THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF WILLIAM A. NITZE \V '- THE WORKS OF FRANCOIS RABELAIS TRANSLATED BY SIR THOMAS URQUHART AND PETER MOTTEUX, WITH THE NOTES OF DUCHAT, OZELL, AND OTHERS; INTRODUCTION AND REVISION BY ALFRED WALLIS ^ BOOK IV. • '///f'r twe&s f/f//? /At- t/!<'} »/., the 15th of May. Honest fellow, said Mercury, I leave it thee : take it ; and because thou hast wished and chosen moder- ately, in point of hatchet, by Jupiter's command, I give thee these two others ; thou hast now where- with to make thyself rich : be honest. Honest Tom gave Mercury a whole cartload of thanks, and revered the most great Jupiter. His old hatchet he fastens close to his leathern girdle, and girds it above 29 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. his breech like Martin of Cambray : 3 ° the two others, being more heavy, he lays on his shoulder. Thus he plods on, trudging over the fields, keeping a good countenance amongst his neighbours and fellow- parishioners, with one merry saying or other after Patelin's way. The next day, having put on a clean white jacket, he takes on his back the two precious hatchets, and comes to Chinon, the famous city, noble city, ancient city, yea, the first city in the world, according to the judgment and assertion of the most learned massorets. At Chinon he turned his silver hatchet into fine testons, crown pieces, and other white cash ; his golden hatchet into fine angels, curious ducats, substantial ridders,* spankers, and rose nobles : then with them purchases a good number of farms, barns, houses, outhouses, thatched houses, stables, meadows, orchards, fields, vineyards, woods, arable lands, pastures, ponds, mills, gardens, nurseries, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, hogs, asses, horses, hens, cocks, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, ducks, drakes, and a world of all other necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in the country, nay, even richer than that limp- ing scrape-good Maulevrier. His brother bumpkins, and the other yeomen and country-puts thereabouts, perceiving his good fortune,'were not a little amazed insomuch that their former pity of Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so great and unexpected rise ; and as they could not for their souls devise how this came about, they made it their business to 3 1 Martin and Martine are the names which are given to two figures, who each with a [inarteau) hammer, strike the hours on the clock at Cambray. And Martin being represented as a peasant in a jacket, girded about the waist very tight 5 thence comes it that when a man is ridiculously girt with a belt over his clothes, people say, proverbially, he is girt like Martin of Cambray. 3° Prologue] The Author's Prologue pry up and down, and lay their heads together, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by what means, in what place, on what day, what hour, how, why, and wherefore, he had come by his great treasure. At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, Ha! ha ! said they, was there no more to do but to lose a hatchet to make us rich ? Mum for that; it is as easy as pissing a bed, and will cost but little. Are then at this time the revolutions of the heavens, the constellations of the firmament, and aspects of the planets such, that whosoever shall lose a hatchet, shall immediately grow rich ? Ha, ha, ha ! by Jove, you shall even be lost, an it please you, my dear hatchet. With this they all fairly lost their hatchets out of hand. The devil of one that had a hatchet left : he was not his mother's son, that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled or cleaved in that country, through want of hatchets. Nay, the -^Esopian apologue even saith, that certain petty country gents, 32 of the lower class, who had sold Wellhung their little mill and little field, to have wherewithal to make a figure at the next muster, having been told that his treasure was come to him by this only means, sold the only badge of their gentility, their swords, to purchase hatchets to go lose them, as the silly clodpates did, in hopes to gain store of chink by that loss. You would have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty spiritual usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others to buy store of mandates, a pennyworth of a new-made Pope. Now they cried out and brayed, and prayed and bawled, and invoked Jupiter : My hatchet ! my hatchet ! Jupiter, my hatchet ! on this side ; my 3 2 yanspillhommes, a sort of small gentry, a little given to pillage 5 thence the word. 31 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. hatchet ! on that side, my hatchet! ho, ho, ho, ho, Jupiter, my hatchet ! The air round about rung again with the cries and howlings of these rascally losers of hatchets. Mercury was nimble in bringing them hatchets; to each offering that which he had lost, as also another of gold, and a third of silver. Every he still was for that of gold, giving thanks in abundance to the great giver, Jupiter; but in the very nick of time, that they bowed and stooped to take it from the ground, whip, in a trice, Mercury lopped off their heads, as Jupiter had commanded; and of heads, thus cut off, the number was just equal to that of the lost hatchets. You see how it is now ; you see how it goes with those, who in the simplicity of their hearts wish and desire with moderation. Take warning by this, all you greedy, fresh-water shirks, who scorn to wish for anything under ten thousand pounds: and do not for the future run on impudently, as I have some- times heard you wishing, Would to God, I had now one hundred seventy-eight millions of gold ! Oh ! how I should tickle it off. The deuce on you, what more might a king, an emperor, or a Pope wish for ? For that reason, indeed, you see that after you have made such hopeful wishes, all the good that comes to you of it is the itch or the scab, and not a cross in your breeches to scare the devil that tempts you to make these wishes: no more than those two mumpers, wishers after the custom of Paris; 33 one of whom only wished to have in good old gold as much as hath been spent, bought, and sold in Paris, since its first foundations were laid, to this hour; all 33 At Paris everything goes by grandeur : divine service lasts longer there than it does anywhere else, and the ell here exceeds in measure the ell of other places. 32 Prologue] The Author's Prologue of it valued at the price, sale, and rate of the dearest year in all that space of time. Do you think the fellow was bashful ? Had he eaten sour plums un- peeled ? Were his teeth on edge, I pray you ? The other wished Our Lady's Church brimful of steel needles, from the floor to the top of the roof, and to have as many ducats as might be crammed into as many bags as might be sewed with each and every one of these needles, till they were all either broke at the point or eye. This is to wish with a ven- geance ! What think you of it? What did they get by it, in your opinion? Why, at night both my gentle- men had kibed-heels, a tetter in the chin, a church- yard cough in the lungs, a catarrh in the throat, a swingeing boil at the rump, and the devil of one musty crust of a brown george the poor dogs had to scour their grinders with. Wish therefore for mediocrity, and it shall be given unto you, and over and above yet ; that is to say, provided you bestir yourself manfully, and do your best in the mean- time. Ay, but say you, God might as soon have given me seventy-eight thousand as the thirteenth part of one-half: for He is omnipotent, and a million of gold is no more to Him than one farthing. Oh, oh ! pray tell me who taught you to talk at this rate of the power and predestination of God, poor silly people? Peace, tush, st, st, st, fall down before His sacred face, and own the nothingness of your nothing. Upon this, O ye that labour under the affliction of the gout, I ground my hopes; firmly believing, that if it so pleases the divine goodness, you shall obtain health; since you wish and ask for nothing else, at least for the present. Well, stay yet a little longer with half an ounce of patience. vol. iv. 33 c Rabelais' Works [Book iv. The Genoese do not use, like you, to be satisfied, with wishing health alone, when after they have all the live-long morning been in a brown study, talked, pondered, ruminated, and resolved in the counting- houses, of whom and how they may squeeze the ready, and who by their craft must be hooked in, wheedled, bubbled, sharped, over-reached, and choused ; they go to the exchange, and greet one another with a Sanita et guadagno, messer; 34 health and gain to you, sir. Health alone will not go down with the greedy curmudgeons: they over and above must wish for gain, with a pox to them; ay, and for the fine crowns, or scudi di Guadaigne 35 whence, heaven be praised, it happens many a time, that the silly wishers and woulders are baulked, and get neither. Now, my lads, as you hope for good health, cough once aloud with lungs of leather ; take me off three swingeing bumpers; prick up your ears ; and you shall hear me tell wonders of the noble and good Pantagruel. On the Author's Prologue. — The main design of this pro- logue is to teach us to be moderate in our wishes. The author brings several examples to prove what advantages arise from it 5 particularly he makes use of a fable, in which (after some long but most diverting excursions) the moderation of a poor country fellow, who had lost his hatchet, and wished only to have it again, was largely rewarded ; and others, who lost theirs on purpose, to be thus made rich, were undone. This is thought by some, to mean a gentleman of Poictou, who came to Paris with his wife about some business, where Francis the First fell in love with her 5 and having bestowed large sums of money on the husband, who some time after returned into the country, some of 34 At Florence, and throughout Italy, the middling sort of people scarce ever salute one another any otherwise. 35 Thomas de Guadaigne, who is said to have lent Francis the First fifty thousand crowns, when he was first imprisoned. See Moreri, at the word Guadaigne. 34 Prologue] The Author's Prologue the neighbouring gentlemen, who had handsome wives or daughters, made their appearance with them at court, in hopes of the like fortune ; but instead of it were forced to sneak into the country, after they had spent their estates, which was all they got for their pains. •■ - 'cvzroiTI Jupiter is brought in complaining of Ramus and Galland, who, surrounded with a swarm of their scullions, ragamuffins, sizers, vouchers, etc., set together by the ears the whole university of Paris. Petrus Ramus, or De la Ramee, was royal philosophy and oratory professor at that time 5 and Petrus Gallandus or Galland, royal Greek professor 5 both were learned men, and Ramus particularly famous for rhetoric and oratory ; he also wrote three books of dialectic institutions. But what divided the university, was his elegant, but too passionate animadversions on Aristotle's physics and metaphysics. Carpentarius, Schekius, and Riolanus answered him, and particularly the first. I cannot find that Gallandus wrote against Ramus ; yet either he has done it, or opposed him 'viva 'voce. Priapus is of opinion, they ought to be turned intc stone, and associated to their namesake, Master Peter de Coignet, formerly petrified for such a reason. This Du Coignet can be no other than Peter de Coigneres, the king's advocate in his parliament, mentioned by Pasquier. 36 In 1329 he caused all the prelates of France to be summoned before King Philip, who sat in his court of parliament attended by several princes and lords. There the advocate represented many abuses committed by the ecclesiastical court, which had encroached upon the parliament's rights, and used to take cognisance of all civil matters, under divers pretences of conscience, and unjustly favoured those that appealed or removed their causes to the spiritual court. The Archbishop of Sens, and the Bishop of Autun, spoke in behalf of the Church's right, grounded on custom, time out of mind, and of equal validity of the law • then proffered to rectify everything ; and in short, so cunningly worked upon the king, that he told them he would make no innovations, nor would show his successors a way to molest the Church. This made the clergy triumph, as if they had gained their point ; and to be revenged on Pierre de Coigneres, they got a monkey hewed out of stone, and had it set up in a corner of Notre Dame at Paris : which figure, says Pasquier, by a kind of pun, was called Maitre Pierre du Coignet. 37 So Priapus advises Jupiter to petrify Ramus and Galland, saying, that Peter 36 Recherches de Pasquier, lib. iii. chap, xxvii. 37 That is, the chief corner-stone. 35 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. du Coignet had been turned into stone for the same cause, that is, for setting the learned at variance. Though after all, France is much obliged to that advocate, who seems to have laid the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican Church. In the same council of the gods, Jupiter says, Here are the Gascons cursing and damning, demanding the restitution of their bells. I find in Du Tillet, that they had been taken from them in 1548. It appears that this prologue was written in 1548 or 1549 5 and I am apt to believe that these are the bells for whose recovery Master Janotus de Bragmardo made the comical speech in the 19th chapter of the first book ; the rather, because Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre (Rabelais' Gargantua) was then governor of Guienne, and acted against the rebels. — M. CHAPTER I HOW PANTAGRUEL WENT TO SEA TO VISIT THE ORACLE OF BACBUC, ALIAS THE HOLY BOTTLE In the month of June, on Vesta's Holiday, 1 the very- numerical day on which Brutus, conquering Spain, taught its strutting dons to truckle under him, and that niggardly miser Crassus was routed and knocked on the head by the Parthians, Pantagruel took his leave of the good Gargantua, his royal father. The old gentleman, according to the laudable custom of the primitive Christians, devoutly prayed for the happy voyage of his son and his whole company, and then they took shipping at the port of Thalassa. Pantagruel had with him Panurge, Friar John des 1 The 9th of June : Ovid, 1. 6 of the Fasti. 36 chap, i.] Pantagruel Entomeures, alias of the Funnels, 2 Epistemon, 3 Gym- nast, Eusthenes, 4 Rhizotomus, 5 Carpalim, 6 cum multis alits, his ancient servants and domestics: also Xeno- manes, the great traveller, who had crossed so many dangerous roads, dikes, ponds, seas, and so forth, and was come some time before, having been sent for by Panurge. For certain good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, he had left with Gargantua, and marked out, in his great and universal hydrographical chart, the course which they were to steer to visit the Oracle of the Holy Bottle Bacbuc. The number of ships were such as I described in the third book, convoyed by a like number of triremes, 7 men-of- war, 8 galleons, and feluccas, well-rigged, caulked, and stored with a good quantity of Pantagruelion. 2 I should rather translate it Friar John of the Choppingf- knives, that being the true meaning of entomeures, as the anonymous Dutch scholiast rightly says on the words entomeur, and entomer : instead of the modern French word entamer, which signifies to have the first cut of a loaf or a joint of meat, or anything else, from the Greek ivToyjr\, ivrtfiveiv, to cut, slice, sliver 5 all very agreeable and suitable virtues to Friar John des Entomeures, who loved to>be perpetually running his nose into every kitchen, and playing at snicker-snee with any edible that came in his way 5 as the author describes him in chap. 10 and 11 of lib. 4 and lib. 1, chap. 27. 3 Epistemon. — With the accent on the last syllable but one : ''Ejirio-T'fjfJLCOV, scientia pnzditus; a man of learning. 4 Eusthenes. — Robust, strong, well-proportioned : or a brave man. 'Kvadeyrjs, validus. 5 R/iizotomus. — Was a young page that served Gargantua as an apothecary, lib. 1, c. 23. It comes from the Greek 'ptforoftos, root-cutter, as apothecaries and druggists are. 6 Carpalim. — Pantagruel's • lacquey ; thus named from the Greek KapiraXifJLQs, i.e., suddenly, swiftly, the properties of a lackey, 1. 2, c. 9. Carpalim's swiftness has already appeared. 7 A galley with three banks of oars, one above another ; or with three oars (tres remi) on each side or bank. 8 Remberges in the original. Both by its name and make, it 37 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. All the officers, dragomen (interpreters), pilots, captains, mates, boatswains, midshipmen, quarter- masters, and sailors, met in the Thalamege, Panta- gruePs principal flag-ship, which had in her stern, for her ensign, a huge large bottle, half silver, well polished, the other half gold, enamelled with carna- tion, whereby it was easy to guess that white and red were the colours of the noble travellers, and that they went for the word of the Bottle. On the stern of the second was a lantern, like those of the ancients, industriously made with diaphanous stone, implying that they were to pass by Lanternland. The third ship had for her device a fine deep China ewer. The fourth, a double- handed jar of gold, much like an ancient urn. The fifth, a famous can made of sperm of emerald. 9 The sixth, a monk's mumping bottle made of the four metals together. The seventh, an ebony funnel, all embossed and wrought with gold after the tauchic manner. The eighth, an ivy goblet, very precious, inlaid with gold. The ninth, a cup of fine obriz gold. The tenth, a tumbler of aromatic agoloch (you call it lignum aloes) edged with Cyprian gold, after the Azemine make. 10 The eleventh, a golden vine-tub of mosaic work. The twelfth, a runlet of unpolished gold, covered with a small vine of large Indian pearl of topiarian work. Insomuch that there was not a man, however, in the dumps, musty, sour-looked, or melancholic he were, not even ex- cepting that blubbering whiner Heraclitus, had he should be but a sort of row-barge, not man-of-war. Howell's Cotgrave says, it is a long ship or sea-vessel, narrower than a galley, but swift and easy to be governed. 9 The Prasius lapis of Pliny, 1. 37, c. 8, ' root of emerald.' 10 Persian make or work. From Azem, the name by which the Arabians call Persia. 38 chap, i.] Pantagruel been there, but seeing this noble convoy of ships and their devices, must have been seized with present gladness of heart, and smiling at the con- ceit, have said, that the travellers were all honest topers, true pitcher men; and have judged by a most sure prognostication, that their voyage, both outward and homeward bound, would be performed in mirth and perfect health. In the Thalamege, where was the general meet- ing, Pantagruel made a short but sweet exhortation, wholly backed with authorities from Scripture upon navigation; which being ended, with an audible voice prayers were said in the presence and hearing of all the burghers of Thalassa, who had flocked to the mole to see them take shipping. After the prayers, was melodiously sung a psalm of the holy King David, which begins, ' When Israel went out of Egypt; ' ZI and that being ended, tables were placed upon deck, and a feast speedily served up. The Thalassians, who had also borne a chorus in the psalm, caused store of bellytimber and vinegar to be brought out of their houses. All drank to them: they drank to all: which was the cause that none of the whole company gave up what they had eaten, nor were sea-sick, with a pain at the head and stomach; which inconveniency they could not so easily have prevented by drinking, for some time be- fore, salt water, either alone or mixed with wine; using quinces, citron peel, juice of pomegranates, sourish sweetmeats, fasting a long time, covering their stomachs with paper, or following such other idle remedies, as foolish physicians prescribe to those that go to sea. 11 In Rabelais' time, the Psalms of David were sung publicly at court, being newly put into rhyme by Marot. 39 Rabelais' Works [Book iv Having often renewed their tipplings, each mother's son retired on board his own ship, and set sail all so fast with a merry gale at south-east; to which point of the compass the chief pilot, James Brayer by name, had shaped his course, and fixed all things accordingly. For seeing that the Oracle of the Holy Bottle lay near Cathay, in the Upper India, his advice, and that of Xenomanes also, was not to steer the course which the Portuguese use, who sailing through the torrid zone, and by Cape Bona Speranza, at the south point of Africa, beyond the equinoctial line, and losing sight of the northern pole, their guide, make a prodigious long voyage; but rather to keep as near the parallel of the said India as possible, and to tack to the west- ward of the said pole, so that winding under the north, they might find themselves in the latitude of the port of Olone, without coming nearer it for fear of being shut up in the frozen sea; whereas, follow- ing this canonical turn, by the said parallel, they must have that on the right to the eastward, which at their departure was on their left. This proved a much shorter cut; for without shipwreck, danger, or loss of men, with unin- terrupted good weather, except one day near the island of the Macreons, they performed in less than four months the voyage of Upper India, which the Portuguese, with a thousand inconveniences and innumerable dangers, can hardly complete in three years. And it is my opinion, with submission to better judgments, that this course was perhaps steered by those Indians who sailed to Germany, and were honourably received by the King of the Swedes, 12 while Quintus Metellus Celer was pro- 12 Of the three passages concerning this piece of history, in as many ancient authors, the first in date is lost, namely, that of 4 o chap. L] Pantagruel consul of the Gauls; as Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny after them tell us. On Chap. I. — By Pantagruel and his attendants, who em- barked for the Oracle of the Holy Bottle, we may understand Anthony Duke of Vendome, afterwards King of Navarre, setting out of the world of error, to search after truth 5 which Rabelais places in the bottle, because, drinking its wine, we are inspired with spirit and invention, and freely imparting our sentiments, discover those of others. As much is implied by the Greek proverb, 4u olvy dXrjdeia ; by the Latin, in vino Veritas; and as some have it among us, True philosophy lies in the bottle. Our author, like skilful dramatic writers, gives us a hint of his design in the first chapter, when just before Pantagruel sets sail, he makes him and his men go to prayers, and sing the 114th Psalm, 'When Israel went out of Egypt,' which country all know is generally taken, in a mystical sense, for error, or being a slave to it. Bacbuc is a bottle in Hebrew, and the ships have all bottles, cups, or wine vessels on their stern, to show that the whole fleet are for wine : only one has a lantern, to confirm what is said, that the guidance of good lights, i.e., learned men, is requisite in such an attempt. If we had a mind to say that our author had a double meaning all along, as he has in many places, we might suppose one easily ; for this was written at the time of the Council of Trent, in which the restitution of the cup to the laity, and of marriage to the clergy were debated. Panurge goes to the Oracle of the Bottle, near Lanternland, where the lanterns, which may be the clergy, who think themselves the lights of the world, held then their provincial chapter. His business is, with the Bottle, to know whether he should marry or no ; all his company there are made to drink water, which had the taste of wine ; the word of the bottle is trinck, which is drink in High Dutch 5 and Panurge, having drunk, foretells that he shall be married 5 as indeed Montluc, Bishop of Valence, whom I take to be Rabelais' Panurge, is owned by all the historians of his age to have been : the application is easy. — M. Corn. Nepos, whom Pomp. Mela has but copied, 1. 3, c. 5, De Situ Orbis. 41 Rabelais' Works [Book m. CHAPTER II HOW PANTAGRUEL BOUGHT MANY RARITIES IN THE ISLAND OF MEDAMOTHY That day and the two following, they neither discovered land nor anything new; for they had formerly sailed that way: but on the fourth they made an island called Medamothy, of a fine and delightful prospect, by reason of the vast number of lighthouses, and high marble towers in its circuit, which is not less than that of Candia. Pantagruel, inquiring who governed there, heard that it was King Philophanes, absent at that time upon account of the marriage of his brother Philotheamon with the infanta of the kingdom of Engys. Hearing this, he went ashore in the harbour, and while every ship's crew watered, passed his time in viewing divers pictures, pieces of tapestry, animals, fishes, birds, and other exotic and foreign merchan- dises, which were along the walks of the mole, and in the markets of the port. For it was the third day of the great and famous fair of the place, to which the chief merchants of Africa and Asia resorted. Out of these Friar John bought him two rare pictures; in one of which, the face of a man that brings in an appeal (or that calls out to another) was drawn to the life; and in the other a servant that wants a master, with every needful particular, action, countenance, look, gait, feature, and deport- ment, being an original, by Master Charles Charmois, principal painter to King Megistus; 1 and he paid for 1 The King of France, whom in chap. 35, of lib. 3, Rabelais calls the great king, and whom he here represents under the idea of the greatest king in Christendom. 