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 bemarried; as yesterday, by the Mosaic law, you evidenced. In whatconcerneth the breeches, my great-aunt Laurence did long ago tell me, thatthe breeches were only ordained for the use of the codpiece, and to noother end; which I, upon a no less forcible consequence, give credit toevery whit, as well as to the saying of the fine fellow Galen, who in hisninth book, Of the Use and Employment of our Members, allegeth that thehead was made for the eyes. For nature might have placed our heads in ourknees or elbows, but having beforehand determined that the eyes shouldserve to discover things from afar, she for the better enabling them toexecute their designed office, fixed them in the head, as on the top of along pole, in the most eminent part of all the body--no otherwise than wesee the phares, or high towers erected in the mouths of havens, thatnavigators may the further off perceive with ease the lights of the nightlyfires and lanterns. And because I would gladly, for some short while, ayear at least, take a little rest and breathing time from the toilsomelabour of the military profession, that is to say, be married, I havedesisted from wearing any more a codpiece, and consequently have laid asidemy breeches. For the codpiece is the principal and most especial piece ofarmour that a warrior doth carry; and therefore do I maintain even to thefire (exclusively, understand you me), that no Turks can properly be saidto be armed men, in regard that codpieces are by their law forbidden to beworn. 

Chapter 3. VIII. 

Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors. 

Will you maintain, quoth Pantagruel, that the codpiece is the chief pieceof a military harness? It is a new kind of doctrine, very paradoxical; forwe say, At spurs begins the arming of a man. Sir, I maintain it, answeredPanurge, and not wrongfully do I maintain it. Behold how nature, having afervent desire, after its production of plants, trees, shrubs, herbs, sponges, and plant-animals, to eternize and continue them unto allsuccession of ages (in their several kinds or sorts, at least, although theindividuals perish) unruinable, and in an everlasting being, hath mostcuriously armed and fenced their buds, sprouts, shoots, and seeds, whereinthe 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 ofstrong, 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 allplants, slips, or sets whatsoever, wherein it is plainly and evidentlyseen, that the sperm and semence is more closely veiled, overshadowed, corroborated, and thoroughly harnessed, than any other part, portion, orparcel of the whole. 

Nature, nevertheless, did not after that manner provide for thesempiternizing of (the) human race; but, on the contrary, created mannaked, tender, and frail, without either offensive or defensive arms; andthat in the estate of innocence, in the first age of all, which was thegolden season; not as a plant, but living creature, born for peace, notwar, and brought forth into the world with an unquestionable right andtitle 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 ofbeasts, fowls, fishes, reptiles, and insects. Yet afterwards it happeningin the time of the iron age, under the reign of Jupiter, when, to themultiplication of mischievous actions, wickedness and malice began to takeroot and footing within the then perverted hearts of men, that the earthbegan to bring forth nettles, thistles, thorns, briars, and such otherstubborn and rebellious vegetables to the nature of man. Nor scarce wasthere 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 hurtand harm they could. The man, then, that he might maintain his primitiveright and prerogative, and continue his sway and dominion over all, bothvegetable and sensitive creatures, and knowing of a truth that he could notbe well accommodated as he ought without the servitude and subjection ofseveral animals, bethought himself that of necessity he must needs put onarms, and make provision of harness against wars and violence. By the holySaint Babingoose, cried out Pantagruel, you are become, since the lastrain, a great lifrelofre, --philosopher, I should say. Take notice, sir, quoth Panurge, when Dame Nature had prompted him to his own arming, whatpart of the body it was, where, by her inspiration, he clapped on the firstharness. It was forsooth by the double pluck of my little dog the ballockand good Senor Don Priapos Stabo-stando--which done, he was content, andsought no more. This is certified by the testimony of the great Hebrewcaptain (and) philosopher Moses, who affirmeth that he fenced that memberwith a brave and gallant codpiece, most exquisitely framed, and by rightcurious devices of a notably pregnant invention made up and composed offig-tree leaves, which by reason of their solid stiffness, incisorynotches, curled frizzling, sleeked smoothness, large ampleness, togetherwith their colour, smell, virtue, and faculty, were exceeding proper andfit for the covering and arming of the satchels of generation--thehideously big Lorraine cullions being from thence only excepted, which, swaggering down to the lowermost bottom of the breeches, cannot abide, forbeing quite out of all order and method, the stately fashion of the highand lofty codpiece; as is manifest by the noble Valentine Viardiere, whom Ifound at Nancy, on the first day of May--the more flauntingly togallantrize it afterwards--rubbing his ballocks, spread out upon a tableafter the manner of a Spanish cloak. Wherefore it is, that none shouldhenceforth say, who would not speak improperly, when any country bumpkinhieth to the wars, Have a care, my roister, of the wine-pot, that is, theskull, but, Have a care, my roister, of the milk-pot, that is, thetesticles. By the whole rabble of the horned fiends of hell, the headbeing cut off, that single person only thereby dieth. But, if the ballocksbe marred, the whole race of human kind would forthwith perish, and be lostfor ever. 

This was the motive which incited the goodly writer Galen, Lib. 1. DeSpermate, to aver with boldness that it were better, that is to say, a lessevil, to have no heart at all than to be quite destitute of genitories; forthere is laid up, conserved, and put in store, as in a secessive repositoryand sacred warehouse, the semence and original source of the wholeoffspring of mankind. Therefore would I be apt to believe, for less than ahundred francs, that those are the very same stones by means whereofDeucalion and Pyrrha restored the human race, in peopling with men andwomen the world, which a little before that had been drowned in theoverflowing waves of a poetical deluge. This stirred up the valiantJustinian, L. 4. De Cagotis tollendis, to collocate his Summum Bonum, inBraguibus, et Braguetis. For this and other causes, the Lord Humphrey deMerville, following of his king to a certain warlike expedition, whilst hewas in trying upon his own person a new suit of armour, for of his oldrusty harness he could make no more use, by reason that some few yearssince the skin of his belly was a great way removed from his kidneys, hislady thereupon, in the profound musing of a contemplative spirit, verymaturely considering that he had but small care of the staff of love andpacket of marriage, seeing he did no otherwise arm that part of the bodythan with links of mail, advised him to shield, fence, and gabionate itwith a big tilting helmet which she had lying in her closet, to herotherwise utterly unprofitable. On this lady were penned these subsequentverses, which are extant in the third book of the Shitbrana of PaltryWenches. 

 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 newmanner 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, orno. 

To this Pantagruel replying nothing, Panurge prosecuted the discourse hehad already broached, and therewithal fetching, as from the bottom of hisheart, a very deep sigh, said, My lord and master, you have heard thedesign I am upon, which is to marry, if by some disastrous mischance allthe holes in the world be not shut up, stopped, closed, and bushed. Ihumbly beseech you, for the affection which of a long time you have borneme, to give me your best advice therein. Then, answered Pantagruel, seeingyou have so decreed, taken deliberation thereon, and that the matter isfully determined, what need is there of any further talk thereof, butforthwith to put it into execution what you have resolved? Yea but, quothPanurge, I would be loth to act anything therein without your counsel hadthereto. It is my judgment also, quoth Pantagruel, and I advise you to it. Nevertheless, quoth Panurge, if I understood aright that it were muchbetter for me to remain a bachelor as I am, than to run headlong upon newhairbrained undertakings of conjugal adventure, I would rather choose notto 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, Vaesoli! and a single person is never seen to reap the joy and solace that isfound with married folks. Then marry, in the name of God, quothPantagruel. But if, quoth Panurge, my wife should make me a cuckold--as itis not unknown unto you, how this hath been a very plentiful year in theproduction of that kind of cattle--I would fly out, and grow impatientbeyond all measure and mean. I love cuckolds with my heart, for they seemunto me to be of a right honest conversation, and I truly do very willinglyfrequent their company; but should I die for it, I would not be one oftheir number. That is a point for me of a too sore prickling point. Thendo not marry, quoth Pantagruel, for without all controversy this sentenceof Seneca is infallibly true, What thou to others shalt have done, otherswill do the like to thee. Do you, quoth Panurge, aver that without allexception? Yes, truly, quoth Pantagruel, without all exception. Ho, ho, says Panurge, by the wrath of a little devil, his meaning is, either inthis world or in the other which is to come. Yet seeing I can no more wanta 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 dealbetter for me to apply and associate myself to some one honest, lovely, andvirtuous woman, than as I do, by a new change of females every day, run ahazard of being bastinadoed, or, which is worse, of the great pox, if notof both together. For never--be it spoken by their husbands' leave andfavour--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 thatmy destiny did unluckily lead me to marry an honest woman who should beatme, I would be stored with more than two third parts of the patience ofJob, if I were not stark mad by it, and quite distracted with such ruggeddealings. For it hath been told me that those exceeding honest women haveordinarily very wicked head-pieces; therefore is it that their familylacketh 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 thumpinglybethwack her gillets, to wit, her arms, legs, head, lights, liver, andmilt, with her other entrails, and mangle, jag, and slash her coats soafter the cross-billet fashion that the greatest devil of hell should waitat the gate for the reception of her damnel soul. I could make a shift forthis year to waive such molestation and disquiet, and be content to layaside 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; markwhat I say, free from all debt, in an ill hour, for, were I deeply on thescore, my creditors would be but too careful of my paternity, but beingquit, and not married, nobody will be so regardful of me, or carry towardsme a love like that which is said to be in a conjugal affection. And if bysome mishap I should fall sick, I would be looked to very waywardly. Thewise man saith, Where there is no woman--I mean the mother of a family andwife in the union of a lawful wedlock--the crazy and diseased are in dangerof being ill used and of having much brabbling and strife about them; as byclear experience hath been made apparent in the persons of popes, legates, cardinals, bishops, abbots, priors, priests, and monks; but there, assureyourself, you shall not find me. Marry then, in the name of God, answeredPantagruel. But if, quoth Panurge, being ill at ease, and possibly throughthat distemper made unable to discharge the matrimonial duty that isincumbent to an active husband, my wife, impatient of that droopingsickness and faint-fits of a pining languishment, should abandon andprostitute herself to the embraces of another man, and not only then nothelp and assist me in my extremity and need, but withal flout at and makesport of that my grievous distress and calamity; or peradventure, which isworse, embezzle my goods and steal from me, as I have seen it oftentimesbefall 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-patereeks of Bedlam. Do not marry then, quoth Pantagruel. Yea but, saidPanurge, I shall never by any other means come to have lawful sons anddaughters, in whom I may harbour some hope of perpetuating my name andarms, and to whom also I may leave and bequeath my inheritances andpurchased goods (of which latter sort you need not doubt but that in someone or other of these mornings I will make a fair and goodly show), that soI may cheer up and make merry when otherwise I should be plunged into apeevish sullen mood of pensive sullenness, as I do perceive daily by thegentle and loving carriage of your kind and gracious father towards you; asall 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 fretand be angry, although the cause of my grief and displeasure were never sojust, I am afraid, instead of consolation, that I should meet with nothingelse but scoffs, frumps, gibes, and mocks at my disastrous fortune. Marrythen, in the name of God, quoth Pantagruel. 

Chapter 3. X. 

How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving advice inthe matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth somewhat of theHomeric and Virgilian lotteries. 

Your counsel, quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour, seemeth untome not unlike to the song of Gammer Yea-by-nay. It is full of sarcasms, mockeries, bitter taunts, nipping bobs, derisive quips, biting jerks, andcontradictory iterations, the one part destroying the other. I know not, quoth Pantagruel, which of all my answers to lay hold on; for yourproposals 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 isdemanded by them. Are not you assured within yourself of what you have amind to? The chief and main point of the whole matter lieth there. Allthe rest is merely casual, and totally dependeth upon the fatal dispositionof the heavens. 

We see some so happy in the fortune of this nuptial encounter, that theirfamily shineth as it were with the radiant effulgency of an idea, model, orrepresentation of the joys of paradise; and perceive others, again, to beso unluckily matched in the conjugal yoke, that those very basest of devilswhich tempt the hermits that inhabit the deserts of Thebais and Montserratare not more miserable than they. It is therefore expedient, seeing youare resolved for once to take a trial of the state of marriage, that, withshut eyes, bowing your head, and kissing the ground, you put the businessto a venture, and give it a fair hazard, in recommending the success of theresidue to the disposure of Almighty God. It lieth not in my power to giveyou any other manner of assurance, or otherwise to certify you of whatshall ensue on this your undertaking. Nevertheless, if it please you, thisyou may do. Bring hither Virgil's poems, that after having opened thebook, and with our fingers severed the leaves thereof three several times, we may, according to the number agreed upon betwixt ourselves, explore thefuture hap of your intended marriage. For frequently by a Homeric lotteryhave many hit upon their destinies; as is testified in the person ofSocrates, who, whilst he was in prison, hearing the recitation of thisverse 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 thetruth whereof he assured Aeschines; as Plato, in Critone, Cicero, in Primo, de Divinatione, Diogenes Laertius, and others, have to the full recorded intheir works. The like is also witnessed by Opilius Macrinus, to whom, being desirous to know if he should be the Roman emperor, befell, by chanceof 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 thesovereignty of the empire for the space of fourteen months, when byHeliogabalus, then both young and strong, he was dispossessed thereof, thrust out of all, and killed. Brutus doth also bear witness of anotherexperiment of this nature, who willing, through this exploratory way bylot, to learn what the event and issue should be of the Pharsalian battlewherein he perished, he casually encountered on this verse, said ofPatroclus 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 thatfight. Divers notable things of old have likewise been foretold and knownby casting of Virgilian lots; yea, in matters of no less importance thanthe obtaining of the Roman empire, as it happened to Alexander Severus, who, trying his fortune at the said kind of lottery, did hit upon thisverse 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 earnestcreated and installed Roman emperor. A semblable story thereto is relatedof Adrian, who, being hugely perplexed within himself out of a longinghumour to know in what account he was with the Emperor Trajan, and howlarge the measure of that affection was which he did bear unto him, hadrecourse, after the manner above specified, to the Maronian lottery, whichby 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 theempire. Moreover, to the lot of the praiseworthy Emperor Claudius befellthis 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 acolleague with himself in the empire, happened the response following inthe 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 hadattained 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 hisfuture adventures, did occur this saying, which is written in the Sixth ofthe 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 withgreat eagerness research after the fate to come of his posterity, his hapwas 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 theambush of the hobgoblins who lay in wait all-to-bemaul him, he fell uponthis 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 theseambuscades. 

Were it not to shun prolixity, I could enumerate a thousand such likeadventures, which, conform to the dictate and verdict of the verse, have bythat manner of lot-casting encounter befallen to the curious researchers ofthem. Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest you should be deluded, that Iwould upon this kind of fortune-flinging proof infer an uncontrollable andnot to be gainsaid infallibility of truth. 

Chapter 3. XI. 

How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of diceto be unlawful. 

It would be sooner done, quoth Panurge, and more expeditely, if we shouldtry the matter at the chance of three fair dice. Quoth Pantagruel, Thatsort of lottery is deceitful, abusive, illicitous, and exceedinglyscandalous. Never trust in it. The accursed book of the Recreation ofDice was a great while ago excogitated in Achaia, near Bourre, by thatancient enemy of mankind, the infernal calumniator, who, before the statueor massive image of the Bourraic Hercules, did of old, and doth in severalplaces of the world as yet, make many simple souls to err and fall into hissnares. You know how my father Gargantua hath forbidden it over all hiskingdoms and dominions; how he hath caused burn the moulds and draughtsthereof, and altogether suppressed, abolished, driven forth, and cast itout of the land, as a most dangerous plague and infection to anywell-polished state or commonwealth. What I have told you of dice, I saythe same of the play at cockall. It is a lottery of the like guile anddeceitfulness; and therefore do not for convincing of me allege inopposition to this my opinion, or bring in the example of the fortunate castof Tiberius, within the fountain of Aponus, at the oracle of Gerion. Theseare the baited hooks by which the devil attracts and draweth unto him thefoolish souls of silly people into eternal perdition. 

Nevertheless, to satisfy your humour in some measure, I am content youthrow three dice upon this table, that, according to the number of theblots which shall happen to be cast up, we may hit upon a verse of thatpage 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. Thatis provision against the devil, as is expounded by Merlin Coccaius, Lib. 2. De Patria Diabolorum. The devil would be sure to take me napping, andvery much at unawares, if he should find me without dice. With this, thethree dice being taken out, produced, and thrown, they fell so pat upon thelower points that the cast was five, six, and five. These are, quothPanurge, sixteen in all. Let us take the sixteenth line of the page. Thenumber pleaseth me very well; I hope we shall have a prosperous and happychance. May I be thrown amidst all the devils of hell, even as a greatbowl cast athwart at a set of ninepins, or cannon-ball shot among abattalion of foot, in case so many times I do not boult my future wife thefirst night of our marriage! Of that, forsooth, I make no doubt at all, quoth Pantagruel. You needed not to have rapped forth such a horridimprecation, the sooner to procure credit for the performance of so small abusiness, seeing possibly the first bout will be amiss, and that you knowis usually at tennis called fifteen. At the next justling turn you mayreadily amend that fault, and so complete your reckoning of sixteen. Is itso, quoth Panurge, that you understand the matter? And must my words bethus interpreted? Nay, believe me never yet was any solecism committed bythat valiant champion who often hath for me in Belly-dale stood sentry atthe hypogastrian cranny. Did you ever hitherto find me in theconfraternity of the faulty? Never, I trow; never, nor ever shall, forever 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. Hehad 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 pleasedto feel and grope my pulse a little on this artery of my left arm. At itsfrequent rise and fall you would say that they swinge and belabour me afterthe manner of a probationer, posed and put to a peremptory trial in theexamination of his sufficiency for the discharge of the learned duty of agraduate in some eminent degree in the college of the Sorbonists. 

But would you not hold it expedient, before we proceed any further, that weshould invocate Hercules and the Tenetian goddesses who in the chamber oflots are said to rule, sit in judgment, and bear a presidential sway?Neither him nor them, answered Pantagruel; only open up the leaves of thebook with your fingers, and set your nails awork. 

Chapter 3. XII. 

How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurgeshall have in his marriage. 

Then at the opening of the book in the sixteenth row of the lines of thedisclosed 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 oradvantage; for it plainly signifies and denoteth that your wife shall be astrumpet, and yourself by consequence a cuckold. The goddess, whom youshall not find propitious nor favourable unto you, is Minerva, a mostredoubtable and dreadful virgin, a powerful and fulminating goddess, anenemy to cuckolds and effeminate youngsters, to cuckold-makers andadulterers. The god is Jupiter, a terrible and thunder-striking god fromheaven. And withal it is to be remarked, that, conform to the doctrine ofthe ancient Etrurians, the manubes, for so did they call the darting hurlsor slinging casts of the Vulcanian thunderbolts, did only appertain to herand to Jupiter her father capital. This was verified in the conflagrationof the ships of Ajax Oileus, nor doth this fulminating power belong to anyother 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 theprofoundest mysteries of mythology, that, when the giants had enterprisedthe waging of a war against the power of the celestial orbs, the gods atfirst did laugh at those attempts, and scorned such despicable enemies, whowere, in their conceit, not strong enough to cope in feats of warfare withtheir pages; but when they saw by the gigantine labour the high hill Pelionset on lofty Ossa, and that the mount Olympus was made shake to be erectedon the top of both, then was it that Jupiter held a parliament, or generalconvention, wherein it was unanimously resolved upon and condescended to byall the gods, that they should worthily and valiantly stand to theirdefence. And because they had often seen battles lost by the cumbersomelets and disturbing encumbrances of women confusedly huddled in amongstarmies, it was at that time decreed and enacted that they should expel anddrive out of heaven into Egypt and the confines of Nile that whole crew ofgoddesses, disguised in the shapes of weasels, polecats, bats, shrew-mice, ferrets, fulmarts, and other such like odd transformations; only Minervawas reserved to participate with Jupiter in the horrific fulminating power, as being the goddess both of war and learning, of arts and arms, of counseland 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 ascomely and handsome as ever was his Venus, but not a whore like her, nor Ia cuckold like him. The crook-legged slovenly slave made himself to bedeclared a cuckold by a definite sentence and judgment, in the open view ofall the gods. For this cause ought you to interpret the afore-mentionedverse quite contrary to what you have said. This lot importeth that mywife will be honest, virtuous, chaste, loyal, and faithful; not armed, surly, wayward, cross, giddy, humorous, heady, hairbrained, or extractedout of the brains, as was the goddess Pallas; nor shall this fair jollyJupiter be my co-rival. He shall never dip his bread in my broth, thoughwe 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 bya 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 byothers 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 daythe third part of the world, beasts and people, floods and mountains; thatwas Europa. For this grand subagitatory achievement the Ammonians causeddraw, 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 myselffrom that horned champion. He will not, trust me, have to deal in myperson 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, thephlegmatic pea-goose Aesop, rough-footed Lycaon, the luskish misshapenCorytus of Tuscany, nor with the large-backed and strong-reined Atlas. Lethim alter, change, transform, and metamorphose himself into a hundredvarious 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 aneagle, ram, or dove, as when he was enamoured of the virgin Phthia, whothen dwelt in the Aegean territory; into fire, a serpent, yea, even into aflea; into Epicurean and Democratical atoms, or, moreMagistronostralistically, into those sly intentions of the mind, which inthe schools are called second notions, --I'll catch him in the nick, andtake him napping. And would you know what I would do unto him? Even thatwhich to his father Coelum Saturn did--Seneca foretold it of me, andLactantius hath confirmed it--what the goddess Rhea did to Athis. I wouldmake him two stone lighter, rid him of his Cyprian cymbals, and cut soclose and neatly by the breech, that there shall not remain thereof so muchas one--, so cleanly would I shave him, and disable him for ever from beingPope, for Testiculos non habet. Hold there, said Pantagruel; ho, soft andfair, my lad! Enough of that, --cast up, turn over the leaves, and try yourfortune 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 andbelly. Clean and quite contrary, answered Panurge; it is of me that heprognosticates, 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 Lydianking did his wife, whom he ravened and devoured. 

You are very stout, says Pantagruel, and courageous; Hercules himself dursthardly adventure to scuffle with you in this your raging fury. Nor is itstrange; for the Jan is worth two, and two in fight against Hercules aretoo too strong. Am I a Jan? quoth Panurge. No, no, answered Pantagruel. My mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack. Thereafter did hehit, 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 robyou. Hence this, according to these three drawn lots, will be your futuredestiny, I clearly see it, --you will be a cuckold, you will be beaten, andyou will be robbed. Nay, it is quite otherwise, quoth Panurge; for it iscertain that this verse presageth that she will love me with a perfectliking. Nor did the satyr-writing poet lie in proof hereof, when heaffirmed that a woman, burning with extreme affection, takes sometimespleasure to steal from her sweetheart. And what, I pray you? A glove, apoint, or some such trifling toy of no importance, to make him keep agentle kind of stirring in the research and quest thereof. In like manner, these small scolding debates and petty brabbling contentions, whichfrequently we see spring up and for a certain space boil very hot betwixt acouple of high-spirited lovers, are nothing else but recreative diversionsfor their refreshment, spurs to and incentives of a more fervent amity thanever. As, for example, we do sometimes see cutlers with hammers maul theirfinest whetstones, therewith to sharpen their iron tools the better. Andtherefore do I think that these three lots make much for my advantage;which, if not, I from their sentence totally appeal. There is noappellation, quoth Pantagruel, from the decrees of fate or destiny, of lotor chance; as is recorded by our ancient lawyers, witness Baldus, Lib. Ult. Cap. De Leg. The reason hereof is, Fortune doth not acknowledge asuperior, 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, asopenly by the said author is alleged in L. Ait Praetor, paragr. Ult. Ff. Deminor. 

Chapter 3. XIII. 

How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of hismarriage by dreams. 

Now, seeing we cannot agree together in the manner of expounding orinterpreting the sense of the Virgilian lots, let us bend our courseanother way, and try a new sort of divination. Of what kind? askedPanurge. Of a good ancient and authentic fashion, answered Pantagruel; itis by dreams. For in dreaming, such circumstances and conditions beingthereto 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 foreseewhat is to come. How true this is, you may conceive by a very vulgar andfamiliar example; as when you see that at such a time as suckling babes, well nourished, fed, and fostered with good milk, sleep soundly andprofoundly, the nurses in the interim get leave to sport themselves, andare licentiated to recreate their fancies at what range to them shall seemmost fitting and expedient, their presence, sedulity, and attendance onthe 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 todisport itself and is well pleased in that frolic to take a review of itsnative country, which is the heavens, where it receiveth a most notableparticipation of its first beginning with an imbuement from its divinesource, and in contemplation of that infinite and intellectual sphere, whereof the centre is everywhere, and the circumference in no place of theuniversal world, to wit, God, according to the doctrine of HermesTrismegistus, to whom no new thing happeneth, whom nothing that is pastescapeth, and unto whom all things are alike present, remarketh not onlywhat is preterit and gone in the inferior course and agitation of sublunarymatters, but withal taketh notice what is to come; then bringing a relationof those future events unto the body of the outward senses and exteriororgans, it is divulged abroad unto the hearing of others. Whereupon theowner of that soul deserveth to be termed a vaticinator, or prophet. Nevertheless, the truth is, that the soul is seldom able to report thosethings in such sincerity as it hath seen them, by reason of theimperfection and frailty of the corporeal senses, which obstruct theeffectuating of that office; even as the moon doth not communicate untothis earth of ours that light which she receiveth from the sun with so muchsplendour, heat, vigour, purity, and liveliness as it was given her. Henceit is requisite for the better reading, explaining, and unfolding of thesesomniatory vaticinations and predictions of that nature, that a dexterous, learned, skilful, wise, industrious, expert, rational, and peremptoryexpounder or interpreter be pitched upon, such a one as by the Greeks iscalled onirocrit, or oniropolist. For this cause Heraclitus was wont tosay that nothing is by dreams revealed to us, that nothing is by dreamsconcealed from us, and that only we thereby have a mystical significationand secret evidence of things to come, either for our own prosperous orunlucky fortune, or for the favourable or disastrous success of another. The sacred Scriptures testify no less, and profane histories assure us ofit, in both which are exposed to our view a thousand several kinds ofstrange adventures, which have befallen pat according to the nature of thedream, and that as well to the party dreamer as to others. The Atlanticpeople, 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 everdreamed. Of this sort (were) Cleon of Daulia, Thrasymedes, and in our daysthe learned Frenchman Villanovanus, neither of all which knew what dreamingwas. 

Fail not therefore to-morrow, when the jolly and fair Aurora with her rosyfingers draweth aside the curtains of the night to drive away the sableshades of darkness, to bend your spirits wholly to the task of sleepingsound, and thereto apply yourself. In the meanwhile you must denude yourmind of every human passion or affection, such as are love and hatred, fearand hope, for as of old the great vaticinator, most famous and renownedprophet Proteus, was not able in his disguise or transformation into fire, water, a tiger, a dragon, and other such like uncouth shapes and visors, topresage anything that was to come till he was restored to his own firstnatural and kindly form; just so doth man; for, at his reception of the artof divination and faculty of prognosticating future things, that part inhim which is the most divine, to wit, the Nous, or Mens, must be calm, peaceable, untroubled, quiet, still, hushed, and not embusied or distractedwith 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 orlittle? 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 nightlong I then but doze and rave, and in my slumbering fits talk idlenonsense, my thoughts being in a dull brown study, and as deep in theirdumps as is my belly hollow. 

Not to sup, answered Pantagruel, were best for you, considering the stateof your complexion and healthy constitution of your body. A certain veryancient prophet, named Amphiaraus, wished such as had a mind by dreams tobe 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 tosuch a sharp, hard, rigorous, and extreme sparing diet. I am truly rightapt to believe that a man whose stomach is replete with various cheer, andin a manner surfeited with drinking, is hardly able to conceive aright ofspiritual things; yet am not I of the opinion of those who, after long andpertinacious fastings, think by such means to enter more profoundly intothe speculation of celestial mysteries. You may very well remember how myfather Gargantua (whom here for honour sake I name) hath often told us thatthe writings of abstinent, abstemious, and long-fasting hermits were everywhit as saltless, dry, jejune, and insipid as were their bodies when theydid compose them. It is a most difficult thing for the spirits to be in agood plight, serene and lively, when there is nothing in the body but akind of voidness and inanity; seeing the philosophers with the physiciansjointly affirm that the spirits which are styled animal spring from, andhave their constant practice in and through the arterial blood, refined andpurified to the life within the admirable net which, wonderfully framed, lieth under the ventricles and tunnels of the brain. He gave us also theexample of the philosopher who, when he thought most seriously to havewithdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from the rustlingclutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the better to improvehis theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was, notwithstanding hisuttermost endeavours to free himself from all untoward noises, surroundedand environed about so with the barking of curs, bawling of mastiffs, bleating of sheep, prating of parrots, tattling of jackdaws, grunting ofswine, girning of boars, yelping of foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping ofmice, squeaking of weasels, croaking of frogs, crowing of cocks, cacklingof hens, calling of partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping ofswallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckoos, bumbling of bees, rammage of hawks, chirming of linnets, croaking of ravens, screeching ofowls, whicking of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling ofcushat-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping ofsparrows, crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabbits, cricking of ferrets, hummingof wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings, clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes, warblingof nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys, coniating ofstorks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies, murmuring ofstock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming ofbeagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats, guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkeys, pioling of pelicans, quacking ofducks, yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying ofelephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was muchmore troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair ofFontenay or Niort. Just so is it with those who are tormented with thegrievous 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 tothemselves from the proper substance of all the members of a fleshyconsistence, violently pull down and draw back that vagrant, roaming spirit, careless and neglecting of his nurse and natural host, which is the body; aswhen a hawk upon the fist, willing to take her flight by a soaring aloft inthe open spacious air, is on a sudden drawn back by a leash tied to herfeet. 

To this purpose also did he allege unto us the authority of Homer, thefather of all philosophy, who said that the Grecians did not put an end totheir mournful mood for the death of Patroclus, the most intimate friend ofAchilles, till hunger in a rage declared herself, and their belliesprotested to furnish no more tears unto their grief. For from bodiesemptied and macerated by long fasting there could not be such supply ofmoisture and brackish drops as might be proper on that occasion. 

Mediocrity at all times is commendable; nor in this case are you to abandonit. 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 thepreak, by some called the polyp, as also from coleworts, cabbage, and allother such like windy victuals, which may endanger the troubling of yourbrains and the dimming or casting a kind of mist over your animal spirits. For, as a looking-glass cannot exhibit the semblance or representation ofthe object set before it, and exposed to have its image to the lifeexpressed, if that the polished sleekedness thereof be darkened by grossbreathings, dampish vapours, and foggy, thick, infectious exhalations, evenso the fancy cannot well receive the impression of the likeness of thosethings which divination doth afford by dreams, if any way the body beannoyed or troubled with the fumish steam of meat which it had taken in awhile before; because betwixt these two there still hath been a mutualsympathy and fellow-feeling of an indissolubly knit affection. You shalleat good Eusebian and Bergamot pears, one apple of the short-shank pippinkind, a parcel of the little plums of Tours, and some few cherries of thegrowth of my orchard. Nor shall you need to fear that thereupon will ensuedoubtful dreams, fallacious, uncertain, and not to be trusted to, as bysome peripatetic philosophers hath been related; for that, say they, men domore copiously in the season of harvest feed on fruitages than at any othertime. 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 underthe leaves which are spread on the ground--by reason that the leaves fallfrom the trees in the autumnal quarter. For the natural fervour which, abounding in ripe, fresh, recent fruits, cometh by the quickness of itsebullition to be with ease evaporated into the animal parts of the dreamingperson--the experiment is obvious in most--is a pretty while before it beexpired, dissolved, and evanished. As for your drink, you are to have itof the fair, pure water of my fountain. 

The condition, quoth Panurge, is very hard. Nevertheless, cost what priceit will, or whatsoever come of it, I heartily condescend thereto;protesting that I shall to-morrow break my fast betimes after my somniatoryexercitations. Furthermore, I recommend myself to Homer's two gates, toMorpheus, to Iselon, to Phantasus, and unto Phobetor. If they in this mygreat need succour me and grant me that assistance which is fitting, I willin honour of them all erect a jolly, genteel altar, composed of the softestdown. If I were now in Laconia, in the temple of Juno, betwixt Oetile andThalamis, she suddenly would disentangle my perplexity, resolve me of mydoubts, 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 mypurpose to put a branch or two of curious laurel betwixt the quilt andbolster of my bed, under the pillow on which my head must lean? There isno need at all of that, quoth Pantagruel; for, besides that it is a thingvery superstitious, the cheat thereof hath been at large discovered unto usin the writings of Serapion, Ascalonites, Antiphon, Philochorus, Artemon, and Fulgentius Planciades. I could say as much to you of the left shoulderof a crocodile, as also of a chameleon, without prejudice be it spoken tothe credit which is due to the opinion of old Democritus; and likewise ofthe stone of the Bactrians, called Eumetrides, and of the Ammonian horn;for so by the Aethiopians is termed a certain precious stone, coloured likegold, and in the fashion, shape, form, and proportion of a ram's horn, asthe horn of Jupiter Ammon is reported to have been: they over and aboveassuredly affirming that the dreams of those who carry it about them are noless veritable and infallible than the truth of the divine oracles. Nor isthis much unlike to what Homer and Virgil wrote of these two gates ofsleep, to which you have been pleased to recommend the management of whatyou have in hand. The one is of ivory, which letteth in confused, doubtful, and uncertain dreams; for through ivory, how small and slendersoever it be, we can see nothing, the density, opacity, and closecompactedness of its material parts hindering the penetration of the visualrays and the reception of the specieses of such things as are visible. Theother 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 brighttransparency thereof, the species of all objects of the sight distinctlypass, and so without confusion appear, that they are clearly seen. Yourmeaning is, and you would thereby infer, quoth Friar John, that the dreamsof all horned cuckolds, of which number Panurge, by the help of God and hisfuture wife, is without controversy to be one, are always true andinfallible. 

Chapter 3. XIV. 

Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof. 

At seven o'clock of the next following morning Panurge did not fail topresent himself before Pantagruel, in whose chamber were at that timeEpistemon, Friar John of the Funnels, Ponocrates, Eudemon, Carpalin, andothers, to whom, at the entry of Panurge, Pantagruel said, Lo! here comethour dreamer. That word, quoth Epistemon, in ancient times cost very much, and was dearly sold to the children of Jacob. Then said Panurge, I havebeen plunged into my dumps so deeply, as if I had been lodged with GafferNoddy-cap. Dreamed indeed I have, and that right lustily; but I could takealong with me no more thereof that I did goodly understand save only that Iin my vision had a pretty, fair, young, gallant, handsome woman, who noless lovingly and kindly treated and entertained me, hugged, cherished, cockered, dandled, and made much of me, as if I had been another neatdilly-darling minion, like Adonis. Never was man more glad than I wasthen; my joy at that time was incomparable. She flattered me, tickled me, stroked me, groped me, frizzled me, curled me, kissed me, embraced me, laidher hands about my neck, and now and then made jestingly pretty littlehorns above my forehead. I told her in the like disport, as I did play thefool with her, that she should rather place and fix them in a little belowmine 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 didonce with the position of the horns of bulls. The wanton, toying girl, notwithstanding any remonstrance of mine to the contrary, did always driveand thrust them further in; yet thereby, which to me seemed wonderful, shedid not do me any hurt at all. A little after, though I know not how, Ithought 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 largeplatterful of dreams, make thereupon good cheer, and, if you please, sparenot to interpret them according to the understanding which you may have inthem. Come, Carpalin, let us to breakfast. To my sense and meaning, quothPantagruel, if I have skill or knowledge in the art of divination bydreams, your wife will not really, and to the outward appearance of theworld, plant or set horns, and stick them fast in your forehead, after avisible manner, as satyrs use to wear and carry them; but she will be sofar from preserving herself loyal in the discharge and observance of aconjugal duty, that, on the contrary, she will violate her plighted faith, break her marriage-oath, infringe all matrimonial ties, prostitute her bodyto the dalliance of other men, and so make you a cuckold. This point isclearly and manifestly explained and expounded by Artemidorus just as Ihave related it. Nor will there be any metamorphosis or transmutation madeof you into a drum or tabor, but you will surely be as soundly beaten asever was tabor at a merry wedding. Nor yet will she be changed into achough, but will steal from you, chiefly in the night, as is the nature ofthat thievish bird. Hereby may you perceive your dreams to be in every jotconform and agreeable to the Virgilian lots. A cuckold you will be, beatenand robbed. Then cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells thetruth; upon my conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold--an honest one, I warrantthee. O the brave horns that will be borne by thee! Ha, ha, ha! Our goodMaster de Cornibus. God save thee, and shield thee! Wilt thou be pleasedto preach but two words of a sermon to us, and I will go through the parishchurch to gather up alms for the poor. 

You are, quoth Panurge, very far mistaken in your interpretation; for thematter is quite contrary to your sense thereof. My dream presageth that Ishall by marriage be stored with plenty of all manner of goods--thehornifying of me showing that I will possess a cornucopia, that Amalthaeanhorn which is called the horn of abundance, whereof the fruition did stillportend the wealth of the enjoyer. You possibly will say that they arerather 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 mytouch-her-home still ready. My staff of love, sempiternally in a goodcase, will, satyr-like, be never toiled out--a thing which all men wishfor, and send up their prayers to that purpose, but such a thing asnevertheless is granted but to a few. Hence doth it follow by aconsequence as clear as the sunbeams that I will never be in the danger ofbeing made a cuckold, for the defect hereof is Causa sine qua non; yea, thesole cause, as many think, of making husbands cuckolds. What makes poorscoundrel rogues to beg, I pray you? Is it not because they have notenough at home wherewith to fill their bellies and their pokes? What is itmakes 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 Ivery well submit my opinion to the judgment of learned lawyers, presidents, counsellors, advocates, procurers, attorneys, and other glossers andcommentators on the venerable rubric, De frigidis et maleficiatis. Youare, in truth, sir, as it seems to me (excuse my boldness if I havetransgressed), in a most palpable and absurd error to attribute my horns tocuckoldry. 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 neveryet was married? Speak somewhat more correctly, I beseech you, lest she, being offended, furnish you with a pair of horns shapen by the pattern ofthose which she made for Actaeon. The goodly Bacchus also carries horns, --Pan, Jupiter Ammon, with a great many others. Are they all cuckolds? IfJove 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, orwhore's son, is tacitly and underboard no less than if he had said openlythe father is a cuckold and his wife a punk. Let our discourse come nearerto 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 goodthings. This will I affirm for truth, upon my word, and pawn my faith andcredit 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 thehands of a good drummer at a nuptial feast, still making a noise, stillrolling, still buzzing and cracking. Believe me, sir, in that consistethnone 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 apretty little Cornish chough. Who will not believe this, let hell or thegallows be the burden of his Christmas carol. 

I remark, quoth Pantagruel, the last point or particle which you did speakof, and, having seriously conferred it with the first, find that at thebeginning you were delighted with the sweetness of your dream; but in theend and final closure of it you startingly awaked, and on a sudden wereforthwith vexed in choler and annoyed. Yea, quoth Panurge, the reason ofthat was because I had fasted too long. Flatter not yourself, quothPantagruel; all will go to ruin. Know for a certain truth, that everysleep that endeth with a starting, and leaves the person irksome, grieved, and fretting, doth either signify a present evil, or otherwise presagethand portendeth a future imminent mishap. To signify an evil, that is tosay, to show some sickness hardly curable, a kind of pestilentious ormalignant boil, botch, or sore, lying and lurking hid, occult, and latentwithin the very centre of the body, which many times doth by the means ofsleep, whose nature is to reinforce and strengthen the faculty and virtueof concoction, being according to the theorems of physic to declare itself, and moves toward the outward superficies. At this sad stirring is thesleeper's rest and ease disturbed and broken, whereof the first feeling andstinging smart admonisheth that he must patiently endure great pain andtrouble, and thereunto provide some remedy; as when we say proverbially, toincense hornets, to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion, instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plainmeaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddlingwith it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet. On theother part, to presage or foretell an evil, especially in what concerneththe exploits of the soul in matter of somnial divinations, is as much tosay as that it giveth us to understand that some dismal fortune ormischance is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail tocome to pass. A clear and evident example hereof is to be found in thedream and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as likewise in that of Eurydice, thewife of Orpheus, neither of which was (no) sooner finished, saith Ennius, but that incontinently thereafter they awaked in a start, and wereaffrighted horribly. Thereupon these accidents ensued: Hecuba had herhusband Priamus, together with her children, slain before her eyes, and sawthen the destruction of her country; and Eurydice died speedily thereafterin a most miserable manner. Aeneas, dreaming that he spoke to Hector alittle after his decease, did on a sudden in a great start awake, and wasafraid. Now hereupon did follow this event: Troy that same night wasspoiled, sacked, and burnt. At another time the same Aeneas dreaming thathe saw his familiar geniuses and penates, in a ghastly fright andastonishment awaked, of which terror and amazement the issue was, that thevery next day subsequent, by a most horrible tempest on the sea, he waslike to have perished and been cast away. Moreover, Turnus being prompted, instigated, and stirred up by the fantastic vision of an infernal fury toenter into a bloody war against Aeneas, awaked in a start much troubled anddisquieted in spirit; in sequel whereof, after many notable and famousrouts, defeats, and discomfitures in open field, he came at last to bekilled in a single combat by the said Aeneas. A thousand other instances Icould afford, if it were needful, of this matter. Whilst I relate thesestories of Aeneas, remark the saying of Fabius Pictor, who faithfullyaverred that nothing had at any time befallen unto, was done, orenterprised by him, whereof he preallably had not notice, and beforehandforeseen it to the full, by sure predictions altogether founded on theoracles of somnial divination. To this there is no want of pregnantreasons, no more than of examples. For if repose and rest in sleeping be aspecial 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 andindignation without portending some unlucky fate and most disastrousfortune to ensue. Otherwise it were a molestation, and not an ease; ascourge, and not a gift; at least, (not) proceeding from the gods above, but from the infernal devils our enemies, according to the common vulgarsaying. 

Suppose the lord, father, or master of a family, sitting at a verysumptuous dinner, furnished with all manner of good cheer, and having athis entry to the table his appetite sharp set upon his victuals, whereofthere was great plenty, should be seen rise in a start, and on a suddenfling out of his chair, abandoning his meat, frighted, appalled, and in ahorrid terror, who should not know the cause hereof would wonder, and beastonished 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, forapplication of a remedy in haste, and to give speedy order for succouringof his distressed household? Truly I remember that the Cabalists andMassorets, interpreters of the sacred Scriptures, in treating how withverity one might judge of evangelical apparitions (because oftentimes theangel of Satan is disguised and transfigured into an angel of light), saidthat the difference of these two mainly did consist in this: thefavourable and comforting angel useth in his appearing unto man at first toterrify 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 thebeginning 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 powderedbeef. 

The Lord save those who see, and do not hear! quoth Panurge. I see youwell enough, but know not what it is that you have said. Thehunger-starved belly wanteth ears. For lack of victuals, before God, Iroar, bray, yell, and fume as in a furious madness. I have performed toohard a task to-day, an extraordinary work indeed. He shall be craftier, anddo far greater wonders than ever did Mr. Mush, who shall be able any morethis 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 roundrefection in the morning as will serve thoroughly to fill the mill-hopperand 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, Icould make a shift that day to forbear dining. But not to sup! A plaguerot that base custom, which is an error offensive to Nature! That lady madethe day for exercise, to travel, work, wait on and labour in each hisnegotiation and employment; and that we may with the more fervency andardour prosecute our business, she sets before us a clear burning candle, towit, the sun's resplendency; and at night, when she begins to take the lightfrom us, she thereby tacitly implies no less than if she would have spokenthus unto us: My lads and lasses, all of you are good and honest folks, youhave wrought well to-day, toiled and turmoiled enough, --the nightapproacheth, --therefore cast off these moiling cares of yours, desist fromall your swinking painful labours, and set your minds how to refresh yourbodies in the renewing of their vigour with good bread, choice wine, andstore of wholesome meats; then may you take some sport and recreation, andafter that lie down and rest yourselves, that you may strongly, nimbly, lustily, and with the more alacrity to-morrow attend on your affairs asformerly. 

Falconers, in like manner, when they have fed their hawks, will not sufferthem to fly on a full gorge, but let them on a perch abide a little, thatthey may rouse, bait, tower, and soar the better. That good pope who wasthe first institutor of fasting understood this well enough; for heordained that our fast should reach but to the hour of noon; all theremainder of that day was at our disposure, freely to eat and feed at anytime thereof. In ancient times there were but few that dined, as you wouldsay, some church men, monks and canons; for they have little otheroccupation. Each day is a festival unto them, who diligently heed theclaustral proverb, De missa ad mensam. They do not use to linger and defertheir sitting down and placing of themselves at table, only so long as theyhave a mind in waiting for the coming of the abbot; so they fell to withoutceremony, terms, or conditions; and everybody supped, unless it were somevain, conceited, dreaming dotard. Hence was a supper called coena, whichshoweth 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 devilsof the infernal regions, let us go. The gnawings of my stomach in thisrage of hunger are so tearing, that they make it bark like a mastiff. Letus throw some bread and beef into his throat to pacify him, as once thesibyl did to Cerberus. Thou likest best monastical brewis, the prime, theflower of the pot. I am for the solid, principal verb that comes after--the good brown loaf, always accompanied with a round slice of thenine-lecture-powdered labourer. I know thy meaning, answered Friar John;this metaphor is extracted out of the claustral kettle. The labourer is theox that hath wrought and done the labour; after the fashion of ninelectures, that is to say, most exquisitely well and thoroughly boiled. These holy religious fathers, by a certain cabalistic institution of theancients, not written, but carefully by tradition conveyed from hand tohand, rising betimes to go to morning prayers, were wont to flourish thattheir matutinal devotion with some certain notable preambles before theirentry into the church, viz. , they dunged in the dungeries, pissed in thepisseries, spit in the spitteries, melodiously coughed in the cougheries, and doted in their dotaries, that to the divine service they might not bringanything that was unclean or foul. These things thus done, they veryzealously made their repair to the Holy Chapel, for so was in their cantinglanguage termed the convent kitchen, where they with no small earnestnesshad care that the beef-pot should be put on the crook for the breakfast ofthe religious brothers of our Lord and Saviour; and the fire they wouldkindle under the pot themselves. Now, the matins consisting of ninelessons, (it) it was so incumbent on them, that must have risen the ratherfor the more expedite despatching of them all. The sooner that they rose, the sharper was their appetite and the barkings of their stomachs, and thegnawings increased in the like proportion, and consequently made these godlymen thrice more a-hungered and athirst than when their matins were hemmedover only with three lessons. The more betimes they rose, by the saidcabal, the sooner was the beef-pot put on; the longer that the beef was onthe 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 thepalate, less charged the stomach, and nourished our good religious men themore substantially; which is the only end and prime intention of the firstfounders, 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 caballineand claustral ballock. I freely quit the costs, interest, and charges, seeing you have so egregiously commented upon the most especial chapter ofthe culinary and monastic cabal. Come along, my Carpalin, and you, FriarJohn, my leather-dresser. Good morrow to you all, my good lords; I havedreamed too much to have so little. Let us go. Panurge had no sooner donespeaking than Epistemon with a loud voice said these words: It is a veryordinary and common thing amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, andpresage the misfortune, bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have theunderstanding, providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man's own mishapis very scarce and rare to be found anywhere. This is exceedingjudiciously and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who thereaffirmeth that every man in the world carrieth about his neck a wallet, inthe fore-bag whereof were contained the faults and mischances of othersalways exposed to his view and knowledge; and in the other scrip thereof, which hangs behind, are kept the bearer's proper transgressions andinauspicious adventures, at no time seen by him, nor thought upon, unlesshe 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 mindby a long continuance of time, prompteth me to the serious consideration ofyour welfare and profit; in order whereto, remark what I have thoughtthereon. It hath been told me that at Panzoust, near Crouly, dwelleth avery famous sibyl, who is endowed with the skill of foretelling all thingsto come. Take Epistemon in your company, repair towards her, and hear whatshe 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 thischaracter of her, that the place of her abode is vilely stained with theabominable repute of abounding more with sorcerers and witches than everdid the plains of Thessaly. I should not, to my thinking, go thitherwillingly, for that it seems to me a thing unwarrantable, and altogetherforbidden in the law of Moses. We are not Jews, quoth Pantagruel, nor isit a matter judiciously confessed by her, nor authentically proved byothers 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 ofthose niceties. Do we know but that she may be an eleventh sibyl or asecond Cassandra? But although she were neither, and she did not merit thename or title of any of these renowned prophetesses, what hazard, in thename of God, do you run by offering to talk and confer with her of theinstant perplexity and perturbation of your thoughts? Seeing especially, and which is most of all, she is, in the estimation of those that areacquainted with her, held to know more, and to be of a deeper reach ofunderstanding, than is either customary to the country wherein she livethor to the sex whereof she is. What hindrance, hurt, or harm doth thelaudable desire of knowledge bring to any man, were it from a sot, a pot, afool, a stool, a winter mitten, a truckle for a pulley, the lid of agoldsmith's crucible, an oil-bottle, or old slipper? You may remember tohave read, or heard at least, that Alexander the Great, immediately afterhis having obtained a glorious victory over the King Darius in Arbela, refused, in the presence of the splendid and illustrious courtiers thatwere about him, to give audience to a poor certain despicable-like fellow, who through the solicitations and mediation of some of his royal attendantswas admitted humbly to beg that grace and favour of him. But sore did herepent, although in vain, a thousand and ten thousand times thereafter, thesurly 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 ofpotent cities. He was indeed victorious in Persia, but withal so fardistant from Macedonia, his hereditary kingdom, that the joy of the one didnot expel the extreme grief which through occasion of the other he hadinwardly conceived; for, not being able with all his power to find orinvent a convenient mean and expedient how to get or come by the certaintyof any news from thence, both by reason of the huge remoteness of theplaces from one to another, as also because of the impeditive interpositionof many great rivers, the interjacent obstacle of divers wild deserts, andobstructive interjection of sundry almost inaccessible mountains, --whilsthe was in this sad quandary and solicitous pensiveness, which, you maysuppose, could not be of a small vexation to him, considering that it was amatter of no great difficulty to run over his whole native soil, possesshis country, seize on his kingdom, install a new king in the throne, andplant thereon foreign colonies, long before he could come to have anyadvertisement of it: for obviating the jeopardy of so dreadfulinconveniency, and putting a fit remedy thereto, a certain Sidonianmerchant of a low stature but high fancy, very poor in show, and to theoutward appearance of little or no account, having presented himself beforehim, went about to affirm and declare that he had excogitated and hit upona ready mean and way by the which those of his territories at home shouldcome to the certain notice of his Indian victories, and himself beperfectly informed of the state and condition of Egypt and Macedonia withinless than five days. Whereupon the said Alexander, plunged into a sullenanimadvertency of mind, through his rash opinion of the improbability ofperforming a so strange and impossible-like undertaking, dismissed themerchant without giving ear to what he had to say, and vilified him. Whatcould it have cost him to hearken unto what the honest man had invented andcontrived for his good? What detriment, annoyance, damage, or loss couldhe have undergone to listen to the discovery of that secret which the goodfellow would have most willingly revealed unto him? Nature, I ampersuaded, did not without a cause frame our ears open, putting thereto nogate at all, nor shutting them up with any manner of enclosures, as shehath done unto the tongue, the eyes, and other such out-jetting parts ofthe body. The cause, as I imagine, is to the end that every day and everynight, and that continually, we may be ready to hear, and by a perpetualhearing apt to learn. For, of all the senses, it is the fittest for thereception of the knowledge of arts, sciences, and disciplines; and it maybe that man was an angel, that is to say, a messenger sent from God, asRaphael was to Tobit. Too suddenly did he contemn, despise, and misregardhim; but too long thereafter, by an untimely and too late repentance, didhe do penance for it. You say very well, answered Epistemon, yet shall younever for all that induce me to believe that it can tend any way to theadvantage 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 havefound, quoth Panurge, a great deal of good in the counsel of women, chieflyin that of the old wives amongst them; for every time I consult with them Ireadily get a stool or two extraordinary, to the great solace of my bumgutpassage. They are as sleuthhounds in the infallibility of their scent, andin 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 themsage or wise women. In confirmation of which opinion of mine, thecustomary style of my language alloweth them the denomination of presagewomen. The epithet of sage is due unto them because they are surpassingdexterous in the knowledge of most things. And I give them the title ofpresage, for that they divinely foresee and certainly foretell futurecontingencies and events of things to come. Sometimes I call them notmaunettes, but monettes, from their wholesome monitions. Whether it be so, ask Pythagoras, Socrates, Empedocles, and our master Ortuinus. Ifurthermore praise and commend above the skies the ancient memorableinstitution of the pristine Germans, who ordained the responses anddocuments of old women to be highly extolled, most cordially reverenced, and prized at a rate in nothing inferior to the weight, test, and standardof the sanctuary. And as they were respectfully prudent in receiving ofthese sound advices, so by honouring and following them did they prove noless fortunate in the happy success of all their endeavours. Witness theold 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 fructifyingin 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, Irecommend the care of my codpiece to you. Well, quoth Epistemon, I willfollow you, with this protestation nevertheless, that if I happen to get asure information, or otherwise find that she doth use any kind of charm orenchantment in her responses, it may not be imputed to me for a blame toleave you at the gate of her house, without accompanying you any furtherin. 

Chapter 3. XVII. 

How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust. 

Their voyage was three days journeying. On the third whereof was shownunto them the house of the vaticinatress standing on the knap or top of ahill, under a large and spacious walnut-tree. Without great difficultythey entered into that straw-thatched cottage, scurvily built, naughtilymovabled, and all besmoked. It matters not, quoth Epistemon; Heraclitus, the grand Scotist and tenebrous darksome philosopher, was nothingastonished at his introit into such a coarse and paltry habitation; for hedid usually show forth unto his sectators and disciples that the gods madeas cheerfully their residence in these mean homely mansions as in sumptuousmagnific palaces, replenished with all manner of delight, pomp, andpleasure. I withal do really believe that the dwelling-place of the sofamous 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 otherbetter structure was the cot or cabin of Hyreus, or Oenopion, whereinJupiter, Neptune, and Mercury were not ashamed, all three together, toharbour and sojourn a whole night, and there to take a full and heartyrepast; for the payment of the shot they thankfully pissed Orion. Theyfinding 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 bythe Grei kaminoi of Homer. The old hag was in a pitiful bad plight andcondition in matter of the outward state and complexion of her body, theragged 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 stilldrooping, faint, and pithless; whilst in this woefully wretched case she wasmaking ready for her dinner porridge of wrinkled green coleworts, with a bitskin 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 anyresponse 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 itwithin my bag, in the substance of a gold ring, accompanied with some fairpieces of small money. No sooner were these words spoken, when Panurgecoming up towards her, after the ceremonial performance of a profound andhumble salutation, presented her with six neat's tongues dried in the smoke, a great butter-pot full of fresh cheese, a borachio furnished with goodbeverage, and a ram's cod stored with single pence, newly coined. At lasthe, with a low courtesy, put on her medical finger a pretty handsome goldenring, whereinto was right artificially enchased a precious toadstone ofBeausse. This done, in few words and very succinctly, did he set open andexpose unto her the motive reason of his coming, most civilly andcourteously entreating her that she might be pleased to vouchsafe to givehim an ample and plenary intelligence concerning the future good luck of hisintended 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 andwhirled betwixt her fingers very diversely and after several fashions, shepried more narrowly into, by the trial of their points, the sharpestwhereof she retained in her hand, and threw the other two under a stonetrough. After this she took a pair of yarn windles, which she nine timesunintermittedly veered and frisked about; then at the ninth revolution orturn, without touching them any more, maturely perpending the manner oftheir motion, she very demurely waited on their repose and cessation fromany further stirring. In sequel whereof she pulled off one of her woodenpattens, put her apron over her head, as a priest uses to do his amice whenhe is going to sing mass, and with a kind of antique, gaudy, party-colouredstring knit it under her neck. Being thus covered and muffled, she whiffedoff a lusty good draught out of the borachio, took three several penceforth of the ramcod fob, put them into so many walnut-shells, which she setdown upon the bottom of a feather-pot, and then, after she had given themthree whisks of a broom besom athwart the chimney, casting into the firehalf a bavin of long heather, together with a branch of dry laurel, sheobserved with a very hush and coy silence in what form they did burn, andsaw that, although they were in a flame, they made no kind of noise orcrackling din. Hereupon she gave a most hideous and horribly dreadfulshout, muttering betwixt her teeth some few barbarous words of a strangetermination. 

This so terrified Panurge that he forthwith said to Epistemon, The devilmince me into a gallimaufry if I do not tremble for fear! I do not thinkbut that I am now enchanted; for she uttereth not her voice in the terms ofany Christian language. O look, I pray you, how she seemeth unto me to beby three full spans higher than she was when she began to hood herself withher apron. What meaneth this restless wagging of her slouchy chaps? Whatcan be the signification of the uneven shrugging of her hulchy shoulders?To what end doth she quaver with her lips, like a monkey in thedismembering of a lobster? My ears through horror glow; ah! how theytingle! I think I hear the shrieking of Proserpina; the devils arebreaking loose to be all here. O the foul, ugly, and deformed beasts! Letus run away! By the hook of God, I am like to die for fear! I do not lovethe devils; they vex me, and are unpleasant fellows. Now let us fly, andbetake us to our heels. Farewell, gammer; thanks and gramercy for yourgoods! I will not marry; no, believe me, I will not. I fairly quit myinterest therein, and totally abandon and renounce it from this timeforward, even as much as at present. With this, as he endeavoured to makean escape out of the room, the old crone did anticipate his flight and makehim stop. The way how she prevented him was this: whilst in her hand sheheld 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 withthe spindle-point some curt and briefly-couched verses, which she threwinto the air, then said unto them, Search after them if you will; find themif 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 herlurking-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 fullinspection of the nockandroe; which being perceived by Panurge, he said toEpistemon, God's bodikins, I see the sibyl's hole! She suddenly thenbolted the gate behind her, and was never since seen any more. Theyjointly ran in haste after the fallen and dispersed leaves, and gatheredthem at last, though not without great labour and toil, for the wind hadscattered them amongst the thorn-bushes of the valley. When they hadranged them each after other in their due places, they found out theirsentence, 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 ofPanzoust. 

The leaves being thus collected and orderly disposed, Epistemon and Panurgereturned to Pantagruel's court, partly well pleased and other partdiscontented; glad for their being come back, and vexed for the troublethey had sustained by the way, which they found to be craggy, rugged, stony, rough, and ill-adjusted. They made an ample and full relation oftheir voyage unto Pantagruel, as likewise of the estate and condition ofthe sibyl. Then, having presented to him the leaves of the sycamore, theyshow him the short and twattle verses that were written in them. Pantagruel, having read and considered the whole sum and substance of thematter, 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 afine market. The prophecy of the sibyl doth explain and lay out before usthe same very predictions which have been denoted, foretold, and presagedto us by the decree of the Virgilian lots and the verdict of your ownproper dreams, to wit, that you shall be very much disgraced, shamed, anddiscredited by your wife; for that she will make you a cuckold inprostituting 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, scratchand bruise you, even to plucking the skin in a part from off you, --willleave the print of her blows in some member of your body. You understandas much, answered Panurge, in the veritable interpretation and expoundingof 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 incholer, 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 orhull be shelled and peeled from off it, so is it that my virtue andtranscendent worth will never come by the mouth of fame to be blazed abroadproportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellencythereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half of a marriedcouple. How many times have I heard you say that the function of amagistrate, or office of dignity, discovereth the merits, parts, andendowments 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 ofa man when he is called to the management of affairs; for when before helived in a private condition, we could have no more certain knowledge ofhim than of a bean within his husk. And thus stands the first articleexplained; otherwise, could you imagine that the good fame, repute, andestimation 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 Ido believe indeed! It will be of a pretty little infant. O how heartily Ishall 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, orgrief shall take such deep impression in my heart, how hugely great orvehement soever it otherwise appear, but that it shall evanish forthwith atthe sight of that my future babe, and at the hearing of the chat andprating of its childish gibberish. And blessed be the old wife. By mytruly, I have a mind to settle some good revenue or pension upon her out ofthe readiest increase of the lands of my Salmigondinois; not an inconstantand uncertain rent-seek, like that of witless, giddy-headed bachelors, butsure and fixed, of the nature of the well-paid incomes of regentingdoctors. If this interpretation doth not please you, think you my wifewill bear me in her flanks, conceive with me, and be of me delivered, aswomen use in childbed to bring forth their young ones; so as that it may besaid, 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, ofthe mother of the philosopher Apollonius, --as were the two Palici, near theflood Simaethos in Sicily. His wife was big of child with him. In him isrenewed and begun again the palintocy of the Megarians and the palingenesyof Democritus. Fie upon such errors! To hear stuff of that nature rendsmine ears. 

The words of the third article are: She will suck me at my best end. Whynot? That pleaseth me right well. You know the thing; I need not tell youthat 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 wellvictualled for her use as may be. She shall not suck me, I believe, invain, nor be destitute of her allowance; there shall her justum both inpeck and lippy be furnished to the full eternally. You expound thispassage allegorically, and interpret it to theft and larceny. I love theexposition, and the allegory pleaseth me; but not according to the sensewhereto you stretch it. It may be that the sincerity of the affectionwhich you bear me moveth you to harbour in your breast those refractorythoughts concerning me, with a suspicion of my adversity to come. We havethis saying from the learned, That a marvellously fearful thing is love, and that true love is never without fear. But, sir, according to myjudgment, you do understand both of and by yourself that here stealthsignifieth nothing else, no more than in a thousand other places of Greekand Latin, old and modern writings, but the sweet fruits of amorousdalliance, which Venus liketh best when reaped in secret, and culled byfervent lovers filchingly. Why so, I prithee tell? Because, when the featof 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 anunbound 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--thanto perform that culbusting art after the Cynic manner, in the view of theclear sunshine, or in a rich tent, under a precious stately canopy, withina glorious and sublime pavilion, or yet on a soft couch betwixt richcurtains of cloth of gold, without affrightment, at long intermediaterespites, enjoying of pleasures and delights a bellyfull, at all greatease, with a huge fly-flap fan of crimson satin and a bunch of feathers ofsome East-Indian ostrich serving to give chase unto the flies all roundabout; whilst, in the interim, the female picks her teeth with a stiffstraw picked even then from out of the bottom of the bed she lies on. Ifyou be not content with this my exposition, are you of the mind that mywife will suck and sup me up as people use to gulp and swallow oysters outof the shell? or as the Cilician women, according to the testimony ofDioscorides, were wont to do the grain of alkermes? Assuredly that is anerror. Who seizeth on it, doth neither gulch up nor swill down, but takesaway what hath been packed up, catcheth, snatcheth, and plies the play ofhey-pass, repass. 

The fourth article doth imply that my wife will flay me, but not all. Othe fine word! You interpret this to beating strokes and blows. Speakwisely. Will you eat a pudding? Sir, I beseech you to raise up yourspirits above the low-sized pitch of earthly thoughts unto that height ofsublime contemplation which reacheth to the apprehension of the mysteriesand wonders of Dame Nature. And here be pleased to condemn yourself, by arenouncing of those errors which you have committed very grossly andsomewhat 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 thedevil, my wife should go about to wrong me, make me a cuckold downwards tothe very breech, disgrace me otherwise, steal my goods from me, yea, andlay violently her hands upon me;--she nevertheless should fail of herattempts and not attain to the proposed end of her unreasonableundertakings. The reason which induceth me hereto is grounded totally onthis last point, which is extracted from the profoundest privacies of amonastic pantheology, as good Friar Arthur Wagtail told me once upon aMonday morning, as we were (if I have not forgot) eating a bushel oftrotter-pies; and I remember well it rained hard. God give him the goodmorrow! The women at the beginning of the world, or a little after, conspired to flay the men quick, because they found the spirit of mankindinclined to domineer it, and bear rule over them upon the face of the wholeearth; and, in pursuit of this their resolution, promised, confirmed, swore, and covenanted amongst them all, by the pure faith they owe to thenocturnal Sanct Rogero. But O the vain enterprises of women! O the greatfragility of that sex feminine! They did begin to flay the man, or peelhim (as says Catullus), at that member which of all the body they lovedbest, to wit, the nervous and cavernous cane, and that above five thousandyears ago; yet have they not of that small part alone flayed any more tillthis hour but the head. In mere despite whereof the Jews snip off thatparcel of the skin in circumcision, choosing far rather to be calledclipyards, rascals, than to be flayed by women, as are other nations. Mywife, according to this female covenant, will flay it to me, if it be notso already. I heartily grant my consent thereto, but will not give herleave to flay it all. Nay, truly will I not, my noble king. 

Yea but, quoth Epistemon, you say nothing of her most dreadful cries andexclamations when she and we both saw the laurel-bough burn withoutyielding any noise or crackling. You know it is a very dismal omen, aninauspicious sign, unlucky indice, and token formidable, bad, disastrous, and most unhappy, as is certified by Propertius, Tibullus, the quickphilosopher Porphyrius, Eustathius on the Iliads of Homer, and by manyothers. Verily, verily, quoth Panurge, brave are the allegations which youbring me, and testimonies of two-footed calves. These men were fools, asthey were poets; and dotards, as they were philosophers; full of folly, asthey 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 hispeace, seeming to be exceeding sad and pensive, then said to Panurge, Themalignant spirit misleads, beguileth, and seduceth you. I have read thatin times past the surest and most veritable oracles were not those whicheither were delivered in writing or uttered by word of mouth in speaking. For many times, in their interpretation, right witty, learned, andingenious men have been deceived through amphibologies, equivoques, andobscurity of words, no less than by the brevity of their sentences. Forwhich cause Apollo, the god of vaticination, was surnamed Loxias. Thosewhich were represented then by signs and outward gestures were accountedthe truest and the most infallible. Such was the opinion of Heraclitus. And Jupiter did himself in this manner give forth in Ammon frequentlypredictions. Nor was he single in this practice; for Apollo did the likeamongst the Assyrians. His prophesying thus unto those people moved themto paint him with a large long beard, and clothes beseeming an old settledperson of a most posed, staid, and grave behaviour; not naked, young, andbeardless, as he was portrayed most usually amongst the Grecians. Let usmake trial of this kind of fatidicency; and go you take advice of some dumbperson without any speaking. I am content, quoth Panurge. But, saysPantagruel, it were requisite that the dumb you consult with be such ashave been deaf from the hour of their nativity, and consequently dumb; fornone 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 apprehendit 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 absurdand paradoxical conclusion. But let it pass; I will not insist on it. Youdo not then believe what Herodotus wrote of two children, who, at thespecial command and appointment of Psammeticus, King of Egypt, having beenkept in a petty country cottage, where they were nourished and entertainedin 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 abusingof our understandings to give credit to the words of those who say thatthere is any such thing as a natural language. All speeches have had theirprimary origin from the arbitrary institutions, accords, and agreements ofnations in their respective condescendments to what should be noted andbetokened by them. An articulate voice, according to the dialecticians, hath naturally no signification at all; for that the sense and meaningthereof did totally depend upon the good will and pleasure of the firstdeviser and imposer of it. I do not tell you this without a cause; forBartholus, Lib. 5. De Verb. Oblig. , very seriously reporteth that even inhis time there was in Eugubia one named Sir Nello de Gabrielis, who, although he by a sad mischance became altogether deaf, understoodnevertheless everyone that talked in the Italian dialect howsoever heexpressed himself; and that only by looking on his external gestures, andcasting an attentive eye upon the divers motions of his lips and chaps. Ihave read, I remember also, in a very literate and eloquent author, thatTyridates, 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 mannerof pomp and magnificence. Yea, to the end there might be a sempiternalamity and correspondence preserved betwixt him and the Roman senate, therewas no remarkable thing in the whole city which was not shown unto him. Athis departure the emperor bestowed upon him many ample donatives of aninestimable value; and besides, the more entirely to testify his affectiontowards him, heartily entreated him to be pleased to make choice of anywhatsoever thing in Rome was most agreeable to his fancy, with a promisejuramentally confirmed that he should not be refused of his demand. Thereupon, after a suitable return of thanks for a so gracious offer, herequired a certain Jack-pudding whom he had seen to act his part mostegregiously upon the stage, and whose meaning, albeit he knew not what itwas he had spoken, he understood perfectly enough by the signs andgesticulations which he had made. And for this suit of his, in that heasked nothing else, he gave this reason, that in the several wide andspacious dominions which were reduced under the sway and authority of hissovereign government, there were sundry countries and nations muchdiffering from one another in language, with whom, whether he was to speakunto them or give any answer to their requests, he was always necessitatedto make use of divers sorts of truchman and interpreters. Now with thisman alone, sufficient for supplying all their places, will that greatinconveniency hereafter be totally removed; seeing he is such a finegesticulator, 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 andfrom his birth; to the end that his gestures and signs may be the morevively and truly prophetic, and not counterfeit by the intermixture of someadulterate lustre and affectation. Yet whether this dumb person shall beof the male or female sex is in your option, lieth at your discretion, andaltogether dependeth on your own election. 

I would more willingly, quoth Panurge, consult with and be advised by adumb woman, were it not that I am afraid of two things. The first is, thatthe greater part of women, whatever be that they see, do always representunto their fancies, think, and imagine, that it hath some relation to thesugared entering of the goodly ithyphallos, and graffing in the cleft ofthe overturned tree the quickset imp of the pin of copulation. Whateversigns, shows, or gestures we shall make, or whatever our behaviour, carriage, or demeanour shall happen to be in their view and presence, theywill interpret the whole in reference to the act of androgynation and theculbutizing exercise, by which means we shall be abusively disappointed ofour designs, in regard that she will take all our signs for nothing elsebut tokens and representations of our desire to entice her unto the listsof a Cyprian combat or catsenconny skirmish. Do you remember what happenedat Rome two hundred and threescore years after the foundation thereof? Ayoung Roman gentleman encountering by chance, at the foot of Mount Celion, with a beautiful Latin lady named Verona, who from her very cradle upwardshad always been both deaf and dumb, very civilly asked her, not without achironomatic Italianizing of his demand, with various jectigation of hisfingers and other gesticulations as yet customary amongst the speakers ofthat country, what senators in her descent from the top of the hill she hadmet with going up thither. For you are to conceive that he, knowing nomore of her deafness than dumbness, was ignorant of both. She in themeantime, who neither heard nor understood so much as one word of what hehad said, straight imagined, by all that she could apprehend in the lovelygesture of his manual signs, that what he then required of her was whatherself had a great mind to, even that which a young man doth naturallydesire of a woman. Then was it that by signs, which in all occurrences ofvenereal love are incomparably more attractive, valid, and efficacious thanwords, she beckoned to him to come along with her to her house; which whenhe had done, she drew him aside to a privy room, and then made a mostlively alluring sign unto him to show that the game did please her. Whereupon, without any more advertisement, or so much as the uttering ofone word on either side, they fell to and bringuardized it lustily. 

The other cause of my being averse from consulting with dumb women is, thatto our signs they would make no answer at all, but suddenly fall backwardsin a divarication posture, to intimate thereby unto us the reality of theirconsent to the supposed motion of our tacit demands. Or if they shouldchance to make any countersigns responsory to our propositions, they wouldprove so foolish, impertinent, and ridiculous, that by them ourselvesshould easily judge their thoughts to have no excursion beyond the dufflingacademy. 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, herpregnancy came to be known, and she cited by the abbess, and, in a fullconvention of the convent, accused of incest. Her excuse was that she didnot consent thereto, but that it was done by the violence and impetuousforce of the Friar Stiffly-stand-to't. Hereto the abbess very austerelyreplying, 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 therape was committed in the dortour, where she durst not cry because it was aplace of sempiternal silence. But, quoth the abbess, thou roguish wench, why didst not thou then make some sign to those that were in the nextchamber beside thee? To this she answered that with her buttocks she madea sign unto them as vigorously as she could, yet never one of them did somuch 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 theperpetration of the fact, that so we might orderly, regularly, andcanonically have accused him? I would have done so, had the case beenmine, 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 eternaldamnation, if prevented by a sudden death, I did confess myself to thefather friar before he went out of the room, who, for my penance, enjoinedme not to tell it, or reveal the matter unto any. It were a most enormousand horrid offence, detestable before God and the angels, to reveal aconfession. Such an abominable wickedness would have possibly brought downfire from heaven, wherewith to have burnt the whole nunnery, and sent usall headlong to the bottomless pit, to bear company with Korah, Dathan, andAbiram. 

You will not, quoth Pantagruel, with all your jesting, make me laugh. Iknow that all the monks, friars, and nuns had rather violate and infringethe highest of the commandments of God than break the least of theirprovincial statutes. Take you therefore Goatsnose, a man very fit for yourpresent purpose; for he is, and hath been, both dumb and deaf from the veryremotest 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; athis arrival to which Panurge gave him a fat calf, the half of a hog, twopuncheons of wine, one load of corn, and thirty francs of small money;then, having brought him before Pantagruel, in presence of the gentlemen ofthe bed-chamber he made this sign unto him. He yawned a long time, and inyawning made without his mouth with the thumb of his right hand the figureof the Greek letter Tau by frequent reiterations. Afterwards he lifted uphis eyes to heavenwards, then turned them in his head like a she-goat inthe painful fit of an absolute birth, in doing whereof he did cough andsigh exceeding heavily. This done, after that he had made demonstration ofthe want of his codpiece, he from under his shirt took his placket-racketin a full grip, making it therewithal clack very melodiously betwixt histhighs; then, no sooner had he with his body stooped a little forwards, andbowed his left knee, but that immediately thereupon holding both his armson his breast, in a loose faint-like posture, the one over the other, hepaused awhile. Goatsnose looked wistly upon him, and having heedfullyenough viewed him all over, he lifted up into the air his left hand, thewhole fingers whereof he retained fistwise close together, except the thumband the forefinger, whose nails he softly joined and coupled to oneanother. I understand, quoth Pantagruel, what he meaneth by that sign. Itdenotes marriage, and withal the number thirty, according to the professionof the Pythagoreans. You will be married. Thanks to you, quoth Panurge, in turning himself towards Goatsnose, my little sewer, pretty master'smate, dainty bailie, curious sergeant-marshal, and jolly catchpole-leader. Then did he lift higher up than before his said left hand, stretching outall the five fingers thereof, and severing them as wide from one another ashe possibly could get done. Here, says Pantagruel, doth he more amply andfully insinuate unto us, by the token which he showeth forth of the quinarynumber, that you shall be married. Yea, that you shall not only beaffianced, betrothed, wedded, and married, but that you shall furthermorecohabit and live jollily and merrily with your wife; for Pythagoras calledfive the nuptial number, which, together with marriage, signifieth theconsummation of matrimony, because it is composed of a ternary, the firstof the odd, and binary, the first of the even numbers, as of a male andfemale knit and united together. In very deed it was the fashion of old inthe city of Rome at marriage festivals to light five wax tapers; nor was itpermitted to kindle any more at the magnific nuptials of the most potentand wealthy, nor yet any fewer at the penurious weddings of the poorest andmost abject of the world. Moreover, in times past, the heathen or paynimsimplored the assistance of five deities, or of one helpful, at least, infive several good offices to those that were to be married. Of this sortwere the nuptial Jove, Juno, president of the feast, the fair Venus, Pitho, the goddess of eloquence and persuasion, and Diana, whose aid and succourwas required to the labour of child-bearing. Then shouted Panurge, O thegentle Goatsnose, I will give him a farm near Cinais, and a windmill hardby Mirebalais! Hereupon the dumb fellow sneezeth with an impetuousvehemency and huge concussion of the spirits of the whole body, withdrawinghimself in so doing with a jerking turn towards the left hand. By the bodyof a fox new slain, quoth Pantagruel, what is that? This maketh nothingfor your advantage; for he betokeneth thereby that your marriage will beinauspicious and unfortunate. This sneezing, according to the doctrine ofTerpsion, is the Socratic demon. If done towards the right side, itimports and portendeth that boldly and with all assurance one may gowhither he will and do what he listeth, according to what deliberation heshall be pleased to have thereupon taken; his entries in the beginning, progress in his proceedings, and success in the events and issues will beall lucky, good, and happy. The quite contrary thereto is thereby impliedand presaged if it be done towards the left. You, quoth Panurge, do takealways the matter at the worst, and continually, like another Davus, casteth in new disturbances and obstructions; nor ever yet did I know thisold paltry Terpsion worthy of citation but in points only of cosenage andimposture. Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, Cicero hath written I know notwhat 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 theleft side, and drew forth his tongue half out of his mouth. This done, heposited his left hand wholly open, the mid-finger wholly excepted, whichwas perpendicularly placed upon the palm thereof, and set it just in theroom where his codpiece had been. Then did he keep his right handaltogether shut up in a fist, save only the thumb, which he straight turnedbackwards directly under the right armpit, and settled it afterwards onthat most eminent part of the buttocks which the Arabs call the Al-Katim. Suddenly thereafter he made this interchange: he held his right hand afterthe manner of the left, and posited it on the place wherein his codpiecesometime was, and retaining his left hand in the form and fashion of theright, he placed it upon his Al-Katim. This altering of hands did hereiterate nine several times; at the last whereof he reseated his eyelidsinto their own first natural position. Then doing the like also with hisjaws and tongue, he did cast a squinting look upon Goatsnose, diddering andshivering 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 whollyopen and displayed, put the thumb thereof, even close unto its firstarticulation, between the two third joints of the middle and ring fingers, pressing about the said thumb thereof very hard with them both, and, whilstthe remanent joints were contracted and shrunk in towards the wrist, hestretched forth with as much straightness as he could the fore and littlefingers. That hand thus framed and disposed of he laid and posited uponPanurge's navel, moving withal continually the aforesaid thumb, and bearingup, supporting, or under-propping that hand upon the above-specified foreand little fingers, as upon two legs. Thereafter did he make in thisposture his hand by little and little, and by degrees and pauses, successively to mount from athwart the belly to the stomach, from whence hemade it to ascend to the breast, even upwards to Panurge's neck, stillgaining ground, till, having reached his chin, he had put within theconcave of his mouth his afore-mentioned thumb; then fiercely brandishingthe whole hand, which he made to rub and grate against his nose, he heavedit further up, and made the fashion as if with the thumb thereof he wouldhave put out his eyes. With this Panurge grew a little angry, and wentabout to withdraw and rid himself from this ruggedly untoward dumb devil. But Goatsnose in the meantime, prosecuting the intended purpose of hisprognosticatory response, touched very rudely, with the above-mentionedshaking thumb, now his eyes, then his forehead, and after that the bordersand 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 meany more, you shall receive from the best hand I have a mask wherewith tocover your rascally scroundrel face, you paltry shitten varlet. Then saidFriar 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 itthat 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 askillet with butter and eggs. By God, da jurandi, I will feast you withflirts and raps on the snout, interlarded with a double row of bobs andfinger-fillipings! Then did he leave him in giving him by way of salvo avolley of farts for his farewell. Goatsnose, perceiving Panurge thus toslip away from him, got before him, and, by mere strength enforcing him tostand, made this sign unto him. He let fall his right arm toward his kneeon the same side as low as he could, and, raising all the fingers of thathand into a close fist, passed his dexter thumb betwixt the foremost andmid fingers thereto belonging. Then scrubbing and swingeing a little withhis left hand alongst and upon the uppermost in the very bough of the elbowof the said dexter arm, the whole cubit thereof, by leisure, fair andsoftly, at these thumpatory warnings, did raise and elevate itself even tothe elbow, and above it; on a sudden did he then let it fall down as low asbefore, and after that, at certain intervals and such spaces of time, raising and abasing it, he made a show thereof to Panurge. This soincensed Panurge that he forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him thedumb roister and given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respectand reverence which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained hischoler and kept his fury within bounds and limits. Then said Pantagruel, If the bare signs now vex and trouble you, how much more grievously willyou be perplexed and disquieted with the real things which by them arerepresented and signified! All truths agree and are consonant with oneanother. This dumb fellow prophesieth and foretelleth that you will bemarried, cuckolded, beaten, and robbed. As for the marriage, quothPanurge, I yield thereto, and acknowledge the verity of that point of hisprediction; 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 ofwives and horses never any man was predestinated to a better fortune thanI. 

Chapter 3. XXI. 

How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named Raminagrobis. 

I never thought, said Pantagruel, to have encountered with any man soheadstrong in his apprehensions, or in his opinions so wilful, as I havefound you to be and see you are. Nevertheless, the better to clear andextricate your doubts, let us try all courses, and leave no stone unturnednor wind unsailed by. Take good heed to what I am to say unto you. Theswans, which are fowls consecrated to Apollo, never chant but in the hourof their approaching death, especially in the Meander flood, which is ariver that runneth along some of the territories of Phrygia. This I say, because Aelianus and Alexander Myndius write that they had seen severalswans in other places die, but never heard any of them sing or chant beforetheir death. However, it passeth for current that the imminent death of aswan is presaged by his foregoing song, and that no swan dieth untilpreallably he have sung. 

After the same manner, poets, who are under the protection of Apollo, whenthey are drawing near their latter end do ordinarily become prophets, andby the inspiration of that god sing sweetly in vaticinating things whichare to come. It hath been likewise told me frequently, that old decrepitmen upon the brinks of Charon's banks do usher their decease with adisclosure all at ease, to those that are desirous of such informations, ofthe determinate and assured truth of future accidents and contingencies. Iremember also that Aristophanes, in a certain comedy of his, calleth theold folks Sibyls, Eith o geron Zibullia. For as when, being upon a pier bythe shore, we see afar off mariners, seafaring men, and other travellersalongst the curled waves of azure Thetis within their ships, we thenconsider them in silence only, and seldom proceed any further than to wishthem a happy and prosperous arrival; but when they do approach near to thehaven, and come to wet their keels within their harbour, then both withwords and gestures we salute them, and heartily congratulate their accesssafe to the port wherein we are ourselves. Just so the angels, heroes, andgood demons, according to the doctrine of the Platonics, when they seemortals drawing near unto the harbour of the grave, as the most sure andcalmest port of any, full of repose, ease, rest, tranquillity, free fromthe troubles and solicitudes of this tumultuous and tempestuous world; thenis it that they with alacrity hail and salute them, cherish and comfortthem, and, speaking to them lovingly, begin even then to bless them withilluminations, and to communicate unto them the abstrusest mysteries ofdivination. I will not offer here to confound your memory by quotingantique examples of Isaac, of Jacob, of Patroclus towards Hector, of Hectortowards Achilles, of Polymnestor towards Agamemnon, of Hecuba, of theRhodian renowned by Posidonius, of Calanus the Indian towards Alexander theGreat, of Orodes towards Mezentius, and of many others. It shall sufficefor the present that I commemorate unto you the learned and valiant knightand cavalier William of Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the Hillof Tarara, the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age, and ofour supputation 1543, according to the Roman account. The last three orfour hours of his life he did employ in the serious utterance of a verypithy discourse, whilst with a clear judgment and spirit void of alltrouble he did foretell several important things, whereof a great deal iscome to pass, and the rest we wait for. Howbeit, his prophecies did atthat time seem unto us somewhat strange, absurd, and unlikely, becausethere did not then appear any sign of efficacy enough to engage our faithto the belief of what he did prognosticate. We have here, near to the townof Villomere, a man that is both old and a poet, to wit, Raminagrobis, whoto his second wife espoused my Lady Broadsow, on whom he begot the fairBasoche. It hath been told me he is a-dying, and so near unto his latterend 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 towhat he shall chant unto you. It may be that you shall obtain from him whatyou desire, and that Apollo will be pleased by his means to clear yourscruples. I am content, quoth Panurge. Let us go thither, Epistemon, andthat both instantly and in all haste, lest otherwise his death prevent ourcoming. Wilt thou come along with us, Friar John? Yes, that I will, quothFriar John, right heartily to do thee a courtesy, my billy-ballocks; for Ilove thee with the best of my milt and liver. 

Thereupon, incontinently, without any further lingering, to the way theyall three went, and quickly thereafter--for they made good speed--arrivingat the poetical habitation, they found the jolly old man, albeit in theagony of his departure from this world, looking cheerfully, with an opencountenance, splendid aspect, and behaviour full of alacrity. After thatPanurge had very civilly saluted him, he in a free gift did present himwith a gold ring, which he even then put upon the medical finger of hisleft hand, in the collet or bezel whereof was enchased an Orientalsapphire, very fair and large. Then, in imitation of Socrates, did he makean oblation unto him of a fair white cock, which was no sooner set upon thetester of his bed, than that, with a high raised head and crest, lustilyshaking his feather-coat, he crowed stentoriphonically loud. This done, Panurge very courteously required of him that he would vouchsafe to favourhim with the grant and report of his sense and judgment touching the futuredestiny of his intended marriage. For answer hereto, when the honest oldman had forthwith commanded pen, paper, and ink to be brought unto him, andthat he was at the same call conveniently served with all the three, hewrote 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 guardianand preserver! and do not offer any more to trouble or disquiet me withthis or any other business whatsoever. I have this same very day, which isthe last both of May and of me, with a greal deal of labour, toil, anddifficulty, chased out of my house a rabble of filthy, unclean, andplaguily pestilentious rake-hells, black beasts, dusk, dun, white, ash-coloured, speckled, and a foul vermin of other hues, whose obtrusiveimportunity would not permit me to die at my own ease; for by fraudulentand deceitful pricklings, ravenous, harpy-like graspings, waspishstingings, and such-like unwelcome approaches, forged in the shop of I knownot what kind of insatiabilities, they went about to withdraw and call meout of those sweet thoughts wherein I was already beginning to reposemyself and acquiesce in the contemplation and vision, yea, almost in thevery touch and taste of the happiness and felicity which the good God hathprepared for his faithful saints and elect in the other life and state ofimmortality. Turn out of their courses and eschew them, step forth oftheir ways and do not resemble them; meanwhile, let me be no more troubledby 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 hadbeen horribly affrighted, By the virtue of God, I believe that he is anheretic; the devil take me, if I do not! he doth so villainously rail atthe Mendicant Friars and Jacobins, who are the two hemispheres of theChristian world; by whose gyronomonic circumbilvaginations, as by twocelivagous filopendulums, all the autonomatic metagrobolism of the RomishChurch, when tottering and emblustricated with the gibble-gabble gibberishof this odious error and heresy, is homocentrically poised. But what harm, in the devil's name, have these poor devils the Capuchins and Minims doneunto 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, andcalamity? Dost thou think, Friar John, by thy faith, that he is in thestate of salvation? He goeth, before God, as surely damned to thirtythousand basketsful of devils as a pruning-bill to the lopping of avine-branch. To revile with opprobrious speeches the good and courageousprops and pillars of the Church, --is that to be called a poetical fury? Icannot rest satisfied with him; he sinneth grossly, and blasphemeth againstthe true religion. I am very much offended at his scandalizing words andcontumelious obloquy. I do not care a straw, quoth Friar John, for what hehath said; for although everybody should twit and jerk them, it were but ajust retaliation, seeing all persons are served by them with the like sauce:therefore do I pretend no interest therein. Let us see, nevertheless, whathe hath written. Panurge very attentively read the paper which the old manhad 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 theend and final closure of his life. Let us go make his epitaph. By theanswer which he hath given us, I am not, I protest, one jot wiser than Iwas. Hearken here, Epistemon, my little bully, dost not thou hold him to bevery resolute in his responsory verdicts? He is a witty, quick, and subtlesophister. I will lay an even wager that he is a miscreant apostate. Bythe belly of a stalled ox, how careful he is not to be mistaken in hiswords. He answered but by disjunctives, therefore can it not be true whichhe saith; for the verity of such-like propositions is inherent only in oneof its two members. O the cozening prattler that he is! I wonder ifSantiago of Bressure be one of these cogging shirks. Such was of old, quothEpistemon, the custom of the grand vaticinator and prophet Tiresias, whoused always, by way of a preface, to say openly and plainly at the beginningof his divinations and predictions that what he was to tell would eithercome to pass or not. And such is truly the style of all prudently presagingprognosticators. He was nevertheless, quoth Panurge, so unfortunatelymisadventurous in the lot of his own destiny, that Juno thrust out both hiseyes. 

Yes, answered Epistemon, and that merely out of a spite and spleen forhaving pronounced his award more veritable than she, upon the questionwhich was merrily proposed by Jupiter. But, quoth Panurge, what archdevilis it that hath possessed this Master Raminagrobis, that so unreasonably, and without any occasion, he should have so snappishly and bitterlyinveighed against these poor honest fathers, Jacobins, Minors, and Minims?It vexeth me grievously, I assure you; nor am I able to conceal myindignation. He hath transgressed most enormously; his soul goethinfallibly to thirty thousand panniersful of devils. I understand you not, quoth Epistemon, and it disliketh me very much that you should so absurdlyand perversely interpret that of the Friar Mendicants which by the harmlesspoet was spoken of black beasts, dun, and other sorts of other colouredanimals. He is not in my opinion guilty of such a sophistical andfantastic allegory as by that phrase of his to have meant the BeggingBrothers. 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 somebrown and dusky, all noisome, molesting, tyrannous, cumbersome, andunpleasant creatures, not only to sick and diseased folks, but to thosealso who are of a sound, vigorous, and healthful temperament andconstitution. It is not unlikely that he may have the ascarids, and thelumbrics, and worms within the entrails of his body. Possibly doth hesuffer, as it is frequent and usual amongst the Egyptians, together withall those who inhabit the Erythraean confines, and dwell along the shoresand coasts of the Red Sea, some sour prickings and smart stingings in hisarms and legs of those little speckled dragons which the Arabians callmeden. You are to blame for offering to expound his words otherwise, andwrong the ingenuous poet, and outrageously abuse and miscall the saidfraters, 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 todiscern flies among milk, or show your father the way how to begetchildren? 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 asthe little wooden clock at Rochelle. His soul goeth to thirty thousandcartsful of devils. Would you know whither? Cocks-body, my friend, straight under Proserpina's close-stool, to the very middle of theself-same infernal pan within which she, by an excrementitious evacuation, voideth the faecal stuff of her stinking clysters, and that just upon theleft side of the great cauldron of three fathom height, hard by the clawsand talons of Lucifer, in the very darkest of the passage which leadethtowards the black chamber of Demogorgon. O the villain!

Chapter 3. XXIII. 

How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis. 

Let us return, quoth Panurge, not ceasing, to the uttermost of ourabilities, to ply him with wholesome admonitions for the furtherance of hissalvation. 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 soin the matter, and provide so well for him that, albeit he come to loseboth body and life, he may at least escape the risk and danger of theeternal damnation of his soul. We will by our holy persuasions bring himto a sense and feeling of his escapes, induce him to acknowledge hisfaults, move him to a cordial repentance of his errors, and stir up in himsuch a sincere contrition of heart for his offences, as will prompt himwith all earnestness to cry mercy, and to beg pardon at the hands of thegood fathers, as well of the absent as of such as are present. Whereuponwe will take instrument formally and authentically extended, to the end hebe not, after his decease, declared an heretic, and condemned, as were thehobgoblins of the provost's wife of Orleans, to the undergoing of suchpunishments, pains, and tortures as are due to and inflicted on those thatinhabit the horrid cells of the infernal regions; and withal incline, instigate, and persuade him to bequeath and leave in legacy (by way of anamends and satisfaction for the outrage and injury done to those goodreligious fathers throughout all the convents, cloisters, and monasteriesof this province), many bribes, a great deal of mass-singing, store ofobits, and that sempiternally, on the anniversary day of his decease, everyone of them all be furnished with a quintuple allowance, and that the greatborachio replenished with the best liquor trudge apace along the tables, aswell of the young duckling monkitoes, lay brothers, and lowermost degree ofthe abbey lubbards, as of the learned priests and reverend clerks, --thevery meanest of the novices and mitiants unto the order being equallyadmitted to the benefit of those funerary and obsequial festivals with theaged rectors and professed fathers. This is the surest ordinary meanswhereby from God he may obtain forgiveness. Ho, ho, I am quite mistaken; Idigress from the purpose, and fly out of my discourse, as if my spiritswere 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 noiseis now amongst them! O the terrible coil that they keep! Hearken, do younot hear the rustling, thumping bustle of their strokes and blows, as theyscuffle with one another, like true devils indeed, who shall gulp up theRaminagrobis soul, and be the first bringer of it, whilst it is hot, toMonsieur Lucifer? Beware, and get you hence! for my part, I will not gothither. The devil roast me if I go! Who knows but that these hungry maddevils may in the haste of their rage and fury of their impatience take aqui for a quo, and instead of Raminagrobis snatch up poor Panurge frank andfree? Though formerly, when I was deep in debt, they always failed. Getyou hence! I will not go thither. Before God, the very bare apprehensionthereof is like to kill me. To be in a place where there are greedy, famished, and hunger-starved devils; amongst factious devils--amidsttrading and trafficking devils--O the Lord preserve me! Get you hence! Idare pawn my credit on it, that no Jacobin, Cordelier, Carmelite, Capuchin, Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment. Thewiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter willand testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned, tohis own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be sosnappish 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 hischamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest need ofthe aid, suffrage, and assistance of their devout prayers and holyadmonitions? Why did not he by testament leave them, at least, some jollylumps 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 whowill, the devil take me if I go; for, if I should, the devil would not failto snatch me up. Cancro. Ho, the pox! Get you hence, Friar John! Artthou content that thirty thousand wainload of devils should get away withthee at this same very instant? If thou be, at my request do these threethings. First, give me thy purse; for besides that thy money is markedwith crosses, and the cross is an enemy to charms, the same may befall tothee which not long ago happened to John Dodin, collector of the excise ofCoudray, at the ford of Vede, when the soldiers broke the planks. Thismoneyed fellow, meeting at the very brink of the bank of the ford withFriar Adam Crankcod, a Franciscan observantin of Mirebeau, promised him anew frock, provided that in the transporting of him over the water he wouldbear him upon his neck and shoulders, after the manner of carrying deadgoats; for he was a lusty, strong-limbed, sturdy rogue. The conditionbeing agreed upon, Friar Crankcod trusseth himself up to his very ballocks, and layeth upon his back, like a fair little Saint Christopher, the load ofthe 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 thevery deepest place of all the ford, a little above the master-wheel of thewater-mill, he asked if he had any coin about him. Yes, quoth Dodin, awhole bagful; and that he needed not to mistrust his ability in theperformance of the promise which he had made unto him concerning a newfrock. How! quoth Friar Crankcod, thou knowest well enough that by theexpress rules, canons, and injunctions of our order we are forbidden tocarry on us any kind of money. Thou art truly unhappy, for having made mein this point to commit a heinous trespass. Why didst thou not leave thypurse with the miller? Without fail thou shalt presently receive thyreward for it; and if ever hereafter I may but lay hold upon thee withinthe limits of our chancel at Mirebeau, thou shalt have the Miserere even tothe Vitulos. With this, suddenly discharging himself of his burden, hethrows me down your Dodin headlong. Take example by this Dodin, my dearfriend Friar John, to the end that the devils may the better carry theeaway at thine own ease. Give me thy purse. Carry no manner of cross uponthee. Therein lieth an evident and manifestly apparent danger. For if youhave any silver coined with a cross upon it, they will cast thee downheadlong upon some rocks, as the eagles use to do with the tortoises forthe breaking of their shells, as the bald pate of the poet Aeschylus cansufficiently bear witness. Such a fall would hurt thee very sore, my sweetbully, and I would be sorry for it. Or otherwise they will let thee falland tumble down into the high swollen waves of some capacious sea, I knownot where; but, I warrant thee, far enough hence, as Icarus fell, whichfrom thy name would afterwards get the denomination of the Funnelian Sea. 

Secondly, be out of debt. For the devils carry a great liking to thosethat are out of debt. I have sore felt the experience thereof in mine ownparticular; for now the lecherous varlets are always wooing me, courtingme, 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 incase, being thus qualified, thirty thousand boatsful of devils forthwithcome not to carry thee quite away, I shall be content to be at the chargeof paying for the pint and faggot. Now, if for the more security thouwouldst some associate to bear thee company, let not me be the comrade thousearchest for; think not to get a fellow-traveller of me, --nay, do not. Iadvise thee for the best. Get you hence; I will not go thither. The deviltake me if I go. Notwithstanding all the fright that you are in, quothFriar John, I would not care so much as might possibly be expected Ishould, if I once had but my sword in my hand. Thou hast verily hit thenail on the head, quoth Panurge, and speakest like a learned doctor, subtleand well-skilled in the art of devilry. At the time when I was a studentin the University of Toulouse (Tolette), that same reverend father in thedevil, Picatrix, rector of the diabological faculty, was wont to tell usthat the devils did naturally fear the bright glancing of swords as much asthe splendour and light of the sun. In confirmation of the verity whereofhe related this story, that Hercules, at his descent into hell to all thedevils of those regions, did not by half so much terrify them with his cluband lion's skin as afterwards Aeneas did with his clear shining armour uponhim, and his sword in his hand well-furbished and unrusted, by the aid, counsel, and assistance of the Sybilla Cumana. That was perhaps the reasonwhy 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, layingabout him alongst and athwart around the bed and everywhere within hisreach, like a stout, doughty, valorous and knight-like cavalier; by whichresolute manner of fence he scared away and put to flight all the devilsthat 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 thedevils do at any time enter into the terrestrial paradise? their answerhath been, is, and will be still, that there is a cherubin standing at thegate thereof with a flame-like glistering sword in his hand. Although, tospeak in the true diabological sense or phrase of Toledo, I must needsconfess and acknowledge that veritably the devils cannot be killed or dieby the stroke of a sword, I do nevertheless avow and maintain, according tothe doctrine of the said diabology, that they may suffer a solution ofcontinuity (as if with thy shable thou shouldst cut athwart the flame of aburning fire, or the gross opacous exhalations of a thick and obscuresmoke), and cry out like very devils at their sense and feeling of thisdissolution, which in real deed I must aver and affirm is devilishlypainful, smarting, and dolorous. 

When thou seest the impetuous shock of two armies, and vehement violence ofthe push in their horrid encounter with one another, dost thou think, Ballockasso, that so horrible a noise as is heard there proceedeth from thevoice and shouts of men, the dashing and jolting of harness, the clatteringand clashing of armies, the hacking and slashing of battle-axes, thejustling and crashing of pikes, the bustling and breaking of lances, theclamour and shrieks of the wounded, the sound and din of drums, theclangour and shrillness of trumpets, the neighing and rushing in of horses, with the fearful claps and thundering of all sorts of guns, from the doublecannon to the pocket pistol inclusively? I cannot goodly deny but that inthese various things which I have rehearsed there may be somewhatoccasionative of the huge yell and tintamarre of the two engaged bodies. But the most fearful and tumultuous coil and stir, the terriblest and mostboisterous garboil and hurry, the chiefest rustling black santus of all, and most principal hurlyburly springeth from the grievously plangoroushowling and lowing of devils, who pell-mell, in a hand-over-head confusion, waiting for the poor souls of the maimed and hurt soldiery, receiveunawares some strokes with swords, and so by those means suffer a solutionof 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 roastmeat on the spit, should get from Mr. Greasyfist a good rap on the knuckleswith a cudgel. They cry out and shout like devils, even as Mars did whenhe was hurt by Diomedes at the siege of Troy, who, as Homer testifieth ofhim, did then raise his voice more horrifically loud and sonoriferouslyhigh than ten thousand men together would have been able to do. Whatmaketh all this for our present purpose? I have been speaking here ofwell-furbished armour and bright shining swords. But so is it not, FriarJohn, with thy weapon; for by a long discontinuance of work, cessation fromlabour, desisting from making it officiate, and putting it into thatpractice wherein it had been formerly accustomed, and, in a word, for wantof occupation, it is, upon my faith, become more rusty than the key-hole ofan old powdering-tub. Therefore it is expedient that you do one of thesetwo things: either furbish your weapon bravely, and as it ought to be, orotherwise have a care that, in the rusty case it is in, you do not presumeto return to the house of Raminagrobis. For my part, I vow I will not gothither. 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 towardsPantagruel, Panurge, in addressing his discourse to Epistemon, spoke thus:My most ancient friend and gossip, thou seest the perplexity of mythoughts, and knowest many remedies for the removal thereof; art thou notable to help and succour me? Epistemon, thereupon taking the speech inhand, represented unto Panurge how the open voice and common fame of thewhole country did run upon no other discourse but the derision and mockeryof his new disguise; wherefore his counsel unto him was that he would inthe first place be pleased to make use of a little hellebore for thepurging of his brain of that peccant humour which, through that extravagantand fantastic mummery of his, had furnished the people with a too justoccasion of flouting and gibing, jeering and scoffing him, and that next hewould resume his ordinary fashion of accoutrement, and go apparelled as hewas wont to do. I am, quoth Panurge, my dear gossip Epistemon, of a mindand resolution to marry, but am afraid of being a cuckold and to beunfortunate 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 firstfounder of the confraternity of good men, whom they naturally covet, affect, and long for--to wear spectacles in my cap, and to carry nocodpiece in my breeches, until the present inquietude and perturbation ofmy 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 untoyourself, and recall your senses from this their wild swerving and strayingabroad to that rest and stillness which becomes a virtuous man. Thiswhimsical conceit of yours brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promisemade by the shag-haired Argives, who, having in their controversy againstthe Lacedaemonians for the territory of Thyrea, lost the battle which theyhoped should have decided it for their advantage, vowed to carry never anyhair on their heads till preallably they had recovered the loss of boththeir honour and lands. As likewise to the memory of the vow of a pleasantSpaniard called Michael Doris, who vowed to carry in his hat a piece of theshin 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 andyellow hood with a hare's ears tied to it, either the aforesaidvainglorious champion, or that Enguerrant, who having forgot the art andmanner of writing histories set down by the Samosatian philosopher, maketha most tediously long narrative and relation thereof. For, at the firstreading of such a profuse discourse, one would think it had been broachedfor the introducing of a story of great importance and moment concerningthe waging of some formidable war, or the notable change and mutation ofpotent states and kingdoms; but, in conclusion, the world laugheth at thecapricious champion, at the Englishman who had affronted him, as also attheir scribbler Enguerrant, more drivelling at the mouth than a mustardpot. The jest and scorn thereof is not unlike to that of the mountain ofHorace, which by the poet was made to cry out and lament most enormously asa woman in the pangs and labour of child-birth, at which deplorable andexorbitant cries and lamentations the whole neighbourhood being assembledin expectation to see some marvellous monstrous production, could at lastperceive no other but the paltry, ridiculous mouse. 

Your mousing, quoth Panurge, will not make me leave my musing why folksshould be so frumpishly disposed, seeing I am certainly persuaded that someflout who merit to be flouted at; yet, as my vow imports, so will I do. Itis now a long time since, by Jupiter Philos (A mistake of thetranslator's. --M. ), we did swear faith and amity to one another. Give meyour advice, billy, and tell me your opinion freely, Should I marry or no?Truly, quoth Epistemon, the case is hazardous, and the danger so eminentlyapparent that I find myself too weak and insufficient to give you apunctual and peremptory resolution therein; and if ever it was true thatjudgment is difficult in matters of the medicinal art, what was said byHippocrates of Lango, it is certainly so in this case. True it is that inmy brain there are some rolling fancies, by means whereof somewhat may bepitched upon of a seeming efficacy to the disentangling your mind of thosedubious apprehensions wherewith it is perplexed; but they do not thoroughlysatisfy me. Some of the Platonic sect affirm that whosoever is able to seehis proper genius may know his own destiny. I understand not theirdoctrine, nor do I think that you adhere to them; there is a palpableabuse. I have seen the experience of it in a very curious gentleman of thecountry of Estangourre. This is one of the points. There is yet anothernot much better. If there were any authority now in the oracles of JupiterAmmon; of Apollo in Lebadia, Delphos, Delos, Cyrra, Patara, Tegyres, Preneste, Lycia, Colophon, or in the Castalian Fountain; near Antiochia inSyria, between the Branchidians; of Bacchus in Dodona; of Mercury inPhares, near Patras; of Apis in Egypt; of Serapis in Canope; of Faunus inMenalia, and Albunea near Tivoli; of Tiresias in Orchomenus; of Mopsus inCilicia; of Orpheus in Lesbos, and of Trophonius in Leucadia; I would inthat case advise you, and possibly not, to go thither for their judgmentconcerning the design and enterprise you have in hand. But you know thatthey are all of them become as dumb as so many fishes since the advent ofthat Saviour King whose coming to this world hath made all oracles andprophecies to cease; as the approach of the sun's radiant beams expellethgoblins, bugbears, hobthrushes, broams, screech-owl-mates, night-walkingspirits, and tenebrions. These now are gone; but although they were as yetin continuance and in the same power, rule, and request that formerly theywere, yet would not I counsel you to be too credulous in putting any trustin their responses. Too many folks have been deceived thereby. It standsfurthermore upon record how Agrippina did charge the fair Lollia with thecrime of having interrogated the oracle of Apollo Clarius, to understand ifshe should be at any time married to the Emperor Claudius; for which causeshe was first banished, and thereafter put to a shameful and ignominiousdeath. 

But, saith Panurge, let us do better. The Ogygian Islands are not fardistant from the haven of Sammalo. Let us, after that we shall have spokento 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 residemany soothsayers, fortune-tellers, vaticinators, prophets, and diviners ofthings to come; that Saturn inhabiteth that place, bound with fair chainsof gold and within the concavity of a golden rock, being nourished withdivine ambrosia and nectar, which are daily in great store and abundancetransmitted to him from the heavens, by I do not well know what kind offowls, --it may be that they are the same ravens which in the deserts aresaid to have fed St. Paul, the first hermit, --he very clearly foretellethunto everyone who is desirous to be certified of the condition of his lotwhat his destiny will be, and what future chance the Fates have ordainedfor him; for the Parcae, or Weird Sisters, do not twist, spin, or draw outa thread, nor yet doth Jupiter perpend, project, or deliberate anythingwhich the good old celestial father knoweth not to the full, even whilst heis asleep. This will be a very summary abbreviation of our labour, if webut hearken unto him a little upon the serious debate and canvassing ofthis my perplexity. That is, answered Epistemon, a gullery too evident, aplain 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 youwhat you may do, if you believe me, before we return to our king. Hard byhere, in the Brown-wheat (Bouchart) Island, dwelleth Herr Trippa. You knowhow by the arts of astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, metopomancy, and othersof a like stuff and nature, he foretelleth all things to come; let us talka little, and confer with him about your business. Of that, answeredPanurge, I know nothing; but of this much concerning him I am assured, thatone day, and that not long since, whilst he was prating to the great kingof celestial, sublime, and transcendent things, the lacqueys and footboysof 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 allheavenly and terrestrial things without spectacles, who discoursed boldlyof adventures past, with great confidence opened up present cases andaccidents, and stoutly professed the presaging of all future events andcontingencies, was not able, with all the skill and cunning that he had, toperceive the bumbasting of his wife, whom he reputed to be very chaste, andhath not till this hour got notice of anything to the contrary. Yet let usgo to him, seeing you will have it so; for surely we can never learn toomuch. 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 allthrough with wolf-skins, with a short sword mounted with a gilded hilt andcovered with a velvet scabbard, and with fifty good single angels; then ina familiar and friendly way did he ask of him his opinion touching theaffair. At the very first Herr Trippa, looking on him very wistly in theface, said unto him: Thou hast the metoposcopy and physiognomy of acuckold, --I say, of a notorious and infamous cuckold. With this, castingan eye upon Panurge's right hand in all the parts thereof, he said, Thisrugged draught which I see here, just under the mount of Jove, was neveryet but in the hand of a cuckold. Afterwards, he with a white lead penswiftly and hastily drew a certain number of diverse kinds of points, whichby rules of geomancy he coupled and joined together; then said: Truthitself is not truer than that it is certain thou wilt be a cuckold a littleafter thy marriage. That being done, he asked of Panurge the horoscope ofhis nativity, which was no sooner by Panurge tendered unto him, than that, erecting a figure, he very promptly and speedily formed and fashioned acomplete fabric of the houses of heaven in all their parts, whereof when hehad considered the situation and the aspects in their triplicities, hefetched a deep sigh, and said: I have clearly enough already discoveredunto you the fate of your cuckoldry, which is unavoidable, you cannotescape it. And here have I got of new a further assurance thereof, so thatI may now hardily pronounce and affirm, without any scruple or hesitationat all, that thou wilt be a cuckold; that furthermore, thou wilt be beatenby thine own wife, and that she will purloin, filch and steal of thy goodsfrom thee; for I find the seventh house, in all its aspects, of a malignantinfluence, and every one of the planets threatening thee with disgrace, according as they stand seated towards one another, in relation to thehorned signs of Aries, Taurus, and Capricorn. In the fourth house I findJupiter in a decadence, as also in a tetragonal aspect to Saturn, associated with Mercury. Thou wilt be soundly peppered, my good, honestfellow, I warrant thee. I will be? answered Panurge. A plague rot thee, thou old fool and doting sot, how graceless and unpleasant thou art! Whenall cuckolds shall be at a general rendezvous, thou shouldst be theirstandard-bearer. But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these twofingers? This Panurge said, putting the forefinger of his left handbetwixt the fore and mid finger of the right, which he thrust out towardsHerr Trippa, holding them open after the manner of two horns, and shuttinginto his fist his thumb with the other fingers. Then, in turning toEpistemon, he said: Lo here the true Olus of Martial, who addicted anddevoted himself wholly to the observing the miseries, crosses, andcalamities of others, whilst his own wife, in the interim, did keep an openbawdy-house. This varlet is poorer than ever was Irus, and yet he isproud, vaunting, arrogant, self-conceited, overweening, and moreinsupportable than seventeen devils; in one word, Ptochalazon, which termof old was applied to the like beggarly strutting coxcombs. Come, let usleave this madpash bedlam, this hairbrained fop, and give him leave to raveand dose his bellyful with his private and intimately acquainted devils, who, if they were not the very worst of all infernal fiends, would neverhave deigned to serve such a knavish barking cur as this is. He hath notlearnt the first precept of philosophy, which is, Know thyself; for whilsthe braggeth and boasteth that he can discern the least mote in the eye ofanother, he is not able to see the huge block that puts out the sight ofboth his eyes. This is such another Polypragmon as is by Plutarchdescribed. He is of the nature of the Lamian witches, who in foreignplaces, in the houses of strangers, in public, and amongst the commonpeople, had a sharper and more piercing inspection into their affairs thanany lynx, but at home in their own proper dwelling-mansions were blinderthan moldwarps, and saw nothing at all. For their custom was, at theirreturn from abroad, when they were by themselves in private, to take theireyes out of their head, from whence they were as easily removable as a pairof spectacles from their nose, and to lay them up into a wooden slipperwhich for that purpose did hang behind the door of their lodging. 

Panurge had no sooner done speaking, when Herr Trippa took into his hand atamarisk branch. In this, quoth Epistemon, he doth very well, right, andlike an artist, for Nicander calleth it the divinatory tree. Have you amind, quoth Herr Trippa, to have the truth of the matter yet more fully andamply disclosed unto you by pyromancy, by aeromancy, whereof Aristophanesin his Clouds maketh great estimation, by hydromancy, by lecanomancy, ofold in prime request amongst the Assyrians, and thoroughly tried byHermolaus Barbarus. Come hither, and I will show thee in this platterfulof fair fountain-water thy future wife lechering and sercroupierizing itwith two swaggering ruffians, one after another. Yea, but have a specialcare, 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 inhis discourse, said, By catoptromancy, likewise held in such account by theEmperor Didius Julianus, that by means thereof he ever and anon foresaw allthat which at any time did happen or befall unto him. Thou shalt not needto put on thy spectacles, for in a mirror thou wilt see her as clearly andmanifestly nebrundiated and billibodring it, as if I should show it in thefountain of the temple of Minerva near Patras. By coscinomancy, mostreligiously observed of old amidst the ceremonies of the ancient Romans. Let us have a sieve and shears, and thou shalt see devils. Byalphitomancy, cried up by Theocritus in his Pharmaceutria. By alentomancy, mixing the flour of wheat with oatmeal. By astragalomancy, whereof I havethe 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 byme. By giromancy, if thou shouldst turn round circles, thou mightestassure thyself from me that they would fall always on the wrong side. Bysternomancy, which maketh nothing for thy advantage, for thou hast anill-proportioned stomach. By libanomancy, for the which we shall need buta little frankincense. By gastromancy, which kind of ventral fatiloquencywas for a long time together used in Ferrara by Lady Giacoma Rodogina, theEngastrimythian prophetess. By cephalomancy, often practised amongst theHigh Germans in their boiling of an ass's head upon burning coals. Byceromancy, where, by the means of wax dissolved into water, thou shalt seethe figure, portrait, and lively representation of thy future wife, and ofher fredin fredaliatory belly-thumping blades. By capnomancy. O thegallantest and most excellent of all secrets! By axionomancy; we want onlya hatchet and a jet-stone to be laid together upon a quick fire of hotembers. O how bravely Homer was versed in the practice hereof towardsPenelope's suitors! By onymancy; for that we have oil and wax. Bytephromancy. Thou wilt see the ashes thus aloft dispersed exhibiting thywife in a fine posture. By botanomancy; for the nonce I have some fewleaves in reserve. By sicomancy; O divine art in fig-tree leaves! Byicthiomancy, in ancient times so celebrated, and put in use by Tiresias andPolydamas, with the like certainty of event as was tried of old at theDina-ditch within that grove consecrated to Apollo which is in theterritory 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 beanis found in the cake at the Epiphany vigil. By anthropomancy, practised bythe Roman Emperor Heliogabalus. It is somewhat irksome, but thou wiltendure it well enough, seeing thou art destinated to be a cuckold. By asibylline stichomancy. By onomatomancy. How do they call thee?Chaw-turd, quoth Panurge. Or yet by alectryomancy. If I should here witha compass draw a round, and in looking upon thee, and considering thy lot, divide the circumference thereof into four-and-twenty equal parts, thenform 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 durstpromise upon my faith and honesty that, if a young virgin cock be permittedto range alongst and athwart them, he should only eat the grains which areset 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, mostperplexedly desirous to know the name of him who should be his successor tothe empire, the cock vacticinating and alectryomantic ate up the picklesthat 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 mysteryof necromancy? I will, if you please, suddenly set up again and revivesomeone lately deceased, as Apollonius of Tyane did to Achilles, and thePythoness in the presence of Saul; which body, so raised up andrequickened, will tell us the sum of all you shall require of him: no morenor less than, at the invocation of Erictho, a certain defunct personforetold to Pompey the whole progress and issue of the fatal battle foughtin the Pharsalian fields. Or, if you be afraid of the dead, as commonlyall cuckolds are, I will make use of the faculty of sciomancy. 

Go, get thee gone, quoth Panurge, thou frantic ass, to the devil, and bebuggered, filthy Bardachio that thou art, by some Albanian, for asteeple-crowned hat. Why the devil didst not thou counsel me as well tohold an emerald or the stone of a hyaena under my tongue, or to furnish andprovide myself with tongues of whoops, and hearts of green frogs, or to eatof the liver and milt of some dragon, to the end that by those means Imight, at the chanting and chirping of swans and other fowls, understand thesubstance of my future lot and destiny, as did of old the Arabians in thecountry of Mesopotamia? Fifteen brace of devils seize upon the body andsoul of this horned renegado, miscreant cuckold, the enchanter, witch, andsorcerer of Antichrist to all the devils of hell! Let us return towards ourking. I am sure he will not be well pleased with us if he once come to getnotice that we have been in the kennel of this muffled devil. I repent mybeing come hither. I would willingly dispense with a hundred nobles andfourteen yeomans, on condition that he who not long since did blow in thebottom of my breeches should instantly with his squirting spittle inluminatehis moustaches. O Lord God now! how the villain hath besmoked me withvexation and anger, with charms and witchcraft, and with a terrible coil andstir of infernal and Tartarian devils! The devil take him! Say Amen, andlet us go drink. I shall not have any appetite for my victuals, how goodcheer 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 wordsof Herr Trippa, and therefore, as he passed by the little village ofHuymes, 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 alittle jovial and merry, my dear and sweet bully, for I find my brainsaltogether metagrabolized and confounded, and my spirits in a most dunsicalpuzzle 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, Ido 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 Ireserved 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 sprightlycheerfulness, made this answer to him: Marry, in the devil's name. Whynot? 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 wertbeating on stock-fish; and let the repercussion of thy clapper from herresounding metal make a noise as if a double peal of chiming-bells werehung at the cremasters of thy ballocks. As I say marry, so do I understandthat thou shouldst fall to work as speedily as may be; yea, my meaning isthat thou oughtest to be so quick and forward therein, as on this same veryday, before sunset, to cause proclaim thy banns of matrimony, and makeprovision of bedsteads. By the blood of a hog's-pudding, till when wouldstthou delay the acting of a husband's part? Dost thou not know, and is itnot daily told unto thee, that the end of the world approacheth? We arenearer it by three poles and half a fathom than we were two days ago. TheAntichrist is already born; at least it is so reported by many. The truthis, that hitherto the effects of his wrath have not reached further than tothe scratching of his nurse and governesses. His nails are not sharpenough as yet, nor have his claws attained to their full growth, --he islittle. 

 Crescat; Nos qui vivimus, multiplicemur. 

It is written so, and it is holy stuff, I warrant you; the truth whereof islike to last as long as a sack of corn may be had for a penny, and apuncheon of pure wine for threepence. Wouldst thou be content to be foundwith thy genitories full in the day of judgment? Dum venerit judicari?Thou hast, quoth Panurge, a right, clear, and neat spirit, Friar John, mymetropolitan cod; thou speakst in very deed pertinently and to purpose. That belike was the reason which moved Leander of Abydos in Asia, whilst hewas swimming through the Hellespontic sea to make a visit to his sweetheartHero of Sestus in Europe, to pray unto Neptune and all the other marinegods, 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 becommended; therefore do I promise, that from henceforth no malefactor shallby justice be executed within my jurisdiction of Salmigondinois, who shallnot, for a day or two at least before, be permitted to culbut andforaminate onocrotalwise, that there remain not in all his vessels to writea Greek Y. Such a precious thing should not be foolishly cast away. Hewill perhaps therewith beget a male, and so depart the more contentedly outof 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 dearfriend Panurge, which I would not do myself were I in thy place. Only havea special care, and take good heed thou solder well together the joints ofthe double-backed and two-bellied beast, and fortify thy nerves sostrongly, that there be no discontinuance in the knocks of the venereanthwacking, else thou art lost, poor soul. For if there pass long intervalsbetwixt the priapizing feats, and that thou make an intermission of toolarge a time, that will befall thee which betides the nurses if they desistfrom giving suck to children--they lose their milk; and if continually thoudo not hold thy aspersory tool in exercise, and keep thy mentul going, thylacticinian nectar will be gone, and it will serve thee only as a pipe topiss out at, and thy cods for a wallet of lesser value than a beggar'sscrip. 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 dowhat they would, because before they did not what they might have done: Exdesuetudine amittuntur privilegia. Non-usage oftentimes destroys one'sright, say the learned doctors of the law; therefore, my billy, entertainas well as possibly thou canst that hypogastrian lower sort of troglodyticpeople, that their chief pleasure may be placed in the case of sempiternallabouring. Give order that henceforth they live not, like idle gentlemen, idly upon their rents and revenues, but that they may work for theirlivelihood by breaking ground within the Paphian trenches. Nay truly, answered Panurge, Friar John, my left ballock, I will believe thee, forthou dealest plain with me, and fallest downright square upon the business, without going about the bush with frivolous circumstances and unnecessaryreservations. Thou with the splendour of a piercing wit hast dissipatedall the lowering clouds of anxious apprehensions and suspicions which didintimidate and terrify me; therefore the heavens be pleased to grant tothee at all she-conflicts a stiff-standing fortune. Well then, as thouhast said, so will I do; I will, in good faith, marry, --in that point thereshall be no failing, I promise thee, --and shall have always by me prettygirls clothed with the name of my wife's waiting-maids, that, lying underthy wings, thou mayest be night-protector of their sisterhood. 

Let this serve for the first part of the sermon. Hearken, quoth FriarJohn, to the oracle of the bells of Varenes. What say they? I hear andunderstand them, quoth Panurge; their sound is, by my thirst, moreuprightly 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 thoumarry, thou shalt find good therein, herein, here in a wife thou shalt findgood; so marry, marry. I will assure thee that I shall be married; all theelements invite and prompt me to it. Let this word be to thee a brazenwall, by diffidence not to be broken through. As for the second part ofthis our doctrine, --thou seemest in some measure to mistrust the readinessof my paternity in the practising of my placket-racket within theAphrodisian tennis-court at all times fitting, as if the stiff god ofgardens were not favourable to me. I pray thee, favour me so much as tobelieve that I still have him at a beck, attending always my commandments, docile, obedient, vigorous, and active in all things and everywhere, andnever stubborn or refractory to my will or pleasure. I need no more but tolet go the reins, and slacken the leash, which is the belly-point, and whenthe game is shown unto him, say, Hey, Jack, to thy booty! he will not faileven then to flesh himself upon his prey, and tuzzle it to some purpose. Hereby you may perceive, although my future wife were as unsatiable andgluttonous in her voluptuousness and the delights of venery as ever was theEmpress Messalina, or yet the Marchioness (of Oincester) in England, and Idesire thee to give credit to it, that I lack not for what is requisite tooverlay the stomach of her lust, but have wherewith aboundingly to pleaseher. I am not ignorant that Solomon said, who indeed of that matterspeaketh clerklike and learnedly, --as also how Aristotle after him declaredfor a truth that, for the greater part, the lechery of a woman is ravenousand unsatisfiable. Nevertheless, let such as are my friends who read thosepassages receive from me for a most real verity, that I for such a Jillhave a fit Jack; and that, if women's things cannot be satiated, I have aninstrument indefatigable, --an implement as copious in the giving as can incraving be their vade mecums. Do not here produce ancient examples of theparagons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory abilitythe Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, ProculusCaesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he hadthe vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christiantrust the rogue, --the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou needto urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince ofwhom Theophrastus, Plinius, and Athenaeus testify, that with the help of acertain herb he was able, and had given frequent experiments thereof, totoss his sinewy piece of generation in the act of carnal concupiscenceabove three score and ten times in the space of four-and-twenty hours. Ofthat I believe nothing, the number is supposititious, and too prodigallyfoisted in. Give no faith unto it, I beseech thee, but prithee trust me inthis, and thy credulity therein shall not be wronged, for it is true, andprobatum 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 anyhouse it was laid down, whether openly in the view of all or covertly outof the sight of any, such was the ineffable virtue thereof for excitatingand stirring up the people of both sexes unto lechery, that the wholeinhabitants and indwellers, not only of that, but likewise of all thecircumjacent places thereto, within three leagues around it, did suddenlyenter into rut, both beasts and folks, men and women, even to the dogs andhogs, rats and cats. 

I swear to thee that many times heretofore I have perceived and found in mycodpiece a certain kind of energy or efficacious virtue much more irregularand of a greater anomaly than what I have related. I will not speak tothee either of house or cottage, nor of church or market, but only tellthee, that once at the representation of the Passion, which was acted atSaint Maxents, I had no sooner entered within the pit of the theatre, butthat forthwith, by the virtue and occult property of it, on a sudden allthat were there, both players and spectators, did fall into such anexorbitant temptation of lust, that there was not angel, man, devil, nordeviless upon the place who would not then have bricollitched it with alltheir heart and soul. The prompter forsook his copy, he who playedMichael's part came down to rights, the devils issued out of hell andcarried 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, Idisparked myself forth of that enclosed place, in imitation of Cato theCensor, who perceiving, by reason of his presence, the Floralian festivalsout 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 thingsplain. The most durable marble or porphyry is subject to old age anddecay. 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 codshang dangling downwards for want of a better truss. I see thee waxing alittle hoar-headed already. Thy beard, by the distinction of grey, white, tawny, and black, hath to my thinking the resemblance of a map of theterrestrial globe or geographical chart. Look attentively upon and takeinspection of what I shall show unto thee. Behold there Asia. Here areTigris and Euphrates. Lo there Afric. Here is the mountain of the Moon, --yonder thou mayst perceive the fenny march of Nilus. On this side liethEurope. Dost thou not see the Abbey of Theleme? This little tuft, whichis altogether white, is the Hyperborean Hills. By the thirst of mythropple, friend, when snow is on the mountains, I say the head and thechin, there is not then any considerable heat to be expected in the valleysand low countries of the codpiece. By the kibes of thy heels, quothPanurge, thou dost not understand the topics. When snow is on the tops ofthe hills, lightning, thunder, tempest, whirlwinds, storms, hurricanes, andall the devils of hell rage in the valleys. Wouldst thou see theexperience thereof, go to the territory of the Switzers and earnestlyperpend with thyself there the situation of the lake of Wunderberlich, about four leagues distant from Berne, on the Syon-side of the land. Thoutwittest me with my grey hairs, yet considerest not how I am of the natureof leeks, which with a white head carry a green, fresh, straight, andvigorous tail. The truth is, nevertheless (why should I deny it), that Inow and then discern in myself some indicative signs of old age. Tellthis, I prithee, to nobody, but let it be kept very close and secretbetwixt us two; for I find the wine much sweeter now, more savoury to mytaste, and unto my palate of a better relish than formerly I was wont todo; and withal, besides mine accustomed manner, I have a more dreadfulapprehension than I ever heretofore have had of lighting on bad wine. Noteand observe that this doth argue and portend I know not what of the westand occident of my time, and signifieth that the south and meridian of mineage is past. But what then, my gentle companion? That doth but betokenthat I will hereafter drink so much the more. That is not, the devil haleit, the thing that I fear; nor is it there where my shoe pinches. Thething 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 needsbear company should he go to all the devils of Barathrum), my future wifeshall make me a cuckold. This is, in truth, the long and short on't. ForI am by all those whom I have spoke to menaced and threatened with a hornedfortune, and all of them affirm it is the lot to which from heaven I ampredestinated. Everyone, answered Friar John, that would be a cuckold isnot one. If it be thy fate to be hereafter of the number of that hornedcattle, then may I conclude with an Ergo, thy wife will be beautiful, andErgo, thou wilt be kindly used by her. Likewise with this Ergo, thou shaltbe blessed with the fruition of many friends and well-willers. And finallywith 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 moreliberty to sin. Thou shalt be more at ease than ever. There will be neverthe less left for thee, nothing diminished, but thy goods shall increasenotably. And if so be it was preordinated for thee, wouldst thou be soimpious 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 swellhis catalogue as much as possible, Sir Thomas Urquhart has set down thisword 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 decreedby the gods, wouldst thou invert the course of the planets, and make themretrograde? Wouldst thou disorder all the celestial spheres, blame theintelligences, blunt the spindles, joint the wherves, slander the spinningquills, reproach the bobbins, revile the clew-bottoms, and finally raveland untwist all the threads of both the warp and the waft of the weirdSister-Parcae? What a pox to thy bones dost thou mean, stony cod? Thouwouldst if thou couldst, a great deal worse than the giants of old intendedto have done. Come hither, billicullion. Whether wouldst thou be jealouswithout cause, or be a cuckold and know nothing of it? Neither the one northe other, quoth Panurge, would I choose to be. But if I get an inkling ofthe matter, I will provide well enough, or there shall not be one stick ofwood within five hundred leagues about me whereof to make a cudgel. Ingood faith, Friar John, I speak now seriously unto thee, I think it will bemy best not to marry. Hearken to what the bells do tell me, now that weare 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 acuckold, a cou-cou-cuckoo, cou-cou-cuckold thou shalt be. By the worthywrath of God, I begin to be angry. This campanilian oracle fretteth me tothe guts, --a March hare was never in such a chafe as I am. O how I amvexed! You monks and friars of the cowl-pated and hood-polled fraternity, have you no remedy nor salve against this malady of graffing horns inheads? Hath nature so abandoned humankind, and of her help left us sodestitute, that married men cannot know how to sail through the seas ofthis mortal life and be safe from the whirlpools, quicksands, rocks, andbanks that lie alongst the coast of Cornwall. 

I will, said Friar John, show thee a way and teach thee an expedient bymeans whereof thy wife shall never make thee a cuckold without thyknowledge and thine own consent. Do me the favour, I pray thee, quothPanurge, my pretty, soft, downy cod; now tell it, billy, tell it, I beseechthee. Take, quoth Friar John, Hans Carvel's ring upon thy finger, who wasthe King of Melinda's chief jeweller. Besides that this Hans Carvel hadthe reputation of being very skilful and expert in the lapidary'sprofession, he was a studious, learned, and ingenious man, a scientificperson, full of knowledge, a great philosopher, of a sound judgment, of aprime wit, good sense, clear spirited, an honest creature, courteous, charitable, a giver of alms, and of a jovial humour, a boon companion, anda merry blade, if ever there was any in the world. He was somewhatgorbellied, had a little shake in his head, and was in effect unwieldy ofhis body. In his old age he took to wife the Bailiff of Concordat'sdaughter, 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 herneighbours and acquaintance. 

Hereupon it fell out, after the expiring of a scantling of weeks, thatMaster Carvel became as jealous as a tiger, and entered into a veryprofound suspicion that his new-married gixy did keep a-buttock-stirringwith others. To prevent which inconveniency he did tell her many tragicalstories of the total ruin of several kingdoms by adultery; did read untoher the legend of chaste wives; then made some lectures to her in thepraise of the choice virtue of pudicity, and did present her with a book incommendation of conjugal fidelity; wherein the wickedness of all licentiouswomen was odiously detested; and withal he gave her a chain enriched withpure oriental sapphires. Notwithstanding all this, he found her alwaysmore and more inclined to the reception of her neighbour copes-mates, thatday by day his jealousy increased. In sequel whereof, one night as he waslying by her, whilst in his sleep the rambling fancies of the lecherousdeportments of his wife did take up the cellules of his brain, he dreamtthat he encountered with the devil, to whom he had discovered to the fullthe buzzing of his head and suspicion that his wife did tread her shoeawry. The devil, he thought, in this perplexity did for his comfort givehim 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 thatfinger, thy wife shall never carnally be known by any other than thyselfwithout thy special knowledge and consent. Gramercy, quoth Hans Carvel, mylord devil, I renounce Mahomet if ever it shall come off my finger. Thedevil vanished, as is his custom; and then Hans Carvel, full of joyawaking, found that his middle finger was as far as it could reach withinthe what-do-by-call-it of his wife. I did forget to tell thee how hiswife, as soon as she had felt the finger there, said, in recoiling herbuttocks, Off, yes, nay, tut, pish, tush, ay, lord, that is not the thingwhich should be put up in that place. With this Hans Carvel thought thatsome pilfering fellow was about to take the ring from him. Is not this aninfallible and sovereign antidote? Therefore, if thou wilt believe me, inimitation of this example never fail to have continually the ring of thywife's commodity upon thy finger. When that was said, their discourse andtheir way ended. 

Chapter 3. XXIX. 

How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician, lawyer, andphilosopher, for extricating Panurge out of the perplexity wherein he was. 

No sooner were they come into the royal palace, but they to the full madereport unto Pantagruel of the success of their expedition, and showed himthe response of Raminagrobis. When Pantagruel had read it over and overagain, the oftener he perused it being the better pleased therewith, hesaid, in addressing his speech to Panurge, I have not as yet seen anyanswer framed to your demand which affordeth me more contentment. For inthis his succinct copy of verses, he summarily and briefly, yet fullyenough expresseth how he would have us to understand that everyone in theproject and enterprise of marriage ought to be his own carver, solearbitrator of his proper thoughts, and from himself alone take counsel inthe main and peremptory closure of what his determination should be, ineither his assent to or dissent from it. Such always hath been my opinionto you, and when at first you spoke thereof to me I truly told you thissame very thing; but tacitly you scorned my advice, and would not harbourit within your mind. I know for certain, and therefore may I with thegreater 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, forthe preservation of these three, there are three sorts of learned menordained, each respectively to have care of that one which is recommendedto his charge. Theologues are appointed for the soul, physicians for thewelfare of the body, and lawyers for the safety of our goods. Hence it isthat 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 wemay in every point and particle confer at large of your perplexity. BySaint Picot, answered Panurge, we never shall do any good that way, I seeit already. And you see yourself how the world is vilely abused, as whenwith a foxtail one claps another's breech to cajole him. We give our soulsto keep to the theologues, who for the greater part are heretics. Ourbodies 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 againstone another. You speak like a courtier, quoth Pantagruel. But the firstpoint of your assertion is to be denied; for we daily see how goodtheologues make it their chief business, their whole and sole employment, by their deeds, their words, and writings, to extirpate errors and heresiesout of the hearts of men, and in their stead profoundly plant the true andlively faith. The second point you spoke of I commend; for, whereas theprofessors of the art of medicine give so good order to the prophylactic, or conservative part of their faculty, in what concerneth their properhealths, 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, Igrant it to be true, for learned advocates and counsellors at law are somuch taken up with the affairs of others in their consultations, pleadings, and such-like patrocinations of those who are their clients, that they haveno leisure to attend any controversies of their own. Therefore, on thenext ensuing Sunday, let the divine be our godly Father Hippothadee, thephysician our honest Master Rondibilis, and our legist our friendBridlegoose. Nor will it be (to my thinking) amiss, that we enter into thePythagoric field, and choose for an assistant to the three afore-nameddoctors our ancient faithful acquaintance, the philosopher Trouillogan;especially seeing a perfect philosopher, such as is Trouillogan, is ablepositively 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 thecorners thereof, you could not have pitched upon such other four. Which Ispeak not so much in regard of the most excellent qualifications andaccomplishments wherewith all of them are endowed for the respectivedischarge and management of each his own vocation and calling (whereinwithout all doubt or controversy they are the paragons of the land, andsurpass all others), as for that Rondibilis is married now, who before wasnot, --Hippothadee was not before, nor is yet, --Bridlegoose was marriedonce, but is not now, --and Trouillogan is married now, who wedded was toanother wife before. Sir, if it may stand with your good liking, I willease 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 untowhom I am to speak on the behalf of a pretty hopeful youth who now studiethat Toulouse, under the most learned virtuous doctor Boissonet. Do what youdeem most expedient, quoth Pantagruel, and tell me if my recommendation canin anything be steadable for the promoval of the good of that youth, orotherwise serve for bettering of the dignity and office of the worthyBoissonet, whom I do so love and respect for one of the ablest and mostsufficient in his way that anywhere are extant. Sir, I will use therein mybest endeavours, and heartily bestir myself about it. 

Chapter 3. XXX. 

How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurge in the matter andbusiness of his nuptial enterprise. 

The dinner on the subsequent Sunday was no sooner made ready than that theafore-named invited guests gave thereto their appearance, all of them, Bridlegoose only excepted, who was the deputy-governor of Fonsbeton. Atthe ushering in of the second service Panurge, making a low reverence, spake thus: Gentlemen, the question I am to propound unto you shall beuttered in very few words--Should I marry or no? If my doubt herein be notresolved by you, I shall hold it altogether insolvable, as are theInsolubilia de Aliaco; for all of you are elected, chosen, and culled outfrom amongst others, everyone in his own condition and quality, like somany picked peas on a carpet. 

The Father Hippothadee, in obedience to the bidding of Pantagruel, and withmuch courtesy to the company, answered exceeding modestly after thismanner: My friend, you are pleased to ask counsel of us; but first youmust consult with yourself. Do you find any trouble or disquiet in yourbody by the importunate stings and pricklings of the flesh? That I do, quoth Panurge, in a hugely strong and almost irresistible measure. Be notoffended, I beseech you, good father, at the freedom of my expression. Notruly, friend, not I, quoth Hippothadee, there is no reason why I should bedispleased therewith. But in this carnal strife and debate of yours haveyou obtained from God the gift and special grace of continency? In goodfaith, not, quoth Panurge. My counsel to you in that case, my friend, isthat you marry, quoth Hippothadee; for you should rather choose to marryonce than to burn still in fires of concupiscence. Then Panurge, with ajovial heart and a loud voice, cried out, That is spoke gallantly, withoutcircumbilivaginating about and about, and never hitting it in its centredpoint. Gramercy, my good father! In truth I am resolved now to marry, andwithout fail I shall do it quickly. I invite you to my wedding. By thebody of a hen, we shall make good cheer, and be as merry as crickets. Youshall wear the bridegroom's colours, and, if we eat a goose, my wife shallnot roast it for me. I will entreat you to lead up the first dance of thebridesmaids, 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 thannothing, whereof I humbly crave your resolution. Shall I be a cuckold, father, yea or no? By no means, answered Hippothadee, will you becuckolded, 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 allcontradictions and impossibilities. If my Transalpine mule had wings, myTransalpine mule would fly, if it please God, I shall not be a cuckold; butI shall be a cuckold, if it please him. Good God, if this were a conditionwhich I knew how to prevent, my hopes should be as high as ever, nor wouldI despair. But you here send me to God's privy council, to the closet ofhis little pleasures. You, my French countrymen, which is the way you taketo 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 disturbyou, and break the serious fancies of your brain. You love repose, withsolitude and silence; I really believe you will not come. And then youdance but indifferently, and would be out of countenance at the firstentry. I will send you some good things to your chamber, together with thebride's favour, and there you may drink our health, if it may stand withyour good liking. My friend, quoth Hippothadee, take my words in the sensewherein I meant them, and do not misinterpret me. When I tell you, --If itplease God, --do I to you any wrong therein? Is it an ill expression? Isit a blaspheming clause or reserve any way scandalous unto the world? Donot we thereby honour the Lord God Almighty, Creator, Protector, andConserver of all things? Is not that a mean whereby we do acknowledge himto be the sole giver of all whatsoever is good? Do not we in that manifestour faith that we believe all things to depend upon his infinite andincomprehensible bounty, and that without him nothing can be produced, norafter its production be of any value, force, or power, without theconcurring aid and favour of his assisting grace? Is it not a canonicaland authentic exception, worthy to be premised to all our undertakings? Isit not expedient that what we propose unto ourselves be still referred towhat shall be disposed of by the sacred will of God, unto which all thingsmust acquiesce in the heavens as well as on the earth? Is not that verilya sanctifying of his holy name? My friend, you shall not be a cuckold, ifit please God, nor shall we need to despair of the knowledge of his goodwill and pleasure herein, as if it were such an abstruse and mysteriouslyhidden secret that for the clear understanding thereof it were necessary toconsult with those of his celestial privy council, or expressly make avoyage unto the empyrean chamber where order is given for the effectuatingof his most holy pleasures. The great God hath done us this good, that hehath declared and revealed them to us openly and plainly, and describedthem in the Holy Bible. There will you find that you shall never be acuckold, that is to say, your wife shall never be a strumpet, if you makechoice of one of a commendable extraction, descended of honest parents, andinstructed in all piety and virtue--such a one as hath not at any timehaunted or frequented the company or conversation of those that are ofcorrupt and depraved manners, one loving and fearing God, who taketh asingular delight in drawing near to him by faith and the cordial observingof his sacred commandments--and finally, one who, standing in awe of theDivine Majesty of the Most High, will be loth to offend him and lose thefavourable kindness of his grace through any defect of faith ortransgression against the ordinances of his holy law, wherein adultery ismost rigorously forbidden and a close adherence to her husband alone moststrictly and severely enjoined; yea, in such sort that she is to cherish, serve, and love him above anything, next to God, that meriteth to bebeloved. In the interim, for the better schooling of her in theseinstructions, and that the wholesome doctrine of a matrimonial duty maytake the deeper root in her mind, you must needs carry yourself so on yourpart, and your behaviour is to be such, that you are to go before her in agood example, by entertaining her unfeignedly with a conjugal amity, bycontinually approving yourself in all your words and actions a faithful anddiscreet husband; and by living, not only at home and privately with yourown household and family, but in the face also of all men and open view ofthe world, devoutly, virtuously, and chastely, as you would have her on herside to deport and to demean herself towards you, as becomes a godly, loyal, and respectful wife, who maketh conscience to keep inviolable thetie of a matrimonial oath. For as that looking-glass is not the best whichis most decked with gold and precious stones, but that which representethto the eye the liveliest shapes of objects set before it, even so that wifeshould not be most esteemed who richest is and of the noblest race, but shewho, 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 splendidstars 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 themanner of his aspect and variously bestowed eradiations. Just so shouldyou 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 exemplarygoodness, she, in your imitation, may outshine the luminaries of all otherwomen. To this effect you daily must implore God's grace to the protectionof you both. You would have me then, quoth Panurge, twisting the whiskersof 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 sawher; the Lord forgive me! Nevertheless, I thank you, father. Eat thisslice of marchpane, it will help your digestion; then shall you bepresented with a cup of claret hippocras, which is right healthful andstomachal. Let us proceed. 

Chapter 3. XXXI. 

How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge. 

Panurge, continuing his discourse, said, The first word which was spoken byhim who gelded the lubberly, quaffing monks of Saussiniac, after that hehad unstoned Friar Cauldaureil, was this, To the rest. In like manner, Isay, 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, Iknow not what answer to make to this problem of yours. 

You say that you feel in you the pricking stings of sensuality, by whichyou are stirred up to venery. I find in our faculty of medicine, and wehave founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate resolution and finaldecision of the ancient Platonics, that carnal concupiscence is cooled andquelled five several ways. 

First, By the means of wine. I shall easily believe that, quoth FriarJohn, for when I am well whittled with the juice of the grape I care fornothing else, so I may sleep. When I say, quoth Rondibilis, that wineabateth lust, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken; for by intemperancyproceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor there is broughtupon the body of such a swill-down boozer a chillness in the blood, aslackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the generative seed, a numbnessand hebetation of the senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion ofthe muscles--all which are great lets and impediments to the act ofgeneration. Hence it is that Bacchus, the god of bibbers, tipplers, anddrunkards, 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 isimplied by the old proverb, which saith that Venus takes cold when notaccompanied with Ceres and Bacchus. This opinion is of great antiquity, asappeareth by the testimony of Diodorus the Sicilian, and confirmed byPausanias, and universally held amongst the Lampsacians, that Don Priapuswas 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 unableto perform the act of generation; as hath been often experimented in thewater-lily, heraclea, agnus castus, willow-twigs, hemp-stalks, woodbine, honeysuckle, tamarisk, chaste tree, mandrake, bennet, keckbugloss, the skinof a hippopotam, and many other such, which, by convenient dosesproportioned to the peccant humour and constitution of the patient, beingduly and seasonably received within the body--what by their elementaryvirtues on the one side and peculiar properties on the other--do eitherbenumb, mortify, and beclumpse with cold the prolific semence, or scatterand disperse the spirits which ought to have gone along with and conductedthe sperm to the places destined and appointed for its reception, orlastly, shut up, stop, and obstruct the ways, passages, and conduitsthrough which the seed should have been expelled, evacuated, and ejected. We have nevertheless of those ingredients which, being of a contraryoperation, heat the blood, bend the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken thesenses, strengthen the muscles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite, andenable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of the feat of amorousdalliance. I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, God be thanked, andyou, my good master. Howsoever, I pray you, take no exception or offenceat these my words; for what I have said was not out of any illwill I didbear to you, the Lord he knows. 

Thirdly, The ardour of lechery is very much subdued and mated by frequentlabour and continual toiling. For by painful exercises and laboriousworking so great a dissolution is brought upon the whole body, that theblood, which runneth alongst the channels of the veins thereof for thenourishment and alimentation of each of its members, hath neither time, leisure, nor power to afford the seminal resudation, or superfluity of thethird concoction, which nature most carefully reserves for the conservationof the individual, whose preservation she more heedfully regardeth than thepropagating of the species and the multiplication of humankind. Whence itis that Diana is said to be chaste, because she is never idle, but alwaysbusied about her hunting. For the same reason was a camp or leaguer of oldcalled castrum, as if they would have said castum; because the soldiers, wrestlers, runners, throwers of the bar, and other such-like athleticchampions as are usually seen in a military circumvallation, do incessantlytravail and turmoil, and are in a perpetual stir and agitation. To thispurpose Hippocrates also writeth in his book, De Aere, Aqua et Locis, thatin his time there were people in Scythia as impotent as eunuchs in thedischarge of a venerean exploit, because that without any cessation, pause, or respite they were never from off horseback, or otherwise assiduouslyemployed in some troublesome and molesting drudgery. 

On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the philosopherssay that idleness is the mother of luxury. When it was asked Ovid, WhyAegisthus became an adulterer? he made no other answer but this, Because hewas idle. Who were able to rid the world of loitering and laziness mighteasily frustrate and disappoint Cupid of all his designs, aims, engines, and devices, and so disable and appal him that his bow, quiver, and dartsshould from thenceforth be a mere needless load and burden to him, for thatit could not then lie in his power to strike or wound any of either sexwith all the arms he had. He is not, I believe, so expert an archer asthat he can hit the cranes flying in the air, or yet the young stagsskipping through the thickets, as the Parthians knew well how to do; thatis to say, people moiling, stirring and hurrying up and down, restless, andwithout 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, totouch, 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 atoyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, that it was a passion of idleand sluggish spirits. From which pretty description of ticklinglove-tricks that of Diogenes's hatching was not very discrepant, when hedefined lechery the occupation of folks destitute of all other occupation. For this cause the Syconian engraver Canachus, being desirous to give us tounderstand that sloth, drowsiness, negligence, and laziness were the primeguardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, notstanding, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting. 

Fourthly, The tickling pricks of incontinency are blunted by an eagerstudy; for from thence proceedeth an incredible resolution of the spirits, that oftentimes there do not remain so many behind as may suffice to pushand thrust forwards the generative resudation to the places theretoappropriated, and therewithal inflate the cavernous nerve whose office isto ejaculate the moisture for the propagation of human progeny. Lest youshould 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 learnedmeditation, and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how all thearteries of his brains are stretched forth and bent like the string of acrossbow, the more promptly, dexterously, and copiously to suppeditate, furnish, and supply him with store of spirits sufficient to replenish andfill up the ventricles, seats, tunnels, mansions, receptacles, and cellulesof the common sense, --of the imagination, apprehension, and fancy, --of theratiocination, arguing, and resolution, --as likewise of the memory, recordation, and remembrance; and with great alacrity, nimbleness, andagility to run, pass, and course from the one to the other, through thosepipes, windings, and conduits which to skilful anatomists are perceivableat the end of the wonderful net where all the arteries close in aterminating point; which arteries, taking their rise and origin from theleft capsule of the heart, bring through several circuits, ambages, andanfractuosities, the vital, to subtilize and refine them to the etherealpurity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously musing person you mayespy so extravagant raptures of one as it were out of himself, that all hisnatural faculties for that time will seem to be suspended from each theirproper charge and office, and his exterior senses to be at a stand. In aword, you cannot otherwise choose than think that he is by an extraordinaryecstasy quite transported out of what he was, or should be; and thatSocrates did not speak improperly when he said that philosophy was nothingelse but a meditation upon death. This possibly is the reason whyDemocritus deprived himself of the sense of seeing, prizing at a much lowerrate the loss of his sight than the diminution of his contemplations, whichhe frequently had found disturbed by the vagrant, flying-out strayings ofhis unsettled and roving eyes. Therefore is it that Pallas, the goddess ofwisdom, tutoress and guardianess of such as are diligently studious andpainfully industrious, is, and hath been still accounted a virgin. TheMuses upon the same consideration are esteemed perpetual maids; and theGraces, for the like reason, have been held to continue in a sempiternalpudicity. 

I remember to have read that Cupid, on a time being asked of his motherVenus why he did not assault and set upon the Muses, his answer was that hefound them so fair, so sweet, so fine, so neat, so wise, so learned, somodest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and so continually busiedand employed, --one in the speculation of the stars, --another in thesupputation of numbers, --the third in the dimension of geometricalquantities, --the fourth in the composition of heroic poems, --the fifth inthe jovial interludes of a comic strain, --the sixth in the stately gravityof a tragic vein, --the seventh in the melodious disposition of musicalairs, --the eighth in the completest manner of writing histories and bookson all sorts of subjects, --and the ninth in the mysteries, secrets, andcuriosities of all sciences, faculties, disciplines, and arts whatsoever, whether liberal or mechanic, --that approaching near unto them he unbendedhis bow, shut his quiver, and extinguished his torch, through mere shameand fear that by mischance he might do them some hurt or prejudice. Whichdone, he thereafter put off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound tolook them in the face, and to hear their melody and poetic odes. Theretook he the greatest pleasure in the world, that many times he wastransported with their beauty and pretty behaviour, and charmed asleep bythe harmony; so far was he from assaulting them or interrupting theirstudies. Under this article may be comprised what Hippocrates wrote in theafore-cited treatise concerning the Scythians; as also that in a book ofhis entitled Of Breeding and Production, where he hath affirmed all suchmen to be unfit for generation as have their parotid arteries cut--whosesituation is beside the ears--for the reason given already when I wasspeaking of the resolution of the spirits and of that spiritual bloodwhereof the arteries are the sole and proper receptacles, and that likewisehe doth maintain a large portion of the parastatic liquor to issue anddescend from the brains and backbone. 

Fifthly, By the too frequent reiteration of the act of venery. There did Iwait for you, quoth Panurge, and shall willingly apply it to myself, whilstanyone 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, Priorof Saint Victor at Marseilles, calleth by the name of maceration and tamingof the flesh. I am of the same opinion, --and so was the hermit of SaintRadegonde, a little above Chinon; for, quoth he, the hermits of Thebaidecan no more aptly or expediently macerate and bring down the pride of theirbodies, daunt and mortify their lecherous sensuality, or depress andovercome the stubbornness and rebellion of the flesh, than by duffling andfanfreluching it five-and-twenty or thirty times a day. I see Panurge, quoth Rondibilis, neatly featured and proportioned in all the members ofhis body, of a good temperament in his humours, well-complexioned in hisspirits, of a competent age, in an opportune time, and of a reasonablyforward mind to be married. Truly, if he encounter with a wife of the likenature, temperament, and constitution, he may beget upon her childrenworthy of some transpontine monarchy; and the sooner he marry it will bethe better for him, and the more conducible for his profit if he would seeand have his children in his own time well provided for. Sir, my worthymaster, quoth Panurge, I will do it, do not you doubt thereof, and thatquickly enough, I warrant you. Nevertheless, whilst you were busied in theuttering of your learned discourse, this flea which I have in mine ear hathtickled me more than ever. I retain you in the number of my festivalguests, and promise you that we shall not want for mirth and good cheerenough, 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 andneighbours--that is to be understood--and there shall be fair play. 

Chapter 3. XXXII. 

How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one of the appendancesof marriage. 

There remaineth as yet, quoth Panurge, going on in his discourse, one smallscruple to be cleared. You have seen heretofore, I doubt not, in the Romanstandards, S. P. Q. R. , Si, Peu, Que, Rien. Shall not I be a cuckold? By thehaven of safety, cried out Rondibilis, what is this you ask of me? If youshall be a cuckold? My noble friend, I am married, and you are like to beso 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 nomarried man who doth not run the hazard of being made a cuckold. Cuckoldrynaturally attendeth marriage. The shadow doth not more naturally followthe body, than cuckoldry ensueth after marriage to place fair horns uponthe husbands' heads. 

And when you shall happen to hear any man pronounce these three words, Heis married; if you then say he is, hath been, shall be, or may be acuckold, you will not be accounted an unskilful artist in framing of trueconsequences. Tripes and bowels of all the devils, cries Panurge, what doyou tell me? My dear friend, answered Rondibilis, as Hippocrates on a timewas in the very nick of setting forwards from Lango to Polystilo to visitthe philosopher Democritus, he wrote a familiar letter to his friendDionysius, wherein he desired him that he would, during the interval of hisabsence, carry his wife to the house of her father and mother, who were anhonourable couple and of good repute; because I would not have her at myhome, said he, to make abode in solitude. Yet, notwithstanding this herresidence beside her parents, do not fail, quoth he, with a most heedfulcare and circumspection to pry into her ways, and to espy what places sheshall 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 anydiffidence of her pudicity and chaste behaviour, --for of that I havefrequently had good and real proofs, --but I must freely tell you, She is awoman. There lies the suspicion. 

My worthy friend, the nature of women is set forth before our eyes andrepresented 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 thecunning they can, dissemble and play the hypocrite in the sight andpresence of their husbands; who come no sooner to be out of the way, butthat forthwith they take their advantage, pass the time merrily, desistfrom all labour, frolic it, gad abroad, lay aside their counterfeit garb, and openly declare and manifest the interior of their dispositions, even asthe moon, when she is in conjunction with the sun, is neither seen in theheavens nor on the earth, but in her opposition, when remotest from him, shineth in her greatest fulness, and wholly appeareth in her brightestsplendour whilst it is night. Thus women are but women. 

When I say womankind, I speak of a sex so frail, so variable, sochangeable, so fickle, inconstant, and imperfect, that in my opinionNature, under favour, nevertheless, of the prime honour and reverence whichis due unto her, did in a manner mistake the road which she had tracedformerly, and stray exceedingly from that excellence of providentialjudgment by the which she had created and formed all other things, when shebuilt, framed, and made up the woman. And having thought upon it a hundredand five times, I know not what else to determine therein, save only thatin the devising, hammering, forging, and composing of the woman she hathhad a much tenderer regard, and by a great deal more respectful heed to thedelightful consortship and sociable delectation of the man, than to theperfection and accomplishment of the individual womanishness or muliebrity. The divine philosopher Plato was doubtful in what rank of living creaturesto place and collocate them, whether amongst the rational animals, byelevating them to an upper seat in the specifical classis of humanity, orwith the irrational, by degrading them to a lower bench on the oppositeside, of a brutal kind, and mere bestiality. For nature hath posited in aprivy, secret, and intestine place of their bodies, a sort of member, bysome 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, thatby their stinging acrimony, rending nitrosity, figging itch, wrigglingmordicancy, and smarting salsitude (for the said member is altogethersinewy and of a most quick and lively feeling), their whole body is shakenand ebrangled, their senses totally ravished and transported, theoperations of their judgment and understanding utterly confounded, and alldisordinate passions and perturbations of the mind thoroughly andabsolutely allowed, admitted, and approved of; yea, in such sort that ifnature had not been so favourable unto them as to have sprinkled theirforehead with a little tincture of bashfulness and modesty, you should seethem in a so frantic mood run mad after lechery, and hie apace up and downwith haste and lust, in quest of and to fix some chamber-standard in theirPaphian ground, that never did the Proetides, Mimallonides, nor LyaeanThyades deport themselves in the time of their bacchanalian festivals moreshamelessly, or with a so affronted and brazen-faced impudency; becausethis terrible animal is knit unto, and hath an union with all the chief andmost principal parts of the body, as to anatomists is evident. Let it nothere be thought strange that I should call it an animal, seeing therein Ido no otherwise than follow and adhere to the doctrine of the academic andperipatetic philosophers. For if a proper motion be a certain mark andinfallible token of the life and animation of the mover, as Aristotlewriteth, and that any such thing as moveth of itself ought to be heldanimated and of a living nature, then assuredly Plato with very good reasondid give it the denomination of an animal, for that he perceived andobserved in it the proper and self-stirring motions of suffocation, precipitation, corrugation, and of indignation so extremely violent, thatoftentimes by them is taken and removed from the woman all other sense andmoving whatsoever, as if she were in a swounding lipothymy, benumbingsyncope, epileptic, apoplectic palsy, and true resemblance of a pale-faceddeath. 

Furthermore, in the said member there is a manifest discerning faculty ofscents and odours very perceptible to women, who feel it fly from what isrank and unsavoury, and follow fragrant and aromatic smells. It is notunknown to me how Cl. Galen striveth with might and main to prove thatthese are not proper and particular notions proceeding intrinsically fromthe thing itself, but accidentally and by chance. Nor hath it escaped mynotice how others of that sect have laboured hardly, yea, to the utmost oftheir abilities, to demonstrate that it is not a sensitive discerning orperception in it of the difference of wafts and smells, but merely avarious manner of virtue and efficacy passing forth and flowing from thediversity of odoriferous substances applied near unto it. Nevertheless, ifyou will studiously examine and seriously ponder and weigh in Critolaus'sbalance the strength of their reasons and arguments, you shall find thatthey, not only in this, but in several other matters also of the likenature, have spoken at random, and rather out of an ambitious envy to checkand reprehend their betters than for any design to make inquiry into thesolid truth. 

I will not launch my little skiff any further into the wide ocean of thisdispute, only will I tell you that the praise and commendation is not meanand slender which is due to those honest and good women who, livingchastely 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 Imake an end of my discourse thereon, when I shall have told you that thesaid animal being once satiated--if it be possible that it can be contentedor satisfied--by that aliment which nature hath provided for it out of theepididymal storehouse of man, all its former and irregular and disorderedmotions are at an end, laid, and assuaged, all its vehement and unrulylongings lulled, pacified, and quieted, and all the furious and raginglusts, appetites, and desires thereof appeased, calmed, and extinguished. For this cause let it seem nothing strange unto you if we be in a perpetualdanger of being cuckolds, that is to say, such of us as have notwherewithal fully to satisfy the appetite and expectation of that voraciousanimal. Odds fish! quoth Panurge, have you no preventive cure in all yourmedicinal art for hindering one's head to be horny-graffed at home whilsthis feet are plodding abroad? Yes, that I have, my gallant friend, answered Rondibilis, and that which is a sovereign remedy, whereof Ifrequently make use myself; and, that you may the better relish, it is setdown and written in the book of a most famous author, whose renown is of astanding of two thousand years. Hearken and take good heed. You are, quoth Panurge, by cockshobby, a right honest man, and I love you with allmy heart. Eat a little of this quince-pie; it is very proper andconvenient for the shutting up of the orifice of the ventricle of thestomach, because of a kind of astringent stypticity which is in that sortof fruit, and is helpful to the first concoction. But what? I think Ispeak Latin before clerks. Stay till I give you somewhat to drink out ofthis Nestorian goblet. Will you have another draught of white hippocras?Be not afraid of the squinzy, no. There is neither squinant, ginger, norgrains in it; only a little choice cinnamon, and some of the best refinedsugar, with the delicious white wine of the growth of that vine which wasset 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 ofhis Olympic house and family, and that he had made the calendar of all thegods and goddesses, appointing unto the festival of every one of them itsproper day and season, establishing certain fixed places and stations forthe pronouncing of oracles and relief of travelling pilgrims, and ordainingvictims, immolations, and sacrifices suitable and correspondent to thedignity and nature of the worshipped and adored deity--Did not he do, askedPanurge, therein as Tintouille, the Bishop of Auxerre, is said once to havedone? This noble prelate loved entirely the pure liquor of the grape, asevery honest and judicious man doth; therefore was it that he had anespecial care and regard to the bud of the vine-tree as to thegreat-grandfather of Bacchus. But so it is, that for sundry years togetherhe saw a most pitiful havoc, desolation, and destruction made amongst thesprouts, shootings, buds, blossoms, and scions of the vines by hoary frost, dank fogs, hot mists, unseasonable colds, chill blasts, thick hail, andother calamitous chances of foul weather, happening, as he thought, by thedismal inauspiciousness of the holy days of St. George, St. Mary, St. Paul, St. Eutrope, Holy Rood, the Ascension, and other festivals, in that timewhen the sun passeth under the sign of Taurus; and thereupon harboured inhis mind this opinion, that the afore-named saints were SaintHail-flingers, Saint Frost-senders, Saint Fog-mongers, and Saint Spoilers ofthe Vine-buds. For which cause he went about to have transmitted theirfeasts from the spring to the winter, to be celebrated between Christmas andEpiphany, so the mother of the three kings called it, allowing them with allhonour and reverence the liberty then to freeze, hail, and rain as much asthey would; for that he knew that at such a time frost was rather profitablethan hurtful to the vine-buds, and in their steads to have placed thefestivals 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 collocateand transpose the middle of August in and to the beginning of May, becauseduring the whole space of their solemnity there was so little danger ofhoary frosts and cold mists, that no artificers are then held in greaterrequest than the afforders of refrigerating inventions, makers of junkets, fit disposers of cooling shades, composers of green arbours, and refreshersof wine. 

Jupiter, said Rondibilis, forgot the poor devil Cuckoldry, who was then inthe court at Paris very eagerly soliciting a peddling suit at law for oneof his vassals and tenants. Within some few days thereafter, I have forgothow many, when he got full notice of the trick which in his absence wasdone unto him, he instantly desisted from prosecuting legal processes inthe behalf of others, full of solicitude to pursue after his own business, lest he should be foreclosed, and thereupon he appeared personally at thetribunal of the great Jupiter, displayed before him the importance of hispreceding merits, together with the acceptable services which in obedienceto his commandments he had formerly performed; and therefore in allhumility begged of him that he would be pleased not to leave him aloneamongst all the sacred potentates, destitute and void of honour, reverence, sacrifices, and festival ceremonies. To this petition Jupiter's answer wasexcusatory, that all the places and offices of his house were bestowed. Nevertheless, so importuned was he by the continual supplications ofMonsieur Cuckoldry, that he, in fine, placed him in the rank, list, roll, rubric, and catalogue, and appointed honours, sacrifices, and festivalrites to be observed on earth in great devotion, and tendered to him withsolemnity. The feast, because there was no void, empty, nor vacant placein all the calendar, was to be celebrated jointly with, and on the same daythat had been consecrated to the goddess Jealousy. His power and dominionshould be over married folks, especially such as had handsome wives. Hissacrifices were to be suspicion, diffidence, mistrust, a lowering poutingsullenness, watchings, wardings, researchings, plyings, explorations, together with the waylayings, ambushes, narrow observations, and maliciousdoggings of the husband's scouts and espials of the most privy actions oftheir wives. Herewithal every married man was expressly and rigorouslycommanded to reverence, honour, and worship him, to celebrate and solemnizehis 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 theabove-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 thedelinquents: that Monsieur Cuckoldry should never be favourable norpropitious to them; that he should never help, aid, supply, succour, norgrant them any subventitious furtherance, auxiliary suffrage, oradminiculary assistance; that he should never hold them in any reckoning, account, or estimation; that he should never deign to enter within theirhouses, neither at the doors, windows, nor any other place thereof; that heshould never haunt nor frequent their companies or conversations, howfrequently soever they should invocate him and call upon his name; and thatnot only he should leave and abandon them to rot alone with their wives ina sempiternal solitariness, without the benefit of the diversion of anycopes-mate or corrival at all, but should withal shun and eschew them, flyfrom them, and eternally forsake and reject them as impious heretics andsacrilegious persons, according to the accustomed manner of other godstowards such as are too slack in offering up the duties and reverenceswhich ought to be performed respectively to their divinities--as isevidently apparent in Bacchus towards negligent vine-dressers; in Ceres, against idle ploughmen and tillers of the ground; in Pomona, to unworthyfruiterers and costard-mongers; in Neptune, towards dissolute mariners andseafaring men, in Vulcan, towards loitering smiths and forgemen; and sothroughout the rest. Now, on the contrary, this infallible promise wasadded, that unto all those who should make a holy day of the above-recitedfestival, and cease from all manner of worldly work and negotiation, layaside all their own most important occasions, and to be so retchless, heedless, and careless of what might concern the management of their properaffairs as to mind nothing else but a suspicious espying and prying intothe secret deportments of their wives, and how to coop, shut up, hold atunder, and deal cruelly and austerely with them by all the harshness andhardships that an implacable and every way inexorable jealousy can deviseand suggest, conform to the sacred ordinances of the afore-mentionedsacrifices and oblations, he should be continually favourable to them, should love them, sociably converse with them, should be day and night intheir houses, and never leave them destitute of his presence. Now I havesaid, and you have heard my cure. 