42 chap, ii.] Pantagruel them in the court fashion, with conge and grimace. 2 Panurge bought a large picture, copied and done from the needlework formerly wrought by Philo- mela, showing to her sister Progne how her brother- in-law Tereus had by force handselled her copy- hold, and then cut out her tongue, that she might not (as women will) tell tales. I vow and swear by the handle of my paper lantern, that it was a gallant, 3 a mirific, nay, a most admirable piece. Nor do you think, I pray you, that in it was the picture of a man playing the beast with two backs with a female; this had been too silly and gross: no, no; it was another-guise thing, and much plainer. You may, if you please, see it at Theleme, on the left hand, as you go into the high gallery. Epistemon bought another, wherein were painted to the life, the ideas of Plato, and the atoms of Epicurus. Rhizotomus purchased another, wherein Echo was drawn to the life. Pantagruel caused to be bought, by Gymnast, the life and deeds of Achilles, in seventy-eight pieces of tapestry, four fathoms long, and three fathoms broad, all of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver ; the work beginning at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, continuing to the birth of Achilles: his youth, described by Statius Papinius ; his warlike achieve- ments, celebrated by Homer ; his death and obsequies, written by Ovid and Quintus Calaber ; and ending at the appearance of his ghost, and Polyxena's sacrifice, rehearsed by Euripides. 2 En monnoye de singe, monkey's money, that is, in mumbling over (like a chattering monkey) some prayers on behalf of the merchant, who was satisfied with that sort of cash. 3 This puts one in mind of that other picture in Tiberius' closet, not unlike it both for the subject and artifice, mentioned by Suetonius and Martial. +3 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. He also caused to be bought three fine young unicorns; one of them a male of a chesnut colour, and two gray dappled females; also a tarand, whom he bought of a Scythian of the Gelones' country. A tarand is an animal as big as a bullock, having a head like a stag, or a little bigger, two stately horns with large branches, cloven feet, hair long like that of a furred Muscovite; I mean a bear, and a skin almost as hard as steel armour. The Scythian said that there are but few tarands to be found in Scythia, because it varieth in colour according to the diversity of the places where it grazes and abides, and represents the colour of the grass, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, meadows, rocks, and generally of all things near which it comes. It hath this common with the sea-pulp, or polypus, with the thoes, with the wolves of India, and with the chameleon; which is a kind of a lizard so wonderful, that Democritus hath written a whole book of its figure, and anatomy, as also of its virtue and property in magic. This I can affirm, that I have seen it change its colour, not only at the approach of things that have a colour, but by its own voluntary impulse, according to its fear or other affections; as for example, upon a green carpet, I have certainly seen it become green; but having remained there some time, it turned yellow, blue, tanned, and purple in course, in the same manner as you see a turkey-cock's comb change colour according to its passions. But what we find most surprising in this tarand is, that not only its face and skin, but also its hair could take whatever colour was about it. Near Panurge, with his kersey coat, its hair used to turn gray: near Pantagruel, with his scarlet mantle, its hair and skin grew red; near the pilot, dressed after the 44 chap, ii.] Pantagruel fashion of the Isiaci of Anubis, in Egypt, its hair seemed all white; which two last colours the chameleon cannot borrow. When the creature was free from any fear or affection, the colour of its hair was just such as you see that of the asses of Meung. 4 On Chap. II. — As our author satirises all conditions of men in this voyage, he thought he could not begin better than by reflecting on the follies and lies of travellers ; which he does in this chapter. The first place at which our travelling Panta- gruelists touch, is the island of Medamothy. All the countries in this voyage are islands, and he styled himself Caloier des isles hierres, in the editions of 1553. The island Medamothy, Mrjda/Aodi nusquam nullo in loco, means an island that is nowhere, and so cannot be found ; and indeed most travellers and seafaring men are for going where no other went before, still bent on discoveries : and accordingly our Pantagruelion journalist tells us, that till they came to that island, they saw nothing new. Philophanes, who is king of the country, signifies one who desires to be seen. He is made absent from home (as travellers are) on account of his brother Philo- theamon's marriage with the infanta of Engys 5 that is the neighbourhood. Philotheamon signifies, One who desires to see things: thus many travel either to see, or be seen, or for both. Now as this kingdom of Medamothy is nowhere, so those exotic rarities, which our travellers purchase there, are nothing but fictions and chimeras. As for example : the voice of a man who brings in an appeal 5 the picture of a servant who wants a master ; that of echo drawn to the life ; that of the ideas of Plato, and the atoms of Epicurus ; that copied from Philomela's needlework ; Achilles' deeds in seventy-eight pieces of tapestry, all of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver, some twenty-four feet long, and twenty broad 5 things which either are not, never were, or cannot be expressed with the pencil. 4 All this quasi Natural History is derived from Pliny. 45 Rabelais' Works Book iv. CHAPTER III HOW PANTAGRUEL RECEIVED A LETTER FROM HIS FATHER GARGANTUA, AND OF THE STRANGE WAY TO HAVE SPEEDY NEWS FROM FAR DISTANT PLACES While Pantagruel was taken up with the purchase of those foreign animals, the noise of ten guns and culverins, together with a loud and joyful cheer of all the fleet, was heard from the mole. Pantagruel looked towards the haven, and perceived that this was occasioned by the arrival of one of his father Gargantua's celoces, or advice-boats, named the Chelidonia ; because on the stern of it was carved, in Corinthian brass, a sea swallow ; which is a fish as large as a dare-fish of Loire, all flesh, without scale, with cartilaginous wings (like a bat's), very long and broad, by the means of which I have seen them fly a fathom above water, about a bow-shot. At Marseilles this flying fish is called lendole. And indeed that ship was as light as a swallow ; so that it rather seemed to fly on the sea than to sail. Malicorne, Gargantua's esquire carver, was come in her, being sent expressly by his master to have an account of his son's health and circumstances, and to bring him credentials. When Malicorne had saluted Pantagruel, and the prince had embraced him about the neck, and showed him a little of the cap- courtesy, before he opened the letters, the first thing he said to him, was, Have you here the gozal, 1 the heavenly messenger ? 2 Yes, sir, said 1 Hebrew word for a (homing) pigeon. 2 This piece of ingenuity, or political contrivance, was not unknown to the ancients. See Pliny, 1. io, c. 24, and Frontinus, 46 chap, in.] Pantagruel he, here it is swaddled up in this basket. It was a gray pigeon, taken out of Gargantua's dove- house, whose young ones were just hatched when the advice-boat was going off. If any ill fortune had befallen Pantagruel, he would have fastened some black riband to his feet ; but because all things had succeeded happily hitherto, having caused it to be undressed, he tied to its feet a white riband, and, without any further delay, let it loose. The pigeon presently flew away, cutting the air with an incredible speed ; as you know that there is no flight like a pigeon's, especially when it hath eggs or young ones, through the extreme care which nature hath fixed in it to relieve and be with its young ; insomuch, that in less than two hours it compassed in the air the long tract which the advice- boat, with all her diligence, with oars and sails, and a fair wind, could not go through in less than three days and three nights, and was seen as it was going into the dove-house to its nest. Whereupon the worthy Gargantua, hearing that it had the white riband on, was joyful and secure of his son's welfare. This was the custom of the noble Gargantua and Pantagruel, when they would have speedy news of something of great concern ; as the event of some battle, either by sea or land ; the surrendering or holding out of some strong place ; the determination of some difference of moment ; the safe or unhappy delivery of some queen or great lady ; the death or recovery of their sick friends or allies, and so forth. They used to take the gozal, and had it carried from one to another by the post, to the places whence they desired to have news. The gozal, bearing either a black or white riband, according to the 1. 3, but it was most happily practised, in 1573, by the Dutch, when the Spaniards were besieging Harlem. 47 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. occurrences and accidents, used to remove their doubts at its return, making, in the space of one hour, more way through the air, than thirty post- boys could have done in one natural day. May not this be said to redeem and gain time with a vengeance, think you ? For the like service, therefore, you may believe, as a most true thing, that, in the dove-houses of their farms, there were to be found, all the year long, store of pigeons hatching eggs, or rearing their young. Which may be easily done in aviaries and voleries, by the help of saltpetre and the sacred herb vervain. The gozal being let fly, Pantagruel perused his father Gargantua's letter, the contents of which were as followeth : My dearest Son, — The affection that naturally a father bears to a beloved son, is so much increased in me, by reflecting on the particular gifts which by the divine goodness have been heaped on thee, that since thy departure it hath often banished all other thoughts out of my mind ; leaving my heart wholly possessed with fear, lest some misfortune has attended thy voyage : for thou knowest that fear was ever the attendant of true and sincere love. Now because, as Hesiod sayeth, A good beginning of any thing is the half of it ; or, Well begun is half done, accord- ing to the old saying ; to free my mind from this anxiety, I have expressly dispatched Malicorne, 3 that he may give me a true account of thy health at the beginning of thy voyage. For if it be good, and such as I wish it, I shall easily foresee the rest. I have met with some diverting books, which the bearer will deliver thee ; thou mayest read them when thou wantest to unbend and ease thy mind 3 There was one Sieur de Malicorne, etc., as appears by the records of Touraine, in 1559. 48 chap, iv.] Pantagruel from thy better studies. He will also give thee at large the news at court. The peace of the Lord be with thee. Remember me to Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon, Xenomanes, Gymnast, and the other principal domestics, my good friends. Dated at our paternal seat, this 13th day of June. Thy father and friend, Gargantua. CHAPTER IV HOW PANTAGRUEL WRIT TO HIS FATHER GARGANTUA, AND SENT HIM SEVERAL CURIOSITIES Pantagruel, having perused the letter, had a long conference with the esquire Malicorne ; insomuch, that Panurge at last interrupting them, asked him, Pray, sir, when do you design to drink ? when shall we drink ? When shall the worshipful esquire drink ? What a devil ! have you not talked long enough to drink ? It is a good motion, answered Pantagruel ; go, get us something ready at the next inn ; I think it is The Satyr on Horseback. In the meantime he writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent by the aforesaid esquire. Most gracious Father, — As our senses and animal faculties are more discomposed at the news of events unexpected, though desired (even to an immediate dissolution of the soul from the body), than if those accidents had been foreseen ; so the coming of vol. iv. 49 D Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Malicorne hath much surprised and disordered me. For I had no hopes to see any of your servants, or to hear from you, before I had finished our voyage ; and contented myself with the dear remembrance of your august majesty, deeply impressed in the hind- most ventricle of my brain, often representing you to my mind. But since you have made me happy beyond ex- pectation, by the perusal of your gracious letter, and the faith I have in your esquire hath revived my spirits by the news of your welfare ; I am, as it were, compelled to do what formerly I did freely, that is, first to praise the Blessed Redeemer, Who by His divine goodness preserves you in this long enjoy- ment of perfect health ; then to return you eternal thanks for the fervent affection which you have for me your most humble son and unprofitable servant. Formerly a Roman, named Furnius, said to Augustus, who had received his father into favour, and pardoned him after he had sided with Anthony, that by that action the emperor had reduced him to this extremity, that for want of power to be grateful, both while he lived and after it, he should be obliged to be taxed with ingrati- tude. So I may say, that the excess of your fatherly affection drives me into such a strait, that I should be forced to live and die ungrateful ; unless that crime be redressed by the sentence of the Stoics, who say, that there are three parts in a benefit, the one of the giver, the other of the receiver, the third of the remunerator ; and that the receiver rewards the giver, when he freely receives the benefit, and always remembers it ; as on the contrary, that man is most ungrateful who despises and forgets a benefit. Therefore, being overwhelmed with infinite favours, all proceeding from your extreme goodness, and on 50 chap, iv.] Pantagruel the other side wholly incapable of making the smallest return, I hope, at least, to free myself from the imputation of ingratitude, since they can never be blotted out of my mind ; and my tongue shall never cease to own, that, to thank you as I ought, transcends my capacity. As for us, I have this assurance in the Lord's mercy and help, that the end of our voyage will be answerable to its beginning, and so it will be entirely performed in health and mirth. I will not fail to set down in a journal a full account of our navigation, that, at our return, you may have an exact relation of the whole. I have found here a Scythian tarand, an animal strange and wonderful for the variations of colour on its skin and hair, according to the distinction of neighbouring things : it is as tractable and easily kept as a lamb ; be pleased to accept of it. I also send you three young unicorns, which are the tamest of creatures. I have conferred with the esquire, and taught him how they must be fed. These cannot graze on the ground, by reason of the long horn on their forehead, but are forced to browse on fruit trees, or on proper racks, or to be fed by hand, with herbs, sheaves, apples, pears, barley, rye, and other fruits and roots, being placed before them. I am amazed that ancient writers should report them to be so wild, furious, and dangerous, and never seen alive : far from it, you will find that they are the mildest things in the world, provided they are not maliciously offended. Likewise I send you the life and deeds of Achilles, in curious tapestry ; assuring you . whatever rarities of animals, plants, birds, or precious stones, and others, I shall be able to find and purchase in our travels, shall be brought 51 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. to you, God willing, whom I beseech, by His blessed grace, to preserve you. From Medamothy, this 15th of June. Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon, Xenomanes, Gymnast, Eusthemes, Rhizotomus, and Carpalim, having most humbly kissed your hand, return your salute a thousand times. Your most dutiful son and servant, Pantagruel. While Pantagruel was writing this letter, Mali- corne was made welcome with a thousand goodly good-morrows and howd'ye's : they clung about him so, that I cannot tell you how much they made of him, how many humble services, how many from my love and to my love were sent with him. Pantagruel, having writ his letters, sat down at table with him, and afterwards presented him with a large chain of gold, weighing eight hundred crowns ; between whose septenary links, some large diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoise stones, and unions were alternately set in. To each of his bark's crew, he ordered to be given five hundred crowns. To Gargantua, his father, he sent the tarand covered with a cloth of satin, brocaded with gold : and the tapestry containing the life and deeds of Achilles, with the three unicorns in frized cloth of gold trappings : and so they left Medamothy ; Malicorne, to return to Gargantua ; and Pantagruel, to proceed in his voyage ; during which, Epistemon read to him the books which the esquire had brought ; and because he found them jovial and pleasant, I shall give you an account of them, if you earnestly desire it. 52 chap, v.] Pantagruel CHAPTER V HOW PANTAGRUEL MET A SHIP WITH PASSENGERS RETURNING FROM LANTERNLAND On the fifth day, beginning already to wind by little and little about the pole, going still farther from the equinoctial line, we discovered a merchantman to the windward of us. The joy for this was not small on both sides; we in hopes to hear news from sea, and those in the merchantman from land. So we bore upon them, and coming up with them we hailed them : and finding them to be Frenchmen of Xaintonge, backed our sails and lay by to talk to them. Pantagruel heard that they came from Lanternland; which added to his joy, and that of the whole fleet. We inquired about the state of that country, and the way of living of the Lanterns : and were told, that about the latter end of the following July, was the time prefixed r for the meet- ing of the general chapter of the Lanterns; and that if we arrived there at that time, as we might easily, we should see a handsome, honourable, and jolly company of Lanterns; and that great preparations 1 The council of Trent, which, in concert with the Emperor and Pope, at this time continued sitting, in spite of the opposi- tion made to it by the King of France. Rabelais, by the word Lanterns, means the prelates and divines of that assembly 5 because, instead of enlightening the people (as they would do if they answered the end of their function), they consumed abundance of time in lanterning, as the French say (/.£., trifling and playing the fool), and in no wise healed or composed the differences of religion. To lanternise profoundly, as the author a little lower says they would do at this council, means to put one's self into a deep meditation, as the monks do, when the hood of their habit, being brought over their faces, looks like the top of a lantern. 53 Rabelais' Works [Bookw. were making, as if they intended to lanternise there to the purpose. We were told also, that if we touched at the great kingdom of Gebarim, we should be honourably received and treated by the sovereign of that country, King Ohabe, who, as well as all his subjects, speaks Touraine French. While we were listening to this news, Panurge fell out with one Dingdong, a drover or sheep merchant of Taillebourg. The occasion of the fray was thus: This same Dingdong, seeing Panurge without a codpiece, with his spectacles fastened to his cap, said to one of his comrades, Prithee, look, is there not a fine medal of a cuckold ? Panurge, by reason of his spectacles, as you may well think, heard more plainly by half with his ears than usually; which caused him (hearing this) to say to the saucy dealer in mutton, in a kind of a pet : How the devil should I be one of the hornified fraternity, since I am not yet a brother of the marriage-noose, as thou art; as I guess by thy ill- favoured phiz ? Yea, verily, quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be otherwise for all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the magnifying gim- cracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest, prettiest, handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and soberest piece of woman's flesh for my wife, that is in all the whole country of Xaintonge; I will say that for her, and a fart for all the rest. I bring her home a fine eleven-inch- long branch of red coral for her Christmas-box. What hast thou to do with it ? what is that to thee ! who art thou ? whence comest thou, O dark lanthorn of Antichrist. Answer, if thou art of God. I ask thee, by the way of question, said Panurge to him 54 chap, v.] Pantagruel very seriously, if with the consent and countenance of all the elements, I had gingumbob'd, codpieced, and thumpthumpriggledtickledtwidled 2 thy so clever, so pretty, so handsome, so proper, so neat, so tight, so honest, and so sober female importance, insomuch that the stiff deity that has no forecast, Priapus (who dwells here at liberty, all subjection of fastened codpieces, or bolts, bars, and locks, abdicated), re- mained sticking in her natural Christmas-box in such a lamentable manner, that it were never to come out, but eternally should stick there, unless thou didst pull it out with thy teeth; what wouldst thou do ? Wouldst thou everlastingly leave it there, or wouldst thou pluck it out with thy grinders ? Answer me, O thou ram of Mahomet, since thou art one of the devil's gang. I would, replied the sheepmonger, take thee such a woundy cut on this spectacle-bearing lug of thine, with my trusty bilbo, as would smite thee dead as a herring. Thus, having taken pepper in the nose, he was lugging out his sword, but alas! cursed cows have short horns; it stuck in the scabbard; as you know that at sea, cold iron will easily take rust, by reason of the excessive and nitrous moisture. Panurge, so smitten with terror, that his heart sunk down to his midriff, scoured off to Pantagruel for help: but Friar John laid hand on his flashing scimitar that was new ground, 3 and would certainly have dispatched Ding- dong to rights, had not the skipper, and some of his passengers, beseeched Pantagruel not to suffer such 2 Sacsacbexevexinemasse, in the original. A word not much shorter than nastypatiturdifaciloivzifartical fellow, which we see quoted in the Cambridge Dictionary. 3 Friar John had got it new ground, upon Panurge's telling him (1. 3, c. 23) that for want of occupation, it was become more rusty than the keyhole of an old powdering tub. '55 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. an outrage to be committed on board his ship. So the matter was made up, and Panurge and his antagonist shaked fists, and drank in course to one another, in token of a perfect reconciliation. CHAPTER VI HOW THE FRAY BEING OVER, PANURGE CHEAPENED ONE OF DINGDONg's SHEEP This quarrel being hushed, Panurge tipped the wink upon Epistemon and Friar John, and taking them aside, — Stand at some distance out of the way, said he, and take your share of the following scene of mirth: you shall have rare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but take. Then addressing himself to the drover, he took off to him a bumper of good lantern wine. 1 The other pledged him briskly and courteously. This done, Panurge earnestly entreated him to sell him one of his sheep. But the other answered him, Is it come to that, friend and neighbour ? Would you put tricks upon travellers ? Alas, how finely you love to play upon poor folk ! Nay, you seem a rare chapman, that is the truth on it. Oh what a mighty sheep merchant you are ! In good faith, you look liker one of the diving trade, than a buyer of sheep. Adzookers, what a blessing it would be to have one's purse, well lined with chink, near your worship at a tripe-house, when it begins to thaw ! 2 Humph, humph, did 1 Excellent wine, wine theological. 2 In a thaw, when tripe may be had almost for nothing, it would not be oversafe to be near you in a crowd of poor people 56 chap, vi.] Pantagruel not we know you well, you might serve one a slippery trick ! Pray do but see, good people, what a mighty conjuror the fellow would be reckoned. Patience, said Panurge: but waiving that, be so kind as to sell me one of your sheep. Come, how much ? What do you mean, master of mine ? answered the other. They are long-woolled sheep: from these did Jason take his golden fleece. The order of the house of Burgundy was drawn from them. Zwoons, man, they are oriental sheep, topping sheep, fatted sheep, sheep of quality. Be it so, said Panurge: but sell me one of them, I beseech you, and that for a cause, paying you ready money upon the nail, in good and lawful occidental current cash. Wilt say how much ? Friend, neighbour, answered the seller of mutton, hark ye me a little, on the ear. Panurge. On which side you please ; I hear you. Dingdong. You are going to Lanternland, they say. Pan. Yea, verily. Ding. To see fashions ? Pan. Yea, verily. Ding. And be merry ? Pan. Yea, verily. Ding. Your name is, as I take it, Robin Mutton ? Pan. As you please for that, sweet sir. Ding. Nay, without offence. Pan. So I understand it. 3 striving to buy that sort of mouth ammunition. An honest man's purse would stand a bad chance in company of such an odd, ill-looking sort of chap as you. 3 The first edition of the 2d book of Rabelais, contained nothing injurious against Calvin : but Calvin, in the first of his letters, in the year 1553, having ranked Pantagruel among obscene and prohibited books, the reader! has already seen how, in his turn, Rabelais delineates Calvin under the names of pre- destinator and impostor in the preface to the last editions of the 57 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Ding. You are, as I take it, the king's jester; are not you ? Pan. Yea, verily. Ding. Give me your hand — humph, humph, you go to see fashions, you are the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton ! 