Ha, ha, ha! quoth Carpalin, laughing; this is a remedy yet more apt andproper 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, whoseforce 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 withoutdoing any hurt to the velvet scabbard which ensheatheth it. It chrushethalso and consumeth the bones without wounding or endamaging the fleshwherewith they are veiled and covered. Just so it is that women for thegreater part never bend the contention, subtlety, and contradictorydisposition of their spirits unless it be to do what is prohibited andforbidden. 

Verily, quoth Hippothadee, some of our doctors aver for a truth that thefirst woman of the world, whom the Hebrews call Eve, had hardly beeninduced or allured into the temptation of eating of the fruit of the Treeof Life if it had not been forbidden her so to do. And that you may givethe more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the cautelousand wily tempter did commemorate unto her, for an antecedent to hisenthymeme, the prohibition which was made to taste it, as being desirous toinfer 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 ofrhetoric, in all its tropes and figures, was not able to afford unto me acolour or flourish of greater force and value, nor could I by any otherform or manner of elocution pitch upon a more persuasive argument forbringing 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 toremonstrate 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 iswritten, and we have laws, examples, reasons, and daily experiencesconfirmative of the same. If this belief once enter into their noddles, their husbands will infallibly be cuckolds; yea, by God, will they, withoutswearing, although they should do like Semiramis, Pasiphae, Egesta, thewomen of the Isle Mandez in Egypt, and other such-like queanish flirtingharlots mentioned in the writings of Herodotus, Strabo, and such-likepuppies. 

Truly, quoth Ponocrates, I have heard it related, and it hath been told mefor a verity, that Pope John XXII. , passing on a day through the Abbey ofToucherome, was in all humility required and besought by the abbess andother discreet mothers of the said convent to grant them an indulgence bymeans whereof they might confess themselves to one another, alleging thatreligious women were subject to some petty secret slips and imperfectionswhich would be a foul and burning shame for them to discover and to revealto men, how sacerdotal soever their functions were; but that they wouldfreelier, more familiarly, and with greater cheerfulness, open to eachother their offences, faults, and escapes under the seal of confession. There is not anything, answered the pope, fitting for you to impetrate ofme which I would not most willingly condescend unto; but I find oneinconvenience. You know confession should be kept secret, and women arenot able to do so. Exceeding well, quoth they, most holy father, and muchmore 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 verygently and courteously to lock it up in some sure and hidden place, andpromising them, by the faith of a pope, that he should yield to theirrequest if they would keep secret what was enclosed within that depositedbox, enjoining them withal not to presume one way nor other, directly orindirectly, to go about the opening thereof, under pain of the highestecclesiastical censure, eternal excommunication. The prohibition was nosooner made but that they did all of them boil with a most ardent desire toknow and see what kind of thing it was that was within it. They thoughtlong already that the pope was not gone, to the end they might jointly, with the more leisure and ease, apply themselves to the box-openingcuriosity. 

The holy father, after he had given them his benediction, retired andwithdrew himself to the pontifical lodgings of his own palace. But he washardly gone three steps from without the gates of their cloister when thegood ladies throngingly, and as in a huddled crowd, pressing hard on thebacks of one another, ran thrusting and shoving who should be first at thesetting 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 fulldesign, purpose, and intention, as they imagined, to despatch the grant oftheir sought and wished-for indulgence. But before he would enter into anychat or communing with them, he commanded the casket to be brought untohim. It was done so accordingly; but, by your leave, the bird was no morethere. Then was it that the pope did represent to their maternities howhard a matter and difficult it was for them to keep secrets revealed tothem in confession unmanifested to the ears of others, seeing for the spaceof four-and-twenty hours they were not able to lay up in secret a box whichhe had highly recommended to their discretion, charge, and custody. 

Welcome, in good faith, my dear master, welcome! It did me good to hearyou talk, the Lord be praised for all! I do not remember to have seen youbefore now, since the last time that you acted at Montpellier with ourancient friends, Anthony Saporra, Guy Bourguyer, Balthasar Noyer, Tolet, John Quentin, Francis Robinet, John Perdrier, and Francis Rabelais, themoral 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 urgentto have the fillet of her tongue untied, and would needs have her speak byany means. At his desire some pains were taken on her, and partly by theindustry of the physician, other part by the expertness of the surgeon, theencyliglotte which she had under her tongue being cut, she spoke and spokeagain; yea, within a few hours she spoke so loud, so much, so fiercely, andso long, that her poor husband returned to the same physician for a recipeto make her hold her peace. There are, quoth the physician, many properremedies in our art to make dumb women speak, but there are none that everI could learn therein to make them silent. The only cure which I havefound out is their husband's deafness. The wretch became within few weeksthereafter, by virtue of some drugs, charms, or enchantments which thephysician had prescribed unto him, so deaf that he could not have heard thethundering of nineteen hundred cannons at a salvo. His wife perceivingthat indeed he was as deaf as a door-nail, and that her scolding was but invain, sith that he heard her not, she grew stark mad. 

Some time after the doctor asked for his fee of the husband, who answeredthat truly he was deaf, and so was not able to understand what the tenourof his demand might be. Whereupon the leech bedusted him with a little, Iknow not what, sort of powder, which rendered him a fool immediately, sogreat was the stultificating virtue of that strange kind of pulverizeddose. 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 bangthem that they were left half dead upon the place, so furious were theblows which they received. I never in my lifetime laughed so much as atthe acting of that buffoonery. 

Let us come to where we left off, quoth Panurge. Your words, beingtranslated from the clapper-dudgeons to plain English, do signify that itis not very inexpedient that I marry, and that I should not care for beinga cuckold. You have there hit the nail on the head. I believe, masterdoctor, that on the day of my marriage you will be so much taken up withyour patients, or otherwise so seriously employed, that we shall not enjoyyour 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, forit 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 uponthe water which she shall have made in an urinal glass, quoth Rondibilis, grope her pulse, and see the disposition of her hypogaster, together withher 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 forthe practice of us that are lawyers, who have the rubric, De ventreinspiciendo. Do not therefore trouble yourself about it, master doctor; Iwill provide for her a plaster of warm guts. Do not neglect your moreurgent occasions otherwhere for coming to my wedding. I will send you somesupply of victuals to your own house, without putting you to the trouble ofcoming abroad, and you shall always be my special friend. With this, approaching somewhat nearer to him, he clapped into his hand, without thespeaking of so much as one word, four rose nobles. Rondibilis did shut hisfist upon them right kindly; yet, as if it had displeased him to makeacceptance 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 younevertheless. From wicked folks I never get enough, and I from honestpeople refuse nothing. I shall be always, sir, at your command. Providedthat 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 philosopherTrouillogan, Our loyal, honest, true, and trusty friend, the lamp from handto hand is come to you. It falleth to your turn to give an answer: ShouldPanurge, pray you, marry, yea or no? He should do both, quoth Trouillogan. What say you? asked Panurge. That which you have heard, answeredTrouillogan. 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 nobetter of the game. But howsoever tell me, Should I marry or no? Neitherthe one nor the other, answered Trouillogan. The devil take me, quothPanurge, if these odd answers do not make me dote, and may he snatch mepresently away if I do understand you. Stay awhile until I fasten thesespectacles of mine on this left ear, that I may hear you better. With thisPantagruel perceived at the door of the great hall, which was that daytheir dining-room, Gargantua's little dog, whose name was Kyne; for so wasToby's dog called, as is recorded. Then did he say to these who were therepresent, Our king is not far off, --let us all rise. 

That word was scarcely sooner uttered, than that Gargantua with his royalpresence graced that banqueting and stately hall. Each of the guests aroseto do their king that reverence and duty which became them. After thatGargantua had most affably saluted all the gentlemen there present, hesaid, Good friends, I beg this favour of you, and therein you will verymuch oblige me, that you leave not the places where you sate nor quit thediscourse you were upon. Let a chair be brought hither unto this end ofthe 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 Pantagruelanswered that at the beginning of the second service Panurge had proposed aproblematic theme, to wit, whether he should marry, or not marry? thatFather Hippothadee and Doctor Rondibilis had already despatched theirresolutions thereupon; and that, just as his majesty was coming in, thefaithful Trouillogan in the delivery of his opinion hath thus farproceeded, that when Panurge asked whether he ought to marry, yea or no? atfirst he made this answer, Both together. When this same question wasagain propounded, his second answer was, Neither the one nor the other. Panurge exclaimeth that those answers are full of repugnancies andcontradictions, protesting that he understands them not, nor what it isthat can be meant by them. If I be not mistaken, quoth Gargantua, Iunderstand it very well. The answer is not unlike to that which was oncemade by a philosopher in ancient times, who being interrogated if he had awoman whom they named him to his wife? I have her, quoth he, but she hathnot me, --possessing her, by her I am not possessed. Such another answer, quoth Pantagruel, was once made by a certain bouncing wench of Sparta, whobeing asked if at any time she had had to do with a man? No, quoth she, butsometimes men have had to do with me. Well then, quoth Rondibilis, let itbe a neuter in physic, as when we say a body is neuter, when it is neithersick nor healthful, and a mean in philosophy; that, by an abnegation ofboth 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, aswhen time makes the partition, and equally divides betwixt the two, a whilein the one, another while as long in the other opposite extremity. Theholy Apostle, quoth Hippothadee, seemeth, as I conceive, to have moreclearly explained this point when he said, Those that are married, let thembe as if they were not married; and those that have wives, let them be asif they had no wives at all. I thus interpret, quoth Pantagruel, thehaving and not having of a wife. To have a wife is to have the use of herin such a way as nature hath ordained, which is for the aid, society, andsolace of man, and propagating of his race. To have no wife is not to beuxorious, play the coward, and be lazy about her, and not for her sake todistain the lustre of that affection which man owes to God, or yet for herto leave those offices and duties which he owes unto his country, unto hisfriends and kindred, or for her to abandon and forsake his preciousstudies, and other businesses of account, to wait still on her will, herbeck, and her buttocks. If we be pleased in this sense to take having andnot having of a wife, we shall indeed find no repugnancy nor contradictionin the terms at all. 

Chapter 3. XXXVI. 

A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian philosopherTrouillogan. 

You speak wisely, quoth Panurge, if the moon were green cheese. Such atale once pissed my goose. I do not think but that I am let down into thatdark pit in the lowermost bottom whereof the truth was hid, according tothe saying of Heraclitus. I see no whit at all, I hear nothing, understandas little, my senses are altogether dulled and blunted; truly I do veryshrewdly suspect that I am enchanted. I will now alter the former style ofmy discourse, and talk to him in another strain. Our trusty friend, stirnot, nor imburse any; but let us vary the chance, and speak withoutdisjunctives. I see already that these loose and ill-joined members of anenunciation 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 morethereby but take a certain for an uncertain number, and posit thedeterminate term for what is indeterminate. When I say, therefore, fivehundred, my meaning is many. 

 Trouil. I hear you. 

Pan. Is it possible for me to live without a wife, in the name of all thesubterranean devils?

 Trouil. Away with these filthy beasts. 

 Pan. Let it be, then, in the name of God; for my Salmigondinish peopleuse to say, To lie alone, without a wife, is certainly a brutish life. Andsuch 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 willyou 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, shallI be fortunate?

 Trouil. Enough. 

 Pan. Let us turn the clean contrary way, and brush our former wordsagainst the wool: what if I encounter ill?

 Trouil. Then blame not me. 

 Pan. But, of courtesy, be pleased to give me some advice. I heartilybeseech 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 bythe rule and square of your counsel. What is it that you advise andcounsel 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 dursthazard upon a little fling at the swearing game, though privily and underthumb, it would lighten the burden of my heart and ease my lights and reinsexceedingly. A little patience nevertheless is requisite. Well then, if Imarry, 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 beresolved 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 thelower court. Swear there half an hour for me, and I shall in compensationof that favour swear hereafter for thee as much as thou wilt. But whoshall cuckold me?

 Trouil. Somebody. 

 Pan. By the belly of the wooden horse at Troy, Master Somebody, I shallbang, 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 hiseye, carry me quite away with him if, in that case, whensoever I go abroadfrom the palace of my domestic residence, I do not, with as muchcircumspection as they use to ring mares in our country to keep them frombeing 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 anyblood of you, I will try if with the lancet of my judgment I be able tobleed 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 withthe toil and travail that I am put to, and find my digestion broke off, disturbed, and interrupted, for all my phrenes, metaphrenes, anddiaphragms, back, belly, midriff, muscles, veins, and sinews are held in asuspense and for a while discharged from their proper offices to stretchforth their several powers and abilities for incornifistibulating andlaying up into the hamper of my understanding your various sayings andanswers. 

 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 SaintChristopher, that I had rather undertake the fetching of a fart forth ofthe belly of a dead ass than to draw out of you a positive and determinateresolution. Yet shall I be sure at this time to have a snatch at you, andget 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 slipsand winds himself out of my grips and clutches. 

At these words Gargantua arose and said, Praised be the good God in allthings, but especially for bringing the world into that height ofrefinedness beyond what it was when I first came to be acquaintedtherewith, that now the learnedst and most prudent philosophers are notashamed to be seen entering in at the porches and frontispieces of theschools of the Pyrrhonian, Aporrhetic, Sceptic, and Ephectic sects. Blessed be the holy name of God! Veritably, it is like henceforth to befound an enterprise of much more easy undertaking to catch lions by theneck, horses by the main, oxen by the horns, bulls by the muzzle, wolves bythe tail, goats by the beard, and flying birds by the feet, than to entrapsuch philosophers in their words. Farewell, my worthy, dear, and honestfriends. 

When he had done thus speaking, he withdrew himself from the company. Pantagruel and others with him would have followed and accompanied him, buthe would not permit them so to do. No sooner was Gargantua departed out ofthe 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 hesent for? Epistemon answered that he had been at his house to bid andinvite him, but could not meet with him; for that a messenger from theparliament of Mirlingois, in Mirlingues, was come to him with a writ ofsummons to cite and warn him personally to appear before the reverendsenators of the high court there, to vindicate and justify himself at thebar of the crime of prevarication laid to his charge, and to beperemptorily instanced against him in a certain decree, judgment, orsentence lately awarded, given, and pronounced by him; and that, therefore, he had taken horse and departed in great haste from his own house, to theend that without peril or danger of falling into a default or contumacy hemight be the better able to keep the prefixed and appointed time. 

I will, quoth Pantagruel, understand how that matter goeth. It is nowabove forty years that he hath been constantly the judge of Fonsbeton, during which space of time he hath given four thousand definitivesentences, of two thousand three hundred and nine whereof, although appealwas made by the parties whom he had judicially condemned from his inferiorjudicatory to the supreme court of the parliament of Mirlingois, inMirlingues, they were all of them nevertheless confirmed, ratified, andapproved of by an order, decree, and final sentence of the said sovereigncourt, to the casting of the appellants, and utter overthrow of the suitswherein they had been foiled at law, for ever and a day. That now in hisold age he should be personally summoned, who in all the foregoing time ofhis life hath demeaned himself so unblamably in the discharge of the officeand vocation he had been called unto, it cannot assuredly be that such achange hath happened without some notorious misfortune and disaster. I amresolved to help and assist him in equity and justice to the uttermostextent of my power and ability. I know the malice, despite, and wickednessof the world to be so much more nowadays exasperated, increased, andaggravated by what it was not long since, that the best cause that is, howjust 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 toattend 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 Pantagruelhad very cordially and affectionately thanked his invited guests for thefavour which he had enjoyed of their company, he presented them withseveral rich and costly gifts, such as jewels, rings set with preciousstones, gold and silver vessels, with a great deal of other sort of platebesides, and lastly, taking of them all his leave, retired himself into aninner chamber. 

Chapter 3. XXXVII. 

How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of a fool. 

When Pantagruel had withdrawn himself, he, by a little sloping window inone 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 withhis head, like a cow bellowing for her calf; and, having then called himnearer, spoke unto him thus: You are at this present, as I think, notunlike to a mouse entangled in a snare, who the more that she goeth aboutto rid and unwind herself out of the gin wherein she is caught, byendeavouring to clear and deliver her feet from the pitch whereto theystick, the foulier she is bewrayed with it, and the more strongly pesteredtherein. Even so is it with you. For the more that you labour, strive, and enforce yourself to disencumber and extricate your thoughts out of theimplicating involutions and fetterings of the grievous and lamentable ginsand springs of anguish and perplexity, the greater difficulty there is inthe relieving of you, and you remain faster bound than ever. Nor do I knowfor the removal of this inconveniency any remedy but one. 

Take heed, I have often heard it said in a vulgar proverb, The wise may beinstructed by a fool. Seeing the answers and responses of sage andjudicious men have in no manner of way satisfied you, take advice of somefool, and possibly by so doing you may come to get that counsel which willbe agreeable to your own heart's desire and contentment. You know how bythe advice and counsel and prediction of fools, many kings, princes, states, and commonwealths have been preserved, several battles gained, anddivers doubts of a most perplexed intricacy resolved. I am not sodiffident of your memory as to hold it needful to refresh it with aquotation of examples, nor do I so far undervalue your judgment but that Ithink it will acquiesce in the reason of this my subsequent discourse. Ashe who narrowly takes heed to what concerns the dexterous management of hisprivate affairs, domestic businesses, and those adoes which are confinedwithin the strait-laced compass of one family, who is attentive, vigilant, and active in the economic rule of his own house, whose frugal spirit neverstrays from home, who loseth no occasion whereby he may purchase to himselfmore riches, and build up new heaps of treasure on his former wealth, andwho knows warily how to prevent the inconveniences of poverty, is called aworldly wise man, though perhaps in the second judgment of theintelligences 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 notonly sage, but to presage events to come by divine inspiration, who layingquite aside those cares which are conducible to his body or his fortunes, and, as it were, departing from himself, rids all his senses of terreneaffections, and clears his fancies of those plodding studies which harbourin the minds of thriving men. All which neglects of sublunary things arevulgarily imputed folly. After this manner, the son of Picus, King of theLatins, the great soothsayer Faunus, was called Fatuus by the witlessrabble of the common people. The like we daily see practised amongst thecomic players, whose dramatic roles, in distribution of the personages, appoint the acting of the fool to him who is the wisest of the troop. Inapprobation also of this fashion the mathematicians allow the very samehoroscope to princes and to sots. Whereof a right pregnant instance bythem is given in the nativities of Aeneas and Choroebus; the latter ofwhich two is by Euphorion said to have been a fool, and yet had with theformer the same aspects and heavenly genethliac influences. 

I shall not, I suppose, swerve much from the purpose in hand, if I relateunto you what John Andrew said upon the return of a papal writ, which wasdirected to the mayor and burgesses of Rochelle, and after him by Panorme, upon the same pontifical canon; Barbatias on the Pandects, and recently byJason in his Councils, concerning Seyny John, the noted fool of Paris, andCaillet's fore great-grandfather. The case is this. 

At Paris, in the roastmeat cookery of the Petit Chastelet, before thecookshop of one of the roastmeat sellers of that lane, a certain hungryporter was eating his bread, after he had by parcels kept it a while abovethe reek and steam of a fat goose on the spit, turning at a great fire, andfound it, so besmoked with the vapour, to be savoury; which the cookobserving, took no notice, till after having ravined his penny loaf, whereof no morsel had been unsmokified, he was about decamping and goingaway. But, by your leave, as the fellow thought to have departed thenceshot-free, the master-cook laid hold upon him by the gorget, and demandedpayment for the smoke of his roast meat. The porter answered, that he hadsustained no loss at all; that by what he had done there was no diminutionmade of the flesh; that he had taken nothing of his, and that therefore hewas 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 thatroastmeat smoke was sold upon the streets of Paris. The cook heretoreplied, that he was not obliged nor any way bound to feed and nourish fornought a porter whom he had never seen before with the smoke of his roastmeat, and thereupon swore that if he would not forthwith content andsatisfy 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 ofhaving loads thereafter laid upon them, should serve for fuel to hiskitchen fires. Whilst he was going about so to do, and to have pulled themto him by one of the bottom rungs which he had caught in his hand, thesturdy porter got out of his grip, drew forth the knotty cudgel, and stoodto his own defence. The altercation waxed hot in words, which moved thegaping hoidens of the sottish Parisians to run from all parts thereabouts, to see what the issue would be of that babbling strife and contention. Inthe interim of this dispute, to very good purpose Seyny John, the fool andcitizen of Paris, happened to be there, whom the cook perceiving, said tothe porter, Wilt thou refer and submit unto the noble Seyny John thedecision of the difference and controversy which is betwixt us? Yes, bythe blood of a goose, answered the porter, I am content. Seyny John thefool, finding that the cook and porter had compromised the determination oftheir variance and debate to the discretion of his award and arbitrament, after that the reasons on either side whereupon was grounded the mutualfierceness of their brawling jar had been to the full displayed and laidopen before him, commanded the porter to draw out of the fob of his belt apiece of money, if he had it. Whereupon the porter immediately withoutdelay, in reverence to the authority of such a judicious umpire, put thetenth part of a silver Philip into his hand. This little Philip Seyny Johntook; then set it on his left shoulder, to try by feeling if it was of asufficient weight. After that, laying it on the palm of his hand, he madeit ring and tingle, to understand by the ear if it was of a good alloy inthe metal whereof it was composed. Thereafter he put it to the ball orapple of his left eye, to explore by the sight if it was well stamped andmarked; all which being done, in a profound silence of the whole doltishpeople who were there spectators of this pageantry, to the great hope ofthe cook's and despair of the porter's prevalency in the suit that was inagitation, he finally caused the porter to make it sound several times uponthe stall of the cook's shop. Then with a presidential majesty holding hisbauble sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his head with a hood of martenskins, each side whereof had the resemblance of an ape's face sprucified upwith 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 smallorgan pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs coughed two or threetimes, and then with an audible voice pronounced this following sentence:The court declareth that the porter who ate his bread at the smoke of theroast, hath civilly paid the cook with the sound of his money. And thesaid court ordaineth that everyone return to his own home, and attend hisproper 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 thematter 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 yetthat the Areopagites themselves had been the deciders thereof, if by anyone part, or all of them together, it had been so judicially sententiatedand 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. Iwill therefore lay hold thereon, and embrace it. At the very motioningthereof my very right entrail seemeth to be widened and enlarged, which wasbut just now hard-bound, contracted, and costive. But as we have hithertomade choice of the purest and most refined cream of wisdom and sapience forour counsel, so would I now have to preside and bear the prime sway in ourconsultation as very a fool in the supreme degree. Triboulet, quothPantagruel, is completely foolish, as I conceive. Yes, truly, answeredPanurge, 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 ofold was called the Feast of Fools, I know not why we may not for the likecause institute in France the Tribouletic Festivals, to be celebrated andsolemnized over all the land. 

 Panurge. If all fools carried cruppers. 

 Pantagruel. If he were the god Fatuus of whom we have already mademention, 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 wouldoverlay at least a fathom at every rake. Let us go toward him without anyfurther lingering or delay; we shall have, no doubt, some fine resolutionof him. I am ready to go, and long for the issue of our progressimpatiently. I must needs, quoth Pantagruel, according to my formerresolution therein, be present at Bridlegoose's trial. Nevertheless, whilst I shall be upon my journey towards Mirelingues, which is on theother side of the river of Loire, I will despatch Carpalin to bring alongwith him from Blois the fool Triboulet. Then was Carpalin instantly sentaway, and Pantagruel, at the same time attended by his domestics, Panurge, Epistemon, Ponocrates, Friar John, Gymnast, Ryzotomus, and others, marchedforward on the high road to Mirelingues. 

Chapter 3. XXXIX. 

How Pantagruel was present at the trial of Judge Bridlegoose, who decidedcauses and controversies in law by the chance and fortune of the dice. 

On the day following, precisely at the hour appointed, Pantagruel came toMirelingues. At his arrival the presidents, senators, and counsellorsprayed him to do them the honour to enter in with them, to hear thedecision of all the causes, arguments, and reasons which Bridlegoose in hisown defence would produce, why he had pronounced a certain sentence againstthe subsidy-assessor, Toucheronde, which did not seem very equitable tothat centumviral court. Pantagruel very willingly condescended to theirdesire, and accordingly entering in, found Bridlegoose sitting within themiddle of the enclosure of the said court of justice; who immediately uponthe coming of Pantagruel, accompanied with the senatorian members of thatworshipful judicatory, arose, went to the bar, had his indictment read, andfor all his reasons, defences, and excuses, answered nothing else but thathe was become old, and that his sight of late was very much failed, andbecome dimmer than it was wont to be; instancing therewithal many miseriesand calamities which old age bringeth along with it, and are concomitant towrinkled elders; which not. Per Archid. D. Lxxxvi. C. Tanta. By reason ofwhich infirmity he was not able so distinctly and clearly to discern thepoints 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 Isaactook Jacob for Esau, that I after the same manner, at the decision ofcauses and controversies in law, should have been mistaken in taking aquatre 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 morefavourable opinion of my uprightness, notwithstanding the prevaricationwhereof I am accused in the matter of Toucheronde's sentence, that at thetime of that decree's pronouncing I only had made use of my small dice; andyour worships, said he, know very well how by the most authentic rules ofthe law it is provided that the imperfections of nature should never beimputed unto any for crimes and transgressions; as appeareth, ff. De remilit. L. Qui cum uno. Ff. De reg. Jur. L. Fere. Ff. De aedil. Edict. Pertotum. Ff. De term. Mod. L. Divus Adrianus, resolved by Lud. Rom. In l. Sivero. Ff. Sol. Matr. And who would offer to do otherwise, should notthereby 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, ofsentences at law, decrees, and peremptory judgments, Alea Judiciorum, whereof is written, Per Doct. 26. Qu. 2. Cap. Sort. L. Nec emptio ff. Decontrahend. Empt. L. Quod debetur. Ff. De pecul. Et ibi Bartol. , and whichyour worships do, as well as I, use, in this glorious sovereign court ofyours. So do all other righteous judges in their decision of processes andfinal determination of legal differences, observing that which hath beensaid thereof by D. Henri. Ferrandat, et not. Gl. In c. Fin. De sortil. Etl. Sed cum ambo. Ff. De jud. Ubi Docto. Mark, that chance and fortune aregood, honest, profitable, and necessary for ending of and putting a finalclosure to dissensions and debates in suits at law. The same hath moreclearly been declared by Bald. Bartol. Et Alex. C. Communia de leg. L. Siduo. But how is it that you do these things? asked Trinquamelle. I verybriefly, quoth Bridlegoose, shall answer you, according to the doctrine andinstructions of Leg. Ampliorem para. In refutatoriis. C. De appel. ; whichis conform to what is said in Gloss l. 1. Ff. Quod met. Causa. Gaudentbrevitate moderni. My practice is therein the same with that of your otherworships, and as the custom of the judicatory requires, unto which our lawcommandeth us to have regard, and by the rule thereof still to direct andregulate our actions and procedures; ut not. Extra. De consuet. In c. Exliteris et ibi innoc. For having well and exactly seen, surveyed, overlooked, reviewed, recognized, read, and read over again, turned andtossed 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, instrumentsof the deposition of witnesses, rejoinders, replies, confirmations offormer assertions, duplies, triplies, answers to rejoinders, writings, deeds, reproaches, disabling of exceptions taken, grievances, salvationbills, re-examination of witnesses, confronting of them together, declarations, denunciations, libels, certificates, royal missives, lettersof 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 othersuch-like confects and spiceries, both at the one and the other side, as agood 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 derescriptis praesentat. Parag. 1. --I posit on the end of a table in mycloset all the pokes and bags of the defendant, and then allow unto him thefirst hazard of the dice, according to the usual manner of your otherworships. And it is mentioned, l. Favorabiliores. Ff. De reg. Jur. Et incap. Cum sunt eod. Tit. Lib. 6, which saith, Quum sunt partium juraobscura, reo potius favendum est quam actori. That being done, Ithereafter lay down upon the other end of the same table the bags andsatchels of the plaintiff, as your other worships are accustomed to do, visum visu, just over against one another; for Opposita juxta se positaclarius elucescunt: ut not. In lib. 1. Parag. Videamus. Ff. De his quisunt sui vel alieni juris, et in l. Munerum. Para. Mixta ff. De mun. Ethon. Then do I likewise and semblably throw the dice for him, andforthwith livre him his chance. But, quoth Trinquamelle, my friend, howcome you to know, understand, and resolve the obscurity of these variousand seeming contrary passages in law, which are laid claim to by thesuitors and pleading parties? Even just, quoth Bridlegoose, after thefashion of your other worships; to wit, when there are many bags on the oneside and on the other, I then use my little small dice, after the customarymanner of your other worships, in obedience to the law, Semper instipulationibus ff. De reg. Jur. And the law ver(s)ified versifieth that, Eod. Tit. Semper in obscuris quod minimum est sequimur; canonized in c. Inobscuris. Eod. Tit. Lib. 6. I have other large great dice, fair and goodlyones, 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, whenthere are fewer bags. But when you have done all these fine things, quothTrinquamelle, how do you, my friend, award your decrees, and pronouncejudgment? Even as your other worships, answered Bridlegoose; for I giveout 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. In6. Qui prior est tempore potior est jure. 

Chapter 3. XL. 

How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions whichhe 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 donot you livre up these fair throws and chances the very same day and hour, without any further procrastination or delay, that the controvertingparty-pleaders appear before you? To what use can those writings serve you, those papers and other procedures contained in the bags and pokes of thelaw-suitors? To the very same use, quoth Bridlegoose, that they serve yourother worships. They are behooveful unto me, and serve my turn in threethings very exquisite, requisite, and authentical. First, for formalitysake, the omission whereof, that it maketh all, whatever is done, to be ofno 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 toyou, who have had many more experiments thereof than I, how oftentimes, injudicial proceedings, the formalities utterly destroy the materialities andsubstances of the causes and matters agitated; for Forma mutata, mutatursubstantia. Ff. Ad exhib. L. Julianus. Ff. Ad leg. Fal. L. Si is quiquadraginta. 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 otherworships, in lieu of some other honest and healthful exercise. The lateMaster Othoman Vadet (Vadere), a prime physician, as you would say, Cod. DeComit. Et Archi. Lib. 12, hath frequently told me that the lack and defaultof bodily exercise is the chief, if not the sole and only cause of thelittle health and short lives of all officers of justice, such as yourworships and I am. Which observation was singularly well before him notedand remarked by Bartholus in lib. 1. C. De sent. Quae pro eo quod. Therefore it is that the practice of such-like exercitations is appointedto be laid hold on by your other worships, and consequently not to bedenied unto me, who am of the same profession; Quia accessorium naturamsequitur principalis. De reg. Jur. L. 6. Et l. Cum principalis. Et l. Nihildolo. Ff. Eod. Tit. Ff. De fide-juss. L. Fide-juss. Et extra de officiodeleg. Cap. 1. Let certain honest and recreative sports and plays ofcorporeal 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. Suchalso is the opinion of D. Thom, in secunda, secundae Q. I. 168. Quoted invery good purpose by D. Albert de Rosa, who fuit magnus practicus, and asolemn doctor, as Barbatias attesteth in principiis consil. Wherefore thereason is evidently and clearly deduced and set down before us in gloss. Inprooemio. Ff. Par. Ne autem tertii. 

 Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis. 

In very deed, once, in the year a thousand four hundred fourscore andninth, having a business concerning the portion and inheritance of ayounger brother depending in the court and chamber of the four hightreasurers of France, whereinto as soon as ever I got leave to enter by apecuniary permission of the usher thereof, --as your other worships knowvery 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 anddiverting themselves at the play called muss, either before or afterdinner; to me, truly, it is a thing altogether indifferent whether of thetwo 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 themuss 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 ofthat game of muss. There is nothing that I do better remember, for helaughed heartily when his fellow-members of the aforesaid judicial chamberspoiled their caps in swingeing of his shoulders. He, nevertheless, dideven then say unto them, that the banging and flapping of him, to the wasteand havoc of their caps, should not, at their return from the palace totheir own houses, excuse them from their wives, Per. C. Extra. Depraesumpt. Et ibi gloss. Now, resolutorie loquendo, I should say, according to the style and phrase of your other worships, that there is noexercise, sport, game, play, nor recreation in all this palatine, palatial, or parliamentary world, more aromatizing and fragrant than to empty andvoid bags and purses, turn over papers and writings, quote margins andbacks 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 andbringeth all things to maturity, that by time everything cometh to be mademanifest 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 fashionof your other worships, I defer, protract, delay, prolong, intermit, surcease, pause, linger, suspend, prorogate, drive out, wire-draw, andshift off the time of giving a definitive sentence, to the end that thesuit or process, being well fanned and winnowed, tossed and canvassed toand fro, narrowly, precisely, and nearly garbled, sifted, searched, andexamined, and on all hands exactly argued, disputed, and debated, may, bysuccession of time, come at last to its full ripeness and maturity. Bymeans whereof, when the fatal hazard of the dice ensueth thereupon, theparties cast or condemned by the said aleatory chance will with muchgreater patience, and more mildly and gently, endure and bear up thedisastrous load of their misfortune, than if they had been sentenced attheir 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 ensueof a no less inconveniency than that which the physicians have been wont tosay befalleth to him in whom an imposthume is pierced before it be ripe, orunto any other whose body is purged of a strong predominating humour beforeits 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 juranegotiis. Nature furthermore admonisheth and teacheth us to gather andreap, 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. Tomarry likewise our daughters when they are ripe, and no sooner, ff. Dedonation. 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 considerableimportance, but in a full maturity and ripeness, 23. Q. Para ult. Et 23. Dec. Ultimo. 

Chapter 3. XLI. 

How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties atvariance in matters of law. 

I remember to the same purpose, quoth Bridlegoose, in continuing hisdiscourse, that in the time when at Poictiers I was a student of law underBrocadium Juris, there was at Semerve one Peter Dandin, a very honest man, careful labourer of the ground, fine singer in a church-desk, of goodrepute and credit, and older than the most aged of all your worships; whowas wont to say that he had seen the great and goodly good man, the Councilof Lateran, with his wide and broad-brimmed red hat. As also, that he hadbeheld and looked upon the fair and beautiful Pragmatical Sanction hiswife, with her huge rosary or patenotrian chaplet of jet-beads hanging at alarge sky-coloured ribbon. This honest man compounded, atoned, and agreedmore differences, controversies, and variances at law than had beendetermined, voided, and finished during his time in the whole palace ofPoictiers, in the auditory of Montmorillon, and in the town-house of theold Partenay. This amicable disposition of his rendered him venerable andof great estimation, sway, power, and authority throughout all theneighbouring places of Chauvigny, Nouaille, Leguge, Vivonne, Mezeaux, Estables, and other bordering and circumjacent towns, villages, andhamlets. All their debates were pacified by him; he put an end to theirbrabbling suits at law and wrangling differences. By his advice andcounsels were accords and reconcilements no less firmly made than if theverdict of a sovereign judge had been interposed therein, although, in verydeed, he was no judge at all, but a right honest man, as you may wellconceive, --arg. In l. Sed si unius. Ff. De jure-jur. Et de verbisobligatoriis l. Continuus. There was not a hog killed within three parishesof him whereof he had not some part of the haslet and puddings. He wasalmost every day invited either to a marriage banquet, christening feast, an uprising or women-churching treatment, a birthday's anniversarysolemnity, a merry frolic gossiping, or otherwise to some deliciousentertainment in a tavern, to make some accord and agreement betweenpersons at odds and in debate with one another. Remark what I say; for henever yet settled and compounded a difference betwixt any two at variance, but he straight made the parties agreed and pacified to drink together as asure and infallible token and symbol of a perfect and completelywell-cemented reconciliation, sign of a sound and sincere amity and propermark 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 TenotDandin, a lusty, young, sturdy, frisking roister, so help me God! wholikewise, in imitation of his peace-making father, would have undertaken andmeddled with the making up of variances and deciding of controversiesbetwixt 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 Monialisusceptos ex Monacho. Per glos. In c. Impudicas. 27. Quaestione. 1. Andsuch was his confidence to have no worse success than his father, heassumed unto himself the title of Law-strife-settler. He was likewise inthese pacificatory negotiations so active and vigilant--for, Vigilantibusjura subveniunt. Ex l. Pupillus. Ff. Quae in fraud. Cred. Et ibid. L. Nonenim. Et instit. In prooem. --that when he had smelt, heard, and fullyunderstood--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 thecountry a debatable matter at law, he would incontinently thrust in hisadvice, and so forwardly intrude his opinion in the business, that he madeno bones of making offer, and taking upon him to decide it, how difficultsoever it might happen to be, to the full contentment and satisfaction ofboth parties. It is written, Qui non laborat non manducat; and the saidgl. Ff. De damn. Infect. L. Quamvis, and Currere plus que le pas vetulamcompellit 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 inthis his undertaking, that he never composed any difference, how littlesoever you may imagine it might have been, but that, instead of reconcilingthe parties at odds, he did incense, irritate, and exasperate them to ahigher point of dissension and enmity than ever they were at before. Yourworships know, I doubt not, that, Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis. 

Gl. Ff. De alien. Jud. Mut. Caus. Fa. Lib. 2. This administered unto thetavern-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 muchreconciliation-wine, for so were they pleased to call the good wine ofLeguge, as under his father they had done in one half-hour's time. Ithappened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret thereofto his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in pacificatoryenterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross, and backwardinclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly, and irreverentlyupbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world had been sowayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of all square, frame, and order as it was then, his father had never attained to and acquired thehonour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably, inviolably, andirrevocably as he had done. In doing whereof Tenot did heinouslytransgress against the law which prohibiteth children to reproach theactions of their parents; per gl. Et Bart. L. 3. Paragr. Si quis. Ff. Decond. Ob caus. Et authent. De nupt. Par. Sed quod sancitum. Col. 4. Tothis the honest old father answered thus: My son Dandin, when Don Oportettaketh 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'smill, nor in any part thereof was the form to be found wherein the hare didsit. Thou hast not the skill and dexterity of settling and composingdifferences. Why? Because thou takest them at the beginning, in the veryinfancy 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 arepretty well digested. So saith Gloss:

 Dulcior est fructus post multa pericula ductus. 

L. Non moriturus. C. De contrahend. Et committ. Stip. Didst thou ever hearthe vulgar proverb, Happy is the physician whose coming is desired at thedeclension of a disease? For the sickness being come to a crisis is thenupon the decreasing hand, and drawing towards an end, although thephysician should not repair thither for the cure thereof; whereby, thoughnature wholly do the work, he bears away the palm and praise thereof. Mypleaders, after the same manner, before I did interpose my judgment in thereconciling of them, were waxing faint in their contestations. Theiraltercation heat was much abated, and, in declining from their formerstrife, they of themselves inclined to a firm accommodation of theirdifferences; because there wanted fuel to that fire of burning rancour anddespiteful 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 intheir fob, nor penny in their bag, wherewith to solicit and present theiractions. 

 Deficiente pecu, deficit omne, nia. 

There wanted then nothing but some brother to supply the place of aparanymph, brawl-broker, proxenete, or mediator, who, acting his partdexterously, should be the first broacher of the motion of an agreement, for saving both the one and the other party from that hurtful andpernicious shame whereof he could not have avoided the imputation when itshould have been said that he was the first who yielded and spoke of areconcilement, and that therefore, his cause not being good, and beingsensible where his shoe did pinch him, he was willing to break the ice, andmake the greater haste to prepare the way for a condescendment to anamicable 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 thanwas my verdict then agreeable to them. This was my luck, my profit, andgood fortune. I tell thee, my jolly son Dandin, that by this rule andmethod I could settle a firm peace, or at least clap up a cessation of armsand truce for many years to come, betwixt the Great King and the VenetianState, the Emperor and the Cantons of Switzerland, the English and theScots, 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, theTartars and the Muscoviters. Remark well what I am to say unto thee. Iwould take them at that very instant nick of time when both those of theone and the other side should be weary and tired of making war, when theyhad voided and emptied their own cashes and coffers of all treasure andcoin, drained and exhausted the purses and bags of their subjects, sold andmortgaged their domains and proper inheritances, and totally wasted, spent, and consumed the munition, furniture, provision, and victuals that werenecessary 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 alltheir teeths, they should be forced to have a little respite and breathingtime to moderate the fury and cruel rage of their ambitious aims. This isthe 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 theirperfect growth. 

For this cause, quoth Bridlegoose, going on in his discourse, I temporizeand apply myself to the times, as your other worships use to do, waitingpatiently for the maturity of the process, full growth and perfectionthereof 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 theworld 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, didnot with much licking put his members into that figure and shape whichnature 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 worshipsdo, processes and suits in law, at their first bringing forth, to benumberless, without shape, deformed, and disfigured, for that then theyconsist only of one or two writings, or copies of instruments, throughwhich defect they appear unto me, as to your other worships, foul, loathsome, filthy, and misshapen beasts. But when there are heaps of theselegiformal papers packed, piled, laid up together, impoked, insatchelled, and put up in bags, then is it that with a good reason we may term thatsuit, 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. Cumdilecta. 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 thepurses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already begot andengendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws, talons, beaks, bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles, humours, and soforth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of the whole; whichparts, 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, andlaw-suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and administrators ofjustice. For beatius est dare quam accipere. Ff. Commun. L. 3. Extra. Decelebr. 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 acomplete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and fashionedaccording to the canonical gloss. 

 Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae. 

Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in verboRoma. 

 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 theinconvenience 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 ofthe 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 subjectwe 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 criminalcauses, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrantecrimine? Even as your other worships use to do, answered Bridlegoose. First, I permit the plaintiff to depart from the court, enjoining him notto presume to return thither till he preallably should have taken a goodsound and profound sleep, which is to serve for the prime entry andintroduction 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 issueforth a warrant to convene him before me. Fourthly, he is to produce asufficient and authentic attestation of his having thoroughly and entirelyslept, 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 thisconsopiating act engendereth another act, whence ariseth the articulatingof a member. That again produceth a third act, fashionative of anothermember; which third bringing forth a fourth, procreative of another act. New members in a no fewer number are shapen and framed, one still breedingand begetting another--as, link after link, the coat of mail at length ismade--till thus, piece after piece, by little and little, by informationupon information, the process be completely well formed and perfect in allhis members. Finally, having proceeded this length, I have recourse to mydice, nor is it to be thought that this interruption, respite, orinterpellation is by me occasioned without very good reason inducing methereunto, and a notable experience of a most convincing and irrefragableforce. 

I remember, on a time, that in the camp at Stockholm there was a certainGascon named Gratianauld, native of the town of Saint Sever, who havinglost all his money at play, and consecutively being very angry thereat--asyou 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 vitahominis et optimus fide-jussor in necessitatibus--did, at his coming forthof 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 depergudes sont les mires bingt, et quouatre bagnelles, ta pla donnerienpics, trucs, et patacts, Sey degun de bous aulx, qui boille truquar ambeiou a bels embis. Finding that none would make him any answer, he passedfrom thence to that part of the leaguer where the huff-snuff, hondersponder, swashbuckling High Germans were, to whom he renewed these veryterms, provoking them to fight with him; but all the return he had fromthem to his stout challenge was only, Der Gasconner thut sich ausz mit einiedem zu schlagen, aber er ist geneigter zu stehlen, darum, liebe frawen, habt sorg zu euerm hauszrath. Finding also that none of that band ofTeutonic soldiers offered himself to the combat, he passed to that quarterof the leaguer where the French freebooting adventurers were encamped, andreiterating unto them what he had before repeated to the Dutch warriors, challenged them likewise to fight with him, and therewithal made somepretty little Gasconado frisking gambols to oblige them the more cheerfullyand gallantly to cope with him in the lists of a duellizing engagement; butno answer at all was made unto him. Whereupon the Gascon, despairing ofmeeting with any antagonists, departed from thence, and laying himself downnot far from the pavilions of the grand Christian cavalier Crissie, fellfast asleep. When he had thoroughly slept an hour or two, anotheradventurous and all-hazarding blade of the forlorn hope of the lavishinglywasting gamesters, having also lost all his moneys, sallied forth withsword 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 effecthaving made inquiry and search for him throughout the whole camp, and insequel thereof found him asleep, he said unto him, Up, ho, good fellow, inthe name of all the devils of hell, rise up, rise up, get up! I have lostmy money as well as thou hast done; let us therefore go fight lustilytogether, grapple and scuffle it to some purpose. Thou mayest look and seethat my tuck is no longer than thy rapier. The Gascon, altogetherastonished at his unexpected provocation, without altering his formerdialect spoke thus: Cap de Saint Arnault, quau seys to you, qui merebeillez? Que mau de taberne te gire. Ho Saint Siobe, cap de Gascoigne, ta pla dormy jou, quand aquoest taquain me bingut estee. The venturousroister inviteth him again to the duel, but the Gascon, withoutcondescending to his desire, said only this: He paovret jou tesquinerieares, que son pla reposat. Vayne un pauque te pausar com jou, peussetruqueren. Thus, in forgetting his loss, he forgot the eagerness which hehad to fight. In conclusion, after that the other had likewise slept alittle, they, instead of fighting, and possibly killing one another, wentjointly to a sutler's tent, where they drank together very amicably, eachupon the pawn of his sword. Thus by a little sleep was pacified the ardentfury of two warlike champions. There, gossip, comes the golden word ofJohn 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 atlaw by the chance of the dice. 

With this Bridlegoose held his peace. Whereupon Trinquamelle bid himwithdraw from the court--which accordingly was done--and then directed hisdiscourse to Pantagruel after this manner: It is fitting, most illustriousprince, not only by reason of the deep obligations wherein this presentparliament, together with the whole marquisate of Mirelingues, stand boundto your royal highness for the innumerable benefits which, as effects ofmere grace, they have received from your incomparable bounty, but for thatexcellent wit also, prime judgment, and admirable learning wherewithAlmighty God, the giver of all good things, hath most richly qualified andendowed you, we tender and present unto you the decision of this new, strange, and paradoxical case of Bridlegoose; who, in your presence, toyour both hearing and seeing, hath plainly confessed his final judging anddeterminating 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 sentencetherein as unto you shall seem most just and equitable. To this Pantagruelanswered: Gentlemen, it is not unknown to you how my condition is somewhatremote from the profession of deciding law controversies; yet, seeing youare pleased to do me the honour to put that task upon me, instead ofundergoing the office of a judge I will become your humble supplicant. Iobserve, gentlemen, in this Bridlegoose several things which induce me torepresent before you that it is my opinion he should be pardoned. In thefirst place, his old age; secondly, his simplicity; to both which qualitiesour statute and common laws, civil and municipal together, allow manyexcuses for any slips or escapes which, through the invincible imperfectionof either, have been inconsiderately stumbled upon by a person soqualified. Thirdly, gentlemen, I must needs display before you anothercase, which in equity and justice maketh much for the advantage ofBridlegoose, to wit, that this one, sole, and single fault of his ought tobe quite forgotten, abolished, and swallowed up by that immense and vastocean of just dooms and sentences which heretofore he hath given andpronounced; his demeanours, for these forty years and upwards that he hathbeen 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 andtwit him with any act worthy of a check or reprehension; as, if a drop ofthe sea were thrown into the Loire, none could perceive or say that by thissingle drop the whole river should be salt and brackish. 

Truly, it seemeth unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose'sjuridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinarysavouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his precedingsentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and approved of byyourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court. For it isusual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifesthis own ineffable glory in blunting the perspicacy of the eyes of the wise, in weakening the strength of potent oppressors, in depressing the pride ofrich extortioners, and in erecting, comforting, protecting, supporting, upholding, and shoring up the poor, feeble, humble, silly, and foolish onesof 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 Ithank you, but for that constant and unfeigned love and affection which youhave always found in me, both on this and on the other side of Loire, forthe maintenance and establishment of your places, offices, and dignities, that for this one time you would pardon and forgive him upon these twoconditions. First, that he satisfy, or put a sufficient surety for thesatisfaction of the party wronged by the injustice of the sentence inquestion. For the fulfilment of this article I will provide sufficiently. And, secondly, that for his subsidiary aid in the weighty charge ofadministrating justice you would be pleased to appoint and assign unto himsome pretty little virtuous counsellor, younger, learneder, and wiser thanhe, by the square and rule of whose advice he may regulate, guide, temper, and moderate in times coming all his judiciary procedures; or otherwise, ifyou intend totally to depose him from his office, and to deprive himaltogether of the state and dignity of a judge, I shall cordially entreatyou to make a present and free gift of him to me, who shall find in mykingdoms charges and employments enough wherewith to embusy him, for thebettering of his own fortunes and furtherance of my service. In themeantime, I implore the Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier of all goodthings, in his grace, mercy, and kindness, to preserve you all now andevermore, world without end. 

These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg withsuch a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree andeminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and master-speaker of thatMirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the whole court, and went outof the chamber; at the door whereof finding Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John, and others, he forthwith, attended by them, walked to the outer gate, whereall of them immediately took horse to return towards Gargantua. Pantagruelby the way related to them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose'ssententiating differences at law. Friar John said that he had seen PeterDandin, and was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in themonastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon. Gymnastlikewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand Christian cavalierDe Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made answer to theadventurer. Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the matter of believingthat it was morally possible Bridlegoose should have been for such a longspace of time so continually fortunate in that aleatory way of deciding lawdebates. Epistemon said to Pantagruel, Such another story, not much unliketo that in all the circumstances thereof, is vulgarly reported of theprovost of Montlehery. In good sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is tobe wondered at. To have hit right twice or thrice in a judgment so givenby haphazard might have fallen out well enough, especially in controversiesthat were ambiguous, intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure. 

Chapter 3. XLIV. 

How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of humanjudgment. 

Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knottydebates, 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 secondhusband bore a boy called Effege. A pretty long time thereafter ithappened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and stepdams is veryrare towards the children of the first fathers and mothers deceased, thatthis husband, with the help of his son Effege, secretly, wittingly, willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece. The woman came no sooner toget information of the fact, but, that it might not go unpunished, shecaused kill them both, to revenge the death of her first son. She wasapprehended 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 killingof them. Thus was the state of the question. He found the business sodubious and intricate, that he knew not what to determine therein, norwhich of the parties to incline to. On the one hand, it was an execrablecrime to cut off at once both her second husband and her son. On the otherhand, the cause of the murder seemed to be so natural, as to be groundedupon the law of nations and the rational instinct of all the people of theworld, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyedher 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 hisinheritance. In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon, he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain theiradvice and judgment. That judicious senate, very sagely perpending thereasons of his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally tocompear before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to someinterrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in theverbal defence. Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in theiropinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what tosay or judge therein. Who had decided that plea by the chance and fortuneof the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which side soever hehad passed his casting and condemnatory sentence. If against the woman, she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign authority by taking thatvengeance at her own hand, the inflicting whereof was only competent to thesupreme power to administer justice in criminal cases. If for her, thejust resentment of a so atrocious injury done unto her, in murdering herinnocent son, did fully excuse and vindicate her of any trespass or offenceabout that particular committed by her. But this continuation ofBridlegoose for so many years still hitting the nail on the head, nevermissing the mark, and always judging aright, by the mere throwing of thedice 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 pointedout the mistake. --M. ), categorically to that which you wonder at, I mustingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet, conjecturally to guess atthe reason of it, I would refer the cause of that marvellouslylong-continued happy success in the judiciary results of his definitivesentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and benignity of theintelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after havingcontemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of JudgeBridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did regulate that forhim by chance which by the profoundest act of his maturest deliberation hewas not able to reach unto. That, likewise, which possibly made him todiffide in his own skill and capacity, notwithstanding his being an expertand understanding lawyer, for anything that I know to the contrary, was theknowledge 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 oppositeterms, and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice andiniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, beingassuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequentlytransformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light, maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and pens ofhis ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing judges, law-monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-likelaw-wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black towhite, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply. For the moreexpedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleadingparties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is wellknown that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find anadvocate to patrocinate and defend it, --else would there be no process inthe world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at the bar. He did in theseextremities, as I conceive, most humbly recommend the direction of hisjudicial proceedings to the upright judge of judges, God Almighty; didsubmit himself to the conduct and guideship of the blessed Spirit in thehazard and perplexity of the definitive sentence, and, by this aleatorylot, did as it were implore and explore the divine decree of his goodwilland 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 judgerighteously, he did, in my opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the endthat by the providence aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whoseaction was uprightest, and backed with greatest reason. In doing whereofhe did not stray from the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is solittle harm in that manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety andperplexedness of human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasureof his divine will. 

Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that theunstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those ofthe parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose wasarraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worsepractice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance andhazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have itremitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are fullof blood and hearts of wry affections. Besides that, their principaldirection in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, awicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, sopernicious, unjust, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was hisordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, andordinances, 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 themby and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits, scantlings, and shredsof the law now in use, altogether concealing, suppressing, disannulling, and abolishing the remainder, which did make for the total law; fearingthat, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge ofsuch as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctorsof the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts, his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to thepublic notice of the world. Therefore were it better, in my conceit, thatis to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridicalcase should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determinationof what is their right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees;as Cato in his time wished and advised that every judiciary court should bepaved with caltrops. 

Chapter 3. XLV. 

How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet. 

On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very samehour 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 thehard peas that were within it. Moreover he did present him with a giltwooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell, an osier-wattledwicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty apples of theorchard of Blandureau. 

If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is nomore wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage. Tribouletgirded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, atesome few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge very wistly andheedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seenten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drinkheartily, and by good long draughts. When Triboulet had done with hisdrinking, Panurge laid out before him and exposed the sum of the businesswherein he was to require his advice, in eloquent and choicely-sortedterms, adorned with flourishes of rhetoric. But, before he had altogetherdone, Triboulet with his fist gave him a bouncing whirret between theshoulders, rendered back into his hand again the empty bottle, fillippedand flirted him in the nose with the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a finalresolution, shaking and wagging his head strongly and disorderly, heanswered nothing else but this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk, Buzansay hornpipe! These words thus finished, he slipped himself out ofthe company, went aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight inthe melody of the rickling crackling noise of the peas. After which timeit lay not in the power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulatesound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about tointerrogate him further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would havestuck him therewith. I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought mypigs to a fine market. Have I not got a brave determination of all mydoubts, 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 whobrought him hither to me, --That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank atme, --but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret ofmy thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny. 

Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quothPantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the gesturesand speech which he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably, quoth he, have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable mysteries; yea, ofsuch important worth and weight, that I shall never henceforth beastonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal of worshipand reverence honour and respect natural fools equally with their primestdoctors, muftis, divines, and prophets. Did not you take heed, quoth he, alittle before he opened his mouth to speak, what a shogging, shaking, andwagging his head did keep? By the approved doctrine of the ancientphilosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most expert magicians, andthe received opinions of the learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitationand moving should by us all be judged to proceed from, and be quickened andsuscitated by the coming and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidicalspirit, which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacleof a debile substance (for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, alittle head containeth not much brains), was the cause of that commotion. This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, whenthey affirm that shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a humanbody, partly because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burdenand load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness andimbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ. A manifest examplewhereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to theirhead a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in thehand that holds it. This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mysticalpointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always, before theuttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of her domesticlaurel. Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, toacquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holydays of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make thehead of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake. Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoeverhe walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furiouslolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that he commonly affrighted thosewho casually met with him in his way. The said author in another place, showing a reason why Charmides shook and brangled his head, assevered thathe was transported and in an ecstasy. Catullus after the same mannermaketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein theMenades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and dementedprophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads. As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele werewont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, accordingto the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination, for kubistan signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, andplay the part of one that is wry-necked. 

Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of theBacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize andvaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shruggingof the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used thenmost punctually. For the common voice of the philosophers, together withthe opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth thatvaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without theconcomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the saidpresaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspireddeclareth and manifesteth it unto others. The learned lawyer Julian, beingasked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful andin a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, andenraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without anoddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-waggingat the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotentenough. Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, andinstructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would doa pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication, stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of thesage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir themup to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies oftheirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strangeand uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly bydisordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of awise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All which Virgilacknowledgeth 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 yourold age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut yourpleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in hiscodpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk. Upon mine honour, itgives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk. Nay, I willengage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in mypossession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe, Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the hornedbrotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute tothe wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles andresponses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, withoutdescending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitchupon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess whois 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 gatherwith all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so muchthe more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuouslycontaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he saysthat you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned, hornified, and cornuted. And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis theTwelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipesof Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word foranother, 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 Buzansayhornpipe. 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 theback. This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, andfillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, asyou stole the hog's bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton. 

Flat contrary, quoth Panurge;--not that I would impudently exempt myselffrom being a vassal in the territory of folly. I hold of thatjurisdiction, 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 thatinfinite is the number of fools. From an infinity nothing can be deductedor abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything thereto beadded or subjoined. Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I shouldnot hold myself a fool. After the same manner of speaking, we may aver thenumber of the mad and enraged folks to be infinite. Avicenna maketh nobones to assert that the several kinds of madness are infinite. Thoughthis much of Triboulet's words tend little to my advantage, howbeit theprejudice which I sustain thereby be common with me to all other men, yetthe rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me. He said to mywife, 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 inher sparrow; who will for his recreation pass his time no less joyfully atthe exercise of snatching flies than heretofore did the mercilessfly-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 aharmonious hornpipe of Saulieau or Buzansay. The veridical Triboulet didtherein hint at what I liked well, as perfectly knowing the inclinations andpropensions of my mind, my natural disposition, and the bias of my interiorpassions and affections. For you may be assured that my humour is muchbetter satisfied and contented with the pretty, frolic, rural, dishevelledshepherdesses, whose bums through their coarse canvas smocks smell of theclover grass of the field, than with those great ladies in magnific courts, with their flandan top-knots and sultanas, their polvil, pastillos, andcosmetics. The homely sound, likewise, of a rustical hornpipe is moreagreeable to my ears than the curious warbling and musical quavering oflutes, theorbos, viols, rebecs, and violins. He gave me a lusty rappingthwack on my back, --what then? Let it pass, in the name and for the love ofGod, as an abatement of and deduction from so much of my future pains inpurgatory. He did it not out of any evil intent. He thought, belike, tohave hit some of the pages. He is an honest fool, and an innocentchangeling. It is a sin to harbour in the heart any bad conceit of him. Asfor myself, I heartily pardon him. He flirted me on the nose. In thatthere is no harm; for it importeth nothing else but that betwixt my wife andme there will occur some toyish wanton tricks which usually happen to allnew-married folks. 

Chapter 3. XLVII. 

How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of theholy bottle. 

There is as yet another point, quoth Panurge, which you have not at allconsidered 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 youthat passage? What is the meaning of that? He possibly, quoth Pantagruel, signifieth thereby that your wife will be such a drunkard as shall dailytake in her liquor kindly, and ply the pots and bottles apace. Quiteotherwise, quoth Panurge; for the bottle was empty. I swear to you, by theprickling brambly thorn of St. Fiacre in Brie, that our unique morosoph, whom I formerly termed the lunatic Triboulet, referreth me, for attainingto 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 yourpresence protest and make oath, by Styx and Acheron, to carry stillspectacles in my cap, and never to wear a codpiece in my breeches, untilupon the enterprise in hand of my nuptial undertaking I shall have obtainedan answer from the holy bottle. I am acquainted with a prudent, understanding, and discreet gentleman, and besides a very good friend ofmine, who knoweth the land, country, and place where its temple and oracleis built and posited. He will guide and conduct us thither sure andsafely. 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 anAchates, 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 youto 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 beforewe enter in upon our progress towards the accomplishment of so far ajourney, replenished and fraught with eminent perils, full of innumerablehazards, and every way stored with evident and manifest dangers, --Whatdangers? quoth Panurge, interrupting him. Dangers fly back, run from, andshun me whithersoever I go, seven leagues around, as in the presence of thesovereign a subordinate magistracy is eclipsed; or as clouds and darknessquite evanish at the bright coming of a radiant sun; or as all sores andsicknesses did suddenly depart at the approach of the body of St. Martin aQuande. Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, before we adventure to setforwards on the road of our projected and intended voyage, some few pointsare to be discussed, expedited, and despatched. First, let us send backTriboulet to Blois. Which was instantly done, after that Pantagruel hadgiven him a frieze coat. Secondly, our design must be backed with theadvice and counsel of the king my father. And, lastly, it is most needfuland expedient for us that we search for and find out some sibyl to serve usfor a guide, truchman, and interpreter. To this Panurge made answer, thathis friend Xenomanes would abundantly suffice for the plenary discharge andperformance of the sibyl's office; and that, furthermore, in passingthrough the Lanternatory revelling country, they should take along withthem a learned and profitable Lanternesse, which would be no less useful tothem in their voyage than was the sibyl to Aeneas in his descent to theElysian fields. Carpalin, in the interim, as he was upon the conductingaway of Triboulet, in his passing by hearkened a little to the discoursethey were upon; then spoke out, saying, Ho, Panurge, master freeman, takemy Lord Debitis at Calais alongst with you, for he is goud-fallot, a goodfellow. He will not forget those who have been debitors; these areLanternes. Thus shall you not lack for both fallot and lanterne. I maysafely with the little skill I have, quoth Pantagruel, prognosticate thatby the way we shall engender no melancholy. I clearly perceive it already. The only thing that vexeth me is, that I cannot speak the Lanternatorylanguage. I shall, answered Panurge, speak for you all. I understand itevery whit as well as I do mine own maternal tongue; I have been no lessused 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 ofthine, dear friend of mine, are true, quoth Panurge; yet are they termsused in the language of the court of the Lanternish people. By the way, aswe 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 newshoes. Thou shalt have learned it sooner than thou canst perceive thedawning of the next subsequent morning. What I have said in the foregoingtetrastich is thus translated out of the Lanternish tongue into our vulgardialect:

 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 weunderstand what the will of the king my father will be therein, andpurchase his consent. 

Chapter 3. XLVIII. 

How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry without thespecial knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers. 

No sooner had Pantagruel entered in at the door of the great hall of thecastle, than that he encountered full butt with the good honest Gargantuacoming forth from the council board, unto whom he made a succinct andsummary narrative of what had passed and occurred, worthy of hisobservation, in his travels abroad, since their last interview; then, acquainting him with the design he had in hand, besought him that it mightstand with his goodwill and pleasure to grant him leave to prosecute and gothrough-stitch with the enterprise which he had undertaken. The good manGargantua, having in one hand two great bundles of petitions endorsed andanswered, and in the other some remembrancing notes and bills, to put himin mind of such other requests of supplicants, which, albeit presented, hadnevertheless been neither read nor heard, he gave both to Ulric Gallet, hisancient and faithful Master of Requests; then drew aside Pantagruel, and, with a countenance more serene and jovial than customary, spoke to himthus: I praise God, and have great reason so to do, my most dear son, thathe hath been pleased to entertain in you a constant inclination to virtuousactions. I am well content that the voyage which you have motioned to mebe by you accomplished, but withal I could wish you would have a mind anddesire to marry, for that I see you are of competent years. Panurge in themeanwhile was in a readiness of preparing and providing for remedies, salves, and cures against all such lets, obstacles, and impediments as hecould in the height of his fancy conceive might by Gargantua be cast in theway of their itinerary design. Is it your pleasure, most dear father, thatyou speak? answered Pantagruel. For my part, I have not yet thought uponit. In all this affair I wholly submit and rest in your good liking andpaternal authority. For I shall rather pray unto God that he would throwme down stark dead at your feet, in your pleasure, than that against yourpleasure I should be found married alive. I never yet heard that by anylaw, whether sacred or profane, yea, amongst the rudest and most barbarousnations in the world, it was allowed and approved of that children may besuffered and tolerated to marry at their own goodwill and pleasure, withoutthe knowledge, advice, or consent asked and had thereto of their fathers, mothers, and nearest kindred. All legislators, everywhere upon the face ofthe whole earth, have taken away and removed this licentious liberty fromchildren, and totally reserved it to the discretion of the parents. 

My dearly beloved son, quoth Gargantua, I believe you, and from my heartthank God for having endowed you with the grace of having both a perfectnotice of and entire liking to laudable and praiseworthy things; and thatthrough the windows of your exterior senses he hath vouchsafed to transmitunto the interior faculties of your mind nothing but what is good andvirtuous. For in my time there hath been found on the continent a certaincountry, wherein are I know not what kind of Pastophorian mole-catchingpriests, who, albeit averse from engaging their proper persons into amatrimonial duty, like the pontifical flamens of Cybele in Phrygia, as ifthey were capons, and not cocks full of lasciviousness, salacity, andwantonness, who yet have, nevertheless, in the matter of conjugal affairs, taken upon them to prescribe laws and ordinances to married folks. Icannot goodly determine what I should most abhor, detest, loathe, andabominate, --whether the tyrannical presumption of those dreaded sacerdotalmole-catchers, who, not being willing to contain and coop up themselveswithin the grates and trellises of their own mysterious temples, do dealin, meddle with, obtrude upon, and thrust their sickles into harvests ofsecular businesses quite contrary and diametrically opposite to thequality, state, and condition of their callings, professions, andvocations; or the superstitious stupidity and senseless scrupulousness ofmarried 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 isclearer than the light and splendour of the morning star, --how all thesenuptial and connubial sanctions, statutes, and ordinances have beendecreed, made, and instituted for the sole benefit, profit, and advantageof the flaminal mysts and mysterious flamens, and nothing at all for thegood, utility, or emolument of the silly hoodwinked married people. Whichadministereth unto others a sufficient cause for rendering these churchmensuspicious of iniquity, and of an unjust and fraudulent manner of dealing, no more to be connived at nor countenanced, after that it be well weighedin the scales of reason, than if with a reciprocal temerity the laics, byway of compensation, would impose laws to be followed and observed by thosemysts and flamens, how they should behave themselves in the making andperformance of their rites and ceremonies, and after what manner they oughtto proceed in the offering up and immolating of their various oblations, victims, and sacrifices; seeing that, besides the decimation andtithe-haling of their goods, they cut off and take parings, shreddings, andclippings of the gain proceeding from the labour of their hands and sweatof their brows, therewith to entertain themselves the better. Upon whichconsideration, in my opinion, their injunctions and commands would notprove so pernicious and impertinent as those of the ecclesiastic power untowhich they had tendered their blind obedience. For, as you have very wellsaid, there is no place in the world where, legally, a licence is grantedto the children to marry without the advice and consent of their parentsand 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 inhis own country for his crimes and felonies, who may not violently snatchaway 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 thehouse 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 sowoeful spectacle, provided that the rascal villain be so cunning as toassociate unto himself some mystical flamen, who, according to the covenantmade betwixt them two, shall be in hope some day to participate of theprey. 

Could the Goths, the Scyths, or Massagets do a worse or more cruel act toany of the inhabitants of a hostile city, when, after the loss of many oftheir 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 andimpetuous assault? May not these fathers and mothers, think you, besorrowful and heavy-hearted when they see an unknown fellow, a vagabondstranger, a barbarous lout, a rude cur, rotten, fleshless, putrified, scraggy, boily, botchy, poor, a forlorn caitiff and miserable sneak, by anopen rapt snatch away before their own eyes their so fair, delicate, neat, well-behavioured, richly-provided-for and healthful daughters, on whosebreeding and education they had spared no cost nor charges, by bringingthem up in an honest discipline to all the honourable and virtuousemployments becoming one of their sex descended of a noble parentage, hoping by those commendable and industrious means in an opportune andconvenient time to bestow them on the worthy sons of their well-deservingneighbours 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 thelaudable endowments and exquisite qualifications of their parents, whomthey every way resemble, than to their personal and real estates, movables, and inheritances? How doleful, trist, and plangorous would such a sightand pageantry prove unto them? You shall not need to think that thecollachrymation of the Romans and their confederates at the decease ofGermanicus Drusus was comparable to this lamentation of theirs? Neitherwould I have you to believe that the discomfort and anxiety of theLacedaemonians, when the Greek Helen, by the perfidiousness of theadulterous Trojan, Paris, was privily stolen away out of their country, wasgreater or more pitiful than this ruthful and deplorable collugency oftheirs? You may very well imagine that Ceres at the ravishment of herdaughter Proserpina was not more attristed, sad, nor mournful than they. Trust me, and your own reason, that the loss of Osiris was not soregrettable to Isis, nor did Venus so deplore the death of Adonis, nor yetdid Hercules so bewail the straying of Hylas, nor was the rapt of Polyxenamore throbbingly resented and condoled by Priamus and Hecuba, than thisaforesaid 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 areso timorous and afraid of devils and hobgoblins, and so deeply plunged insuperstition, that they dare not gainsay nor contradict, much less opposeand resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the mole-catcher hathbeen present at the perpetrating of the fact, and a party contractor andcovenanter in that detestable bargain. What do they do then? Theywretchedly stay at their own miserable homes, destitute of theirwell-beloved daughters, the fathers cursing the days and the hours whereinthey were married, and the mothers howling and crying that it was not theirfortune to have brought forth abortive issues when they happened to bedelivered of such unfortunate girls, and in this pitiful plight spend atbest the remainder of their time with tears and weeping for those theirchildren, of and from whom they expected, (and, with good reason, shouldhave obtained and reaped, ) in these latter days of theirs, joy and comfort. Other parents there have been, so impatient of that affront and indignityput upon them and their families, that, transported with the extremity ofpassion, in a mad and frantic mood, through the vehemency of a grievousfury and raging sorrow, have drowned, hanged, killed, and otherwise putviolent hands on themselves. Others, again, of that parental relationhave, upon the reception of the like injury, been of a more magnanimous andheroic spirit, who, in imitation and at the example of the children ofJacob revenging upon the Sichemites the rapt of their sister Dinah, havingfound the rascally ruffian in the association of his mystical mole-catcherclosely and in hugger-mugger conferring, parleying, and coming with theirdaughters, for the suborning, corrupting, depraving, perverting, andenticing these innocent unexperienced maids unto filthy lewdnesses, have, without any further advisement on the matter, cut them instantly intopieces, and thereupon forthwith thrown out upon the fields their sodismembered bodies, to serve for food unto the wolves and ravens. Upon thechivalrous, bold, and courageous achievement of a so valiant, stout, andmanlike act, the other mole-catching symmysts have been so highly incensed, and have so chafed, fretted, and fumed thereat, that, bills of complaintand accusations having been in a most odious and detestable manner put inbefore the competent judges, the arm of secular authority hath with muchimportunity and impetuosity been by them implored and required, theyproudly contending that the servants of God would become contemptible ifexemplary punishment were not speedily taken upon the persons of theperpetrators of such an enormous, horrid, sacrilegious, crying, heinous, and execrable crime. 

Yet neither by natural equity, by the law of nations, nor by any imperiallaw whatsoever, hath there been found so much as one rubric, paragraph, point, or tittle, by the which any kind of chastisement or correction hathbeen adjudged due to be inflicted upon any for their delinquency in thatkind. Reason opposeth, and nature is repugnant. For there is no virtuousman in the world who both naturally and with good reason will not be morehugely 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 hisdaughter, may, without tying himself to the formalities and circumstancesof a legal proceeding, kill him on a sudden and out of hand withoutincurring any hazard of being attainted and apprehended by the officers ofjustice for so doing. What wonder is it then? Or how little strangeshould it appear to any rational man, if a lechering rogue, together withhis mole-catching abettor, be entrapped in the flagrant act of suborninghis daughter, and stealing her out of his house, though herself consentthereto, that the father in such a case of stain and infamy by them broughtupon his family, should put them both to a shameful death, and cast theircarcasses upon dunghills to be devoured and eaten up by dogs and swine, orotherwise fling them a little further off to the direption, tearing, andrending 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 ofthe great Alma Mater, the earth, commonly called burial). 

Dearly beloved son, have an especial care that after my decease none ofthese laws be received in any of your kingdoms; for whilst I breathe, bythe grace and assistance of God, I shall give good order. Seeing, therefore, you have totally referred unto my discretion the disposure ofyou in marriage, I am fully of an opinion that I shall provide sufficientlywell for you in that point. Make ready and prepare yourself for Panurge'svoyage. Take along with you Epistemon, Friar John, and such others as youwill choose. Do with my treasures what unto yourself shall seem mostexpedient. None of your actions, I promise you, can in any manner of waydisplease 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 favourablewind set sail and make out to sea in the name of God our Saviour. In themeanwhile, during your absence, I shall not be neglective of providing awife for you, nor of those preparations which are requisite to be made forthe 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 herbnamed Pantagruelion. 

Within very few days after that Pantagruel had taken his leave of the goodGargantua, who devoutly prayed for his son's happy voyage, he arrived atthe seaport, near to Sammalo, accompanied with Panurge, Epistemon, FriarJohn of the Funnels, Abbot of Theleme, and others of the royal house, especially with Xenomanes the great traveller and thwarter of dangerousways, who was come at the bidding and appointment of Panurge, of whosecastlewick of Salmigondin he did hold some petty inheritance by the tenureof a mesne fee. Pantagruel, being come thither, prepared and made readyfor launching a fleet of ships, to the number of those which Ajax ofSalamine had of old equipped in convoy of the Grecian soldiery against theTrojan state. He likewise picked out for his use so many mariners, pilots, sailors, interpreters, artificers, officers, and soldiers, as he thoughtfitting, and therewithal made provision of so much victuals of all sorts, artillery, munition of divers kinds, clothes, moneys, and other suchluggage, stuff, baggage, chaffer, and furniture, as he deemed needful forcarrying on the design of a so tedious, long, and perilous voyage. Amongstother things, it was observed how he caused some of his vessels to befraught and loaded with a great quantity of an herb of his calledPantagruelion, not only of the green and raw sort of it, but of theconfected also, and of that which was notably well befitted for present useafter the fashion of conserves. The herb Pantagruelion hath a little rootsomewhat hard and rough, roundish, terminating in an obtuse and very bluntpoint, and having some of its veins, strings, or filaments coloured withsome spots of white, never fixeth itself into the ground above theprofoundness almost of a cubit, or foot and a half. From the root thereofproceedeth the only stalk, orbicular, cane-like, green without, whitishwithin, and hollow like the stem of smyrnium, olus atrum, beans, andgentian, full of long threads, straight, easy to be broken, jagged, snipped, nicked, and notched a little after the manner of pillars andcolumns, slightly furrowed, chamfered, guttered, and channelled, and fullof fibres, or hairs like strings, in which consisteth the chief value anddignity 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 thedenomination of milasea. Its height is commonly of five or six foot. Yetsometimes it is of such a tall growth as doth surpass the length of alance, but that is only when it meeteth with a sweet, easy, warm, wet, andwell-soaked soil--as is the ground of the territory of Olone, and that ofRasea, near to Preneste in Sabinia--and that it want not for rain enoughabout the season of the fishers' holidays and the estival solstice. Thereare many trees whose height is by it very far exceeded, and you might callit dendromalache by the authority of Theophrastus. The plant every yearperisheth, --the tree neither in the trunk, root, bark, or boughs beingdurable. 

From the stalk of this Pantagruelian plant there issue forth several largeand 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 ofsuch a lancet as surgeons commonly make use of in their phlebotomizingtiltings. The figure and shape of the leaves thereof is not much differentfrom that of those of the ash-tree, or of agrimony; the herb itself beingso like the Eupatorian plant that many skilful herbalists have called itthe Domestic Eupator, and the Eupator the Wild Pantagruelion. These leavesare in equal and parallel distances spread around the stalk by the numberin every rank either of five or seven, nature having so highly favoured andcherished this plant that she hath richly adorned it with these two odd, divine, and mysterious numbers. The smell thereof is somewhat strong, andnot very pleasing to nice, tender, and delicate noses. The seed enclosedtherein 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 anyother whatsoever. Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid, andsome of an oblong shape, and all of those either black, bright-coloured, ortawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a quickly-blasted-away coat, yetsuch a one as is of a delicious taste and savour to all shrill andsweetly-singing birds, such as linnets, goldfinches, larks, canary birds, yellow-hammers, and others of that airy chirping choir; but it would quiteextinguish the natural heat and procreative virtue of the semence of anyman who would eat much and often of it. And although that of old amongstthe Greeks there was certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns andtarts, made thereof, which commonly for a liquorish daintiness werepresented on the table after supper to delight the palate and make the winerelish the better; yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive tothe stomach. For it engendereth bad and unwholesome blood, and with itsexorbitant heat woundeth them with grievous, hurtful, smart, and noisomevapours. And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male andfemale, which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, thedaffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine, pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even so inthis herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is verycopious of and abundant in seed. There is likewise in it a female, whichhath great store and plenty of whitish flowers, serviceable to little or nopurpose, nor doth it carry in it seed of any worth at all, at leastcomparable to that of the male. It hath also a larger leaf, and muchsofter than that of the male, nor doth it altogether grow to so great aheight. This Pantagruelion is to be sown at the first coming of theswallows, and is to be plucked out of the ground when the grasshoppersbegin 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, isdressed and prepared several ways, according to the various fancies of thepeople and diversity of the climates wherein it groweth. The firstinstruction which Pantagruel gave concerning it was to divest and despoilthe stalk and stem thereof of all its flowers and seeds, to macerate andmortify it in pond, pool, or lake water, which is to be made run a littlefor five days together (Properly--'lake water, which is to be madestagnant, not current, for five days together. '--M. ) if the season be dryand the water hot, or for full nine or twelve days if the weather becloudish and the water cold. Then must it be parched before the sun tillit be drained of its moisture. After this it is in the shadow, where thesun shines not, to be peeled and its rind pulled off. Then are the fibresand strings thereof to be parted, wherein, as we have already said, consisteth its prime virtue, price, and efficacy, and severed from thewoody part thereof, which is unprofitable, and serveth hardly to any otheruse than to make a clear and glistering blaze, to kindle the fire, and forthe play, pastime, and disport of little children, to blow up hogs'bladders and make them rattle. Many times some use is made thereof bytippling sweet-lipped bibbers, who out of it frame quills and pipes, through which they with their liquor-attractive breath suck up the newdainty wine from the bung of the barrel. Some modern Pantagruelists, toshun and avoid that manual labour which such a separating and partitionalwork would of necessity require, employ certain cataractic instruments, composed and formed after the same manner that the froward, pettish, andangry Juno did hold the fingers of both her hands interwovenly clenchedtogether when she would have hindered the childbirth delivery of Alcmena atthe nativity of Hercules; and athwart those cataracts they break and bruiseto very trash the woody parcels, thereby to preserve the better the fibres, which are the precious and excellent parts. In and with this soleoperation do these acquiesce and are contented, who, contrary to thereceived opinion of the whole earth, and in a manner paradoxical to allphilosophers, gain their livelihoods backwards, and by recoiling. Butthose that love to hold it at a higher rate, and prize it according to itsvalue, for their own greater profit do the very same which is told us ofthe recreation of the three fatal sister Parcae, or of the nocturnalexercise of the noble Circe, or yet of the excuse which Penelope made toher fond wooing youngsters and effeminate courtiers during the long absenceof her husband Ulysses. 

By these means is this herb put into a way to display its inestimablevirtues, whereof I will discover a part; for to relate all is a thingimpossible to do. I have already interpreted and exposed before you thedenomination thereof. I find that plants have their names given andbestowed upon them after several ways. Some got the name of him who firstfound them out, knew them, sowed them, improved them by culture, qualifiedthem to tractability, and appropriated them to the uses and subserviencesthey were fit for, as the Mercuriale from Mercury; Panacea from Panace, thedaughter of Aesculapius; Armois from Artemis, who is Diana; Eupatoria fromthe king Eupator; Telephion from Telephus; Euphorbium from Euphorbus, KingJuba's physician; Clymenos from Clymenus; Alcibiadium from Alcibiades;Gentiane from Gentius, King of Sclavonia, and so forth, through a greatmany other herbs or plants. Truly, in ancient times this prerogative ofimposing the inventor's name upon an herb found out by him was held in a sogreat account and estimation, that, as a controversy arose betwixt Neptuneand Pallas from which of them two that land should receive its denominationwhich had been equally found out by them both together--though thereafterit was called and had the appellation of Athens, from Athene, which isMinerva--just so would Lynceus, King of Scythia, have treacherously slainthe young Triptolemus, whom Ceres had sent to show unto mankind theinvention of corn, which until then had been utterly unknown, to the endthat, after the murder of the messenger, whose death he made account tohave kept secret, he might, by imposing, with the less suspicion of falsedealing, his own name upon the said found out seed, acquire unto himself animmortal honour and glory for having been the inventor of a grain soprofitable and necessary to and for the use of human life. For thewickedness of which treasonable attempt he was by Ceres transformed intothat 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 appearethby that very sharp wars and of a long continuance have been made of oldbetwixt some residentiary kings in Cappadocia upon this only debate, ofwhose name a certain herb should have the appellation; by reason of whichdifference, so troublesome and expensive to them all, it was by them calledPolemonion, and by us for the same cause termed Make-bate. 