4 Do you see this same ram ? His name, too, is Robin. Here Robin, Robin, Robin ! Baea, baea, baea. Hath he not a rare voice ? Pan. Ay, marry has he, a very fine and harmonious voice. Ding. Well, this bargain shall be made between you and me, friend and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you a peck of Busch oysters, that in weight, value and price, he shall outdo you, and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner, as when you shall be hanged and suspended. Patience, said Panurge : but you would do much for me, and your whole posterity, if you would chaffer with me for him, or some other of his inferiors. I beg it of you; good your worship, be so kind. Hark ye, friend of mine, answered the other, with the fleece of these, your fine Rouen cloth is to be made; your Leominster superfine wool is mine arse to it; mere flock in comparison. Of their skins t the best cordovan will be made, which shall be sold y<-for Turkey and Montelimart, or for Spanish leather div^ least. Of the guts shall be made fiddle and harp said id book. Here, from scurrility he passes to raillery, and when He brings in Panurge answering Dingdong by ' So I under- stand i%* and by four ' Yea, verilys ' running, it is visible he ridicules he too frequent repitition of words in Calvin's catechism. 4 To cal any one un pla'isant Robin y is as much as to call him simpleton, because a sheep is accounted the silliest of all quadrupeds. 58 chap, vii.] Pantagruel strings, that will sell as dear as if they came from Munican 5 or Aquileia. What do you think of it, hah ? If you please, sell me one of them, said Panurge, and I will be yours for ever. 6 Look, here is ready cash. What's the price ? This he said, exhibiting his purse stuffed with new Henricuses. CHAPTER VII WHICH IF YOU READ, YOU WILL FIND HOW PANURGE BARGAINED WITH DINGDONG Neighbour, my friend, answered Dingdong, they are meat for none but kings and princes: their flesh is so delicate, so savoury, and so dainty, that one would swear it melted in the mouth. I bring them out of a country where the very hogs, God be with us, live on nothing but myrobalans. The sows in the styes, when they lye-in (saving the honour of this good company) are fed only with orange flowers. But, said Panurge, drive a bargain with me for one of them, 1 and I will pay you for it like a king, upon 5 Some may understand, by this, the city of Munich, the capital of Bavaria ; but I rather think the author had in his eye Monaco, in Liguria 5 the best lutestrings coming from Italy. 6 It is in the original, 'J'en seray bien fort tenu au courrail de vostre huys.' I shall be so much obliged to you, that for the time to come you shall do with me just what you please, even as if I were for ever fastened to the bolt of your door, and conse- quently must move forwards and backwards according to the action of your hand upon me. 1 This is all taken from Merlinus Coccaius, Macaronic XL, at the beginning : ' Fraudifer ergo loquit pastorem Cingar ad unum : Vis, compagne, mihi castorem vendere grossum?' 59 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. the honest word of a true Trojan: come, come, what do you ask ? Not so fast, Robin, answered the trader ; these sheep are lineally descended from the very family of the ram that wafted Phryxus and Helle over the sea, since called the Hellespont. A pox on it, said Panurge, you are clericus vel addiscens! 2 Ita is a cabbage, and vere a leek, answered the merchant. But rr, rrr, rrrr, rrrrr, hoh Robin, rr, rrrrrrr, you do not understand that gibberish, do you ? 3 Now I think of it, over all the fields where they piss corn grows as fast as if the Lord had pissed there ; they need neither be tilled nor dunged. Besides, man, your chemists extract the best salt- petre in the world out of their urine. Nay, with their very dung (with reverence be it spoken) the doctors in our country make pills that cure seventy- eight kinds of diseases, the least of which is the evil of St Eutropius of Xaintes, from which, good Lord, deliver us ? Now what do you think on't, neigh- bour, my friend ? The truth is, they cost me money, that they do. Cost what they will, cried Panurge, trade with me for one of them, paying you well. Our friend, quoth the quack-like sheep man, do but mind the wonders of nature that are found in those animals, even in a member which one would think were of no use. Take me but these horns, and bray them a little with an iron pestle, or with an andiron, which you please, it is all one to me; then bury them wherever you will, provided it be where the sun may shine, and water them 2 You know so many fine things, that if you are not a clerk, you are at least aspiring to be one. 3 The canine voice of a shepherd or drover, getting together, or putting forward, a flock of sheep : r, * litera, quae in rixando prima est, canina vocatur,' says Erasmus. Note the conclusion of the Author's Prologue to Book III. 60 chap, vii.] Pantagruel frequently; in a few months I will engage you will have the best asparagus in the world, not even except- ing those of Ravenna. Now, come and tell me whether the horns of you other knights of the bull's feather have such a virtue and wonderful propriety? Patience, said Panurge. I do not know whether you be a scholar or no, pursued Dingdong: I have seen a world of scholars, I say great scholars, that were cuckolds, I'll assure you. But hark you me, if you were a scholar, you should know that in the most inferior members of those animals — which are the feet — there is a bone — which is the heel — the astragalus, if you will have it so, wherewith, and with that of no other creature breathing, except the Indian ass, and the dorcades of Libya, they used in old times to play at the royal game of dice, whereat Augustus 4 the emperor won above fifty thousand crowns one evening. Now such cuckolds as you will be hanged ere you get half so much at it. Patience, said Panurge ; but let us dispatch. And when, my friend and neighbour, continued the cant- ing sheep-seller, shall I have duly praised the inward members, the shoulders, the legs, the knuckles, the neck, the breast, the liver, the spleen, the tripes, the kidneys, the bladder, wherewith they make footballs; the ribs, which serve in Pigmy-land to make little cross-bows, to pelt the cranes with cherry-stones; the head, which with a little brimstone serves to make a miraculous decoction to loosen and ease the belly of costive dogs ? A turd on it ! 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 wilt not, do not let the man lose more time. I hate a gibble-gabble, and a rimble-ramble talk. I am for a man of brevity. 4 See Suetonius, ch. 71, of the life of Augustus. 61 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. I will, for your sake, replied the holder-forth; but then he shall give me three livres, French money, for each pick and choose. It is a woundy price, cried Panurge; in our country, I could have five, nay six for the money: see that you do not overreach me, master. You are not the first man whom I have known to have fallen, even some- times to the endangering, if not breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrain seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the worthy vow of our lady of Charroux,5 the worst in this flock is four times better than those which in days of yore the Coraxians in Tuditania, 6 a country of Spain, used to sell for a gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou Hibernian fool, that a talent of gold was worth ? Sweet sir, you fall into a passion, I see, returned Panurge: well hold, here is your money. Panurge, having paid his money, chose him out of all the flock a fine topping ram; and as he was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, all the rest, hearing and bleating in concert, stared, to see whither their brother ram should be carried. In the meanwhile the drover was saying to his shepherds: Ah! how 5 Rabelais' words are, par le digne njoeu de Charrous, i.e., by the worthy vow of Charroux. See more of it in Explanatory Remarks at the end of this chapter. 6 Rabelais does indeed express himself exactly as it is translated, which would make one believe the Coraxians were a people of Tuditania. They were far from being so : Tuditania is Andalusia : the Coraxians were a people of Colchis. It was a troublesome, expensive, and difficult thing to carry sheep from Colchis to Andalusia (from one end of the Mediterranean to the other). This was what made the Coraxian sheep sell so dear among the Andalusians, who, besides abounding with gold, as they did, stuck at no price, and valued no money, so they could but furnish themselves with a breed of such sheep. See Strabo's Geography, I.3. 62 chap, vii.] Pantagruel well the knave could choose him out a ram; the whoreson has skill in cattle. On my honest word, I reserved that very piece of flesh for the Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition: for the good man is naturally overjoyed when he holds a good- sized handsome shoulder of mutton instead of a left- handed racket, in one hand, with a good sharp carver in the other: got wot how he bestirs himself then. On Chap. VII. — Our author, to ridicule a foolish' relique that was in great repute in Poictou in his time, makes Dingdong swear by it. It was called, The worthy vow of Charroux. The people gave that name to a large wooden statue, in the shape of a man, covered with plates of silver, which the monks kept in a corner of their monastery. They used to show it but every seventh year, and then shoals of people thronged to see it 5 but none of the female sex were suffered to come near to kiss it 5 th mighty blessing was wholly reserved for men or boys 5 but the women used to watch to catch the men who had kissed it at unawares, and dipt them about the neck and kissed them 5 by which means they were persuaded they drew to themselves, an sucked in, the virtuous efficacy which they had got by touching the shrine. A tall lady was so very presumptuous as to dare kiss that blessed worthy vow, and, behold ! the angry wooden saint in an instant grew five feet taller than he was before 5 at least the people said so, and the monks reported it for gospel truth. Yet all its worth and virtue could not protect it against the Sieur Bouganet, and other Protestant gentlemen, who, in the year 1562, stripped it of its silver robes, and since that they were called the valets de chambre of the worthy vow of Charroux. — M. 63 Rabelais' Works [Book iv CHAPTER VIII HOW PANURGE CAUSED DINGDONG AND HIS SHEEP TO BE DROWNED IN THE SEA On a sudden you would wonder how the thing was so soon done ; for my part I cannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it ; our friend Panurge, without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard into the middle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise. Upon this all the other sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone, made all the haste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after another ; and great was the throng who should leap in first after their leader. It was impossible to hinder them : for you know that it is the nature of sheep always to follow the first, wheresoever it goes ; which makes Aristotle, lib. 9, De Hist. Animal., mark them for the most silly and foolish animals in the world. Dingdong, at his wit's end, and stark staring mad, as a man who saw his sheep destroy and drown themselves before his face, strove to hinder and keep them by might and main ; but all in vain : they all, one after the other, frisked and jumped into the sea, and were lost. At last he laid hold on a huge sturdy one by the fleece, upon the deck of the ship, hop- ing to keep it back, and so save that and the rest : but the ram was so strong that it proved too hard for him, and carried its master into the herring- pond in spite of his teeth, where it is supposed he drank somewhat more than his fill ; so that he was drowned, in the same manner as one-eyed Polyphemus' sheep carried out of the den Ulysses and his companions. The like happened to the 64 chap, viii.] Pantagruel shepherds and all their gang, some laying hold on their beloved tup, this by the horns, the other by the legs, a third by the rump, and others by the fleece ; till in fine they were all of them forced to sea, and drowned like so many rats. Panurge on the gunnel of the ship, with an oar in his hand, not to help them you may swear, but to keep them from swimming to the ship, and saving themselves from drowning, preached and canted to them all the while, like any little Friar Oliver Maillard, or another Friar John Burgess ; laying before them rhetorical commonplaces concerning *the miseries of this life, and the blessings and felicity of the next ; assuring them that the dead were much happier than the living in this vale of misery, and promising to erect a stately cenotaph and honorary tomb to every one of them, on the highest summit of Mount Cenis, at his return from Lanternland ; wishing them, nevertheless, in case they were not disposed to shake hands with this life, and did not like their salt liquor, they might have the good luck to meet with some kind whale which might set them ashore safe and sound, on some land of Gotham, after a famous example. 1 The ship being cleared of Dingdong and his tups : Is there ever another sheepish soul 2 left lurking on board ? cried Panurge. Where are those of Toby Lamb, and Robin Ram, that sleep whilst the rest are a-feeding ? Faith I cannot tell myself. This was an old coaster's trick. What thinkest of it, Friar John, hah ? Rarely performed, answered Friar John : only methinks that as formerly in war, 1 A Vexemple de Jonas, says Rabelais. 2 Sheepish soul. — Ame moutoniere ,• alluding to those who, like true sheep, are incapable of determining upon anything of them- selves. VOL. IV. 65 E Rabelais' Works [Book tv. on the day of battle, a double pay was commonly promised the soldiers for that day : for if they overcame, there was enough to pay them ; and if they lost, it would have been shameful for them to demand it, as the cowardly foresters 3 did after the battle of Cerizoles : so likewise, my friend, you ought not to have paid your man, and the money had been saved. A fart for the money, said Pan- urge : have I not had above fifty thousand pounds worth of sport ? Come now, let us be gone ; the wind is fair. Hark you me, my friend John : never did man do me a good turn, but I returned, or at least acknowledged it : no, I scorn to be ungrateful ; I never was, nor ever will be : never did man do me an ill one without rueing the day that he did it, either in this world or the next. I am not yet so much a fool neither. Thou damnest thyself like any old devil, quoth Friar John : it is written, Mihi vindictam, etc. Matter of breviary, mark ye me. On Chap. V. to VIII. — From Panurge's quarrel with Dinde- nault, the drover, whom I have called Dingdong, and that sheepmonger's misfortune, we may raise this moral 5 that the private broils of pastors often prove the ruin of their flocks ; foolish, headstrong, and ready, right or wrong, one and all, to rise and fall with the bell-wether. Dingdong's quack-like 3 Coivardly foresters. — Les fuyars gruyers, in the original, Gruyers, says M. Duchat, were soldiers raised and levied for Swiss, in the county of Gruyere, situated between Berne and the city of Sion, hard by Lausanne and the lake of Geneva. There were some of these Gruyers in the French army at the battle of Cerizol ; and as their bravery was no less depended upon than that of the Swiss themselves, they were posted promiscuously among the true Swiss in the rear ; but they turned tail at the very first onset, which gave occasion to Martin Bellay to say, that it was a very difficult thing to disguise an ass like a war- horse. See his Mem. in the year 1543. 66 chap, ix.] Pantagruel canting stuff does not hinder him from selling the sheep by which he lives. After all, this may be the relation of some of Montluc's adventures, burlesqued after our author's way. For, as we have observed in the preface to the first three books, that the Bishop of Valence was a Protestant, at least in his opinions : everybody knew it, and the Mareschal de Montluc, his brother, made no mystery of it in his memoirs; he was molested more than once about it, and particularly by the Dean of Valence, of whom we have spoke in the said preface, and for whom the bishop proved too hard by his subtlety and credit, which inclined him to make use of all possible means to be revenged on one who had plagued him so long. — M. CHAPTER IX HOW PANTAGRUEL ARRIVED AT THE ISLAND OF ENNASIN, AND OF THE STRANGE WAYS OF BEING AKIN IN THAT COUNTRY We had still the wind at south-south-west, and had been a whole day without making land. On the third day, at the flies > uprising (which, you know, is some two or three hours after the sun's), we got sight of a triangular island, very much like Sicily for its form and situation. It was called the Island of Alliances. The people there are much like your carrot- pated Poitevins, save only that all of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped like an ace of clubs. For that reason the ancient name of the country was Ennasin. 1 They were all akin, as the mayor of the place told us, at least they boasted so. 1 Ennasin. — Noseless, or flat-nosed. 6 7 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing, that, out of the family of the Fabii, 2 at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th of February, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since named Scelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, be- tween the Tarpeian Rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of Etruria, three hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each other, with five thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals, who were all slain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of Beccano. Now from this same country of Ennasin, in case of need, above three hundred thousand, all relations, and of one family, might march out. Their degrees of consanguinity and alliance are very strange : for being thus akin and allied to one another, we found that none was either father or mother, brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, son-in-law or daughter-in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other ; unless, truly, a tall, flat-nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a little shitten-arsed girl, of three or four years old, father, and the child called him daughter. Their distinction of degrees of kindred was thus : a man used to call a woman, my lean bit ; 3 2 Fabii. — See Aulus Gellius, 1. 17, c. 21. 3 There is a fish called by the French, by way of antiphrasis, maigre (lean bit). It is a sea fish as well as a porpoise, as this last is vulgarly written 5 though porc-pisce is known to be the true spelling : it being a sort of hog fish, or sea hog. Rabelais here quibbles upon the two words. I take the maigre to be a sort of halibut. [It is the Sciana aquila of Cuvier and of Fleming. Paulus Jovius relates a curious story of the migra- tions of a head of one of these fishes, which, presented by the conservators to the nephew of Pope Sixtus X., finds its way to a courtesan.] 68 chap, ix.] Pantagruel the woman called him, my porpoise. Those, said Friar John, must needs stink damnably of fish, when they have rubbed their bacon one with the other. One smiling on a young buxom baggage, said, Good morrow, dear currycomb. She, to return him his civility, said, The like to you, my steed. Ha ! ha ! ha ! said Panurge, that is pretty well in faith ; for indeed it stands her in good stead to curry-comb this steed. Another greeted his buttock with a Farewell, my case. She replied, Adieu, trial. (By St Winifred's placket, cried Gymnast, this case has been often tried. Another asked a she-friend of his, How is it, hatchet ? She answered him, At your service, dear helve. Odds belly, saith Carpalim, this helve and this hatchet are well matched. As we went on, I saw one who, calling his she- relation, styled her my crumb, and she called him, my crust. Quoth one to a brisk, plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear tap. So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she. One called a wench, his shovel ; she called him, her peel : one named his, my slipper ; and she, my foot : another, my boot ; she, my shasoon.4 In the same degree of kindred, one called his, my butter ; she called him, my eggs ; and they were akin just like a dish of buttered eggs. I heard one call his, my tripe, and she called him, my faggot. Now I could not, for the heart's blood of me, pick out or discover what parentage, alliance, affinity, or con- sanguinity was between them, with reference to our custom ; only they told us that she was faggot's 4 Estivallet. — A buskin or summer-boot, called so from the High Dutch, stiefely or rather the Latin, astivale, because used in summer {astas). 6 9 Rabelais' Works [Book !▼. tripe [tripe de fagot, means the smallest sticks in a faggot). Another complimenting his convenient, said, Yours, my shell ; she replied, I was yours before, sweet oyster. I reckon, said Carpalim, she hath gutted his oyster. Another long-shanked ugly rogue, mounted on a pair of high-heeled wooden slippers, meeting a strapping, fusty, squobbed dowdy, says he to her, How is it, my top ? She was short upon him, and arrogantly replied, Never the better for you, my whip. By St Anthony's hog, said Xenomanes, I believe so ; for how can this whip be sufficient to lash this top ? A college professor, well provided with cod, and powdered and prinked up, having a while discoursed with a great lady, taking his leave, with these words, Thank you, sweet-meat ; she cried, There needs no thanks, sour-sauce. Saith Pantagruel, This is not altogether incongruous, for sweet meat must have sour sauce. A wooden loggerhead said to a young wench, It is long since I saw you, bag : All the better, cried she, pipe. Set them together, said Panurge, then blow in their arses, it will be a bagpipe. We saw, after that, a diminutive hump-backed gallant, pretty near us, taking leave of a she-relation of his, thus : Fare thee well, friend hole ; she reparteed, Save thee, friend peg. Quoth Friar John, What could they say more, were he all peg and she all hole ? But now would I give something to know if every cranny of the hole can be stopped up with that same peg. A bawdy bachelor, talking with an old trot, was saying, Remember, rusty gun. I will not fail, said she, scourer. 5 Do you reckon these two to be akin ? said Pantagruel to the mayor : I rather take them to be foes : in our country a woman would take this as 5 Scourer. — Fyste, in the original : (vetse). 7° chap, ix.] Pantagruel a mortal affront. Good people of the other world, leplied the mayor, you have few such and so near lelations as this gun and scourer are to one another ; for they both come out of one shop. 6 What, was the shop their mother ? 7 quoth Panurge. What mother, said the mayor, does the man mean ? That must be some of your world's affinity ; we have here neither father nor mother : your little paltry fellows, that live on the other side the water, poor rogues, booted with wisps of hay, may indeed have such ; but we scorn it. The good Pantagruel stood gazing and listening; but at those words he had like to have lost all patience. Having very exactly viewed the situation of the island, and the way of living of the Ennased nation, we went to take a cup of the creature at a tavern, where there happened to be a wedding after the manner of the country. Bating that shocking custom, there was special good cheer. While we were there, a pleasant match was struck up betwixt a female called Pear (a tight thing, as we thought, but by some, who knew better things, said to be quaggy and flabby) and a young soft male, called Cheese, somewhat sandy. (Many such matches have been, and they were formerly much commended.) In our country we say, // ne fut one que s tel mari 'age ', qifest de la poire et du from age ; there is no match like that made between the pear and the cheese : and in many other places good store of such bargains have been driven. Besides, when the women are at their last prayers, it is to this day a noted saying, that after cheese comes nothing. 6 One shop. — One hole, in the original : (d'ung trou). 7 In the original, was the wind their mother. Alluding, though jestingly, to what the ancient naturalists have advanced concerning the winds making the mares in Spain conceive. 