Other herbs and plants there are which retain the names of the countriesfrom whence they were transported, as the Median apples from Media, wherethey first grew; Punic apples from Punicia, that is to say, Carthage;Ligusticum, which we call lovage, from Liguria, the coast of Genoa; Rhubarbfrom a flood in Barbary, as Ammianus attesteth, called Ru; Santonica from aregion of that name; Fenugreek from Greece; Gastanes from a country socalled; Persicaria from Persia; Sabine from a territory of thatappellation; Staechas from the Staechad Islands; Spica Celtica from theland of the Celtic Gauls, and so throughout a great many other, which weretedious to enumerate. Some others, again, have obtained theirdenominations by way of antiphrasis, or contrariety; as Absinth, because itis 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 nofrailer, tenderer, nor brittler herb in the whole production of nature thanit. 

There are some other sorts of herbs which have got their names from theirvirtues and operations, as Aristolochia, because it helpeth women inchildbirth; Lichen, for that it cureth the disease of that name; Mallow, because it mollifieth; Callithricum, because it maketh the hair of a brightcolour; Alyssum, Ephemerum, Bechium, Nasturtium, Aneban (Henbane), and soforth through many more. 

Other some there are which have obtained their names from the admirablequalities that are found to be in them, as Heliotropium, which is themarigold, because it followeth the sun, so that at the sun rising itdisplayeth and spreads itself out, at his ascending it mounteth, at hisdeclining it waneth, and when he is set it is close shut; Adianton, because, although it grow near unto watery places, and albeit you shouldlet it lie in water a long time, it will nevertheless retain no moisturenor humidity; Hierachia, Eringium, and so throughout a great many more. There are also a great many herbs and plants which have retained the verysame names of the men and women who have been metamorphosed and transformedin them, as from Daphne the laurel is called also Daphne; Myrrh fromMyrrha, the daughter of Cinarus; Pythis from Pythis; Cinara, which is theartichoke, from one of that name; Narcissus, with Saffron, Smilax, anddivers others. 

Many herbs likewise have got their names of those things which they seem tohave some resemblance to; as Hippuris, because it hath the likeness of ahorse's tail; Alopecuris, because it representeth in similitude the tail ofa fox; Psyllion, from a flea which it resembleth; Delphinium, for that itis like a dolphin fish; Bugloss is so called because it is an herb like anox's tongue; Iris, so called because in its flowers it hath someresemblance 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 manyother such there are, which here to recite were needless. Furthermore, asthere are herbs and plants which have had their names from those of men, soby a reciprocal denomination have the surnames of many families taken theirorigin 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 ofpulse called chickpease, and so forth. In some plants and herbs theresemblance or likeness hath been taken from a higher mark or object, aswhen we say Venus' navel, Venus' hair, Venus' tub, Jupiter's beard, Jupiter's eye, Mars' blood, the Hermodactyl or Mercury's fingers, which areall of them names of herbs, as there are a great many more of the likeappellation. Others, again, have received their denomination from theirforms, such as the Trefoil, because it is three-leaved; Pentaphylon, forhaving five leaves; Serpolet, because it creepeth along the ground;Helxine, Petast, Myrobalon, which the Arabians called Been, as if you wouldsay an acorn, for it hath a kind of resemblance thereto, and withal is veryoily. 

Chapter 3. LI. 

Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof. 

By such-like means of attaining to a denomination--the fabulous ways beingonly from thence excepted, for the Lord forbid that we should make use ofany fables in this a so veritable history--is this herb calledPantagruelion, for Pantagruel was the inventor thereof. I do not say ofthe plant itself, but of a certain use which it serves for, exceedingodious and hateful to thieves and robbers, unto whom it is more contrariousand hurtful than the strangle-weed and chokefitch is to the flax, thecats-tail to the brakes, the sheave-grass to the mowers of hay, the fitchesto the chickney-pease, the darnel to barley, the hatchet-fitch to the lentilpulse, the antramium to the beans, tares to wheat, ivy to walls, thewater-lily to lecherous monks, the birchen rod to the scholars of thecollege of Navarre in Paris, colewort to the vine-tree, garlic to theloadstone, onions to the sight, fern-seed to women with child, willow-grainto vicious nuns, the yew-tree shade to those that sleep under it, wolfsbaneto wolves and libbards, the smell of fig-tree to mad bulls, hemlock togoslings, purslane to the teeth, or oil to trees. For we have seen many ofthose rogues, by virtue and right application of this herb, finish theirlives short and long, after the manner of Phyllis, Queen of Thracia, ofBonosus, Emperor of Rome, of Amata, King Latinus's wife, of Iphis, Autolycus, Lycambe, Arachne, Phaedra, Leda, Achius, King of Lydia, and manythousands more, who were chiefly angry and vexed at this disaster therein, that, without being otherwise sick or evil-disposed in their bodies, by atouch only of the Pantagruelion they came on a sudden to have the passageobstructed, and their pipes, through which were wont to bolt so many jollysayings and to enter so many luscious morsels, stopped, more cleverly thanever could have done the squinancy. 

Others have been heard most woefully to lament, at the very instant whenAtropos was about to cut the thread of their life, that Pantagruel heldthem by the gorge. But, well-a-day, it was not Pantagruel; he never was anexecutioner. It was the Pantagruelion, manufactured and fashioned into anhalter; and serving in the place and office of a cravat. In that, verily, they solecized and spoke improperly, unless you would excuse them by atrope, which alloweth us to posit the inventor in the place of the thinginvented, as when Ceres is taken for bread, and Bacchus put instead ofwine. I swear to you here, by the good and frolic words which are to issueout of that wine-bottle which is a-cooling below in the copper vessel fullof fountain water, that the noble Pantagruel never snatched any man by thethroat, unless it was such a one as was altogether careless and neglectiveof those obviating remedies which were preventive of the thirst to come. 

It is also termed Pantagruelion by a similitude. For Pantagruel, at thevery first minute of his birth, was no less tall than this herb is longwhereof I speak unto you, his measure having been then taken the more easythat he was born in the season of the great drought, when they were busiestin 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 worldTroglodytic, and enforceth people everywhere to hide themselves in dens andsubterranean caves. It is likewise called Pantagruelion because of thenotable and singular qualities, virtues, and properties thereof. For asPantagruel hath been the idea, pattern, prototype, and exemplary of alljovial perfection and accomplishment--in the truth whereof I believe thereis none of you gentlemen drinkers that putteth any question--so in thisPantagruelion have I found so much efficacy and energy, so muchcompleteness and excellency, so much exquisiteness and rarity, and so manyadmirable effects and operations of a transcendent nature, that if theworth and virtue thereof had been known when those trees, by the relationof the prophet, made election of a wooden king to rule and govern overthem, it without all doubt would have carried away from all the rest theplurality of votes and suffrages. 

Shall I yet say more? If Oxylus, the son of Orius, had begotten this plantupon his sister Hamadryas, he had taken more delight in the value andperfection of it alone than in all his eight children, so highly renownedby our ablest mythologians that they have sedulously recommended theirnames to the never-failing tuition of an eternal remembrance. The eldestchild was a daughter, whose name was Vine; the next born was a boy, and hisname was Fig-tree; the third was called Walnut-tree; the fourth Oak; thefifth Sorbapple-tree; the sixth Ash; the seventh Poplar, and the last hadthe name of Elm, who was the greatest surgeon in his time. I shall forbearto tell you how the juice or sap thereof, being poured and distilled withinthe ears, killeth every kind of vermin that by any manner of putrefactioncometh to be bred and engendered there, and destroyeth also any whatsoeverother animal that shall have entered in thereat. If, likewise, you put alittle of the said juice within a pail or bucket full of water, you shallsee the water instantly turn and grow thick therewith as if it weremilk-curds, whereof the virtue is so great that the water thus curded is apresent remedy for horses subject to the colic, and such as strike at theirown flanks. The root thereof well boiled mollifieth the joints, softeneththe hardness of shrunk-in sinews, is every way comfortable to the nerves, and good against all cramps and convulsions, as likewise all cold andknotty gouts. If you would speedily heal a burning, whether occasioned bywater 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 otherpreparation or composition upon it; but have a special care to change itfor some fresher in lieu thereof as soon as you shall find it waxing dryupon the sore. 

Without this herb kitchens would be detested, the tables of dining-roomsabhorred, although there were great plenty and variety of most dainty andsumptuous dishes of meat set down upon them, and the choicest beds also, how richly soever adorned with gold, silver, amber, ivory, porphyry, andthe mixture of most precious metals, would without it yield no delight orpleasure to the reposers in them. Without it millers could neither carrywheat, nor any other kind of corn to the mill, nor would they be able tobring back from thence flour, or any other sort of meal whatsoever. Without it, how could the papers and writs of lawyers' clients be broughtto the bar? Seldom is the mortar, lime, or plaster brought to theworkhouse without it. Without it, how should the water be got out of adraw-well? In what case would tabellions, notaries, copists, makers ofcounterpanes, writers, clerks, secretaries, scriveners, and such-likepersons be without it? Were it not for it, what would become of thetoll-rates and rent-rolls? Would not the noble art of printing perishwithout it? Whereof could the chassis or paper-windows be made? How shouldthe bells be rung? The altars of Isis are adorned therewith, thePastophorian priests are therewith clad and accoutred, and whole humannature covered and wrapped therein at its first position and production inand into this world. All the lanific trees of Seres, the bumbast and cottonbushes in the territories near the Persian Sea and Gulf of Bengala, theArabian swans, together with the plants of Malta, do not all the themclothe, attire, and apparel so many persons as this one herb alone. Soldiers are nowadays much better sheltered under it than they were informer times, when they lay in tents covered with skins. It overshadows thetheatres and amphitheatres from the heat of a scorching sun. It begirdethand encompasseth forests, chases, parks, copses, and groves, for thepleasure of hunters. It descendeth into the salt and fresh of both sea andriver-waters for the profit of fishers. By it are boots of all sizes, buskins, gamashes, brodkins, gambadoes, shoes, pumps, slippers, and everycobbled ware wrought and made steadable for the use of man. By it the buttand 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 reverencedby ghosts, spirits, hobgoblins, fiends, and phantoms, the bodies of deceasedmen are never buried without it. 

I will proceed yet further. By the means of this fine herb the invisiblesubstances are visibly stopped, arrested, taken, detained, andprisoner-like committed to their receptive gaols. Heavy and ponderousweights are by it heaved, lifted up, turned, veered, drawn, carried, andevery way moved quickly, nimbly, and easily, to the great profit andemolument of humankind. When I perpend with myself these and such-likemarvellous effects of this wonderful herb, it seemeth strange unto me howthe invention of so useful a practice did escape through so many by-pastages the knowledge of the ancient philosophers, considering the inestimableutility which from thence proceeded, and the immense labour which without itthey did undergo in their pristine elucubrations. By virtue thereof, through the retention of some aerial gusts, are the huge rambarges, mightygalleons, the large floats, the Chiliander, the Myriander ships launchedfrom their stations and set a-going at the pleasure and arbitrament of theirrulers, conders, and steersmen. By the help thereof those remote nationswhom nature seemed so unwilling to have discovered to us, and so desirous tohave kept them still in abscondito and hidden from us, that the ways throughwhich their countries were to be reached unto were not only totally unknown, but judged also to be altogether impermeable and inaccessible, are nowarrived to us, and we to them. 

Those voyages outreached flights of birds and far surpassed the scope offeathered fowls, how swift soever they had been on the wing, andnotwithstanding that advantage which they have of us in swimming throughthe air. Taproban hath seen the heaths of Lapland, and both the Javas andRiphaean mountains; wide distant Phebol shall see Theleme, and theIslanders drink of the flood Euphrates. By it the chill-mouthed Boreashath surveyed the parched mansions of the torrid Auster, and Eurus visitedthe regions which Zephyrus hath under his command; yea, in such sort haveinterviews been made by the assistance of this sacred herb, that, maugrelongitudes and latitudes, and all the variations of the zones, thePeriaecian people, and Antoecian, Amphiscian, Heteroscian, and Periscianhad oft rendered and received mutual visits to and from other, upon all theclimates. These strange exploits bred such astonishment to the celestialintelligences, to all the marine and terrestrial gods, that they were on asudden all afraid. From which amazement, when they saw how, by means ofthis blest Pantagruelion, the Arctic people looked upon the Antarctic, scoured the Atlantic Ocean, passed the tropics, pushed through the torridzone, measured all the zodiac, sported under the equinoctial, having bothpoles level with their horizon, they judged it high time to call a councilfor their own safety and preservation. 

The Olympic gods, being all and each of them affrighted at the sight ofsuch achievements, said: Pantagruel hath shapen work enough for us, andput us more to a plunge and nearer our wits' end by this sole herb of histhan did of old the Aloidae by overturning mountains. He very speedily isto be married, and shall have many children by his wife. It lies not inour power to oppose this destiny; for it hath passed through the hands andspindles of the Fatal Sisters, necessity's inexorable daughters. Who knowsbut by his sons may be found out an herb of such another virtue andprodigious energy, as that by the aid thereof, in using it aright accordingto their father's skill, they may contrive a way for humankind to pierceinto the high aerian clouds, get up unto the springhead of the hail, takean inspection of the snowy sources, and shut and open as they please thesluices from whence proceed the floodgates of the rain; then, prosecutingtheir aethereal voyage, they may step in unto the lightning workhouse andshop, where all the thunderbolts are forged, where, seizing on the magazineof heaven and storehouse of our warlike fire-munition, they may discharge abouncing peal or two of thundering ordnance for joy of their arrival tothese new supernal places, and, charging those tonitrual guns afresh, turnthe whole force of that artillery against ourselves wherein we mostconfided. Then is it like they will set forward to invade the territoriesof the Moon, whence, passing through both Mercury and Venus, the Sun willserve 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, norput a stoppage to their entering in at all, whatever regions, domiciles, ormansions of the spangled firmament they shall have any mind to see, to stayin, to travel through for their recreation. All the celestial signstogether, with the constellations of the fixed stars, will jointly be attheir devotion then. Some will take up their lodging at the Ram, some atthe 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 theScorpion, and others will be quartered at the Archer; some will beharboured 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 andthe 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 thewhole twinkling asteristic welkin. There will be sojourners come from theearth, who, longing after the taste of the sweet cream, of their ownskimming off, from the best milk of all the dairy of the Galaxy, will setthemselves at table down with us, drink of our nectar and ambrosia, andtake to their own beds at night for wives and concubines our fairestgoddesses, the only means whereby they can be deified. A junto hereuponbeing convocated, the better to consult upon the manner of obviating a sodreadful danger, Jove, sitting in his presidential throne, asked the votesof all the other gods, which, after a profound deliberation amongstthemselves on all contingencies, they freely gave at last, and thenresolved unanimously to withstand the shocks of all whatsoever sublunaryassaults. 

Chapter 3. LII. 

How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire is notable to consume it. 

I have already related to you great and admirable things; but, if you mightbe induced to adventure upon the hazard of believing some other divinity ofthis 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 havetold you the truth, and the truth I will tell you. But to enter inthereat, because it is of a knaggy, difficult, and rugged access, this isthe question which I ask of you. If I had put within this bottle twopints, the one of wine and the other of water, thoroughly and exactlymingled together, how would you unmix them? After what manner would you goabout to sever them, and separate the one liquor from the other, in suchsort that you render me the water apart, free from the wine, and the winealso pure, without the intermixture of one drop of water, and both of themin the same measure, quantity, and taste that I had embottled them? Or, tostate the question otherwise. If your carmen and mariners, entrusted forthe provision of your houses with the bringing of a certain considerablenumber of tuns, puncheons, pipes, barrels, and hogsheads of Graves wine, orof 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 asfull as before, as the Limosins use to do in their carriages by wains andcarts of the wines of Argenton and Sangaultier; after that, how would youpart the water from the wine, and purify them both in such a case? Iunderstand you well enough. Your meaning is, that I must do it with an ivyfunnel. That is written, it is true, and the verity thereof explored by athousand 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 ancientDruids, whose custom was to burn and calcine the dead bodies of theirparents and lords, and that you had a mind to drink the ashes or cinders ofyour wives or fathers in the infused liquor of some good white-wine, asArtemisia drunk the dust and ashes of her husband Mausolus; or otherwise, that you did determine to have them reserved in some fine urn or reliquarypot; how would you save the ashes apart, and separate them from those othercinders and ashes into which the fuel of the funeral and bustuary fire hathbeen converted? Answer, if you can. By my figgins, I believe it willtrouble you so to do. 

Well, I will despatch, and tell you that, if you take of this celestialPantagruelion so much as is needful to cover the body of the defunct, andafter that you shall have enwrapped and bound therein as hard and closelyas you can the corpse of the said deceased persons, and sewed up thefolding-sheet with thread of the same stuff, throw it into the fire, howgreat or ardent soever it be it matters not a straw, the fire through thisPantagruelion will burn the body and reduce to ashes the bones thereof, andthe Pantagruelion shall be not only not consumed nor burnt, but also shallneither lose one atom of the ashes enclosed within it, nor receive one atomof the huge bustuary heap of ashes resulting from the blazing conflagrationof things combustible laid round about it, but shall at last, when takenout of the fire, be fairer, whiter, and much cleaner than when you did putit in at first. Therefore it is called Asbeston, which is as much to sayas incombustible. Great plenty is to be found thereof in Carpasia, aslikewise in the climate Dia Sienes, at very easy rates. O how rare andadmirable a thing it is, that the fire which devoureth, consumeth, anddestroyeth all such things else, should cleanse, purge, and whiten thissole Pantagruelion Carpasian Asbeston! If you mistrust the verity of thisrelation, and demand for further confirmation of my assertion a visiblesign, as the Jews and such incredulous infidels use to do, take a freshegg, and orbicularly, or rather ovally, enfold it within this divinePantagruelion. When it is so wrapped up, put it in the hot embers of afire, how great or ardent soever it be, and having left it there as long asyou will, you shall at last, at your taking it out of the fire, find theegg roasted hard, and as it were burnt, without any alteration, change, mutation, or so much as a calefaction of the sacred Pantagruelion. Forless than a million of pounds sterling, modified, taken down, andamoderated to the twelfth part of one fourpence halfpenny farthing, you areable 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 amore eminent comparison the Salamander. That is a fib; for, albeit alittle ordinary fire, such as is used in dining-rooms and chambers, gladden, cheer up, exhilarate, and quicken it, yet may I warrantably enoughassure that in the flaming fire of a furnace it will, like any otheranimated creature, be quickly suffocated, choked, consumed, and destroyed. We have seen the experiment thereof, and Galen many ages ago hath clearlydemonstrated and confirmed it, Lib. 3, De temperamentis, and Dioscoridesmaintaineth the same doctrine, Lib. 2. Do not here instance in competitionwith 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 allover on the outside with the said alum. Nor would I have you to comparetherewith the herb which Alexander Cornelius called Eonem, and said that ithad some resemblance with that oak which bears the mistletoe, and that itcould neither be consumed nor receive any manner of prejudice by fire norby water, no more than the mistletoe, of which was built, said he, the sorenowned ship Argos. Search where you please for those that will believeit. I in that point desire to be excused. Neither would I wish you toparallel therewith--although I cannot deny but that it is of a verymarvellous nature--that sort of tree which groweth alongst the mountains ofBrianson and Ambrun, which produceth out of his root the good agaric. Fromits body it yieldeth unto us a so excellent rosin, that Galen hath beenbold to equal it to the turpentine. Upon the delicate leaves thereof itretaineth 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 calledLarix. The Alpinese name is Melze. The Antenorides and Venetians term itLarege; which gave occasion to that castle in Piedmont to receive thedenomination of Larignum, by putting Julius Caesar to a stand at his returnfrom amongst the Gauls. 

Julius Caesar commanded all the yeomen, boors, hinds, and other inhabitantsin, near unto, and about the Alps and Piedmont, to bring all manner ofvictuals and provision for an army to those places which on the militaryroad 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 werewithin the garrison of Larignum, who, trusting in the natural strength ofthe place, would not pay their contribution. The emperor, purposing tochastise them for their refusal, caused his whole army to march straighttowards that castle, before the gate whereof was erected a tower built ofhuge big spars and rafters of the larch-tree, fast bound together with pinsand pegs of the same wood, and interchangeably laid on one another, afterthe fashion of a pile or stack of timber, set up in the fabric thereof tosuch an apt and convenient height that from the parapet above theportcullis they thought with stones and levers to beat off and drive awaysuch as should approach thereto. 

When Caesar had understood that the chief defence of those within thecastle did consist in stones and clubs, and that it was not an easy matterto sling, hurl, dart, throw, or cast them so far as to hinder theapproaches, he forthwith commanded his men to throw great store of bavins, faggots, and fascines round about the castle, and when they had made theheap of a competent height, to put them all in a fair fire; which wasthereupon incontinently done. The fire put amidst the faggots was so greatand so high that it covered the whole castle, that they might well imaginethe tower would thereby be altogether burnt to dust, and demolished. Nevertheless, contrary to all their hopes and expectations, when the flameceased, and that the faggots were quite burnt and consumed, the towerappeared as whole, sound, and entire as ever. Caesar, after a seriousconsideration had thereof, commanded a compass to be taken without thedistance of a stone cast from the castle round about it there, with ditchesand entrenchments to form a blockade; which when the Larignans understood, they rendered themselves upon terms. And then by a relation from them itwas that Caesar learned the admirable nature and virtue of this wood, whichof itself produceth neither fire, flame, nor coal, and would, therefore, inregard of that rare quality of incombustibility, have been admitted intothis rank and degree of a true Pantagruelional plant; and that so much therather, for that Pantagruel directed that all the gates, doors, angiports, windows, gutters, fretticed and embowed ceilings, cans, (cants?) and otherwhatsoever wooden furniture in the abbey of Theleme, should be allmateriated of this kind of timber. He likewise caused to cover therewiththe sterns, stems, cook-rooms or laps, hatches, decks, courses, bends, andwalls 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 ortimber of the larch-tree, being put within a large and ample furnace fullof huge vehemently flaming fire proceeding from the fuel of other sorts andkinds of wood, cometh at last to be corrupted, consumed, dissipated, anddestroyed, as are stones in a lime-kiln. But this Pantagruelion Asbestonis rather by the fire renewed and cleansed than by the flames thereofconsumed or changed. Therefore, Arabians, Indians, Sabaeans, Sing not, in hymns and Io Paeans, Your incense, myrrh, or ebony. Come here, a nobler plant to see, And carry home, at any rate, Some seed, that you may propagate. If in your soil it takes, to heaven A thousand thousand thanks be given; And say with France, it goodly goes, Where the Pantagruelion grows. 

END OF BOOK III

BOOK IV. 

THE FOURTH BOOK

The Translator's Preface. 

Reader, --I don't know what kind of a preface I must write to find theecourteous, an epithet too often bestowed without a cause. The author ofthis work has been as sparing of what we call good nature, as most readersare nowadays. So I am afraid his translator and commentator is not toexpect much more than has been showed them. What's worse, there are buttwo sorts of taking prefaces, as there are but two kinds of prologues toplays; for Mr. Bays was doubtless in the right when he said that if thunderand lightning could not fright an audience into complaisance, the sight ofthe 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 faultsthat you might think them without any; and others, more safely, have spokenkindly of you, that you might think, or at least speak, as favourably ofthem, and be flattered into patience. Now, I fancy, there's nothing lessdifficult to attempt than the first method; for, in this blessed age, 'tisas easy to find a bully without courage, as a whore without beauty, or awriter without wit; though those qualifications are so necessary in theirrespective professions. The mischief is, that you seldom allow any to railbesides yourselves, and cannot bear a pride which shocks your own. As forwheedling you into a liking of a work, I must confess it seems the safestway; but though flattery pleases you well when it is particular, you hateit, as little concerning you, when it is general. Then we knights of thequill are a stiff-necked generation, who as seldom care to seem to doubtthe worth of our writings, and their being liked, as we love to flattermore than one at a time; and had rather draw our pens, and stand up for thebeauty of our works (as some arrant fools use to do for that of theirmistresses) to the last drop of our ink. And truly this submission, whichsometimes wheedles you into pity, as seldom decoys you into love, as theawkward cringing of an antiquated fop, as moneyless as he is ugly, affectsan experienced fair one. Now we as little value your pity as a lover hismistress's, well satisfied that it is only a less uncivil way of dismissingus. But what if neither of these two ways will work upon you, of whichdoleful 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 intoone; and, from this marriage of huffing and cringing, there will result anew kind of careless medley, which, perhaps, will work upon both sorts ofreaders, those who are to be hectored, and those whom we must creep to. Atleast, it is like to please by its novelty; and it will not be the firstmonster that has pleased you when regular nature could not do it. 

If uncommon worth, lively wit, and deep learning, wove into wholesomesatire, a bold, good, and vast design admirably pursued, truth set out inits true light, and a method how to arrive to its oracle, can recommend awork, I am sure this has enough to please any reasonable man. The threebooks published some time since, which are in a manner an entire work, werekindly 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 moreobvious, and consequently more entertaining. Even my long explanatorypreface was not thought improper. Though I was so far from being allowedtime 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 likeone of those towns built little at first, then enlarged, where you seepromiscuously an odd variety of all sorts of irregular buildings. I hopethe remarks I give now will not please less; for, as I have translated thework which they explain, I had more time to make them, though as little towrite them. It would be needless to give here a large account of myperformance; for, after all, you readers care no more for this or thatapology, 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 dishin the dressing. Nor can the first pretend to much praise, besides that ofgiving his author's sense in its full extent, and copying his style, if itis to be copied; since he has no share in the invention or disposition ofwhat he translates. Yet there was no small difficulty in doing Rabelaisjustice in that double respect; the obsolete words and turns of phrase, anddark subjects, often as darkly treated, make the sense hard to beunderstood even by a Frenchman, and it cannot be easy to give it the freeeasy air of an original; for even what seems most common talk in onelanguage, is what is often the most difficult to be made so in another; andHorace'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 ofcant in which my drolling author is so luxuriant; for though such wordshave stood me in good stead, I scarce can forbear thinking myself unhappyin having insensibly hoarded up so much gibberish and Billingsgate trash inmy memory; nor could I forbear asking of myself, as an Italian cardinalsaid on another account, D'onde hai tu pigliato tante coglionerie? Wherethe 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 givinga view of the most valuable work of the greatest genius of his age, to theMecaenas and best genius of this. For I am not overfond of so ungrateful atask as translating, and would rejoice to see less versions and moreoriginals; so the latter were not as bad as many of the first are, throughwant of encouragement. Some indeed have deservedly gained esteem bytranslating; yet not many condescend to translate, but such as cannotinvent; though to do the first well requires often as much genius as to dothe latter. 

I wish, reader, thou mayest be as willing to do my author justice, as Ihave strove to do him right. Yet, if thou art a brother of the quill, itis ten to one thou art too much in love with thy own dear productions toadmire those of one of thy trade. However, I know three or four who havenot such a mighty opinion of themselves; but I'll not name them, lest Ishould be obliged to place myself among them. If thou art one of thosewho, though they never write, criticise everyone that does; avaunt!--Thouart a professed enemy of mankind and of thyself, who wilt never be pleasednor let anybody be so, and knowest no better way to fame than by strivingto lessen that of others; though wouldst thou write thou mightst be soonknown, even by the butterwomen, and fly through the world in bandboxes. Ifthou art of the dissembling tribe, it is thy office to rail at those bookswhich thou huggest in a corner. If thou art one of those eavesdroppers, who would have their moroseness be counted gravity, thou wilt condemn amirth which thou art past relishing; and I know no other way to quit thescore than by writing (as like enough I may) something as dull, or dullerthan 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 praiseor discommend this book, according to the dictates of some less foolishthan thyself, perhaps of one of those who, being lodged at the sign of thebox and dice, will know better things than to recommend to thee a workwhich bids thee beware of his tricks. This book might teach thee to leavethy follies; but some will say it does not signify much to some foolswhether they are so or not; for when was there a fool that thought himselfone? If thou art one of those who would put themselves upon us for learnedmen in Greek and Hebrew, yet are mere blockheads in English, and patchtogether 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? somewill cry. Nay, besides these, many societies that make a great figure inthe world are reflected on in this book; which caused Rabelais to study tobe dark, and even bedaub it with many loose expressions, that he might notbe thought to have any other design than to droll; in a manner bewrayinghis book that his enemies might not bite it. Truly, though now the riddleis expounded, I would advise those who read it not to reflect on theauthor, lest he be thought to have been beforehand with them, and they beranked among those who have nothing to show for their honesty but theirmoney, nothing for their religion but their dissembling, or a fat benefice, nothing for their wit but their dressing, for their nobility but theirtitle, for their gentility but their sword, for their courage but theirhuffing, for their preferment but their assurance, for their learning buttheir degrees, or for their gravity but their wrinkles or dulness. Theyhad better laugh at one another here, as it is the custom of the world. Laughing is of all professions; the miser may hoard, the spendthriftsquander, the politician plot, the lawyer wrangle, and the gamester cheat;still their main design is to be able to laugh at one another; and herethey may do it at a cheap and easy rate. After all, should this work failto please the greater number of readers, I am sure it cannot miss beingliked by those who are for witty mirth and a chirping bottle; though not bythose solid sots who seem to have drudged all their youth long only thatthey might enjoy the sweet blessing of getting drunk every night in theirold age. But those men of sense and honour who love truth and the good ofmankind in general above all other things will undoubtedly countenance thiswork. I will not gravely insist upon its usefulness, having said enough ofit in the preface (Motteux' Preface to vol. I of Rabelais, ed. 1694. ) tothe first part. I will only add, that as Homer in his Odyssey makes hishero wander ten years through most parts of the then known world, soRabelais, in a three months' voyage, makes Pantagruel take a view of almostall sorts of people and professions; with this difference, however, betweenthe ancient mythologist and the modern, that while the Odyssey has beencompared 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, andflame, than the first part of his works. At near seventy years of age, hisgenius, far from being drained, seemed to have acquired fresh vigour andnew graces the more it exerted itself; like those rivers which grow moredeep, large, majestic, and useful by their course. Those who accuse theFrench of being as sparing of their wit as lavish of their words will findan Englishman in our author. I must confess indeed that my countrymen andother southern nations temper the one with the other in a manner as they dotheir wine with water, often just dashing the latter with a little of thefirst. Now here men love to drink their wine pure; nay, sometimes it willnot satisfy unless in its very quintessence, as in brandies; though anexcess of this betrays want of sobriety, as much as an excess of witbetrays a want of judgment. But I must conclude, lest I be justly taxedwith wanting both. I will only add, that as every language has itspeculiar graces, seldom or never to be acquired by a foreigner, I cannotthink I have given my author those of the English in every place; but asnone compelled me to write, I fear to ask a pardon which yet the generoustemper of this nation makes me hope to obtain. Albinus, a Roman, who hadwritten in Greek, desired in his preface to be forgiven his faults oflanguage; but Cato asked him in derision whether any had forced him towrite in a tongue of which he was not an absolute master. Lucullus wrote ahistory in the same tongue, and said he had scattered some false Greek init to let the world know it was the work of a Roman. I will not say asmuch of my writings, in which I study to be as little incorrect as thehurry 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 inGreek, that what errors may be found in the diction are crept in against myintent. Indeed, Livius Andronicus and Terence, the one a Greek, the othera Carthaginian, wrote successfully in Latin, and the latter is perhaps themost perfect model of the purity and urbanity of that tongue; but I oughtnot to hope for the success of those great men. Yet am I ambitious ofbeing as subservient to the useful diversion of the ingenious of thisnation as I can, which I have endeavoured in this work, with hopes toattempt 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 givenby one who, though born and educated in France, has the love and venerationof a loyal subject for this nation, one who, by a fatality, which with manymore made him say, Nos patriam fugimus et dulcia linquimus arva, is obliged to make the language of these happy regions as natural to him ashe 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 deChastillon. 

You know, most illustrious prince, how often I have been, and am dailypressed and required by great numbers of eminent persons, to proceed in thePantagruelian fables; they tell me that many languishing, sick, anddisconsolate persons, perusing them, have deceived their grief, passedtheir time merrily, and been inspired with new joy and comfort. I commonlyanswer that I aimed not at glory and applause when I diverted myself withwriting, but only designed to give by my pen, to the absent who labourunder affliction, that little help which at all times I willingly strive togive to the present that stand in need of my art and service. Sometimes Iat large relate to them how Hippocrates in several places, and particularlyin lib. 6. Epidem. , describing the institution of the physician hisdisciple, and also Soranus of Ephesus, Oribasius, Galen, Hali Abbas, andother authors, have descended to particulars, in the prescription of hismotions, deportment, looks, countenance, gracefulness, civility, cleanliness of face, clothes, beard, hair, hands, mouth, even his verynails; as if he were to play the part of a lover in some comedy, or enterthe lists to fight some enemy. And indeed the practice of physic isproperly enough compared by Hippocrates to a fight, and also to a farceacted between three persons, the patient, the physician, and the disease. Which passage has sometimes put me in mind of Julia's saying to Augustusher father. One day she came before him in a very gorgeous, loose, lascivious dress, which very much displeased him, though he did not muchdiscover his discontent. The next day she put on another, and in a modestgarb, such as the chaste Roman ladies wore, came into his presence. Thekind father could not then forbear expressing the pleasure which he took tosee her so much altered, and said to her: Oh! how much more this garbbecomes and is commendable in the daughter of Augustus. But she, havingher excuse ready, answered: This day, sir, I dressed myself to please myfather's eye; yesterday, to gratify that of my husband. Thus disguised inlooks and garb, nay even, as formerly was the fashion, with a rich andpleasant gown with four sleeves, which was called philonium according toPetrus Alexandrinus in 6. Epidem. , a physician might answer to such asmight find the metamorphosis indecent: Thus have I accoutred myself, notthat I am proud of appearing in such a dress, but for the sake of mypatient, whom alone I wholly design to please, and no wise offend ordissatisfy. There is also a passage in our father Hippocrates, in the bookI have named, which causes some to sweat, dispute, and labour; not indeedto know whether the physician's frowning, discontented, and morose Catonianlook render the patient sad, and his joyful, serene, and pleasingcountenance rejoice him; for experience teaches us that this is mostcertain; but whether such sensations of grief or pleasure are produced bythe apprehension of the patient observing his motions and qualities in hisphysician, and drawing from thence conjectures of the end and catastropheof his disease; as, by his pleasing look, joyful and desirable events, andby his sorrowful and unpleasing air, sad and dismal consequences; orwhether those sensations be produced by a transfusion of the serene orgloomy, aerial or terrestrial, joyful or melancholic spirits of thephysician 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 tophysicians about the words, discourse, and converse which they ought tohave with their patients; everyone aiming at one point, that is, to rejoicethem without offending God, and in no wise whatsoever to vex or displeasethem. Which causes Herophilus much to blame the physician Callianax, who, being asked by a patient of his, Shall I die? impudently made him thisanswer:

 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 Ishall die? He foolishly answered, No; if Latona, the mother of thoselovely twins, Phoebus and Diana, begot thee. Galen, lib. 4, Comment. 6. Epidem. , blames much also Quintus his tutor, who, a certain nobleman ofRome, 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 thecalumny of certain cannibals, misanthropes, perpetual eavesdroppers, hasbeen 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 theirdetractions were that my books are all stuffed with various heresies, ofwhich, nevertheless, they could not show one single instance; much, indeed, of comical and facetious fooleries, neither offending God nor the king (andtruly I own they are the only subject and only theme of these books), butof heresy not a word, unless they interpreted wrong, and against all use ofreason and common language, what I had rather suffer a thousand deaths, ifit 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 yourpresence, that if I did not esteem myself a better Christian than they showthemselves towards me, and if my life, writings, words, nay thoughts, betrayed to me one single spark of heresy, or I should in a detestablemanner fall into the snares of the spirit of detraction, Diabolos, who, bytheir 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. Youwere then pleased to say to me that King Francis, of eternal memory, hadbeen made sensible of those false accusations; and that having caused mybooks (mine, I say, because several, false and infamous, have been wickedlylaid to me) to be carefully and distinctly read to him by the most learnedand faithful anagnost in this kingdom, he had not found any passagesuspicious; and that he abhorred a certain envious, ignorant, hypocriticalinformer, who grounded a mortal heresy on an n put instead of an m by thecarelessness of the printers. 

As much was done by his son, our most gracious, virtuous, and blessedsovereign, Henry, whom Heaven long preserve! so that he granted you hisroyal privilege and particular protection for me against my slanderingadversaries. 

You kindly condescended since to confirm me these happy news at Paris; andalso lately, when you visited my Lord Cardinal du Bellay, who, for thebenefit 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 todraw my pen, undaunted now and secure; with hopes that you will still proveto me, against the power of detraction, a second Gallic Hercules inlearning, prudence, and eloquence; an Alexicacos in virtue, power, andauthority; you, of whom I may truly say what the wise monarch Solomon saithof Moses, that great prophet and captain of Israel, Ecclesiast. 45: A manfearing 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 himlike to the glorious saints, and magnified him so, that his enemies stood infear of him; and for him made wonders; made him glorious in the sight ofkings, 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 allmen. By him he made us to hear his voice, and caused by him the law of lifeand knowledge to be given. 

Accordingly, if I shall be so happy as to hear anyone commend those merrycomposures, they shall be adjured by me to be obliged and pay their thanksto you alone, as also to offer their prayers to Heaven for the continuanceand increase of your greatness; and to attribute no more to me than myhumble and ready obedience to your commands; for by your most honourableencouragement 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 animalspirits had been dry. May the Lord keep you in his blessed mercy!

 My Lord, Your most humble, and most devoted Servant, Francis Rabelais, Physician. 

 Paris, this 28th of January, MDLII. 

The Author's Prologue. 

Good people, God save and keep you! Where are you? I can't see you:stay--I'll saddle my nose with spectacles--oh, oh! 'twill be fair anon: Isee you. Well, you have had a good vintage, they say: this is no bad newsto 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 Iwould have it: God be praised for it, and if such be his will, may youlong 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 certainjollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune), you see me now hale andcheery, as sound as a bell, and ready to drink, if you will. Would youknow 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 hisword, 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 theChristians of his time, as appears lib. 11. De Usu Partium; lib. 2. DeDifferentiis Pulsuum, cap. 3, and ibid. Lib. 3. Cap. 2. And lib. De RerumAffectibus (if it be Galen's). Yet 'twas not for any such veneration ofholy writ that he took care of his own health. No, it was for fear ofbeing 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 aphysician, if from his twenty-eighth year to his old age he had not livedin perfect health, except some ephemerous fevers, of which he soon ridhimself; yet he was not naturally of the soundest temper, his stomach beingevidently bad. Indeed, as he saith, lib. 5, De Sanitate tuenda, thatphysician will hardly be thought very careful of the health of others whoneglects his own. Asclepiades boasted yet more than this; for he said thathe had articled with fortune not to be reputed a physician if he could besaid 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 acertain 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 tothe 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, withthe help of the Lord, meet with it. Having found it, may you immediatelyclaim it, seize it, and secure it. The law allows it; the king would haveit so; nay, you have my advice for it. Neither more nor less than thelaw-makers of old did fully empower a master to claim and seize his runawayservant wherever he might be found. Odds-bodikins, is it not written andwarranted by the ancient customs of this noble, so rich, so flourishingrealm of France, that the dead seizes the quick? See what has beendeclared very lately in that point by that learned, wise, courteous, humaneand just civilian, Andrew Tiraqueau, one of the judges in the mosthonourable court of Parliament at Paris. Health is our life, as Ariphronthe Sicyonian wisely has it; without health life is not life, it is notliving life: abios bios, bios abiotos. Without health life is only alanguishment 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 thisour wish because it is moderate and mean. Mediocrity was held by theancient 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 theprayers 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 onlywished to see our blessed Saviour near Jerusalem. It was but a smallrequest, and no more than anybody then might pretend to. But alas! he wasbut low-built; and one of so diminutive a size, among the crowd, could notso 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 adoclambers up a sycamore. Upon this, the Lord, who knew his sincereaffection, 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 hisfamily. 

One of the sons of the prophets in Israel felling would near the riverJordan, 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), andhaving a strong faith, he did not throw the hatchet after the helve, assome spirits of contradiction say by way of scandalous blunder, but thehelve after the hatchet, as you all properly have it. Presently two greatmiracles 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 tocoach it to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elias, to multiply in seed likeAbraham, 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 itvery much. 

Now I talk of moderate wishes in point of hatchet (but harkee me, be sureyou don't forget when we ought to drink), I will tell you what is writtenamong the apologues of wise Aesop the Frenchman. I mean the Phrygian andTrojan, as Max. Planudes makes him; from which people, according to themost faithful chroniclers, the noble French are descended. Aelian writesthat 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 byname, a wood-cleaver by trade, who in that low drudgery made shift so topick up a sorry livelihood. It happened that he lost his hatchet. Nowtell me who ever had more cause to be vexed than poor Tom? Alas, his wholeestate and life depended on his hatchet; by his hatchet he earned many afair penny of the best woodmongers or log-merchants among whom he wenta-jobbing; for want of his hatchet he was like to starve; and had death butmet with him six days after without a hatchet, the grim fiend would havemowed him down in the twinkling of a bedstaff. In this sad case he beganto be in a heavy taking, and called upon Jupiter with the most eloquentprayers--for you know necessity was the mother of eloquence. With thewhites of his eyes turned up towards heaven, down on his marrow-bones, hisarms reared high, his fingers stretched wide, and his head bare, the poorwretch without ceasing was roaring out, by way of litany, at everyrepetition of his supplications, My hatchet, Lord Jupiter, my hatchet! myhatchet! only my hatchet, O Jupiter, or money to buy another, and nothingelse! alas, my poor hatchet!

Jupiter happened then to be holding a grand council about certain urgentaffairs, and old gammer Cybele was just giving her opinion, or, if youwould 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 nosmall 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 themud of Styx, have not we had all along, and have not we here still enoughto do, to set to rights a world of damned puzzling businesses ofconsequence? We made an end of the fray between Presthan, King of Persia, and Soliman the Turkish emperor, we have stopped up the passages betweenthe Tartars and the Muscovites; answered the Xeriff's petition; done thesame to that of Golgots Rays; the state of Parma's despatched; so is thatof Maidenburg, that of Mirandola, and that of Africa, that town on theMediterranean which we call Aphrodisium; Tripoli by carelessness has got anew master; her hour was come. 

Here are the Gascons cursing and damning, demanding the restitution oftheir bells. 

In yonder corner are the Saxons, Easterlings, Ostrogoths, and Germans, nations formerly invincible, but now aberkeids, bridled, curbed, andbrought 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 tothem, who, surrounded with a swarm of their scullions, blackguardragamuffins, sizars, vouchers, and stipulators, set together by the earsthe whole university of Paris? I am in a sad quandary about it, and forthe 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 onehas rose-nobles, I say fine and weighty ones; the other would gladly havesome too. The one knows something; the other's no dunce. The one lovesthe better sort of men; the other's beloved by 'em. The one is an oldcunning fox; the other with tongue and pen, tooth and nail, falls foul onthe ancient orators and philosophers, and barks at them like a cur. 

What thinkest thou of it, say, thou bawdy Priapus? I have found thycounsel just before now, et habet tua mentula mentem. 

King Jupiter, answered Priapus, standing up and taking off his cowl, hissnout uncased and reared up, fiery and stiffly propped, since you comparethe one to a yelping snarling cur and the other to sly Reynard the fox, myadvice is, with submission, that without fretting or puzzling your brainsany further about 'em, without any more ado, even serve 'em both as, in thedays of yore, you did the dog and the fox. How? asked Jupiter; when? whowere they? where was it? You have a rare memory, for aught I see! returnedPriapus. This right worshipful father Bacchus, whom we have here noddingwith 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 anybeast that wore a head. 

The noble Vulcan here present had framed a dog of Monesian brass, and withlong puffing and blowing put the spirit of life into him; he gave it toyou, you gave it your Miss Europa, Miss Europa gave it Minos, Minos gave itProcris, 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 ofcreatures; nothing could scape the dog. Now who should happen to meet butthese two? What do you think they did? Dog by his destiny was to takefox, and fox by his fate was not to be taken. 

The case was brought before your council: you protested that you would notact against the fates; and the fates were contradictory. In short, the endand result of the matter was, that to reconcile two contradictions was animpossibility in nature. The very pang put you into a sweat; some drops ofwhich happening to light on the earth, produced what the mortals callcauliflowers. All our noble consistory, for want of a categoricalresolution, were seized with such a horrid thirst, that above seventy-eighthogsheads of nectar were swilled down at that sitting. At last you took myadvice, and transmogrified them into stones; and immediately got rid ofyour perplexity, and a truce with thirst was proclaimed through this vastOlympus. This was the year of flabby cods, near Teumessus, between Thebesand Chalcis. 

After this manner, it is my opinion that you should petrify this dog andthis fox. The metamorphosis will not be incongruous; for they both bearthe name of Peter. And because, according to the Limosin proverb, to makean oven's mouth there must be three stones, you may associate them withMaster Peter du Coignet, whom you formerly petrified for the same cause. Then those three dead pieces shall be put in an equilateral trigonesomewhere in the great temple at Paris--in the middle of the porch, if youwill--there to perform the office of extinguishers, and with their nosesput out the lighted candles, torches, tapers, and flambeaux; since, whilethey lived, they still lighted, ballock-like, the fire of faction, division, ballock sects, and wrangling among those idle bearded boys, thestudents. And this will be an everlasting monument to show that those punyself-conceited pedants, ballock-framers, were rather contemned thancondemned by you. Dixi, I have said my say. 

You deal too kindly by them, said Jupiter, for aught I see, MonsieurPriapus. You do not use to be so kind to everybody, let me tell you; foras they seek to eternize their names, it would be much better for them tobe 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 theneighbourhood of Mount Apennine, do you see what tragedies are stirred upby certain topping ecclesiastical bullies? This hot fit will last itstime, 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; formethinks we have but little store of thunder ammunition since the time thatyou, my fellow gods, for your pastime lavished them away to bombard newAntioch, by my particular permission; as since, after your example, thestout champions who had undertaken to hold the fortress of Dindenaroisagainst 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 thisbawling fellow below. You, Mercury, go see who it is, and know what hewants. Mercury looked out at heaven's trapdoor, through which, as I amtold, they hear what is said here below. By the way, one might well enoughmistake it for the scuttle of a ship; though Icaromenippus said it was likethe 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 thesynod. Marry, said Jupiter, we are finely helped up, as if we had nownothing else to do here but to restore lost hatchets. Well, he must haveit then for all this, for so 'tis written in the Book of Fate (do youhear?), 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 andmole-catchers of Landerousse. Whereabouts were we? Priapus was standing inthe chimney-corner, and having heard what Mercury had reported, said in amost courteous and jovial manner: King Jupiter, while by your order andparticular favour I was garden-keeper-general on earth, I observed that thisword hatchet is equivocal to many things; for it signifies a certaininstrument by the means of which men fell and cleave timber. It alsosignifies (at least I am sure it did formerly) a female soundly andfrequently thumpthumpriggletickletwiddletobyed. Thus I perceived that everycock 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 sostrongly and resolutely shove and drive in their helves, that the femalesremain free from a fear epidemical amongst their sex, viz. , that from thebottom of the male's belly the instrument should dangle at his heel for wantof such feminine props. And I remember, for I have a member, and a memorytoo, ay, and a fine memory, large enough to fill a butter-firkin; Iremember, I say, that one day of tubilustre (horn-fair) at the festivals ofgoodman Vulcan in May, I heard Josquin Des Prez, Olkegan, Hobrecht, Agricola, Brumel, Camelin, Vigoris, De la Fage, Bruyer, Prioris, Seguin, Dela Rue, Midy, Moulu, Mouton, Gascogne, Loyset, Compere, Penet, Fevin, Rousee, Richard Fort, Rousseau, Consilion, Constantio Festi, Jacquet Bercan, melodiously singing the following catch on a pleasant green:

 Long John to bed went to his bride, And laid a mallet by his side: What means this mallet, John? saith she. Why! 'tis to wedge thee home, quoth he. Alas! cried she, the man's a fool: What need you use a wooden tool? When lusty John does to me come, He never shoves but with his bum. 

Nine Olympiads, and an intercalary year after (I have a rare member, Iwould say memory; but I often make blunders in the symbolization andcolligance 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 othermerry lovers of music, in a private garden, under some fine shady trees, round about a bulwark of flagons, gammons, pasties, with several coatedquails, 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 threwall the venerable gods and goddesses into a fit of laughter, like anymicrocosm of flies; and even set limping Vulcan a-hopping and jumpingsmoothly three or four times for the sake of his dear. Come, come, saidJupiter to Mercury, run down immediately, and cast at the poor fellow'sfeet three hatchets: his own, another of gold, and a third of massysilver, all of one size; then having left it to his will to take hischoice, if he take his own, and be satisfied with it, give him the othertwo; if he take another, chop his head off with his own; and henceforthserve me all those losers of hatchets after that manner. Having said this, Jupiter, with an awkward turn of his head, like a jackanapes swallowing ofpills, made so dreadful a phiz that all the vast Olympus quaked again. Heaven's foot messenger, thanks to his low-crowned narrow-brimmed hat, hisplume of feathers, heel-pieces, and running stick with pigeon wings, flingshimself out at heaven's wicket, through the idle deserts of the air, and ina trice nimbly alights upon the earth, and throws at friend Tom's feet thethree 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 threeis thy hatchet, and take it away with thee. Wellhung lifts up the goldenhatchet, 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 withthe silver one, and said, 'Tis not this neither, you may e'en take themagain. 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 meetssome 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, Iwill sacrifice to you a very good and huge pot of milk brimful, coveredwith fine strawberries, next ides of May. 

Honest fellow, said Mercury, I leave it thee; take it; and because thouhast wished and chosen moderately in point of hatchet, by Jupiter's commandI 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 reveredthe most great Jupiter. His old hatchet he fastens close to his leatherngirdle, and girds it above his breech like Martin of Cambray; the twoothers, being more heavy, he lays on his shoulder. Thus he plods on, trudging over the fields, keeping a good countenance amongst his neighboursand fellow-parishioners, with one merry saying or other after Patelin'sway. The next day, having put on a clean white jacket, he takes on hisback the two precious hatchets and comes to Chinon, the famous city, noblecity, ancient city, yea, the first city in the world, according to thejudgment and assertion of the most learned Massorets. At Chinon he turnedhis 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 allother necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in thecountry, nay, even richer than that limping scrape-good Maulevrier. Hisbrother bumpkins, and the other yeomen and country-puts thereabouts, perceiving his good fortune, were not a little amazed, insomuch that theirformer pity of poor Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so great andunexpected rise; and as they could not for their souls devise how this cameabout, they made it their business to pry up and down, and lay their headstogether, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by what means, in whatplace, on what day, what hour, how, why, and wherefore, he had come by thisgreat treasure. 

At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, Ha, ha! said they, was thereno more to do but to lose a hatchet to make us rich? Mum for that; 'tis aseasy as pissing a bed, and will cost but little. Are then at this time therevolutions of the heavens, the constellations of the firmament, andaspects of the planets such, that whosoever shall lose a hatchet shallimmediately grow rich? Ha, ha, ha! by Jove, you shall e'en be lost, an'tplease you, my dear hatchet. With this they all fairly lost their hatchetsout of hand. The devil of one that had a hatchet left; he was not hismother's son that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled orcleaved in that country through want of hatchets. Nay, the Aesopianapologue even saith that certain petty country gents of the lower class, who had sold Wellhung their little mill and little field to havewherewithal to make a figure at the next muster, having been told that histreasure was come to him by that only means, sold the only badge of theirgentility, their swords, to purchase hatchets to go lose them, as the sillyclodpates did, in hopes to gain store of chink by that loss. 

You would have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty spiritualusurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others, to buystore of mandates, a pennyworth of a new-made pope. 

Now they cried out and brayed, and prayed and bawled, and lamented, andinvoked Jupiter: My hatchet! my hatchet! Jupiter, my hatchet! on thisside, My hatchet! on that side, My hatchet! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Jupiter, myhatchet! The air round about rung again with the cries and howlings ofthese rascally losers of hatchets. 

Mercury was nimble in bringing them hatchets; to each offering that whichhe 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 thegreat giver, Jupiter; but in the very nick of time that they bowed andstooped to take it from the ground, whip, in a trice, Mercury lopped offtheir heads, as Jupiter had commanded; and of heads thus cut off the numberwas just equal to that of the lost hatchets. 

You see how it is now; you see how it goes with those who in the simplicityof their hearts wish and desire with moderation. Take warning by this, allyou greedy, fresh-water sharks, who scorn to wish for anything under tenthousand pounds; and do not for the future run on impudently, as I havesometimes heard you wishing, Would to God I had now one hundredseventy-eight millions of gold! Oh! how I should tickle it off. The deuceon you, what more might a king, an emperor, or a pope wish for? For thatreason, indeed, you see that after you have made such hopeful wishes, allthe good that comes to you of it is the itch or the scab, and not a cross inyour breeches to scare the devil that tempts you to make these wishes: nomore than those two mumpers, wishers after the custom of Paris; one of whomonly wished to have in good old gold as much as hath been spent, bought, andsold in Paris, since its first foundations were laid, to this hour; all ofit valued at the price, sale, and rate of the dearest year in all that spaceof time. Do you think the fellow was bashful? Had he eaten sour plumsunpeeled? Were his teeth on edge, I pray you? The other wished Our Lady'sChurch brimful of steel needles, from the floor to the top of the roof, andto have as many ducats as might be crammed into as many bags as might besewed with each and everyone of those needles, till they were all eitherbroke at the point or eye. This is to wish with a vengeance! What thinkyou of it? What did they get by't, in your opinion? Why at night both mygentlemen had kibed heels, a tetter in the chin, a churchyard cough in thelungs, a catarrh in the throat, a swingeing boil at the rump, and the devilof one musty crust of a brown george the poor dogs had to scour theirgrinders with. Wish therefore for mediocrity, and it shall be given untoyou, and over and above yet; that is to say, provided you bestir yourselfmanfully, and do your best in the meantime. 

Ay, but say you, God might as soon have given me seventy-eight thousand asthe thirteenth part of one half; for he is omnipotent, and a million ofgold is no more to him than one farthing. Oh, ho! pray tell me who taughtyou to talk at this rate of the power and predestination of God, poor sillypeople? Peace, tush, st, st, st! fall down before his sacred face and ownthe nothingness of your nothing. 

Upon this, O ye that labour under the affliction of the gout, I ground myhopes; firmly believing, that if so it pleases the divine goodness, youshall obtain health; since you wish and ask for nothing else, at least forthe present. Well, stay yet a little longer with half an ounce ofpatience. 

The Genoese do not use, like you, to be satisfied with wishing healthalone, when after they have all the livelong morning been in a brown study, talked, pondered, ruminated, and resolved in the counting-houses of whomand how they may squeeze the ready, and who by their craft must be hookedin, wheedled, bubbled, sharped, overreached, and choused; they go to theexchange, and greet one another with a Sanita e guadagno, Messer! healthand gain to you, sir! Health alone will not go down with the greedycurmudgeons; 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, andget neither. 

Now, my lads, as you hope for good health, cough once aloud with lungs ofleather; take me off three swingeing bumpers; prick up your ears; and youshall hear me tell wonders of the noble and good Pantagruel. 

THE FOURTH BOOK. 

Chapter 4. I. 

How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the HolyBottle. 

In the month of June, on Vesta's holiday, the very numerical day on whichBrutus, conquering Spain, taught its strutting dons to truckle under him, and that niggardly miser Crassus was routed and knocked on the head by theParthians, Pantagruel took his leave of the good Gargantua, his royalfather. The old gentleman, according to the laudable custom of theprimitive Christians, devoutly prayed for the happy voyage of his son andhis whole company, and then they took shipping at the port of Thalassa. Pantagruel had with him Panurge, Friar John des Entomeures, alias of theFunnels, Epistemon, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, Carpalin, cum multisaliis, his ancient servants and domestics; also Xenomanes, the greattraveller, who had crossed so many dangerous roads, dikes, ponds, seas, andso forth, and was come some time before, having been sent for by Panurge. 

For certain good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, he hadleft with Gargantua, and marked out, in his great and universalhydrographical chart, the course which they were to steer to visit theOracle of the Holy Bottle Bacbuc. The number of ships were such as Idescribed in the third book, convoyed by a like number of triremes, men ofwar, galleons, and feluccas, well-rigged, caulked, and stored with a goodquantity of Pantagruelion. 

All the officers, droggermen, pilots, captains, mates, boatswains, midshipmen, quartermasters, and sailors, met in the Thalamege, Pantagruel'sprincipal flag-ship, which had in her stern for her ensign a huge largebottle, half silver well polished, the other half gold enamelled withcarnation; whereby it was easy to guess that white and red were the coloursof 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 passby 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. Thefifth, a famous can made of sperm of emerald. The sixth, a monk's mumpingbottle made of the four metals together. The seventh, an ebony funnel, allembossed and wrought with gold after the Tauchic manner. The eighth, anivy goblet, very precious, inlaid with gold. The ninth, a cup of fineObriz gold. The tenth, a tumbler of aromatic agoloch (you call it lignumaloes) edged with Cyprian gold, after the Azemine make. The eleventh, agolden 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 blubberingwhiner Heraclitus, had he been there, but seeing this noble convoy of shipsand their devices, must have been seized with present gladness of heart, and, smiling at the conceit, have said that the travellers were all honesttopers, true pitcher-men, and have judged by a most sure prognosticationthat their voyage, both outward and homeward-bound, would be performed inmirth and perfect health. 

In the Thalamege, where was the general meeting, Pantagruel made a shortbut sweet exhortation, wholly backed with authorities from Scripture uponnavigation; which being ended, with an audible voice prayers were said inthe presence and hearing of all the burghers of Thalassa, who had flockedto the mole to see them take shipping. After the prayers was melodiouslysung a psalm of the holy King David, which begins, When Israel went out ofEgypt; and that being ended, tables were placed upon deck, and a feastspeedily served up. The Thalassians, who had also borne a chorus in thepsalm, caused store of belly-timber to be brought out of their houses. Alldrank to them; they drank to all; which was the cause that none of thewhole company gave up what they had eaten, nor were sea-sick, with a painat the head and stomach; which inconveniency they could not so easily haveprevented by drinking, for some time before, salt water, either alone ormixed with wine; using quinces, citron peel, juice of pomegranates, sourishsweetmeats, fasting a long time, covering their stomachs with paper, orfollowing such other idle remedies as foolish physicians prescribe to thosethat go to sea. 

Having often renewed their tipplings, each mother's son retired on boardhis own ship, and set sail all so fast with a merry gale at south-east; towhich point of the compass the chief pilot, James Brayer by name, hadshaped his course, and fixed all things accordingly. For seeing that theOracle 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 thePortuguese use, while sailing through the torrid zone, and Cape BonaSperanza, at the south point of Africa, beyond the equinoctial line, andlosing sight of the northern pole, their guide, they make a prodigious longvoyage; but rather to keep as near the parallel of the said India aspossible, and to tack to the westward of the said pole, so that windingunder the north, they might find themselves in the latitude of the port ofOlone, without coming nearer it for fear of being shut up in the frozensea; whereas, following this canonical turn, by the said parallel, theymust have that on the right to the eastward, which at their departure wason their left. 

This proved a much shorter cut; for without shipwreck, danger, or loss ofmen, with uninterrupted good weather, except one day near the island of theMacreons, they performed in less than four months the voyage of UpperIndia, which the Portuguese, with a thousand inconveniences and innumerabledangers, can hardly complete in three years. And it is my opinion, withsubmission to better judgments, that this course was perhaps steered bythose Indians who sailed to Germany, and were honourably received by theKing of the Swedes, while Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul of theGauls; 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 anythingnew; for they had formerly sailed that way: but on the fourth they made anisland called Medamothy, of a fine and delightful prospect, by reason ofthe vast number of lighthouses and high marble towers in its circuit, whichis not less than that of Canada (sic). Pantagruel, inquiring who governedthere, heard that it was King Philophanes, absent at that time upon accountof the marriage of his brother Philotheamon with the infanta of the kingdomof Engys. 

Hearing this, he went ashore in the harbour, and while every ship's crewwatered, passed his time in viewing divers pictures, pieces of tapestry, animals, fishes, birds, and other exotic and foreign merchandises, whichwere along the walks of the mole and in the markets of the port. For itwas the third day of the great and famous fair of the place, to which thechief merchants of Africa and Asia resorted. Out of these Friar Johnbought him two rare pictures; in one of which the face of a man that bringsin an appeal was drawn to the life; and in the other a servant that wants amaster, 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 courtfashion, with conge and grimace. Panurge bought a large picture, copiedand done from the needle-work formerly wrought by Philomela, showing to hersister Progne how her brother-in-law Tereus had by force handselled hercopyhold, 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 wasa gallant, a mirific, nay, a most admirable piece. Nor do you think, Ipray you, that in it was the picture of a man playing the beast with twobacks with a female; this had been too silly and gross: no, no; it wasanother-guise thing, and much plainer. You may, if you please, see it atTheleme, on the left hand as you go into the high gallery. Epistemonbought another, wherein were painted to the life the ideas of Plato and theatoms of Epicurus. Rhizotome purchased another, wherein Echo was drawn tothe life. Pantagruel caused to be bought, by Gymnast, the life and deedsof Achilles, in seventy-eight pieces of tapestry, four fathom long, andthree fathom broad, all of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver;the work beginning at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, continuing to thebirth of Achilles; his youth, described by Statius Papinius; his warlikeachievements, celebrated by Homer; his death and obsequies, written by Ovidand Quintus Calaber; and ending at the appearance of his ghost, andPolyxena's sacrifice, rehearsed by Euripides. 

He also caused to be bought three fine young unicorns; one of them a maleof a chestnut colour, and two grey dappled females; also a tarand, whom hebought of a Scythian of the Gelones' country. 

A tarand is an animal as big as a bullock, having a head like a stag, or alittle bigger, two stately horns with large branches, cloven feet, hairlong like that of a furred Muscovite, I mean a bear, and a skin almost ashard as steel armour. The Scythian said that there are but few tarands tobe found in Scythia, because it varieth its colour according to thediversity of the places where it grazes and abides, and represents thecolour of the grass, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, meadows, rocks, andgenerally of all things near which it comes. It hath this common with thesea-pulp, or polypus, with the thoes, with the wolves of India, and withthe chameleon, which is a kind of a lizard so wonderful that Democritushath written a whole book of its figure and anatomy, as also of its virtueand propriety in magic. This I can affirm, that I have seen it change itscolour, not only at the approach of things that have a colour, but by itsown voluntary impulse, according to its fear or other affections; as, forexample, upon a green carpet I have certainly seen it become green; buthaving remained there some time, it turned yellow, blue, tanned, and purplein course, in the same manner as you see a turkey-cock's comb change colouraccording to its passions. But what we find most surprising in this tarandis, that not only its face and skin, but also its hair could take whatevercolour was about it. Near Panurge, with his kersey coat, its hair used toturn grey; near Pantagruel, with his scarlet mantle, its hair and skin grewred; near the pilot, dressed after the fashion of the Isiacs of Anubis inEgypt, its hair seemed all white, which two last colours the chameleonscannot borrow. 

When the creature was free from any fear or affection, the colour of itshair 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 thestrange 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 cheerof all the fleet, was heard from the mole. Pantagruel looked towards thehaven, and perceived that this was occasioned by the arrival of one of hisfather Gargantua's celoces, or advice-boats, named the Chelidonia; becauseon the stern of it was carved in Corinthian brass a sea-swallow, which is afish as large as a dare-fish of Loire, all flesh, without scale, withcartilaginous wings (like a bat's) very long and broad, by the means ofwhich I have seen them fly about three fathom above water, about abow-shot. At Marseilles 'tis called lendole. And indeed that ship was aslight as a swallow, so that it rather seemed to fly on the sea than tosail. Malicorne, Gargantua's esquire carver, was come in her, being sentexpressly by his master to have an account of his son's health andcircumstances, and to bring him credentials. When Malicorne had salutedPantagruel, before the prince opened the letters, the first thing he saidto 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 hatchedwhen the advice-boat was going off. 

If any ill fortune had befallen Pantagruel, he would have fastened someblack ribbon to his feet; but because all things had succeeded happilyhitherto, having caused it to be undressed, he tied to its feet a whiteribbon, and without any further delay let it loose. The pigeon presentlyflew away, cutting the air with an incredible speed, as you know that thereis 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 bewith its young; insomuch that in less than two hours it compassed in theair the long tract which the advice-boat, with all her diligence, with oarsand sails, and a fair wind, could not go through in less than three daysand 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 joyfuland secure of his son's welfare. This was the custom of the nobleGargantua and Pantagruel when they would have speedy news of something ofgreat concern; as the event of some battle, either by sea or land; thesurrendering or holding out of some strong place; the determination of somedifference of moment; the safe or unhappy delivery of some queen or greatlady; 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 thepost, to the places whence they desired to have news. The gozal, bearingeither 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 hourmore way through the air than thirty postboys could have done in onenatural day. May not this be said to redeem and gain time with avengeance, think you? For the like service, therefore, you may believe asa most true thing that in the dove-houses of their farms there were to befound all the year long store of pigeons hatching eggs or rearing theiryoung. Which may be easily done in aviaries and voleries by the help ofsaltpetre 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 sonis so much increased in me by reflecting on the particular gifts which bythe divine goodness have been heaped on thee, that since thy departure ithath often banished all other thoughts out of my mind, leaving my heartwholly 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 ofit; or, Well begun's half done, according to the old saying; to free mymind from this anxiety I have expressly despatched Malicorne, that he maygive me a true account of thy health at the beginning of thy voyage. Forif 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 fromthy 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 atour 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 severalcuriosities. 

Pantagruel, having perused the letter, had a long conference with theesquire Malicorne; insomuch that Panurge, at last interrupting them, askedhim, Pray, sir, when do you design to drink? When shall we drink? Whenshall the worshipful esquire drink? What a devil! have you not talked longenough to drink? It is a good motion, answered Pantagruel: go, get ussomething ready at the next inn; I think 'tis the Centaur. In the meantimehe writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent by the aforesaid esquire:

Most gracious Father, --As our senses and animal faculties are morediscomposed at the news of events unexpected, though desired (even to animmediate dissolution of the soul from the body), than if those accidentshad been foreseen, so the coming of Malicorne hath much surprised anddisordered me. For I had no hopes to see any of your servants, or to hearfrom you, before I had finished our voyage; and contented myself with thedear remembrance of your august majesty, deeply impressed in the hindmostventricle of my brain, often representing you to my mind. 

But since you have made me happy beyond expectation by the perusal of yourgracious letter, and the faith I have in your esquire hath revived myspirits by the news of your welfare, I am as it were compelled to do whatformerly I did freely, that is, first to praise the blessed Redeemer, whoby his divine goodness preserves you in this long enjoyment of perfecthealth; then to return you eternal thanks for the fervent affection whichyou have for me your most humble son and unprofitable servant. 

Formerly a Roman, named Furnius, said to Augustus, who had received hisfather into favour, and pardoned him after he had sided with Antony, thatby that action the emperor had reduced him to this extremity, that for wantof power to be grateful, both while he lived and after it, he should beobliged to be taxed with ingratitude. So I may say, that the excess ofyour fatherly affection drives me into such a strait, that I shall beforced to live and die ungrateful; unless that crime be redressed by thesentence 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 theremunerator; and that the receiver rewards the giver when he freelyreceives the benefit and always remembers it; as, on the contrary, that manis most ungrateful who despises and forgets a benefit. Therefore, beingoverwhelmed with infinite favours, all proceeding from your extremegoodness, and on the other side wholly incapable of making the smallestreturn, 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 nevercease 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 endof our voyage will be answerable to its beginning, and so it will beentirely performed in health and mirth. I will not fail to set down in ajournal a full account of our navigation, that at our return you may havean exact relation of the whole. 

I have found here a Scythian tarand, an animal strange and wonderful forthe variations of colour on its skin and hair, according to the distinctionof neighbouring things; it is as tractable and easily kept as a lamb. Bepleased 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 theirforehead, but are forced to browse on fruit trees, or on proper racks, orto be fed by hand, with herbs, sheaves, apples, pears, barley, rye, andother 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 theyare the mildest things in the world, provided they are not maliciouslyoffended. Likewise I send you the life and deeds of Achilles in curioustapestry; assuring you whatever rarities of animals, plants, birds, orprecious stones, and others, I shall be able to find and purchase in ourtravels, shall be brought to you, God willing, whom I beseech, by hisblessed grace, to preserve you. 

From Medamothy, this 15th of June. Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon, Zenomanes, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, and Carpalin, having most humblykissed 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 allwith a thousand goodly good-morrows and how-d'ye's; they clung about him sothat 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 afterwardspresented 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 hisbark's crew he ordered to be given five hundred crowns. To Gargantua, hisfather, he sent the tarand covered with a cloth of satin, brocaded withgold, and the tapestry containing the life and deeds of Achilles, with thethree unicorns in friezed cloth of gold trappings; and so they leftMedamothy--Malicorne to return to Gargantua, Pantagruel to proceed in hisvoyage, during which Epistemon read to him the books which the esquire hadbrought, and because he found them jovial and pleasant, I shall give you anaccount 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 thepole; going still farther from the equinoctial line, we discovered amerchant-man to the windward of us. The joy for this was not small on bothsides; we in hopes to hear news from sea, and those in the merchant-manfrom 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 byto talk to them. Pantagruel heard that they came from Lanternland; whichadded to his joy, and that of the whole fleet. We inquired about the stateof that country, and the way of living of the Lanterns; and were told thatabout the latter end of the following July was the time prefixed for themeeting of the general chapter of the Lanterns; and that if we arrivedthere at that time, as we might easily, we should see a handsome, honourable, and jolly company of Lanterns; and that great preparations weremaking, as if they intended to lanternize there to the purpose. We weretold also that if we touched at the great kingdom of Gebarim, we should behonourably received and treated by the sovereign of that country, KingOhabe, 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 wasthus:

This same Dingdong, seeing Panurge without a codpiece, with his spectaclesfastened to his cap, said to one of his comrades, Prithee, look, is therenot a fine medal of a cuckold? Panurge, by reason of his spectacles, asyou 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 akind of a pet:

How the devil should I be one of the hornified fraternity, since I am notyet a brother of the marriage-noose, as thou art; as I guess by thyill-favoured phiz?

Yea, verily, quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be otherwisefor all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the magnifyinggimcracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest, prettiest, handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and soberest piece ofwoman'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 afine eleven-inch-long branch of red coral for her Christmas-box. What hastthou 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, bythe way of question, said Panurge to him very seriously, if with theconsent 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 dwellshere at liberty, all subjection of fastened codpieces, or bolts, bars, andlocks, abdicated), remained sticking in her natural Christmas-box in such alamentable manner that it were never to come out, but eternally shouldstick there unless thou didst pull it out with thy teeth; what wouldst thoudo? Wouldst thou everlastingly leave it there, or wouldst thou pluck itout with thy grinders? Answer me, O thou ram of Mahomet, since thou artone of the devil's gang. I would, replied the sheepmonger, take thee sucha woundy cut on this spectacle-bearing lug of thine with my trusty bilbo aswould 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, --itstuck in the scabbard; as you know that at sea cold iron will easily takerust by reason of the excessive and nitrous moisture. Panurge, so smittenwith terror that his heart sunk down to his midriff, scoured off toPantagruel for help; but Friar John laid hand on his flashing scimitar thatwas new ground, and would certainly have despatched Dingdong to rights, hadnot the skipper and some of his passengers beseeched Pantagruel not tosuffer such an outrage to be committed on board his ship. So the matterwas made up, and Panurge and his antagonist shaked fists, and drank incourse 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 FriarJohn, and taking them aside, Stand at some distance out of the way, saidhe, and take your share of the following scene of mirth. You shall haverare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but take. Thenaddressing himself to the drover, he took off to him a bumper of goodlantern 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 playupon 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 ofthe diving trade than a buyer of sheep. Adzookers, what a blessing itwould be to have one's purse well lined with chink near your worship at atripe-house when it begins to thaw! Humph, humph, did not we know youwell, you might serve one a slippery trick! Pray do but see, good people, what a mighty conjuror the fellow would be reckoned. Patience, saidPanurge; 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. Thegold of the house of Burgundy was drawn from them. Zwoons, man, they areoriental 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 currentcash. Wilt say how much? Friend, neighbour, answered the seller ofmutton, 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, youare the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton! Do you see this sameram? 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, friendand neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall beput into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you apeck 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 shallbe hanged and suspended. 

Patience, said Panurge; but you would do much for me and your wholeposterity if you would chaffer with me for him, or some other of hisinferiors. 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 fineRouen cloth is to be made; your Leominster superfine wool is mine arse toit; mere flock in comparison. Of their skins the best cordovan will bemade, which shall be sold for Turkey and Montelimart, or for Spanishleather at least. Of the guts shall be made fiddle and harp strings thatwill sell as dear as if they came from Munican or Aquileia. What do youthink on't, hah? If you please, sell me one of them, said Panurge, and Iwill be yours for ever. Look, here's ready cash. What's the price? Thishe said exhibiting his purse stuffed with new Henricuses. 

Chapter 4. VII. 

Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with Dingdong. 

Neighbour, my friend, answered Dingdong, they are meat for none but kingsand princes; their flesh is so delicate, so savoury, and so dainty that onewould swear it melted in the mouth. I bring them out of a country wherethe very hogs, God be with us, live on nothing but myrobolans. The sows inthe styes when they lie-in (saving the honour of this good company) are fedonly with orange-flowers. But, said Panurge, drive a bargain with me forone of them, and I will pay you for't like a king, upon the honest word ofa true Trojan; come, come, what do you ask? Not so fast, Robin, answeredthe trader; these sheep are lineally descended from the very family of theram 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 acabbage, 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 fastas 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 oftheir urine. Nay, with their very dung (with reverence be it spoken) thedoctors in our country make pills that cure seventy-eight kinds ofdiseases, the least of which is the evil of St. Eutropius of Xaintes, fromwhich, good Lord, deliver us! Now what do you think on't, neighbour, myfriend? The truth is, they cost me money, that they do. Cost what theywill, cried Panurge, trade with me for one of them, paying you well. Ourfriend, quoth the quacklike sheepman, do but mind the wonders of naturethat are found in those animals, even in a member which one would thinkwere of no use. Take me but these horns, and bray them a little with aniron 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 thebest 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'sfeather 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 ascholar, you should know that in the most inferior members of thoseanimals, which are the feet, there is a bone, which is the heel, theastragalus, if you will have it so, wherewith, and with that of no othercreature breathing, except the Indian ass and the dorcades of Libya, theyused in old times to play at the royal game of dice, whereat Augustus theemperor won above fifty thousand crowns one evening. Now such cuckolds asyou 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 thecanting sheepseller, shall I have duly praised the inward members, theshoulders, the legs, the knuckles, the neck, the breast, the liver, thespleen, the tripes, the kidneys, the bladder, wherewith they makefootballs; the ribs, which serve in Pigmyland to make little crossbows topelt the cranes with cherry-stones; the head, which with a little brimstoneserves to make a miraculous decoction to loosen and ease the belly ofcostive 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. Ihate 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 methree livres, French money, for each pick and choose. It is a woundyprice, cried Panurge; in our country I could have five, nay six, for themoney; see that you do not overreach me, master. You are not the first manwhom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if notbreaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrainseize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by theworthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four timesbetter 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, thouHibernian fool, that a talent of gold was worth? Sweet sir, you fall intoa passion, I see, returned Panurge; well, hold, here is your money. Panurge, having paid his money, chose him out of all the flock a finetopping ram; and as he was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, allthe rest, hearing and bleating in concert, stared to see whither theirbrother-ram should be carried. In the meanwhile the drover was saying tohis shepherds: Ah! how well the knave could choose him out a ram; thewhoreson has skill in cattle. On my honest word, I reserved that verypiece of flesh for the Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition; forthe good man is naturally overjoyed when he holds a good-sized handsomeshoulder of mutton, instead of a left-handed racket, in one hand, with agood sharp carver in the other. God wot, how he belabours himself then. 

Chapter 4. VIII. 

How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea. 

On a sudden, you would wonder how the thing was so soon done--for my part Icannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it--our friend Panurge, without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard into themiddle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise. Upon this all theother sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone, made all thehaste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after another; and greatwas the throng who should leap in first after their leader. It wasimpossible to hinder them; for you know that it is the nature of sheepalways to follow the first wheresoever it goes; which makes Aristotle, lib. 9. De. Hist. Animal. , mark them for the most silly and foolish animals inthe world. Dingdong, at his wits' end, and stark staring mad, as a man whosaw his sheep destroy and drown themselves before his face, strove tohinder and keep them back with might and main; but all in vain: they allone after t'other frisked and jumped into the sea, and were lost. At lasthe 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 sostrong that it proved too hard for him, and carried its master into theherring pond in spite of his teeth--where it is supposed he drank somewhatmore than his fill, so that he was drowned--in the same manner as one-eyedPolyphemus' sheep carried out of the den Ulysses and his companions. Thelike happened to the shepherds and all their gang, some laying hold ontheir beloved tup, this by the horns, t'other by the legs, a third by therump, and others by the fleece; till in fine they were all of them forcedto 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 themfrom swimming to the ship and saving themselves from drowning, preached andcanted to them all the while like any little Friar (Oliver) Maillard, oranother Friar John Burgess; laying before them rhetorical commonplacesconcerning the miseries of this life and the blessings and felicity of thenext; assuring them that the dead were much happier than the living in thisvale of misery, and promised to erect a stately cenotaph and honorary tombto every one of them on the highest summit of Mount Cenis at his returnfrom Lanternland; wishing them, nevertheless, in case they were not yetdisposed 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 setthem ashore safe and sound on some blessed land of Gotham, after a famousexample. 

The ship being cleared of Dingdong and his tups: Is there ever anothersheepish soul left lurking on board? cried Panurge. Where are those ofToby Lamb and Robin Ram that sleep while the rest are a-feeding? Faith, Ican'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 thatas formerly in war, on the day of battle, a double pay was commonlypromised the soldiers for that day; for if they overcame, there was enoughto pay them; and if they lost, it would have been shameful for them todemand 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 hadbeen saved. A fart for the money, said Panurge; have I not had above fiftythousand pounds' worth of sport? Come now, let's be gone; the wind isfair. Hark you me, my friend John; never did man do me a good turn, but Ireturned, or at least acknowledged it; no, I scorn to be ungrateful; Inever was, nor ever will be. Never did man do me an ill one without rueingthe day that he did it, either in this world or the next. I am not yet somuch a fool neither. Thou damn'st thyself like any old devil, quoth FriarJohn; 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 ofbeing akin in that country. 

We had still the wind at south-south-west, and had been a whole day withoutmaking land. On the third day, at the flies' uprising (which, you know, issome two or three hours after the sun's), we got sight of a triangularisland, very much like Sicily for its form and situation. It was calledthe Island of Alliances. 

The people there are much like your carrot-pated Poitevins, save only thatall of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped like an aceof 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 theyboasted so. 

You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing that, out of thefamily of the Fabii at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th ofFebruary, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since namedScelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, between theTarpeian rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of Etruriathree hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each other, withfive thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals, who were allslain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of Beccano. Nowfrom this same country of Ennasin, in case of need, above three hundredthousand, all relations and of one family, might march out. Their degreesof consanguinity and alliance are very strange; for being thus akin andallied to one another, we found that none was either father or mother, brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, son-in-law ordaughter-in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other; unless, truly, a tallflat-nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a little shitten-arsedgirl 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 awoman, my lean bit; the woman called him, my porpoise. Those, said FriarJohn, must needs stink damnably of fish when they have rubbed their baconone with the other. One, smiling on a young buxom baggage, said, Goodmorrow, dear currycomb. She, to return him his civility, said, The like toyou, 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. Anothergreeted 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 andthis hatchet are well matched. As we went on, I saw one who, calling hisshe-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 awench, 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 onecall his, my tripe, and she him, my faggot. Now I could not, for theheart'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 thesmallest 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 uglyrogue, mounted on a pair of high-heeled wooden slippers, meeting astrapping, fusty, squabbed dowdy, says he to her, How is't my top? She wasshort 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 besufficient 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 thesewords, Thank you, sweetmeat; she cried, There needs no thanks, sour-sauce. Saith Pantagruel, This is not altogether incongruous, for sweet meat musthave sour sauce. A wooden loggerhead said to a young wench, It is longsince 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 leaveof a she-relation of his, thus: Fare thee well, friend hole; shereparteed, Save thee, friend peg. Quoth Friar John, What could they saymore, were he all peg and she all hole? But now would I give something toknow 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, rustygun. I will not fail, said she, scourer. Do you reckon these two to beakin? said Pantagruel to the mayor. I rather take them to be foes. In ourcountry a woman would take this as a mortal affront. Good people oft'other world, replied the mayor, you have few such and so near relationsas this gun and scourer are to one another; for they both come out of oneshop. What, was the shop their mother? quoth Panurge. What mother, saidthe 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 thatlive on t'other side the water, poor rogues, booted with wisps of hay, mayindeed have such; but we scorn it. The good Pantagruel stood gazing andlistening; but at those words he had like to have lost all patience. (HereMotteux adds an aside--'os kai nun o Ermeneutes. P. M. '). 