71 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. In another room I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young pliable buskin. Pantagrue'. was told, that young buskin took old boot to have and to hold, because she was of special leather, ir. good case, and waxed, seared, liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had been for the fisherman that went to bed with his boots on. In another room below, I saw a young brogue 8 taking a young slipper for better for worse : which, they told us, was neither for the sake of her piety, parts, or person, but for the fourth comprehensive p, portion ; the spankers, spur-royals, rose-nobles, and other coriander seed with which she was quilted all over. On Chap. IX. — By the island of Ennasin, where such strange alliances are made, Rabelais at once exposes unequal matches, and the dull jests and stupidity of gross clowns ; which, as the Latin hath it, have no nose, that is, no wit. Thus he tells us, that all the men, women, and children, of the Ennased, or noseless, island are like your carrot-pated Poictevins, who are a boorish sort of people. I must own that the comments, which Pantagruel's companions make on their ridiculous manner of being akin, are little better than the text. Yet those wretched quibbles and conundrums, are what your country-fellows admire mightily ; and all this chapter would be read or (to speak more properly) be heard read by such people with as much pleasure, as I translated most of it with pain. But in the main, the meaning is admirable 5 for what more deserves a reproof, than the foolish unequal marriages made every day, which are as odd jests, and as improper as some of those in the chapter ? The match struck up between the pear (which seemed right and firm, but was known by some to be flabby) and the soft cheese, is more natural, and made very often in our world 5 and bating its emblem, which is of the nature of the island, there is salt and nose in that conjunction : nor is there less in that of the old greasy boot, and the young pliable buskin ; and the brogue and the slipper ; which are in a manner a key to the rest. — M. 8 Une jeune escafignon. — Under the idea of an escafignon (/.*., a single-soled shoe of thin leather ; a rope-dancer, or tumbler's pump) Rabelais ridicules a young threadbare, single-soled gentle- man: a gentleman of low degree. 72 chap, x.] Pantagruel CHAPTER X HOW PANTAGRUEL WENT ASHORE AT THE ISLAND OF CHELY, WHERE HE SAW KING ST PANIGON We sailed right before the wind, which we had at west, leaving those odd alliancers with their ace-of- clubs snouts, and having taken height by the sun, stood in for Chely, 1 a large, fruitful, wealthy, and well-peopled island. King St Panigon, first of the name, reigned there, and, attended by the princes, his sons, and the nobles of his court, came as far as the port to receive Pantagruel, and conducted him to his palace ; near the gate of which, the queen, attended by the princesses, her daughters, and the court ladies, received us. Panigon directed her and all her retinue to salute Pantagruel and his men with a kiss; for such was the civil custom of the country : and they were all fairly bussed accordingly, except Friar John, who stepped aside, and sneaked off among the king's officers. Panigon used all the entreaties imaginable to persuade Pantagruel to tarry there that day and the next ; but he would needs be gone, and excused himself upon the opportunity of wind and weather, which being oftener desired than enjoyed, ought not to be neglected when it comes. Panigon, having heard these reasons, let us go, but 1 Read (instead of stood in for Chely) stood out to sea. (Montastnes en haulte mer.) Read likewise (instead of having taken the height of the sun) about sunset (su s la declination du soleil, etc.). As for taking the height of the sun, it is certain that the trans- lator did not take the height of the author's meaning, in* this place ; his words are, ' feismes scalle en l'isle de Chely.' We landed on the island of Chely. Faire scale, is to land, set foot on land, to go ashore, says Cotgrave expressly. 73 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. first made us take off some five-and-twenty or thirty- bumpers each. Pantagruel, returning to the port, missed Friar John, and asked why he was not with the rest of the company ? Panurge could not tell how to excuse him, and would have gone back to the palace to call him, when Friar John overtook them, and merrily cried, Long live the noble Panigon ! As I love my belly, he minds good eating, and keeps a noble house and a dainty kitchen. I have been there, boys. Everything goes about by dozens. I was in good hopes to have stuffed my puddings there like a monk. What ! always in a kitchen, friend ? said Pantagruel. By the belly of St Crampacon, quoth the Friar, I understand the customs and ceremonies which are used there, much better than all the formal stuff, antic postures, and nonsensical fiddle-faddle that must be used with those women, magni magna, shittencumshita, cringes, grimaces, scrapes, bows, and congees ; double honours this way, triple salutes that way, the embrace, the grasp, the squeeze, the hug, the leer, the smack, baso las manos de vostra merc'e, de vostra majesta. You are most tarabin, tarabas, Stront; 2 that is downright Dutch. Why all this ado ? I do not say but a man might be for a bit by-the-bye and away, to be doing as well as his neighbours ; but this little nasty cringing and courtesying made me as mad as any March devil. 3 2 Stront. — Bren c*est merde a Rouen, i.e., turd, which is the Rouen word. And, indeed, it is hardly used anywhere else but there 5 nor there but in the suburbs and country round about 5 a rustical, clownish word. 3 After this add, St Benedict never dissembled for the matter. St Benoist n'en ment'it jamais (a rhyme). On this M. Duchat observes, that neither the Benedictine, nor any other monks, ever salute anybody otherwise than by bowing their head and body. 7+ chap, x.] Pantagruel You talk of kissing ladies ; by the worthy and sacred frock I wear, I seldom venture upon it, lest I be served as was the Lord of Guyercharois. What was it ? said Pantagruel ; I know him ; he is one of the best friends I have. He was invited to a sumptuous feast, said Friar John, by a relation and neighbour of his, together with all the gentlemen and ladies in the neighbour- hood. Now some of the latter [the ladies] expect- ing his coming, dressed the pages in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies ; 4 then ordered them to meet my lord at his coming near the draw- bridge ; so the complimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads with great formality. 5 At last the ladies, who minded passages in the gallery, burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off their dress ; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he durst make up to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they had disguised the pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were certainly the very footmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised. Odds fish ! (da jurandi) why do not we rather remove our humanities into some good warm kitchen of God, that noble laboratory ; and there admire the turning of the spits, the harmonious rattling of the jacks and fenders, criticise on the position of the lard, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert, and the order of the wine service ? Beati immaculati in via. 6 Matter of breviary, my masters. 4 Like any babies. — En damoiselles bien pimpantes et atourees. Like young girls curiously pranked up and dizened out. 5 It was then the custom for a gentleman, as soon as he lighted among the ladies, to kiss them all on the cheek; and this mode continued in France till Henry the Third's time. 6 Beati, etc. — Blessed are those who are undenled in their way. 75 Rabelais' Works [ Book iv - CHAPTER XI WHY MONKS LOVE TO BE IN KITCHENS This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk : I mean like a right monking monk, 1 not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put me in mind of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing the an- tiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we viewed the situation and beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their due ; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry, scandalised, and out of all patience, told us, I do not know what the devil you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up : for my part I have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you : I think my eyesight is as clear as another body's ; and what can one see after all ? There are fine houses, indeed, and that is all. But the cage does not feed the birds. God and Monsieur St Bernard, our good patron, be with us ! in all this The first words of the 119th Psalm, profaned by Friar John, who applies them to such as get no spots on their clothes, when they visit from time to time the convent kitchen. 1 Monking monk.—Moine moinant is he that has the direction and government of the other monks of his convent. Whereas a bemonked monk {moyne moyne) means any monk who is obliged to obey the monking monk, and to suffer himself to be led by him. In which sense, when any brother friar seems to make scorn of the post he is advanced to in the house, they tell him jocularly, by way of consolation, it is better, however, to be a horse than a cart. 76 chap, xi.] Pantagruel same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks ; and yet I have not a little looked about, and sought for so necessary a part of a common- wealth : ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with the exactness of an informer ; as ready to number both to the right and left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town. Now at Amiens, 2 in four, nay Hvq times less ground than we have trod in our contemplation, I could have shown you above fourteen streets of roasting cooks, most ancient, savoury, and aromatic. I cannot imagine what kind of pleasure you can have taken in gazing on the lions and Africans (so methinks you call their tigers) near the belfry ; or in ogling the porcupines and ostriches in the Lord Philip Strozzi's palace. Faith and truth I had rather see a good fat goose at the spit. This porphyry, those marbles are fine ; I say nothing to the contrary : but our cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in my mind. These ancient statues are well made ; I am willing to believe it : but by St Ferreol of Abbeville, 3 we have young wenches in our country, which please me better a thousand times. What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found in kitchens ; and kings, emperors, and popes are never there ? Is there not, 2 The reason of the vast number of cooks' shops, with which, for a long time, the whole province of Picardy, and especially the city of Amiens, has abounded, is because the inns there find travellers in nothing but a table-cloth, and a cover (i.e., a plate, with a napkin, knife, fork and spoon), with glasses; not forgetting bread and wine, you may be sure. 3 Friar Bernard Lardon loved the fat-bacon-like lasses of this country, and he swears it too by the saint that has the superin- tendency of the fattening of geese. 11 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. said Rhizotomus, some latent virtue and specific property hid in the kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monk there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings ? Or is it a natural induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself leads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they will or no ? He means, forms following matter, as Averroes calls them, answered Epistemon, Right, said Friar John. I will not offer to solve this problem, said Pantagruel ; for it is somewhat ticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off scurvily ; but I will tell you what I have heard. 4 Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming to one of his tents where his cooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet Antagoras frying a conger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked him, Pray, Mr Poet, was Homer frying congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon ? Antagoras readily answered, But do you think, sir, that when Aga- memnon did them, he made it his business to know if any in his camp were frying congers ? The king thought it an indecency that a poet should be thus a-frying in a kitchen ; and the poet let the king know, that it was a more indecent thing for a king to be found in such a place. I will clap another story upon the neck of this, quoth Panurge, and will tell you what Breton Villandry 5 answered one day to the Duke of Guise. They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis, against the Emperor, Charles the 4 What I have read, it should be; a-vois leu. It is in Plutarch's notable sayings of ancient kings, princes, and captains. 5 John le Breton, Lord of Villandry, favourite of Francis I., and secretary to that prince, and Henry II. in 1537. 78 chap, xi.] Pantagruel Fifth, Breton, armed cap-a-pe to the teeth, and mounted like St George ; yet sneaked off, and played least in sight during the engagement. Blood an 'ouns, answered Breton, I was there, and can prove it easily ; nay, even where you, my lord, dared not have been. The duke began to resent this as too rash and saucy : but Breton easily appeased him, and set them all a-laughing, Egad, my lord, quoth he, I kept out of harm's way ; I was all the while with your page Jack, skulking in a certain place where you had not dared hide your head, as I did. Thus discoursing, they got to their ships, and left the island of Chely. On Chaps. X. and XI. — The island of Chely, which comes after that of the Ennased alliancers, is as it were its antipodes; and the one is as courtly as the other is clownish. The word Chely is Greek, and signifies the lips xetXea, X e ' A7 75 tmis lt mav be called the island of the lips, or of compliments. King St Panigon, first of the name, reigned in that large, well-peopled, fruitful kingdom, and being attended by the princes, his sons, and the nobles of his court, comes as far as the port to receive Pantagruel, and conducts him to his palace; the queen, the princesses, the court ladies, receive him at the gate; Panigon makes them all salute Pantagruel and his men with a kiss, according to the civil custom of the country; all the compliments and entreaties imaginable are used to persuade Pantagruel to stay there a day or two; he excuses himself, but is not suffered to go, till he and his men have drank with the king; all this is compliment. Friar John alone inveighs against this formal stuff, antic postures, and nonsensical fiddle-faddle, cringes, grimaces, scrapes, embraces, leers, etc., and slinks into the kitchens, where there was something more substantial for a monk, who does not use to feed on empty talk. So, though the island was populous, fertile, and of large extent, he admires nothing but the culinary labora- tories, the turning of the spits, the harmonious rattling of the jacks and fender; and is for criticising on the position of the bacon, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert, and the order of the wine service. All the eleventh chapter illustrates that monastical inclination to frequent kitchens. — M. 79 Rabelais' Works [Book w. CHAPTER XII HOW PANTAGRUEL PASSED THROUGH THE LAND OF PETTIFOGGING, AND OF THE STRANGE WAY OF * LIVING AMONG THE CATCHPOLES Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through Pettifogging, a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly tell what to make on it. There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles, rogues that will hang their father for a groat. They neither invited us to eat or drink ; but, with a multiplied train of scrapes and cringes, said they were all at our service, for a consideration. One of our interpreters related to Pantagruel their strange way of living, diametrically opposite to that of our modern Romans ; for at Rome a world of folks get an honest livelihood by poisoning, drubbing, lambasting, stabbing, and murdering ; but the catchpoles earn theirs by being thrashed ; so that if they were long without a tight lambasting, the poor dogs with their wives and children would be starved. This is just, quoth Panurge, like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towards the equinoctial circle, unless they are soundly flogged. 1 By St Patrick's slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting me right, throw me off the saddle, in the devil's name. The way is this, said the interpreter. When a monk, levite, close-fisted usurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he sends to him one of those catchpoles, or apparitors, who nabs, or at least cites him, serves a writ or warrant 1 See De Lolme's History of the Flagellants. 80 chap, xii.] Pantagruel upon him, thumps, abuses, and affronts him im- pudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious instructions : insomuch that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his brains, 2 and is not more stupid than a gyrin frog, 3 he will find himself obliged either to apply a faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal's jobbernol, give him the gentle lash, or make him cut a caper out at the window, by way of correction. This done, catchpole is rich for four months at least, as if bastinadoes were his real harvest: for the monk, levite, usurer, or lawyer, will reward him roundly; and my gentleman must pay him such swingeing damages, that his acres must bleed for it, and he be in danger of miserably rotting within a stone doublet, as if he had struck the King. Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this ; used by the Lord of Basche. 4 What is it ? said Pantagruel. The Lord of Basche, said Panurge, was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his return from the long war, in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of the French, bravely defended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the Second, was every day cited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit, and for the sport and fancy of the fat prior of St Louant. 5 One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for he loved to be sometimes among 2 Hath but, etc. — Hath not the dead palsy. 3 Gyrin frog, — A tadpole. An unformed frog; from the Greek yvpivoi, frog spawn. 4 Lord of Basche. — Doubtless a descendant of Perron de Basche, steward of the household to King Charles VIII., who sent him into Italy, before he went thither himself at the head of his army. See Commines, 1. 7, c. 3. 5 St Louant. Liventius. The priory of St Louens, in the diocese of Tours, etc. VOL. IV. 8l F Rabelais' Works [Book iv. them) he sent for one Loire, his baker, and his spouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was also his butler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them before his gentlemen and other servants : You all see how I am daily plagued with these rascally catchpoles ; truly, if you do not lend me your helping hand, I am finally resolved to leave the country, and go fight for the Sultan, or the devil, rather than be thus eternally teased. Therefore to be rid of their damned visits, hereafter, when any of them come here, be ready you baker and your wife, to make your personal appearance in . my great hall, in your wedding clothes, as if you were going to be affianced. Here take these ducats, which I give you to keep you in a fitting garb. As for you, Sir Oudart, be sure you make your personal appearance there in your fair surplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wed them. Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipe and tabor. The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed at the beat of the tabor ; then all of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one another the remembrance of the wedding, — which you know is to be a blow with your fist, bidding the party struck remember the nuptials by that token. This will but make you have the better stomach to your supper ; but when you come to the catchpole's turn, thrash him thrice and threefold, as you would a sheaf of green corn ; do not spare him ; maul him, drub him, lambast him, swinge him off, I pray you. Here, take these steel gauntlets, covered with kid. Head, back, belly, and sides, give him blows innumerable : he that gives him most, shall be my best friend. Fear not to be called to an account about it ; I will stand by you : for the blows must seem 82 chap, xii.] Pantagruel to be given in jest, as it is customary among us at all weddings. Ay, but how shall we know the catchpole, said the man of God? All sorts of people daily resort to this castle. I have taken care of that, replied the lord. When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade, with a large broad silver ring 6 on his thumb, comes to the door, he is certainly a catch- pole ; the porter, having civilly let him in, shall ring the bell ; then be all ready, and come into the hall to act the tragi-comedy, whose plot I have now laid for you. That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old, fat, ruddy catchpole. Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men will do, the porter soon found him out, by his large, greasy spatterdashes, his jaded hollow-flanked mare, his bag full of writs and informations dangling at his girdle, but, above all, by the large silver hoop on his left thumb. The porter was civil to him, admitted him kindly, and rung the bell briskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on their best clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall, keeping their gravities like a new-made judge. The dominie put on his surplice and stole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole, had him in there, and made him suck his face a good while, while the gauntlets were drawing on all hands ; and then told him, You are come just in pudding-time ; my lord is in his right cue: we shall feast like kings anon, here is to be swingeing doings ; we have a wedding in the house ; here, drink and cheer up ; pull away. 6 To seal the writs and writings, belike; for they were not signed in those days. 83 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. While these two were at hand-to-fist, Basche, seeing all his people in the hall in their proper equipages, sends for the vicar. Oudard comes with the holy water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into the hall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then served Basche with a writ. Basche gave him grimace for grimace, slipped an angel into his mutton fist, and prayed him to assist at the contract and ceremony : which he did. When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began to fly about among the assistants ; but when it came to the catchpole's turn they all laid on him so unmercifully with their gauntlets, that they at last settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one of his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, his omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces ; and all this in jest and no harm done. God wot how the levite belaboured him, hiding within the long sleeve of his canonical shirt his huge steel gauntlet lined with ermine ; for he was a strong- built ball, and an old dog at fisticuffs. The catch- pole, all of a bloody tiger-like stripe, 7 with much ado crawled home to L'Isle Bouchart, well pleased and edified, however, with Basche's kind reception ; and, with the help of the good surgeons of the place, lived as long as you would have him. From that time to this, not a word of the business : the memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rung with joy at his funeral. 7 Dappled with variety of contusions. 8 4 chap, xiii.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XIII HOW, LIKE MASTER FRANCIS VILLON, THE LORD OF BASCHE COMMENDED HIS SERVANTS The catchpole being packed off on blind Sorrel, — so he called his one-eyed-mare, — Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his servants, into the arbour of his garden ; had wine brought, attended with good store of pasties, hams, fruit, and other table ammunition, for a nunchion; drank with them joyfully, and then told them this story : Master Francis Villon, in his old age, retired to St Maxent, in Poictou, under the patronage of a good, honest abbot of the place. There to make sport for the mob, he undertook to get * The Passion ' acted, after the way, and in the dialect of the country. The parts being distributed, the play having been rehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and aldermen, that the mystery would be ready after Niort fair, and that there only wanted properties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the parts : so the mayor and his brethren took care to get them. Villon, to dress an old clownish father grey- beard, who was to represent God the Father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole. Tickletoby refused him, alleging, that by their provincial statutes, it was rigorously for- bidden to give or lend anything to players. Villon replied, that the statute reached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games, and that he asked no more than what he had seen allowed at Brussels and other places. Tickletoby, notwithstanding, peremptorily bid him provide him- 85 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. self elsewhere if he would, and not to hope for any- thing out of his monastical wardrobe. Villon gave an account of this to the players, as of a most abominable action ; adding, that God would shortly revenge himself, and make an example of Tickletoby. The Saturday following, he had notice given him, that Tickletoby, upon the filly of the convent — so they call a young mare that was never leaped yet — was gone a-mumping to St Ligarius, and would be back about two in the afternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his devils of 'The Passion p through the town. They were all rigged with wolves', calves', and rams' skins, 1 laced and trimmed with sheep's heads, bull's feathers, and large kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles; whereat hanged dangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells, which made a horrid din; Some held in their claws black sticks full of squibs and crackers: others had long lighted pieces of wood, upon which, at the corner of every street, they flung whole handfuls of rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire and smoke. Having thus led them about, to the great diversion of the mob, and the dreadful fear of little children, he finally carried them to an entertainment at a summer-house, without the gate that leads to St Ligarius. As they came near to the place, he espied Tickle- toby afar off, coming home from mumping, and told them in macaronic verse : Hie est de patria, natus, de gente belistra, 2 Qui solet antiquo bribas portare bisacco. 