Having very exactly viewed the situation of the island and the way ofliving of the Enassed nation, we went to take a cup of the creature at atavern, where there happened to be a wedding after the manner of thecountry. Bating that shocking custom, there was special good cheer. 

While we were there, a pleasant match was struck up betwixt a female calledPear (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 muchcommended. ) In our country we say, Il ne fut onques tel mariage, qu'est dela poire et du fromage; there is no match like that made between the pearand the cheese; and in many other places good store of such bargains havebeen driven. Besides, when the women are at their last prayers, it is tothis day a noted saying, that after cheese comes nothing. 

In another room I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young pliablebuskin. Pantagruel was told that young buskin took old boot to have and tohold because she was of special leather, in good case, and waxed, seared, liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had been for thefisherman that went to bed with his boots on. In another room below, I sawa young brogue taking a young slipper for better for worse; which, theytold us, was neither for the sake of her piety, parts, or person, but forthe 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 oddalliancers with their ace-of-clubs snouts, and having taken height by thesun, stood in for Chely, a large, fruitful, wealthy, and well-peopledisland. King St. Panigon, first of the name, reigned there, and, attendedby the princes his sons and the nobles of his court, came as far as theport to receive Pantagruel, and conducted him to his palace; near the gateof which the queen, attended by the princesses her daughters and the courtladies, received us. Panigon directed her and all her retinue to salutePantagruel and his men with a kiss; for such was the civil custom of thecountry; and they were all fairly bussed accordingly, except Friar John, who stepped aside and sneaked off among the king's officers. Panigon usedall the entreaties imaginable to persuade Pantagruel to tarry there thatday and the next; but he would needs be gone, and excused himself upon theopportunity of wind and weather, which, being oftener desired than enjoyed, ought not to be neglected when it comes. Panigon, having heard thesereasons, let us go, but first made us take off some five-and-twenty orthirty bumpers each. 

Pantagruel, returning to the port, missed Friar John, and asked why he wasnot with the rest of the company. Panurge could not tell how to excusehim, and would have gone back to the palace to call him, when Friar Johnovertook them, and merrily cried, Long live the noble Panigon! As I lovemy belly, he minds good eating, and keeps a noble house and a daintykitchen. I have been there, boys. Everything goes about by dozens. I wasin good hopes to have stuffed my puddings there like a monk. What! alwaysin a kitchen, friend? said Pantagruel. By the belly of St. Cramcapon, quoth the friar, I understand the customs and ceremonies which are usedthere much better than all the formal stuff, antique postures, andnonsensical fiddle-faddle that must be used with those women, magni magna, shittencumshita, cringes, grimaces, scrapes, bows, and congees; doublehonours this way, triple salutes that way, the embrace, the grasp, thesqueeze, the hug, the leer, the smack, baso las manos de vostra merce, devostra maesta. You are most tarabin, tarabas, Stront; that's downrightDutch. Why all this ado? I don't say but a man might be for a bit by thebye and away, to be doing as well as his neighbours; but this little nastycringing and courtesying made me as mad as any March devil. You talk ofkissing ladies; by the worthy and sacred frock I wear, I seldom ventureupon 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 andneighbour of his, together with all the gentlemen and ladies in theneighbourhood. Now some of the latter expecting his coming, dressed thepages in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies; then orderedthem to meet my lord at his coming near the drawbridge. So thecomplimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads withgreat formality. At last the ladies, who minded passages in the gallery, burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off theirdress; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he durst makeup to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they had disguisedthe pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were certainly the veryfootmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised. Odds fish, da jurandi, why do not we rather remove our humanities into some good warm kitchen ofGod, that noble laboratory, and there admire the turning of the spits, theharmonious rattling of the jacks and fenders, criticise on the position ofthe lard, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert, and the order of the wine service? Beati immaculati in via. Matter ofbreviary, 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 rightmonking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put me in mindof some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in acompany of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeingthe antiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we viewed the situation andbeauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of thechurches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them theirdue; 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 devilyou can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part Ihave looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think myeyesight 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 feedthe birds. God and Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! inall this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yetI have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of acommonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down withthe exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right andleft, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as aspy 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, Icould have shown you above fourteen streets of roasting cooks, mostancient, savoury, and aromatic. I cannot imagine what kind of pleasure youcan have taken in gazing on the lions and Africans (so methinks you calltheir tigers) near the belfry, or in ogling the porcupines and estridges inthe Lord Philip Strozzi's palace. Faith and truth I had rather see a goodfat goose at the spit. This porphyry, those marbles are fine; I saynothing to the contrary; but our cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in mymind. These ancient statues are well made; I am willing to believe it;but, by St. Ferreol of Abbeville, we have young wenches in our countrywhich please me better a thousand times. 

What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found inkitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there? Is there not, said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in thekettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monksthere, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings? Or is it a naturalinduction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itselfleads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they willor 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 somewhatticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off scurvily; but Iwill tell you what I have heard. 

Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming into one of the tents, where hiscooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet Antagoras frying aconger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked him, Pray, Mr. Poet, wasHomer frying congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon? Antagorasreadily answered: But do you think, sir, that when Agamemnon did them hemade it his business to know if any in his camp were frying congers? Theking thought it an indecency that a poet should be thus a-frying in akitchen; and the poet let the king know that it was a more indecent thingfor a king to be found in such a place. I'll clap another story upon theneck of this, quoth Panurge, and will tell you what Breton Villandryanswered one day to the Duke of Guise. 

They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis against Charlesthe 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 resentthis as too rash and saucy; but Breton easily appeased him, and set themall a-laughing. Egad, my lord, quoth he, I kept out of harm's way; I wasall the while with your page Jack, skulking in a certain place where youhad not dared hide your head as I did. Thus discoursing, they got to theirships, and left the island of Chely. 

Chapter 4. XII. 

How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange wayof living among the Catchpoles. 

Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through Pettifogging, a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly tell what to makeon't. There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles, rogues that will hangtheir 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 ourservice 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 offolks 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 withtheir wives and children would be starved. This is just, quoth Panurge, like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towardsthe equinoctial circle unless they are soundly flogged. By St. Patrick'sslipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting meright, throw me off the saddle, in the devil's name. 

The way is this, said the interpreter. When a monk, levite, close-fistedusurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he sends tohim one of those catchpoles or apparitors, who nabs, or at least cites him, serves a writ or warrant upon him, thumps, abuses, and affronts himimpudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious instructions;insomuch, that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his brains, and is notmore stupid than a gyrin frog, he will find himself obliged either to applya faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal's jobbernowl, give him the gentlelash, 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 bastinadoeswere his real harvest; for the monk, levite, usurer, or lawyer will rewardhim roundly; and my gentleman must pay him such swingeing damages that hisacres must bleed for it, and he be in danger of miserably rotting within astone doublet, as if he had struck the king. 

Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this used by the Lord ofBasche. What is it? said Pantagruel. The Lord of Basche, said Panurge, was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his return from thelong war in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of the French, bravelydefended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the Second, was every daycited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit and for the sport and fancy ofthe fat prior of St. Louant. 

One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for heloved to be sometimes among them) he sent for one Loire, his baker, and hisspouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was also hisbutler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them before hisgentlemen and other servants: You all see how I am daily plagued withthese 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, orthe devil, rather than be thus eternally teased. Therefore, to be rid oftheir damned visits, hereafter, when any of them come here, be ready, youbaker and your wife, to make your personal appearance in my great hall, inyour wedding clothes, as if you were going to be affianced. Here, takethese 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 finesurplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wedthem. Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipeand tabor. The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; thenall of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give oneanother the remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow withyour 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 youcome to the catchpole's turn, thrash him thrice and threefold, as you woulda 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 withkid. Head, back, belly, and sides, give him blows innumerable; he thatgives him most shall be my best friend. Fear not to be called to anaccount about it; I will stand by you; for the blows must seem to be givenin 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 ofpeople daily resort to this castle. I have taken care of that, replied thelord. When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade, with a largebroad silver ring on his thumb, comes to the door, he is certainly acatchpole; the porter having civilly let him in, shall ring the bell; thenbe all ready, and come into the hall, to act the tragi-comedy whose plot Ihave now laid for you. 

That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old fat ruddycatchpole. Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men willdo, the porter soon found him out, by his large greasy spatterdashes, hisjaded hollow-flanked mare, his bagful of writs and informations dangling athis 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 bellbriskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on theirbest clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall, keeping theirgravities like a new-made judge. The dominie put on his surplice andstole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole, had him inthere, and made him suck his face a good while, while the gauntlets weredrawing 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 beswingeing 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 inthe hall in their proper equipage, sends for the vicar. Oudart comes withthe holy-water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into thehall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then servedBasche with a writ. Basche gave him grimace for grimace, slipped an angelinto his mutton-fist, and prayed him to assist at the contract andceremony; which he did. When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began tofly 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 lastsettled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one ofhis eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, hisomoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces; and all thisin jest, and no harm done. God wot how the levite belaboured him, hidingwithin the long sleeve of his canonical shirt his huge steel gauntlet linedwith 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 crawledhome to L'Isle Bouchart, well pleased and edified, however, with Basche'skind reception; and, with the help of the good surgeons of the place, livedas long as you would have him. From that time to this, not a word of thebusiness; the memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rungwith 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-eyedmare--Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his servants, into thearbour of his garden; had wine brought, attended with good store ofpasties, hams, fruit, and other table-ammunition, for a nunchion; drankwith them joyfully, and then told them this story:

Master Francis Villon in his old age retired to St. Maxent in Poitou, underthe patronage of a good honest abbot of the place. There to make sport forthe mob, he undertook to get the Passion acted, after the way, and in thedialect of the country. The parts being distributed, the play having beenrehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and aldermen that themystery might be ready after Niort fair, and that there only wantedproperties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the parts; so themayor and his brethren took care to get them. 

Villon, to dress an old clownish father greybeard, who was to represent Godthe father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscanfriars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole. Tickletoby refusedhim, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously forbiddento give or lend anything to players. Villon replied that the statutereached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games, and that he asked no more than what he had seen allowed at Brussels andother places. Tickletoby notwithstanding peremptorily bid him providehimself elsewhere if he would, and not to hope for anything out of hismonastical wardrobe. Villon gave an account of this to the players, as ofa 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 thefilly 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 theafternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his devils of the Passionthrough the town. They were all rigged with wolves', calves', and rams'skins, laced and trimmed with sheep's heads, bull's feathers, and largekitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles, whereat hangeddangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells, which made a horrid din. Someheld in their claws black sticks full of squibs and crackers; others hadlong lighted pieces of wood, upon which, at the corner of every street, they flung whole handfuls of rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire andsmoke. Having thus led them about, to the great diversion of the mob andthe dreadful fear of little children, he finally carried them to anentertainment 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 homefrom 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 notlend 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 chargehim home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks. Tickletoby beingcome 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 fillyfoal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so many realdevils, Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, houhho, hho, hhoi. Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely? The fillywas soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, tosquirt 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, tocurvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw downTickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with mightand main. Now his straps and stirrups were of cord; and on the right sidehis sandals were so entangled and twisted that he could not for the heart'sblood of him get out his foot. Thus he was dragged about by the fillythrough the road, scratching his bare breech all the way; she stillmultiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge andditch, insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so that his cocklebrains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross. Then his arms fellto pieces, one this way and the other that way; and even so were his legsserved 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 twistedsandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the rest. 

Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to hisdevils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely; I dareengage you'll top your parts. I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay, Montmorillon, Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, by gad, even those ofPoictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you. 

Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee that hereafter you will act rarelythis tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfullyhampered, bethwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole. From this dayI double your wages. As for you, my dear, said he to his lady, make yourgratifications 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 goodand cool. In the second place, you, Mr. Steward, take this silver basin; Igive it you freely. Then you, my gentlemen of the horse, take these twosilver-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 goldbuckles to them. Sir Oudart, this silver flagon falls to your share; thisother I give to the cooks. To the valets de chambre I give this silverbasket; to the grooms, this silver-gilt boat; to the porter, these twoplates; to the hostlers, these ten porringers. Trudon, take you thesesilver 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, Ihad rather bear in war one hundred blows on my helmet in the service of mycountry than be once cited by these knavish catchpoles merely to humourthis 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 toserve Basche with a writ at the fat prior's request, was no sooner at thegate but the porter smelt him out and rung the bell; at whose second pullall the family understood the mystery. Loire was kneading his dough; hiswife was sifting meal; Oudart was toping in his office; the gentlemen wereplaying at tennis; the Lord Basche at in-and-out with my lady; thewaiting-men and gentle-women at push-pin; the officers at lanterloo, and thepages at hot-cockles, giving one another smart bangs. They were allimmediately informed that a catchpole was housed. 

Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife theirnuptial badges; Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad; all madehaste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets. Basche went into theoutward 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 suitof the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know that he was apublic person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to the abbatialmitre, 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 havetasted some of my good Quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a weddingwhich 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 thehall. After which, Catchpole, well stuffed and moistened, came with Oudartto the place where all the actors in the farce stood ready to begin. Thesight of their game set them a-laughing, and the messenger of mischiefgrinned also for company's sake. Then the mysterious words were mutteredto and by the couple, their hands joined, the bride bussed, and allbesprinkled with holy water. While they were bringing wine and kickshaws, thumps began to trot about by dozens. The catchpole gave the leviteseveral 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 fellon the catchpole and mauled him like a devil; the junior gauntlets droppedon 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 thepurpose that he pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and wasbruised, thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck, breast, arms, and so forth. Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnivaltime play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole'smicrocosm. At last down he fell. 

They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of hisdoublet 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 youwhether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by his spouse and theable 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 notappear by the lean catchpole's bag that he had served his writ. So the fatprior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums for his garde ducorps, to summon my lord. The porter ringing the bell, the whole familywas overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue. Basche was at dinnerwith his lady and the gentlemen; so he sent for the catchpole, made him sitby him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat till their belliescracked with their breeches unbuttoned. The fruit being served, thecatchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited Basche. Baschekindly 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 hisbums he ordered four ducats for civility money. In the meantime all werewithdrawn for the farce. So Trudon gave the alarm with his tabor. Baschedesired the catchpole to stay and see one of his servants married, andwitness the contract of marriage, paying him his fee. The catchpoleslapdash was ready, took out his inkhorn, got paper immediately, and hisbums by him. 

Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with thegentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements. Oudart, inpontificalibus, 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 wineand comfits; on the other, white and orange-tawny-coloured favours weredistributed; 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 Bretonwine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean? You do not give oneanother the memento of the wedding. By St. Joseph's wooden shoe, all goodcustoms are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is scampered; and thenest, but the birds are flown. There are no true friends nowadays. Yousee how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling onaccount of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, is come to nothing. Theworld is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Nowcome on; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this. Thishe said, striking Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite. Thenthe 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 nineplaces. One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the otherhis 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, andcanine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were carefullyhid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of thecompany. So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpoleand his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell, complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincornifistibulated hisnether 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 signsbegged his pardon; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom made hismoan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with hisshoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was grown quiteesperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no smallloss of mistress bride. 

But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with hiskerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were notsatisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, andmorrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my poor eyes, but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed are commonlybeaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but drummers are wellentertained and never beaten. Now let Beelzebub e'en take the drum, tomake his devilship a nightcap. Brother, said the lame catchpole, neverfret 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 blesseddame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn. One of the equerries, who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limpingLord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the poutingjaw, and told him: What, Mr. Manhound, was it not enough thus to havemorcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our uppermembers with your botched mittens, but you must also apply suchmorderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurintimpaniments on ourshinbones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled shoes. Doyou 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 cryinglaughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not satisfied withdrubbing her without choice or distinction of members, but had also rudelyroused and toused her, pulled off her topping, and not having the fear ofher husband before his eyes, treacherouslytrepignemanpenillorifrizonoufresterfumbled tumbled and squeezed her lowerparts. The devil go with it, said Basche; there was much need indeed thatthis same Master King (this was the catchpole's name) should thus break mywife's back; however, I forgive him now; these are little nuptialcaresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me like an angel, anddrubbed 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 trustyesquires. But, said his lady, why hath he been so very liberal of hismanual kindness to me, without the least provocation? I assure you, I byno means like it; but this I dare say for him, that he hath the hardestknuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders. The steward held his left armin a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain. I think it was thedevil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials; shame on illluck; I must needs be meddling with a pox, and now see what I have got bythe bargain, both my arms are wretchedly engoulevezinemassed and bruised. Do you call this a wedding? By St. Bridget's tooth, I had rather be atthat of a Tom T--d-man. This is, o' my word, even just such another feastas 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 moreneed to complain, made their excuse as well as they could, protesting thatthey had no ill design in this dumbfounding; begging that, for goodnesssake, they would forgive them; and so, tho' they could hardly budge afoot, 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'IsleBouchart, publicly saying that since they were born they had never seen anhonester 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 tossedabout from post to pillar, since themselves had began the beating. Sothey lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after this. But fromthat time to this it was held for a certain truth that Basche's money wasmore pestilential, mortal, and pernicious to the catchpoles and bums thanwere formerly the aurum Tholosanum and the Sejan horse to those thatpossessed them. Ever since this he lived quietly, and Basche's weddinggrew 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 havealways the fear of God before our eyes. It had been better, saidEpistemon, if those gauntlets had fallen upon the fat prior. Since he tooka pleasure in spending his money partly to vex Basche, partly to see thosecatchpoles banged, good lusty thumps would have done well on his shavedcrown, 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 nobleblood, and for some time was rich; but had this tyrannical inclination, that whenever he went out of doors he caused his servants to fill theirpockets with gold and silver, and meeting in the street your sprucegallants and better sort of beaux, without the least provocation, for hisfancy, he used to strike them hard on the face with his fist; andimmediately after that, to appease them and hinder them from complaining tothe magistrates, he would give them as much money as satisfied themaccording to the law of the twelve tables. Thus he used to spend hisrevenue, beating people for the price of his money. By St. Bennet's sacredboot, 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 twentyducats; then said with a loud voice, in the hearing of a shoal of thenation of catchpoles, Who will earn twenty ducats for being beaten like thedevil? Io, Io, Io, said they all; you will cripple us for ever, sir, thatis most certain; but the money is tempting. With this they were allthronging who should be first to be thus preciously beaten. Friar Johnsingled him out of the whole knot of these rogues in grain, a red-snoutedcatchpole, who upon his right thumb wore a thick broad silver hoop, whereinwas set a good large toadstone. He had no sooner picked him out from therest, but I perceived that they all muttered and grumbled; and I heard ayoung 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 phizcarried away all the practice, and that if there were but a score and ahalf of bastinadoes to be got, he would certainly run away with eight andtwenty 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 thehome and frequently repeated application of one of the best members of afaggot, that I took him to be a dead man; then he gave him the twentyducats, which made the dog get on his legs, pleased like a little king ortwo. The rest were saying to Friar John, Sir, sir, brother devil, if itplease you to do us the favour to beat some of us for less money, we areall at your devilship's command, bags, papers, pens, and all. Red-snoutcried out against them, saying, with a loud voice, Body of me, you littleprigs, will you offer to take the bread out of my mouth? will you take mybargain over my head? would you draw and inveigle from me my clients andcustomers? Take notice, I summon you before the official this daysevennight; I will law and claw you like any old devil of Vauverd, that Iwill--Then turning himself towards Friar John, with a smiling and joyfullook, he said to him, Reverend father in the devil, if you have found me agood hide, and have a mind to divert yourself once more by beating yourhumble servant, I will bate you half in half this time rather than loseyour 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 ata pennyworth, I'll assure you. Friar John never heeded his proffers, buteven left them. The other catchpoles were making addresses to Panurge, Epistemon, Gymnast, and others, entreating them charitably to bestow upontheir carcasses a small beating, for otherwise they were in danger ofkeeping a long fast; but none of them had a stomach to it. Some timeafter, seeking fresh water for the ship's company, we met a couple of oldfemale catchpoles of the place, miserably howling and weeping in concert. Pantagruel had kept on board, and already had caused a retreat to besounded. Thinking that they might be related to the catchpole that wasbastinadoed, we asked them the occasion of their grief. They replied thatthey had too much cause to weep; for that very hour, from an exalted tripletree, two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cuta caper on nothing. Cut a caper on nothing, said Gymnast; my pages use tocut capers on the ground; to cut a caper on nothing should be hanging andchoking, 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 chokinghempen salad. They told us they had only borrowed, alias stolen, the toolsof the mass and hid them under the handle of the parish. This is a veryallegorical way of speaking, said Epistemon. 

Chapter 4. XVII. 

How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of the strangedeath of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills. 

That day Pantagruel came to the two islands of Tohu and Bohu, where thedevil 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 ofwindmills, which were his daily food. Whence it happened that somewhatbefore day, about the hour of his digestion, the greedy churl was takenvery ill with a kind of a surfeit, or crudity of stomach, occasioned, asthe physicians said, by the weakness of the concocting faculty of hisstomach, naturally disposed to digest whole windmills at a gust, yet unableto consume perfectly the pans and skillets; though it had indeed prettywell digested the kettles and pots, as they said they knew by thehypostases and eneoremes of four tubs of second-hand drink which he hadevacuated at two different times that morning. They made use of diversremedies, according to art, to give him ease; but all would not do; thedistemper prevailed over the remedies; insomuch that the famousWide-nostrils died that morning of so strange a death that I think you oughtno longer to wonder at that of the poet Aeschylus. It had been foretold himby the soothsayers that he would die on a certain day by the ruin ofsomething that should fall on him. The fatal day being come in its turn, heremoved himself out of town, far from all houses, trees, (rocks, ) or anyother things that can fall and endanger by their ruin; and strayed in alarge field, trusting himself to the open sky; there very secure, as hethought, unless indeed the sky should happen to fall, which he held to beimpossible. Yet they say that the larks are much afraid of it; for if itshould fall, they must all be taken. 

The Celts that once lived near the Rhine--they are our noble valiantFrench--in ancient times were also afraid of the sky's falling; for beingasked by Alexander the Great what they feared most in this world, hopingwell they would say that they feared none but him, considering his greatachievements, they made answer that they feared nothing but the sky'sfalling; however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy with so brave aking, if you believe Strabo, lib. 7, and Arrian, lib. I. 

Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears on the body of themoon, speaks of one Phenaces, who very much feared the moon should fall onthe earth, and pitied those that live under that planet, as the Aethiopiansand Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever happened to fall on them, andwould have feared the like of heaven and earth had they not been dulypropped up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the ancients believed, according to Aristotle's testimony, lib. 5, Metaphys. Notwithstanding allthis, 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 onhis head, dashed out his brains. 

Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another poet, I mean old jollyAnacreon, who was choked with a grape-stone. Nor at that of Fabius theRoman praetor, who was choked with a single goat's hair as he was suppingup a porringer of milk. Nor at the death of that bashful fool, who byholding in his wind, and for want of letting out a bum-gunshot, diedsuddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius. Nor at that of theItalian buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who in his epitaph complainsthat the bite of a she-puss on his little finger was the cause of hisdeath. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small aprick 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 firstcourse of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hungass got into the house, and seeing the figs on the table, without furtherinvitation soberly fell to. Philomenes coming into the room and nicelyobserving with what gravity the ass ate its dinner, said to the man, whowas come back, Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest ofours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wineto 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 spleentook that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor ofSpurius Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of abath. Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking hisgrinders with a sage-stalk. Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk andhale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which causes, perhaps, manynot to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident. Nor of the painterZeuxis, who killed himself with laughing at the sight of the antiquejobbernowl of an old hag drawn by him. Nor, in short, of a thousand moreof which authors write, as Varrius, Pliny, Valerius, J. Baptista Fulgosus, and Bacabery the elder. In short, Gaffer Wide-nostrils choked himself witheating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven by the adviceof physicians. 

They likewise told us there that the King of Cullan in Bohu had routed thegrandees 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 theislands of Teleniabin and Geleniabin, very fine and fruitful in ingredientsfor clysters; and then by the islands of Enig and Evig, on whose accountformerly 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; theywere 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 theCouncil of Chesil, to sift and garble some new articles of faith againstthe new heretics. Panurge was overjoyed to see them, being most certain ofgood luck for that day and a long train of others. So having courteouslysaluted the blessed fathers, and recommended the salvation of his precioussoul to their devout prayers and private ejaculations, he causedseventy-eight dozen of Westphalia hams, units of pots of caviare, tens ofBolonia sausages, hundreds of botargoes, and thousands of fine angels, forthe souls of the dead, to be thrown on board their ships. Pantagruel seemedmetagrabolized, dozing, out of sorts, and as melancholic as a cat. FriarJohn, who soon perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come thisunusual sadness; when the master, whose watch it was, observing thefluttering of the ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began toovercast, judged that we should have wind; therefore he bid the boatswaincall all hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, andcabin-boys, and even the passengers; made them first settle their topsails, take in their spritsail; then he cried, In with your topsails, lower theforesail, tallow under parrels, braid up close all them sails, strike yourtopmasts to the cap, make all sure with your sheeps-feet, lash your gunsfast. All this was nimbly done. Immediately it blowed a storm; the seabegan to roar and swell mountain-high; the rut of the sea was great, thewaves breaking upon our ship's quarter; the north-west wind blustered andoverblowed; boisterous gusts, dreadful clashing, and deadly scuds of windwhistled through our yards and made our shrouds rattle again. The thundergrumbled so horridly that you would have thought heaven had been tumblingabout our ears; at the same time it lightened, rained, hailed; the sky lostits transparent hue, grew dusky, thick, and gloomy, so that we had no otherlight than that of the flashes of lightning and rending of the clouds. Thehurricanes, flaws, and sudden whirlwinds began to make a flame about us bythe lightnings, fiery vapours, and other aerial ejaculations. Oh, how ourlooks were full of amazement and trouble, while the saucy winds did rudelylift up above us the mountainous waves of the main! Believe me, it seemedto us a lively image of the chaos, where fire, air, sea, land, and all theelements were in a refractory confusion. Poor Panurge having with the fullcontents of the inside of his doublet plentifully fed the fish, greedyenough of such odious fare, sat on the deck all in a heap, with his nose andarse together, most sadly cast down, moping and half dead; invoked andcalled to his assistance all the blessed he- and she-saints he could musterup; swore and vowed to confess in time and place convenient, and then bawledout frightfully, Steward, maitre d'hotel, see ho! my friend, my father, myuncle, prithee let us have a piece of powdered beef or pork; we shall drinkbut too much anon, for aught I see. Eat little and drink the more willhereafter 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 happythose that plant cabbages! O destinies, why did you not spin me for acabbage-planter? O how few are there to whom Jupiter hath been sofavourable as to predestinate them to plant cabbages! They have always onefoot on the ground, and the other not far from it. Dispute who will offelicity and summum bonum, for my part whosoever plants cabbages is now, bymy decree, proclaimed most happy; for as good a reason as the philosopherPyrrho, being in the same danger, and seeing a hog near the shore eatingsome scattered oats, declared it happy in two respects; first, because ithad plenty of oats, and besides that, was on shore. Ha, for a divine andprincely habitation, commend me to the cows' floor. 

Murder! This wave will sweep us away, blessed Saviour! O my friends! alittle vinegar. I sweat again with mere agony. Alas! the mizen-sail'ssplit, the gallery's washed away, the masts are sprung, themaintop-masthead dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shroudsare 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 havethis wreck? Friend, lend me here behind you one of these whales. Yourlantern is fallen, my lads. Alas! do not let go the main-tack nor thebowline. I hear the block crack; is it broke? For the Lord's sake, let ushave 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 SirAstrophil, and tell us, if you can, whence comes this storm. My heart'ssunk 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 andfear. 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 AlmightyDeliverer, and prayed publicly with fervent devotion, by the pilot's adviceheld tightly the mast of the ship. Friar John had stripped himself to hiswaistcoat, to help the seamen. Epistemon, Ponocrates, and the rest did asmuch. 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 notbecome thee much better to lend us here a helping hand than to lie lowinglike a cow, as thou dost, sitting on thy stones like a bald-breechedbaboon? Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, returned Panurge; Friar John, myfriend, my good father, I am drowning, my dear friend! I drown! I am adead man, my dear father in God; I am a dead man, my friend; your cuttinghanger cannot save me from this; alas! alas! we are above ela. Above thepitch, out of tune, and off the hinges. Be, be, be, bou, bous. Alas! weare now above g sol re ut. I sink, I sink, ha, my father, my uncle, myall. 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 myhead. Would to heaven I were now with those good holy fathers bound forthe council whom we met this morning, so godly, so fat, so merry, so plumpand comely. Holos, bolos, holas, holas, alas! This devilish wave (meaculpa Deus), I mean this wave of God, will sink our vessel. Alas! FriarJohn, my father, my friend, confession. Here I am down on my knees;confiteor; your holy blessing. Come hither and be damned, thou pitifuldevil, and help us, said Friar John (who fell a-swearing and cursing like atinker), in the name of thirty legions of black devils, come; will youcome? Do not let us swear at this time, said Panurge; holy father, myfriend, 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 giveeighteen hundred thousand crowns to anyone that will set me on shore, allberayed and bedaubed as I am now. If ever there was a man in my country inthe like pickle. Confiteor, alas! a word or two of testament or codicil atleast. A thousand devils seize the cuckoldy cow-hearted mongrel, criedFriar John. Ods-belly, art thou talking here of making thy will now we arein danger, and it behoveth us to bestir our stumps lustily, or never? Wiltthou come, ho devil? Midshipman, my friend; O the rare lieutenant; hereGymnast, here on the poop. We are, by the mass, all beshit now; our lightis 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 wereborn to perish? Oh! ho! good people, I drown, I die. Consummatum est. Iam sped--Magna, gna, gna, said Friar John. Fie upon him, how ugly theshitten howler looks. Boy, younker, see hoyh. Mind the pumps or the devilchoke thee. Hast thou hurt thyself? Zoons, here fasten it to one of theseblocks. On this side, in the devil's name, hay--so, my boy. Ah, FriarJohn, 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, myfriends. I die in charity with all the world. Farewell, in manus. Bohusbohous, bhousowauswaus. St. Michael of Aure! St. Nicholas! now, now ornever, I here make you a solemn vow, and to our Saviour, that if you standby me this time, I mean if you set me ashore out of this danger, I willbuild you a fine large little chapel or two, between Quande and Montsoreau, where neither cow nor calf shall feed. Oh ho, oh ho. Above eighteenpailfuls 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 theblood, the flesh, the belly, the head, if I hear thee again howling, thoucuckoldy cur, I'll maul thee worse than any sea-wolf. Ods-fish, why don'twe take him up by the lugs and throw him overboard to the bottom of thesea? Hear, sailor; ho, honest fellow. Thus, thus, my friend, hold fastabove. In truth, here is a sad lightning and thundering; I think that allthe devils are got loose; it is holiday with them; or else MadameProserpine 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 ofweather. 

Oh, said Panurge, you sin, Friar John, my former crony! former, I say, forat this time I am no more, you are no more. It goes against my heart totell it you; for I believe this swearing doth your spleen a great deal ofgood; as it is a great ease to a wood-cleaver to cry hem at every blow, andas one who plays at ninepins is wonderfully helped if, when he hath notthrown his bowl right, and is like to make a bad cast, some ingeniousstander-by leans and screws his body halfway about on that side which thebowl should have took to hit the pins. Nevertheless, you offend, my sweetfriend. 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 ofthe gods Cabiri, so much celebrated by Orpheus, Apollonius, Pherecydes, Strabo, Pausanias, and Herodotus were always secure in time of storm. Hedotes, he raves, the poor devil! A thousand, a million, nay, a hundredmillion of devils seize the hornified doddipole. Lend's a hand here, hoh, tiger, wouldst thou? Here, on the starboard side. Ods-me, thou buffalo'shead stuffed with relics, what ape's paternoster art thou muttering andchattering here between thy teeth? That devil of a sea-calf is the causeof 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 witha vengeance, and chastise thee like any tempestative devil. Here, mate, mylad, hold fast, till I have made a double knot. O brave boy! Would toheaven thou wert abbot of Talemouze, and that he that is were guardian ofCroullay. Hold, brother Ponocrates, you will hurt yourself, man. Epistemon, prithee stand off out of the hatchway. Methinks I saw thethunder 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 aram. Nay, by G--, a little more would have washed me clear away into thecurrent. I think all the legions of devils hold here their provincialchapter, or are polling, canvassing, and wrangling for the election of anew 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 fireand water left. Bou, bou, bou, bous, bous, bous. Would it were thepleasure of the worthy divine bounty that I were at this present hour inthe close at Seuille, or at Innocent's the pastry-cook over against thepainted wine-vault at Chinon, though I were to strip to my doublet, andbake the petti-pasties myself. 

Honest man, could not you throw me ashore? you can do a world of goodthings, they say. I give you all Salmigondinois, and my large shore fullof whelks, cockles, and periwinkles, if, by your industry, I ever set footon firm ground. Alas, alas! I drown. Harkee, my friends, since we cannotget safe into port, let us come to an anchor in some road, no matterwhither. 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 pleaseyou. Let us know how many fathom water we are in. Sound, friend, in theLord Harry's name. Let us know whether a man might here drink easilywithout stooping. I am apt to believe one might. Helm a-lee, hoh, criedthe 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 lether drive. Is it come to that? said Pantagruel; our good Saviour then helpus. Let her lie under the sea, cried James Brahier, our chief mate; lether drive. To prayers, to prayers; let all think on their souls, and fallto 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 thisside, said Friar John, in the devil's name. Let her drive, for the Lord'ssake unhang the rudder; hoh, let her drive, let her drive, and let usdrink, 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 devilout 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); staya little here; haul, friend, thus. Odzoons, here is a deal of hail andthunder to no purpose. Hold fast above, I pray you. When have weAll-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 buttermilkfor the nonce. Oh, what a good friend I lose in him. Alas, alas! this isanother gats-bout than last year's. We are falling out of Scylla intoCharybdis. Oho! I drown. Confiteor; one poor word or two by way oftestament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr. Abstractor, my crony, my Achates, Xenomanes, my all. Alas! I drown; two words of testament hereupon this ladder. 

Chapter 4. XXI. 

A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the subject ofmaking testaments at sea. 

To make one's last will, said Epistemon, at this time that we ought tobestir 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'smen, who, at their coming into the Gauls, were mightily busied in makingwills and codicils; bemoaned their fortune and the absence of their spousesand friends at Rome, when it was absolutely necessary for them to run totheir 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 wascalling on the strong-backed deity, Hercules, might and main, to help himat a dead lift, but all the while forgot to goad on his oxen and lay hisshoulder to the wheels, as it behoved him; as if a Lord have mercy upon usalone would have got his cart out of the mire. 

What will it signify to make your will now? for either we shall come off ordrown for it. If we 'scape, it will not signify a straw to us; fortestaments 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 transmitit 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 thefresco, on the evening will find it, and take care to have it proved andfulfilled; nay, and have some stately cenotaph erected to my memory, asDido had to that of her goodman Sichaeus; Aeneas to Deiphobus, upon theTrojan shore, near Rhoete; Andromache to Hector, in the city of Buthrot;Aristotle to Hermias and Eubulus; the Athenians to the poet Euripides; theRomans to Drusus in Germany, and to Alexander Severus, their emperor, inthe Gauls; Argentier to Callaischre; Xenocrates to Lysidices; Timares tohis son Teleutagoras; Eupolis and Aristodice to their son Theotimus;Onestus to Timocles; Callimachus to Sopolis, the son of Dioclides; Catullusto his brother; Statius to his father; Germain of Brie to Herve, the Bretontarpaulin. 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-royalsand cauliflowers cover thy bum and turd-barrel instead of breeches andcodpiece. Codsooks, our ship is almost overset. Ods-death, how shall weclear her? it is well if she do not founder. What a devilish sea thereruns! She'll neither try nor hull; the sea will overtake her, so we shallnever 'scape; the devil 'scape me. Then Pantagruel was heard to make a sadexclamation, saying, with a loud voice, Lord save us, we perish; yet not aswe would have it, but thy holy will be done. The Lord and the blessedVirgin be with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown; be be be bous, bebous, bous; in manus. Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safeon shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make shift to sound theharp, if it be not unstrung. Let nineteen legions of black devils seizeme, said Friar John. (The Lord be with us! whispered Panurge, between hischattering teeth. ) If I come down to thee, I'll show thee to some purposethat the badge of thy humanity dangles at a calf's breech, thou ragged, horned, cuckoldy booby--mgna, mgnan, mgnan--come hither and help us, thougreat weeping calf, or may thirty millions of devils leap on thee. Wiltthou come, sea-calf? Fie; how ugly the howling whelp looks. What, alwaysthe same ditty? Come on now, my bonny drawer. This he said, opening hisbreviary. 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 allthis 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 bedamned for whipping poor little innocent wretches their scholars, he is, upon my honour, by this time fixed within Ixion's wheel, lashing thecrop-eared, bobtailed cur that gives it motion. If they are saved forhaving 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 upa good spirit, boys, 'tis within a kenning. So! we are not far from aport. --I see the sky clearing up to the northwards. --Look to thesouth-east! Courage, my hearts, said the pilot; now she'll bear the hullockof a sail; the sea is much smoother; some hands aloft to the maintop. Putthe helm a-weather. Steady! steady! Haul your after-mizen bowlines. Haul, haul, haul! Thus, thus, and no near. Mind your steerage; bring yourmain-tack aboard. Clear your sheets; clear your bowlines; port, port. Helma-lee. Now to the sheet on the starboard side, thou son of a whore. Thouart mightily pleased, honest fellow, quoth Friar John, with hearing makemention of thy mother. Luff, luff, cried the quartermaster that conned theship, 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. Helma-weather. That's well said and thought on. Methinks the storm is almostover. It was high time, faith; however, the Lord be thanked. Our devilsbegin to scamper. Out with all your sails. Hoist your sails. Hoist. That is spoke like a man, hoist, hoist. Here, a God's name, honestPonocrates; thou art a lusty fornicator; the whoreson will get none butboys. 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 allthis while, for it is holiday. Vea, vea, vea! huzza! This shout of theseaman is not amiss, and pleases me, for it is holiday. Keep her fullthus. Good. Cheer up, my merry mates all, cried out Epistemon; I seealready Castor on the right. Be, be, bous, bous, bous, said Panurge; I ammuch afraid it is the bitch Helen. It is truly Mixarchagenas, returnedEpistemon, if thou likest better that denomination, which the Argives givehim. Ho, ho! I see land too; let her bear in with the harbour; I see agood many people on the beach; I see a light on an obeliscolychny. Shortenyour sails, said the pilot; fetch the sounding line; we must double thatpoint 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 ourfleet; 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; ifever thou taste a drop of it, let the devil's dam taste me, thou ballockydevil. Here, honest soul, here's a full sneaker of the very best. Bringthe 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 ourselvesagain. Do you see yonder, close by our ship, two barks, three sloops, fiveships, eight pinks, four yawls, and six frigates making towards us, sent bythe good people of the neighbouring island to our relief? But who is thisUcalegon below, that cries and makes such a sad moan? Were it not that Ihold the mast firmly with both my hands, and keep it straighter than twohundred tacklings--I would--It is, said Friar John, that poor devilPanurge, who is troubled with a calf's ague; he quakes for fear when hisbelly's full. If, said Pantagruel, he hath been afraid during thisdreadful hurricane and dangerous storm, provided (waiving that) he hathdone his part like a man, I do not value him a jot the less for it. For asto fear in all encounters is the mark of a heavy and cowardly heart, asAgamemnon did, who for that reason is ignominiously taxed by Achilles withhaving dog's eyes and a stag's heart; so, not to fear when the case isevidently dreadful is a sign of want or smallness of judgment. Now, ifanything ought to be feared in this life, next to offending God, I will notsay it is death. I will not meddle with the disputes of Socrates and theacademics, that death of itself is neither bad nor to be feared, but I willaffirm that this kind of shipwreck is to be feared, or nothing is. For, asHomer saith, it is a grievous, dreadful, and unnatural thing to perish atsea. And indeed Aeneas, in the storm that took his fleet near Sicily, wasgrieved that he had not died by the hand of the brave Diomedes, and saidthat those were three, nay four times happy, who perished in theconflagration at Troy. No man here hath lost his life, the Lord ourSaviour be eternally praised for it! but in truth here is a ship sadly outof order. Well, we must take care to have the damage repaired. Take heedwe do not run aground and bulge her. 

Chapter 4. XXIII. 

How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over. 

What cheer, ho, fore and aft? quoth Panurge. Oh ho! all is well, the stormis over. I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is senton shore; for I would by all means a little untruss a point. Shall I helpyou still? Here, let me see, I will coil this rope; I have plenty ofcourage, 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 thattook us fore and aft somewhat altered my pulse. Down with your sails; wellsaid. How now, Friar John? you do nothing. Is it time for us to drinknow? Who can tell but St. Martin's running footman Belzebuth may still behatching us some further mischief? Shall I come and help you again? Porkand peas choke me, if I do heartily repent, though too late, not havingfollowed the doctrine of the good philosopher who tells us that to walk bythe 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 willdo 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 hadsaid, told him: You may believe, my lord, I had my share of fear as wellas Panurge; yet I spared no pains in lending my helping hand. I consideredthat, since by fatal and unavoidable necessity we must all die, it is theblessed will of God that we die this or that hour, and this or that kind ofdeath. Nevertheless, we ought to implore, invoke, pray, beseech, andsupplicate him; but we must not stop there; it behoveth us also to use ourendeavours on our side, and, as the holy writ saith, to co-operate withhim. 

You know what C. Flaminius, the consul, said when by Hannibal's policy hewas penned up near the lake of Peruse, alias Thrasymene. Friends, said heto his soldiers, you must not hope to get out of this place barely by vowsor prayers to the gods; no, 'tis by fortitude and strength we must escapeand cut ourselves a way with the edge of our swords through the midst ofour enemies. 

Sallust likewise makes M. Portius Cato say this: The help of the gods isnot obtained by idle vows and womanish complaints; 'tis by vigilance, labour, and repeated endeavours that all things succeed according to ourwishes 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 justlyangry and incensed against him. The devil take me, said Friar John, --I'llgo his halves, quoth Panurge, --if the close of Seville had not been allgathered, vintaged, gleaned, and destroyed, if I had only sung contrahostium insidias (matter of breviary) like all the rest of the monkingdevils, 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 herea-sweating and puffing to help with all my might this honest tar, first ofthe 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 inchesand 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 wellto 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 enoughon't. I mean none of your sheep's heart; but of wolf's heart--the courageof 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 invery good health, thanks to heaven and yourselves; you are all heartilywelcome, and in good time. Let us go on shore. --Here, coxswain, get theladder over the gunnel; man the sides; man the pinnace, and get her by theship's side. Shall I lend you a hand here? I am stark mad for want ofbusiness, and would work like any two yokes of oxen. Truly this is a fineplace, and these look like a very good people. Children, do you want mestill 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 tofly. 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, thisFriar 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, saidPantagruel, when somebody inquiring which is greater, the number of theliving or that of the dead, he asked them amongst which of the two theyreckoned those that are at sea, ingeniously implying that they arecontinually in danger of death, dying alive, and living die. Portius Catoalso said that there were but three things of which he would repent: ifever 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. Bythis dignified frock of mine, said Friar John to Panurge, friend, thou hastbeen afraid during the storm without cause or reason; for thou wert notborn to be drowned, but rather to be hanged and exalted in the air, or tobe roasted in the midst of a jolly bonfire. My lord, would you have a goodcloak for the rain; leave me off your wolf and badger-skin mantle; letPanurge but be flayed, and cover yourself with his hide. But do not comenear the fire, nor near your blacksmith's forges, a God's name; for in amoment 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 thevery bottom of the water, I'll engage you'll not be wet at all. Have somewinter boots made of it, they'll never take in a drop of water; makebladders 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, saidPantagruel, should be like the herb called true maiden's hair, which nevertakes wet nor moistness, but still keeps dry, though you lay it at thebottom of the water as long as you please; and for that reason is calledAdiantos. 

Friend Panurge, said Friar John, I pray thee never be afraid of water; thylife for mine thou art threatened with a contrary element. Ay, ay, repliedPanurge, but the devil's cooks dote sometimes, and are apt to make horridblunders as well as others; often putting to boil in water what wasdesigned to be roasted on the fire; like the head-cooks of our kitchen, whooften lard partridges, queests, and stock-doves with intent to roast them, one would think; but it happens sometimes that they e'en turn thepartridges into the pot to be boiled with cabbages, the queests with leekpottage, 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 vowedto Mons. St. Nicholas between Quande and Montsoreau, I honestly mean thatit shall be a chapel of rose-water, which shall be where neither cow norcalf shall be fed; for between you and I, I intend to throw it to thebottom of the water. Here is a rare rogue for you, said Eusthenes; here isa pure rogue, a rogue in grain, a rogue enough, a rogue and a half. He isresolved to make good the Lombardic proverb, Passato el pericolo, gabbatoel 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 theMacreons. 

Immediately after we went ashore at the port of an island which they calledthe island of the Macreons. The good people of the place received us veryhonourably. An old Macrobius (so they called their eldest elderman)desired Pantagruel to come to the town-house to refresh himself and eatsomething, but he would not budge a foot from the mole till all his menwere landed. After he had seen them, he gave order that they should allchange clothes, and that some of all the stores in the fleet should bebrought on shore, that every ship's crew might live well; which wasaccordingly done, and God wot how well they all toped and caroused. Thepeople of the place brought them provisions in abundance. ThePantagruelists returned them more; as the truth is, theirs were somewhatdamaged by the late storm. When they had well stuffed the insides of theirdoublets, Pantagruel desired everyone to lend their help to repair thedamage; which they readily did. It was easy enough to refit there; for allthe inhabitants of the island were carpenters and all such handicrafts asare seen in the arsenal at Venice. None but the largest island wasinhabited, having three ports and ten parishes; the rest being overrun withwood and desert, much like the forest of Arden. We entreated the oldMacrobius to show us what was worth seeing in the island; which he did; andin the desert and dark forest we discovered several old ruined temples, obelisks, pyramids, monuments, and ancient tombs, with divers inscriptionsand epitaphs; some of them in hieroglyphic characters; others in the Ionicdialect; some in the Arabic, Agarenian, Slavonian, and other tongues; ofwhich Epistemon took an exact account. In the interim, Panurge said toFriar John, Is this the island of the Macreons? Macreon signifies in Greekan old man, or one much stricken in years. What is that to me? said FriarJohn; 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 (Motteuxadds, 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 ofthe young. Therefore I do not know but this may be the bawdy or MackerelIsland, 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 Ionictongue, How, and by what industry and labour, Pantagruel got to their portthat day, there having been such blustering weather and such a dreadfulstorm at sea. Pantagruel told him that the Almighty Preserver of mankindhad regarded the simplicity and sincere affection of his servants, who didnot travel for gain or sordid profit, the sole design of their voyage beinga studious desire to know, see, and visit the Oracle of Bacbuc, and takethe word of the Bottle upon some difficulties offered by one of thecompany; nevertheless this had not been without great affliction andevident danger of shipwreck. After that, he asked him what he judged to bethe cause of that terrible tempest, and if the adjacent seas were thusfrequently 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 theheroes. 

The good Macrobius then answered, Friendly strangers, this island is one ofthe Sporades; not of your Sporades that lie in the Carpathian sea, but oneof 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 anddesolate, as you see. In this dark forest, above seventy-eight thousandPersian leagues in compass, is the dwelling-place of the demons and heroesthat 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 nomore; and now it is likely that at his death there arose this horriblestorm; for while they are alive all happiness attends both this and theadjacent islands, and a settled calm and serenity. At the death of everyone of them, we commonly hear in the forest loud and mournful groans, andthe whole land is infested with pestilence, earthquakes, inundations, andother calamities; the air with fogs and obscurity, and the sea with stormsand hurricanes. What you tell us seems to me likely enough, saidPantagruel. For as a torch or candle, as long as it hath life enough andis lighted, shines round about, disperses its light, delights those thatare near it, yields them its service and clearness, and never causes anypain or displeasure; but as soon as 'tis extinguished, its smoke andevaporation 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; butas soon as they leave them, both the continent and adjacent islands areannoyed with great commotions; in the air fogs, darkness, thunder, hail;tremblings, pulsations, agitations of the earth; storms and hurricanes atsea; together with sad complaints amongst the people, broaching ofreligions, changes in governments, and ruins of commonwealths. 

We had a sad instance of this lately, said Epistemon, at the death of thatvaliant and learned knight, William du Bellay; during whose life Franceenjoyed so much happiness, that all the rest of the world looked upon itwith envy, sought friendship with it, and stood in awe of its power; butsoon after his decease it hath for a considerable time been the scorn ofthe rest of the world. 

Thus, said Pantagruel, Anchises being dead at Drepani in Sicily, Aeneas wasdreadfully tossed and endangered by a storm; and perhaps for the samereason Herod, that tyrant and cruel King of Judaea, finding himself nearthe pangs of a horrid kind of death--for he died of a phthiriasis, devouredby vermin and lice; as before him died L. Sylla, Pherecydes the Syrian, thepreceptor of Pythagoras, the Greek poet Alcmaeon, and others--andforeseeing that the Jews would make bonfires at his death, caused all thenobles and magistrates to be summoned to his seraglio out of all thecities, towns, and castles of Judaea, fraudulently pretending that he hadsome things of moment to impart to them. They made their personalappearance; whereupon he caused them all to be shut up in the hippodrome ofthe seraglio; then said to his sister Salome and Alexander her husband: Iam certain that the Jews will rejoice at my death; but if you will observeand perform what I tell you, my funeral shall be honourable, and there willbe a general mourning. As soon as you see me dead, let my guards, to whomI have already given strict commission to that purpose, kill all thenoblemen and magistrates that are secured in the hippodrome. By thesemeans all Jewry shall, in spite of themselves, be obliged to mourn andlament, and foreigners will imagine it to be for my death, as if someheroic soul had left her body. A desperate tyrant wished as much when hesaid, When I die, let earth and fire be mixed together; which was as goodas to say, let the whole world perish. Which saying the tyrant Neroaltered, saying, While I live, as Suetonius affirms it. This detestablesaying, of which Cicero, lib. De Finib. , and Seneca, lib. 2, De Clementia, make mention, is ascribed to the Emperor Tiberius by Dion Nicaeus andSuidas. 

Chapter 4. XXVII. 

Pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls; and of the dreadfulprodigies that happened before the death of the late Lord de Langey. 

I would not, continued Pantagruel, have missed the storm that hath thusdisordered us, were I also to have missed the relation of these things toldus by this good Macrobius. Neither am I unwilling to believe what he saidof a comet that appears in the sky some days before such a decease. Forsome of those souls are so noble, so precious, and so heroic that heavengives us notice of their departing some days before it happens. And as aprudent physician, seeing by some symptoms that his patient draws towardshis 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, theymay admonish him to settle all things in his family, to tutor and instructhis children as much as he can, recommend his relict to his friends in herwidowhood, and declare what he knows to be necessary about a provision forthe 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 atthe same time kindly design should prognosticate to us here that in a fewdays one of those venerable souls is to leave her body and this terrestrialglobe. Not altogether unlike this was what was formerly done at Athens bythe judges of the Areopagus. For when they gave their verdict to cast orclear the culprits that were tried before them, they used certain notesaccording to the substance of the sentences; by Theta signifyingcondemnation to death; by T, absolution; by A, ampliation or a demur, whenthe case was not sufficiently examined. Thus having publicly set up thoseletters, they eased the relations and friends of the prisoners, and suchothers as desired to know their doom, of their doubts. Likewise by thesecomets, as in ethereal characters, the heavens silently say to us, Makehaste, mortals, if you would know or learn of the blessed souls anythingconcerning the public good or your private interest; for their catastropheis near, which being past, you will vainly wish for them afterwards. 

The good-natured heavens still do more; and that mankind may be declaredunworthy of the enjoyment of those renowned souls, they fright and astonishus with prodigies, monsters, and other foreboding signs that thwart theorder of nature. 

Of this we had an instance several days before the decease of the heroicsoul of the learned and valiant Chevalier de Langey, of whom you havealready spoken. I remember it, said Epistemon; and my heart still trembleswithin me when I think on the many dreadful prodigies that we saw five orsix 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 otherfriends and servants to the deceased, all dismayed, gazed on each otherwithout uttering one word; yet not without foreseeing that France would ina short time be deprived of a knight so accomplished and necessary for itsglory and protection, and that heaven claimed him again as its due. By thetufted tip of my cowl, cried Friar John, I am e'en resolved to become ascholar before I die. I have a pretty good headpiece of my own, you mustown. Now pray give me leave to ask you a civil question. Can these sameheroes or demigods you talk of die? May I never be damned if I was not somuch a lobcock as to believe they had been immortal, like so many fineangels. Heaven forgive me! but this most reverend father, Macroby, tellsus 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 thehard-hearted Fates for the goddesses Hamadryades than there is for thosetrees that are preserved by them, which are good, sturdy, downright oaks;whence they derived their original, according to the opinion of Callimachusand Pausanias in Phoci. With whom concurs Martianus Capella. As for thedemigods, fauns, satyrs, sylvans, hobgoblins, aegipanes, nymphs, heroes, anddemons, several men have, from the total sum, which is the result of thedivers ages calculated by Hesiod, reckoned their life to be 9720 years; thatsum consisting of four special numbers orderly arising from one, the sameadded together and multiplied by four every way amounts to forty; theseforties, being reduced into triangles by five times, make up the total ofthe aforesaid number. See Plutarch, in his book about the Cessation ofOracles. 

This, said Friar John, is not matter of breviary; I may believe as littleor as much of it as you and I please. I believe, said Pantagruel, that allintellectual souls are exempted from Atropos's scissors. They are allimmortal, whether they be of angels, or demons, or human; yet I will tellyou a story concerning this that is very strange, but is written andaffirmed 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 toItaly in a ship freighted with divers goods and passengers, at night thewind failed 'em near the Echinades, some islands that lie between the Moreaand Tunis, and the vessel was driven near Paxos. When they were gotthither, some of the passengers being asleep, others awake, the rest eatingand drinking, a voice was heard that called aloud, Thamous! which crysurprised them all. This same Thamous was their pilot, an Egyptian bybirth, but known by name only to some few travellers. The voice was hearda second time calling Thamous, in a frightful tone; and none making answer, but trembling and remaining silent, the voice was heard a third time, moredreadful 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 himpublish 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 themselveswhether 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 theyshould proceed without mentioning a word on't, but if they chanced to bebecalmed he would publish what he had heard. Now when they were nearPalodes they had no wind, neither were they in any current. Thamous thengetting up on the top of the ship's forecastle, and casting his eyes on theshore, said that he had been commanded to proclaim that the great god Panwas dead. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when deep groans, greatlamentations, 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, andhaving heard him gave credit to his words. And inquiring of the learned inhis court and at Rome who was that Pan, he found by their relation that hewas the son of Mercury and Penelope, as Herodotus and Cicero in his thirdbook of the Nature of the Gods had written before. 

For my part, I understand it of that great Saviour of the faithful who wasshamefully put to death at Jerusalem by the envy and wickedness of thedoctors, priests, and monks of the Mosaic law. And methinks myinterpretation is not improper; for he may lawfully be said in the Greektongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that welive, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and inhim. He is the good Pan, the great shepherd, who, as the loving shepherdCorydon affirms, hath not only a tender love and affection for his sheep, but also for their shepherds. At his death, complaints, sighs, fears, andlamentations were spread through the whole fabric of the universe, whetherheavens, 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 ofTiberius Caesar. 

Pantagruel, having ended this discourse, remained silent and full ofcontemplation. A little while after we saw the tears flow out of his eyesas big as ostrich's eggs. God take me presently if I tell you one singlesyllable of a lie in the matter. 

Chapter 4. XXIX. 

How Pantagruel sailed by the Sneaking Island, where Shrovetide reigned. 

The jovial fleet being refitted and repaired, new stores taken in, theMacreons over and above satisfied and pleased with the money spent there byPantagruel, our men in better humour than they used to be, if possible, wemerrily 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 wouldgladly have seen him in person, had not Xenomanes advised him to thecontrary; first, because this would have been much out of our way, and thenfor 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-shankedmole-catcher; an overgrown bottler of hay; a mossy-chinned demi-giant, witha double shaven crown, of lantern breed; a very great loitering noddy-peakedyoungster, banner-bearer to the fish-eating tribe, dictator of mustard-land, flogger of little children, calciner of ashes, father and foster-father tophysicians, swarming with pardons, indulgences, and stations; a very honestman; 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 anyweddings; but, give the devil his due, he is the most industriouslarding-stick and skewer-maker in forty kingdoms. 

About six years ago, as I passed by Sneaking-land, I brought home a largeskewer from thence, and made a present of it to the butchers of Quande, whoset a great value upon them, and that for a cause. Some time or other, ifever we live to come back to our own country, I will show you two of themfastened on the great church porch. His usual food is pickled coats ofmail, salt helmets and head-pieces, and salt sallets; which sometimes makeshim piss pins and needles. As for his clothing, 'tis comical enough o'conscience, both for make and colour; for he wears grey and cold, nothingbefore, and nought behind, with the sleeves of the same. 

You will do me a kindness, said Pantagruel, if, as you have described hisclothes, food, actions, and pastimes, you will also give me an account ofhis shape and disposition in all his parts. Prithee do, dear cod, saidFriar John, for I have found him in my breviary, and then follow themovable holy days. With all my heart, answered Xenomanes; we may chance tohear more of him as we touch at the Wild Island, the dominions of the squabChitterlings, his enemies, against whom he is eternally at odds; and wereit not for the help of the noble Carnival, their protector and goodneighbour, this meagre-looked lozelly Shrovetide would long before thishave made sad work among them, and rooted them out of their habitation. Are these same Chitterlings, said Friar John, male or female, angels ormortals, women or maids? They are, replied Xenomanes, females in sex, mortal in kind, some of them maids, others not. The devil have me, saidFriar John, if I ben't for them. What a shameful disorder in nature, is itnot, to make war against women? Let's go back and hack the villain topieces. What! meddle with Shrovetide? cried Panurge, in the name ofBeelzebub, I am not yet so weary of my life. No, I'm not yet so mad asthat comes to. Quid juris? Suppose we should find ourselves pent upbetween 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 theChitterlings, 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 (atleast, 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'sThe fornix, like a casket. Fur-gown. The glandula pinealis, like a bag- The heart, like a cope. Pipe. The mediastine, like an earthenThe 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-tonguedThe 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'sThe 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'sThe loins, like a padlock. Budget. The ureters, like a pothook. The bones, like three-corneredThe emulgent veins, like two cheesecakes. Gilliflowers. The marrow, like a wallet. The spermatic vessels, like a The cartilages, like a field- cully-mully-puff. Tortoise, alias a mole. The parastata, like an inkpot. The glandules in the mouth, likeThe bladder, like a stone-bow. A pruning-knife. The neck, like a mill-clapper. The animal spirits, like swingeingThe mirach, or lower parts of the fisticuffs. Belly, like a high-crowned hat. The blood-fermenting, like aThe 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 glove. Ten-penny nails. 

And his nurse told me, that being married to Mid-lent, he only begot a goodnumber of local adverbs and certain double fasts. 

His memory he had like a scarf. His undertakings, like the ballastHis common sense, like a buzzing of a galleon. Of bees. His understanding, like a tornHis imagination, like the chime breviary. Of a set of bells. His notions, like snails crawlingHis thoughts, like a flight of star- out of strawberries. Lings. His will, like three filberts in aHis 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 ofHis 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 hisoutward parts, excepting the seven ribs which he had over and above thecommon shape of men. 

His toes were like a virginal on The peritoneum, or caul wherein an organ. His bowels were wrapped, likeHis 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'sHis member, like a slipper. Andirons. His purse, like an oil cruet. The fibulae, or lesser bones of hisHis 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 ColongesHis beard, like a lantern. Les Royaux in Poitou, andHis 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'sOn 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, orHis 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 ofShrovetide. 

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 wasWhen 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 anWhen he whistled, it was a whole entry of morrice-dancers. Scuttleful of green apes. When he broke wind, it was dunWhen 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, itWhen 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 nothingthough he worked; caroused sleeping, and slept carousing, with his eyesopen, like the hares in our country, for fear of being taken napping by theChitterlings, 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 clothesin ponds and rivers, fished in the air, and there used to catch decumanelobsters; hunted at the bottom of the herring-pond, and caught thereibexes, stamboucs, chamois, and other wild goats; used to put out the eyesof all the crows which he took sneakingly; feared nothing but his ownshadow and the cries of fat kids; used to gad abroad some days, like atruant schoolboy; played with the ropes of bells on festival days ofsaints; made a mallet of his fist, and writ on hairy parchmentprognostications and almanacks with his huge pin-case. 

Is that the gentleman? said Friar John. He is my man; this is the veryfellow 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 aman. 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 ifever I heard a word of them. I'll tell you what I read of them in someancient apologues, replied Pantagruel. 

Physis--that is to say, Nature--at her first burthen begat Beauty andHarmony without carnal copulation, being of herself very fruitful andprolific. Antiphysis, who ever was the counter part of Nature, immediately, out of a malicious spite against her for her beautiful andhonourable productions, in opposition begot Amodunt and Dissonance bycopulation with Tellumon. Their heads were round like a football, and notgently flatted on both sides, like the common shape of men. Their earsstood pricked up like those of asses; their eyes, as hard as those ofcrabs, and without brows, stared out of their heads, fixed on bones likethose of our heels; their feet were round like tennis-balls; their arms andhands turned backwards towards their shoulders; and they walked on theirheads, 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 shapewas handsomer and neater than that of the children of Physis, saying thatthus 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 ourfeet uppermost, and the head below them, was to imitate the Creator of theuniverse; the hair being like the roots, and the legs like the branches ofman; for trees are better planted by their roots than they could be by theirbranches. By this demonstration she implied that her children were muchmore 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, shepretended to prove that they were more justly turned towards the shoulders, because that part of the body ought not to be without defence, while theforepart is duly fenced with teeth, which a man cannot only use to chew, butalso to defend himself against those things that offend him. Thus, by thetestimony and astipulation of the brute beasts, she drew all the witlessherd and mob of fools into her opinion, and was admired by all brainless andnonsensical people. 

Since that, she begot the hypocritical tribes of eavesdropping dissemblers, superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots, the franticPistolets, (the demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva, ) the scrapers ofbenefices, apparitors with the devil in them, and other grinders andsqueezers of livings, herb-stinking hermits, gulligutted dunces of thecowl, church vermin, false zealots, devourers of the substance of men, andmany more other deformed and ill-favoured monsters, made in spite ofnature. 

Chapter 4. XXXIII. 

How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, near the WildIsland. 

About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied afar off a hugemonstrous physeter (a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool), thatcame right upon us, neighing, snorting, raised above the waves higher thanour 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 thepilot and to Xenomanes. 

By the pilot's advice the trumpets of the Thalamege were sounded to warnall the fleet to stand close and look to themselves. This alarm beinggiven, all the ships, galleons, frigates, brigantines, according to theirnaval discipline, placed themselves in the order and figure of an Y(upsilon), the letter of Pythagoras, as cranes do in their flight, and likean acute angle, in whose cone and basis the Thalamege placed herself readyto fight smartly. Friar John with the grenadiers got on the forecastle. 

Poor Panurge began to cry and howl worse than ever. Babille-babou, saidhe, shrugging up his shoulders, quivering all over with fear, there will bethe devil upon dun. This is a worse business than that t'other day. Letus fly, let us fly; old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan, described bythe noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job. It will swallow usall, ships and men, shag, rag, and bobtail, like a dose of pills. Alas! itwill make no more of us, and we shall hold no more room in its hellishjaws, than a sugarplum in an ass's throat. Look, look, 'tis upon us; letus wheel off, whip it away, and get ashore. I believe 'tis the veryindividual sea-monster that was formerly designed to devour Andromeda; weare 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 youhave a man be afraid but when there is so much cause? If your destiny besuch as Friar John was saying a while ago, replied Pantagruel, you ought tobe afraid of Pyroeis, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon, the sun's coach-horses, that breathe fire at the nostrils; and not of physeters, that spout nothingbut 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 prettyfancy. Ods-fish! did I not give you a sufficient account of the elements'transmutation, and the blunders that are made of roast for boiled, andboiled for roast? Alas! here 'tis; I'll go hide myself below. We are deadmen, every mother's son of us. I see upon our main-top that merciless hagAtropos, with her scissors new ground, ready to cut our threads all at onesnip. Oh! how dreadful and abominable thou art; thou hast drowned a goodmany beside us, who never made their brags of it. Did it but spout good, brisk, dainty, delicious white wine, instead of this damned bitter saltwater, one might better bear with it, and there would be some cause to bepatient; like that English lord, who being doomed to die, and had leave tochoose what kind of death he would, chose to be drowned in a butt ofmalmsey. Here it is. Oh, oh! devil! Sathanas! Leviathan! I cannotabide to look upon thee, thou art so abominably ugly. Go to the bar, gotake the pettifoggers. 

Chapter 4. XXXIV. 

How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel. 

The physeter, coming between the ships and the galleons, threw water bywhole tuns upon them, as if it had been the cataracts of the Nile inEthiopia. On the other side, arrows, darts, gleaves, javelins, spears, harping-irons, and partizans, flew upon it like hail. Friar John did notspare himself in it. Panurge was half dead for fear. The artillery roaredand thundered like mad, and seemed to gall it in good earnest, but did butlittle good; for the great iron and brass cannon-shot entering its skinseemed 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 isrecorded, that Commudus, the Roman emperor, could shoot with a bow sodexterously that at a good distance he would let fly an arrow through achild's fingers and never touch them. You also tell us of an Indianarcher, who lived when Alexander the Great conquered India, and was soskilful in drawing the bow, that at a considerable distance he would shoothis arrows through a ring, though they were three cubits long, and theiriron 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 ofthe industry of the ancient Franks, who were preferred to all others inpoint of archery; and when they hunted either black or dun beasts, used torub the head of their arrows with hellebore, because the flesh of thevenison struck with such an arrow was more tender, dainty, wholesome, anddelicious--paring off, nevertheless, the part that was touched round about. You also talk of the Parthians, who used to shoot backwards moredexterously than other nations forwards; and also celebrate the skill ofthe Scythians in that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, anambassador that made him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and fivearrows, without speaking one word; and being asked what those presentsmeant, and if he had commission to say anything, answered that he had not;which puzzled and gravelled Darius very much, till Gobrias, one of theseven captains that had killed the magi, explained it, saying to Darius:By these gifts and offerings the Scythians silently tell you that exceptthe Persians like birds fly up to heaven, or like mice hide themselves nearthe centre of the earth, or like frogs dive to the very bottom of ponds andlakes, they shall be destroyed by the power and arrows of the Scythians. 

The noble Pantagruel was, without comparison, more admirable yet in the artof shooting and darting; for with his dreadful piles and darts, nearlyresembling 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 oysterand 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 ariding-hood's lining, without soiling them a bit; turn over every leafof 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 firstblow he ran the physeter in at the forehead so furiously that he piercedboth its jaws and tongue; so that from that time to this it no more openedits guttural trapdoor, nor drew and spouted water. At the second blow heput out its right eye, and at the third its left; and we had all thepleasure 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 onestunned, blinded, and taking his leave of the world. Pantagruel, notsatisfied with this, let fly another dart, which took the monster under thetail likewise sloping; then with three other on the chine, in aperpendicular line, divided its flank from the tail to the snout at anequal 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 ofthe physeter seemed like the hulk of a galleon with three masts, joined bya competent dimension of its beams, as if they had been the ribs andchain-wales of the keel; which was a pleasant sight. The physeter thengiving up the ghost, turned itself upon its back, as all dead fishes do; andbeing thus overturned, with the beams and darts upside down in the sea, itseemed a scolopendra or centipede, as that serpent is described by theancient sage Nicander. 

Chapter 4. XXXV. 

How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, the ancient abode of theChitterlings. 

The boat's crew of the ship Lantern towed the physeter ashore on theneighbouring shore, which happened to be the Wild Island, to make ananatomical dissection of its body and save the fat of its kidneys, which, they said, was very useful and necessary for the cure of a certaindistemper, which they called want of money. As for Pantagruel, he took nomanner of notice of the monster; for he had seen many such, nay, bigger, inthe Gallic ocean. Yet he condescended to land in the Wild Island, to dryand refresh some of his men (whom the physeter had wetted and bedaubed), ata small desert seaport towards the south, seated near a fine pleasantgrove, out of which flowed a delicious brook of fresh, clear, and purlingwater. Here they pitched their tents and set up their kitchens; nor didthey spare fuel. 

Everyone having shifted as they thought fit, Friar John rang the bell, andthe cloth was immediately laid, and supper brought in. Pantagruel eatingcheerfully with his men, much about the second course perceived certainlittle sly Chitterlings clambering up a high tree near the pantry, as stillas so many mice. Which made him ask Xenomanes what kind of creatures thesewere, taking them for squirrels, weasels, martins, or ermines. They areChitterlings, replied Xenomanes. This is the Wild Island of which I spoketo you this morning; there hath been an irreconcilable war this long timebetween them and Shrovetide, their malicious and ancient enemy. I believethat the noise of the guns which we fired at the physeter hath alarmedthem, and made them fear their enemy was come with his forces to surprisethem, or lay the island waste, as he hath often attempted to do; though hestill came off but bluely, by reason of the care and vigilance of theChitterlings, who (as Dido said to Aeneas's companions that would havelanded at Carthage without her leave or knowledge) were forced to watch andstand upon their guard, considering the malice of their enemy and theneighbourhood of his territories. 

Pray, dear friend, said Pantagruel, if you find that by some honest meanswe may bring this war to an end, and reconcile them together, give menotice of it; I will use my endeavours in it with all my heart, and sparenothing on my side to moderate and accommodate the points in disputebetween 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 atleast a long truce among them; and I had certainly brought them to be goodfriends and neighbours if both one and the other parties would have yieldedto one single article. Shrovetide would not include in the treaty of peacethe wild puddings nor the highland sausages, their ancient gossips andconfederates. The Chitterlings demanded that the fort of Cacques might beunder their government, as is the Castle of Sullouoir, and that a parcel ofI 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 thatwere offered seemed too hard to either party. So the treaty broke off, andnothing was done. Nevertheless, they became less severe, and gentlerenemies than they were before; but since the denunciation of the nationalCouncil of Chesil, whereby they were roughly handled, hampered, and cited;whereby also Shrovetide was declared filthy, beshitten, and berayed, incase he made any league or agreement with them; they are grown wonderfullyinveterate, incensed, and obstinate against one another, and there is noway to remedy it. You might sooner reconcile cats and rats, or hounds andhares together. 

Chapter 4. XXXVI. 

How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado for Pantagruel. 

While Xenomanes was saying this, Friar John spied twenty or thirty youngslender-shaped Chitterlings posting as fast as they could towards theirtown, citadel, castle, and fort of Chimney, and said to Pantagruel, I smella 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 ourjunketing for a while, and put ourselves in a posture to give 'em abellyful of fighting, if they would be at that sport. There can be nofalse 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, andreturned presently; having discovered, on the left, an ambuscade of squabChitterlings; and on the right, about half a league from thence, a largebody of huge giant-like armed Chitterlings ranged in battalia along alittle hill, and marching furiously towards us at the sound of bagpipes, sheep's paunches, and bladders, the merry fifes and drums, trumpets, andclarions, hoping to catch us as Moss caught his mare. By the conjecture ofseventy-eight standards which we told, we guessed their number to be twoand forty thousand, at a modest computation. 

Their order, proud gait, and resolute looks made us judge that they werenone 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 withsmall arms, as we reckoned them at a distance, yet very sharp andcase-hardened. Their right and left wings were lined with a great number offorest puddings, heavy pattipans, and horse sausages, all of them tall andproper islanders, banditti, and wild. 

Pantagruel was very much daunted, and not without cause; though Epistemontold him that it might be the use and custom of the Chitterlingonians towelcome and receive thus in arms their foreign friends, as the noble kingsof France are received and saluted at their first coming into the chiefcities of the kingdom after their advancement to the crown. Perhaps, saidhe, it may be the usual guard of the queen of the place, who, having noticegiven her by the junior Chitterlings of the forlorn hope whom you saw onthe tree, of the arrival of your fine and pompous fleet, hath judged thatit was without doubt some rich and potent prince, and is come to visit youin person. 

Pantagruel, little trusting to this, called a council, to have their adviceat large in this doubtful case. He briefly showed them how this way ofreception with arms had often, under colour of compliment and friendship, been fatal. Thus, said he, the Emperor Antonius Caracalla at one timedestroyed the citizens of Alexandria, and at another time cut off theattendants of Artabanus, King of Persia, under colour of marrying hisdaughter, which, by the way, did not pass unpunished, for a while afterthis cost him his life. 

Thus Jacob's children destroyed the Sichemites, to revenge the rape oftheir sister Dinah. By such another hypocritical trick Gallienus, theRoman 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 lastput him to death. 

We find a thousand such instances in history; and King Charles VI. Isjustly commended for his prudence to this day, in that, coming backvictorious over the Ghenters and other Flemings to his good city of Paris, and when he came to Bourget, a league from thence, hearing that thecitizens with their mallets--whence they got the name of Maillotins--weremarched out of town in battalia, twenty thousand strong, he would not gointo the town till they had laid down their arms and retired to theirrespective homes; though they protested to him that they had taken armswith no other design than to receive him with the greater demonstration ofhonour 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 andpersons. 

The resolution of the council was that, let things be how they would, itbehoved the Pantagruelists to stand upon their guard. Therefore Carpalinand Gymnast were ordered by Pantagruel to go for the soldiers that were onboard the Cup galley, under the command of Colonel Maul-chitterling, andthose on board the Vine-tub frigate, under the command of ColonelCut-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. Bythis worthy frock of mine, quoth Friar John, thou hast a mind to slip thyneck out of the collar and absent thyself from the fight, thouwhite-livered son of a dunghill! Upon my virginity thou wilt never comeback. Well, there can be no great loss in thee; for thou wouldst do nothinghere but howl, bray, weep, and dishearten the good soldiers. I willcertainly come back, said Panurge, Friar John, my ghostly father, andspeedily too; do but take care that these plaguy Chitterlings do not boardour ships. All the while you will be a-fighting I will pray heartily foryour victory, after the example of the valiant captain and guide of thepeople of Israel, Moses. Having said this, he wheeled off. 

Then said Epistemon to Pantagruel: The denomination of these two colonelsof 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 foreseeand prognosticate our victory by the names of our colonels. 

This way of foretelling by names is not new; it was in old times celebratedand religiously observed by the Pythagoreans. Several great princes andemperors have formerly made good use of it. Octavianus Augustus, secondemperor 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 ofSerapis, at the sight and unexpected coming of a certain servant of hisnamed Basilides--that is, royal--whom he had left sick a great way behind, took hopes and assurance of obtaining the empire of the Romans. Regilianwas chosen emperor by the soldiers for no other reason but thesignification of his name. See the Cratylus of the divine Plato. (By mythirst, I will read it, said Rhizotome; I hear you so often quote it. ) Seehow the Pythagoreans, by reason of the names and numbers, conclude thatPatroclus was to fall by the hand of Hector; Hector by Achilles; Achillesby Paris; Paris by Philoctetes. I am quite lost in my understanding when Ireflect upon the admirable invention of Pythagoras, who by the number, either even or odd, of the syllables of every name, would tell you of whatside a man was lame, hulch-backed, blind, gouty, troubled with the palsy, pleurisy, or any other distemper incident to humankind; allotting evennumbers to the left (Motteux reads--'even numbers to the Right, and oddones 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 ageneral procession, in the presence of that good, virtuous, learned andjust president, Brian Vallee, Lord of Douhait. When there went by a man orwoman that was either lame, blind of one eye, or humpbacked, he had anaccount brought him of his or her name; and if the syllables of the namewere of an odd number, immediately, without seeing the persons, he declaredthem to be deformed, blind, lame, or crooked of the right side; and of theleft, if they were even in number; and such indeed we ever found them. 

By this syllabical invention, said Pantagruel, the learned have affirmedthat 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 theancients used to kneel the right foot); and that Venus was also woundedbefore Troy in the left hand, for her name in Greek is Aphrodite, of foursyllables; Vulcan lamed of his left foot for the same reason; Philip, Kingof Macedon, and Hannibal, blind of the right eye; not to speak ofsciaticas, broken bellies, and hemicranias, which may be distinguished bythis Pythagorean reason. 

But returning to names: do but consider how Alexander the Great, son ofKing Philip, of whom we spoke just now, compassed his undertaking merely bythe interpretation of a name. He had besieged the strong city of Tyre, andfor several weeks battered it with all his power; but all in vain. Hisengines and attempts were still baffled by the Tyrians, which made himfinally resolve to raise the siege, to his great grief; foreseeing thegreat stain which such a shameful retreat would be to his reputation. Inthis anxiety and agitation of mind he fell asleep and dreamed that a satyrwas 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 thesatyr still slipped from him, till at last, having penned him up into acorner, he took him. With this he awoke, and telling his dream to thephilosophers and sages of his court, they let him know that it was apromise of victory from the gods, and that he should soon be master ofTyre; the word satyros divided in two being sa Tyros, and signifying Tyreis thine; and in truth, at the next onset, he took the town by storm, andby a complete victory reduced that stubborn people to subjection. 

On the other hand, see how, by the signification of one word, Pompey fellinto despair. Being overcome by Caesar at the battle of Pharsalia, he hadno other way left to escape but by flight; which attempting by sea, hearrived near the island of Cyprus, and perceived on the shore near the cityof Paphos a beautiful and stately palace; now asking the pilot what was thename 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, asbeing assured of losing shortly his life; insomuch that his complaints, sighs, and groans were heard by the mariners and other passengers. Andindeed, a while after, a certain strange peasant, called Achillas, cut offhis head. 

To all these examples might be added what happened to L. Paulus Emiliuswhen the senate elected him imperator, that is, chief of the army whichthey sent against Perses, King of Macedon. That evening returning home toprepare for his expedition, and kissing a little daughter of his calledTrasia, she seemed somewhat sad to him. What is the matter, said he, mychicken? Why is my Trasia thus sad and melancholy? Daddy, replied thechild, Persa is dead. This was the name of a little bitch which she lovedmightily. Hearing this, Paulus took assurance of a victory over Perses. 

If time would permit us to discourse of the sacred Hebrew writ, we mightfind a hundred noted passages evidently showing how religiously theyobserved proper names and their significations. 

He had hardly ended this discourse, when the two colonels arrived withtheir soldiers, all well armed and resolute. Pantagruel made them a shortspeech, entreating them to behave themselves bravely in case they wereattacked; for he could not yet believe that the Chitterlings were sotreacherous; but he bade them by no means to give the first offence, givingthem 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 Itell you here, any more than if it were some tale of a tub. Well, well, Icannot help it. Believe it if you will; if you won't, let it alone. Formy part, I very well know what I say. It was in the Wild Island, in ourvoyage to the Holy Bottle. I tell you the time and place; what would youhave more? I would have you call to mind the strength of the ancientgiants 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 smallstrength, you may well think, and yet they were nothing but Chitterlingsfrom the waist downwards, or at least serpents, not to tell a lie for thematter. 

The serpent that tempted Eve, too, was of the Chitterling kind, and yet itis 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 someuniversities that this same tempter was the Chitterling called Ithyphallus, into which was transformed bawdy Priapus, arch-seducer of females inparadise, 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 thecontrary. The Himantopodes, a nation very famous in Ethiopia, according toPliny's description, are Chitterlings, and nothing else. If all this willnot satisfy your worships, or remove your incredulity, I would have youforthwith (I mean drinking first, that nothing be done rashly) visitLusignan, Parthenay, Vouant, Mervant, and Ponzauges in Poitou. There youwill find a cloud of witnesses, not of your affidavit-men of the rightstamp, but credible time out of mind, that will take their corporal oath, on Rigome's knuckle-bone, that Melusina their founder or foundress, whichyou please, was woman from the head to the prick-purse, and thencedownwards was a serpentine Chitterling, or if you'll have it otherwise, aChitterlingdized serpent. She nevertheless had a genteel and noble gait, imitated to this very day by your hop-merchants of Brittany, in theirpaspie and country dances. 

What do you think was the cause of Erichthonius's being the first inventorof coaches, litters, and chariots? Nothing but because Vulcan had begothim 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 thattime. 