3 1 This masquerade which generally was performed on New Year's day, was prohibited as impious 5 but Villon gave himself very little concern about that. 2 A beggarly race. 3 A monk's double pouch. 86 chap, xiii.] Pantagruel < A plague on his friarship, said the devils then; the lousy beggar would not lend a poor cope to the fatherly father ; let us fright him. Well said, cried Villon ; but let us hide ourselves till he comes by, and then charge him home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks. Tickletoby being come to the place, they all rushed on a sudden into the road to meet him, and in a frightful manner threw fire from all sides upon him and his filly foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so many real devils. Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hou, hho, hho, hhoi. Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely ? The filly was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, to squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it, to spurn it, to calci- trate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to curvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions ; insomuch that she threw down Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with might and main. Now his straps and stirrups were of cord ; and on the right side, his sandals were so entangled and twisted, that he could not for the heart's blood of him get out his foot. Thus he was dragged about by the filly through the road, scratching his bare breech all the way ; she still multiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge and ditch ; insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so, that his cockle brains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross. Then his arms fell to pieces, one this way, and the other that way ; and even so were his legs served at the same time. Then she made a bloody havoc with his puddings ; and being got to the convent, brought back only his right foot and twisted sandal, leaving them to guess what had become of the rest. 87 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he in- tended, said to his devils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely ; I dare engage you will top your parts. I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay, Montmorillon, Langez, St Espain, Angers ; nay, by gad ! even those of Poictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you. Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee, that here- after you will act rarely this tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfully hampered, be- thwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole. From this day I double your wages. As for you, my dear, said he to his lady, make your gratifications as you please ; you are my treasurer, you know. For my part, first and foremost, I drink to you all. Come on, box it about, it is good and cool. In the second place, you, Mr Steward, take this silver basin, I give it you freely. Then you, my gentlemen of the horse, take these two silver gilt cups, and let not the pages be horse-whipped these three months. My dear, let them have my best white plumes of feathers, with the gold buckles to them. Sir Oudart, this silver flagon falls to your share : this other I give to the cooks. To the valets de chambre I give this silver basket ; to the grooms, this silver gilt boat ; to the porter, these two plates ; to the hostlers, these ten porringers. Trudon, take you these silver spoons and this sugar box. You, footman, take this large salt. Serve me well, and I will remember you. For on the word of a gentleman, I had rather bear in war one hundred blows on my helmet in the service of my country, than be once cited by these knavish catchpoles, merely to humour this same gorbellied prior. 88 chap, xiv.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XIV A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF CATCHPOLES WHO WERE DRUBBED AT BASCHe's HOUSE Four days after, another, young, long-shanked, raw- boned catchpole, coming to serve Basche with a writ at the fat prior's request, was no sooner at the gate, but the porter smelt him out, and rung the bell ; at whose second pull, all the family understood the mystery. Loire was kneading his dough ; his wife was sifting meal ; Oudart was toping in his office ; the gentlemen were playing at tennis ; the Lord Basche at in and out with my lady ; the wait- ing-men and gentlewomen at push-pin ; the officers at lanterlue, and the pages at hot-cockles, giving one another smart bangs. They were all immediately informed that a catchpole was housed. Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife their nuptial badges: Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad : all made haste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets. Basche went into the outward yard: there the catchpole meeting him fell on his marrow-bones, begged of him not to take it ill, if he served him with a writ at the suit of the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know that he was a public person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to the abbatial mitre, ready to do as much for him, nay, for the least of his servants, whensoever he would employ and use him. Nay, truly, said the lord, you shall not serve your writ till you have tasted some of my good quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a wedding which we are to have this very minute. Let him 8 9 Rabelais' Works [Book w. drink and refresh himself, added he, turning towards the levitical butler, and then bring him into the hall. After which, catchpole, well stuffed and moistened, came with Oudart to the place where all the actors in the farce stood ready to begin. The sight of their game set them a-laugh- ing, and the messenger of mischief grinned also for company's sake. Then the mysterious words x were muttered to and by the couple, their hands joined, the bride bussed, and all besprinkled with holy water. While they were bringing wine and kick- shaws, thumps began to trot about by dozens. The catchpole gave the levite several blows. Oudart, who had his gauntlet hid under his canonical shirt, draws it on like a mitten, and then, with his clenched -fist, souse he fell on the catchpole, and mauled him like a devil : the junior gauntlets dropped on him likewise like so many battering- rams. Remember the wedding by this, by that, by these blows, said they. In short, they stroked him so to the purpose, that he pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and was bruised, thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck, breast, arms, and so forth. Never did the bachelors at Avignon, in carnival time, play more melodiously at raphe, than was then played on the catchpole's microcosm : at last down he fell. They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of his doublet a fine yellow and green favour, and got him upon his snotty beast, and God knows how he got to L'Isle Bouchart ; where I cannot truly tell you whether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by his spouse and the able 1 Sacramental words. 9 o chap, xiv.] Pantagruel doctors of the country ; for the thing never came to my ears. The next day they had a third part to the same tune, because it did not appear by the lean catch- pole's bag, that he had served his writ. So the fat prior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums, for his garde du corps, to summon my lord. The porter ringing the bell, the whole family was overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue. Basche was at dinner with his lady and the gentle- men ; so he sent for the catchpole, made him sit by him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat till their bellies cracked with their breeches unbuttoned. The fruit being served, the catchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited Basche. Basche kindly asked him for a copy of the warrant, which the other had got ready : he then takes witness, and a copy of the summons. To the catchpole and his bums he ordered four ducats for civility money. In the meantime all were with- drawn for the farce. So Trudon gave the alarm with his tabor. Basche desired the catchpole to stay and see one of his servants married, and witness the contract of marriage, paying him his fee. The catchpole slap dash was ready, took out his ink-horn, got paper immediately, and his bums by him. Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with the gentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements. Oudart, in pontificalibus, takes them both by their hands, asketh them their will, giveth -them the matrimonial blessing, and was very liberal of holy water. The contract written, signed, and registered, on one side was brought wine and comfits ; on the other, white and orange-tawny- coloured favours were distributed : on another, gauntlets privately handed about. 9 1 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. CHAPTER XV HOW THE ANCIENT CUSTOM AT NUPTIALS IS RENEWED BY THE CATCHPOLE The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of Breton wine, said to Basche, Pray, Sir, what do you mean ? You do not give one another the memento of the wedding. By St Joseph's wooden shoe, all good customs are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is scampered ; and the nest, but the birds are flown. There are no true friends nowadays. You see how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling, on account of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, 1 is come to nothing. The world is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Now 1 It was formerly a custom throughout France, and is still in some parts of it, to make, in the parish church, about seven o'clock in the evening for the nine days next before Christmas day, certain prayers or anthems called the Christmas O O's, because in the books which prescribe these anthems they begin with O O, as ' O sapientia, O adonai, O radix,' etc. To him that was last married in the parish, especially if he be one in good circumstances, is carried a very large O, represented in burnished gold on a large piece of very thick parchment, with several ornaments of gold or other fine colours. This O was every evening of the nine days put on the top of the lutrin ; there stayed the O all the time that the anthem was singing. The person to whom the O had been sent, was wont, in return, to make a present of a piece of money to the curate, who, on his part, spent some of it in regaling his friends. After the holidays, the O was carried back to the new-married man, who set it up in the most honourable place of his house. It was this ancient custom the catchpole laments the loss of, because most commonly he had a share in the booty, either from the curate or the married man. 92 chap, xv.] Pantagruel come on ; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding ; remember it by this. This he said, striking Basche and his lady ; then her women and the levite. Then the tabor beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty : insomuch that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine places. One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other his upper jawbone or mandibule dis- located ; so that it hid half his chin, with a denuda- tion of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory, and canine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat ; the gauntlets were carefully hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of the eompany. So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpole and his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell, complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincorniiistibulated his nether shoulder- blade. Nevertheless, he scorned to be thought a flincher, and made shift to tope to him on the square. The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by signs begged his pardon ; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom made his moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with his shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow, that he was grown quite esperruquanchuzelu- belouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no small loss of mistress bride. But what harm had poor I done ? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with his kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side : they were not satisfied with thus poaching, black and blueing, and morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezine- marfreliding my poor eyes, but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed are commonly 93 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. beaten at weddings, — and it is fit they should ; but drummers are well entertained, and never beaten. Now let Belzebub even take the drum, to make his devilship a nightcap. 2 Brother, said the lame catch- pole, never fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine, large, old patent, which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum, and for Madame St Ann's sake I pray thee forgive us. By Our Lady of Riviere, the blessed dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn. One of the querries, who hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limping Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the pouting jaw, and told him, What, Mr Manhound, was it not enough thus to have morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapo- pondrillated us all in our upper members with, your botched mittens, but you must also apply such morderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurint- impaniments on our shin-bones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled shoes. Do you call this children's play ? By the mass ! it is no jest. The bum, wringing his hands, seemed to beg his pardon, muttering with his tongue, Mon, mon, mon, vrelon, von, von, like a dumb man. The bride crying laughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not satisfied with drubbing her with- out choice or distinction of members, but had also rudely roused and toused her ; pulled off her topping, and not having the fear of her husband before his eyes, treacherously trepignemanpenillorifrizonoufres- terfumbledtumbled and squeezed her lower parts. The devil go with it, said Basche ; there was much need indeed that this same Master King 3 (this was 2 Either top or bottom was beat out. 3 In chap. 5. of 1. 3 of Fceneste, the serjeant of Doue, who came to serve a writ on La Roche Bosseau, is likewise named 9+ chap, xv.] Pantagruel the catchpole's name) should thus break my wife's back : however, I forgive him now ; these are little nuptial caresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me like an angel, and drubbed me like a devil.4 He hath something in him of Friar Thump- well. Come, for all this, I must drink to him, and to you likewise his trusty esquires. But, said his lady, why hath he been so very liberal of his manual kindness to me, without the least provocation ? I assure you, I by no means like it: but this I dare say for him, that he hath the hardest knuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders. The steward held his left arm in a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain : I think it was the devil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials ; shame on ill luck ; I musts needs be meddling with a pox, and now see what I have got by the bargain, both my arms are wretchedly engoulevezinemassed and bruised. Do you call this a wedding ? By St Bridget's tooth, I had rather be at that of a Tom Turdman. This is, on my word, even just such another feast as was that of the Lapithae, described by the philosopher 5 of Samosata. One of the bums had lost his tongue. The two others, though they had more need to complain, made their excuse as well as they could, protesting that they had no ill design in this dumbfounding ; begging that, for goodness' sake, they would forgive them ; and so, though they could hardly budge a foot, or wag along, away they crawled. About a mile from Monsieur le Roy (Mr King,) either because all of that profession execute their commission in the king's name, or because, as is said before, he that strikes one of them had as good strike the king. 4 They call the ushers and Serjeants angels of the court. To drub, dauber, from delapare, is properly what that angel of Satan did who buffeted St Paul. 5 Lucian, in his Lapithae. 95 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Basche's seat, the catchpole found himself somewhat out of sorts. The bums got to L'Isle Bouchart, publicly saying, that since they were born, they had never seen an honester gentleman than the Lord of Basche, or civiller people than his, and that they had never been at the like wedding (which I verily believe); but that it was their own faults if they had been tickled off, and tossed about from post to pillar, since themselves had begun the beating. So they lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after this. But from that time to this it was held for a certain truth, that Basche's money was more pesti- lential, mortal, and pernicious to the catchpoles and bums, than were formerly the aurum Tholosanum 6 and the Seian horse to those that possessed them. Ever since this, he lived quietly, and Basche's wedding grew into a common proverb. 7 CHAPTER XVI HOW FRIAR JOHN MADE TRIAL OF THE NATURE OF THE CATCHPOLES This story would seem pleasant enough, said Pantagruel, were we not to have always the fear of God before our eyes. It had been better, said Epistemon, if those gauntlets had fallen upon the fat prior. Since he took a pleasure in spending his money partly to vex Basche, partly to see those 6 See Cicero, de Nat, Deorum, 1. 3 ; Justin, 1. 22. 5 Strabo, 1. 4. It became a Latin proverb. 7 See d'Aubigne, Baron de Fceneste, 1. 3, c. 5. 96 chap, xvi.] Pantagruel catchpoles banged, good lusty thumps would have done well on his shaven crown, considering the horrid concussions nowadays among those puny judges. What harm had done those poor devils the catchpoles ? This puts me in mind, said Panta- gruel, of an ancient Roman named L. Neratius. 1 He was of noble blood, and for some time was rich ; but had this tyrannical inclination, that whenever he went out of doors, he caused his servants to fill their pockets with gold and silver, and meeting inj the street your spruce gallants and better sort of beaux, without the least provocation, for his fancy, he used to strike them hard on the face with his fist ; and immediately after that, to appease them, and hinder them from complaining to the magistrates, he would give them as much money as satisfied them according to the law of the twelve tables. Thus he used to spend his revenue, beating people for the price of his money. By St Bennet's sacred boot, quoth Friar John, I will know the truth of it presently. This said, he went on shore, put his hand in his fob, and took out twenty ducats ; then said with a loud voice, in the hearing of a shoal of the nation of catchpoles, Who will earn twenty ducats, for being beaten like the devil ? Io, Io, Io, said they all : you will cripple us for ever, sir, that is most certain ; but the money is tempting. With this they were all thronging who should be first, to be thus preciously beaten. Friar John singled him out of the whole knot of these rogues in grain, a red-snouted catch- pole, who upon his right thumb wore a thick, broad silver hoop, wherein was set a good large toad-stone. He had no sooner picked him out from the rest, but I perceived that they all muttered and grumbled ; 1 See Aulus Gellius, 1. 20, c. 1. VOL. IV. 97 G Rabelais' Works [Book iv. and I heard a young thin-jawed catchpole, a notable scholar, a pretty fellow at his pen, and, according to public report, much cried up for his honesty to Doctors - Commons, 2 making his complaint, and muttering, because this same crimson iphiz carried away all the practice; and that if there were but a score and a half of bastinadoes 3 to be got, he would certainly run away with eight-and-twenty of them. But all this was looked upon to be nothing but mere envy. Friar John so unmercifully thrashed, thumped, and belaboured Red-snout, back and belly, sides, legs, and arms, head, feet, and so forth, with the home and frequently repeated application of one of the best members of a faggot, that I took him to be a dead man : then he gave him the twenty ducats; which made the dog get on his legs, pleased like a little king or two. The rest were saying to Friar John, Sir, sir, brother devil, if it please you to do us the favour to beat some of us for less money, we are all at your devilship's command, bags, papers, pens, and all. Red-snout cried out against them, saying, with a loud voice, Body of me, you little prigs, will you offer to take the bread out of my mouth ? will you take my bargain over my head ? would you draw and inveigle from me my clients and customers ? Take notice, I summon you before the official this day sevennight ; I will law and claw you like any old devil of Vau- verd,4 that I will. Then turning himself towards Friar John, with a smiling and joyful look, he said to him, Reverend father in the devil, if you have found 2 In the ecclesiastical court 5 en court cTecdise: the old way of spelling eglise (church). 3 See Racine, Les Plaideurs, act. i., sc. 5. 4 The palace of Vauvert, built by King Robert, on the actual site of the rue d'Enfer (street of Hell) was abandoned, as a rookery of devils, after the excommunication of its founder. 98 chap, xvi.] Pantagruel me a good hide, and have a mind to divert yourself once more, by beating your humble servant, I will bate you half in half this time, rather than lose your custom : do not spare me, I beseech you : I am all, and more than all yours, good Mr Devil ; head, lungs, tripes, guts and garbage ; and that at a penny- worth, I'll assure you. Friar John never heeded his proffers, but even left them. The other catchpoles were making addresses to Panurge, Epistemon, Gym- nast, and others, entreating them charitably to bestow upon their carcasses a small beating, for otherwise they were in danger of keeping a long fast : but none of them had a stomach to it. Some time after, seek- ing fresh water for the ship's company, we met a couple of old female catchpoles of the place, miserably howling and weeping in concert. Pantagruel had kept on board, and already had caused a retreat to be sounded. Thinking that they might be related to the catchpole that was bastinadoed, we asked them the occasion of their grief. They replied, that they had too much cause to weep ; for that very hour from an exalted triple tree, two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cut a caper on nothing. Cut a caper on nothing ! said Gymnast ; my pages used to cut capers on the ground : to cut a caper on nothing, should be hanging and choking, or I am out. Ay, ay, said Friar John, you speak of it like St John de la Palisse. We asked them why they treated these worthy persons with such a choking hempen salad. They told us they had only borrowed, alias stolen, the tools of the mass, and hid them under the handle of the parish. 5 This is a very allegorical way of speaking, said Epistemon. 5 The belfry. A Poitevin word, used only by the villagers of Poictou, in way of metaphor stupid and coarse as themselves. 99 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. On Chaps. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. and XVI.— All these chapters are occasioned by Pantagruel's passing by Pettifogging, and give us an account of the way of living of the apparitors, Serjeants, and bailiffs, and such inferior ministers of the law. Nothing can seem dark in what our author has said of them at the opening of chap. XII., because in Francis the First's and Henry the Second's reigns that rascally tribe had no income so beneficial, as that which came to them from a beating. The nobility thought it so great an affront to be cited, or arrested, by that vermin, that they stood too much on their punctilio, and for that reason they severely used those bailiffs or apparitors who came to them to discharge their office, and who sometimes were sent out of malice. So when the man-catchers, who desired nothing more than to be banged, had been misused, they had swingeng damages to make them amends. Rabelais exposes the folly, villainy, and abuse of this practice on both sides 5 which has been since so well redressed, that if the bailiffs had nothing to depend on but bastinadoes, those necessary evils would long since have all been starved. As the betrothing or nuptials of Basche grew into a proverb 5 so from that Villon, who in the reign of Louis the Xlth. was as famous for his cheats and villainies as for his poetry, came the word villoner, which has been long used to signify to cheat, or play some rogue's trick. I shall have occasion to take notice of him in my remarks on the last chapter of the fourth book. Pantagruel's companions are told of two of the honestest men in all Catchpole-land, who were made 'to cut a caper on nothing,' for stealing the tools of the mass, and hiding them under the handle of the parish. This must be some sacrilegious theft of church plate in those times 5 and, by the bye, we may see what esteem Rabelais had for the catchpoles, since he makes those rogues the honestest in all that country. Friar John says, that this was as mysterious a way of speaking as St John's de la Palisse. De la Palisse is the name of a family in France ; but he means, de P apocalypse. — M. IOO chap, xvii.