The Scythian nymph, Ora, was likewise half woman and half Chitterling, andyet seemed so beautiful to Jupiter that nothing could serve him but he mustgive her a touch of his godship's kindness; and accordingly he had a braveboy by her, called Colaxes; and therefore I would have you leave offshaking your empty noddles at this, as if it were a story, and firmlybelieve 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 toPantagruel, Here will be a rare battle of hobby-horses, a pretty kind ofpuppet-show fight, for aught I see. Oh! what mighty honour and wonderfulglory will attend our victory! I would have you only be a bare spectatorof 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. Howcame Potiphar, who was head-cook of Pharaoh's kitchens, he that boughtJoseph, and whom the said Joseph might have made a cuckold if he had notbeen a Joseph; how came he, I say, to be made general of all the horse inthe kingdom of Egypt? Why was Nabuzardan, King Nebuchadnezzar's head-cook, chosen to the exclusion of all other captains to besiege and destroyJerusalem? I hear you, replied Pantagruel. By St. Christopher's whiskers, said Friar John, I dare lay a wager that it was because they had formerlyengaged Chitterlings, or men as little valued; whom to rout, conquer, anddestroy, cooks are without comparison more fit than cuirassiers andgendarmes 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 thefacetious and merry sayings of Cicero. During the more than civil warsbetween Caesar and Pompey, though he was much courted by the first, henaturally leaned more to the side of the latter. Now one day hearing thatthe Pompeians in a certain rencontre had lost a great many men, he took afancy to visit their camp. There he perceived little strength, lesscourage, but much disorder. From that time, foreseeing that things wouldgo ill with them, as it since happened, he began to banter now one and thenanother, and be very free of his cutting jests; so some of Pompey'scaptains, playing the good fellows to show their assurance, told him, Doyou see how many eagles we have yet? (They were then the device of theRomans in war. ) They might be of use to you, replied Cicero, if you had todo with magpies. 

Thus, seeing we are to fight Chitterlings, pursued Pantagruel, you inferthence 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 theevent 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 andtriumph this day, my lads; to your arms are reserved such achievements asnever yet were performed within the memory of man. Ods-belly, do they makenothing of the valiant cooks? Let us go fight yonder fornicatingChitterlings! I'll be your captain. But first let's drink, boys. Comeon! let us be of good cheer. Noble captain, returned the kitchen tribe, this was spoken like yourself; bravely offered. Huzza! we are all at yourexcellency's command, and we live and die by you. Live, live, said FriarJohn, 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 ourselvesin order; Nabuzardan's the word. 

Chapter 4. XL. 

How Friar John fitted up the sow; and of the valiant cooks that went intoit. 

Then, by Friar John's order, the engineers and their workmen fitted up thegreat sow that was in the ship Leathern Bottle. It was a wonderfulmachine, so contrived that, by means of large engines that were round aboutit in rows, it throw'd forked iron bars and four-squared steel bolts; andin 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 whichBergerac 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, asthe 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, alarding-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'sname was Gaillardlard, in the same manner as you use to say idolatrous foridololatrous. 

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 tochamber-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 thuscalled 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 roastedconeys, ducks, fresh pork, poached eggs, salt fish, and a thousand othersuch 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, olddogs at mischief, and ready to fight stoutly. Friar John ever and anonwaving his huge scimitar, brought up the rear, and double-locked the doorson the inside. 

Chapter 4. XLI. 

How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees. 

The Chitterlings advanced so near that Pantagruel perceived that theystretched their arms and already began to charge their lances, which causedhim to send Gymnast to know what they meant, and why they thus, without theleast provocation, came to fall upon their old trusty friends, who hadneither said nor done the least ill thing to them. Gymnast being advancednear their front, bowed very low, and said to them as loud as ever hecould: 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 havesince 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 littlesquab Sausage, starting out of the front of their main body, would havegriped him by the collar. By the helmet of Mars, said Gymnast, I willswallow thee; but thou shalt only come in in chips and slices; for, big asthou art, thou couldst never come in whole. This spoke, he lugs out histrusty sword, Kiss-mine-arse (so he called it) with both his fists, and cutthe Sausage in twain. Bless me, how fat the foul thief was! it puts me inmind of the huge bull of Berne, that was slain at Marignan when the drunkenSwiss were so mauled there. Believe me, it had little less than fourinches' lard on its paunch. 

The Sausage's job being done, a crowd of others flew upon Gymnast, and hadmost scurvily dragged him down when Pantagruel with his men came up to hisrelief. Then began the martial fray, higgledy-piggledy. Maul-chitterlingdid maul chitterlings; Cut-pudding did cut puddings; Pantagruel did breakthe Chitterlings at the knees; Friar John played at least in sight withinhis sow, viewing and observing all things; when the Pattipans that lay inambuscade most furiously sallied out upon Pantagruel. 

Friar John, who lay snug all this while, by that time perceiving the routand hurlyburly, set open the doors of his sow and sallied out with hismerry 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 mostfrightfully, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan. Thus shouting and hootingthey fought like dragons, and charged through the Pattipans and Sausages. The Chitterlings perceiving this fresh reinforcement, and that the otherswould be too hard for 'em, betook themselves to their heels, scampering offwith full speed, as if the devil had come for them. Friar John, with aniron crow, knocked them down as fast as hops; his men, too, were notsparing on their side. Oh, what a woeful sight it was! the field was allover strewed with heaps of dead or wounded Chitterlings; and historyrelates that had not heaven had a hand in it, the Chitterling tribe hadbeen totally routed out of the world by the culinary champions. But therehappened a wonderful thing, you may believe as little or as much of it asyou please. 

From the north flew towards us a huge, fat, thick, grizzly swine, with longand large wings, like those of a windmill; its plumes red crimson, likethose of a phenicoptere (which in Languedoc they call flaman); its eyeswere red, and flaming like a carbuncle; its ears green, like a Prasinemerald; its teeth like a topaz; its tail long and black, like jet; itsfeet white, diaphanous and transparent like a diamond, somewhat broad, andof the splay kind, like those of geese, and as Queen Dick's used to be atToulouse in the days of yore. About its neck it wore a gold collar, roundwhich 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 somightily for the worse that we were all amazed at it. As soon as theChitterlings perceived the flying hog, down they all threw their weaponsand fell on their knees, lifting up their hands joined together, withoutspeaking one word, in a posture of adoration. Friar John and his partykept on mincing, felling, braining, mangling, and spitting the Chitterlingslike mad; but Pantagruel sounded a retreat, and all hostility ceased. 

The monster having several times hovered backwards and forwards between thetwo armies, with a tail-shot voided above twenty-seven butts of mustard onthe 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 theChitterlings, who was in her chariot by the standards; and it was easilygranted. The queen alighted, courteously received Pantagruel, and was gladto see him. Pantagruel complained to her of this breach of peace; but shecivilly made her excuse, telling him that a false information had causedall this mischief; her spies having brought her word that Shrovetide, theirmortal foe, was landed, and spent his time in examining the urine ofphyseters. 

She therefore entreated him to pardon them their offence, telling him thatsir-reverence was sooner found in Chitterlings than gall; and offering, forherself and all her successors, to hold of him and his the whole island andcountry; to obey him in all his commands, be friends to his friends, andfoes to his foes; and also to send every year, as an acknowledgment oftheir homage, a tribute of seventy-eight thousand royal Chitterlings, toserve him at his first course at table six months in the year; which waspunctually performed. For the next day she sent the aforesaid quantity ofroyal Chitterlings to the good Gargantua, under the conduct of youngNiphleseth, infanta of the island. 

The good Gargantua made a present of them to the great King of Paris. Butby change of air, and for want of mustard (the natural balsam and restorerof Chitterlings), most of them died. By the great king's particular grantthey were buried in heaps in a part of Paris to this day called La Ruepavee d'Andouilles, the street paved with Chitterlings. At the request ofthe ladies at his court young Niphleseth was preserved, honourably used, and since that married to heart's content; and was the mother of manychildren, for which heaven be praised. 

Pantagruel civilly thanked the queen, forgave all offences, refused theoffer she had made of her country, and gave her a pretty little knife. After that he asked several nice questions concerning the apparition ofthat flying hog. She answered that it was the idea of Carnival, theirtutelary god in time of war, first founder and original of all theChitterling race; for which reason he resembled a hog, for Chitterlingsdrew their extraction from hogs. 

Pantagruel asking to what purpose and curative indication he had voided somuch mustard on the earth, the queen replied that mustard was theirsanc-greal and celestial balsam, of which, laying but a little in the woundsof the fallen Chitterlings, in a very short time the wounded were healed andthe dead restored to life. Pantagruel held no further discourse with thequeen, but retired a-shipboard. The like did all the boon companions, withtheir 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, bythe celestial hen and chickens, that I found the way of living of thepeople 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, anddrink nothing but wind. They have no other houses but weathercocks. Theysow no other seeds but the three sorts of windflowers, rue, and herbs thatmay 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, orlinen fans, according to their abilities. As for the rich, they live bythe means of windmills. 

When they would have some noble treat, the tables are spread under one ortwo windmills. There they feast as merry as beggars, and during the mealtheir whole talk is commonly of the goodness, excellency, salubrity, andrarity of winds; as you, jolly topers, in your cups philosophize and argueupon wines. The one praises the south-east, the other the south-west; thisthe 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 amoroussparks, no gale for them like a smock-gale. For the sick they use bellowsas we use clysters among us. 

Oh! said to me a little diminutive swollen bubble, that I had now but abladderful of that same Languedoc wind which they call Cierce. The famousphysician, Scurron, passing one day by this country, was telling us that itis 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 goodLanguedoc wine that grows at Mirevaux, Canteperdrix, and Frontignan. 

I saw a good likely sort of a man there, much resembling Ventrose, tearingand fuming in a grievous fret with a tall burly groom and a pimping littlepage of his, laying them on, like the devil, with a buskin. Not knowingthe cause of his anger, at first I thought that all this was by thedoctor's advice, as being a thing very healthy to the master to be in apassion and to his man to be banged for it. But at last I heard him taxinghis man with stealing from him, like a rogue as he was, the better half ofa large leathern bag of an excellent southerly wind, which he had carefullylaid up, like a hidden reserve, against the cold weather. 

They neither exonerate, dung, piss, nor spit in that island; but, to makeamends, they belch, fizzle, funk, and give tail-shots in abundance. Theyare troubled with all manner of distempers; and, indeed, all distempers areengendered and proceed from ventosities, as Hippocrates demonstrates, lib. De Flatibus. But the most epidemical among them is the wind-cholic. Theremedies which they use are large clysters, whereby they void store ofwindiness. They all die of dropsies and tympanies, the men farting and thewomen fizzling; so that their soul takes her leave at the back-door. 

Some time after, walking in the island, we met three hairbrained airyfellows, who seemed mightily puffed up, and went to take their pastime andview the plovers, who live on the same diet as themselves, and abound inthe island. I observed that, as your true topers when they travel carryflasks, leathern bottles, and small runlets along with them, so each ofthem had at his girdle a pretty little pair of bellows. If they happenedto want wind, by the help of those pretty bellows they immediately drewsome, fresh and cool, by attraction and reciprocal expulsion; for, as youwell know, wind essentially defined is nothing but fluctuating and agitatedair. 

A while after, we were commanded, in the king's name, not to receive forthree hours any man or woman of the country on board our ships; some havingstolen from him a rousing fart, of the very individual wind which oldgoodman Aeolus the snorer gave Ulysses to conduct his ship whenever itshould happen to be becalmed. Which fart the king kept religiously, likeanother sanc-greal, and performed a world of wonderful cures with it inmany dangerous diseases, letting loose and distributing to the patient onlyas much of it as might frame a virginal fart; which is, if you must know, what our sanctimonials, alias nuns, in their dialect call ringingbackwards. 

Chapter 4. XLIV. 

How small rain lays a high wind. 

Pantagruel commended their government and way of living, and said to theirhypenemian mayor: If you approve Epicurus's opinion, placing the summumbonum in pleasure (I mean pleasure that's easy and free from toil), Iesteem you happy; for your food being wind, costs you little or nothing, since you need but blow. True, sir, returned the mayor; but, alas! nothingis perfect here below; for too often when we are at table, feeding on somegood 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 usof it. Thus many a meal's lost for want of meat. 

Just so, quoth Panurge, Jenin Toss-pot of Quinquenais, evacuating some wineof his own burning on his wife's posteriors, laid the ill-fumed wind thatblowed out of their centre as out of some magisterial Aeolipile. Here is akind 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; fora giant called Wide-nostrils, who lives in the island of Tohu, comes hitherevery 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, atwhich his mouth waters exceedingly. 

Now this is a sad mortification to us here, who are fain to fast over threeor four whole Lents every year for this, besides certain petty Lents, emberweeks, and other orison and starving tides. And have you no remedy forthis? 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 windmillswith good store of cocks and hens. The first time that the greedy thiefswallowed them, they had like to have done his business at once; for theycrowed and cackled in his maw, and fluttered up and down athwart and alongin his stomach, which threw the glutton into a lipothymy cardiac passionand dreadful and dangerous convulsions, as if some serpent, creeping in athis mouth, had been frisking in his stomach. 

Here is a comparative as altogether incongruous and impertinent, criedFriar John, interrupting them; for I have formerly heard that if a serpentchance to get into a man's stomach it will not do him the least hurt, butwill immediately get out if you do but hang the patient by the heels andlay a panful of warm milk near his mouth. You were told this, saidPantagruel, and so were those who gave you this account; but none ever sawor read of such a cure. On the contrary, Hippocrates, in his fifth book ofEpidem, writes that such a case happening in his time the patient presentlydied of a spasm and convulsion. 

Besides the cocks and hens, said the mayor, continuing his story, all thefoxes in the country whipped into Wide-nostril's mouth, posting after thepoultry; which made such a stir with Reynard at their heels, that hegrievously fell into fits each minute of an hour. 

At last, by the advice of a Baden enchanter, at the time of the paroxysm heused to flay a fox by way of antidote and counter-poison. Since that hetook better advice, and eases himself with taking a clyster made with adecoction of wheat and barley corns, and of livers of goslings; to thefirst of which the poultry run, and the foxes to the latter. Besides, heswallows 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, thissame swallower of windmills, is no more, I will assure you; he died, beingstifled 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 andfree people, called the Gaillardets, but now, alas! miserably poor, andunder the yoke of the Papimen. The occasion of it was this:

On a certain yearly high holiday, the burgomaster, syndics, and toppingrabbies of the Gaillardets chanced to go into the neighbouring islandPapimany to see the festival and pass away the time. Now one of themhaving espied the pope's picture (with the sight of which, according to alaudable custom, the people were blessed on high-offering holidays), mademouths at it, and cried, A fig for it! as a sign of manifest contempt andderision. 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 mento the sword, and sparing none but the women and children, and those tooonly on condition to do what the inhabitants of Milan were condemned to bythe Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. 

These had rebelled against him in his absence, and ignominiously turned theempress 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 faceturned towards the crupper. Now Frederick being returned, mastered them, and caused so careful a search to be made that he found out and got thefamous mule Thacor. Then the hangman by his order clapped a fig into themule's jimcrack, in the presence of the enslaved cits that were broughtinto the middle of the great market-place, and proclaimed in the emperor'sname, with trumpets, that whosoever of them would save his own life shouldpublicly pull the fig out with his teeth, and after that put it in again inthe 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 diein his shoes. Some sturdy fools, standing upon their punctilio, chosehonourably to be hanged rather than submit to so shameful and abominable adisgrace; 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 aworse 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 fromold 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 savedtheir bacon, becoming tributaries and slaves, and the name of Pope-figs wasgiven them, because they said, A fig for the pope's image. Since this, thepoor 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, asan everlasting punishment for the sin of their ancestors and relations. Perceiving the misery and calamity of that generation, we did not care togo further up into the country, contenting ourselves with going into alittle chapel near the haven to take some holy water. It was dilapidatedand ruined, wanting also a cover--like Saint Peter at Rome. When we werein, as we dipped our fingers in the sanctified cistern, we spied in themiddle of that holy pickle a fellow muffled up with stoles, all underwater, 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, whowere muttering strange words to the devils out of a conjuring book. 

Pantagruel was not a little amazed at this, and inquiring what kind ofsport these were at, was told that for three years last past the plague hadso dreadfully raged in the island that the better half of it had beenutterly depopulated, and the lands lay fallow and unoccupied. Now, themortality 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 winterwheat 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 onparsley or coleworts, and got leave of his master Lucifer to go into thisisland of Pope-figs, where the devils were very familiar with the men andwomen, and often went to take their pastime. 

This same devil being got thither, directed his discourse to thehusbandman, and asked him what he was doing. The poor man told him that hewas 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, butmine; for since the time that you mocked the pope all this land has beenproscribed, adjudged, and abandoned to us. However, to sow corn is not myprovince; therefore I will give thee leave to sow the field, that is tosay, 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 coveredwith earth. The right of choosing belongs to me; for I am a devil of nobleand ancient race; thou art a base clown. I therefore choose what shall lieunder ground, take thou what shall be above. When dost thou reckon toreap, hah? About the middle of July, quoth the farmer. Well, said thedevil, 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 thenuns of Dryfart, the sham saints of the cowl, and the gluttonish crew. Iam more than sure of these. They need but meet, and the job is done; truefire 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 hiscrew at his heels, a whole choir of the younger fry of hell; and having metthe 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; itis but reason we should. Then he and his men began to cut and reap thecorn; and, on the other side, the devil's imps fell to work, grubbing upand pulling out the stubble by the root. 

The countryman had his corn thrashed, winnowed it, put in into sacks, andwent with it to market. The same did the devil's servants, and sat themdown there by the man to sell their straw. The countryman sold off hiscorn at a good rate, and with the money filled an old kind of a demi-buskinwhich was fastened to his girdle. But the devil a sou the devils took; farfrom taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by the country louts. 

Market being over, quoth the devil to the farmer, Well, clown, thou hastchoused 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 thistrick you thought to cheat me, hoping that nothing would spring out of theearth for my share, and that you should find whole underground the cornwhich I had sowed, and with it tempt the poor and needy, the closehypocrite, 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 Isee; for the corn that was sow'd is dead and rotten, its corruption havingcaused the generation of that which you saw me sell. So you chose theworst, 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 aman would make the best of it, answered the ploughman, 'twere fit he sow itwith 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 safefrom storms, and will not hail a bit on them. But hark ye me, this time Ibespeak for my share what shall be above ground; what's under shall bethine. Drudge on, looby, drudge on. I am going to tempt heretics; theirsouls are dainty victuals when broiled in rashers and well powdered. MyLord Lucifer has the griping in the guts; they'll make a dainty warm dishfor his honour's maw. 

When the season of radishes was come, our devil failed not to meet in thefield, with a train of rascally underlings, all waiting devils, and findingthere the farmer and his men, he began to cut and gather the leaves of theradishes. After him the farmer with his spade dug up the radishes, andclapped them up into pouches. This done, the devil, the farmer, and theirgangs, hied them to market, and there the farmer presently made good moneyof his radishes; but the poor devil took nothing; nay, what was worse, hewas made a common laughing-stock by the gaping hoidens. I see thou hastplayed me a scurvy trick, thou villainous fellow, cried the angry devil; atlast I am fully resolved even to make an end of the business betwixt theeand myself about the ground, and these shall be the terms: we willclapperclaw each other, and whoever of us two shall first cry Hold, shallquit his share of the field, which shall wholly belong to the conqueror. Ifix the time for this trial of skill on this day seven-night; assurethyself that I'll claw thee off like a devil. I was going to tempt yourfornicators, 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 areall mine already. Besides, our master Lucifer is so cloyed with theirsouls that he often sends them back to the smutty scullions and slovenlydevils of his kitchen, and they scarce go down with them, unless now andthen, 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 atradesman's, no second supper like a serving-wench's, and none of thesemeals equal to a frockified hobgoblin's. All this is true enough. Accordingly, at my Lord Lucifer's first course, hobgoblins, alias imps incowls, 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 joinedthe Holy Bible to their studies; so the devil a one we can get down amongus; and I verily believe that unless the hypocrites of the tribe of Levihelp us in it, taking from the enlightened book-mongers their St. Paul, either by threats, revilings, force, violence, fire, and faggot, we shallnot be able to hook in any more of them to nibble at below. He dinescommonly on counsellors, mischief-mongers, multipliers of lawsuits, such aswrest and pervert right and law and grind and fleece the poor; he neverfears 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 thesoul of one of the fraternity of the cowl that had forgot to speak forhimself in his sermon, and he promised double pay and a large pension toanyone that should bring him such a titbit piping hot. We all wenta-hunting after such a rarity, but came home without the prey; for they alladmonish the good women to remember their convent. As for afternoonnunchions, he has left them off since he was so woefully griped with thecolic; his fosterers, sutlers, charcoal-men, and boiling cooks having beensadly 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 themerry pin, his second supper is of serving-wenches who, after they have bystealth soaked their faces with their master's good liquor, fill up thevessel with it at second hand, or with other stinking water. 

Well, drudge on, boor, drudge on; I am going to tempt the students ofTrebisonde to leave father and mother, forego for ever the established andcommon rule of living, disclaim and free themselves from obeying theirlawful sovereign's edicts, live in absolute liberty, proudly despiseeveryone, laugh at all mankind, and taking the fine jovial little cap ofpoetic 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 mayswear; insomuch that his good woman, seeing him thus look moping, weenedthat something had been stolen from him at market; but when she had heardthe cause of his affliction and seen his budget well lined with coin, shebade him be of good cheer, assuring him that he would be never the worsefor the scratching bout in question; wishing him only to leave her tomanage that business, and not trouble his head about it; for she hadalready contrived how to bring him off cleverly. Let the worst come to theworst, said the husbandman, it will be but a scratch; for I'll yield at thefirst stroke, and quit the field. Quit a fart, replied the wife; he shallhave none of the field. Rely upon me, and be quiet; let me alone to dealwith him. You say he is a pimping little devil, that is enough; I willsoon make him give up the field, I will warrant you. Indeed, had he been agreat devil, it had been somewhat. 

The day that we landed in the island happened to be that which the devilhad fixed for the combat. Now the countryman having, like a good Catholic, very fairly confessed himself, and received betimes in the morning, by theadvice of the vicar had hid himself, all but the snout, in the holy-waterpot, in the posture in which we found him; and just as they were telling usthis story, news came that the old woman had fooled the devil and gainedthe 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 avengeance; come out with a wannion; come out and be damned; now forclawing. Then briskly and resolutely entering the house, and not findingthe countryman there, he spied his wife lying on the ground, piteouslyweeping 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 amundone; 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, hetold me, the butcher, the tyrant, the tearer of devils told me that he hadmade a match to scratch with you this day, and to try his claws he did butjust touch me with his little finger here betwixt the legs, and has spoiledme for ever. Oh! I am a dead woman; I shall never be myself again; do butsee! Nay, and besides, he talked of going to the smith's to have hispounces 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 mannerin which the Persian women met their children who fled from the fight, andplainly showed her what do ye call them. The frightened devil, seeing theenormous 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 resignhim the field. 

Having heard the catastrophe of the story, we retired a-shipboard, notbeing willing to stay there any longer. Pantagruel gave to the poor's boxof the fabric of the church eighteen thousand good royals, in commiserationof the poverty of the people and the calamity of the place. 

Chapter 4. XLVIII. 

How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany. 

Having left the desolate island of the Pope-figs, we sailed for the spaceof 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 ourship with ground-tackle, four persons in different garbs rowed towards usin 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 along-winged hawk on his fist; the third like a solicitor, with a large bag, full of informations, subpoenas, breviates, bills, writs, cases, and otherimplements of pettifogging; the fourth looked like one of your vine-barbersabout Ocleans, with a jaunty pair of canvas trousers, a dosser, and apruning knife at his girdle. 

As soon as the boat had clapped them on board, they all with one voiceasked, Have you seen him, good passengers, have you seen him? Who? askedPantagruel. You know who, answered they. Who is it? asked Friar John. 'Sblood and 'ounds, I'll thrash him thick and threefold. This he saidthinking 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 willbe pleased to let us know who you mean, we will tell you the truth of thematter without any more ado. We mean, said they, he that is. Did you eversee him? He that is, returned Pantagruel, according to our theologicaldoctrine, is God, who said to Moses, I am that I am. We never saw him, norcan he be beheld by mortal eyes. We mean nothing less than that supremeGod who rules in heaven, replied they; we mean the god on earth. Did youever 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 sacreddecretals inform us that there never is more than one living. I meansuccessively, one after the other, returned Panurge; otherwise I never sawmore than one at a time. 

O thrice and four times happy people! cried they; you are welcome, and morethan double welcome! They then kneeled down before us and would havekissed our feet, but we would not suffer it, telling them that should thepope 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. Wewould 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 byour fine decretals, otherwise he could not be pope. So that, according toour subtle decretaline philosophy, this is a necessary consequence: he ispope; therefore he has genitories, and should genitories no more be foundin the world, the world could no more have a pope. 

While they were talking thus, Pantagruel inquired of one of the coxswain'screw who those persons were. He answered that they were the four estatesof 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 byPantagruel, said to him in his ear, I swear and vow, sir, 'tis even so; hethat has patience may compass anything. Seeing the pope had done us nogood; now, in the devil's name, 'twill do us a great deal. We then wentashore, and the whole country, men, women, and children, came to meet us asin a solemn procession. Our four estates cried out to them with a loudvoice, They have seen him! they have seen him! they have seen him! Thatproclamation being made, all the mob kneeled before us, lifting up theirhands towards heaven, and crying, O happy men! O most happy! and thisacclamation lasted above a quarter of an hour. 

Then came the Busby (!) of the place, with all his pedagogues, ushers, andschoolboys, whom he magisterially flogged, as they used to whip children inour country formerly when some criminal was hanged, that they mightremember it. This displeased Pantagruel, who said to them, Gentlemen, ifyou do not leave off whipping these poor children, I am gone. The peoplewere amazed, hearing his stentorian voice; and I saw a little hump withlong fingers say to the hypodidascal, What, in the name of wonder! do allthose 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 growand look as big. In short, the acclamations were so great that Homenas (sothey called their bishop) hastened thither on an unbridled mule with greentrappings, attended by his apposts (as they said) and his supposts, orofficers bearing crosses, banners, standards, canopies, torches, holy-waterpots, &c. He too wanted to kiss our feet (as the good Christian Valfinierdid to Pope Clement), saying that one of their hypothetes, that's one ofthe scavengers, scourers, and commentators of their holy decretals, hadwritten that, in the same manner as the Messiah, so long and so muchexpected by the Jews, at last appeared among them; so, on some happy day ofGod, the pope would come into that island; and that, while they waited forthat blessed time, if any who had seen him at Rome or elsewhere chanced tocome among them, they should be sure to make much of them, feast themplentifully, and treat them with a great deal of reverence. However, wecivilly 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 visitchurches first and taverns after. Therefore, not to decline that fineinstitution, let us go to church; we will afterwards go and feastourselves. Man of God, quoth Friar John, do you go before, we'll followyou. You spoke in the matter properly, and like a good Christian; 'tislong 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 thechurch, we spied a huge thick book, gilt, and covered all over withprecious stones, as rubies, emeralds, (diamonds, ) and pearls, more, or atleast as valuable as those which Augustus consecrated to JupiterCapitolinus. This book hanged in the air, being fastened with two thickchains of gold to the zoophore of the porch. We looked on it and admiredit. As for Pantagruel, he handled it and dandled it and turned it as hepleased, for he could reach it without straining; and he protested thatwhenever he touched it, he was seized with a pleasant tickling at hisfingers' end, new life and activity in his arms, and a violent temptationin his mind to beat one or two sergeants, or such officers, provided theywere not of the shaveling kind. Homenas then said to us, The law wasformerly given to the Jews by Moses, written by God himself. At Delphos, before the portal of Apollo's temple, this sentence, GNOTHI SEAUTON, wasfound written with a divine hand. And some time after it, EI was alsoseen, and as divinely written and transmitted from heaven. Cybele's imagewas brought out of heaven, into a field called Pessinunt, in Phrygia; sowas that of Diana to Tauris, if you will believe Euripides; the oriflamme, or holy standard, was transmitted out of heaven to the noble and mostChristian kings of France, to fight against the unbelievers. In the reignof Numa Pompilius, second King of the Romans, the famous copper bucklercalled Ancile was seen to descend from heaven. At Acropolis, near Athens, Minerva's statue formerly fell from the empyreal heaven. In like mannerthe sacred decretals which you see were written with the hand of an angelof the cherubim kind. You outlandish people will hardly believe this, Ifear. Little enough, of conscience, said Panurge. And then, continuedHomenas, they were miraculously transmitted to us here from the very heavenof heavens; in the same manner as the river Nile is called Diipetes byHomer, the father of all philosophy--the holy decretals always excepted. Now, because you have seen the pope, their evangelist and everlastingprotector, we will give you leave to see and kiss them on the inside, ifyou think meet. But then you must fast three days before, and canonicallyconfess; nicely and strictly mustering up and inventorizing your sins, great and small, so thick that one single circumstance of them may notescape you; as our holy decretals, which you see, direct. This will takeup some time. Man of God, answered Panurge, we have seen and descrieddecrees, and eke decretals enough o' conscience; some on paper, other onparchment, fine and gay like any painted paper lantern, some on vellum, some in manuscript, and others in print; so you need not take half thesepains to show us these. We'll take the goodwill for the deed, and thankyou as much as if we had. Ay, marry, said Homenas, but you never saw thesethat are angelically written. Those in your country are only transcriptsfrom 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. Dobut tell me whether you will be confessed and fast only three short littledays of God? As for shriving, answered Panurge, there can be no great harmin't; but this same fasting, master of mine, will hardly down with us atthis time, for we have so very much overfasted ourselves at sea that thespiders have spun their cobwebs over our grinders. Do but look on thisgood Friar John des Entomeures (Homenas then courteously demi-clipped himabout the neck), some moss is growing in his throat for want of bestirringand exercising his chaps. He speaks the truth, vouched Friar John; I haveso much fasted that I'm almost grown hump-shouldered. Come, then, let's gointo the church, said Homenas; and pray forgive us if for the present we donot sing you a fine high mass. The hour of midday is past, and after itour sacred decretals forbid us to sing mass, I mean your high and lawfulmass. But I'll say a low and dry one for you. I had rather have onemoistened with some good Anjou wine, cried Panurge; fall to, fall to yourlow mass, and despatch. Ods-bodikins, quoth Friar John, it frets me to theguts that I must have an empty stomach at this time of day; for, had Ieaten a good breakfast and fed like a monk, if he should chance to sing usthe Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, I had then brought thither bread andwine 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 acause. 

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 trunknear the head altar, and put thirty-two of them into so many keyholes; putback 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 wetsackcloth, and drawing a curtain of crimson satin, showed us an imagedaubed over, coarsely enough, to my thinking; then he touched it with apretty long stick, and made us all kiss the part of the stick that hadtouched the image. After this he said unto us, What think you of thisimage? It is the likeness of a pope, answered Pantagruel; I know it by thetriple crown, his furred amice, his rochet, and his slipper. You are inthe right, said Homenas; it is the idea of that same good god on earthwhose coming we devoutly await, and whom we hope one day to see in thiscountry. O happy, wished-for, and much-expected day! and happy, most happyyou, whose propitious stars have so favoured you as to let you see theliving and real face of this good god on earth! by the single sight ofwhose picture we obtain full remission of all the sins which we rememberthat we have committed, as also a third part and eighteen quarantaines ofthe sins which we have forgot; and indeed we only see it on high annualholidays. 

This caused Pantagruel to say that it was a work like those which Daedalusused to make, since, though it were deformed and ill drawn, neverthelesssome divine energy, in point of pardons, lay hid and concealed in it. Thus, said Friar John, at Seuille, the rascally beggars being one eveningon a solemn holiday at supper in the spital, one bragged of having got sixblancs, or twopence halfpenny; another eight liards, or twopence; a third, seven caroluses, or sixpence; but an old mumper made his vaunts of havinggot three testons, or five shillings. Ah, but, cried his comrades, thouhast a leg of God; as if, continued Friar John, some divine virtue couldlie hid in a stinking ulcerated rotten shank. Pray, said Pantagruel, whenyou are for telling us some such nauseous tale, be so kind as not to forgetto provide a basin, Friar John; I'll assure you, I had much ado to forbearbringing up my breakfast. Fie! I wonder a man of your coat is not ashamedto use thus the sacred name of God in speaking of things so filthy andabominable! fie, I say. If among your monking tribes such an abuse ofwords is allowed, I beseech you leave it there, and do not let it come outof the cloisters. Physicians, said Epistemon, thus attribute a kind ofdivinity to some diseases. Nero also extolled mushrooms, and, in a Greekproverb, termed them divine food, because with them he had poisonedClaudius his predecessor. But methinks, gentlemen, this same picture isnot over-like our late popes. For I have seen them, not with theirpallium, amice, or rochet on, but with helmets on their heads, more likethe top of a Persian turban; and while the Christian commonwealth was inpeace, they alone were most furiously and cruelly making war. This musthave been then, returned Homenas, against the rebellious, hereticalProtestants; reprobates who are disobedient to the holiness of this goodgod on earth. 'Tis not only lawful for him to do so, but it is enjoinedhim by the sacred decretals; and if any dare transgress one single iotaagainst their commands, whether they be emperors, kings, dukes, princes, orcommonwealths, he is immediately to pursue them with fire and sword, stripthem of all their goods, take their kingdoms from them, proscribe them, anathematize them, and destroy not only their bodies, those of theirchildren, relations, and others, but damn also their souls to the verybottom of the most hot and burning cauldron in hell. Here, in the devil'sname, said Panurge, the people are no heretics; such as was ourRaminagrobis, and as they are in Germany and England. You are Christiansof the best edition, all picked and culled, for aught I see. Ay, marry arewe, returned Homenas, and for that reason we shall all be saved. Now letus go and bless ourselves with holy water, and then to dinner. 

Chapter 4. LI. 

Table-talk in praise of the decretals. 

Now, topers, pray observe that while Homenas was saying his dry mass, threecollectors, or licensed beggars of the church, each of them with a largebasin, went round among the people, with a loud voice: Pray remember theblessed men who have seen his face. As we came out of the temple theybrought their basins brimful of Papimany chink to Homenas, who told us thatit was plentifully to feast with; and that, of this contribution andvoluntary tax, one part should be laid out in good drinking, another ingood eating, and the remainder in both, according to an admirableexposition hidden in a corner of their holy decretals; which was performedto a T, and that at a noted tavern not much unlike that of Will's atAmiens. Believe me, we tickled it off there with copious cramming andnumerous swilling. 

I made two notable observations at that dinner: the one, that there wasnot one dish served up, whether of cabrittas, capons, hogs (of which latterthere is great plenty in Papimany), pigeons, coneys, leverets, turkeys, orothers, without abundance of magistral stuff; the other, that every course, and the fruit also, were served up by unmarried females of the place, tightlasses, 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, andother sweet flowers. 

At every cadence they invited us to drink and bang it about, dropping usneat and genteel courtesies; nor was the sight of them unwelcome to all thecompany; and as for Friar John, he leered on them sideways, like a cur thatsteals a capon. When the first course was taken off, the femalesmelodiously sung us an epode in the praise of the sacrosanct decretals; andthen the second course being served up, Homenas, joyful and cheery, said toone of the she-butlers, Light here, Clerica. Immediately one of the girlsbrought him a tall-boy brimful of extravagant wine. He took fast hold ofit, and fetching a deep sigh, said to Pantagruel, My lord, and you, my goodfriends, here's t'ye, with all my heart; you are all very welcome. When hehad tipped that off, and given the tall-boy to the pretty creature, helifted up his voice and said, O most holy decretals, how good is good winefound through your means! This is the best jest we have had yet, observedPanurge. But it would still be a better, said Pantagruel, if they couldturn bad wine into good. 

O seraphic Sextum! continued Homenas, how necessary are you not to thesalvation of poor mortals! O cherubic Clementinae! how perfectly theperfect institution of a true Christian is contained and described in you!O angelical Extravagantes! how many poor souls that wander up and down inmortal 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, asto lay aside all other studies and concerns, to use you, to peruse you, tounderstand you, to know you by heart, to practise you, to incorporate you, to turn you into blood, and incentre you into the deepest ventricles oftheir brains, the inmost marrow of their bones, and most intricatelabyrinth of their arteries? Then, ah! then, and no sooner than then, norotherwise than thus, shall the world be happy! While the old man was thusrunning on, Epistemon rose and softly said to Panurge: For want of aclose-stool, I must even leave you for a moment or two; this stuff hasunbunged 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. Thenuninterrupted and eternal peace through the universe, an end of all wars, plunderings, drudgeries, robbing, assassinates, unless it be to destroythese cursed rebels the heretics. Oh! then, rejoicing, cheerfulness, jollity, solace, sports, and delicious pleasures, over the face of theearth. Oh! what great learning, inestimable erudition, and god-likeprecepts are knit, linked, rivetted, and mortised in the divine chapters ofthese eternal decretals!

Oh! how wonderfully, if you read but one demi-canon, short paragraph, orsingle 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 contemptof 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 Ihappened to read a chapter of them at Poictiers, at the mostdecretalipotent Scotch doctor's, and old Nick turn me into bumfodder, ifthis did not make me so hide-bound and costive, that for four or five daysI hardly scumbered one poor butt of sir-reverence; and that, too, was fullas dry and hard, I protest, as Catullus tells us were those of hisneighbour 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 ofmortal 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, byway 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 devilbroil me like a black pudding, if I wasn't so abominably plagued withchaps, chawns, and piles at the fundament, that the orifice of my poornockandroe was in a most woeful pickle for I don't know how long. By'r ourlady, cried Homenas, it was a plain punishment of God for the sin that youhad committed in beraying that sacred book, which you ought rather to havekissed and adored; I say with an adoration of latria, or of hyperdulia atleast. The Panormitan never told a lie in the matter. 

Saith Ponocrates: At Montpelier, John Chouart having bought of the monksof St. Olary a delicate set of decretals, written on fine large parchmentof Lamballe, to beat gold between the leaves, not so much as a piece thatwas 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 ofExtravagantes into waste paper. May I never stir, if whatever was lappedup in them was not immediately corrupted, rotten, and spoiled; incense, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, wax, cassia, rhubarb, tamarinds, alldrugs and spices, were lost without exception. Mark, mark, quoth Homenas, an effect of divine justice! This comes of putting the sacred Scripturesto such profane uses. 

At Paris, said Carpalin, Snip Groignet the tailor had turned an oldClementinae into patterns and measures, and all the clothes that were cuton 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 youout 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 doublethe'd make you a thing like a frying-pan. Then his journeymen havingstitched it up did jag it and pink it at the bottom, and so it looked likea pan to fry chestnuts. Instead of a cape he made a buskin; for afarthingale he shaped a montero cap; and thinking to make a cloak, he'd cutout a pair of your big out-strouting Swiss breeches, with panes like theoutside of a tabor. Insomuch that Snip was condemned to make good thestuffs to all his customers; and to this day poor Cabbage's hair growsthrough his hood and his arse through his pocket-holes. Mark, an effect ofheavenly wrath and vengeance! cried Homenas. 

At Cahusac, said Gymnast, a match being made by the lords of Estissac andViscount Lausun to shoot at a mark, Perotou had taken to pieces a set ofdecretals 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 tofifteen hundred hampers full of black devils, if ever any archer in thecountry (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, hardfigs (his greatest oath), that he had openly, visibly, and manifestly seenthe bolt of Carquelin moving right to the round circle in the middle of thewhite; and that just on the point, when it was going to hit and enter, ithad gone aside above seven foot and four inches wide of it towards thebakehouse. 

Miracle! cried Homenas, miracle! miracle! Clerica, come wench, light, light here. Here's to you all, gentlemen; I vow you seem to me very soundChristians. While he said this, the maidens began to snicker at his elbow, grinning, giggling, and twittering among themselves. Friar John began topaw, neigh, and whinny at the snout's end, as one ready to leap, or atleast to play the ass, and get up and ride tantivy to the devil like abeggar on horseback. 

Methinks, said Pantagruel, a man might have been more out of danger nearthe 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 seehe will hook his decretals in, though by the head and shoulders. 

Diogenes, said Pantagruel, one day for pastime went to see some archersthat shot at butts, one of whom was so unskilful, that when it was his turnto shoot all the bystanders went aside, lest he should mistake them for themark. Diogenes had seen him shoot extremely wide of it; so when the otherwas taking aim a second time, and the people removed at a great distance tothe 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 wouldcertainly rather hit any other. 

One of the Lord d'Estissac's pages at last found out the charm, pursuedGymnast, and by his advice Perotou put in another white made up of somepapers of Pouillac's lawsuit, and then everyone shot cleverly. 

At Landerousse, said Rhizotome, at John Delif's wedding were very greatdoings, as 'twas then the custom of the country. After supper severalfarces, interludes, and comical scenes were acted; they had also severalmorris-dancers with bells and tabors, and divers sorts of masks and mummerswere let in. My schoolfellows and I, to grace the festival to the best ofour power (for fine white and purple liveries had been given to all of usin the morning), contrived a merry mask with store of cockle-shells, shellsof snails, periwinkles, and such other. Then for want of cuckoo-pint, orpriest-pintle, lousebur, clote, and paper, we made ourselves false faceswith the leaves of an old Sextum that had been thrown by and lay there foranyone that would take it up, cutting out holes for the eyes, nose, andmouth. Now, did you ever hear the like since you were born? When we hadplayed 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 thePassion at Douay; for our faces were utterly spoiled at the places whichhad 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, themeasles; a fifth, botches, pushes, and carbuncles; in short, he came offthe least hurt who only lost his teeth by the bargain. Miracle! bawled outHomenas, miracle!

Hold, hold! cried Rhizotome; it is not yet time to clap. My sister Kateand my sister Ren had put the crepines of their hoods, their ruffles, snuffekins, and neck-ruffs new washed, starched, and ironed, into that verybook of decretals; for, you must know, it was covered with thick boards andhad strong clasps. Now, by the virtue of God--Hold, interrupted Homenas, what god do you mean? There is but one, answered Rhizotome. In heaven, Igrant, 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 forgotit. 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 littlesatires of the new-fangled heretics. 

Chapter 4. LIII. 

How by the virtue of the decretals, gold is subtilely drawn out of Franceto Rome. 

I would, said Epistemon, it had cost me a pint of the best tripe that evercan enter into gut, so we had but compared with the original the dreadfulchapters, Execrabilis, De multa, Si plures; De annatis per totum; Nisiessent; Cum ad monasterium; Quod delectio; Mandatum; and certain others, that draw every year out of France to Rome four hundred thousand ducats andmore. 

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 theonly nurse the see of Rome has. However, find me in the whole world abook, whether of philosophy, physic, law, mathematics, or other humanelearning, nay, even, by my God, of the Holy Scripture itself, will draw asmuch money thence? None, none, psha, tush, blurt, pish; none can. You maylook till your eyes drop out of your head, nay, till doomsday in theafternoon, before you can find another of that energy; I'll pass my wordfor 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 thebunghole, 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, andcarbonade '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 tobelieve no other thing, to think on, say, undertake, or do no other thing, than what's contained in our sacred decretals and their corollaries, thisfine Sextum, these fine Clementinae, these fine Extravagantes. O deificbooks! 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 whichyou'll find persons fitter to do and handle all things than those who bydivine prescience, eternal predestination, have applied themselves to thestudy of the holy decretals. 

Would you choose a worthy emperor, a good captain, a fit general in time ofwar, one that can well foresee all inconveniences, avoid all dangers, briskly and bravely bring his men on to a breach or attack, still be onsure grounds, always overcome without loss of his men, and know how to makea good use of his victory? Take me a decretist. No, no, I mean adecretalist. Ho, the foul blunder, whispered Epistemon. 

Would you, in time of peace, find a man capable of wisely governing thestate 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 piousadmonitions, may in a short time, without effusion of human blood, conquerthe Holy Land, and bring over to the holy Church the misbelieving Turks, Jews, Tartars, Muscovites, Mamelukes, and Sarrabonites? Take me adecretalist. 

What makes, in many countries, the people rebellious and depraved, pagessaucy and mischievous, students sottish and duncical? Nothing but thattheir 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 theChristian world everywhere adorned, graced, and illustrated, as thefirmament 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? Theholy decretals. 

What made the holy apostolic see and pope of Rome, in all times, and atthis 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 havecommonly a book, either open or shut, in their arms and devices; what bookdo you think it is? Truly, I do not know, answered Pantagruel; I neverread it. It is the decretals, said Homenas, without which the privilegesof all universities would soon be lost. You must own that I have taughtyou this; ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Here Homenas began to belch, to fart, to funk, to laugh, to slaver, and tosweat; and then he gave his huge greasy four-cornered cap to one of thelasses, who clapped it on her pretty head with a great deal of joy, aftershe had lovingly bussed it, as a sure token that she should be firstmarried. Vivat, cried Epistemon, fifat, bibat, pipat. 

O apocalyptic secret! continued Homenas; light, light, Clerica; light herewith double lanterns. Now for the fruit, virgins. 

I was saying, then, that giving yourselves thus wholly to the study of theholy decretals, you will gain wealth and honour in this world. I add, thatin 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 pointof death at least, this most sacred treasure of our holy Mother Church, whose protector, preserver, butler, chief-larder, administrator, anddisposer thou art; and take care, I beseech thee, O lord, that the preciousworks of supererogation, the goodly pardons, do not fail us in time ofneed; so that the devils may not find an opportunity to gripe our precioussouls, and the dreadful jaws of hell may not swallow us. If we must passthrough purgatory thy will be done. It is in thy power to draw us out ofit when thou pleasest. Here Homenas began to shed huge hot briny tears, tobeat 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 towipe their eyes all the while as if they had wept. The wenches were doublydiligent, and brought brimmers of Clementine wine to every one, besidesstore of sweetmeats; and thus the feasting was revived. 

Before we arose from table, Homenas gave us a great quantity of fair largepears, saying, Here, my good friends, these are singular good pears. Youwill find none such anywhere else, I dare warrant. Every soil bears noteverything, you know. India alone boasts black ebony; the best incense isproduced in Sabaea; the sphragitid earth at Lemnos; so this island is theonly place where such fine pears grow. You may, if you please, makeseminaries with their pippins in your country. 

I like their taste extremely, said Pantagruel. If they were sliced, andput into a pan on the fire with wine and sugar, I fancy they would be verywholesome meat for the sick, as well as for the healthy. Pray what do youcall 'em? No otherwise than you have heard, replied Homenas. We are aplain 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 gohome--which I hope will be speedily, God willing--I'll set off and graffsome in my garden in Touraine, by the banks of the Loire, and will callthem bon-Christian or good-Christian pears, for I never saw betterChristians than are these good Papimans. I would like him two to onebetter yet, said Friar John, would he but give us two or three cartloads ofyon buxom lasses. Why, what would you do with them? cried Homenas. QuothFriar John, No harm, only bleed the kind-hearted souls straight between thetwo great toes with certain clever lancets of the right stamp; by whichoperation good Christian children would be inoculated upon them, and thebreed 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 themtread their shoes awry, crack their pipkins, and spoil their shapes. Youlove mutton, I see; you will run at sheep. I know you by that same noseand hair of yours, though I never saw your face before. Alas! alas! howkind you are! And would you indeed damn your precious soul? Our decretalsforbid this. Ah, I wish you had them at your finger's-end. Patience, saidFriar John; but, si tu non vis dare, praesta, quaesumus. Matter ofbreviary. As for that, I defy all the world, and I fear no man that wearsa head and a hood, though he were a crystalline, I mean a decretalinedoctor. 

Dinner being over, we took our leave of the right reverend Homenas, and ofall the good people, humbly giving thanks; and, to make them amends fortheir kind entertainment, promised them that, at our coming to Rome, wewould make our applications so effectually to the pope that he wouldspeedily be sure to come to visit them in person. After this we wento'board. 

Pantagruel, by an act of generosity, and as an acknowledgment of the sightof the pope's picture, gave Homenas nine pieces of double friezed cloth ofgold to be set before the grates of the window. He also caused the churchbox for its repairs and fabric to be quite filled with double crowns ofgold; and ordered nine hundred and fourteen angels to be delivered to eachof the lasses who had waited at table, to buy them husbands when they couldget them. 

Chapter 4. LV. 

How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words. 

When we were at sea, junketting, tippling, discoursing, and tellingstories, Pantagruel rose and stood up to look out; then asked us, Do youhear nothing, gentlemen? Methinks I hear some people talking in the air, yet I can see nobody. Hark! According to his command we listened, andwith full ears sucked in the air as some of you suck oysters, to find if wecould 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 theirears; but all this would not do, nor could we hear any voice. YetPantagruel continued to assure us he heard various voices in the air, someof men, and some of women. 

At last we began to fancy that we also heard something, or at least thatour ears tingled; and the more we listened, the plainer we discerned thevoices, so as to distinguish articulate sounds. This mightily frightenedus, and not without cause; since we could see nothing, yet heard suchvarious sounds and voices of men, women, children, horses, &c. , insomuchthat Panurge cried out, Cods-belly, there is no fooling with the devil; weare all beshit, let's fly. There is some ambuscado hereabouts. FriarJohn, art thou here my love? I pray thee, stay by me, old boy. Hast thougot thy swindging tool? See that it do not stick in thy scabbard; thounever scourest it half as it should be. We are undone. Hark! They areguns, gad judge me. Let's fly, I do not say with hands and feet, as Brutussaid at the battle of Pharsalia; I say, with sails and oars. Let's whip itaway. I never find myself to have a bit of courage at sea; in cellars andelsewhere I have more than enough. Let's fly and save our bacon. I do notsay this for any fear that I have; for I dread nothing but danger, that Idon't; I always say it that shouldn't. The free archer of Baignolet saidas 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 inQuinquenais, though I were never to marry. Haste away, let's make all thesail we can. They'll be too hard for us; we are not able to cope withthem; they are ten to our one, I'll warrant you. Nay, and they are ontheir dunghill, while we do not know the country. They will be the deathof us. We'll lose no honour by flying. Demosthenes saith that the manthat runs away may fight another day. At least let us retreat to theleeward. Helm a-lee; bring the main-tack aboard, haul the bowlines, hoistthe top-gallants. We are all dead men; get off, in the devil's name, getoff. 

Pantagruel, hearing the sad outcry which Panurge made, said, Who talks offlying? Let's first see who they are; perhaps they may be friends. I candiscover nobody yet, though I can see a hundred miles round me. But let'sconsider a little. I have read that a philosopher named Petron was ofopinion that there were several worlds that touched each other in anequilateral triangle; in whose centre, he said, was the dwelling of truth;and that the words, ideas, copies, and images of all things past and tocome resided there; round which was the age; and that with success of timepart of them used to fall on mankind like rheums and mildews, just as thedew fell on Gideon's fleece, till the age was fulfilled. 

I also remember, continued he, that Aristotle affirms Homer's words to beflying, moving, and consequently animated. Besides, Antiphanes said thatPlato's philosophy was like words which, being spoken in some countryduring a hard winter, are immediately congealed, frozen up, and not heard;for what Plato taught young lads could hardly be understood by them whenthey were grown old. Now, continued he, we should philosophize and searchwhether 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 lyreinto the river Hebrus, down which they floated to the Euxine sea as far asthe island of Lesbos; the head continually uttering a doleful song, as itwere lamenting the death of Orpheus, and the lyre, with the wind's impulsemoving its strings and harmoniously accompanying the voice. Let's see ifwe 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 ofthe Frozen Sea, on which, about the beginning of last winter, happened agreat and bloody fight between the Arimaspians and the Nephelibates. Thenthe words and cries of men and women, the hacking, slashing, and hewing ofbattle-axes, the shocking, knocking, and jolting of armours and harnesses, the neighing of horses, and all other martial din and noise, froze in theair; and now, the rigour of the winter being over, by the succeedingserenity and warmth of the weather they melt and are heard. 

By jingo, quoth Panurge, the man talks somewhat like. I believe him. Butcouldn't we see some of 'em? I think I have read that, on the edge of themountain on which Moses received the Judaic law, the people saw the voicessensibly. Here, here, said Pantagruel, here are some that are not yetthawed. He then threw us on the deck whole handfuls of frozen words, whichseemed to us like your rough sugar-plums, of many colours, like those usedin 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 likesnow, and we really heard them, but could not understand them, for it was abarbarous gibberish. One of them only, that was pretty big, having beenwarmed between Friar John's hands, gave a sound much like that of chestnutswhen they are thrown into the fire without being first cut, which made usall start. This was the report of a field-piece in its time, cried FriarJohn. 

Panurge prayed Pantagruel to give him some more; but Pantagruel told himthat 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 wouldsooner sell you silence, though at a dearer rate; as Demosthenes formerlysold it by the means of his argentangina, or silver squinsy. 

However, he threw three or four handfuls of them on the deck; among which Iperceived some very sharp words, and some bloody words, which the pilotsaid 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 someothers 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 knowwhat other barbarous words, which the pilot said were the noise made by thecharging squadrons, the shock and neighing of horses. 

Then we heard some large ones go off like drums and fifes, and others likeclarions and trumpets. Believe me, we had very good sport with them. Iwould 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 wouldnot let me, saying that 'tis a folly to hoard up what we are never like towant or have always at hand, odd, quaint, merry, and fat words of gulesnever being scarce among all good and jovial Pantagruelists. 

Panurge somewhat vexed Friar John, and put him in the pouts; for he tookhim at his word while he dreamed of nothing less. This caused the friar tothreaten 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 himselfin some cloth, was afterwards fairly taken by the horns like a bullock byhis jovial chapman, whom he took at his word like a man. Panurge, wellknowing that threatened folks live long, bobbed and made mouths at him intoken of derision, then cried, Would I had here the word of the HolyBottle, 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 ofarts in the world. 

That day Pantagruel went ashore in an island which, for situation andgovernor, 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 tothe feet, and almost as inaccessible as the mountain of Dauphine, which issomewhat like a toadstool, and was never climbed as any can remember by anybut Doyac, who had the charge of King Charles the Eighth's train ofartillery. 

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 itgot thither. Some said that some eagle or great horncoot, having carriedit thither while it was yet a lambkin, it had got away and saved itselfamong the bushes. 

As for us, having with much toil and sweat overcome the difficult ways atthe entrance, we found the top of the mountain so fertile, healthful, andpleasant, that I thought I was then in the true garden of Eden, or earthlyparadise, about whose situation our good theologues are in such a quandaryand keep such a pother. 

As for Pantagruel, he said that here was the seat of Arete--that is as muchas to say, virtue--described by Hesiod. This, however, with submission tobetter judgments. The ruler of this place was one Master Gaster, the firstmaster of arts in this world. For, if you believe that fire is the greatmaster of arts, as Tully writes, you very much wrong him and yourself;alas! Tully never believed this. On the other side, if you fancy Mercuryto be the first inventor of arts, as our ancient Druids believed of old, you are mightily beside the mark. The satirist's sentence, that affirmsMaster Gaster to be the master of all arts, is true. With him peacefullyresided old goody Penia, alias Poverty, the mother of the ninety-nineMuses, on whom Porus, the lord of Plenty, formerly begot Love, that noblechild, the mediator of heaven and earth, as Plato affirms in Symposio. 

We were all obliged to pay our homage and swear allegiance to that mightysovereign; 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 ofsilence, named Sigalion in Greek, was astome, that is, without a mouth, soGaster was created without ears, even like the image of Jupiter in Candia. 

He only speaks by signs, but those signs are more readily obeyed byeveryone than the statutes of senates or commands of monarchs. Neitherwill he admit the least let or delay in his summons. You say that when alion roars all the beasts at a considerable distance round about, as far ashis roar can be heard, are seized with a shivering. This is written, it istrue, I have seen it. I assure you that at Master Gaster's command the veryheavens tremble, and all the earth shakes. His command is called, Do thisor 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 themembers that mutinied against the belly, as Aesop describes it, the wholekingdom of the Somates went off into a direct faction against Gaster, resolving to throw off his yoke; but they soon found their mistake, andmost humbly submitted, for otherwise they had all been famished. 

What company soever he is in, none dispute with him for precedence orsuperiority; he still goes first, though kings, emperors, or even the pope, were there. So he held the first place at the council of Basle; thoughsome will tell you that the council was tumultuous by the contention andambition of many for priority. 

Everyone is busied and labours to serve him, and indeed, to make amends forthis, he does this good to mankind, as to invent for them all arts, machines, trades, engines, and crafts; he even instructs brutes in artswhich are against their nature, making poets of ravens, jackdaws, chattering jays, parrots, and starlings, and poetesses of magpies, teachingthem to utter human language, speak, and sing; and all for the gut. Hereclaims and tames eagles, gerfalcons, falcons gentle, sakers, lanners, goshawks, sparrowhawks, merlins, haggards, passengers, wild rapaciousbirds; so that, setting them free in the air whenever he thinks fit, ashigh and as long as he pleases, he keeps them suspended, straying, flying, hovering, and courting him above the clouds. Then on a sudden he makesthem stoop, and come down amain from heaven next to the ground; and all forthe gut. 

Elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, bears, horses, mares, and dogs, he teachesto dance, prance, vault, fight, swim, hide themselves, fetch and carry whathe pleases; and all for the gut. 

Salt and fresh-water fish, whales, and the monsters of the main, he bringsthem 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 theground, 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 theSertorian wars, among the Saguntines besieged by Hannibal; among the Jewsbesieged by the Romans, and six hundred more; and all for the gut. Whenhis regent Penia takes a progress, wherever she moves all senates are shutup, all statutes repealed, all orders and proclamations vain; she knows, obeys, and has no law. All shun her, in every place choosing rather toexpose 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 theEngastrimythes and the Gastrolaters. 

At the court of that great master of ingenuity, Pantagruel observed twosorts of troublesome and too officious apparitors, whom he very muchdetested. The first were called Engastrimythes; the others, Gastrolaters. 

The first pretended to be descended of the ancient race of Eurycles, andfor this brought the authority of Aristophanes in his comedy called theWasps; whence of old they were called Euryclians, as Plato writes, andPlutarch 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 inIonian by Hippocrates, in his fifth book of Epid. , as men who speak fromthe belly. Sophocles calls them Sternomantes. These were soothsayers, enchanters, cheats, who gulled the mob, and seemed not to speak and giveanswers from the mouth, but from the belly. 

Such a one, about the year of our Lord 1513, was Jacoba Rodogina, anItalian woman of mean extract; from whose belly we, as well as an infinitenumber of others at Ferrara and elsewhere, have often heard the voice ofthe evil spirit speak, low, feeble, and small, indeed, but yet verydistinct, articulate, and intelligible, when she was sent for out ofcuriosity by the lords and princes of the Cisalpine Gaul. To remove allmanner of doubt, and be assured that this was not a trick, they used tohave her stripped stark naked, and caused her mouth and nose to be stopped. This evil spirit would be called Curled-pate, or Cincinnatulo, seemingpleased when any called him by that name, at which he was always ready toanswer. If any spoke to him of things past or present, he gave pertinentanswers, sometimes to the amazement of the hearers; but if of things tocome, then the devil was gravelled, and used to lie as fast as a dog cantrot. Nay, sometimes he seemed to own his ignorance, instead of an answerletting out a rousing fart, or muttering some words with barbarous anduncouth inflexions, and not to be understood. 

As for the Gastrolaters, they stuck close to one another in knots andgangs. Some of them merry, wanton, and soft as so many milk-sops; otherslouring, grim, dogged, demure, and crabbed; all idle, mortal foes tobusiness, spending half their time in sleeping and the rest in doingnothing, a rent-charge and dead unnecessary weight on the earth, as Hesiodsaith; afraid, as we judged, of offending or lessening their paunch. Others were masked, disguised, and so oddly dressed that it would have doneyou good to have seen them. 

There's a saying, and several ancient sages write, that the skill of natureappears wonderful in the pleasure which she seems to have taken in theconfiguration of sea-shells, so great is their variety in figures, colours, streaks, and inimitable shapes. I protest the variety we perceived in thedresses of the gastrolatrous coquillons was not less. They all ownedGaster for their supreme god, adored him as a god, offered him sacrificesas to their omnipotent deity, owned no other god, served, loved, andhonoured 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 youeven weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end isdestruction, whose God is their belly. Pantagruel compared them to theCyclops Polyphemus, whom Euripides brings in speaking thus: I onlysacrifice to myself--not to the gods--and to this belly of mine, thegreatest of all the gods. 

Chapter 4. LIX. 

Of the ridiculous statue Manduce; and how and what the Gastrolaterssacrifice to their ventripotent god. 

While we fed our eyes with the sight of the phizzes and actions of theselounging gulligutted Gastrolaters, we on a sudden heard the sound of amusical instrument called a bell; at which all of them placed themselves inrank 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 woodenstatue, grossly carved, and as scurvily daubed over with paint; such a oneas Plautus, Juvenal, and Pomp. Festus describe it. At Lyons during theCarnival it is called Maschecroute or Gnawcrust; they call'd this Manduce. 

It was a monstrous, ridiculous, hideous figure, fit to fright littlechildren; its eyes were bigger than its belly, and its head larger than allthe rest of its body; well mouth-cloven however, having a goodly pair ofwide, 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 goldenstaff, were made to clash, clatter, and rattle dreadfully one againstanother; as they do at Metz with St. Clement's dragon. 

Coming near the Gastrolaters I saw they were followed by a great number offat waiters and tenders, laden with baskets, dossers, hampers, dishes, wallets, pots, and kettles. Then, under the conduct of Manduce, andsinging I do not know what dithyrambics, crepalocomes, and epenons, openingtheir 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; claretand champagne followed, cool, nay, as cold as the very ice, I say, filledand 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 hismuzzle:

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 theirmanifold kitchen sacrifices, and would have been gone had not Epistemonprevailed with him to stay and see the end of the farce. He then asked theskipper what the idle lobcocks used to sacrifice to their gorbellied god oninterlarded fish-days. For his first course, said the skipper, they gavehim:

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 beingdone, 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 notimmediately make the fish swim again in his paunch, death would pack himoff in a trice. Special care is taken to antidote his godship withvine-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. Forthe 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 theirswas not publicly, preciously, and plentifully served in the sacrifices, better yet than Heliogabalus's idol; nay, more than Bel and the Dragon inBabylon, under King Belshazzar. Yet Gaster had the manners to own that hewas no god, but a poor, vile, wretched creature. And as King Antigonus, first of the name, when one Hermodotus (as poets will flatter, especiallyprinces) in some of his fustian dubbed him a god, and made the sun adopthim for his son, said to him: My lasanophore (or, in plain English, mygroom of the close-stool) can give thee the lie; so Master Gaster verycivilly used to send back his bigoted worshippers to his close-stool, tosee, smell, taste, philosophize, and examine what kind of divinity theycould 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 mindedthe famous master of arts, Gaster. You know that, by the institution ofnature, bread has been assigned him for provision and food; and that, as anaddition to this blessing, he should never want the means to get bread. 

Accordingly, from the beginning he invented the smith's art, and husbandryto manure the ground, that it might yield him corn; he invented arms andthe art of war to defend corn; physic and astronomy, with other parts ofmathematics which might be useful to keep corn a great number of years insafety from the injuries of the air, beasts, robbers, and purloiners; heinvented water, wind, and handmills, and a thousand other engines to grindcorn and to turn it into meal; leaven to make the dough ferment, and theuse of salt to give it a savour; for he knew that nothing bred morediseases than heavy, unleavened, unsavoury bread. 

He found a way to get fire to bake it; hour-glasses, dials, and clocks tomark the time of its baking; and as some countries wanted corn, hecontrived 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 callmules, more strong and fit for hard service than the other two. Heinvented carts and waggons to draw him along with greater ease; and as seasand rivers hindered his progress, he devised boats, galleys, and ships (tothe 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 cornperished in it for want of rain in due season, in others rotted or wasdrowned 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; wewere told that ever since the days of yore he has found out a way toconjure the rain down from heaven only with cutting certain grass, commonenough in the field, yet known to very few, some of which was then shownus. I took it to be the same as the plant, one of whose boughs beingdipped by Jove's priest in the Agrian fountain on the Lycian mountain inArcadia, in time of drought raised vapours which gathered into clouds, andthen 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 inthe 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 usedto do. And as in the fields thieves and plunderers sometimes stole andtook by force the corn and bread which others had toiled to get, heinvented the art of building towns, forts, and castles, to hoard and securethat staff of life. On the other hand, finding none in the fields, andhearing that it was hoarded up and secured in towns, forts, and castles, and watched with more care than ever were the golden pippins of theHesperides, he turned engineer, and found ways to beat, storm, and demolishforts and castles with machines and warlike thunderbolts, battering-rams, ballists, and catapults, whose shapes were shown to us, not over-wellunderstood by our engineers, architects, and other disciples of Vitruvius;as Master Philibert de l'Orme, King Megistus's principal architect, hasowned to us. 

And seeing that sometimes all these tools of destruction were baffled bythe cunning subtlety or the subtle cunning (which you please) offortifiers, 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 dreadfulpowder, whose hellish compound and effect has even amazed nature, and madeher own herself outdone by art, the Oxydracian thunders, hails, and stormsby which the people of that name immediately destroyed their enemies in thefield being but mere potguns to these. For one of our great guns when usedis more dreadful, more terrible, more diabolical, and maims, tears, breaks, slays, mows down, and sweeps away more men, and causes a greaterconsternation 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, hassometimes been attacked by enemies; his fortresses, by that thricethreefold cursed instrument, levelled and destroyed; his dearly belovedcorn 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 besiegedwalls any damage. He showed us a trial of this which has been since usedby Fronton, and is now common among the pastimes and harmless recreationsof the Thelemites. I will tell you how he went to work, and pray for thefuture be a little more ready to believe what Plutarch affirms to havetried. Suppose a herd of goats were all scampering as if the devil drovethem, do but put a bit of eringo into the mouth of the hindmost nanny, andthey will all stop stock still in the time you can tell three. 

Thus Gaster, having caused a brass falcon to be charged with a sufficientquantity of gunpowder well purged from its sulphur, and curiously made upwith fine camphor, he then had a suitable ball put into the piece, withtwenty-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 havehit him on the breast. About sixty strides off the piece, halfway betweenit and the page in a right line, he hanged on a gibbet by a rope a verylarge siderite or iron-like stone, otherwise called herculean, formerlyfound on Ida in Phrygia by one Magnes, as Nicander writes, and commonlycalled 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 withincredible violence and swiftness hurried out of the gun at its muzzle, that the air might penetrate to its chamber, where otherwise would havebeen a vacuum, which nature abhors so much, that this universal machine, heaven, air, land, and sea, would sooner return to the primitive chaos thanadmit the least void anywhere. Now the ball and small shot, whichthreatened the page with no less than quick destruction, lost theirimpetuosity and remained suspended and hovering round the stone; nor didany of them, notwithstanding the fury with which they rushed, reach thepage. 

Master Gaster could do more than all this yet, if you will believe me; forhe invented a way how to cause bullets to fly backwards, and recoil onthose that sent them with as great a force, and in the very numericalparallel for which the guns were planted. And indeed, why should he havethought this difficult? seeing the herb ethiopis opens all lockswhatsoever, and an echinus or remora, a silly weakly fish, in spite of allthe winds that blow from the thirty-two points of the compass, will in themidst of a hurricane make you the biggest first-rate remain stock still, asif 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 outof the deepest well that was ever sounded with a plummet; for it willcertainly draw up the precious metal, since Democritus affirmed it. Theophrastus believed and experienced that there was an herb at whosesingle touch an iron wedge, though never so far driven into a huge log ofthe hardest wood that is, would presently come out; and it is this sameherb your hickways, alias woodpeckers, use, when with some mighty axeanyone stops up the hole of their nests, which they industriously dig andmake in the trunk of some sturdy tree. Since stags and hinds, when deeplywounded with darts, arrows, and bolts, if they do but meet the herb calleddittany, which is common in Candia, and eat a little of it, presently theshafts come out and all is well again; even as kind Venus cured her belovedbyblow Aeneas when he was wounded on the right thigh with an arrow byJuturna, Turnus's sister. Since the very wind of laurels, fig-trees, orsea-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 venomousrage 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 templewas built there, he has seen some beasts called neades, whose voice madethe 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, insuch places where the crowing of cocks is not heard, as the ancient sageshave 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 astonishand stupify with fear that strong and resolute animal, a lion. I know thatsome have understood this of wild elder, that grows so far from towns orvillages that the crowing of cocks cannot reach near it; and doubtless thatsort ought to be preferred to the stenching common elder that grows aboutdecayed and ruined places; but others have understood this in a highersense, not literal, but allegorical, according to the method of thePythagoreans, as when it was said that Mercury's statue could not be madeof every sort of wood; to which sentence they gave this sense, that God isnot to be worshipped in a vulgar form, but in a chosen and religiousmanner. In the same manner, by this elder which grows far from placeswhere cocks are heard, the ancients meant that the wise and studious oughtnot to give their minds to trivial or vulgar music, but to that which iscelestial, divine, angelical, more abstracted, and brought from remoterparts, 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 heardto crow there. 

Chapter 4. LXIII. 

How Pantagruel fell asleep near the island of Chaneph, and of the problemsproposed to be solved when he waked. 

The next day, merrily pursuing our voyage, we came in sight of the islandof Chaneph, where Pantagruel's ship could not arrive, the wind choppingabout, and then failing us so that we were becalmed, and could hardly getahead, 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 oftune, off the hinges, and I-don't-know-howish, without caring to speak onesingle syllable to each other. 

Pantagruel was taking a nap, slumbering and nodding on the quarter-deck bythe cuddy, with an Heliodorus in his hand; for still it was his custom tosleep better by book than by heart. 

Epistemon was conjuring, with his astrolabe, to know what latitude we werein. 

Friar John was got into the cook-room, examining, by the ascendant of thespits and the horoscope of ragouts and fricassees, what time of day itmight then be. 

Panurge (sweet baby!) held a stalk of Pantagruelions, alias hemp, next histongue, and with it made pretty bubbles and bladders. 

Gymnast was making tooth-pickers with lentisk. 

Ponocrates, dozing, dozed, and dreaming, dreamed; tickled himself to makehimself laugh, and with one finger scratched his noddle where it did notitch. 

Carpalin, with a nutshell and a trencher of verne (that's a card inGascony), was making a pretty little merry windmill, cutting the cardlongways into four slips, and fastening them with a pin to the convex ofthe 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 fingersas 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'sjesses. 

Our pilot (good man!) was pulling maggots out of the seamen's noses. 

At last Friar John, returning from the forecastle, perceived thatPantagruel was awake. Then breaking this obstinate silence, he briskly andcheerfully 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 bepisshimself 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, thePeripatetics have wisely made a rule that all problems, questions, anddoubts which are offered to be solved ought to be certain, clear, andintelligible. 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 lazilyyawning, 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 antiquatedlantern, asked how the hold of the stomach might be so well ballasted andfreighted from the keel to the main hatch, with stores well stowed, thatour human vessels might not heel or be walt, but well trimmed and stiff. 

Carpalin, twirling his diminutive windmill, asked how many motions are tobe felt in nature before a gentleman may be said to be hungry. 

Eusthenes, hearing them talk, came from between decks, and from the capstancalled out to know why a man that is fasting, bit by a serpent alsofasting, is in greater danger of death than when man and serpent have eattheir breakfasts;--why a man's fasting-spittle is poisonous to serpents andvenomous creatures. 

One single solution may serve for all your problems, gentlemen, answeredPantagruel; and one single medicine for all such symptoms and accidents. My answer shall be short, not to tire you with a long needless train ofpedantic cant. The belly has no ears, nor is it to be filled with fairwords; you shall be answered to content by signs and gestures. As formerlyat Rome, Tarquin the Proud, its last king, sent an answer by signs to hisson Sextus, who was among the Gabii at Gabii. (Saying this, he pulled thestring 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 theGabii under a close subjection, the king, mistrusting the messenger, madehim no answer, and only took him into his privy garden, and in his presencewith his sword lopped off the heads of the tall poppies that were there. The express returned without any other despatch, yet having related to theprince what he had seen his father do, he easily understood that by thosesigns he advised him to cut off the heads of the chief men in the town, thebetter 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 ofbeads, mumblers of ave-marias, spiritual comedians, sham saints, hermits, all of them poor rogues who, like the hermit of Lormont between Blaye andBordeaux, live wholly on alms given them by passengers. Catch me there ifyou can, cried Panurge; may the devil's head-cook conjure my bumgut into apair of bellows if ever you find me among them! Hermits, sham saints, living forms of mortification, holy mountebanks, avaunt! in the name ofyour father Satan, get out of my sight! When the devil's a hog, you shalleat bacon. I shall not forget yet awhile our fat Concilipetes of Chesil. O that Beelzebub and Astaroth had counselled them to hang themselves out ofthe way, and they had done't! we had not then suffered so much by devilishstorms as we did for having seen 'em. Hark ye me, dear rogue, Xenomanes, my friend, I prithee are these hermits, hypocrites, and eavesdroppers maidsor married? Is there anything of the feminine gender among them? Could abody hypocritically take there a small hypocritical touch? Will they liebackwards, and let out their fore-rooms? There's a fine question to beasked, cried Pantagruel. Yes, yes, answered Xenomanes; you may find theremany 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 withthem, cried Friar John; a young saint, an old devil! (Mark this, an oldsaying, and as true a one as, a young whore, an old saint. ) Were there notsuch, continued Xenomanes, the isle of Chaneph, for want of amultiplication of progeny, had long ere this been desert and desolate. 

Pantagruel sent them by Gymnast in the pinnace seventy-eight thousand finepretty 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 isthen the best time to go to dinner, said Pantagruel; for the sacred line socelebrated 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; whenthat chimed, they thought it time to go to dinner. So we find in Plautus acertain parasite making a heavy do, and sadly railing at the inventors ofhour-glasses and dials as being unnecessary things, there being no clockmore regular than the belly. 

Diogenes being asked at what times a man ought to eat, answered, The richwhen he is hungry, the poor when he has anything to eat. Physicians moreproperly 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 thegut came in, and got ready the tables and cupboards; laid the cloth, whosesight 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, andof the mouth, tasters, carvers, cupbearers, and cupboard-keepers, broughtfour stately pasties, so huge that they put me in mind of the four bastionsat Turin. Ods-fish, how manfully did they storm them! What havoc did theymake with the long train of dishes that came after them! How bravely didthey stand to their pan-puddings, and paid off their dust! How merrily didthey soak their noses!

The fruit was not yet brought in, when a fresh gale at west and by northbegan to fill the main-course, mizen-sail, fore-sail, tops, andtop-gallants; for which blessing they all sung divers hymns of thanks andpraise. 

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, answeredRhizotome. I sleep no longer like a dog, said Ponocrates. I have clearedmy eyesight, said Gymnast. I have broke my fast, said Eusthenes; so thatfor 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 futurespouse? asked Friar John. Art thou speaking ill of women, cried Panurge, thou mangy scoundrel, thou sorry, noddy-peaked shaveling monk? By thecenomanic paunch and gixy, said Epistemon, Euripides has written, and makesAndromache say it, that by industry, and the help of the gods, men hadfound remedies against all poisonous creatures; but none was yet foundagainst a bad wife. 

This flaunting Euripides, cried Panurge, was gabbling against women everyfoot, and therefore was devoured by dogs, as a judgment from above; asAristophanes observes. Let's go on. Let him speak that is next. I canleak 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, andwill now make shift to bear a steady sail. Said Carpalin, A truce withthirst, a truce with hunger; they are strong, but wine and meat arestronger. I'm no more in the dumps cried Panurge; my heart's a poundlighter. I'm in the right cue now, as brisk as a body-louse, and as merryas a beggar. For my part, I know what I do when I drink; and it is a truething (though 'tis in your Euripides) that is said by that jolly toperSilenus 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 raredainties, 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 morethan this easy question, answered Pantagruel, I'll strive to give yousatisfaction; 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 notraised it? Look up and see our full topsails. Hark how the wind whistlesthrough the shrouds, what a stiff gale it blows. Observe the rattling ofthe tacklings, and see the sheets that fasten the mainsail behind; theforce of the wind puts them upon the stretch. While we passed our timemerrily, the dull weather also passed away; and while we raised the glassesto 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, ifyou'll believe the wise mythologists, but they raised it some half an inchtoo high, Atlas to entertain his guest Hercules more pleasantly, andHercules to make himself amends for the thirst which some time before hadtormented him in the deserts of Africa. Your good father, said Friar John, interrupting him, takes care to free many people from such aninconveniency; for I have been told by many venerable doctors that hischief-butler, Turelupin, saves above eighteen hundred pipes of wine yearlyto make servants, and all comers and goers, drink before they are a-dry. As the camels and dromedaries of a caravan, continued Pantagruel, use todrink for the thirst that's past, for the present, and for that to come, sodid Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this gave new motion tothe sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation, about which ourcrackbrained astrologers make such a pother. This, said Panurge, makes thesaying 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 onlyshortened the time of the calm, but also much disburthened the ship; notlike Aesop's basket, by easing it of the provision, but by breaking ourfasts; and that a man is more terrestrial and heavy when fasting than whenhe has eaten and drank, even as they pretend that he weighs more dead thanliving. However it is, you will grant they are in the right who take theirmorning's draught and breakfast before a long journey; then say that thehorses will perform the better, and that a spur in the head is worth two inthe 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 Bacchusabove all other gods, and gave him the name of Psila, which in the Doricdialect signifies wings; for, as the birds raise themselves by a toweringflight with their wings above the clouds, so, with the help of soaringBacchus, the powerful juice of the grape, our spirits are exalted to apitch above themselves, our bodies are more sprightly, and their earthlyparts become soft and pliant. 

Chapter 4. LXVI. 

How, by Pantagruel's order, the Muses were saluted near the isle ofGanabim. 

This fair wind and as fine talk brought us in sight of a high land, whichPantagruel discovering afar off, showed it Xenomanes, and asked him, Do yousee yonder to the leeward a high rock with two tops, much like MountParnassus in Phocis? I do plainly, answered Xenomanes; 'tis the isle ofGanabim. Have you a mind to go ashore there? No, returned Pantagruel. You do well, indeed, said Xenomanes; for there is nothing worth seeing inthe place. The people are all thieves; yet there is the finest fountain inthe 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 beso mad as to go among a parcel of thieves and sharpers. You may take myword for't, this place is just such another as, to my knowledge, formerlywere the islands of Sark and Herm, between the smaller and the greaterBritain; such as was the Poneropolis of Philip in Thrace; islands ofthieves, banditti, picaroons, robbers, ruffians, and murderers, worse thanraw-head and bloody-bones, and full as honest as the senior fellows of thecollege 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 butbluely, if you come off at all. If you will not believe me, at leastbelieve what the good and wise Xenomanes tells you; for may I never stir ifthey are not worse than the very cannibals; they would certainly eat usalive. Do not go among 'em, I pray you; it were safer to take a journey tohell. Hark! by Cod's body, I hear 'em ringing the alarm-bell mostdreadfully, as the Gascons about Bordeaux used formerly to do against thecommissaries and officers for the tax on salt, or my ears tingle. Let'ssheer off. 

Believe me, sir, said Friar John, let's rather land; we will rid the worldof 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, butventures and runs on like a mad devil as he is, and cares not a rush whatbecomes of others; as if everyone was a monk, like his friarship. A pox ongrinning honour, say I. Go to, returned the friar, thou mangy noddy-peak!thou forlorn druggle-headed sneaksby! and may a million of black devilsanatomize thy cockle brain. The hen-hearted rascal is so cowardly that heberays himself for fear every day. If thou art so afraid, dunghill, do notgo; stay here and be hanged; or go and hide thy loggerhead under MadamProserpine's petticoat. 

Panurge hearing this, his breech began to make buttons; so he slunk in inan instant, and went to hide his head down in the bread-room among themusty biscuits and the orts and scraps of broken bread. 

Pantagruel in the meantime said to the rest: I feel a pressing retractionin my soul, which like a voice admonishes me not to land there. Whenever Ihave felt such a motion within me I have found myself happy in avoidingwhat 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, socelebrated among the Academics. Well then, sir, said Friar John, while theship's crew water have you a mind to have good sport? Panurge is got downsomewhere in the hold, where he is crept into some corner, and lurks like amouse in a cranny. Let 'em give the word for the gunner to fire yon gunover the round-house on the poop; this will serve to salute the Muses ofthis Anti-parnassus; besides, the powder does but decay in it. You are inthe right, said Pantagruel; here, give the word for the gunner. 

The gunner immediately came, and was ordered by Pantagruel to fire thatgun, and then charge it with fresh powder, which was soon done. Thegunners 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 ahorrid noise that you would have sworn heaven had been tumbling about ourears. 

Chapter 4. LXVII. 

How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge cat Rodilardus, whichhe took for a puny devil. 

Panurge, like a wild, addle-pated, giddy-goat, sallies out of thebread-room in his shirt, with nothing else about him but one of hisstockings, 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 beenover head and ears, and a huge and mighty puss partly wrapped up in hisother stocking. In this equipage, his chaps moving like a monkey's who'sa-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 sittingby the chain-wales of the starboard side of the ship, and prayed himheartily to take pity on him and keep him in the safeguard of his trustybilbo; swearing, by his share of Papimany, that he had seen all hell brokeloose. 

Woe is me, my Jacky, cried he, my dear Johnny, my old crony, my brother, myghostly father! all the devils keep holiday, all the devils keep theirfeast to-day, man. Pork and peas choke me if ever thou sawest suchpreparations in thy life for an infernal feast. Dost thou see the smoke ofhell's kitchens? (This he said, showing him the smoke of the gunpowderabove the ships. ) Thou never sawest so many damned souls since thou wastborn; and so fair, so bewitching they seem, that one would swear they areStygian ambrosia. I thought at first, God forgive me! that they had beenEnglish 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, bythe lords of Termes and Essay. 