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XVII HOW PANTAGRUEL CAME TO THE ISLANDS OF TOHU AND BOHU ; AND OF THE STRANGE DEATH OF WIDE- NOSTRILS, THE SWALLOWER OF WIND-MILLS That day Pantagruel came to the two islands of Tohu and Bohu, where the devil a bit we could find anything to fry with. 1 For one Widenostrils, 2 a huge giant, had swallowed every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-pan, dripping-pan, and brass and iron pot in the land, for want of wind-mills, which were his daily food. Whence it happened, that somewhat before day, about the hour of his digestion, the greedy churl was taken very ill, with a kind of a surfeit, or crudity of stomach, occasioned, as the physicians said, by the weakness of the concocting faculty of his stomach, naturally disposed to digest whole wind-mills at a gust, yet unable to consume perfectly the pans and skillets ; though it had indeed pretty well digested the kettles and pots ; as they said, they knew by the hypostases 3 and eneoremes 4 of four tubs of second-hand drink which he had evacuated at two different times that morning. They made use of divers remedies, according to art, to give him ease : but all would not do ; the distemper 1 Rabelais uses a proverbial phrase 5 ne trovasmes que frire^ which properly means, the devil a bit found we there to fry 5 that is, as Duchat observes, we found neither fish nor flesh. 2 Bringuenarilles. — Nose-slitters, says M. Duchat, from the German brechen, and narilles for nasilles, after the Paris manner of pronouncing that word. Cotgrave, from whom M. Motteux takes it, says it means wide nostrils. 3 A sediment in urine. ^ Cotgrave says encoresmes, the signs of urine, especially those that swim on the top thereof. I do not think there is any such word as encoresmes. IOI Rabelais' Works [Book iv. prevailed over the remedies, insomuch that the famous Widenostrils died that morning, of so strange a death, that I think you ought no longer to wonder at that of the poet ^Eschylus. It had been foretold him by the soothsayers, that he would die on a certain day, by the ruin of something that should fall on him. That fatal day being come in its turn, he re- moved himself out of town, far from all houses, trees, rocks, or any other things that can fall, and endanger by their ruin ; and strayed in a large field, trusting himself to the open sky ; there, very secure, as he thought, unless, indeed, the sky should happen to fall, which he held to be impossible. Yet, they say, that the larks are much afraid of it ; for if it should fall, they must all be taken. The Celts that once lived near the Rhine — they are our noble valiant French — in ancient times were also afraid of the sky's falling : for being asked by Alexander the Great, what they feared most in this world, hoping well they would say that they feared none but him, considering his great achievements ; they made answer, that they feared nothing but the sky's falling : however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy with so brave a king ; if you believe Strabo, lib. 7, and Arrian, lib. 1. Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears on the body of the moon, speaks of one Pharnaces, who very much feared the moon should fall on the earth, and pitied those that live under that planet, as the ^Ethiopians and Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever happened to fall on them: and would have feared the like of heaven and earth, had they not been duly propped up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the ancients believed, according to Aristotle's testimony, lib. 5, Metaphys. Notwith- standing all this, poor ^Eschylus was killed by the 102 chap, xvii.] Pantagruel fall of the shell of a tortoise, which falling from betwixt the claws of an eagle high in the air, just on his head, dashed out his brains. Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another poet, I mean old jolly Anacreon, who was choked with a grape-stone. Nor at that of Fabius, the Roman praetor, who was choked with a single goat's hair, as he was supping up a porringer of milk. 5 Nor at the death of that bashful fool, who by holding in his wind, and for want of letting out a. bumgun- shot, died suddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius. Nor at that of the Italian, buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who, in his epitaph, 6 com- plains that the bite of a she puss 7 on his little finger was the cause of his death. Nor of that of Q. 5 Thus far these examples are taken out of Pliny, 1. 7, c. 7. 6 It is to be seen in the church of the monks of St Austin ; and Francis Schottus, a senator of Antwerp, gives it in these words in his travels over Italy : ' Hospes disce novum mortis genus : improba felis Dum trahitur, digitum mordet, et intereo.' Hear a new kind of death, ye goers-by : A cat my finger bit, and lo ! I die. 7 Fut mort par estre mord (Tune chatte, etc. — Instead of mordu y bit, in Rabelais' time they used to say mords; and H. Stevens, p. 144, of his Dialogues * Du Nouveau Lang. Fran. Italianise,' insists upon it, that according to analogy, that way of speaking was right, and ought to be continued. And indeed for proof that they did not in those days say tnordu, but mords, I shall transcribe honest Clem. Marot's epigram, Epousee farouche : epou p . One, married to a country flirt Asseuroit sa femme farouche : *? n 1 v.- u «j *t. a.i_ -> . > ... .. ,.. . Full skittish, said the youth, Mordez-moi, dit-il, s 11 vous cuit : , ?>'*. j -c r u * Tr .. j • „. 1 1 'Bite me, my dear, if you I hurt: Voila mon doigt en vostre bouche. ,, -' i . ' J ., , ' y... . ° ., , » My finger s in your mouth. Elle y consent : ll s escarmoucne ; TTru J n ° » 1 i_-"jf „ A J ,.. /, . , , 3 When all was o er, he asked his Et apres qu ll 1 eust desnoussee, , . , Or ca, dit-il, tendre rosee, Tr J. ,. , .. , > .. n . ; v , 1 • a If anything did stmg her r Vous ay-je fait du mal ains r c , . ' * • ^ ... . . , J J ,.. ,, , She, by a question too, replied, Adonc, responds 1 epousee, ( »J H ; fi ^ , Je ne vous ay pas moras aussi. * ° IO3 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small a prick with a needle on his left thumb, that it could hardly be discerned. Nor of £)uenelault, a Norman physician, who died suddenly at Montpellier, merely for having side-ways took a worm out of his hand with a penknife. Nor of Philomenes, 8 whose servant having got him some new figs for the first course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung ass got into the house, and see- ing the figs on the table, without further invitation, soberly fell to. Philomenes coming into the room, and nicely observing with what gravity the ass eat its dinner, said to his man, who was come back, Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of ours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine to drink. He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased, and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen took that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor of Spurius Saufeius, 9 who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of a bath. Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking his grinders with a sage-stalk. 10 Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk and hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt ; which causes, perhaps, many not to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident. Nor of the painter Zeuxis, who killed himself with laughing at the sight of the antic jobbernol of an old hag drawn by him. Nor, in short, of a thousand more of which authors write ; as 8 See Valerius Maximus and Lucian. 9 Rabelais might as well have called him by his right name, Appius Saufeius, as Pliny does, 1. 7, c. 33, but having a mind to bamboozle his readers, and lead them a wild-goose chase, he chooses to err with Fulgosus, who gives this Saufeius the praeno- men of Spurius, 1. 9, c. 12. 10 A huge toad had just before cast his venom upon it. IO4 chap, xvii.] Pantagruel Varrius, Pliny, Valerius, J. Baptista Fulgosus, and Bacabery the elder. 11 In short, Gaffer Widenostrils choked himself with eating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven, by the advice of physicians. They likewise told us there, that the King of Cullan in Bohu had routed the grandees of King Mecloth, and made sad work with the fortresses of Belima. After this, we sailed by the islands of Nargues and Zargues ; also by the islands of Teleniabin and Geleniabin, very fine and fruitful in ingredients for clysters; and then by the islands of Enig and Evig, 12 11 There are two Bacou-berys on the river Oise. Perhaps the person who relates this comical death of Phillipot Placut was born at one of them ; as writers often assume the name of the place of their birth. 12 Enig (einige) is a pronoun, and signifies any (and I am apt to think our any comes from enig). As for evig (ewige), it is an adjective and signifies everlasting (perhaps too from evig we have our word ever). However this matter stands, the case Rabelais referred to was this. One clause of the treaty between Charles V. and the Landgrave of Hesse was, That the latter should remain in the court of the former among his retinue ohne einige gefangniss, without any confinement ; as much as to say, it was by no means as a prisoner that the landgrave should be obliged to abide a certain time about the Emperor, but purely and only that the conqueror might be sure the conquered would undertake nothing to the prejudice of the said treaty. Instead of the word einige, any, which joined with the particle ohne, without, manifestly means without any 5 the Emperor had got the word eivige, perpetual, slipped into the act. So that the land- grave, who reckoned on being obliged to follow the Emperor no longer than till the agreement made between them was fully executed, was filled with surprise when he was given to under- stand, that by virtue of the word eivige, foisted into the place of einige, he had made and owned himself the Emperor's prisoner for as many years as it should please that monarch to have him continue so. This is the foul play which Rabelais calls the estijHade, or being swinged ofT as it were with leather straps 5 for that is the proper meaning of estifilade. 105 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. on whose account formerly the Landgrave of Hesse was swinged off with a vengeance. On Chap. XVII. — From Catchpole-land Pantagruel comes to two islands, which the author calls Tohu and Bohu y from two Hebrew words, which, I am told, are taken out of the first chapter of Genesis, where it is said, the earth was tohu -va bohu y that is, void, and in confusion, without form or beauty, and, in short, a chaos. This may well be applied to a country that is ruined by war 5 the fury of the soldiers on one side, and exactions of chiefs, many times leaving little or nothing behind them. This makes Rabelais say, that the devil a bit they could find anything there to fry ; which is an expression often used by the French, when they would say, there is no subsisting in a place. The giant Bringuenarilles, or Widenostrils, had taken away the means of frying there by devouring every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-pan, dripping-pan, and brass and iron pot in the land, for want of wind-mills, which used to be his daily food. By this giant we may understand those gigantic bodies of men, vast armies, that bring terror and destruction with them wherever they come ; and in particular, those roaring hectors, freebooters, desperadoes, and bullying hufT-snuffs, for the most part like those whom Tacitus styles hospitibus tantum metuendi, who at the beginning of the war or campaign, live profusely at the husband- man's cost 5 but when the poor boor has been ruined by those unwelcome guests, they even destroy, and in a manner devour, the straw of the beds, and the pans, kettles, and, in short, what- ever comes in their way. Rabelais tells us, that at last Gaffer Widenostrils was choked with eating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven, by the advice of physicians 5 which very well represents the destiny of those swaggering bravos, who, when the war is over, too often either take to the highway, and other bad courses, for which they are choked sometimes for as inconsiderable matters as a lump of butter taken from a higgler 5 or else, being reduced to live obscurely on a narrow fortune, waste and pine away by the chimney-corner, half-starved with their small pittance, and lead a lingering sorrowful life, worn out with their former excesses, the fatigues of war, and old age 5 as little regarded as they were feared much, when by open violence they lived in riot and luxury at the expense of the unfortunate. — Af. 106 chap, xviii.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XVIII HOW PANTAGRUEL MET WITH A GREAT STORM AT SEA The next day we espied nine sail x that came spoom- ing before the wind: they were full of Dominicans, Jesuits, Capuchins, Hermits, Austins, Bernardins, Egnatins, Celestins, Theatins, Amadeans, 2 Cordeliers, Carmelites, Minims, and the devil-and-all of other holy monks and friars, who were going to the Council of Chesil, to sift and garble some new articles of faith against the new heretics. Panurge was overjoyed to see them, being most certain of good luck for that day, and a long train of others. So having courteously saluted the blessed fathers, and re- commended the salvation of his precious soul to their devout prayers and private ejaculations, he caused seventy-eight dozen of Westphalia hams, units of pots of caviare, tens of Bolonia sausages, hundreds of botargoes, and thousands of fine angels, for the souls of the dead, to be thrown on board their ships. Pantagruel seemed metagrabolized, dozing, out of sorts, and as melancholic as a cat. Friar John, who soon perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come this unusual sadness? when the master, whose watch it was, observing the fluttering of the 1 M. Duchat says, and it is manifested by the next chapter, that there was but one sail, which Rabelais calls une orque. An ourk is properly a sea-fish, enemy to the whale, of a prodigious, and, indeed, monstrous size, and almost round, known in Saintonge by the name of epaulart. From the largeness of this fish, perhaps, it comes about that the biggest sort of ships, designed for the ocean, are called ourks. 2 Augustin monks, founded at Rapaille by Amadaeus, Duke of Savoy, 1448, after he had renounced the Papacy in favour of Nicholas V. They are a branch of the Franciscans. I07 Rabelais' Works [Book w. ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began to overcast, judged that we should have wind; there- fore he bid the boatswain call all hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, and cabin- boys, and even the passengers; made them first settle their top-sails, take in their sprit-sail; then he cried, In with your top-sails, lower the fore-sail, tallow under the parrels, brade up close all them sails, strike your top-masts to the cap, make all sure with your sheepsfeet, lash your guns fast. All this v/as nimbly done. Immediately it blowed a storm; the sea began to roar, and swell mountain high: the rut of the sea was great, the waves breaking upon our ship's quarter; the north-west wind blustered and over- sowed; boisterous gusts, dreadful clashing and deadly scuds of wind whistled though our yards, and made our shrouds rattle again. The thunder grumbled so horridly, that you would have thought heaven had been tumbling about our ears; at the same time it lightned, rained, hailed; the sky lost its trans- parent hue, grew dusky, thick, and gloomy, so that we had no other light than that of the flashes of lightning, and rending of the clouds: the hurricanes, flaws, and sudden whirlwinds began to make a flame about us, by the lightnings, fiery vapours, and other aerial ejaculations. Oh how our looks were full of amazement and trouble, while the saucy winds did rudely lift up above us the mountainous waves of the main! Believe me, it seemed to us a lively image of the chaos, where fire, air, sea, land, and all the elements were in a refractory confusion. Poor Panurge having, with the full contents of the inside of his doublet, plentifully fed the fish, greedy enough of such odious fare, sat on the deck all in a heap with his nose and arse together, most sadly cast down, moping and half dead; invoked and called to his ioS chap, xviii.] Pantagruel assistance all the blessed he and she saints he could muster up; swore and vowed to confess in time and place convenient, and then bawled out frightfully, Steward, maitre d'hotel, see hoe! my friend, my father, my uncle, prithee, let us have a piece of powdered beef or pork; we shall drink but too much anon, for aught I see. Eat little and drink the more, will hereafter be my motto, I fear. Would to our dear Lord, and to our blessed, worthy, and sacred Lady, I were now, I say, this very minute of an hour, well on shore, on terra firma, hale and easy! O twice and thrice happy those that plant cabbages! O Destinies, why did you not spin me for a cabbage- planter? O how few are there to whom Jupiter hath been so favourable, as to predestinate them to plant cabbages! They have always one foot on the ground, and the other not far from it. Dispute who will of felicity and summum bonum; for my part, whosoever plants cabbages, is now, by my decree, proclaimed most happy; for as good a reason as the philosopher Pyrrho, being in the same danger, and seeing a hog near the shore, eating some scattered oats, declared it happy in two respects; first, because it had plenty of oats, and besides that, was on shore. Ha, for a divine and princely habitation, commend me to the cows' floor. Murder! This wave will sweep us away, blessed Saviour! O my friends! a little vinegar. I sweat with mere agony. Alas, the mizzen-sail is split, the gallery is washed away, the masts are sprung, the main-top-mast-head dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shrouds are almost all broke, and blown away. Alas! alas! where is our main course? Al is verlooren, by Godt;* our top-mast is run adrift. 3 Low German ; all is lost by God. It is in the original ' tout est frelore, bigoth,' which means the same thing. When IO9 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Alas! who shall have this wreck? Friend, lend me here behind you one of these whales. Your lanthorn is fallen, my lads. Alas! do not let go the main tack nor the bowline. I hear the block crack; is it broke ? For the Lord's sake, let us have the hull, and let all the rigging be damned. Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous. Look to the needle of your compass, I beseech you, good Sir Astrophil, and tell us, if you can, whence comes this storm. My heart's sunk down below my midriff. By my troth, I am in a sad fright, bou, bou, bou., bous, bous, I am lost for ever. I conskite myself for mere madness and fear. Bou, bou, bou, bou, Otto to to to to ti. Bou, bou, bou, ou, ou, ou, bou, bou, bous. I sink, I am drowned, I am gone, good people, I am drowned. the Swiss were beaten at the battle of Marignan, there was a song for four voices, set to music by the famous Clement Jannequin, and reprinted at Venice, by Jer. Scot. 1550, the burden of which was : Tout est frelore, La tintelore, Tout est frelore, bigot. After the farce of Patelin, which has these words in it, they became French, and the late gay Mademoiselle de Limueil sung them as she was dying. Bigot, or by God, is the St Picaut of Panurge, 1. 3, c. 29. Peter Larrivey, act 2nd, last scene of his comedy called Morfondu, calls him St Picot : so, to save the oath, they make the oath itself a saint 5 for there is no such saint as St Picault in reality, nor ever was. IIO chap, xix.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XIX WHAT COUNTENANCES PANURGE AND FRIAR JOHN KEPT DURING THE STORM Pantagruel, having first implored the help of the great and Almighty Deliverer, and prayed publicly with fervent devotion, by the pilot's advice held tightly the mast of the ship. Friar John had stripped himself to his waistcoat, to help the seamen. Epistemon, Ponocrates, and the rest did as much. Panurge alone sat on his breech upon deck, weeping and howling. Friar John espied him going on the quarter-deck, and said to him, Odzoons ! Panurge the calf, Panurge the whiner, Panurge the brayer, would it not become thee much better to lend us here a helping hand, than to lie lowing like a cow, as thou dost, sitting on thy stones like a bald- breeched baboon ? Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, returned Panurge; Friar John, my friend, my good father, I am drowning, my dear friend ! I drown ! I am a dead man, my dear father in God, I am a dead man, my friend: your cutting hanger cannot save me from this : alas ! alas ! we are above ela. 1 Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges. Be, be, be, bou, bous. Alas ! we are now above g sol re ut. I sink, I sink, ha, my father, my uncle, my all. The water is got into my shoes by the collar; bous, bous, bous, paish, hu, hu, hu, he, he, he, ha, ha, I drown. Alas ! alas ! Hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, be, be, bous, bous, bobous, bobous, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, alas ! alas ! Now I am like your tumblers, 1 Allusion from (helas) alas, to ela, a term in music. Panurge's meaning is, that in their present imminent danger of death, their alas's would do no good. Ill Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. my feet stand higher than my head. Would to heaven I were now with those good holy fathers bound for the council, whom we met this morning, 2 so godly, so fat, so merry, so plump, and comely. Holos, bolos, holas, holas, alas ! This devilish wave {mea culpa Deus), I mean this wave of God, 3 will sink our vessel. Alas, Friar John, my father, my friend, confession. Here I am down on my knees; confiteor; your holy blessing. Come hither and be damned, thou pitiful devil, and help us, said Friar John, — who fell a-swearing and cursing like a tinker, — in the name of thirty legions of black devils, come; will you come ! Do not let us swear at this time, said Panurge; holy father, my friend, do not swear, I beseech you; to-morrow as much as you please. Holos, holas, alas, our ship leaks. I drown, alas, alas ! I will give eighteen hundred thousand crowns to any one that will set me on shore, all bewrayed and bedaubed as I am now. If ever there was a man in my country in the like pickle. Confiteor, alas ! a word or two of testament or codicil at least. A thousand devils seize the cuckoldy cow-hearted mongrel, cried Friar John. Ods belly, art thou talk- ing here of making thy will, now we are in danger, and it behoveth us to bestir our stumps lustily, or never ? Wilt thou come, ho devil ? Midshipman, my friend; O the rare lieutenant; here Gymnast, here on the poop. We are, by the mass, all beshit now, our light is out. This is hastening to the devil as fast as it can. Alas, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, alas, alas, alas, alas, said Panurge, was it here we were 2 Add in the ork, dedans Vorque. This confirms M. Duchat's assertion, that there was but one sail loaded with monks. See the first line of the preceding chapter. 3 Panurge, who had just uttered a profane expression, corrects himself in complaisance to a friend, who represents to him the danger they are all in. 112 chap, xix.] Pantagruel born to perish ? Oh ! ho ! good people, I drown, I die. Consummatum est. I am sped — Magna, gna, gna, said Friar John. Fye upon him, how ugly the shitten howler looks. Boy, younker, see hoyh. Mind the pumps, or the devil choke thee. Hast thou hurt thyself? Zoons, here fasten it to one of these blocks. On this side, in the devil's name, hay — so my boy. Ah, Friar John, said Panurge, good ghostly father, dear friend, do not let us swear, you sin.* Oh ho, oh ho, be, be, be, bous, bous, bhous, I sink, I die, my friends. I die in charity with all the world. Farewell, in mantis. Bohus, bohous, bhousow- auswaus. St Michael of Aure ! St Nicholas ! now, now or never, I here make you a solemn vow, and to our Saviour, that if you stand by me this time, I mean if you set me ashore out of this danger, I will build you a fine large little chapel or two, between Cande and Monsoreau, 4 where neither cow nor calf shall feed. Oh ho, oh ho. Above eighteen pail- fuls or two of it are got down my gullet; bous, bhous, bhous, bhous, how damned bitter and salt it is ! By the virtue, said Friar John, of the blood, the flesh, the belly, the head, if I hear thee again howling, 5 4 Panurge would say, a fine large chapel, or two little ones, but fear had disordered his sense. What he adds, viz., Where neither cow nor calf shall feed, alludes to the proverb : ' Entre Cande et Monsoreau La ne paist brebis ne veau.' Between Cande and Montsorrow, There feeds nor sheep, nor calf, nor cow. By this proverb we are informed that there is but a very small extent of land, and that too very barren, between the manor of Monsoreau and the village of Cande, which are only parted by the Vienne, and the sands on each side of that river. 5 It runs thus in Rabelais, If I hear thee again pieping like a chicken, I will scratch thy back worse than a file. VOL. IV. 113 H Rabelais' Works [Book iv. thou cuckoldy cur, I will maul thee worse than any sea-wolf. Ods fish, why do not we take him up by the lugs and throw him overboard to the bottom of the sea ? Here, sailor, ho honest fellow. Thus, thus, my friend, hold fast above. In truth here is a sad lightning and thundering; I think that all the devils are got loose; it is holiday with them; or else Madame Proserpine is in child's labour: all the devils dance a morrice. CHAPTER XX HOW THE PILOTS WERE FORSAKING THEIR SHIPS IN THE GREATEST STRESS OF WEATHER Oh, said Panurge, you sin, Friar John, my former crony ! former, I say, for at this time I am no more, you are no more. It goes against my heart to tell it you : for I believe this swearing doth your spleen a great deal of good ; as it is a great ease to a wood- cleaver to cry hem at every blow ; and as one who plays at nine pins is wonderfully helped, if, when he hath not thrown his bowl right, and is like to make a bad cast, some ingenious stander-by leans and screws his body half way about, on that side which the bowl should have took to hit the pin. Nevertheless you offend, my sweet friend. But what do you think of eating some kind of cabirotadoes ? s Would not this 1 Mind how our author drolls upon the name of this dish of meat, equivocating to that of the gods Cabiri ; and how amidst a storm he brings in their priests, who were always miraculously preserved in storms at sea, how violent soever they were, says the commentator of Apollonius. These Cabiri were gods highly revered in Samothrace, as being the penates of those islanders. Cabir, in Syriac, signifies potent. Not only the priests belonging in chap, xx.] Pantagruel secure us from this storm ? I have read, that in a storm at sea no harm ever befel the ministers of the gods Cabiri, so much celebrated by Orpheus, Apol- lonius, Pherecides, Strabo, Pausanias, and Herodotus. 2 He doats, he raves, the poor devil ! A thousand, a million, nay, a hundred millions of devils seize the hornified doddipole. Lend us a hand here, hoh, tiger, wouldst thou ? Here, on the starboard side. Ods me, thou buffalo's head stuffed with relics, what ape's paternoster art thou muttering and chattering here between thy teeth ? That devil of a sea-calf is the cause of all this storm, and is the only man who doth not lend a helping hand. By God, if I come near thee, I'll fetch thee out by the head and ears with a vengeance, and chastise thee like any tempest- ative devil. Here, mate, my lad, hold fast, till I have made a double knot. O brave boy ! Would to heaven thou wert abbot of Talemouze, and that he that is were guardian of Croullay. Hold, brother Ponocrates, you will hurt yourself, man. Epistemon, pray thee stand off out of the hatchway. Methinks I saw the thunder fall there but just now. Con the ship, so ho — Mind your steerage. Well said, thus, thus, steady, keep her thus, get the longboat clear — to the Cabiri, but all others of that sodality, were secure in time of storm, though the sea went never so high. As for the dish called cabirotades, or capilotades, according to Boyer, it is a French ragout of remnants of meat. 2 I am afraid I shall punish the reader with puns. But it is the author's fault, not mine. Rabelais concludes this sentence with Herodotus (Herodote) and begins the next with il radote : he dotes. Can there be a more manifest pun than Herodote and il radote, to such as speak French right 5 nay, it is so plain, that the famous Menage tells us (under the word radoter) several have been induced, from this allusion of Rabelais, to believe that radoter properly signifies to tell stories as unlikely to be true, as many things seem to be that are related by the historian Herodotus. "5 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. steady. Ods fish, the beak-head is staved to pieces. Grumble, devils, fart, belch, shite, a turd on the wave. If this be weather, the devil is a ram. Nay, by God, a little more would have washed me clear away into the current. 1 think all the legions of devils hold here their provincial chapter, or are poll- ing, canvassing, and wrangling for the election of a new rector. Starboard ; well said. Take heed ; have a care of your noddle, lad, in the devil's name. So ho, starboard, starboard. Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, cried Panurge, bous, bous, be, be, be, bous, bous, I am lost. I see neither heaven nor earth; of the four elements we have here only fire and water left. Bou, bou, bou, bous, bous, bous. Would it were the pleasure of the worthy divine bounty, that I were at this present hour in the close at Seville, or at Inno- cent's, the pastry-cook, over against the painted wine vault at Chinon, though I were to strip to my doublet, and bake the petti-pasties myself. Honest man, could not you throw me ashore ? you can do a world of good things, they say. I give you all Salmigondinois, and my large shore full of whelks, cockles, and periwinkles, if, by your industry, I ever set foot on firm ground. Alas, alas, I drown. Harkee, my friends, since we cannot get safe into port, let us come to an anchor into some road, no matter whither. Drop all your anchors; let us be out of danger, I beseech you. Here, honest tar, get you into the chains, and heave the lead, if it please you. Let us know how many fathom water we are in. Sound, friend, in the Lord Harry's name. Let us know whether a man might here drink easily, without stooping. I am apt to believe one might. Helm a-lee, hoh, cried the pilot. Helm a-lee; a hand or two at the helm; about ships with her; helm a-lee, helm a-lee. Stand off from the leech of the 116 chap, xx.] Pantagruel sail. Hoh ! belay, here make fast below; hoh, helm a-lee, lash sure the helm a-lee, and let her drive. Is it come to that? said Pantagruel: our good Saviour then help us. Let her lie under the sea, cried James Brahier, our chief mate, let her drive. To prayers, to prayers, let all think on their souls, and fall to prayers; nor hope to escape but by a miracle. Let us, said Panurge, make some good pious kind of vow: alas, alas, alas ! bou, bou, be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, oho, oho, oho, oho, let us make a pilgrim: come, come, let every man club his penny towards it, come on. Here, here, on this side, said Friar John, in the devil's name. Let her drive, for the Lord's sake un- hang the rudder: hoh, let her drive, let her drive, and let us drink, I say, of the best and most cheering; do you hear, steward, produce, exhibit; for, do you see? this and all the rest will as well go to the devil out of hand. A pox on that wind-broker ^Eolus, with his fluster-blusters. Sirrah, page, bring me here my drawer (for so he called his breviary) ; stay a little here, haul, friend, thus. Odzoons, here is a deal of hail and thunder to no purpose. Hold fast above, I pray you. When have we All Saints day ? I believe it is the unholy holiday of all the devil's crew. Alas, said Panurge, Friar John damns himself here as black as buttermilk for the nonce. Oh what a good friend I lose in him. Alas, alas, this is another-gats bout than last year's. We are falling out of Scylla into Charybdis. Oho ! I drown. Confiteor; one poor word or two by way of testament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr Abstractor, my crony, my Achates, Xenomanes, my all. Alas, I drown; two words of testament here upon this ladder. 117 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. CHAPTER XXI A CONTINUATION OF THE STORM, WITH A SHORT DIS- COURSE ON THE SUBJECT OF MAKING TESTAMENTS AT SEA To make one's last will, said Epistemon, at this time that we ought to bestir ourselves and help our sea- men, on the penalty of being drowned, seems to me as idle and ridiculous a maggot as that of some of Caesar's men, who, at their coming into the Gauls, were mightily busied in making wills and codicils; bemoaned their fortune, and the absence of their spouses and friends at Rome; when it was absolutely necessary for them to run to their arms, and use their utmost strength against Ariovistus, their enemy. This also is to be as silly, as that jolt-headed loblolly of a carter, who, having laid his waggon fast in a slough, down on his marrow-bones, was calling on the strong-backed deity, Hercules, might and main, to help him at a dead lift, but all the while forgot to goad on his oxen, and lay his shoulder to the wheels, as it behoved him: as if a Lord have mercy upon us, alone, would have got his cart out of the mire. What will it signify to make your will now ? for either we shall come off or drown for it. If we escape, it will not signify a straw to us; for testa- ments are of no value or authority, but by the death of the testators. If we are drowned, will it not be drowned too ? Prythee who will transmit it to the executors ? Some kind wave will throw it ashore, like Ulysses, replied Panurge; and some king's daughter, going to fetch a walk in the fresco, on the evening, will find it, and take care to have it proved 118 chap, xxi.] Pantagruel and fulfilled; nay, and have some stately cenotaph erected to my memory, as Dido had to that of her good man Sichaeus; 1 ^Eneas to Deiphobus, 2 upon the Trojan shore, near Rhcete; Andromache to Hector, 3 in the city of Buthrotus; Aristotle to Hermias and Eubulus;4 the Athenians to the poet Euripides; the Romans to Drusus 5 in Germany, and to Alexander Severus, 6 their emperor, in the Gauls; Argentier to Callaischre; 7 Xenocrates to Lysidices; 8 Timares to his son Teleutagoras; Eupolis and Aristodice to their son Theotimus; Onestus to Timocles; 9 Callimachus to Sopolis, the son of Dioclides; 10 Catullus to his brother; 11 Statius to his father: 12 Germain of Brie to Herve, the Breton tarpaulin. 13 Art thou mad, said 1 Whence Rabelais had this, I know not. Perhaps he took for a cenotaph, the funeral pile which gave occasion to Dido to burn herself with the sacrifice she had been offering to the manes of Sichaeus. See Justin. 1. 18, c. 6. 2 ^Eneid, 1. 6, v. 505. 3 Ibid. 1. 3, v. 302. 4 See Diogenes Laertius, in the Life of Aristotle. 5 See Suetonius, in the Life of the Emperor Claudius. 6 See Lampridius, in the Life of that Emperor. 7 Read Callaischrus ; KaWaiaxpos. He perishing at sea, the poets, doubtless well paid by his heirs, set themselves at work to make cenotaphs (honorary tombs) to his memory : two of which are extant, 1. 3, of the Anthologia, c. 22. One by Leonidas, the other by Argentarius. 8 Read, Xenocrites. See the Anthologia. 9 See the Anthologia, 1. 3, p. 366, Wechel's edition. 10 See the epigram of Callimachus, Epigram, 22. 11 See the 103rd epigram of Catullus. 12 See the Sylvae of Statius, 1. 5, Epiced. 3. 13 In the year 15 12, on St Lawrence's day, there was off St Mahe, in Bretagne, a great sea fight between the French fleet and the English, who were above two to one in number of ships. [So says M. Duchat of the English.] The English seeing their admiral in danger, threw fire into that of France, commanded by Captain Herve, a Breton. He, after having in vain endeavoured to save his ship, finding the loss of her inevitable, grappled with 119 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Friar John, to run on at this rate ? Help, here, in the name of five hundred thousand millions of cart- loads of devils, help ! may a shanker gnaw thy moustachios, and the three rows of pock-royals and cauliflowers cover thy bum and turd-barrel, instead of breeches and codpiece. Codsooks, our ship is almost overset. Ods death, how shall we clear her ? it is well if she do not founder. What a devilish sea there runs ! She will neither try nor hull; the sea will overtake her, so we shall never escape; the devil escape me. Then Pantagruel was heard to make a sad exclamation, saying, with a loud voice, Lord save us, we perish; yet not as we would have it, but Thy holy will be done. The Lord and the blessed Virgin be with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown; be, be, be, bous, be, bous, bous: in manus. Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safe on shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make shift to sound the harp, if it be not un- strung. Let nineteen legions of black devils seize me, said Friar John, (The Lord be with us, whispered Panurge, between his chattering teeth). If I come down to thee, I will show thee to some purpose, that the badge of thy humanity dangles at a calf's breech, thou ragged, horned, cuckoldy booby: 1 '* mgna, mgnan, the English ship, to which the wind having carried the fire, the Regent of England, and the Cordeliere (Franciscan nun) of France (so were the two ships called) perished with all that were on board. Germain de Brie, in Latin Germanus Brixeus, wrote, upon this occasion, a poem entituled Chordigera (Cordeliere), dedicated to Queen Anne, at the conclusion whereof he raised a cenotaph to the memory of Captain Herve. *4 Mr Motteux here not only mistakes the meaning of the word cornart (for how could Panurge be a cuckold that was not yet married ?) but likewise the rest of the sentence. Rabelais* words are, veau cocquart, cornart, escorne. Veau cornart is an ignorant doctor, who, to procure the more respect, is never seen abroad without his tippet or hood (cornette, in French) to show he 120 chap, xxii.] Pantagruel mgnan: come hither and help us, thou great weep- ing calf, or may thirty millions of devils leap on thee. Wilt thou come, sea-calf? Fie ! how ugly the howl- ing whelp looks. What, always the same ditty ? Come on now, my bonny drawer. This he said, opening his breviary. Come forward, thou and I must be somewhat serious for a while; let me peruse thee stiffly. Beatus vir qui non abiit. Pshaw, I know all this by heart; let us see the legend of Mons. St Nicholas. Horrida tempestas montem turbavit acutum. Tempeste 15 was a mighty flogger of lads, at Montaigu College. If pedants be damned for whipping poor little innocent wretches, their scholars, he is, upon my honour, by this time fixed within Ixion's wheel, lashing the crop-eared, bob-tailed cur that gives it motion. If they are saved for having whipped innocent lads, he ought to be above the — l6 CHAPTER XXII AN END OF THE STORM Shore, shore ! cried Pantagruel. Land ho, my friend, I see land ! Pluck up a good spirit, 1 boys, it is within is graduated ; veau escorne\ an arrant scrub, who has, by his base pranks, already loaded himself with contempt and scorn 5 escomo, in Italian, from whence Rabelais borrows it. 15 Anthony Tempeste, doctor of Paris, principal of Montaigu College, where his picture is still to be seen. Eutrapel's Tales, ch. 26. The Latin verse alludes to this of Horace. 1 Horrida tempestas ccelum contraxit et imbres.' 16 The period interrupted by Pantagruel's crying out he saw land. 1 In the original, couraige de brebis : on with a sheep's courage. The nearer sheep draw to the fold, the more they bleat. [Com- 121 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. a-kenning. So ! we are not far from a port. — I see the sky clearing up to -the northwards. — Look to the south-east ! Courage, my hearts, said the pilot; now she will bear the hullock of a sail: the sea is much smoother; some hands aloft to the main-top. Put the helm a-weather. Steady ! steady ! Haul your after mizen bowlings. Haul, haul, haul ! Thus, thus, and no near. Mind your steering; bring your main tack aboard. Clear your sheets; clear your bowlings; port, port. Helm a-lee. Now to the sheet on the starboard side, thou son of a whore. Thou art mightily pleased, honest fellow, quoth Friar John, with hearing make mention of thy mother. Luff, luff, cried the quartermaster that conned the ship, keep her full, luff the helm. Luff it is, answered the steersman. Keep her thus. Get the bonnets fixed. Steady, steady. That is well said, said Friar John; now, this is something like a tansey. Come, come, come children, be nimble. Good. Luff, luff, thus. Helm a-weather. That is well said and thought on. Methinks the storm is almost over. It was high time, faith: how- ever, the Lord be thanked. Our devils begin to scamper. Out with all your sails. Hoist your sails. Hoist. That is spoke like a man, hoist, hoist. Here, a God's name, honest Ponocrates; thou art a lusty fornicator; the whoreson will get none but boys. Eusthenes, thou art a notable fellow. Run up to the fore-top-sail. Thus, thus. Well said, i'faith; thus, thus. I dare not fear anything all this while, for it is holiday. Vea, vea, vea ! huzza ! This shout of the seamen is not amiss, and pleases me, for it is holiday. Keep her full thus. Good. Cheer up, my merry mates, all, cried out Epistemon; I see already pare Grangousier's encouragement to Gargamelle, Bk. i. cap. vi.] 122 chap, xxii.] Pantagruel Castor on the right. 2 Be, be, bous, bous, bous, said Panurge, I am much afraid it is the bitch Helen. It is truly Mixarchagenas, 3 returned Epistemon, if thou likest better that denomination, which the Argives give him. Ho, ho ! I see land too: let her bear in with the harbour: I see a good many people on the beach: I see a light on an obeliscolychny. Shorten your sails, said the pilot; fetch the sounding line; we must double that point of land, and mind the sands. We are clear of them, said the sailors. Soon after, Away she goes, quoth the pilot, and so doth the rest of our fleet: help came in good season. By St John, said Panurge, this is spoke somewhat like: Oh the sweet word ! there is the soul of music in it. Mgna, mgna, mgna, said Friar John; if ever thou taste a drop of it, let the devil's dam taste me, thou ballocky devil. Here, honest soul, here is a full sneaker 4 of the very best. Bring the flaggons: dost hear, Gymnast? and that same large pasty jambic, or gammonic, even as you will have it. Take heed you pilot her in right. Cheer up, cried out Pantagruel; cheer up, my boys: let us be ourselves again. Do you see yonder, close by our ship, two barks, three sloops, five ships, eight pinks, four yawls, and six frigates, making towards us, sent by the good people of the neighbouring island to our relief? But who is this Ucalegon below, that cried, and makes such a sad moan ? Were it not that I hold the mast firmly with both my hands, and keep it straighter than two hundred 2 See Pliny, 1. 2, c. 37, and the Scaligerana, at the word Noct'iluctf. 3 Read Mixarchagevas ; for that is the true reading. See Plutarch, problem 23, question 63. 4 Rabelais uses our English word tankard, but spells it tan- quart. I23 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. tacklings — I would — It is, said Friar John, that poor devil, Panurge, who is troubled with a calfs ague; he quakes for fear when his belly is full. If, said Pantagruel, he hath been afraid during this dreadful hurricane and dangerous storm, provided he hath done his part like a man, I do not value him a jot the less for it. For as, to fear in all encounters, is the mark of a heavy and cowardly heart; as Aga- memnon did, who, for that reason, is ignominiously taxed by Achilles with having dog's eyes, and a stag's heart: 5 so, not to fear when the case is evidently dreadful, is a sign of want or smallness of judgment. Now, if anything ought to be feared in this life, next to offending God, I will not say it is death. I will not meddle with the disputes of Socrates and the academics, that death of itself is neither bad nor to be feared; but, I will affirm, that this kind of ship- wreck is to be feared, or nothing is. For, as Homer saith, it is a grievous, dreadful, and unnatural thing, to perish at sea. And, indeed, ^Eneas, in the storm that took his fleet near Sicily, was grieved that he had not died by the hand of the brave Diomedes; and said that those were three, nay four times happy, who perished in the conflagration at Troy. No man here hath lost his life, the Lord our Saviour be eternally praised for it: but in truth here is a ship sadly out of order. Well, we must take care to have the damage repaired. Take heed we do not run a-ground and bulge her. S Iliad ist. 124 chap, xxiii.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XXIII HOW PANURGE PLAYED THE GOOD FELLOW WHEN THE STORM WAS OVER What cheer, ho, fore and aft ? quoth Panurge. Oh ho ! all is well, the storm is over. I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is sent on shore ; for I would by all means a little untruss a point. Shall I help you still ? Here, let me see, I will coil this rope ; I have plenty of courage, and of fear as little as may be. Give it me yonder, honest tar. No, no, I have not a bit of fear. Indeed, that same decumane wave, that took us fore and aft, somewhat altered my pulse. Down with your sails ; well said. How now, Friar John ? you do nothing. Is it time for us to drink now ? Who can tell but St Martin's running footman z may still be hatching us some further mischief? Shall I come and help you again ? Pork and peas choke me, if I do not heartily repent, though too late, not having followed the doctrine of the good philosopher, who tells us that to walk by the sea, and to navigate by the shore, are very safe and pleasant things : just as it is to go on foot, when we hold our horse by the bridle. Ha ! ha ! ha ! by God all goes well. Shall I help you here too ? Let me see, I will do this as it should be, or the devil is in it. Epistemon, who had the inside of one of his hands all flayed and bloody, having held a tackling with might and main, hearing what Pantagruel had said, told him : You may believe, my lord, 1 The Devil. The legend of St Martin assigns him the devil for a running footman on a certain occasion. 125 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. 1 had my share of fear as well as Panurge ; yet I spared no pains in lending my helping hand. I considered, that since by fatal and unavoidable necessity, we must all die, it is the blessed will of God that we die this or that hour, and this or that kind of death : nevertheless we ought to implore, invoke, pray, beseech, and supplicate Him : but we must not stop there ; it behoveth us also to use our endeavours on our side, and, as the holy writ saith, to co-operate with Him. You know what C. Flaminius the consul said, when by Hannibal's policy he was penned up near the lake of Peruse, alias Thrasymene. Friends, said he to his soldiers, you must not hope to get out of this place barely by vows or prayers to the gods ; no, it is by fortitude and strength we must escape and cut ourselves a way with the edge of our swords through the midst of our enemies. Sallust likewise makes M. Portius Cato say this : The help of the gods is not obtained by idle vows and womanish complaints ; it is by vigilance, labour, and repeated endeavours, that all things succeed according to our wishes and designs. If a man, in time of need and danger, is negligent, heartless, and lazy, in vain he implores the gods ; they are then justly angry and incensed against him. The devil take me, said Friar John (I'll go his halves, quoth Panurge), if the close of Seville had not been all gathered, vintaged, gleaned, and destroyed, if I had only sung contra hostium insidias (matter of breviary) like all the rest of the monkish devils, and had not bestirred myself to save the vineyard as I did, dispatching the truant picaroons of Lerne with the staff of the cross. Let her sink or swim a God's name, said 126 chap, xxiii.] Pantagruel Panurge, all's one to Friar John ; he doth nothing ; his name is Friar John Do-little ; 2 for all he sees me here sweating and purring to help with all my might this honest tar, first of the name. — Hark you me, dear soul, a word with you ; — but pray be not angry. How thick do you judge the planks of our ship to be ? Some two good inches and upwards, returned the pilot ; don't fear. Odskilder- kins, said Panurge, it seems then we are within two fingers' breadth of damnation. Is this one of the nine comforts of matrimony ? 3 Ah, dear soul, you do well to measure the danger by the yard of fear. For my part, I have none on't ; my name is William Dreadnought. As for my heart, I have more than enough on't ; I mean none of your sheep's heart ; but of wolf's heart ; 4 the courage of a bravo. By the pavilion of Mars, I fear nothing but danger. 2 In opposition to Panurge, whose name comes from fac- totum, do-all. 3 A pleasant comparison between a man, however lucky in marrying, and another that is embarked, and on the sea ; how- ever good the ship be he has under him, yet is he not sure he shall not be cast away. He that in wedlock (twice) ventures his carcase (Twice) ventures a drowning, and faith that is a hard case, says a merry poet. A small book of the Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony, attributed to Antoine de la Sale, was several times reprinted in the sixteenth century. 4 Forced courage 5 for a wolf never turns head to fight, but when he cannot run away with his prey. I27 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. CHAPTER XXIV HOW PANURGE WAS SAID TO HAVE BEEN AFRAID WITHOUT REASON DURING THE STORM Good morrow, gentlemen, said Panurge, good morrow to you all : you are in very good health, thanks to heaven and yourselves : you are all heartily welcome, and in good time. Let us go on shore. — Here, cockswain, get the ladder over the gunnel ; man the sides : man the pinnace, and get her by the ship's side. Shall I lend you a hand here ? I am stark mad for want of business, and would work like any two yokes of oxen. Truly this is a fine place, and these look like a very good people. Children, do you want me still in anything ? do not spare the sweat of my body, for God's sake. Adam — that is man — was made to labour and work, as the birds were made to fly. Our Lord's will is, that we get our bread with the sweat of our brows, not idling and doing nothing, like this tatterdamallion of a monk here, this Friar Jack, who is fain to drink to hearten himself up, and dies for fear. — Rare weather. — I now find the answer of Anacharsis, the noble philosopher, very proper : being asked what ship he reckoned the safest ? he replied, That which is in the harbour. He made yet a better repartee, said Pantagruel, when somebody inquiring which is greater, the number of the living or that of the dead ? he asked them, amongst which of the two they reckoned those that are at sea ? ingeniously implying, that they are continually in danger of death, dying alive, and living die. Portius Cato also said, that there were but three things of which 128 chap, xxiv.] Pantagruel he would repent ; if ever he had trusted his wife with his secret, if he had idled away a day, and if he had ever gone by sea to a place which he could visit by land. By this dignified frock of mine, said Friar John to Panurge, friend, thou hast been afraid during the storm, without cause or reason : for thou wert not born to be drowned, but rather to be hanged, and exalted in the air, or to be roasted in the midst of a jolly bonfire. 