Friar John, at the approach of Panurge, was entertained with a kind ofsmell 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 wasdismally bepawed and berayed with fresh sir-reverence. The retentivefaculty of the nerve which restrains the muscle called sphincter ('tis thearse-hole, an it please you) was relaxated by the violence of the fearwhich he had been in during his fantastic visions. Add to this thethundering noise of the shooting, which seems more dreadful between decksthan above. Nor ought you to wonder at such a mishap; for one of thesymptoms and accidents of fear is, that it often opens the wicket of thecupboard wherein second-hand meat is kept for a time. Let's illustratethis noble theme with some examples. 

Messer Pantolfe de la Cassina of Siena, riding post from Rome, came toChambery, and alighting at honest Vinet's took one of the pitchforks in thestable; then turning to the innkeeper, said to him, Da Roma in qua io nonson andato del corpo. Di gratia piglia in mano questa forcha, et fa mipaura. (I have not had a stool since I left Rome. I pray thee take thispitchfork and fright me. ) Vinet took it, and made several offers as if hewould in good earnest have hit the signor, but all in vain; so the Sienesesaid to him, Si tu non fai altramente, tu non fai nulla; pero sforzati diadoperarli piu guagliardamente. (If thou dost not go another way to work, thou hadst as good do nothing; therefore try to bestir thyself morebriskly. ) With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater with thepitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin, that downfell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks widestraggling over his poll. Then mine host sputtering, with a full-mouthedlaugh, 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 wasthe evacuation as that of nine buffaloes and fourteen missificatingarch-lubbers. Which operation being over, the mannerly Sienese courteouslygave mine host a whole bushel of thanks, saying to him, Io ti ringratio, belmessere; cosi facendo tu m' ai esparmiata la speza d'un servitiale. (Ithank thee, good landlord; by this thou hast e'en saved me the expense of aclyster. )

I'll give you another example of Edward V. , King of England. MasterFrancis Villon, being banished France, fled to him, and got so far into hisfavour 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 tohim, Dost thou see what respect I have for thy French kings? I have noneof their arms anywhere but in this backside, near my close-stool. Ods-life, said the buffoon, how wise, prudent, and careful of your healthyour highness is! How carefully your learned doctor, Thomas Linacre, looksafter you! He saw that now you grow old you are inclined to be somewhatcostive, and every day were fain to have an apothecary, I mean a suppositoryor clyster, thrust into your royal nockandroe; so he has, much to thepurpose, induced you to place here the arms of France; for the very sight ofthem puts you into such a dreadful fright that you immediately let fly asmuch as would come from eighteen squattering bonasi of Paeonia. And if theywere painted in other parts of your house, by jingo, you would presentlyconskite yourself wherever you saw them. Nay, had you but here a picture ofthe great oriflamme of France, ods-bodikins, your tripes and bowels would bein no small danger of dropping out at the orifice of your posteriors. Buthenh, 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 chamberbefore you come into this closet. By'r lady, at first I thought yourclose-stool had stood behind the hangings of your bed; otherwise it seemedvery odd to me you should untruss so far from the place of evacuation. Butnow I find I was a gull, a wittol, a woodcock, a mere ninny, a dolt-head, anoddy, a changeling, a calf-lolly, a doddipoll. You do wisely, by themass, you do wisely; for had you not been ready to clap your hind face onthe 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 aclose-stool. 

Friar John, stopping the handle of his face with his left hand, did, withthe 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 notchoose but laugh, and said to him, Prithee what wouldst thou do with thiscat? With this cat? quoth Panurge; the devil scratch me if I did not thinkit had been a young soft-chinned devil, which, with this same stockinginstead of mitten, I had snatched up in the great hutch of hell asthievishly as any sizar of Montague college could have done. The deviltake Tybert! I feel it has all bepinked my poor hide, and drawn on it tothe life I don't know how many lobsters' whiskers. With this he threw hisboar-cat down. 

Go, go, said Pantagruel, be bathed and cleaned, calm your fears, put on aclean shift, and then your clothes. What! do you think I am afraid? criedPanurge. Not I, I protest. By the testicles of Hercules, I am morehearty, bold, and stout, though I say it that should not, than if I hadswallowed as many flies as are put into plumcakes and other paste at Parisfrom Midsummer to Christmas. But what's this? Hah! oh, ho! how the devilcame 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, orspyrathe? 'Tis Hibernian saffron, I protest. Hah, hah, hah! 'tis Irishsaffron, by Shaint Pautrick, and so much for this time. Selah. Let'sdrink. 

THE FIFTH BOOK

The Author's Prologue. 

Indefatigable topers, and you, thrice precious martyrs of the smock, giveme leave to put a serious question to your worships while you are idlystriking your codpieces, and I myself not much better employed. Pray, whyis it that people say that men are not such sots nowadays as they were inthe days of yore? Sot is an old word that signifies a dunce, dullard, jolthead, gull, wittol, or noddy, one without guts in his brains, whosecockloft is unfurnished, and, in short, a fool. Now would I know whetheryou would have us understand by this same saying, as indeed you logicallymay, that formerly men were fools and in this generation are grown wise?How many and what dispositions made them fools? How many and whatdispositions were wanting to make 'em wise? Why were they fools? Howshould they be wise? Pray, how came you to know that men were formerlyfools? How did you find that they are now wise? Who the devil made 'emfools? Who a God's name made 'em wise? Who d'ye think are most, thosethat loved mankind foolish, or those that love it wise? How long has itbeen 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 worsefor the former folly? What the better for the succeeding wisdom? Howshould the ancient folly be come to nothing? How should this same newwisdom 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 leastuneasy. 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 fivebumpers 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! ForI swear by my great-grandmother's placket (and that's a horrid oath), thatif you don't help me to solve that puzzling problem, I will, nay, I alreadydo repent having proposed it; for still I must remain nettled andgravelled, 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 ananswer; nor I neither, by these whiskers. Yet to give some light into thebusiness, I'll e'en tell you what had been anciently foretold in the matterby 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 oldfornicator 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 stylelaconic, the sentences dark like those of Scotus, though they treat ofmatters dark enough in themselves. The best commentators on that goodfather take the jubilee after the thirtieth to be the years that areincluded in this present age till 1550 (there being but one jubilee everyfifty years). Men shall no longer be thought fools next green peas season. 

The fools, whose number, as Solomon certifies, is infinite, shall go to potlike a parcel of mad bedlamites as they are; and all manner of folly shallhave an end, that being also numberless, according to Avicenna, maniaeinfinitae sunt species. Having been driven back and hidden towards thecentre 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 bythat great good man Hippocrates, Aphorism Verae etenim maniae, &c. Thisworld therefore wisifying itself, shall no longer dread the flower andblossoms 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 tokeep 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 asthose of whining Heraclitus, as unintelligible as the numbers ofPythagoras, that king of the bean, according to Horace; those books, I say, have seen their best days and shall soon come to nothing, being deliveredto the executing worms and merciless petty chandlers; such was theirdestiny, and to this they were predestinated. 

In their stead beans in cod are started up; that is, these merry andfructifying Pantagruelian books, so much sought nowadays in expectation ofthe following jubilee's period; to the study of which writings all peoplehave 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 toyour 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 Ihereby promise to furnish them with twice as much as will do their businesson free cost, as often as they will take the pains to dance at a rope's endprovidently to save charges, to the no small disappointment of the finisherof the law. 

Now, my friends, that you may put in for a share of this new wisdom, andshake off the antiquated folly this very moment, scratch me out of yourscrolls and quite discard the symbol of the old philosopher with the goldenthigh, by which he has forbidden you to eat beans; for you may take it fora truth granted among all professors in the science of good eating, that heenjoined you not to taste of them only with the same kind intent that acertain fresh-water physician had when he did forbid to Amer, late Lord ofCamelotiere, 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 wasso selfish as to reserve them for his own dainty chops, and allowed hispoor patients little more than the bare bones to pick, lest they shouldoverload their squeamish stomachs. 

To the heathen philosopher succeeded a pack of Capuchins, monks who forbidus the use of beans, that is, Pantagruelian books. They seem to follow theexample of Philoxenus and Gnatho, one of whom was a Sicilian of fulsomememory, the ancient master-builders of their monastic cram-gutvoluptuousness, who, when some dainty bit was served up at a feast, filthily used to spit on it, that none but their nasty selves might havethe stomach to eat of it, though their liquorish chops watered never somuch after it. 

So those hideous, snotty, phthisicky, eaves-dropping, musty, moving formsof mortification, both in public and private, curse those dainty books, andlike toads spit their venom upon them. 

Now, though we have in our mother-tongue several excellent works in verseand prose, and, heaven be praised! but little left of the trash andtrumpery stuff of those duncical mumblers of ave-maries and the barbarousforegoing Gothic age, I have made bold to choose to chirrup and warble myplain ditty, or, as they say, to whistle like a goose among the swans, rather than be thought deaf among so many pretty poets and eloquentorators. And thus I am prouder of acting the clown, or any otherunder-part, among the many ingenious actors in that noble play, than ofherding among those mutes, who, like so many shadows and ciphers, only serveto 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 upof the music; thus silently giving to understand that their fopships aretickled in the right place. 

Having taken this resolution, I thought it would not be amiss to move myDiogenical tub, that you might not accuse me of living without example. Isee a swarm of our modern poets and orators, your Colinets, Marots, Drouets, Saint Gelais, Salels, Masuels, and many more, who, havingcommenced masters in Apollo's academy on Mount Parnassus, and drunkbrimmers at the Caballin fountain among the nine merry Muses, have raisedour vulgar tongue, and made it a noble and everlasting structure. Theirworks are all Parian marble, alabaster, porphyry, and royal cement; theytreat of nothing but heroic deeds, mighty things, grave and difficultmatters, and this in a crimson, alamode, rhetorical style. Their writingsare all divine nectar, rich, racy, sparkling, delicate, and luscious wine. Nor does our sex wholly engross this honour; ladies have had their share ofthe glory; one of them, of the royal blood of France, whom it were aprofanation but to name here, surprises the age at once by the transcendentand 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 couldnot give gold by handfuls. 

Since then 'tis not in my power to improve our architecture as much asthey, I am e'en resolved to do like Renault of Montauban: I'll wait on themasons, set on the pot for the masons, cook for the stone-cutters; andsince it was not my good luck to be cut out for one of them, I will liveand die the admirer of their divine writings. 

As for you, little envious prigs, snarling bastards, puny critics, you'llsoon have railed your last; go hang yourselves, and choose you out somewell-spread oak, under whose shade you may swing in state, to theadmiration of the gaping mob; you shall never want rope enough. While Ihere solemnly protest before my Helicon, in the presence of my ninemistresses the Muses, that if I live yet the age of a dog, eked out withthat of three crows, sound wind and limbs, like the old Hebrew captainMoses, Xenophilus the musician, and Demonax the philosopher, by argumentsno ways impertinent, and reasons not to be disputed, I will prove, in theteeth of a parcel of brokers and retailers of ancient rhapsodies and suchmouldy 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 Iknow not what botchers of old threadbare stuff, a hundred and a hundredtimes clouted up and pieced together; wretched bunglers that can do nothingbut new-vamp old rusty saws; beggarly scavengers that rake even themuddiest canals of antiquity for scraps and bits of Latin as insignificantas they are often uncertain. Beseeching our grandees of Witland that, aswhen formerly Apollo had distributed all the treasures of his poeticalexchequer to his favourites, little hulchbacked Aesop got for himself theoffice of apologue-monger; in the same manner, since I do not aspirehigher, they would not deny me that of puny rhyparographer, or riffrafffollower of the sect of Pyreicus. 

I dare swear they will grant me this; for they are all so kind, sogood-natured, and so generous, that they'll ne'er boggle at so small arequest. Therefore, both dry and hungry souls, pot and trenchermen, fullyenjoying those books, perusing, quoting them in their merry conventicles, and observing the great mysteries of which they treat, shall gain a singularprofit and fame; as in the like case was done by Alexander the Great withthe 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 assoon as you meet with them at the booksellers; and do not only shell thosebeans, but e'en swallow them down like an opiate cordial, and let them bein 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 yourworships; they were gathered in the very individual garden whence theformer came. So I beseech you, reverend sirs, with as much respect as wasever paid by dedicating author, to accept of the gift, in hopes of somewhatbetter 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 weheard. 

Pursuing our voyage, we sailed three days without discovering anything; onthe 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, thatseemed 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 wecame to the land the louder we heard that jangling. 

Some of us doubted that it was the Dodonian kettle, or the portico calledHeptaphone in Olympia, or the eternal humming of the colossus raised onMemnon's tomb in Thebes of Egypt, or the horrid din that used formerly tobe heard about a tomb at Lipara, one of the Aeolian islands. But this didnot square with chorography. 

I do not know, said Pantagruel, but that some swarms of bees hereabouts maybe taking a ramble in the air, and so the neighbourhood make thisdingle-dangle with pans, kettles, and basins, the corybantine cymbals ofCybele, grandmother of the gods, to call them back. Let's hearken. When wewere nearer, among the everlasting ringing of these indefatigable bells weheard the singing, as we thought, of some men. For this reason, before weoffered to land on the Ringing Island, Pantagruel was of opinion that weshould go in the pinnace to a small rock, near which we discovered anhermitage 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 allthe jangling, and regaled us after a strange sort of fashion--four livelongdays did he make us fast, assuring us that we should not be admitted intothe 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 understandthis 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 fatherhermit, have not you here some other pastime besides fasting? Methinks it issomewhat of the leanest; we might well enough be without so many palaceholidays 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, andthe future; doubtless here the fourth ought to be a work of supererogation. That time or tense, said Epistemon, is aorist, derived from thepreter-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 Itold you, fatal to go against this; whosoever does it is a rank heretic, andwants nothing but fire and faggot, that's certain. To deal plainly withyou, my dear pater, cried Panurge, being at sea, I much more fear being wetthan being warm, and being drowned than being burned. 

Well, however, let us fast, a God's name; yet I have fasted so long that ithas quite undermined my flesh, and I fear that at last the bastions of thisbodily fort of mine will fall to ruin. Besides, I am much more afraid ofvexing you in this same trade of fasting; for the devil a bit I understandanything in it, and it becomes me very scurvily, as several people havetold me, and I am apt to believe them. For my part, I have no greatstomach to fasting; for alas! it is as easy as pissing a bed, and a tradeof which anybody may set up; there needs no tools. I am much more inclinednot to fast for the future; for to do so there is some stock required, andsome tools are set a-work. No matter, since you are so steadfast, andwould have us fast, let us fast as fast as we can, and then breakfast inthe name of famine. Now we are come to these esurial idle days. I vow Ihad quite put them out of my head long ago. If we must fast, saidPantagruel, 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 lookover my papers, and examine whether the marine study be as good as ours atland. For Plato, to describe a silly, raw, ignorant fellow, compares himto those that are bred on shipboard, as we would do one bred up in abarrel, who never saw anything but through the bung-hole. 

To tell you the short and the long of the matter, our fasting was mosthideous and terrible; for the first day we fasted on fisticuffs, the secondat cudgels, the third at sharps, and the fourth at blood and wounds: suchwas the order of the fairies. 

Chapter 5. II. 

How the Ringing Island had been inhabited by the Siticines, who were becomebirds. 

Having fasted as aforesaid, the hermit gave us a letter for one whom hecalled Albian Camar, Master Aedituus of the Ringing Island; but Panurgegreeting him called him Master Antitus. He was a little queer old fellow, bald-pated, with a snout whereat you might easily have lighted acard-match, and a phiz as red as a cardinal's cap. He made us all verywelcome, upon the hermit's recommendation, hearing that we had fasted, as Ihave told you. 

When we had well stuffed our puddings, he gave us an account of what wasremarkable in the island, affirming that it had been at first inhabited bythe 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 theSiticines and Sicinnists; and then we thought we might as easily believethe transmutations of Nectymene, Progne, Itys, Alcyone, Antigone, Tereus, and other birds. Nor did we think it more reasonable to doubt of thetransmogrification of the Macrobian children into swans, or that of the menof Pallene in Thrace into birds, as soon as they had bathed themselves inthe Tritonic lake. After this the devil a word could we get out of him butof birds and cages. 

The cages were spacious, costly, magnificent, and of an admirablearchitecture. The birds were large, fine, and neat accordingly, looking aslike the men in my country as one pea does like another; for they ate anddrank like men, muted like men, endued or digested like men, farted likemen, 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 totoe, 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 truthis, 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 redlike red-birds, and others purple and white like some pigeons. He calledthe males clerg-hawks, monk-hawks, priest-hawks, abbot-hawks, bish-hawks, cardin-hawks, and one pope-hawk, who is a species by himself. He calledthe 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 theredo nothing but buzz, eat, and spoil everything; so, for these last threehundred 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 monstrousthat none can abide them. For their wry necks make a figure like a crookedbillet; their paws are hairy, like those of rough-footed pigeons; theirclaws 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, straightfour-and-twenty new ones fly thither. 

There had been need of another monster-hunter such as was Hercules; forFriar John had like to have run distracted about it, so much he was nettledand puzzled in the matter. As for the good Pantagruel, he was even servedas was Messer Priapus, contemplating the sacrifices of Ceres, for want ofskin. 

Chapter 5. III. 

How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island. 

We then asked Master Aedituus why there was but one pope-hawk among suchvenerable birds multiplied in all their species. He answered that such wasthe first institution and fatal destiny of the stars that the clerg-hawksbegot the priest-hawks and monk-hawks without carnal copulation, as somebees are born of a young bull; the priest-hawks begat the bish-hawks, thebish-hawks the stately cardin-hawks, and the stately cardin-hawks, if theylive 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 beehivethere 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 broodof cardin-hawks, that is, as you must understand it all along, withoutcarnal copulation. So that there is in that species an individual unity, with a perpetuity of succession, neither more or less than in the Arabianphoenix. 

'Tis true that, about two thousand seven hundred and sixty moons ago, twopope-hawks were seen upon the face of the earth; but then you never saw inyour 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 allthat time, that there was the devil and all to do, and the island was in afair way of being left without inhabitants. Some stood up for thispope-hawk, some for t'other. Some, struck with a dumbness, were as mute asso many fishes; the devil a note was to be got out of them; part of themerry bells here were as silent as if they had lost their tongues, I meantheir clappers. 

During these troublesome times they called to their assistance theemperors, kings, dukes, earls, barons, and commonwealths of the world thatlive on t'other side the water; nor was this schism and sedition at an endtill one of them died, and the plurality was reduced to a unity. 

We then asked what moved those birds to be thus continually chanting andsinging. He answered that it was the bells that hung on the top of theircages. Then he said to us, Will you have me make these monk-hawks whom yousee bardocuculated with a bag such as you use to still brandy, sing likeany woodlarks? Pray do, said we. He then gave half-a-dozen pulls to alittle rope, which caused a diminutive bell to give so many ting-tangs; andpresently 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 thoseother birds yonder, with red-herring-coloured feathers, sing? Ay, marrywould you, returned Aedituus. With this Panurge hanged himself (by thehands, I mean) at the bell-rope's end, and no sooner made it speak butthose smoked birds hied them thither and began to lift up their voices andmake 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 hernsand cormorants of the world, and that they were a fifth kind of cucullatinewly stamped. 

He added that he had been told by Robert Valbringue, who lately passed thatway in his return from Africa, that a sixth kind was to fly hither out ofhand, 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 monstrousthing. 

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 thecardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the bish-hawks by thepriest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the clerg-hawks, I would gladly knowwhence 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 anothertoward the west, which they style Too-many-of-'em. From these twocountries 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, insome good family of the latter country; insomuch that the house would cometo nothing if the paternal estate were shared among them all (as reasonrequires, nature directs, and God commands). For this cause parents use torid themselves of that inconveniency by packing off the younger fry, andforcing 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 tenamong 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 usedto receive a maiden among the number of vestals; for Leo Antistius affirmsthat it was absolutely forbidden to admit a virgin into that order if shehad any vice in her soul or defect in her body, though it were but thesmallest 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; forthey cannot endure them nine years, nay, scarce seven sometimes, in thehouse, but by putting only a shirt over the other clothes of the youngurchins, and lopping off I don't well know how many hairs from theircrowns, mumbling certain apostrophized and expiatory words, they visibly, openly, and plainly, by a Pythagorical metempsychosis, without the leasthurt, transmogrify them into such birds as you now see; much after thefashion of the Egyptian heathens, who used to constitute their isiacs byshaving them and making them put on certain linostoles, or surplices. However, I don't know, my good friends, but that these she-things, whetherclerg-kites, monk-kites, and abbess-kites, instead of singing pleasantverses and charisteres, such as used to be sung to Oromasis by Zoroaster'sinstitution, may be bellowing out such catarates and scythropys (cursedlamentable and wretched imprecations) as were usually offered to theArimanian demon; being thus in devotion for their kind friends andrelations 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 lingeringlength, overstocks this whole island with the lower class of birds. Forhither fly the asapheis that inhabit that land, either when they are indanger of passing their time scurvily for want of belly-timber, beingunable, or, what's more likely, unwilling to take heart of grace and followsome honest lawful calling, or too proud-hearted and lazy to go to servicein some sober family. The same is done by your frantic inamoradoes, who, when crossed in their wild desires, grow stark staring mad, and choose thislife suggested to them by their despair, too cowardly to make them swing, like their brother Iphis of doleful memory. There is another sort, thatis, your gaol-birds, who, having done some rogue's trick or other heinousvillainy, and being sought up and down to be trussed up and made to ridethe two or three-legged mare that groans for them, warily scour off andcome here to save their bacon; because all these sorts of birds are hereprovided for, and grow in an instant as fat as hogs, though they came aslean as rakes; for having the benefit of the clergy, they are as safe asthieves in a mill within this sanctuary. 

But, asked Pantagruel, do these birds never return to the world where theywere hatched? Some do, answered Aedituus; formerly very few, very seldom, very late, and very unwillingly; however, since some certain eclipses, bythe virtue of the celestial constellations, a great crowd of them fled backto the world. Nor do we fret or vex ourselves a jot about it; for thosethat stay wisely sing, The fewer the better cheer; and all those that flyaway, 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, wechanced to light on what some people will hardly thank us for havingdiscovered; 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 orthirty birds flew towards us; they were of a hue and feather like which wehad not seen anything in the whole island. Their plumes were as changeableas 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 acircle into equal parts, or, if you had rather have it so, like aperpendicular line falling on a right line. The marks which each of thembore were much of the same shape, but of different colours; for some werewhite, others green, some red, others purple, and some blue. Who arethose? asked Panurge; and how do you call them? They are mongrels, quothAedituus. 

We call them knight-hawks, and they have a great number of richcommanderies (fat livings) in your world. Good your worship, said I, makethem give us a song, an't please you, that we may know how they sing. Theyscorn 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 whereare their hens? where are their females? said I. They have none, answeredAedituus. How comes it to pass then, asked Panurge, that they are thusbescabbed, bescurfed, all embroidered o'er the phiz with carbuncles, pushes, and pock-royals, some of which undermine the handles of theirfaces? This same fashionable and illustrious disease, quoth Aedituus, iscommon among that kind of birds, because they are pretty apt to be tossedon 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 amongyour company a stately gaudy kind of huge dreadful birds of prey, which yetare so untoward that they ne'er could be brought to the lure nor to perchon the glove. They tell us that there are such in your world, and thatsome of them have goodly garters below the knee with an inscription aboutthem which condemns him (qui mal y pense) who shall think ill of it to beberayed and conskited. Others are said to wear the devil in a stringbefore 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 beacquainted 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, repliedAedituus, and drink bravely, old boy; twist like plough-jobbers and swilllike tinkers. Pull away and save tide, for nothing is so dear and preciousas 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 thecardin-hawks, which are goodly delicious places, and have us licked overwith precious ointments by the alyptes, alias rubbers, as soon as we shouldcome out of the bath. But Pantagruel told him that he could drink but toomuch without that. He then led us into a spacious delicate refectory, orfratery-room, and told us: Braguibus the hermit made you fast four daystogether; now, contrariwise, I'll make you eat and drink of the best fourdays through stitch before you budge from this place. But hark ye me, criedPanurge, 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! howwe lived! what good bub! what dainty cheer! O what a honest cod was thissame 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 pleasedwith the four days' junketting which Aedituus enjoined us. Aedituus, whosoon found it out, said to him, You know, sir, that seven days beforewinter, and seven days after, there is no storm at sea; for then theelements are still out of respect for the halcyons, or king-fishers, birdssacred to Thetis, which then lay their eggs and hatch their young near theshore. Now here the sea makes itself amends for this long calm; andwhenever any foreigners come hither it grows boisterous and stormy for fourdays together. We can give no other reason for it but that it is a pieceof its civility, that those who come among us may stay whether they will orno, 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 beforced to stay, unless you are resolved to encounter Juno, Neptune, Doris, Aeolus, and his fluster-busters, and, in short, all the pack of ill-naturedleft-handed godlings and vejoves. Do but resolve to be cheery, and fall-tobriskly. 

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 ofbirds and cages in this island of yours, and the devil a bit of one of themall that sets his hand to the plough, or tills the land whose fat hedevours; 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, ifI may be so bold, whence comes this plenty and overflowing of all daintybits 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 oflate years have stirred up the jakes. Mum! they may chance ere long to ruethe 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 anill bird, I will say that for you, since the blessed Touraine is yourmother; for from thence there comes hither every year such a vast store ofgood things, that we were told by some folks of the place that happened totouch at this island, that your Duke of Touraine's income will not affordhim to eat his bellyful of beans and bacon (a good dish spoiled betweenMoses and Pythagoras) because his predecessors have been more than liberalto 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, stuffingour puddings with dainty pheasants, partridges, pullets with eggs, fatcapons of Loudunois, and all sorts of venison and wild fowl. Come, box itabout; tope on, my friends. Pray do you see yon jolly birds that areperched together, how fat, how plump, and in good case they look, with theincome that Touraine yields us! And in faith they sing rarely for theirgood founders, that is the truth on't. You never saw any Arcadian birdsmumble more fairly than they do over a dish when they see these two giltbatons, or when I ring for them those great bells that you see above theircages. Drink on, sirs, whip it away. Verily, friends, 'tis very finedrinking to-day, and so 'tis every day o' the week; then drink on, toss itabout, 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 andbelly-timber; for, look here, though the sky were of brass, and the earthof iron, we should not want wherewithal to stuff the gut, though they wereto continue so seven or eight years longer than the famine in Egypt. Letus then, with brotherly love and charity, refresh ourselves here with thecreature. 

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, inthe meantime let us drink here; come, here's to thee, old fuddlecap. 

Your first Siticines, said I, were superlatively wise in devising thus ameans for you to compass whatever all men naturally covet so much, and sofew, or, to speak more properly, none can enjoy together--I mean, aparadise in this life, and another in the next. Sure you were born wraptin your mother's smickets! O happy creatures! O more than men! Would Ihad the luck to fare like you! (Motteux inserts Chapter XVI. After ChapterVI. )

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 thatwas well furnished, hung with tapestry, and finely gilt. Thither he causedto be brought store of mirobolans, cashou, green ginger preserved, withplenty of hippocras, and delicious wine. With those antidotes, that werelike 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 thatrid in the harbour. After this, we e'en jogged to bed for that night; butthe devil a bit poor pilgarlic could sleep one wink--the everlastingjingle-jangle of the bells kept me awake whether I would or no. 

About midnight Aedituus came to wake us that we might drink. He himselfshowed us the way, saying: You men of t'other world say that ignorance isthe mother of all evil, and so far you are right; yet for all that you donot take the least care to get rid of it, but still plod on, and live init, with it, and by it; for which a plaguy deal of mischief lights on youevery day, and you are right enough served--you are perpetually ailingsomewhat, making a moan, and never right. It is what I was ruminating uponjust now. And, indeed, ignorance keeps you here fastened in bed, just asthat bully-rock Mars was detained by Vulcan's art; for all the while you donot mind that you ought to spare some of your rest, and be as lavish as youcan of the goods of this famous island. Come, come, you should have eatenthree breakfasts already; and take this from me for a certain truth, thatif you would consume the mouth-ammunition of this island, you must risebetimes; eat them, they multiply; spare them, they diminish. 

For example, mow a field in due season, and the grass will grow thicker andbetter; 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. Theleanest of our birds are now singing to us all; we'll drink to them, if youplease. Let's take off one, two, three, nine bumpers. Non zelus, sedcaritas. 

When day, peeping in the east, made the sky turn from black to red like aboiling 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; sothat 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 inthe island, to see and hear the blessed singing-birds. 

At night Panurge said to Aedituus: Give me leave, sweet sir, to tell you amerry story of something that happened some three and twenty moons ago inthe country of Chastelleraud. 

One day in April, a certain gentleman's groom, Roger by name, was walkinghis master's horses in some fallow ground. There 'twas his good fortune tofind a pretty shepherdess feeding her bleating sheep and harmless lambkinson 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 ownspreading, and, to complete the landscape, there stood an ass. Roger, whowas 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, togo 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 theass (for all brute beasts spoke that year in divers places), whisperedthese words in his ear: Poor ass, how I pity thee! thou slavest like anyhack, I read it on thy crupper. Thou dost well, however, since God hascreated thee to serve mankind; thou art a very honest ass, but not to bebetter rubbed down, currycombed, trapped, and fed than thou art, seems tome indeed to be too hard a lot. Alas! thou art all rough-coated, in illplight, 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 noblesteeds, made by nature for war, are treated. Come, thou'lt lose nothing bycoming; I'll get thee a taste of my fare. I' troth, sir, I can but loveyou 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 aresomewhat gross, and apt to knock words out of joint. However, an't pleaseyou, I will come after your worship at some distance, lest for taking thisrun my side should chance to be firked and curried with a vengeance, as itis but too often, the more is my sorrow. 

The shepherdess being got behind Roger, the ass followed, fully resolved tobait like a prince with Roger's steed; but when they got to the stable, thegroom, who spied the grave animal, ordered one of his underlings to welcomehim with a pitchfork and currycomb him with a cudgel. The ass, who heardthis, recommended himself mentally to the god Neptune, and was packing off, thinking and syllogizing within himself thus: Had not I been an ass, I hadnot come here among great lords, when I must needs be sensible that I wasonly made for the use of the small vulgar. Aesop had given me a fairwarning of this in one of his fables. Well, I must e'en scamper or takewhat follows. With this he fell a-trotting, and wincing, and yerking, andcalcitrating, alias kicking, and farting, and funking, and curvetting, andbounding, and springing, and galloping full drive, as if the devil had comefor him in propria persona. 

The shepherdess, who saw her ass scour off, told Roger that it was hercattle, and desired he might be kindly used, or else she would not stir herfoot over the threshold. Friend Roger no sooner knew this but he orderedhim to be fetched in, and that my master's horses should rather chop strawfor a week together than my mistress's beast should want his bellyful ofcorn. 

The most difficult point was to get him back; for in vain the youngsterscomplimented and coaxed him to come. I dare not, said the ass; I ambashful. 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 mistressadvised them to toss oats in a sieve or in a blanket, and call him; whichwas done, and made him wheel about and say, Oats, with a witness! oatsshall go to pot. Adveniat; oats will do, there's evidence in the case; butnone 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 tothe young gentleman of the horse, alias black garb, who brought him to thestable. 

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 thechin, and there he lay at rack and manger, the first stuffed with sweethay, the latter with oats; which when the horse's valet-dear-chambresifted, he clapped down his lugs, to tell them by signs that he could eatit but too well without sifting, and that he did not deserve so great anhonour. 

When they had well fed, quoth the horse to the ass; Well, poor ass, how isit with thee now? How dost thou like this fare? Thou wert so nice atfirst, a body had much ado to get thee hither. By the fig, answered theass, which, one of our ancestors eating, Philemon died laughing, this isall 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 andthen use to take a leap? What leaping dost thou mean? asked the horse; thedevil 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 theheart's blood of me, learn so fast the court way of speaking of yougentlemen horses; I mean, don't you stallionize it sometimes here amongyour mettled fillies? Tush, whispered the horse, speak lower; for, byBucephalus, if the grooms but hear thee they will maul and belam theethrice and threefold, so that thou wilt have but little stomach to aleaping bout. Cod so, man, we dare not so much as grow stiff at the tip ofthe lowermost snout, though it were but to leak or so, for fear of beingjerked and paid out of our lechery. As for anything else, we are as happyas 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 afart for thy oats; give me the thistles of our fields, since there we leapwhen we list. Eat less, and leap more, I say; it is meat, drink, and clothto us. Ah! friend Grandpaw, it would do thy heart good to see us at afair, when we hold our provincial chapter! Oh! how we leap it, while ourmistresses are selling their goslings and other poultry! With this theyparted. Dixi; I have done. 

Panurge then held his peace. Pantagruel would have had him to have gone onto 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 whothe horse; but you are a bashful youth, I perceive. Well, know thatthere's nothing for you here; scatter no words. Yet, returned Panurge, Isaw 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 adainty bit, and very well worth a sin or two. Heaven forgive me! I meantno more harm in it than you; may the harm I meant in it befall mepresently. 

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 thetwo former. Pantagruel then earnestly desired to see the pope-hawk; butAedituus 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 onhis pounces, or a chameleon on his breast, to make him invisible when hepleases? No, sir, returned Aedituus; but he is naturally of prettydifficult access. However, I'll see and take care that you may see him, ifpossible. With this he left us piddling; then within a quarter of an hourcame 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, withhis feathers staring about him, attended by a brace of little cardin-hawksand 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 hatcherof the ill bird; o' my word, this is a filthy whoop-hooper. Tush, speaksoftly, said Aedituus; by G--, he has a pair of ears, as formerly Michaelde 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? Outof it shall sally thunderbolts and lightnings, storms, bulls, and the deviland all, that will sink you down to Peg Trantum's, an hundred fathom underground. 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 hisattendants, when somewhere under his cage he perceived a madge-howlet. With this he cried out, By the devil's maker, master, there's roguery inthe case; they put tricks upon travellers here more than anywhere else, andwould 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, Itell you. It is no madge-howlet, no she-thing on my honest word; but amale, and a noble bird. 

May we not hear the pope-hawk sing? asked Pantagruel. I dare not promisethat, returned Aedituus; for he only sings and eats at his own hours. Sodon't I, quoth Panurge; poor pilgarlic is fain to make everybody's time hisown; if they have time, I find time. Come, then, let us go drink, if youwill. Now this is something like a tansy, said Aedituus; you begin to talksomewhat like; still speak in that fashion, and I'll secure you from beingthought a heretic. Come on, I am of your mind. 

As we went back to have t'other fuddling bout, we spied an old green-headedbish-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-kitethat sung like any linnet; and we were so mightily tickled with her singingthat I vow and swear we could have wished all our members but one turnedinto ears, to have had more of the melody. Quoth Panurge, This prettycherubim 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. Iwill make him change his note presently, in the devil's name. With this herang a bell that hung over the bish-hawk's head; but though he rang andrang again, the devil a bit bish-hawk would hear; the louder the sound, thelouder 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 tohim, Hold, hold, honest friend! strike, wound, poison, kill, and murder allthe kings and princes in the world, by treachery or how thou wilt, and assoon as thou wouldst unnestle the angels from their cockloft. Pope-hawkwill pardon thee all this. But never be so mad as to meddle with thesesacred birds, as much as thou lovest the profit, welfare, and life not onlyof thyself, and thy friends and relations alive or dead, but also of thosethat may be born hereafter to the thousandth generation; for so long thouwouldst entail misery upon them. Do but look upon that basin. Catso! letus rather drink, then, quoth Panurge. He that spoke last, spoke well, Mr. Antitus, quoth Friar John; while we are looking on these devilish birds wedo nothing but blaspheme; and while we are taking a cup we do nothing butpraise God. Come on, then, let's go drink; how well that word sounds!

The third day (after we had drank, as you must understand) Aedituusdismissed 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 thatwas given him by a clown. He most courteously thanked us, and sent allsorts of provisions aboard our ships, wished us a prosperous voyage andsuccess in our undertakings, and made us promise and swear by Jupiter ofstone 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 careyou 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 offingwith a fair loom gale, and for more haste unpareled the mizen-yard, andlaunched it and the sail over the lee-quarter, and fitted gyves to keep itsteady, 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 whichbore 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, andimmediately 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, andsheathed themselves in it cleverly. But when they came down, there wasneed of taking care lest they happened to touch the head, feet, or otherparts of the body. For they fell with the point downwards, and in theystuck, 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 ahundred years old, and worth as many thousand spankers, spur-royals, androse-nobles. 

Under some other trees, whose names I cannot justly tell you, I saw somecertain 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. Asthey sprouted up and chanced to touch the tree, straight they met withtheir heads, points, and blades, each suitable to its kind, made ready forthem 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 themas 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 Democritushave said. Ods-fish! they were none of your lower-form gimcracks, werethey?

Those trees seemed to us terrestrial animals, in no wise so different frombrute beasts as not to have skin, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, kernels, bones, marrow, humours, matrices, brains, andarticulations; for they certainly have some, since Theophrastus will haveit so. But in this point they differed from other animals, that theirheads, 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 withoutstretched legs. And as you, battered sinners, on whom Venus hasbestowed something to remember her, feel the approach of rains, winds, cold, and every change of weather, at your ischiatic legs and youromoplates, by means of the perpetual almanack which she has fixed there; sothese trees have notice given them, by certain sensations which they haveat their roots, stocks, gums, paps, or marrow, of the growth of the stavesunder them, and accordingly they prepare suitable points and blades forthem beforehand. Yet as all things, except God, are sometimes subject toerror, nature itself not free from it when it produceth monstrous things, likewise I observed something amiss in these trees. For a half-pike thatgrew up high enough to reach the branches of one of these instrumentiferoustrees, happened no sooner to touch them but, instead of being joined to aniron 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 ofgarden shears. Come, all's good for something; 'twill serve to nip offlittle twigs and destroy caterpillars. The staff of a halberd got theblade of a scythe, which made it look like a hermaphrodite. Happy-be-lucky, 'tis all a case; 'twill serve for some mower. Oh, 'tis agreat blessing to put our trust in the Lord! As we went back to our ships Ispied behind I don't know what bush, I don't know what folks, doing I don'tknow what business, in I don't know what posture, scouring I don't know whattools, 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 infor the island of Sharping, the true image of Fontainebleau, for the landis so very lean that the bones, that is, the rocks, shoot through its skin. Besides, 'tis sandy, barren, unhealthy, and unpleasant. Our pilot showedus there two little square rocks which had eight equal points in the shapeof a cube. They were so white that I might have mistaken them foralabaster 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 dweltthere in six different storeys, and that the biggest twins or braces ofthem 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 ashrewd observation. Would you know what 'tis, gamesters? 'Tis that thereare 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 gazingsparks have hardly said, Two sixes, Frank; but Six devils damn it! cry asmany of them. If ambs-ace; then, A brace of devils broil me! will theysay. Quatre-deuce, Tom; The deuce take it! cries another. And so on tothe end of the chapter. Nay, they don't forget sometimes to call the blackcloven-footed gentlemen by their Christian names and surnames; and what isstranger yet, they use them as their greatest cronies, and make them sooften the executors of their wills, not only giving themselves, buteverybody and everything, to the devil, that there's no doubt but he takescare to seize, soon or late, what's so zealously bequeathed him. Indeed, 'tis true Lucifer does not always immediately appear by his lawfulattorneys; but, alas! 'tis not for want of goodwill; he is really to beexcused for his delay; for what the devil would you have a devil do? Heand his black guards are then at some other places, according to thepriority of the persons that call on them; therefore, pray let none be soventuresome as to think that the devils are deaf and blind. 

He then told us that more wrecks had happened about those square rocks, anda greater loss of body and goods, than about all the Syrtes, Scyllas andCharybdes, Sirens, Strophades, and gulfs in the universe. I had not muchado to believe it, remembering that formerly, among the wise Egyptians, Neptune was described in hieroglyphics for the first cube, Apollo by anace, 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 placethat they blessed us with the sight of 't; but it was with three times morepother and ado, with more formalities and antic tricks, than they show thepandects of Justinian at Florence, or the holy Veronica at Rome. I neversaw such a sight of flambeaux, torches, and hagios, sanctified tapers, rush-lights, and farthing candles in my whole life. After all, that whichwas 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 illgame, 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 samesyndics 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 ofthe place, which, I fear, will turn to no very good account; nor are thosewho 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 ofthe Furred Law-cats. 

From thence Condemnation was passed by us. 'Tis another damned barrenisland, whereat none for the world cared to touch. Then we went throughthe wicket; but Pantagruel had no mind to bear us company, and 'twas wellhe did not, for we were nabbed there, and clapped into lob's-pound by orderof Gripe-men-all, Archduke of the Furred Law-cats, because one of ourcompany would ha' put upon a sergeant some hats of the Sharping Island. 

The Furred Law-cats are most terrible and dreadful monsters, they devourlittle children, and trample over marble stones. Pray tell me, nobletopers, do they not deserve to have their snouts slit? The hair of theirhides doesn't lie outward, but inwards, and every mother's son of 'em forhis device wears a gaping pouch, but not all in the same manner; for somewear it tied to their neck scarfwise, others upon the breech, some on thepaunch, 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 theirheads 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 ateston, Worshipful culprits, God send you a good deliverance! Examinewell, said he, the countenance of these stout props and pillars of thiscatch-coin law and iniquity; and pray observe, that if you still live butsix olympiads, and the age of two dogs more, you'll see these FurredLaw-cats lords of all Europe, and in peaceful possession of all the estatesand dominions belonging to it; unless, by divine providence, what's got overthe devil's back is spent under his belly, or the goods which they unjustlyget 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, beheadall, murder all, imprison all, waste all, and ruin all, without the leastnotice of right or wrong; for among them vice is called virtue; wickedness, piety; treason, loyalty; robbery, justice. Plunder is their motto, andwhen acted by them is approved by all men, except the heretics; and allthis they do because they dare; their authority is sovereign andirrefragable. For a sign of the truth of what I tell you, you'll find thatthere the mangers are above the racks. Remember hereafter that a fool toldyou this; and if ever plague, famine, war, fire, earthquakes, inundations, or other judgments befall the world, do not attribute 'em to the aspectsand conjunctions of the malevolent planets; to the abuses of the court ofRomania, or the tyranny of secular kings and princes; to the impostures ofthe false zealots of the cowl, heretical bigots, false prophets, andbroachers of sects; to the villainy of griping usurers, clippers, andcoiners; or to the ignorance, impudence, and imprudence of physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; nor to the lewdness of adulteresses anddestroyers of by-blows; but charge them all, wholly and solely, to theinexpressible, incredible, and inestimable wickedness and ruin which iscontinually hatched, brewed, and practised in the den or shop of thoseFurred Law-cats. Yet 'tis no more known in the world than the cabala ofthe 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 beonce displayed in its true colours and exposed to the people, there neverwas, is, nor will be any spokesman so sweet-mouthed, whose fine colloguingtongue could save 'em; nor any law so rigorous and draconic that couldpunish 'em as they deserve; nor yet any magistrate so powerful as to hindertheir being burnt alive in their coneyburrows without mercy. Even theirown furred kittlings, friends, and relations would abominate 'em. 

For this reason, as Hannibal was solemnly sworn by his father Amilcar topursue the Romans with the utmost hatred as long as ever he lived, so mylate father has enjoined me to remain here without, till God Almighty'sthunder reduce them there within to ashes, like other presumptuous Titans, profane wretches, and opposers of God; since mankind is so inured to theiroppressions that they either do not remember, foresee, or have a sense ofthe woes and miseries which they have caused; or, if they have, either willnot, dare not, or cannot root 'em out. 

How, said Panurge, say you so? Catch me there and hang me! Damme, let'smarch off! This noble beggar has scared me worse than thunder in autumn(Motteux gives 'than the thunder would do them. '). Upon this we werefiling off; but, alas! we found ourselves trapped--the door wasdouble-locked and barricadoed. Some messengers of ill news told us it wasfull 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 apass and discharge in due course from the bench. This for no other reasonthan 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'twas when we got through the wicket; for we were carried, to get out our passor discharge, before a more dreadful monster than ever was read of in thelegends of knight-errantry. They called him Gripe-men-all. I can't tellwhat to compare it to better than to a Chimaera, a Sphinx, a Cerberus; or tothe image of Osiris, as the Egyptians represented him, with three heads, oneof 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 withfiery rays. His hands were full of gore, his talons like those of theharpies, his snout like a hawk's bill, his fangs or tusks like those of anovergrown brindled wild boar; his eyes were flaming like the jaws of hell, all covered with mortars interlaced with pestles, and nothing of his armswas to be seen but his clutches. His hutch, and that of the warren-cats hiscollaterals, was a long, spick-and-span new rack, a-top of which (as themumper told us) some large stately mangers were fixed in the reverse. Overthe chief seat was the picture of an old woman holding the case or scabbardof a sickle in her right hand, a pair of scales in her left, with spectacleson her nose; the cups or scales of the balance were a pair of velvetpouches, 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 trueeffigies of Justice Gripe-men-all; far different from the institution of theancient Thebans, who set up the statues of their dicasts without hands, inmarble, 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 knowwhat men, all clothed with I don't know what bags and pouches, with longscrolls in their clutches, made us sit down upon a cricket (such ascriminals sit on when tried in France). Quoth Panurge to 'em, Good mylords, 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 breechesand a short doublet. Sit you down, said Gripe-men-all again, and look thatyou don't make the court bid you twice. Now, continued he, the earth shallimmediately open its jaws and swallow you up to quick damnation if youdon'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, calledto us in a hoarse dreadful voice, Well, come on, give me presently--ananswer. Well, come on, muttered Panurge between his teeth, give, give mepresently--a comforting dram. Hearken to the court, continuedGripe-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, Imight then solve your enigma presently. But verily, good my lord, I wasnot there; and, as I hope to be saved, am as innocent in the matter as thechild unborn. Foh, give me--a better answer, cried Gripe-men-all; or, bygold, this shall not serve your turn. I'll not be paid in such coin; ifyou have nothing better to offer, I'll let your rascalship know that it hadbeen better for you to have fallen into Lucifer's own clutches than intoours. Dost thou see 'em here, sirrah? hah? and dost thou prate here of thybeing innocent, as if thou couldst be delivered from our racks and torturesfor being so? Give me--Patience! thou widgeon. Our laws are like cobwebs;your silly little flies are stopped, caught, and destroyed therein, butyour stronger ones break them, and force and carry them which way theyplease. Likewise, don't think we are so mad as to set up our nets to snapup 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 wemake of the little ones. But you paltry, silly, innocent wretches mustmake us amends; and, by gold, we will innocentize your fopship with awannion, you never were so innocentized in your days; the devil shall singmass among ye. 

Friar John, hearing him run on at that mad rate, had no longer the power toremain 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 fellowtold 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, whomade 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 thatanyone has had the impudence to speak before he was bidden. How came thismad fellow to break loose? (Villain, thou liest, said Friar John, withoutstirring his lips. ) Sirrah, sirrah, continued Gripe-men-all, I doubt thouwilt have business enough on thy hands when it comes to thy turn to answer. (Damme, thou liest, said Friar John, silently. ) Dost thou think, continuedmy lord, thou art in the wilderness of your foolish university, wranglingand bawling among the idle, wandering searchers and hunters after truth? Bygold, we have here other fish to fry; we go another gate's-way to work, thatwe do. By gold, people here must give categorical answers to what theydon't know. By gold, they must confess they have done those things whichthey have not nor ought to have done. By gold, they must protest that theyknow what they never knew in their lives; and, after all, patience perforcemust be their only remedy, as well as a mad dog's. Here silly geese areplucked, yet cackle not. Sirrah, give me--an account whether you had aletter of attorney, or whether you were feed or no, that you offered to bawlin another man's cause? I see you had no authority to speak, and I maychance to have you wed to something you won't like. Oh, you devils, criedFriar John, proto-devils, panto-devils, you would wed a monk, would you? Hohu! ho hu! A heretic! a heretic! I'll give thee out for a rank heretic. 

Chapter 5. XIII. 

How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle. 

Gripe-men-all, as if he had not heard what Friar John said, directed hisdiscourse to Panurge, saying to him, Well, what have you to say foryourself, 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 aredamnably 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 beseechyou, 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 thesethree hundred years last past anybody ever got out of this weel withoutleaving something of his behind him? No, no, get out of the trap if youcan without losing leather, life, or at least some hair, and you will havedone more than ever was done yet. For why, this would bring the wisdom ofthe court into question, as if we had took you up for nothing, and dealtwrongfully by you. Well, by hook or by crook, we must have something outof you. Look ye, it is a folly to make a rout for a fart and ado; one wordis as good as twenty. I have no more to say to thee, but that, as thoulikest thy former entertainment, thou wilt tell me more of the next; for itwill go ten times worse with thee unless, by gold, you give me--a solutionto 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 awhite bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the mitebeing turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes flies overhills and dales. Now Pythagoras, the philosopher, and his sect, besidesmany others, wondering at its birth in such a place (which makes some arguefor equivocal generation), thought that by a metempsychosis the body ofthat insect was the lodging of a human soul. Now, were you men here, afteryour welcomed death, according to his opinion, your souls would mostcertainly enter into the body of mites or weevils; for in your presentstate 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 yourmother's very sides, as the vipers do. Now, by gold, I think I have fairlysolved and resolved your riddle. 

May my bauble be turned into a nutcracker, quoth Friar John, if I could notalmost find in my heart to wish that what comes out at my bunghole werebeans, that these evil weevils might feed as they deserve. 

Panurge then, without any more ado, threw a large leathern purse stuffedwith gold crowns (ecus au soleil) among them. 

The Furred Law-cats no sooner heard the jingling of the chink but they allbegan to bestir their claws, like a parcel of fiddlers running a division;and then fell to't, squimble, squamble, catch that catch can. They allsaid aloud, These are the fees, these are the gloves; now, this is somewhatlike 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 snivellingforma 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, quothPanurge), and weighty reasons given, finds the prisoners not guilty, andaccordingly 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 ofthe devil in us as we have of his hue; though we are stout, we aremerciful. 

As we came out at the wicket, we were conducted to the port by a detachmentof certain highland griffins, scribere cum dashoes, who advised us beforewe came to our ships not to offer to leave the place until we had made theusual presents, first to the Lady Gripe-men-all, then to all the FurredLaw-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 ofus his concern, and e'en give the women their due; we'll ne'er boggle orstick out on that account; as we tickled the men in the palm, we'll ticklethe women in the right place. Pray, gentlemen, added they, don't forget toleave somewhat behind you for us poor devils to drink your healths. Olawd! never fear, answered Friar John, I don't remember that I ever wentanywhere 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-eightgalleys and frigates just arriving at the port. So he hied him thither tolearn some news; and as he asked what goods they had o' board, he soonfound that their whole cargo was venison, hares, capons, turkeys, pigs, swine, bacon, kids, calves, hens, ducks, teals, geese, and other poultryand wildfowl. 

He also spied among these some pieces of velvet, satin, and damask. Thismade him ask the new-comers whither and to whom they were going to carrythose dainty goods. They answered that they were for Gripe-men-all and theFurred Law-cats. 

Pray, asked he, what is the true name of all these things in your countrylanguage? Corruption, they replied. If they live on corruption, said thefriar, they will perish with their generation. May the devil be damned, Ihave it now: their fathers devoured the good gentlemen who, according totheir state of life, used to go much a-hunting and hawking, to be thebetter inured to toil in time of war; for hunting is an image of a martiallife, and Xenophon was much in the right of it when he affirmed thathunting had yielded a great number of excellent warriors, as well as theTrojan horse. For my part, I am no scholar; I have it but by hearsay, yetI believe it. Now the souls of those brave fellows, according toGripe-men-all's riddle, after their decease enter into wild boars, stags, roebucks, herns, and such other creatures which they loved, and in quest ofwhich they went while they were men; and these Furred Law-cats, havingfirst destroyed and devoured their castles, lands, demesnes, possessions, rents, and revenues, are still seeking to have their blood and soul inanother life. What an honest fellow was that same mumper who hadforewarned us of all these things, and bid us take notice of the mangersabove 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 inhibitingthe 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, butthe great king is so good and gracious, you must know, and these FurredLaw-cats so curst and cruel, so mad, and thirsting after Christian blood, that we have less cause to fear in trespassing against that mightysovereign's commands than reason to hope to live if we do not continuallystop 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 histo a high and mighty double-furred law-tybert. Formerly we used to callthem chop-hay; but alas! they are not such neat creatures now as to eatany, 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? answeredwe. Let's do two things, returned he. First, let us secure all thisvenison and wild fowl--I mean, paying well for them; for my part, I am buttoo 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 thesedevilish Furred Law-cats. For my part, quoth Panurge, I know betterthings; catch me there, and hang me. No, I am somewhat more inclined to befearful 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 Iam 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 massand shrive you? By Maundy Thursday, the first of ye all that comes to me onsuch 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 abase cowhearted son of ten fathers. This in deduction of the pains ofpurgatory. 

What made Hercules such a famous fellow, d'ye think? Nothing but thatwhile he travelled he still made it his business to rid the world oftyrannies, errors, dangers, and drudgeries; he still put to death allrobbers, all monsters, all venomous serpents and hurtful creatures. Whythen do we not follow his example, doing as he did in the countries throughwhich we pass? He destroyed the Stymphalides, the Lernaean hydra, Cacus, Antheus, the Centaurs, and what not; I am no clericus, those that are suchtell me so. 

In imitation of that noble by-blow, let's destroy and root out these wickedFurred Law-cats, that are a kind of ravenous devils; thus we shall removeall manner of tyranny out of the land. Mawmet's tutor swallow me body andsoul, tripes and guts, if I would stay to ask your help or advice in thematter were I but as strong as he was. Come, he that would be thought agentleman, let him storm a town; well, then, shall we go? I dare swearwe'll do their business for them with a wet finger; they'll bear it, neverfear; since they could swallow down more foul language that came from usthan ten sows and their babies could swill hogwash. Damn 'em, they don'tvalue all the ill words or dishonour in the world at a rush, so they butget the coin into their purses, though they were to have it in a shittenclout. Come, we may chance to kill 'em all, as Hercules would have donehad they lived in his time. We only want to be set to work by anotherEurystheus, and nothing else for the present, unless it be what I heartilywish them, that Jupiter may give 'em a short visit, only some two or threehours long, and walk among their lordships in the same equipage thatattended 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 theirclutches. For my part, I have no stomach to go there again; I'm hardlycome to myself yet, so scared and appalled I was. My hair still stands upan end when I think on't; and most damnably troubled I was there, for threevery weighty reasons. First, because I was troubled. Secondly, because Iwas troubled. Thirdly and lastly, because I was troubled. Hearken to me alittle on thy right side, Friar John, my left cod, since thou'lt not hearat the other. Whenever the maggot bites thee to take a trip down to helland visit the tribunal of Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, (and Dis, ) do buttell me, and I'll be sure to bear thee company, and never leave thee aslong 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 gothither 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 positiveanswer. By my good will I'll not stir a foot to go thither as long as Ilive, any more than Calpe will come over to Abyla (Here Motteux adds thefollowing note: 'Calpe is a mountain in Spain that faces another, calledAbyla, in Mauritania, both said to have been severed by Hercules. '). WasUlysses 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 wicketthrough forgetfulness; why then should I think of going thither?

Well, quoth Friar John, as good sit still as rise up and fall; what cannotbe 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 onthose mangy scoundrels? Ha! A squinsy choke thee! we were too rich, werewe? Had it not been enough to have thrown the hell-hounds a few croppedpieces of white cash?

How could I help it? returned Panurge. Did you not see how Gripe-men-allheld his gaping velvet pouch, and every moment roared and bellowed, Bygold, 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 stoptheir 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 thebusiness; for, d'ye see, velvet pouches do not use to gape for littlepaltry clipt silver and small cash; no, they are made for gold, my friendJohn; 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 tobe greased in the fist as well as their masters. Now when they perceivedthat we were ready to put to sea, they came to Friar John and begged thatwe would not forget to gratify the apparitors before we went off, accordingto the assessment for the fees at our discharge. Hell and damnation! criedFriar John; are ye here still, ye bloodhounds, ye citing, scribbling impsof Satan? Rot you, am I not vexed enough already, but you must have theimpudence to come and plague me, ye scurvy fly-catchers you? Bycob's-body, I'll gratify your ruffianships as you deserve; I'll apparitorizeyou presently with a wannion, that I will. With this, he lugged out hisslashing cutlass, and in a mighty heat came out of the ship to cut thecozening varlets into steaks, but they scampered away and got out of sightin a trice. 

However, there was somewhat more to do, for some of our sailors, having gotleave 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 roarit, as seamen will do when they come into some port. Now I don't knowwhether they had paid their reckoning to the full or no, but, however itwas, an old fat hostess, meeting Friar John on the quay, was making awoeful complaint before a sergeant, son-in-law to one of the furredlaw-cats, and a brace of bums, his assistants. 

The friar, who did not much care to be tired with their impertinentprating, said to them, Harkee me, ye lubberly gnat-snappers! do ye presumeto say that our seamen are not honest men? I'll maintain they are, yedotterels, and will prove it to your brazen faces, by justice--I mean, thistrusty piece of cold iron by my side. With this he lugged it out andflourished with it. The forlorn lobcocks soon showed him their backs, betaking themselves to their heels; but the old fusty landlady kept herground, swearing like any butter-whore that the tarpaulins were very honestcods, but that they only forgot to pay for the bed on which they had lainafter dinner, and she asked fivepence, French money, for the said bed. MayI never sup, said the friar, if it be not dog-cheap; they are sorry guestsand unkind customers, that they are; they do not know when they have apennyworth, and will not always meet with such bargains. Come, I myselfwill pay you the money, but I would willingly see it first. 

The hostess immediately took him home with her, and showed him the bed, andhaving praised it for all its good qualifications, said that she thought astimes went she was not out of the way in asking fivepence for it. FriarJohn then gave her the fivepence; and she no sooner turned her back but hepresently began to rip up the ticking of the feather-bed and bolster, andthrew all the feathers out at the window. In the meantime the old hag camedown and roared out for help, crying out murder to set all theneighbourhood in an uproar. Yet she also fell to gathering the feathersthat flew up and down in the air, being scattered by the wind. Friar Johnlet her bawl on, and, without any further ado, marched off with theblanket, quilt, and both the sheets, which he brought aboard undiscovered, for the air was darkened with the feathers, as it uses sometimes to be withsnow. He gave them away to the sailors; then said to Pantagruel that bedswere much cheaper at that place than in Chinnonois, though we have therethe famous geese of Pautile; for the old beldam had asked him but fivepencefor a bed which in Chinnonois had been worth about twelve francs. (As soonas Friar John and the rest of the company were embarked, Pantagruel setsail. But there arose a south-east wind, which blew so vehemently theylost their way, and in a manner going back to the country of the FurredLaw-cats, they entered into a huge gulf, where the sea ran so high andterrible that the shipboy on the top of the mast cried out he again saw thehabitation of Gripe-men-all; upon which Panurge, frightened almost out ofhis wits, roared out, Dear master, in spite of the wind and waves, changeyour course, and turn the ship's head about. O my friend, let us come nomore into that cursed country where I left my purse. So the wind carriedthem near an island, where however they did not dare at first to land, butentered about a mile off. (Motteux omitted this passage altogether in theedition 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, withlong 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 putover the ship's side and manned by the coxswain's crew. When the goodPantagruel had prayed publicly, and given thanks to the Lord that haddelivered him from so great a danger, he stepped into it with his wholecompany to go on shore, which was no ways difficult to do, for, as the seawas calm and the winds laid, they soon got to the cliffs. When they wereset on shore, Epistemon, who was admiring the situation of the place andthe strange shape of the rocks, discovered some of the natives. The firsthe met had on a short purple gown, a doublet cut in panes, like a Spanishleather 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 abody, and his name, as we heard afterwards, was Double-fee. Epistemonasked him how they called those strange craggy rocks and deep valleys. Hetold 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 shouldcome 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 cansee nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live onnothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must comethrough my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then? Do youfleece 'em? Ay, ay, their purse, answered Double-fee; nothing else. Bythe 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 thoseApedefers, 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 weresoon got over the ford. Pantagruel was not a little taken up with admiringthe structure and habitation of the people of the place. For they live ina swingeing wine-press, fifty steps up to it. You must know there are someof all sorts, little, great, private, middle-sized, and so forth. You gothrough a large peristyle, alias a long entry set about with pillars, inwhich 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 perceivingthat Pantagruel was taken up with contemplating those things, Let us gofurther, sir, said he to him; all this is nothing yet. Nothing, quotha, cried Friar John; by the soul of my overheated codpiece, friend Panurge andI here shake and quiver for mere hunger. I had rather be drinking thanstaring at these ruins. Pray come along, sir, said Double-fee. He thenled us into a little wine-press that lay backwards in a blind corner, andwas called Pithies in the language of the country. You need not askwhether Master John and Panurge made much of their sweet selves there; itis enough that I tell you there was no want of Bolognia sausages, turkeypoots, 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 ofa butler, seeing that Friar John had cast a sheep's eye at a choice bottlethat stood near a cupboard by itself, at some distance from the rest of thebottellic magazine, like a jack-in-an-office said to Pantagruel, Sir, Iperceive that one of your men here is making love to this bottle. He oglesit, 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 somegrandees 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 aroom, whence, without being seen, out at a loophole we could see theirworships in the great wine-press, where none could be admitted withouttheir leave. Their worships, as he called them, were about a score offusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all posted before abar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs. Their paws were aslong as a crane's foot, and their claws four-and-twenty inches long atleast; for you must know they are enjoined never to pare off the least chipof 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 thatcountry, brought in by them. As soon as it was laid down, they clapped itinto the press, and there was not a bit of it out of which each of them didnot squeeze some oil of gold; insomuch that the poor grape was tried with awitness, and brought off so drained and picked, and so dry, that there wasnot the least moisture, juice, or substance left in it; for they hadpressed out its very quintessence. 

Double-fee told us they had not often such huge bunches; but, let the worstcome to the worst, they were sure never to be without others in theirpress. But hark you me, master of mine, asked Panurge, have they not someof different growth? Ay, marry have they, quoth Double-fee. Do you seehere this little bunch, to which they are going to give t'other wrench? Itis of tithe-growth, you must know; they crushed, wrung, squeezed andstrained out the very heart's blood of it but the other day; but it did notbleed freely; the oil came hard, and smelt of the priest's chest; so thatthey found there was not much good to be got out of it. Why then, saidPantagruel, do they put it again into the press? Only, answeredDouble-fee, for fear there should still lurk some juice among the husks andhullings in the mother of the grape. The devil be damned! cried FriarJohn; do you call these same folks illiterate lobcocks and duncicaldoddipolls? May I be broiled like a red herring if I do not think they arewise 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 intothe 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 drinkmany a good bottle more than otherwise they should. 

But I cannot better satisfy you as to the growth of the vine-tree sirupthat is here squeezed out of grapes, than in desiring you to look yonder inthat back-yard, where you will see above a thousand different growths thatlie waiting to be squeezed every moment. Here are some of the public andsome of the private growth; some of the builders' fortifications, loans, gifts, and gratuities, escheats, forfeitures, fines, and recoveries, penalstatutes, 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 allthose little grapelings about it. Oh, oh! returned Double-fee, that plumpone is of the treasury, the very best growth in the whole country. Whenever anyone of that growth is squeezed, there is not one of theirworships 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 intothat great wine-press, which he readily did. As soon as we were in, Epistemon, who understood all sorts of tongues, began to show us manydevices on the press, which was large and fine, and made of the wood of thecross--at least Double-fee told us so. On each part of it were names ofeverything in the language of the country. The spindle of the press wascalled receipt; the trough, cost and damages; the hole for the vice-pin, state; the side-boards, money paid into the office; the great beam, respiteof 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; thepailes, potentials; the funnels, quietus est. 

By the Queen of the Chitterlings, quoth Panurge, all the hieroglyphics ofEgypt are mine a-- to this jargon. Why! here are a parcel of words full asanalogous as chalk and cheese, or a cat and a cart-wheel! But why, prithee, dear Double-fee, do they call these worshipful dons of yoursignorant fellows? Only, said Double-fee, because they neither are, norought to be, clerks, and all must be ignorant as to what they transacthere; nor is there to be any other reason given, but, The court hath saidit; The court will have it so; The court has decreed it. Cop's body, quothPantagruel, they might full as well have called 'em necessity; fornecessity has no law. 

From thence, as he was leading us to see a thousand little puny presses, wespied another paltry bar, about which sat four are five ignorant waspishchurls, of so testy, fuming a temper, (like an ass with squibs and crackerstied 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 thelees and dregs of the grapes, which they gripped over and over again, mightand main, with their clenched fists. They were called contractors in thelanguage of the country. These are the ugliest, misshapen, grim-lookingscrubs, said Friar John, that ever were beheld, with or without spectacles. Then we passed by an infinite number of little pimping wine-presses allfull of vintage-mongers, who were picking, examining, and raking the grapeswith some instruments called bills-of-charge. 

Finally we came into a hall downstairs, where we saw an overgrown cursedmangy cur with a pair of heads, a wolf's belly, and claws like the devil ofhell. The son of a bitch was fed with costs, for he lived on amultiplicity of fine amonds and amerciaments by order of their worships, toeach of whom the monster was worth more than the best farm in the land. Intheir tongue of ignorance they called him Twofold. His dam lay by him, andher hair and shape was like her whelp's, only she had four heads, two maleand two female, and her name was Fourfold. She was certainly the mostcursed and dangerous creature of the place, except her grandam, which wesaw, and had been kept locked up in a dungeon time out of mind, and hername was Refusing-of-fees. 

Friar John, who had always twenty yards of gut ready empty to swallow agallimaufry of lawyers, began to be somewhat out of humour, and desiredPantagruel to remember he had not dined, and bring Double-fee along withhim. So away we went, and as we marched out at the back-gate whom shouldwe meet but an old piece of mortality in chains. He was half ignorant andhalf learned, like an hermaphrodite of Satan. The fellow was allcaparisoned with spectacles as a tortoise is with shells, and lived onnothing but a sort of food which, in their gibberish, was called appeals. Pantagruel asked Double-fee of what breed was that prothonotary, and whatname they gave him. Double-fee told us that time out of mind he had beenkept there in chains, to the great grief of their worships, who starvedhim, and his name was Review. By the pope's sanctified two-pounders, criedFriar John, I do not much wonder at the meagre cheer which this old chufffinds among their worships. Do but look a little on the weather-beatenscratch-toby, friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I'll lay fivepounds 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 asother folk. But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib inhis 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 treacherousReview's ill-favoured phiz, we find that the filthy snudge is yet moremischievous and ignorant than these ignorant wretches here, since they(honest dunces) grapple and glean with as little harm and pother as theycan, without any long fiddle-cum-farts or tantalizing in the case; nor dothey 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 thesedamned tedious interlocutories, examinations, and appointments which fretto 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 gavePantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck himwith compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to diverthimself during the voyage. When we were safe in the port we took somerefreshment, and took in fresh water and wood. The people of the place, who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions, were all ofthem forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat. And we saw some whoslashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the fat, that it mightswell out at the slits and gashes which they made; neither more nor lessthan the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink and cut open theirbreeches 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, butbecause otherwise their skins would not hold them without much pain. Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow much bigger, like theyoung trees on whose barks the gardeners make incisions that they may growthe better. 

Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine andstately. We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of theforward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought somenotable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all thatthrong were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all hisfriends and relations to hasten thither. 

We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that country bythat bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as we do in ours bybetrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching (of women), shearing(of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home), and many other junkettingbouts that end in -ing. But we soon heard that there was no such matter inhand. 

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 hisdish. He used to be a very fair swallower of gravy soup, a notableaccountant in matter of hours, and his whole life was one continual dinner, like mine host at Rouillac (in Perigord). But now, having farted out muchfat for ten years together, according to the custom of the country, he wasdrawing towards his bursting hour; for neither the inner thin kellwherewith the entrails are covered, nor his skin that had been jagged andmangled 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 thereno remedy, no help for the poor man, good people? Why don't you swaddlehim round with good tight girths, or secure his natural tub with a strongsorb-apple-tree hoop? Nay, why don't you iron-bind him, if needs be? Thiswould keep the man from flying out and bursting. The word was not yet outof his mouth when we heard something give a loud report, as if a hugesturdy oak had been split in two. Then some of the neighbours told us thatthe bursting was over, and that the clap or crack which we heard was thelast 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 inpontificalibus. That pious person, being much dunned, teased, andimportuned by his relations to resign his abbey in his old age, said andprofessed that he would not strip till he was ready to go to bed, and thatthe last fart which his reverend paternity was to utter should be the fartof an abbot. 

Chapter 5. XVIII. 

How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people that weresubject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte). 

We weighed and set sail with a merry westerly gale. When about sevenleagues 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 starboardtacks aboard, and hauled off our lee-sheets. Then the gusts increased, andby fits blowed all at once from several quarters, yet we neither settlednor braided up close our sails, but only let fly the sheets, not to goagainst 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 inthe water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that is, in alandloper's phrase, we temporized it. For he assured us that, as thesegusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could not do usmuch harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as also theclearness of the sky and calmness of the current. So that we were toobserve the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or goaccording to the time. 

However, these whirlwinds and gusts lasted so long that we persuaded themaster to let us go and lie at trie with our main course; that is, to haulthe tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the bowline set up, and the helm tiedclose aboard; so, after a stormy gale of wind, we broke through thewhirlwind. But it was like falling into Scylla to avoid Charybdis (out ofthe frying-pan into the fire). For we had not sailed a league ere ourships 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 ajot daunted, and with sweet sugar-plum words comforted now one and thenanother, giving them hopes of speedy assistance from above, and tellingthem that he had seen Castor at the main-yardarm. Oh! that I were but nowashore, cried Panurge, that is all I wish for myself at present, and thatyou who like the sea so well had each man of you two hundred thousandcrowns. I would fairly let you set up shop on these sands, and would get afat calf dressed and a hundred of faggots (i. E. Bottles of wine) cooled foryou against you come ashore. I freely consent never to mount a wife, soyou but set me ashore and mount me on a horse, that I may go home. Nomatter for a servant, I will be contented to serve myself; I am neverbetter treated than when I am without a man. Faith, old Plautus was in theright on't when he said the more servants the more crosses; for such theyare, even supposing they could want what they all have but too much of, atongue, that most busy, dangerous, and pernicious member of servants. Accordingly, 'twas for their sakes alone that the racks and tortures forconfession were invented, though some foreign civilians in our time havedrawn alogical and unreasonable consequences from it. 

That very moment we spied a sail that made towards us. When it was closeby us, we soon knew what was the lading of the ship and who was aboard ofher. She was full freighted with drums. I was acquainted with many of thepassengers that came in her, who were most of 'em of good families; amongthe rest Harry Cotiral, an old toast, who had got a swinging ass'stouch-tripe (penis) fastened to his waist, as the good women's beads are to theirgirdle. In his left hand he held an old overgrown greasy foul cap, such asyour 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 showingme the ass's tickle-gizzard). This doctor's cap is my true elixir; andthis (continued he, shaking the cabbage-stump in his fist) is lunariamajor, you old noddy. I have 'em, old boy, I have 'em; we'll make 'em whenthou'rt come back. But pray, father, said I, whence come you? Whither areyou bound? What's your lading? Have you smelt the salt deep? To thesefour questions he answered, From Queen Whims; for Touraine; alchemy; to thevery 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 thatare subject to Queen Whims (Motteux gives the following footnote:--'LaQuinte, This means a fantastic Humour, Maggots, or a foolish Giddiness ofBrains; and also, a fifth, or the Proportion of Five in music, &c. '). Theyhave very fair legible patents to show for't, as anybody may see. Panurgehad no sooner heard this but he was upon the high-rope, and began to railat them like mad. What o' devil d'ye mean, cried he, to sit idly here likea 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 allthings 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. Iwas 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 beunheaded on one side, and set that open side so that it faced the end ofthe streamers and pendants; and having fastened them to good tacklings andour ship's head to the stern of theirs, with cables fastened to the bitsabaft the manger in the ship's loof, they towed us off ground at one pullso 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 gravelwhich murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of thesailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies whenthey roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of thecelestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep. 

We scorned to be behindhand with 'em in civility, and gratefully gave 'emstore 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 thehold, when two huge whirlpools with great fury made towards their ship, spouting more water than is in the river Vienne (Vigenne) from Chinon toSaumur; 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 wasforced to hold his sides, and it set him into a fit of the colic for twohours and more. I had a mind, quoth he, to make the dogs drink, and thosehonest whirlpools, egad, have saved me that labour and that cost. There'ssauce for them; ariston men udor. Water is good, saith a poet; let 'emPindarize upon't. They never cared for fresh water but to wash their handsor their glasses. This good salt water will stand 'em in good stead forwant of sal ammoniac and nitre in Geber's kitchen. 

We could not hold any further discourse with 'em; for the former whirlwindhindered our ship from feeling the helm. The pilot advised ushenceforwards to let her run adrift and follow the stream, not busyingourselves with anything, but making much of our carcasses. For our onlyway to arrive safe at the queendom of Whims was to trust to the whirlwindand 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 thesky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the port ofMateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the Quintessence. 

We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other militarymen that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat frighted at firstbecause they made us all lay down our arms, and in a haughty manner askedus 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 LadyQuintessence 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-headedlobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we chance toknock words out of joint. As for anything else, we are downright honestfellows and true hearts. 

We have not asked you this question without a cause, said they; for a greatnumber of others who have passed this way from your country of Touraineseemed 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 othercountries a pack of I know not what overweening self-conceited prigs, asmoody as so many mules and as stout as any Scotch lairds, and nothing wouldserve these, forsooth, but they must wilfully wrangle and stand out againstus at their coming; and much they got by it after all. Troth, we e'enfitted them and clawed 'em off with a vengeance, for all they looked so bigand so grum. 

Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that youdo not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently talking, disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady? There was much need thatyour Tully, the consul, should go and leave the care of his commonwealth tobusy himself idly about her; and after him your Diogenes Laertius, thebiographer, and your Theodorus Gaza, the philosopher, and your Argiropilus, the emperor, and your Bessario, the cardinal, and your Politian, thepedant, and your Budaeus, the judge, and your Lascaris, the ambassador, andthe devil and all of those you call lovers of wisdom; whose number, itseems, was not thought great enough already, but lately your Scaliger, Bigot, Chambrier, Francis Fleury, and I cannot tell how many such otherjunior sneaking fly-blows must take upon 'em to increase it. 

A squinsy gripe the cod's-headed changelings at the swallow and eke at thecover-weasel; we shall make 'em--But the deuce take 'em! (They flatter thedevil here, and smoothify his name, quoth Panurge, between his teeth. ) Youdon't come here, continued the captain, to uphold 'em in their folly; youhave no commission from 'em to this effect; well then, we will talk no moreon't. 

Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, wasour sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the nameof Entelechy. Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in tailbeshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family, whodares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her wrong, andis a very impudent person. You are heartily welcome, gentlemen. Withthis they colled and clipped us about the neck, which was no small comfortto us, I'll assure you. 

Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not beensomewhat 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 whenthe Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth instead ofshibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps there is not aman in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have stopped mybunghole with a cartload of hay. 

The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silentlywith great formality. Pantagruel would have said something to him, but theother, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder or avery long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereignlady'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, differentlyplaced according to their maladies. The leprous were apart; those thatwere poisoned on one side; those that had got the plague on another; thosethat 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, inthe second gallery. She looked young, though she was at least eighteenhundred years old, and was handsome, slender, and as fine as a queen, thatis, as hands could make her. He then said to us: It is not yet a fit timeto 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 somecertain diseases, as, for example, scrofula or wens, swelled throats, nicknamed the king's evil, and quartan agues, only with a touch; now ourqueen 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 thenshowed us a set of organs, and said that when it was touched by her thosemiraculous cures were performed. The organ was indeed the strangest thatever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula in the cod; the topand cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the pedas of turbith, andthe clavier or keys of scammony. 

While we were examining this wonderful new make of an organ, the leprouswere 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 wantnames; so she played 'em I don't know what sort of a tune or song, and theywere all immediately cured. 

Then those who were poisoned were had in, and she had no sooner given thema song but they began to find a use for their legs, and up they got. Thencame on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too were restored totheir lost faculties and senses with the same remedy; which did sostrangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that down we fell onour faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in ecstasy, and were notable to utter one word through the excess of our admiration, till she came, and having touched Pantagruel with a fine fragrant nosegay of white roseswhich 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 Parisatisdesired should be spoken to her son Cyrus, or at least of crimson alamode:

The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs myratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtueslatent 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 youraffections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation ofliberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that in you arelodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable profundity ofknowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines, so frequently theadmiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the imperite vulgar. Thisgently compels me, who in preceding times indefatigably kept my privateaffections absolutely subjugated, to condescend to make my application toyou in the trivial phrase of the plebeian world, and assure you that youare 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 notwork with me, however; neither did Pantagruel return a word. So that QueenWhims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving that we stoodas mute as fishes, said: Your taciturnity speaks you not only disciples ofPythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my progenitors insuccessive propagation was emaned and derives its original, but alsodiscovers, that through the revolution of many retrograde moons, you havein Egypt pressed the extremities of your fingers with the hard tenants ofyour mouths, and scalptized your heads with frequent applications of yourunguicules. In the school of Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol ofabstracted and superlative knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians wasagnited as an expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused thepontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence, impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design isnot to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivaciousformality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate toyou 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 notinvite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but somecategories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins, chelemins, second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses, transcendentprolepsies, and such other light food. 

Then they took us into a little closet lined through with alarums, where wewere treated God knows how. It is said that Jupiter writes whatever istransacted in the world on the dipthera or skin of the Amalthaean goat thatsuckled him in Crete, which pelt served him instead of a shield against theTitans, whence he was nicknamed Aegiochos. Now, as I hate to drink water, brother topers, I protest it would be impossible to make eighteen goatskinshold the description of all the good meat they brought before us, though itwere written in characters as small as those in which were penned Homer'sIliads, 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, aheart of oak, and lungs of leather, together with the mellifluous abundanceof Plato, yet I never could give you a full account of a third part of asecond of the whole. 

Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolicword used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she saidto her tabachins, A panacea; just as Lucullus used to say, In Apollo, whenhe designed to give his friends a singular treat; though sometimes theytook him at unawares, as, among the rest, Cicero and Hortensius sometimesused 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 wesaw how, after dinner, with the ladies and the princes of her court, sheused to sift, searce, bolt, range, and pass away time with a fine largewhite and blue silk sieve. We also perceived how they revived ancientsports, 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. Astill tragic dance. 3. Dancing and singing used at funerals. 4. Cuttingsarcasms and lampoons. 5. The Persian dance. 6. Tunes, whose measureinspired men with a kind of divine fury. 7. The Thracian movement. 8. Smutty verses. 9. A measure to which the Molossi of Epirus danced acertain morrice. 10. A dance with bowls or pots in their hands. 11. Asong where one sings alone. 12. Sports at the holidays of the god ofbounds. 13. Dancing naked at Flora's holidays. 14. The Trojan dance inarmour. ')

Afterwards she gave orders that they should show us the apartments andcuriosities in her palace. Accordingly we saw there such new, strange, andwonderful things, that I am still ravished in admiration every time I thinkof't. However, nothing surprised us more than what was done by thegentlemen of her household, abstractors, parazons, nebidins, spodizators, and others, who freely and without the least dissembling told us that thequeen their mistress did all impossible things, and cured men of incurablediseases; and they, her officers, used to do the rest. 

I saw there a young parazon cure many of the new consumption, I mean thepox, though they were never so peppered. Had it been the rankest Roan ague(Anglice, the Covent-garden gout), 'twas all one to him; touching onlytheir dentiform vertebrae thrice with a piece of a wooden shoe, he madethem as wholesome as so many sucking-pigs. 

Another did thoroughly cure folks of dropsies, tympanies, ascites, andhyposarcides, striking them on the belly nine times with a Tenedianhatchet, without any solution of the continuum. 

Another cured all manner of fevers and agues on the spot, only with hanginga fox-tail on the left side of the patient's girdle. 

One removed the toothache only with washing thrice the root of the achingtooth with elder-vinegar, and letting it dry half-an-hour in the sun. 

Another the gout, whether hot or cold, natural or accidental, by barelymaking the gouty person shut his mouth and open his eyes. 

I saw another ease nine gentlemen of St. Francis's distemper ('Aconsumption in the pocket, or want of money; those of St. Francis's ordermust 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 boxwith ten thousand gold crowns in't. 

One with a wonderful engine threw the houses out at the windows, by whichmeans they were purged of all pestilential air. 

Another cured all the three kinds of hectics, the tabid, atrophes, andemaciated, without bathing, Tabian milk, dropax, alias depilatory, or othersuch 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 wayof living, they never would be fattened in this world, either by nature orby art. 

I saw another surrounded with a crowd of two sorts of women. Some wereyoung, quaint, clever, neat, pretty, juicy, tight, brisk, buxom, proper, kind-hearted, and as right as my leg, to any man's thinking. The rest wereold, weather-beaten, over-ridden, toothless, blear-eyed, tough, wrinkled, shrivelled, tawny, mouldy, phthisicky, decrepit hags, beldams, and walkingcarcasses. We were told that his office was to cast anew those she-piecesof antiquity, and make them such as the pretty creatures whom we saw, whohad 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 totouch 'em, than they had been before. As for their counterparts, the oldmother-scratch-tobies, they most devoutly waited for the blessed hour whenthe batch that was in the oven was to be drawn, that they might have theirturns, and in a mighty haste they were pulling and hauling the man likemad, telling him that 'tis the most grievous and intolerable thing innature for the tail to be on fire and the head to scare away those whoshould quench it. 

The officer had his hands full, never wanting patients; neither did hisplace bring him in little, you may swear. Pantagruel asked him whether hecould also make old men young again. He said he could not. But the way tomake them new men was to get 'em to cohabit with a new-cast female; forthis they caught that fifth kind of crinckams, which some call pellade, inGreek, ophiasis, that makes them cast off their old hair and skin, just asthe serpents do, and thus their youth is renewed like the Arabianphoenix's. This is the true fountain of youth, for there the old anddecrepit 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, ifyou'll believe Pherecides and Simonides, was new-vamped and dyed by thatwitch; and so were the nurses of jolly Bacchus, and their husbands, asAeschylus relates. 

Chapter 5. XXII. 

How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the said lady retained usamong her abstractors. 

I then saw a great number of the queen's officers, who made blackamoorswhite as fast as hops, just rubbing their bellies with the bottom of apannier. 

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 amortar, 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; andmuch 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, andsold '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 toputrefy in horsedung, mishmashed with abundance of Christian sir-reverence. Pugh, fie upon him, nasty dog! However, he told us that with this sacreddistillation he watered kings and princes, and made their sweet lives afathom 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 tonothing. 

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 anarbour. They toped out of jolly bottomless cups four sorts of cool, sparkling, pure, delicious, vine-tree sirup, which went down like mother'smilk; and healths and bumpers flew about like lightning. We were told thatthese true philosophers were fairly multiplying the stars by drinking tillthe seven were fourteen, as brawny Hercules did with Atlas. 

Others made a virtue of necessity, and the best of a bad market, whichseemed to me a very good piece of work. 

Others made alchemy (i. E. Sir-reverence) with their teeth, and clappingtheir hind retort to the recipient, made scurvy faces, and then squeezed. 

Others, in a large grass plot, exactly measured how far the fleas could goat a hop, a step, and jump; and told us that this was exceedingly usefulfor the ruling of kingdoms, the conduct of armies, and the administrationof commonwealths; and that Socrates, who first got philosophy out ofheaven, and from idling and trifling made it profitable and of moment, usedto spend half his philosophizing time in measuring the leaps of fleas, asAristophanes the quintessential affirms. 

I saw two gibroins by themselves keeping watch on the top of a tower, andwe 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 tologgerheads. I asked what was the cause of the stir and ado, the mightycoil and pother they made. And I heard that for four livelong days thoseoverwise roisters had been at it ding-dong, disputing on three high, morethan metaphysical propositions, promising themselves mountains of gold bysolving them. The first was concerning a he-ass's shadow; the second, ofthe smoke of a lantern; and the third of goat's hair, whether it were woolor no. We heard that they did not think it a bit strange that twocontradictions in mode, form, figure, and time should be true; though Iwill warrant the sophists of Paris had rather be unchristened than own somuch. 

While we were admiring all those men's wonderful doings, the evening staralready twinkling, the queen (God bless her!) appeared, attended with hercourt, and again amazed and dazzled us. She perceived it, and said to us:

What occasions the aberrations of human cogitations through the perplexinglabyrinths and abysses of admiration, is not the source of the effects, which sagacious mortals visibly experience to be the consequential resultof natural causes. 'Tis the novelty of the experiment which makesimpressions on their conceptive, cogitative faculties; that do not previsethe facility of the operation adequately, with a subact and sedateintellection, associated with diligent and congruous study. Consequentlylet all manner of perturbation abdicate the ventricles of your brains, ifanyone has invaded them while they were contemplating what is transacted bymy domestic ministers. Be spectators and auditors of every particularphenomenon and every individual proposition within the extent of mymansion; satiate yourselves with all that can fall here under theconsideration of your visual or auscultating powers, and thus emancipateyourselves from the servitude of crassous ignorance. And that you may beinduced to apprehend how sincerely I desire this in consideration of thestudious 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 thenoble 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 theventricle, that ordinary embassador for the alimentation of all members, whether superior or inferior, importunes us to restore, by the appositionof idoneous sustenance, what was dissipated by the internal calidity'saction on the radical humidity. Therefore spodizators, gesinins, memains, and parazons, be not culpable of dilatory protractions in the apposition ofevery re-roborating species, but rather let them pullulate and superaboundon the tables. As for you, nobilissim praegustators, and my gentilissimmasticators, your frequently experimented industry, internected withperdiligent sedulity and sedulous perdiligence, continually adjuvates youto perficiate all things in so expeditious a manner that there is nonecessity of exciting in you a cupidity to consummate them. Therefore Ican only suggest to you still to operate as you are assuefactedindefatigably to operate. 

Having made this fine speech, she retired for a while with part of herwomen, and we were told that 'twas to bathe, as the ancients did morecommonly than we use nowadays to wash our hands before we eat. The tableswere soon placed, the cloth spread, and then the queen sat down. She atenothing but celestial ambrosia, and drank nothing but divine nectar. Asfor the lords and ladies that were there, they, as well as we, fared on asrare, costly, and dainty dishes as ever Apicius wot or dreamed of in hislife. 

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 hadnot granted us a truce; and such a huge vast thing it was that the platewhich Pythius Althius gave King Darius would hardly have covered it. Theolla consisted of several sorts of pottages, salads, fricassees, saugrenees, cabirotadoes, roast and boiled meat, carbonadoes, swingeingpieces of powdered beef, good old hams, dainty somates, cakes, tarts, aworld of curds after the Moorish way, fresh cheese, jellies, and fruit ofall sorts. All this seemed to me good and dainty; however, the sight of itmade me sigh; for alas! I could not taste a bit on't, so full I had filledmy puddings before, and a bellyful is a bellyful you know. Yet I must tellyou what I saw that seemed to me odd enough o' conscience; 'twas somepasties 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 hada mind to have a game or two and try their chance. Under this I saw a jollycompany of mules in stately trappings, with velvet footcloths, and a troopof ambling nags, some for men and some for women; besides I don't know howmany litters all lined with velvet, and some coaches of Ferrara make; allthis for those who had a mind to take the air. 

This did not seem strange to me; but if anything did 'twas certainly thequeen's way of eating, and truly 'twas very new, and very odd; for shechewed nothing, the good lady; not but that she had good sound teeth, andher meat required to be masticated, but such was her highness's custom. When her praegustators had tasted the meat, her masticators took it andchewed it most nobly; for their dainty chops and gullets were lined throughwith crimson satin, with little welts and gold purls, and their teeth wereof delicate white ivory. Thus, when they had chewed the meat ready for herhighness's maw, they poured it down her throat through a funnel of finegold, and so on to her craw. For that reason they told us she nevervisited a close-stool but by proxy. 

Chapter 5. XXIV. 

How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, at which Queen Whimswas present. 

After supper there was a ball in the form of a tilt or a tournament, notonly worth seeing, but also never to be forgotten. First, the floor of thehall was covered with a large piece of velveted white and yellow chequeredtapestry, each chequer exactly square, and three full spans in breadth. 

Then thirty-two young persons came into the hall; sixteen of them arrayedin cloth of gold, and of these eight were young nymphs such as the ancientsdescribed Diana's attendants; the other eight were a king, a queen, twowardens of the castle, two knights, and two archers. Those of the otherband were clad in cloth of silver. 

They posted themselves on the tapestry in the following manner: the kingson the last line on the fourth square; so that the golden king was on awhite square, and the silvered king on a yellow square, and each queen byher king; the golden queen on a yellow square, and the silvered queen on awhite one: and on each side stood the archers to guide their kings andqueens; by the archers the knights, and the wardens by them. In the nextrow before 'em stood the eight nymphs; and between the two bands of nymphsfour rows of squares stood empty. 

Each band had its musicians, eight on each side, dressed in its livery; theone with orange-coloured damask, the other with white; and all played ondifferent instruments most melodiously and harmoniously, still varying intime and measure as the figure of the dance required. This seemed to me anadmirable 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 sosuddenly know what every different note meant; for they no sooner heardthis or that sound but they placed themselves in the place which wasdenoted by the music, though their motions were all different. For thenymphs that stood in the first file, as if they designed to begin thefight, marched straight forwards to their enemies from square to square, unless it were the first step, at which they were free to move over twosteps at once. They alone never fall back (which is not very natural toother nymphs), and if any of them is so lucky as to advance to the oppositeking's row, she is immediately crowned queen of her king, and after thatmoves with the same state and in the same manner as the queen; but tillthat happens they never strike their enemies but forwards, and obliquely ina diagonal line. However, they make it not their chief business to taketheir foes; for, if they did, they would leave their queen exposed to theadverse parties, who then might take her. 

The kings move and take their enemies on all sides square-ways, and onlystep from a white square into a yellow one, and vice versa, except at theirfirst step the rank should want other officers than the wardens; for thenthey can set 'em in their place, and retire by him. 

The queens take a greater liberty than any of the rest; for they movebackwards and forwards all manner of ways, in a straight line as far asthey 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 thecolour 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, postingthemselves on the second square to the right or left, from one colour toanother, which is very unwelcome to the adverse party, and ought to becarefully observed, for they take at unawares. 

The wardens move and take to the right or left, before or behind them, likethe kings, and can advance as far as they find places empty; which libertythe kings take not. 

The law which both sides observe is, at the end of the fight, to besiegeand 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 theday. 

Now, to avoid this, there is none of either sex of each party but iswilling to sacrifice his or her life, and they begin to take one another onall sides in time, as soon as the music strikes up. When anyone takes aprisoner, he makes his honours, and striking him gently in the hand, putshim 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 notlawful for any of his adversaries that had discovered him to lay hold onhim; far from it, they are strictly enjoined humbly to pay him theirrespects, and give him notice, saying, God preserve you, sir! that hisofficers may relieve and cover him, or he may remove, if unhappily he couldnot be relieved. However, he is not to be taken, but greeted with aGood-morrow, the others bending the knee; and thus the tournament usesto end. 

Chapter 5. XXV. 

How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought. 

The two companies having taken their stations, the music struck up, andwith a martial sound, which had something of horrid in it, like a point ofwar, roused and alarmed both parties, who now began to shiver, and thensoon were warmed with warlike rage; and having got in readiness to fightdesperately, impatient of delay stood waiting for the charge. 

Then the music of the silvered band ceased playing, and the instruments ofthe golden side alone were heard, which denoted that the golden partyattacked. Accordingly, a new movement was played for the onset, and we sawthe nymph who stood before the queen turn to the left towards her king, asit were to ask leave to fight; and thus saluting her company at the sametime, she moved two squares forwards, and saluted the adverse party. 

Now the music of the golden brigade ceased playing, and their antagonistsbegan again. I ought to have told you that the nymph who began by salutingher company, had by that formality also given them to understand that theywere to fall on. She was saluted by them in the same manner, with a fullturn to the left, except the queen, who went aside towards her king to theright; and the same manner of salutation was observed on both sides duringthe whole ball. 

The silvered nymph that stood before her queen likewise moved as soon asthe music of her party sounded a charge; her salutations, and those of herside, were to the right, and her queen's to the left. She moved in thesecond square forwards, and saluted her antagonists, facing the firstgolden nymph; so that there was not any distance between them, and youwould have thought they two had been going to fight; but they only strikesideways. 

Their comrades, whether silvered or golden, followed 'em in an intercalaryfigure, and seemed to skirmish a while, till the golden nymph who had firstentered the lists, striking a silvered nymph in the hand on the right, puther out of the field, and set herself in her place. But soon the musicplaying a new measure, she was struck by a silvered archer, who after thatwas obliged himself to retire. A silvered knight then sallied out, and thegolden queen posted herself before her king. 

Then the silvered king, dreading the golden queen's fury, removed to theright, to the place where his warden stood, which seemed to him strong andwell guarded. 

The two knights on the left, whether golden or silvered, marched up, and oneither side took up many nymphs who could not retreat; principally thegolden knight, who made this his whole business; but the silvered knighthad greater designs, dissembling all along, and even sometimes not taking anymph when he could have done it, still moving on till he was come up tothe main body of the enemies in such a manner that he saluted their kingwith a God save you, sir!

The whole golden brigade quaked for fear and anger, those words givingnotice 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 onthe right wing without any hopes of a recovery. Then the golden kingretired to the left, and the silvered knight took the golden warden, whichwas 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 whatthey 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 morefury than conduct moved about, and did much mischief among their enemies. The silvered party warily dissembled, watching their opportunity to be evenwith them, and presented one of their nymphs to the golden queen, havinglaid an ambuscado; so that the nymph being taken, a golden archer had liketo have seized the silvered queen. Then the golden knight undertakes totake the silvered king and queen, and says, Good-morrow! Then the silveredarcher salutes them, and was taken by a golden nymph, and she herself by asilvered one. 

The fight was obstinate and sharp. The wardens left their posts, andadvanced to relieve their friends. The battle was doubtful, and victoryhovered over both armies. Now the silvered host charge and break throughtheir enemy's ranks as far as the golden king's tent, and now they arebeaten back. The golden queen distinguishes herself from the rest by hermighty achievements still more than by her garb and dignity; for at onceshe takes an archer, and, going sideways, seizes a silvered warden. Whichthing the silvered queen perceiving, she came forwards, and, rushing onwith equal bravery, takes the last golden warden and some nymphs. The twoqueens fought a long while hand to hand; now striving to take each other bysurprise, then to save themselves, and sometimes to guard their kings. Finally, the golden queen took the silvered queen; but presently after sheherself 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 themfight more slowly and warily than before. The two kings seemed to mournfor the loss of their loving queens, and only studied and endeavoured toget new ones out of all their nymphs to be raised to that dignity, and thusbe married to them. This made them excite those brave nymphs to strive toreach the farthest rank, where stood the king of the contrary party, promising them certainly to have them crowned if they could do this. Thegolden nymphs were beforehand with the others, and out of their number wascreated a queen, who was dressed in royal robes, and had a crown set on herhead. You need not doubt the silvered nymphs made also what haste theycould 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 couldgo no further. 

The new golden queen, resolved to show herself valiant and worthy of heradvancement to the crown, achieved great feats of arms. But in themeantime the silvered knight takes the golden warden who guarded the camp;and thus there was a new silvered queen, who, like the other, strove toexcel in heroic deeds at the beginning of her reign. Thus the fight grewhotter 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, Godsave you, sir! Now none but his new queen could relieve him; so shebravely came and exposed herself to the utmost extremity to deliver him outof it. Then the silvered warden with his queen reduced the golden king tosuch a stress that, to save himself, he was forced to lose his queen; butthe golden king took him at last. However, the rest of the golden partywere soon taken; and that king being left alone, the silvered party madehim a low bow, crying, Good morrow, sir! which denoted that the silveredking 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 thespectators. 

After this the two brigades took their former stations, and began to tilt asecond time, much as they had done before, only the music played somewhatfaster 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 aknight, as it were angry at the former defeat, and she had like to havefallen upon the silvered king in his tent among his officers; but havingbeen baulked in her attempt, she skirmished briskly, and overthrew so manysilvered nymphs and officers that it was a most amazing sight. You wouldhave sworn she had been another Penthesilea; for she behaved herself withas much bravery as that Amazonian queen did at Troy. 

But this havoc did not last long; for the silvered party, exasperated bytheir loss, resolved to perish or stop her progress; and having posted anarcher in ambuscado on a distant angle, together with a knight-errant, herhighness fell into their hands and was carried out of the field. The restwere soon routed after the taking of their queen, who, without doubt, fromthat time resolved to be more wary and keep near her king, withoutventuring 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 soonappeared again in the field to face their enemies; and being posted asbefore, both the armies seemed more resolute and cheerful than ever. Nowthe 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 swiftnessthat in an instant they made four moves, besides the usual salutations. Sothat 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, andmotion cannot be perceived, but resembles rest, its contrary; so that ifyou make a point or mark on some part of one of those gigs, 'twill beperceived not as a point, but a continual line, in a most divine manner, asCusanus has wisely observed. 

While they were thus warmly engaged, we heard continually the claps andepisemapsies which those of the two bands reiterated at the taking of theirenemies; and this, joined to the variety of their motions and music, wouldhave forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the never-laughing Crassus, the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even whining Heraclitus, though heabhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man. For who couldhave 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, soswiftly, and yet so dexterously, that they never touched one another butmethodically. 

As the number of the combatants lessened, the pleasure of the spectatorsincreased; for the stratagems and motions of the remaining forces were moresingular. I shall only add that this pleasing entertainment charmed us tosuch a degree that our minds were ravished with admiration and delight, andthe martial harmony moved our souls so powerfully that we easily believedwhat is said of Ismenias's having excited Alexander to rise from table andrun to his arms, with such a warlike melody. At last the golden kingremained master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, QueenWhims 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 herabstractors, as her queenship had commanded. After that we returned to theport of Mateotechny, and thence straight aboard our ships; for the wind wasfair, and had we not hoisted out of hand, we could hardly have got off inthree 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 madethe island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing. The waysthere are animals; so true is Aristotle's saying, that all self-movingthings are animals. Now the ways walk there. Ergo, they are then animals. Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those of the planets; othersare highways, crossways, and byways. I perceived that the travellers andinhabitants of that country asked, Whither does this way go? Whither doesthat way go? Some answered, Between Midy and Fevrolles, to the parishchurch, to the city, to the river, and so forth. Being thus in their rightway, 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 asort of people whom they called highwaymen, waybeaters, and makers ofinroads in roads; and that the poor ways were sadly afraid of them, andshunned them as you do robbers. For these used to waylay them, as peoplelay trains for wolves, and set gins for woodcocks. I saw one who was takenup with a lord chief justice's warrant for having unjustly, and in spite ofPallas, taken the schoolway, which is the longest. Another boasted that hehad fairly taken his shortest, and that doing so he first compassed hisdesign. Thus, Carpalin, meeting once Epistemon looking upon a wall withhis fiddle-diddle, or live urinal, in his hand, to make a little maid'swater, cried that he did not wonder now how the other came to be still thefirst at Pantagruel's levee, since he held his shortest and least used. 

I found Bourges highway among these. It went with the deliberation of anabbot, but was made to scamper at the approach of some waggoners, whothreatened to have it trampled under their horses' feet, and make theirwaggons 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, whichseemed to me a very good, honest, plain way, as smooth as a carpet, and asgood as ever was trod upon by shoe of leather. 

Among the rocks I knew again the good old way to La Ferrare, mounted on ahuge bear. This at a distance would have put me in mind of St. Jerome'spicture, 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 thepicture of winter, or at least like a white-frosted bush. 

On that way were store of beads or rosaries, coarsely made of wildpine-tree; and it seemed kneeling, not standing, nor lying flat; but itssides and middle were beaten with huge stones, insomuch that it proved to usat 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, whotells us that all things derive their original from the ocean; for thissame way which you see here had its beginning from water, and is to returnwhence she came before two months come to an end; now carts are driven herewhere boats used to be rowed. 

Truly, said Pantagruel, you tell us no news; we see five hundred suchchanges, and more, every year, in our world. Then reflecting on thedifferent manner of going of those moving ways, he told us he believed thatPhilolaus and Aristarchus had philosophized in this island, and thatSeleucus (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 ofour boat's motion. 

As we went back to our ships, we saw three waylayers, who, having beentaken in ambuscado, were going to be broken on the wheel; and a hugefornicator was burned with a lingering fire for beating a way and breakingone of its sides; we were told it was the way of the banks of the Nile inEgypt. 

Chapter 5. XXVII. 

How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of SemiquaverFriars. 

Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothingbut ling-broth. However, we were very kindly received and entertained byBenius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had made us drink, tookus with him to show us a spick-and-span new monastery which he hadcontrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he called the religious men whom hehad there. For he said that on t'other side the water lived friars whostyled themselves her sweet ladyship's most humble servants. Item, thegoodly Friar-minors, who are semibreves of bulls; the smoked-herring tribeof Minim Friars; then the Crotchet Friars. So that these diminutives couldbe no more than Semiquavers. By the statutes, bulls, and patents of QueenWhims, they were all dressed like so many house-burners, except that, as inAnjou your bricklayers use to quilt their knees when they tile houses, sothese holy friars had usually quilted bellies, and thick quilted pauncheswere 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 bythis duplicity of codpieces. 

They wore shoes as round as basins, in imitation of those who inhabit thesandy sea. Their chins were close-shaved, and their feet iron-shod; and toshow they did not value fortune, Benius made them shave and poll the hindpart of their polls as bare as a bird's arse, from the crown to theshoulder-blades; but they had leave to let their hair grow before, from thetwo triangular bones in the upper part of the skull. 

Thus did they not value fortune a button, and cared no more for the goodsof this world than you or I do for hanging. And to show how much theydefied that blind jilt, all of them wore, not in their hands like her, butat their waist, instead of beads, sharp razors, which they used tonew-grind twice a day and set thrice a night. 

Each of them had a round ball on their feet, because Fortune is said tohave one under hers. 

The flap of their cowls hanged forward, and not backwards, like those ofothers. Thus none could see their noses, and they laughed without fearboth at fortune and the fortunate; neither more nor less than our ladieslaugh at barefaced trulls when they have those mufflers on which they callmasks, and which were formerly much more properly called charity, becausethey cover a multitude of sins. 

The hind part of their faces were always uncovered, as are our faces, whichmade them either go with their belly or the arse foremost, which theypleased. When their hind face went forwards, you would have sworn this hadbeen their natural gait, as well on account of their round shoes as of thedouble codpiece, and their face behind, which was as bare as the back of myhand, and coarsely daubed over with two eyes and a mouth, such as you seeon some Indian nuts. Now, if they offered to waddle along with theirbellies forwards, you would have thought they were then playing atblindman'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 toboot and spur one another. This being done, the least thing they did wasto sleep and snore; and thus sleeping, they had barnacles on the handles oftheir faces, or spectacles at most. 

You may swear we did not a little wonder at this odd fancy; but theysatisfied us presently, telling us that the day of judgment is to takemankind napping; therefore, to show they did not refuse to make theirpersonal appearance as fortune's darlings use to do, they were always thusbooted and spurred, ready to mount whenever the trumpet should sound. 

At noon, as soon as the clock struck, they used to awake. You must knowthat their clock-bell, church-bells, and refectory-bells were all madeaccording to the pontial device, that is, quilted with the finest down, andtheir clappers of fox-tails. 

Having then made shift to get up at noon, they pulled off their boots, andthose that wanted to speak with a maid, alias piss, pissed; those thatwanted to scumber, scumbered; and those that wanted to sneeze, sneezed. But all, whether they would or no (poor gentlemen!), were obliged largelyand plentifully to yawn; and this was their first breakfast (O rigorousstatute!). Methought 'twas very comical to observe their transactions;for, having laid their boots and spurs on a rack, they went into thecloisters. There they curiously washed their hands and mouths; then satthem down on a long bench, and picked their teeth till the provost gave thesignal, whistling through his fingers; then every he stretched out his jawsas much as he could, and they gaped and yawned for about half-an-hour, sometimes more, sometimes less, according as the prior judged the breakfastto 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 theother. The last went before, carried by a semi-quavering friar, at whoseheels was another, with the shadow or image of Virtue in one hand and anholy-water sprinkle in the other--I mean of that holy mercurial water whichOvid describes in his Fasti. And as the preceding Semiquaver rang ahandbell, this shaked the sprinkle with his fist. With that saysPantagruel, This order contradicts the rule which Tully and the academicsprescribed, that Virtue ought to go before, and Fortune follow. But theytold 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 betwixttheir teeth I do not know what antiphones, or chantings, by turns. For mypart, '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 theyonly sang with the tip of theirs. Oh, what a rare harmony it was! Howwell 'twas tuned to the sound of their bells! You'll never find these tojar, that you won't. Pantagruel made a notable observation upon theprocessions; for says he, Have you seen and observed the policy of theseSemiquavers? To make an end of their procession they went out at one oftheir church doors and came in at the other; they took a deal of care notto come in at the place whereat they went out. On my honour, these are asubtle 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 tosuck a bull, and when he came there 'twas a steer. This subtlety andwisdom 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 themore 'tis to be feared, said Pantagruel; for subtlety suspected, subtletyforeseen, subtlety found out, loses the essence and very name of subtlety, and only gains that of blockishness. They are not such fools as you takethem to be; they have more tricks than are good, I doubt. 

After the procession they went sluggingly into the fratery-room, by the wayof walk and healthful exercise, and there kneeled under the tables, leaningtheir breasts on lanterns. While they were in that posture, in came a hugeSandal, with a pitchfork in his hand, who used to baste, rib-roast, swaddle, and swinge them well-favouredly, as they said, and in truthtreated them after a fashion. They began their meal as you end yours, withcheese, and ended it with mustard and lettuce, as Martial tells us theancients did. Afterwards a platterful of mustard was brought before everyone 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, andteals. You must also always add cheese for the first course, and mustardfor the last. 

O' Mondays they were crammed with peas and pork, cum commento, andinterlineary 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, andbrocks' heads, of which there's no want in that country. 

O' Thursdays they guzzled down seven sorts of porridge, not forgettingmustard. 

O' Fridays they munched nothing but services or sorb-apples; neither werethese full ripe, as I guessed by their complexion. 

O' Saturdays they gnawed bones; not that they were poor or needy, for everymother's son of them had a very good fat belly-benefice. 

As for their drink, 'twas an antifortunal; thus they called I don't knowwhat sort of a liquor of the place. 

When they wanted to eat or drink, they turned down the back-points or flapsof their cowls forwards below their chins, and that served 'em instead ofgorgets or slabbering-bibs. 

When they had well dined, they prayed rarely all in quavers and shakes; andthe rest of the day, expecting the day of judgment, they were taken up withacts 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 ofthe monk-house sent any of them abroad, then they were strictly enjoinedneither to touch nor eat any manner of fish as long as they were on sea orrivers, and to abstain from all manner of flesh whenever they were at land, that everyone might be convinced that, while they enjoyed the object, theydenied themselves the power, and even the desire, and were no more movedwith it than the Marpesian rock. 

All this was done with proper antiphones, still sung and chanted by ear, aswe have already observed. 

When the sun went to bed, they fairly booted and spurred each other asbefore, and having clapped on their barnacles e'en jogged to bed too. Atmidnight the Sandal came to them, and up they got, and having well whettedand set their razors, and been a-processioning, they clapped the tablesover themselves, and like wire-drawers under their work fell to it asaforesaid. 

Friar John des Entoumeures, having shrewdly observed these jolly SemiquaverFriars, and had a full account of their statutes, lost all patience, andcried out aloud: Bounce tail, and God ha' mercy guts; if every fool shouldwear a bauble, fuel would be dear. A plague rot it, we must know how manyfarts go to an ounce. Would Priapus were here, as he used to be at thenocturnal festivals in Crete, that I might see him play backwards, andwriggle and shake to the purpose. Ay, ay, this is the world, and t'otheris the country; may I never piss if this be not an antichthonian land, andour very antipodes. In Germany they pull down monasteries and unfrockifythe 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 answeredin monosyllables. 

Panurge, who had since been wholly taken up with staring at these royalSemiquavers, at last pulled one of them by the sleeve, who was as lean as arake, and asked him, --

Hearkee me, Friar Quaver, Semiquaver, Demisemiquavering quaver, where isthe 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, andwithout 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 doyou 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, thesearch Semiquavering strumpets, must be! That damned cattle are so high fedthat they must needs be high-mettled, and ready to wince and give two upsfor one go-down when anyone offers to ride them below the crupper. 

Prithee, Friar John, quoth Panurge, hold thy prating tongue; stay till Ihave 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 ashonest a cod as ever the ground went upon, and as grave as an old gate-postinto the bargain. Would to the blessed St. Semiquaver, and the blessedworthy virgin St. Semiquavera, he were lord chief president (justice) ofParis! Ods-bodikins, how he'd despatch! With what expedition would hebring disputes to an upshot! What an abbreviator and clawer off oflawsuits, reconciler of differences, examiner and fumbler of bags, peruserof bills, scribbler of rough drafts, and engrosser of deeds would he notmake! Well, friar, spare your breath to cool your porridge. Come, let'snow 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 tocohabit, 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 howmany 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, andsticks at sixteen, as if that were his stint. Right, quoth Panurge, butcouldst thou keep pace with him, Friar John, my dainty cod? May thedevil's dam suck my teat if he does not look as if he had got a blow overthe nose with a Naples cowl-staff. 

Pan. Pray, Friar Shakewell, does your whole fraternity quaver and shake atthat 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 whenI think on all this; it passes my understanding. But, pray, when you havebeen pumped dry one day, what have you got the next? Fri. More. 

Pan. By Priapus, they have the Indian herb of which Theophrastus spoke, orI'm much out. But, hearkee me, thou man of brevity, should someimpediment, honestly or otherwise, impair your talents and cause yourbenevolence 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 doyou 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; thisis 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 butmonosyllables. 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 dogyelps at another gate's rate when he is among his bitches; there he ispolysyllable enough, my life for yours. You talk of making three bites ofa cherry! God send fools more wit and us more money! May I be doomed tofast a whole day if I don't verily believe he would not make above twobites 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 butskin and bones; he has pissed his tallow. 

Truly, truly, quoth Epistemon, this rascally monastical vermin all over theworld mind nothing but their gut, and are as ravenous as any kites, andthen, forsooth, they tell us they've nothing but food and raiment in thisworld. '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-favouredSemiquaver mentioned March as the best month for caterwauling? True, saidPantagruel; yet Lent and March always go together, and the first wasinstituted to macerate and bring down our pampered flesh, to weaken andsubdue its lusts, to curb and assuage the venereal rage. 

By this, said Epistemon, you may guess what kind of a pope it was who firstenjoined it to be kept, since this filthy wooden-shoed Semiquaver owns thathis spoon is never oftener nor deeper in the porringer of lechery than inLent. Add to this the evident reasons given by all good and learnedphysicians, affirming that throughout the whole year no food is eaten thatcan 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 saladswholly 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 youthat the good pope who first ordered the keeping of Lent, perceiving thatat that time o' year the natural heat (from the centre of the body, whitherit was retired during the winter's cold) diffuses itself, as the sap doesin trees, through the circumference of the members, did therefore in amanner prescribe that sort of diet to forward the propagation of mankind. What makes me think so, is that by the registers of christenings at Touarsit appears that more children are born in October and November than in theother ten months of the year, and reckoning backwards 'twill be easilyfound 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 smallpleasure, I'll assure you. But I must tell you that the vicar of Jambertascribed this copious prolification of the women, not to that sort of foodthat we chiefly eat in Lent, but to the little licensed stooping mumpers, your little booted Lent-preachers, your little draggle-tailed fatherconfessors, who during all that time of their reign damn all husbands thatrun astray three fathom and a half below the very lowest pit of hell. Sothe silly cod's-headed brothers of the noose dare not then stumble any moreat the truckle-bed, to the no small discomfort of their maids, and are evenforced, poor souls, to take up with their own bodily wives. Dixi; I havedone. 

You may descant on the institution of Lent as much as you please, criedEpistemon; so many men so many minds; but certainly all the physicians willbe against its being suppressed, though I think that time is at hand. Iknow they will, and have heard 'em say were it not for Lent their art wouldsoon fall into contempt, and they'd get nothing, for hardly anybody wouldbe sick. 

All distempers are sowed in lent; 'tis the true seminary and native bed ofall diseases; nor does it only weaken and putrefy bodies, but it also makessouls mad and uneasy. For then the devils do their best, and drive asubtle trade, and the tribe of canting dissemblers come out of their holes. 'Tis then term-time with your cucullated pieces of formality that have oneface to God and another to the devil; and a wretched clutter they make withtheir sessions, stations, pardons, syntereses, confessions, whippings, anathematizations, and much prayer with as little devotion. However, I'llnot offer to infer from this that the Arimaspians are better than we are inthat point; yet I speak to the purpose. 

Well, quoth Panurge to the Semiquaver friar, who happened to be by, dearbumbasting, shaking, trilling, quavering cod, what thinkest thou of thisfellow? 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 talkingthus with this lousy tatterdemalion of a monk. I vow, did I not know youwell, I might be ready to think you had no more wit in your head than hehas 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 Imight 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, poorPanurge, take that along with thee, thou'rt e'en fitted; 'tis a plain casethou'lt never escape wearing the bull's feather; thy wife will be as commonas 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 SemiquaverFriars, we set sail, and in three days our skipper made the finest and mostdelightful 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. Itstrees and herbage never lose their leaves or flowers, and are all damaskand flowered velvet. As for the beasts and birds, they are all of tapestrywork. 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 alsosaw there many sorts of creatures which we never had seen before. 

Among the rest, several elephants in various postures; twelve of which werethe six males and six females that were brought to Rome by their governorin the time of Germanicus, Tiberius's nephew. Some of them were learnedelephants, some musicians, others philosophers, dancers, and showers oftricks; and all sat down at table in good order, silently eating anddrinking like so many fathers in a fratery-room. 

With their snouts or proboscises, some two cubits long, they draw up waterfor their own drinking, and take hold of palm leaves, plums, and all mannerof edibles, using them offensively or defensively as we do our fists; withthem tossing men high into the air in fight, and making them burst withlaughing when they come to the ground. 

They have joints (in their legs), whatever some men, who doubtless neversaw any but painted, may have written to the contrary. Between their teeththey have two huge horns; thus Juba called 'em, and Pausanias tells us theyare 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 ownthem to be true ivory. These are some three or four cubits long, and arefixed in the upper jawbone, and consequently not in the lowermost. If youhearken to those who will tell you to the contrary, you will find yourselfdamnably 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 fastas a dog can trot. 'Twas in this very island that Pliny, his brothertell-truth, had seen some elephants dance on the rope with bells, and whipover the tables, presto, begone, while people were at feasts, without somuch as touching the toping topers or the topers toping. 

I saw a rhinoceros there, just such a one as Harry Clerberg had formerlyshowed me. Methought it was not much unlike a certain boar which I hadformerly seen at Limoges, except the sharp horn on its snout, that wasabout a cubit long; by the means of which that animal dares encounter withan 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 astag's, their feet like an elephant's, their tails like a wild boar's, andout of each of their foreheads sprouts out a sharp black horn, some six orseven feet long; commonly it dangles down like a turkey-cock's comb. Whena unicorn has a mind to fight, or put it to any other use, what does it dobut 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 hisprancer, alias his nimble-wimble, was like the unicorn, not altogether inlength indeed, but in virtue and propriety; for as the unicorn purifiedpools and fountains from filth and venom, so that other animals came anddrank securely there afterwards, in the like manner others might watertheir nags, and dabble after him without fear of shankers, carnosities, gonorrhoeas, buboes, crinkams, and such other plagues caught by those whoventure to quench their amorous thirst in a common puddle; for with hisnervous horn he removed all the infection that might be lurking in someblind 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, sinceyou are pleased to give us so beneficial an instruction. 

Ay, ay, returned Panurge, and then immediately I'll give you a prettygentle aggregative pill of God, made up of two and twenty kind stabs with adagger, after the Caesarian way. Catso, cried Friar John, I had rathertake off a bumper of good cool wine. 

I saw there the golden fleece formerly conquered by Jason, and can assureyou, on the word of an honest man, that those who have said it was not afleece but a golden pippin, because melon signifies both an apple and asheep, were utterly mistaken. 

I saw also a chameleon, such as Aristotle describes it, and like that whichhad been formerly shown me by Charles Maris, a famous physician of thenoble city of Lyons on the Rhone; and the said chameleon lived on air justas the other did. 

I saw three hydras, like those I had formerly seen. They are a kind ofserpent, with seven different heads. 

I saw also fourteen phoenixes. I had read in many authors that there wasbut one in the whole world in every century; but, if I may presume to speakmy mind, I declare that those who said this had never seen any, unless itwere in the land of Tapestry; though 'twere vouched by Claudian orLactantius 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, andpicking up straggling grasshoppers in cornfields. 

Item, some cynamologi, argatiles, caprimulgi, thynnunculs, onocrotals, orbitterns, 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 itsstirrups. 

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 atall ship that did not get ahead an inch, though she was in the offing withtop and top-gallants spread before the wind. I am somewhat inclined tobelieve that 'twas the very numerical ship in which Periander the tyranthappened to be when it was stopped by such a little fish in spite of windand tide. It was in this land of Satin, and in no other, that Mutianus hadseen one of them. 

Friar John told us that in the days of yore two sorts of fishes used toabound in our courts of judicature, and rotted the bodies and tormented thesouls of those who were at law, whether noble or of mean descent, high orlow, rich or poor: the first were your April fish or mackerel (pimps, panders, and bawds); the others your beneficial remoras, that is, theeternity of lawsuits, the needless lets that keep 'em undecided. 

I saw some sphynges, some raphes, some ounces, and some cepphi, whosefore-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, havenecks, tails, and breasts like a lion's, legs like a stag's, have mouths upto the ears, and but two teeth, one above and one below; they speak withhuman voices, but when they do they say nothing. 

Some people say that none e'er saw an eyrie, or nest of sakers; if you'llbelieve 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 thebody of a lion, red hair, a face and ears like a man's, three rows of teethwhich close together as if you joined your hands with your fingers betweeneach other; they have a sting in their tails like a scorpion's, and a verymelodious voice. 

I saw some catablepases, a sort of serpents, whose bodies are small, buttheir heads large, without any proportion, so that they've much ado to liftthem up; and their eyes are so infectious that whoever sees 'em dies uponthe spot, as if he had seen a basilisk. 

I saw some beasts with two backs, and those seemed to me the merriestcreatures in the world. They were most nimble at wriggling the buttocks, and more diligent in tail-wagging than any water-wagtails, perpetuallyjogging and shaking their double rumps. 

I saw there some milched crawfish, creatures that I never had heard ofbefore in my life. These moved in very good order, and 'twould have doneyour 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 theMediterranean Sea open to the right and left down to the very bottom; justas the Red Sea very fairly left its bed at the Arabian Gulf to make a lanefor the Jews when they left Egypt. 

There I found Triton winding his silver shell instead of a horn, and alsoGlaucus, 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 inwhich 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 ahead-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 ofbusiness, yet had little to do; like Chrysippus or Aristarchus of Soli, whofor eight-and-fifty years together did nothing in the world but examine thestate and concerns of bees. 

I spied Peter Gilles among these, with a urinal in his hand, narrowlywatching 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, andchimes to let me know 'tis time to go to dinner. Let's take care of thebody lest the soul abdicate it; and to this effect let's taste some ofthese anacampserotes ('An herb, the touching of which is said to reconcilelovers. '--Motteux. ) that hang over our heads. Psha, cried one, they aremere trash, stark naught, o' my word; they're good for nothing. 

I then went to pluck some mirobolans off of a piece of tapestry whereonthey hung, but the devil a bit I could chew or swallow 'em; and had you hadthem 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, tofeast those whom he had caused to fast a long time, promising them asumptuous, plentiful, and imperial feast after it; for all the treat usedto 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, weheard a loud various noise, like that of paper-mills (or women bucking oflinen); so with all speed we went to the place whence the noise came, wherewe found a diminutive, monstrous, misshapen old fellow, called Hearsay. His mouth was slit up to his ears, and in it were seven tongues, each ofthem cleft into seven parts. However, he chattered, tattled, and pratedwith 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 Argusformerly had eyes, and was as blind as a beetle, and had the palsy in hislegs. 

About him stood an innumerable number of men and women, gaping, listening, and hearing very intensely. Among 'em I observed some who strutted likecrows 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 compendiouslyexplained everything to 'em; so that those men of happy memories grewlearned in a trice, and would most fluently talk with you of a world ofprodigious things, the hundredth part of which would take up a man's wholelife to be fully known. 

Among the rest they descanted with great prolixity on the pyramids andhieroglyphics of Egypt, of the Nile, of Babylon, of the Troglodytes, theHymantopodes, or crump-footed nation, the Blemiae, people that wear theirheads in the middle of their breasts, the Pigmies, the Cannibals, theHyperborei and their mountains, the Egypanes with their goat's feet, andthe 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 otherantiquaries. 

Then Albert, the great Jacobin friar, Peter Tesmoin, alias Witness, PopePius the Second, Volaterranus, Paulus Jovius the valiant, Jemmy Cartier, Chaton the Armenian, Marco Polo the Venetian, Ludovico Romano, PedroAliares, and forty cartloads of other modern historians, lurking behind apiece of tapestry, where they were at it ding-dong, privately scribblingthe Lord knows what, and making rare work of it; and all by hearsay. 

Behind another piece of tapestry (on which Naboth and Susanna's accuserswere fairly represented), I saw close by Hearsay, good store of men of thecountry of Perce and Maine, notable students, and young enough. 

I asked what sort of study they applied themselves to; and was told thatfrom their youth they learned to be evidences, affidavit-men, and vouchers, and were instructed in the art of swearing; in which they soon became suchproficients, that when they left that country, and went back into theirown, they set up for themselves and very honestly lived by their trade ofevidencing, positively giving their testimony of all things whatsoever tothose who feed them most roundly to do a job of journey-work for them; andall this by hearsay. 

You may think what you will of it; but I can assure you they gave some ofus 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 aspossibly 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 ofLantern-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 theywere fishes which lolled their flaming tongues on the surface of the sea, or lampyrides, which some call cicindelas, or glowworms, shining there asripe 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 theplace to discover the land, and for the safe piloting in of some outlandishlanterns, which, like good Franciscan and Jacobin friars, were coming tomake their personal appearance at the provincial chapter. 

However, some of us were somewhat suspicious that these fires were theforerunners 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 Pantagrueldiscovered on a high tower the lantern of Rochelle, that stood us in goodstead, for it cast a great light. We also saw the lantern of Pharos, thatof Nauplion, and that of Acropolis at Athens, sacred to Pallas. 

Near the port there's a little hamlet inhabited by the Lychnobii, that liveby lanterns, as the gulligutted friars in our country live by nuns; theyare 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, withhigh-crowned hats, whom we acquainted with the cause of our voyage, and ourdesign, which was to desire the queen of the country to grant us a lanternto 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 comein 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 Queenof Lantern-land, being introduced by two lanterns of honour, that ofAristophanes and that of Cleanthes (Motteux adds here--'Mistresses of theceremonies. '). Panurge in a few words acquainted her with the causes ofour voyage, and she received us with great demonstrations of friendship, desiring us to come to her at supper-time that we might more easily makechoice of one to be our guide; which pleased us extremely. We did not failto observe intensely everything we could see, as the garbs, motions, anddeportment of the queen's subjects, principally the manner after which shewas 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 oftheir families. 

An earthen dark-lantern, shaped like a pot, notwithstanding this took placeof some of the first quality; at which I wondered much, till I was told itwas that of Epictetus, for which three thousand drachmas had been formerlyrefused. 

Martial's polymix lantern (Motteux gives a footnote:--'A lamp with manywicks, or a branch'd candlestick with many springs coming out of it, thatsupply all the branches with oil. ') made a very good figure there. I tookparticular notice of its dress, and more yet of the lychnosimity formerlyconsecrated by Canopa, the daughter of Tisias. 

I saw the lantern pensile formerly taken out of the temple of ApolloPalatinus at Thebes, and afterwards by Alexander the Great (carried to thetown of Cymos). (The words in brackets have been omitted by Motteux. )

I saw another that distinguished itself from the rest by a bushy tuft ofcrimson silk on its head. I was told 'twas that of Bartolus, the lanternof the civilians. 

Two others were very remarkable for glister-pouches that dangled at theirwaist. We were told that one was the greater light and the other thelesser light of the apothecaries. 

When 'twas supper-time, the queen's highness first sat down, and then thelady lanterns, according to their rank and dignity. For the first coursethey were all served with large Christmas candles, except the queen, whowas served with a hugeous, thick, stiff, flaming taper of white wax, somewhat red towards the tip; and the royal family, as also the provinciallantern of Mirebalais, who were served with nutlights; and the provincialof Lower Poitou, with an armed candle. 

After that, God wot, what a glorious light they gave with their wicks! Ido not say all, for you must except a parcel of junior lanterns, under thegovernment of a high and mighty one. These did not cast a light like therest, but seemed to me dimmer than any long-snuff farthing candle whosetallow has been half melted away in a hothouse. 

After supper we withdrew to take some rest, and the next day the queen madeus choose one of the most illustrious lanterns to guide us; after which wetook 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 atlast arrived at the desired island where was the Oracle of the Bottle. Assoon 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 longago. This is the place we've been seeking with such toil and labour. Hethen 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 largevineyard, 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. Thisvineyard was formerly planted by the good Bacchus, with so great a blessingthat it yields leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year round, like theorange trees at Suraine. 

Our magnificent lantern ordered every one of us to eat three grapes, to putsome 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 ofthose of the ancients. The trophies of a toper were curiously carved onit. 

First, on one side was to be seen a long train of flagons, leathernbottles, flasks, cans, glass bottles, barrels, nipperkins, pint pots, quartpots, pottles, gallons, and old-fashioned semaises (swingeing wooden pots, such as those out of which the Germans fill their glasses); these hung on ashady arbour. 

On another side was store of garlic, onions, shallots, hams, botargos, caviare, biscuits, neat's tongues, old cheese, and such like comfits, veryartificially 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 suchother Bacchic artillery. 

On the frontispiece of the triumphal arch, under the zoophore, was thefollowing 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; forthere is not a better or a more divine lantern than ours in allLantern-land. 

This arch ended at a fine large round alley covered over with the interlaidbranches of vines, loaded and adorned with clusters of five hundreddifferent colours, and of as many various shapes, not natural, but due tothe 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 alleyended at three old ivy-trees, verdant, and all loaden with rings. Ourenlightened lantern directed us to make ourselves hats with some of theirleaves, and cover our heads wholly with them, which was immediately done. 

Jupiter's priestess, said Pantagruel, in former days would not like us havewalked under this arbour. There was a mystical reason, answered our mostperspicuous lantern, that would have hindered her; for had she gone underit, the wine, or the grapes of which 'tis made, that's the same thing, hadbeen over her head, and then she would have seemed overtopped and masteredby wine. Which implies that priests, and all persons who devote themselvesto the contemplation of divine things, ought to keep their minds sedate andcalm, 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'spresence, after you have gone through this arch, did not that noblepriestess Bacbuc first see your shoes full of vine-leaves; which action isdiametrically 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 findby my breviary that in the Revelation a woman was seen with the moon underher feet, which was a most wonderful sight. Now, as Bigot explained it tome, this was to signify that she was not of the nature of other women; forthey have all the moon at their heads, and consequently their brains arealways troubled with a lunacy. This makes me willing to believe what yousaid, dear Madam Lantern. 

Chapter 5. XXXV. 

How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle, and howChinon is the oldest city in the world. 

We went underground through a plastered vault, on which was coarselypainted a dance of women and satyrs waiting on old Silenus, who wasgrinning o' horseback on his ass. This made me say to Pantagruel, thatthis entry put me in mind of the painted cellar in the oldest city in theworld, 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 Chinonlies, and the painted cellar also, having myself drunk there many a glassof 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 theworld? Where did you find this written? I have found it in the sacredwrit, said I, that Cain was the first that built a town; we may thenreasonably conjecture that from his name he gave it that of Cainon. Thus, after his example, most other founders of towns have given them theirnames: Athena, that's Minerva in Greek, to Athens; Alexander toAlexandria; Constantine to Constantinople; Pompey to Pompeiopolis inCilicia; Adrian to Adrianople; Canaan, to the Canaanites; Saba, to theSabaeans; 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 ourlantern called the philosopher, her holiness the Bottle's governor. He wasattended with a troop of the temple-guards, all French bottles in wickerarmour; and seeing us with our javelins wrapped with ivy, with ourillustrious lantern, whom he knew, he desired us to come in with all mannerof safety, and ordered we should be immediately conducted to the PrincessBacbuc, 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 wentdown two other steps, where there was another resting-place; after that wecame to three other steps, turning about, and met a third; and the like atfour steps which we met afterwards. There quoth Panurge, Is it here? Howmany 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. Thatis, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, cried Pantagruel. How much is the whole?said she. One hundred, answered Pantagruel. Add, continued she, the firstcube--that's eight. At the end of that fatal number you'll find the templegate; and pray observe, this is the true psychogony of Plato, so celebratedby the Academics, yet so little understood; one moiety of which consists ofthe unity of the two first numbers full of two square and two cubicnumbers. We then went down those numerical stairs, all under ground, and Ican 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 intoa vault. Secondly, our radiant lantern gave us just so much light as is inSt. Patrick's hole in Ireland, or Trophonius's pit in Boeotia; which causedPanurge to say to her, after we had got down some seventy-eight steps:

Dear madam, with a sorrowful, aching heart, I most humbly beseech yourlanternship to lead us back. May I be led to hell if I be not half deadwith fear; my heart is sunk down into my hose; I am afraid I shall makebuttered eggs in my breeches. I freely consent never to marry. You havegiven yourself too much trouble on my account. The Lord shall reward youin his great rewarder; neither will I be ungrateful when I come out of thiscave of Troglodytes. Let's go back, I pray you. I'm very much afraid thisis Taenarus, the low way to hell, and methinks I already hear Cerberusbark. Hark! I hear the cur, or my ears tingle. I have no manner ofkindness for the dog, for there never is a greater toothache than when dogsbite us by the shins. And if this be only Trophonius's pit, the lemures, hobthrushes, and goblins will certainly swallow us alive, just as theydevoured formerly one of Demetrius's halberdiers for want of bridles. Artthou here, Friar John? Prithee, dear, dear cod, stay by me; I'm almostdead with fear. Hast thou got thy bilbo? Alas! poor pilgarlic'sdefenceless. I'm a naked man, thou knowest; let's go back. Zoons, fearnothing, 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 thefields of La Crau, near Mariannes, there rained stones (they are there tothis day) to help Hercules, who otherwise wanted wherewithal to fightNeptune's two bastards. But whither are we bound? Are we a-going to thelittle children's limbo? By Pluto, they'll bepaw and conskite us all. Orare we going to hell for orders? By cob's body, I'll hamper, bethwack, andbelabour all the devils, now I have some vine-leaves in my shoes. Thoushalt see me lay about me like mad, old boy. Which way? where the devilare they? I fear nothing but their damned horns; but cuckoldy Panurge'sbull-feather will altogether secure me from 'em. Lo! in a prophetic spiritI already see him, like another Actaeon, horned, horny, hornified. Prithee, quoth Panurge, take heed thyself, dear frater, lest, till monkshave leave to marry, thou weddest something thou dostn't like, as somecat-o'-nine-tails or the quartan ague; if thou dost, may I never come safeand sound out of this hypogeum, this subterranean cave, if I don't tup andram that disease merely for the sake of making thee a cornuted, corniferousproperty; otherwise I fancy the quartan ague is but an indifferentbedfellow. I remember Gripe-men-all threatened to wed thee to some suchthing; for which thou calledest him heretic. 

Here our splendid lantern interrupted them, letting us know this was theplace where we were to have a taste of the creature, and be silent; biddingus not despair of having the word of the Bottle before we went back, sincewe had lined our shoes with vine-leaves. 

Come on then, cried Panurge, let's charge through and through all thedevils of hell; we can but perish, and that's soon done. However, Ithought to have reserved my life for some mighty battle. Move, move, moveforwards; I am as stout as Hercules, my breeches are full of courage; myheart trembles a little, I own, but that's only an effect of the coldnessand 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, ofDoric order, on whose front we read this sentence in the finest gold, EN OINO ALETHEIA--that is, In wine truth. The gates were ofCorinthian-like brass, massy, wrought with little vine-branches, finelyembossed and engraven, and were equally joined and closed together in theirmortise 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 thewall, hung a handful of scordium (garlic germander). 

There our noble lantern desired us not to take it amiss that she went nofarther 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 beconcealed than revealed to mortals. However, she advised us to be resoluteand secure, and to trust to her for the return. She then pulled theloadstone that hung at the folding of the gates, and threw it into a silverbox fixed for that purpose; which done, from the threshold of each gate shedrew a twine of crimson silk about nine feet long, by which the scordiumhung, 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 creakingor loud harsh noise like that made by heavy brazen gates, but with a softpleasing murmur that resounded through the arches of the temple. 

Pantagruel soon knew the cause of it, having discovered a small cylinder orroller that joined the gates over the threshold, and, turning like themtowards the wall on a hard well-polished ophites stone, with rubbing androlling 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 wallto endeavour to know how this happened; for one would have thought our kindlantern had put between the gates the herb aethiopis, which they say openssome things that are shut. But I perceived that the parts of the gatesthat joined on the inside were covered with steel, and just where the saidgates touched when they were opened I saw two square Indian loadstones of abluish hue, well polished, and half a span broad, mortised in the templewall. Now, by the hidden and admirable power of the loadstones, the steelplates were put into motion, and consequently the gates were slowly drawn;however, not always, but when the said loadstone on the outside wasremoved, after which the steel was freed from its power, the two bunches ofscordium being at the same time put at some distance, because it deadensthe magnes and robs it of its attractive virtue. 

On the loadstone that was placed on the right side the following iambicverse 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 theleft:

 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, andparticularly the disposition of its pavement, with which no work that isnow, or has been under the cope of heaven, can justly be compared; not thatof the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste in Sylla's time, or the pavement ofthe Greeks, called asarotum, laid by Sosistratus at Pergamus. For thishere was wholly in compartments of precious stones, all in their naturalcolours: one of red jasper, most charmingly spotted; another of ophites; athird of porphyry; a fourth of lycophthalmy, a stone of four differentcolours, 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 costlychalcedony or onyx-stone; and another of green jasper, with certain red andyellowish veins. And all these were disposed in a diagonal line. 

At the portico some small stones were inlaid and evenly joined on thefloor, 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 somevine-leaves and branches had been carelessly strewed on the pavement; forin some places they were thick, and thin in others. That inlaying was verywonderful everywhere. Here were seen, as it were in the shade, some snailscrawling on the grapes; there, little lizards running on the branches. Onthis side were grapes that seemed yet greenish; on another, some clustersthat seemed full ripe, so like the true that they could as easily havedeceived starlings and other birds as those which Zeuxis drew. 

Nay, we ourselves were deceived; for where the artist seemed to havestrewed the vine-branches thickest, we could not forbear walking with greatstrides lest we should entangle our feet, just as people go over an unequalstony place. 

I then cast my eyes on the roof and walls of the temple, that were allpargetted with porphyry and mosaic work, which from the left side at thecoming in most admirably represented the battle in which the good Bacchusoverthrew 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 forestswere seen in flames; and several mad and loose women, who furiously rippedup and tore live calves, sheep, and lambs limb from limb, and devouredtheir 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 notthink it worth their while to stop his progress, having been certainlyinformed by their spies that his camp was destitute of warriors, and thathe had only with him a crew of drunken females, a low-built, old, effeminate, sottish fellow, continually addled, and as drunk as awheelbarrow, with a pack of young clownish doddipolls, stark naked, alwaysskipping and frisking up and down, with tails and horns like those of youngkids. 

For this reason the Indians had resolved to let them go through theircountry without the least opposition, esteeming a victory over such enemiesmore 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 motherSemele 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 isroused and angered, principally in war, is as natural to him as to makesome in time of peace. 

Thus the plains of the island of Samos are called Panema, which signifiesbloody, because Bacchus there overtook the Amazons, who fled from thecountry of Ephesus, and there let 'em blood, so that they all died ofphlebotomy. This may give you a better insight into the meaning of anancient proverb than Aristotle has done in his problems, viz. , Why 'twasformerly 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, andif a man that's wounded has that day handled or eaten any mint, 'tisimpossible, or at least very hard, to stanch his blood. 

After this, Bacchus was seen marching in battalia, riding in a statelychariot drawn by six young leopards. He looked as young as a child, toshow that all good topers never grow old. He was as red as a cherry, or acherub, which you please, and had no more hair on his chin than there's inthe inside of my hand. His forehead was graced with pointed horns, abovewhich he wore a fine crown or garland of vine-leaves and grapes, and amitre of crimson velvet, having also gilt buskins on. 

He had not one man with him that looked like a man; his guards and all hisforces consisted wholly of Bassarides, Evantes, Euhyades, Edonides, Trietherides, Ogygiae, Mimallonides, Maenades, Thyades, and Bacchae, frantic, raving, raging, furious, mad women, begirt with live snakes andserpents instead of girdles, dishevelled, their hair flowing about theirshoulders, with garlands of vine-branches instead of forehead-cloths, cladwith stag's or goat's skins, and armed with torches, javelins, spears, andhalberds whose ends were like pineapples. Besides, they had certain smalllight bucklers that gave a loud sound if you touched 'em never so little, and these served them instead of drums. They were just seventy-ninethousand two hundred and twenty-seven. 

Silenus, who led the van, was one on whom Bacchus relied very much, havingformerly had many proofs of his valour and conduct. He was a diminutive, stooping, palsied, plump, gorbellied old fellow, with a swingeing pair ofstiff-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, andalso bravely to fight whenever he had occasion to alight; and he wasdressed 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 manytigers, naked, and perpetually singing and dancing country-dances. Theywere called tityri and satyrs, and were in all eighty-five thousand onehundred and thirty-three. 

Pan, who brought up the rear, was a monstrous sort of a thing; for hislower parts were like a goat's, his thighs hairy, and his horns boltupright; 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 inthe nose for yea and nay. 

In his left hand he held a pipe, and a crooked stick in his right. Hisforces consisted also wholly of satyrs, aegipanes, agripanes, sylvans, fauns, lemures, lares, elves, and hobgoblins, and their number wasseventy-eight thousand one hundred and fourteen. The signal or wordcommon to all the army was Evohe. 

Chapter 5. XL. 

How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians wasrepresented in mosaic work. 

In the next place we saw the representation of the good Bacchus'sengagement with the Indians. Silenus, who led the van, was sweating, puffing, and blowing, belabouring his ass most grievously. The assdreadfully opened its wide jaws, drove away the flies that plagued it, winced, flounced, went back, and bestirred itself in a most terriblemanner, as if some damned gad-bee had stung it at the breech. 

The satyrs, captains, sergeants, and corporals of companies, sounding theorgies with cornets, in a furious manner went round the army, skipping, capering, bounding, jerking, farting, flying out at heels, kicking andprancing like mad, encouraging their companions to fight bravely; and allthe delineated army cried out Evohe!

First, the Maenades charged the Indians with dreadful shouts, and a horriddin of their brazen drums and bucklers; the air rung again all around, asthe mosaic work well expressed it. And pray for the future don't so muchadmire 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 thedevastation of the rest of their country. In the front were the elephants, with castles well garrisoned on their backs. But the army and themselveswere put into disorder; the dreadful cries of the Bacchae having filledthem with consternation, and those huge animals turned tail and trampled onthe men of their party. 

There you might have seen gaffer Silenus on his ass, putting on as hard ashe could, striking athwart and alongst, and laying about him lustily withhis staff after the old fashion of fencing. His ass was prancing andmaking after the elephants, gaping and martially braying, as it were tosound a charge, as he did when formerly in the Bacchanalian feasts he wakedthe nymph Lottis, when Priapus, full of priapism, had a mind to priapizewhile the pretty creature was taking a nap. 

There you might have seen Pan frisk it with his goatish shanks about theMaenades, and with his rustic pipe excite them to behave themselves likeMaenades. 

A little further you might have blessed your eyes with the sight of a youngsatyr who led seventeen kings his prisoners; and a Bacchis, who with hersnakes hauled along no less than two and forty captains; a little faun, whocarried a whole dozen of standards taken from the enemy; and goodmanBacchus on his chariot, riding to and fro fearless of danger, making muchof 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; thisfor its scarcity, which you know raises the price of everything, andprincipally of those leaves in India. In this Alexander the Great followedhis example at his Indian triumph. The chariot was drawn by elephantsjoined together, wherein he was imitated by Pompey the Great at Rome in hisAfrican triumph. The good Bacchus was seen drinking out of a mighty urn, which action Marius aped after his victory over the Cimbri near Aix inProvence. All his army were crowned with ivy; their javelins, bucklers, and drums were also wholly covered with it; there was not so much asSilenus's ass but was betrapped with it. 

The Indian kings were fastened with chains of gold close by the wheels ofthe chariot. All the company marched in pomp with unspeakable joy, loadedwith an infinite number of trophies, pageants, and spoils, playing andsinging merry epiniciums, songs of triumph, and also rural lays anddithyrambs. 

At the farthest end was a prospect of the land of Egypt; the Nile with itscrocodiles, marmosets, ibides, monkeys, trochiloses, or wrens, ichneumons, or Pharoah's mice, hippopotami, or sea-horses, and other creatures, itsguests and neighbours. Bacchus was moving towards that country under theconduct 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 Egypttill 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 anadmirable lamp that dispensed so large a light over all the temple that, though it lay underground, we could distinguish every object as clearly asabove it at noonday. 

In the middle of the roof was fixed a ring of massive gold, as thick as myclenched fist. Three chains somewhat less, most curiously wrought, hungabout two feet and a half below it, and in a triangle supported a roundplate of fine gold whose diameter or breadth did not exceed two cubits andhalf a span. There were four holes in it, in each of which an empty ballwas fastened, hollow within, and open o' top, like a little lamp; itscircumference about two hands' breadth. Each ball was of precious stone;one an amethyst, another an African carbuncle, the third an opal, and thefourth an anthracites. They were full of burning water five timesdistilled in a serpentine limbec, and inconsumptible, like the oil formerlyput into Pallas' golden lamp at Acropolis of Athens by Callimachus. Ineach of them was a flaming wick, partly of asbestine flax, as of old in thetemple of Jupiter Ammon, such as those which Cleombrotus, a most studiousphilosopher, saw, and partly of Carpasian flax (Ozell's correction. Motteux reads, 'which Cleombrotus, a most studious philosopher, andPandelinus of Carpasium had, which were, ' &c. ), which were rather renewedthan consumed by the fire. 

About two foot and a half below that gold plate, the three chains werefastened to three handles that were fixed to a large round lamp of mostpure crystal, whose diameter was a cubit and a half, and opened about twohands' 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 theafore-mentioned burning water, that the flame of the asbestine wick reachedthe centre of the great lamp. This made all its spherical body seem to burnand 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 thesun, the matter being wonderfully bright and shining, and the work mosttransparent and dazzling by the reflection of the various colours of theprecious stones whereof the four small lamps above the main lamp were made, and their lustre was still variously glittering all over the temple. Thenthis wandering light being darted on the polished marble and agate withwhich all the inside of the temple was pargetted, our eyes were entertainedwith a sight of all the admirable colours which the rainbow can boast whenthe sun darts his fiery rays on some dropping clouds. 

The design of the lamp was admirable in itself, but, in my opinion, whatadded much to the beauty of the whole, was that round the body of thecrystal lamp there was carved in cataglyphic work a lively and pleasantbattle of naked boys, mounted on little hobby-horses, with little whirligiglances and shields that seemed made of vine-branches with grapes on them;their postures generally were very different, and their childish strife andmotions were so ingeniously expressed that art equalled nature in everyproportion and action. Neither did this seem engraved, but rather hewedout and embossed in relief, or at least like grotesque, which, by theartist's skill, has the appearance of the roundness of the object itrepresents. This was partly the effect of the various and most charminglight, which, flowing out of the lamp, filled the carved places with itsglorious rays. 

Chapter 5. XLII ('This and the next chapter make really but one, tho' Mr. Motteux has made two of them; the first of which contains but eight lines, according to him, and ends at the words fantastic fountain. '--Ozell. ). 

How the Priestess Bacbuc showed us a fantastic fountain in the temple, andhow the fountain-water had the taste of wine, according to the imaginationof those who drank of it. 

While we were admiring this incomparable lamp and the stupendous structureof the temple, the venerable priestess Bacbuc and her attendants came to uswith jolly smiling looks, and seeing us duly accoutred, without the leastdifficulty took us into the middle of the temple, where, just under theaforesaid lamp, was the fine fantastic fountain. She then ordered somecups, goblets, and talboys of gold, silver, and crystal to be brought, andkindly invited us to drink of the liquor that sprung there, which wereadily did; for, to say the truth, this fantastic fountain was veryinviting, and its materials and workmanship more precious, rare, andadmirable than anything Plato ever dreamt of in limbo. 

Its basis or groundwork was of most pure and limpid alabaster, and itsheight somewhat more than three spans, being a regular heptagon on theoutside, with its stylobates or footsteps, arulets, cymasults or blunttops, and Doric undulations about it. It was exactly round within. On themiddle point of each angle brink stood a pillar orbiculated in form ofivory or alabaster solid rings. These were seven in number, according tothe number of the angles (This sentence, restored by Ozell, is omitted byMotteux. ). 

Each pillar's length from the basis to the architraves was near sevenhands, taking an exact dimension of its diameter through the centre of itscircumference and inward roundness; and it was so disposed that, castingour eyes behind one of them, whatever its cube might be, to view itsopposite, we found that the pyramidal cone of our visual line ended at thesaid centre, and there, by the two opposites, formed an equilateraltriangle whose two lines divided the pillar into two equal parts. 

That which we had a mind to measure, going from one side to another, twopillars over, at the first third part of the distance between them, was metby their lowermost and fundamental line, which, in a consult line drawn asfar as the universal centre, equally divided, gave, in a just partition, the distance of the seven opposite pillars in a right line, beginning atthe obtuse angle on the brink, as you know that an angle is always foundplaced between two others in all angular figures odd in number. 

This tacitly gave us to understand that seven semidiameters are ingeometrical proportion, compass, and distance somewhat less than thecircumference 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 littlemore, or a seventh and a half, a little less, according to the instructionsgiven 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 theflower into which Ajax's choleric blood was transformed; the Greek lettersA 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, itsflame and lustre ending in violet or purple like an amethyst. 

The fifth, an emerald, above five hundred and fifty times more preciousthan that of Serapis in the labyrinth of the Egyptians, and more verdantand shining than those that were fixed, instead of eyes, in the marblelion's head near King Hermias's tomb. 

The sixth, of agate, more admirable and various in the distinctions of itsveins, clouds, and colours than that which Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, somightily esteemed. 

The seventh, of syenites, transparent, of the colour of a beryl and theclear hue of Hymetian honey; and within it the moon was seen, such as wesee it in the sky, silent, full, new, and in the wane. 

These stones were assigned to the seven heavenly planets by the ancientChaldaeans; and that the meanest capacities might be informed of this, justat 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 ofgold, very artfully enamelled, according to the native hue of the saturninebird. 

On the second, which was of hyacinth, towards the left, Jupiter was seen injovetian 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 righthand. 

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 madeAthamas's statue, that expressed in a blushing whiteness his confusion atthe 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, hadit not been fixed, malleable, and unmovable. That nimble deity had a storkat 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 thepillars on which they stood, and they were so admirably wrought accordingto mathematical proportion that Polycletus's canon could hardly have stoodin competition with them. 

The bases of the pillars, the chapters, the architraves, zoophores, andcornices were Phrygian work of massive gold, purer and finer than any thatis found in the rivers Leede near Montpellier, Ganges in India, Po inItaly, Hebrus in Thrace, Tagus in Spain, and Pactolus in Lydia. 

The small arches between the pillars were of the same precious stone ofwhich the pillars next to them were. Thus, that arch was of sapphire whichended at the hyacinth pillar, and that was of hyacinth which went towardsthe diamond, and so on. 

Above the arches and chapters of the pillars, on the inward front, a cupolawas raised to cover the fountain. It was surrounded by the planetarystatues, heptagonal at the bottom, and spherical o' top, and of crystal sopure, transparent, well-polished, whole and uniform in all its parts, without veins, clouds, flaws, or streaks, that Xenocrates never saw such aone in his life. 

Within it were seen the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve months ofthe year, with their properties, the two equinoxes, the ecliptic line, withsome of the most remarkable fixed stars about the antartic pole andelsewhere, so curiously engraven that I fancied them to be the workmanshipof King Necepsus, or Petosiris, the ancient mathematician. 

On the top of the cupola, just over the centre of the fountain, were threenoble long pearls, all of one size, pear fashion, perfectly imitating atear, and so joined together as to represent a flower-de-luce or lily, eachof the flowers seeming above a hand's breadth. A carbuncle jetted out ofits calyx or cup as big as an ostrich's egg, cut seven square (that numberso beloved of nature), and so prodigiously glorious that the sight of ithad like to have made us blind, for the fiery sun or the pointed lightningare not more dazzling and unsufferably bright. 

Now, were some judicious appraisers to judge of the value of thisincomparable fountain, and the lamp of which we have spoke, they wouldundoubtedly affirm it exceeds that of all the treasures and curiosities inEurope, Asia, and Africa put together. For that carbuncle alone would havedarkened the pantarbe of Iarchus (Motteux reads 'Joachas. ') the Indianmagician, with as much ease as the sun outshines and dims the stars withhis 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, inthe presence of Antony the Triumvir, her gallant. 

Or let Pompeia Plautina be proud of her dress covered all over withemeralds and pearls curiously intermixed, she who attracted the eyes of allRome, and was said to be the pit and magazine of the conquering robbers ofthe universe. 

The fountain had three tubes or channels of right pearl, seated in threeequilateral angles already mentioned, extended on the margin, and thosechannels 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, whenBacbuc directed us to watch the water. We then heard a most harmonioussound, yet somewhat stopped by starts, far distant, and subterranean, bywhich means it was still more pleasing than if it had been free, uninterrupted, and near us, so that our minds were as agreeably entertainedthrough our ears with that charming melody as they were through the windowsof our eyes with those delightful objects. 

Bacbuc then said, Your philosophers will not allow that motion is begot bythe power of figures; look here, and see the contrary. By that singlesnail-like motion, equally divided as you see, and a fivefold infoliature, movable at every inward meeting, such as is the vena cava where it entersinto the right ventricle of the heart; just so is the flowing of thisfountain, 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 thetruth of the matter as near as possible, we are not, heaven be praised! ofthe nature of a drove of calf-lollies, who (as your sparrows can't feedunless you bob them on the tail) must be rib-roasted with tough crabtreeand 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 civillyinvites 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 tokeep a man in the right way, and, in a word, mere element; more cool andclear than Argyrontes in Aetolia, Peneus in Thessaly, Axius in Mygdonia, orCydnus in Cilicia, a tempting sight of whose cool silver stream causedAlexander to prefer the short-lived pleasure of bathing himself in it tothe inconveniences which he could not but foresee would attend soill-termed an action. 

This, said Bacbuc, comes of not considering with ourselves, orunderstanding the motions of the musculous tongue, when the drink glides onit in its way to the stomach. Tell me, noble strangers, are your throatslined, paved, or enamelled, as formerly was that of Pithyllus, nicknamedTheutes, that you can have missed the taste, relish, and flavour of thisdivine liquor? Here, said she, turning towards her gentlewomen, bring myscrubbing-brushes, you know which, to scrape, rake, and clear theirpalates. 

They brought immediately some stately, swingeing, jolly hams, finesubstantial neat's tongues, good hung-beef, pure and delicate botargos, venison, sausages, and such other gullet-sweepers. And, to comply with herinvitation, we crammed and twisted till we owned ourselves thoroughly curedof thirst, which before did damnably plague us. 

We are told, continued she, that formerly a learned and valiant Hebrewchief, leading his people through the deserts, where they were in danger ofbeing famished, obtained of God some manna, whose taste was to them, byimagination, 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 thatyou shall fancy you drink. Come, then, fancy and drink. We did so, andPanurge had no sooner whipped off his brimmer but he cried, By Noah's openshop, 'tis vin de Beaune, better than ever was yet tipped over tongue, ormay 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, asPhiloxenus desired to have, or, at least, like a crane's, as Melanthiuswished his. 

On the faith of true lanterners, quoth Friar John, 'tis gallant, sparklingGreek wine. Now, for God's sake, sweetheart, do but teach me how the devilyou make it. It seems to me Mirevaux wine, said Pantagruel; for before Idrank 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 andDercean (Motteux reads 'Deraen. ') water, or the Conthoporian (Motteux, 'Conthopian. ') spring at Corinth, that froze up the stomach and nutritiveparts of those that drank of it. 

Drink once, twice, or thrice more, said Bacbuc, still changing yourimagination, and you shall find its taste and flavour to be exactly that onwhich you shall have pitched. Then never presume to say that anything isimpossible to God. We never offered to say such a thing, said I; far fromit, we maintain he is omnipotent. 

Chapter 5. XLIII. 

How the Priestess Bacbuc equipped Panurge in order to have the word of theBottle. 

When we had thus chatted and tippled, Bacbuc asked, Who of you here wouldhave the word of the Bottle? I, your most humble little funnel, an'tplease you, quoth Panurge. Friend, saith she, I have but one thing to tellyou, which is, that when you come to the Oracle, you take care to hearkenand hear the word only with one ear. This, cried Friar John, is wine ofone ear, as Frenchmen call it. 

She then wrapped him up in a gaberdine, bound his noddle with a goodlyclean biggin, clapped over it a felt such as those through which hippocrasis distilled, at the bottom of which, instead of a cowl, she put threeobelisks, made him draw on a pair of old-fashioned codpieces instead ofmittens, girded him about with three bagpipes bound together, bathed hisjobbernowl thrice in the fountain; then threw a handful of meal on hisphiz, fixed three cock's feathers on the right side of the hippocraticalfelt, made him take a jaunt nine times round the fountain, caused him totake 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 theTuscan 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 NumaPompilius, the second King of the Romans, nor the Cerites of Tuscia, andthe old Hebrew captain ever instituted so many ceremonies as I then sawperformed; nor were ever half so many religious forms used by thesoothsayers of Memphis in Egypt to Apis, or by the Euboeans, at Rhamnus(Motteux gives 'or by the Embrians, or at Rhamnus. '), to Rhamnusia, or toJupiter 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 around chapel made of transparent speculary stones, by whose solid clearnessthe sun's light shined there through the precipice of the rock without anywindows or other entrance, and so easily and fully dispersed itself throughthe greater temple that the light seemed rather to spring out of it than toflow into it. 

The workmanship was not less rare than that of the sacred temple atRavenna, or that in the island of Chemnis in Egypt. Nor must I forget totell you that the work of that round chapel was contrived with such asymmetry that its diameter was just the height of the vault. 

In the middle of it was an heptagonal fountain of fine alabaster mostartfully wrought, full of water, which was so clear that it might havepassed for element in its purity and singleness. The sacred Bottle was init to the middle, clad in pure fine crystal of an oval shape, except itsmuzzle, 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 ofthe fountain; then bade him rise and dance three ithymbi ('Dances in thehonour of Bacchus. '--Motteux. ). Which done, she ordered him to sit downbetween two stools placed there for that purpose, his arse upon the ground. Then she opened her ceremonial book, and, whispering in his left ear, madehim 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 asdoth the great monastical pot at Bourgueil when 'tis high holiday there. Friend Panurge was listening with one ear, and Bacbuc kneeled by him, whensuch a kind of humming was heard out of the Bottle as is made by a swarm ofbees bred in the flesh of a young bull killed and dressed according toAristaeus's art, or such as is made when a bolt flies out of a crossbow, orwhen a shower falls on a sudden in summer. Immediately after this washeard the word Trinc. By cob's body, cried Panurge, 'tis broken, orcracked at least, not to tell a lie for the matter; for even so do crystalbottles speak in our country when they burst near the fire. 

Bacbuc arose, and gently taking Panurge under the arms, said, Friend, offeryour thanks to indulgent heaven, as reason requires. You have soon had theword of the Goddess-Bottle; and the kindest, most favourable, and certainword of answer that I ever yet heard her give since I officiated here ather most sacred oracle. Rise, let us go to the chapter, in whose glossthat fine word is explained. With all my heart, quoth Panurge; by jingo, Iam just as wise as I was last year. Light, where's the book? Turn itover, 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 thewater ceased to boil; and then she took Panurge into the greater temple, inthe central place, where there was the enlivening fountain. 

There she took out a hugeous silver book, in the shape of a half-tierce, orhogshead, of sentences, and, having filled it at the fountain, said to him, The philosophers, preachers, and doctors of your world feed you up withfine words and cant at the ears; now, here we really incorporate ourprecepts 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 methis rare gloss. Formerly an ancient prophet of the Jewish nation ate abook and became a clerk even to the very teeth! Now will I have you drinkone, that you may be a clerk to your very liver. Here, open yourmandibules. 

Panurge gaping as wide as his jaws would stretch, Bacbuc took the silverbook--at least we took it for a real book, for it looked just for the worldlike a breviary--but in truth it was a breviary, a flask of right Falernianwine as it came from the grape, which she made him swallow every drop. 

By Bacchus, quoth Panurge, this was a notable chapter, a most authenticgloss, 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. Nothingmore, returned Bacbuc; for Trinc is a panomphean word, that is, a wordunderstood, used and celebrated by all nations, and signifies drink. 

Some say in your world that sack is a word used in all tongues, and justlyadmitted in the same sense among all nations; for, as Aesop's fable hathit, all men are born with a sack at the neck, naturally needy and beggingof each other; neither can the most powerful king be without the help ofother men, or can anyone that's poor subsist without the rich, though he benever so proud and insolent; as, for example, Hippias the philosopher, whoboasted he could do everything. Much less can anyone make shift withoutdrink than without a sack. Therefore here we hold not that laughing, butthat drinking is the distinguishing character of man. I don't saydrinking, taking that word singly and absolutely in the strictest sense;no, beasts then might put in for a share; I mean drinking cool deliciouswine. 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 etymologyof 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 mayhave understood that truth is in wine. The Goddess-Bottle thereforedirects you to that divine liquor; be yourself the expounder of yourundertaking. 

It is impossible, said Pantagruel to Panurge, to speak more to the purposethan does this true priestess; you may remember I told you as much when youfirst 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, orbewitched, 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 forthe world like a dying goat's. Will the addle-pated wight have the graceto sheer off? Will he rid us of his damned company, to go shite out hisnasty rhyming balderdash in some bog-house? Will nobody be so kind as tocram some dog's-bur down the poor cur's gullet? or will he, monk-like, runhis fist up to the elbow into his throat to his very maw, to scour andclear 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 tohave Gargantua see us while we are in this maggotty crambo-vein! Now may Ibe cursed with living on that damned empty food, if I can tell whether Ishall scape the catching distemper. The devil a bit do I understand whichway to go about it; however, the spirit of fustian possesses us all, Ifind. Well, by St. John, I'll poetize, since everybody does; I find itcoming. Stay, and pray pardon me if I don't rhyme in crimson; 'tis myfirst 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 thedevil thou'rt prating of. I've done with rhyming; the rheum gripes me atthe 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 thefriar; if you be but satisfied, we are. Here below, in these circumcentralregions, we place the sovereign good, not in taking and receiving, but inbestowing and giving; so that we esteem ourselves happy, not if we take andreceive 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 thatyou leave us here your names in writing, in this ritual. She then opened afine large book, and as we gave our names one of her mystagogues with agold pin drew some lines on it, as if she had been writing; but we couldnot see any characters. 

This done, she filled three glasses with fantastic water, and giving theminto our hands, said, Now, my friends, you may depart, and may thatintellectual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, whom we call GOD, keep you in his almighty protection. When you come intoyour world, do not fail to affirm and witness that the greatest treasuresand most admirable things are hidden underground, and not without reason. 

Ceres was worshipped because she taught mankind the art of husbandry, andby the use of corn, which she invented, abolished that beastly way offeeding on acorns; and she grievously lamented her daughter's banishmentinto our subterranean regions, certainly foreseeing that Proserpine wouldmeet with more excellent things, more desirable enjoyments, below, than sheher mother could be blessed with above. 

What do you think is become of the art of forcing the thunder and celestialfire down, which the wise Prometheus had formerly invented? 'Tis mostcertain you have lost it; 'tis no more on your hemisphere; but here belowwe have it. And without a cause you sometimes wonder to see whole townsburned and destroyed by lightning and ethereal fire, and are at a lossabout knowing from whom, by whom, and to what end those dreadful mischiefswere sent. Now, they are familiar and useful to us; and your philosopherswho complain that the ancients have left them nothing to write of or toinvent, 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 rivercontain, is not to be compared with what is hid within the bowels of theearth. 

For this reason the subterranean ruler has justly gained in almost everylanguage the epithet of rich. Now when your sages shall wholly apply theirminds to a diligent and studious search after truth, humbly begging theassistance of the sovereign God, whom formerly the Egyptians in theirlanguage called The Hidden and the Concealed, and invoking him by thatname, beseech him to reveal and make himself known to them, that AlmightyBeing will, out of his infinite goodness, not only make his creatures, buteven himself known to them. 

Thus will they be guided by good lanterns. For all the ancientphilosophers and sages have held two things necessary safely and pleasantlyto arrive at the knowledge of God and true wisdom; first, God's graciousguidance, then man's assistance. 

So, among the philosophers, Zoroaster took Arimaspes for the companion ofhis travels; Aesculapius, Mercury; Orpheus, Musaeus; Pythagoras, Aglaophemus; and, among princes and warriors, Hercules in his mostdifficult achievements had his singular friend Theseus; Ulysses, Diomedes;Aeneas, Achates. You followed their examples, and came under the conductof an illustrious lantern. Now, in God's name depart, and may he go alongwith you!

THE END OF THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF THE NOBLEPANTAGRUEL.