1 My lord, would you have a good cloak for the rain ; leave me off your wolf and badger-skin mantle : let Panurge but be flayed, and cover yourself with his hide. But do not come near the fire, nor near your blacksmith's forges, a God's name ; for in a moment you will see it in ashes. Yet be as long as you please in the rain, snow, hail, nay, by the devil's maker, throw yourself, or dive down to the very bottom of the water, I'll engage you'll not be wet at all. Have some winter boots made of it, they'll never take in a drop of water : make bladders of it to lay under boys, to teach them to swim, in- stead of corks, and they will learn without the least danger. His skin, then, said Pantagruel, should be like the herb called true maiden's hair, which never takes wet nor moistness, but still keeps dry, though you lay it at the bottom of the water as long as you please ; and for that reason is called Adiantos. Friend Panurge, said Friar John, I pray thee 1 After bonfire, add, like a father. ' Pendu ou brule comme ung pere,' are Rabelais' words. M. Duchat tells us that Rabelais, by like a father, means like one of the Lutherans, or first re- formers, who in France were denominated fathers (peres, in French), because in those days, praying in French (as they still do), most of their prayers begin with, Father everlasting (Pere eternel) . VOL. IV. I29 I Rabelais' Works [Book iv. never be afraid of water : thy life for mine thou art threatened with a contrary element. Ay, ay, replied Panurge, but the devil's cooks dote some- times, and are apt to make horrid blunders as well as others : often putting to boil in water, what was designed to be roasted on the fire : like the head cooks of our kitchen, who often lard partridges, queests, and stock-doves, with intent to roast them, one would think ; but it happens sometimes, that they even turn the partridges into the pot, to be boiled with cabbages, the queests with leek pottage, and the stock-doves with turnips. But hark you me, good friends, I protest before this noble company, that as for the chapel which I vowed to Mons. St Nicholas, between Cande and Monsoreau, I honestly mean that it shall be a chapel of rose-water, 2 which shall be where neither cow nor calf shall be fed : for between you and I, I intend to throw it to the bottom of the water. Here is a rare rogue for you, said Eusthenes : here is a pure rogue, a rogue in grain, a rogue enough, a rogue and a half. He is resolved to make good the Lombardic proverb, Passato el pericolo, gabbato el santo? The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ; The devil was well, the devil a monk was he. On Chap. XVIII. and the six following. — These chapters contain a description of a dreadful storm, which Pantagruel's fleet met with. It began immediately after they came up with 2 A distilling chapel, that is, a limbeck. The word chapelle> in the signification of an alembick, is to be found in Nicot and Oudin. 3 The danger once over, the saint is despised. I30 chap, xxiv.] Pantagruel nine sail laden with all sorts of monks, who were going to the Council of Chesil, to sift and garble some articles of faith against the new heretics. This council can be no other but that of Trent, then sitting, in which such sort of articles were framed. The word chesil, by the transposition of a single letter, makes the Hebrew word chelis, three ; whence comes chelism, thirty, which is trente in French : and, if you will keep to the number chelis, or three, the name of that town, which is Tr'identum in Latin, is partly made up of it ; so there is no doubt but in one of those senses the author had a mind to let us know his meaning. The storm in these chapters is undoubtedly the cruel persecu- tion that was raised in France in the reign of Henry II. It began in 1548, by a kind of inquisition to prosecute the Lutherans. These are Du Tillet's words about it. It was ordered that the judges should meet in an extraordinary manner at Paris, to take particular cognisance of the cases of the heretics. Some wretches suffered cruel punishment, inflicted by that assembly with the utmost rigour. During that storm Pantagruel shows an heroic steadfastness and constancy of mind 5 Friar John an undaunted courage, and a great activity ; all Pantagruel's household do their best to save the ship and help one another : Panurge alone sits on his tail upon deck, weeping and howling, and says a thousand ridiculous things suggested to him by his fear ; sometimes he wishes him- self with the blessed fathers, whom they met steering their course for the Council of Chesil : presently he proves as great a milk- sop as most of his brother deists do on such occasions, and is most mightily godly 5 then he is for making his will. In short, nothing can be more unaccountable than the vows, wishes, and moans of that maudling coward, till the storm abates, and the fleet comes in sight of the island of the Macreons. Then he plays the good fellow, and is as busy as any six, seeming as resolute and active as he was fearful and unmanly before. The storm begins just as soon as they have been met by monks 5 mention is made in it of the thunder's falling on a part of the ship ; which may mean the ecclesiastical censures, and the Pope's thunderbolts : then, when the storm abates, Friar John says, our devils began to scamper. I will show that by devils Rabelais has meant the monks, and persecuting tempters of the church of Rome. As for Panurge's seeming a Papist in the midst of the storm, it gave us exactly his character 5 for he was doubtless ready enough to make all the grimaces of a rank Papist in the midst of the persecution 5 though, as soon as it was past, he laughed at St Nicholas, the water saint, to whom he had 131 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. promised a chapel, if he escaped, between Cande and Monsoreau, where neither cow nor calf should feed. The word chapel is equivocal in French, signifying a limbeck 5 so he says he will throw one in the river, doubtless that which drowns up all the ground between those two towns, and thus he means to fulfil his vow. Perhaps this is also designed to ridicule the vows and behaviour of seamen in a storm. Pantagruel's holding the mast of the ship tight with both his hands all the while, by the skipper's advice, implies, that as the family of Navarre, and particularly Anthony of Bourbon, was best able to protect the great ones, who were embarked together for a reformation, it was fit he should do it with his power ; and accordingly Du Tillet tells us, that none but miserablcs (poor wretches) suffered. If anyone will say, that perhaps Rabelais did not in this voyage mean any particular persons, I hope at least they will grant he has admirably described the different behaviour of most men in danger, and chiefly in persecuting times. CHAPTER XXV HOW, AFTER THE STORM, PANTAGRUEL WENT ON SHORE IN THE ISLANDS OF THE MACREONS Immediately after, he went ashore at the port of an island which they called the island of the Macreons. 1 1 Some will have this to be Great Britain 5 others will have it take in likewise the province of Bretagne, in France, wherein, as well as in England, the tales of Eutrapel, ch. 33, observe there are still to be seen a world of ancient monuments and singular rarities, as are mentioned in this chapter. The translator of Rabelais into English is of opinion it means England, and no other country 5 but, although it is certain that people live there to a very great age, yet that does not determine the question. The sole reason is, those who in Edward the Sixth's time, to avoid persecution in France, fled into England, found the secret there to prolong a life which they had not failed to have lost in their own country. Again, literally taken, may it not mean the Isle of Wight, which, in the Romance of Perceforest, is called the Isle of Life ? and that romance, which extends its heroes' lives to 132 chap, xxv.] Pantagruel The good people of the place received us very honourably. An old Macrobius (so they called their eldest elderman) desired Pantagruel to come to the town-house to refresh himself, and eat some- thing: but he would not budge a foot from the mole till all his men were landed. After he had seen them, he gave order that they should all change clothes, and that some of all the stores in the fleet should be brought on shore, that every ship's crew might live well: which was accordingly done, and God wot how well they all toped and caroused. The people of the place brought them provisions in abundance. The Pantagruelists returned them more: as the truth is theirs were somewhat damaged by the late storm. When they had well-stuffed the insides of their doublets, Pantagruel desired every one to lend their help to repair the damage ; which they readily did. It was easy enough to refit there ; for all the inhabitants of the island were carpenters, and all such handicrafts as are seen in the arsenal at Venice. None but the largest island was inhabited, having three ports and ten parishes ; the rest being overrun with wood, and desert, much like the forest of Arden. We entreated the old Macrobius to show us what was worth seeing in the island ; which he did ; and in the desert and dark forest we discovered several old ruined temples, obelisks, pyramids, monu- ments, and ancient tombs, with divers inscriptions and epitaphs ; some of them in hieroglyphic char- acters ; others in the Ionic dialect ; some in the Arabic, Agarenian, Sclavonian, and other tongues ; of which Epistemon took an exact account. In the many ages, makes them live so long for no other reason, but on account of his assigning them that island to reside in 5 from whence they are at last forced to be taken, in order to put them into a possibility of dying. 133 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. interim, Panurge said to Friar John, is this the island of the Macreons ? Macreon signifies in Greek an old man, or one much stricken in years. What is that to me, said Friar John, how can I help it ? I was not in the country when they christened it. Now I think on it, quoth Panurge, I believe the name of mackerel (that is a bawd in French) was derived from it: for procuring is the province of the old, as buttock-riggling is that of the young. Therefore I do not know but this may be the bawdy or Mackerel Island, the original and prototype of the island of that name at Paris. Let us go and dredge for cock-oysters. Old Macrobius asked, in the Ionic tongue, How, and by what industry and labour, Pantagruel got to their port that day, there having been such blustering weather, and such a dreadful storm at sea. Pantagruel told him that the Almighty Preserver of mankind had regarded the simplicity and sincere affection of his servants, who did not travel for gain or sordid profit ; the sole design of their voyage being a studious desire to know, see, and visit the Oracle of Bacbuc, and take the word of the Bottle upon some difficulties offered by one of the company: nevertheless this had not been without great affliction, and evident danger of shipwreck. After that, he asked him what he judged to be the cause of that terrible tempest, and if the adjacent seas were thus frequently subject to storms ; as in the ocean are the Ratz of Sammaieu, 2 Maumusson, 3 and in the Mediterranean Sea the 2 In Bretagne, a dangerous passage, because of the rapidity of the currents there. 3 The canal so called, is likewise very dangerous, on account of the numberless banks and quicksands there, which are moving up and down continually. It is two leagues long, and one broad, and separates the isles of Alvert and Oleron. 134 chap, xxvi.] Pantagruel gulph of Sataly, 4 Montargentan, 5 Piombino, Capo Melio, in Laconia, 6 the Straits of Gibraltar, Faro di Messina, and others. CHAPTER XXVI HOW THE GOOD MACROBIUS GAVE US AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANSION AND DECEASE OF THE HEROES The good Macrobius then answered, — Friendly- strangers, this island is one of the Sporades ; not of your Sporades that lie in the Carpathian Sea, but one of the Sporades of the ocean: in former times rich, frequented, wealthy, populous, full of traffic, and in the dominions of the rulers of Britain, but now, by course of time, and in these latter ages of the world, poor and desolate, as you see. In this dark forest, above seventy-eight thousand Persian leagues in compass, is the dwelling-place of the demons and heroes, that are grown old, and we believe that some one of them died yesterday ; since the comet, which we saw for three days before together, shines no more: and now it is likely, that at his death there arose this horrible storm ; for while they are 4 Anciently Attalia, in Pamphylia. It is still very dangerous, but nothing near so much as it was heretofore, by reason of a sea-monster, which, if we believe Villamont in his travels, was wont to infest that part of the sea, till the Empress St Helena, in her return from Jerusalem, from whence she was bringing the nails with which our Saviour was fastened to the cross, threw one of them into the waves there 5 which has rendered that monster so gentle, that it is but seldom he nowadays meddles with any of the ships that come near the place of his abode. See Villamont's Voyages, 1. 2, c. 5. 5 Porto de Telamone, in Tuscano. 6 Cabo de Malvasia 5 anciently Melleum Promontorium. 135 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. alive all happiness attends both this and the adjacent islands, and a settled calm and serenity. At the death of every one of them, we commonly hear in the forest, loud and mournful groans, and the whole land is infested with pestilence, earthquakes, inunda- tions, and other calamities ; the air with fogs and obscurity, and the sea with storms and hurricanes. What you tell us, seems to me likely enough, said Pantagruel. For, as a torch or candle, as long as it hath life enough and is lighted, shines round about, disperses its light, delights those that are near it, yields them its service and clearness, and never causes any pain or displeasure ; but as soon as it is extinguished, its smoke and evaporation infect the air, offend the by-standers, and are noisome to all: so, as long as those noble and renowned souls inhabit their bodies, peace, profit, pleasure, and honour never leave the places where they abide ; but as soon as they leave them, both the continent and adjacent islands are annoyed with great commotions ; in the air fogs, darkness, thunder, hail ; tremblings, pulsations, agitations of the earth ; storms and hurricanes at sea ; together with sad complaints amongst the people, broaching of religions, changes in governments, and ruins of commonwealths. We had a sad instance of this lately, said Eustemon, at the death of that valiant and learned knight, William du Bellay ; during whose life France enjoyed so much happiness, that all the rest of the world looked upon it with envy, sought friendship with it, and stood in awe of its power ; but now, after his decease, it hath for a considerable time been the scorn of the rest of the world. 1 1 Soon after the death of William du Bellay, the Emperor Charles V. forced the Duke of Cleves to depart from the alliance he had made with France ; and as Francis I. was generally 136 chap, xxvi.] Pantagruel Thus, said Pantagruel, Anchises being dead at Drepani, in Sicily, JEneas was dreadfully tossed and endangered by a storm ; and perhaps for the same reason, Herod, that tyrant and cruel King of Judea, finding himself near the passage of a horrid kind of death, — for he died of a phthiriasis, devoured by vermin and lice ; as before him died L. Sylla, Pherecydes, the Syrian, the preceptor of Pythagoras, the Greek poet Alcmaeon, and others, — and fore- seeing that the Jews would make bonfires at his death, caused all the nobles and magistrates to be summoned to his seraglio, out of all the cities, towns, and castles of Judea, fraudulently pretending that he had some things of moment to impart to them. They made their personal appearance ; whereupon he caused them all to be shut up in the hippodrome of the seraglio ; then said to his sister Salome, and Alexander her husband: I am certain that the Jews will rejoice at my death ; but if you will observe and perform what I tell you, my funeral shall be honourable, and there will be a general mourning. As soon as you see me dead, let my guards, to whom I have already given strict commission to that purpose, kill all the noblemen and magistrates that are secured in the hippodrome. By these means, all Jewry shall, in spite of themselves, be obliged to reckoned to have brought into the Mediterranean, and even before the Castle of Nice, the corsair Barbarossa, the Emperor, at that time almighty in Germany, not only hindered the ambassadors, sent by the King to the diet, from setting foot within the empire, but was going to hang a herald they had dispatched before for passports ; so absolute was the Emperor in Germany, after the death of M. de Langey, who, being present in all the diets, never failed to support the glory and interests of France, by representing to the Germans, in those assemblies, their true interest, and the measures they were to take to preserve their liberty. See Sleidan, 1. 15. 137 Rabelais' Works [Book w. mourn and lament, and foreigners will imagine it to be for my death, as if some heroic soul had left her body. A desperate tyrant wished as much when he said, When I die, let earth and fire be mixed to- gether ; which was as good as to say, Let the whole world perish. Which saying the tyrant Nero altered, saying, While I live, as Suetonius affirms it. This detestable saying, of which Cicero, lib. De Finib. and Seneca, lib. 2, De Clementia, make mention, is ascribed to the Emperor Tiberius, by Dion Nicseus and Suidas. CHAPTER XXVII pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls ; and of the dreadful prodigies that happened before the death of the late lord de langey I would not, continued Pantagruel, have missed the storm that hath thus disordered us, were I also to have missed the relation of these things told us by this good Macrobius. Neither am I unwilling to believe what he said of a comet that appears in the sky some days before such a decease. For some of those souls are so noble, so precious, and so heroic,, that heaven gives us notice of their departing some days before it happens. And as a prudent physician, seeing by some symptoms that his patient draws towards his end, some days before, gives notice of it to his wife, children, kindred, and friends, that, in 138 chap, xxvii.] Pantagruel that little time he hath yet to live, they may admonish him to settle all things in his family, to tutor and instruct his children as much as he can, recommend his relict to his friends in her widowhood, and declare what he knows to be necessary about a provi- sion for the orphans ; that he may not be surprised by death without making his will, and may take care of his soul and family : in the same manner the heavens, as it were, joyful for the approaching re- ception of those blessed souls, seem to make bonfires by those comets and blazing meteors, which they at the same time kindly design should prognosticate to us here, that in a few days one of these venerable souls is to leave her body, and this terrestrial globe. Not altogether unlike this was what was formerly done at Athens, by the judges of the Areopagus. For when they gave their verdict to cast or clear the culprits that were tried before them, they used certain notes according to the substance of the sentences ; by €>, signifying sentence to death ;* by T, absolution ; 2 by A, ampliation 3 or a demur, when the case was not sufficiently examined. Thus having publicly set up those letters, they eased the relations and friends of the prisoners, and such others as desired to know their doom, of their doubts. Like- wise by these comets, as in aetherial characters, the 1 From the Greek Qavaros, death ; and it is to this significa- tion of the theta (in the judgments passed by the Greeks) that this verse of Persius alludes. * Et potis es vitio nigrum prasfigere theta.' 2 In Greek, TeX&xris. 3 Rabelais follows the error of Erasmus, who had no correct copy of Asconius to go by. That grammarian says nothing absolutely of what we see here in Rabelais, and in the Adages of Erasmus, chil. i, cent. 5, ch. 56 ; since A, according to him, is the mark of absolution, C, of condemnation, and the two letters N. L., /.£., non liquet, denote ampliation. 139 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. heavens silently say to us, Make haste mortals, if you would know or learn of the blessed souls any thing concerning the public good, or your private interest ; for their catastrophe is near, which being past, you will vainly wish for them afterwards. The good-natured heavens still do more : and that mankind may be declared unworthy of the enjoy- ment of those renowned souls, they fright and astonish us with prodigies, monsters, and other fore- boding signs, that thwart the order of nature. Of this we had an instance several days before the decease of the heroic soul of the learned and valiant Chevalier de Langey, of whom you have already spoken. I remember it, said Epistemon ; and my heart still trembles within me, when I think on the many dreadful prodigies that we saw five or six days before he died. For the Lords D'Assier, Chemant, one-eyed Mailly, St Ayl, Villeneufve-la- Guyart, Master Gabriel, physician of Savillan, Rabelais, Cohuau, Massuau, Majorici, Bullou, Cercu, alias Bourguemaistre, Francis Proust, Ferron, Charles Girard, Francis Bourre, and many other friends and servants to the deceased, all dismayed, gazed on each other without uttering one word ; yet not without foreseeing that France would in a short time be deprived of a knight so accomplished, and necessary for its glory and protection, and that heaven claimed him again as its due. By the tufted tip of my cowl, cried Friar John, I am even resolved to become a scholar before I die. I have a pretty good head-piece of my own, you must confess. Now pray give me leave to ask you a civil question, Can these same heroes or demigods you talk of, die ? May I never be damned, if I was not so much a lobcock as to believe they had been immortal, like so many fine angels. Heaven forgive me ! but this most reverend 140 chap, xxvii.] P&ntagruel father, Macrobius, tells us they die at last. Not all, returned Pantagruel. The stoics held them all to be mortal, except one, who alone is immortal, impassible, invisible. Pindar plainly saith, that there is no more thread, that is to say, no more life, spun from the distaff and flax of the hard-hearted fates for the goddesses Hamadryades,than there is for those trees that are preserved by them, which are good, sturdy, downright oaks ; whence they derived their original, according to the opinion of Callimachus, and Pausanias in Phoci. With whom concurs Martianus Capella. As for the demigods, fauns, satyrs, sylvans, hobgoblins, aegipanes, nymphs, heroes, and demons, several men have, from the total sum, which is the result of the diver ages calculated by Hesiod, reckoned their life to be 9720 years : that sum consisting of four special numbers orderly arising from one, the same added together, and multiplied by four every way, amounts to forty ; these forties, being reduced into triangles by five times, make up the total of the aforesaid number. See Plutarch, in his book about the Cessa- tion of Oracles. This, said Friar John, is not matter of breviary ; I may believe as little or as much of it as you and I please. I believe, said Pantagruel, that all intel- lectual souls are exempted from Atropos* scissors. They are all immortal, whether they be of angels, of demons, or human: yet I will tell you a story concerning this, that is very strange, but is written and affirmed by several learned historians. 141 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. CHAPTER XXVIII HOW PANTAGRUEL RELATED A VERY SAD STORY OF THE DEATH OF THE HEROES Epitherses, the father of ^Emilian the rhetorician, sailing from Greece to Italy, in a ship freighted with divers goods and passengers, at night the wind failed them near the Echinades, some islands that lie between the Morea and Tunis, and the vessel was driven near Paxos. When they got thither, some of the passengers being asleep, others awake, the rest eating and drinking, a voice was heard that called aloud, Thamous ! which cry surprised them all. This same Thamous was their pilot, an Egyptian by birth, but known by name only to some few travellers. The voice was heard a second time, calling Thamous ! in a frightful tone ; and none making answer, but trembling, and remaining silent, the voice was heard a third time, more dreadful than before. This caused Thamous to answer : Here am I ; what dost thou call me for ? What wilt thou have me do ? Then the voice, louder than before, bid him publish, when he should come to Palodes, that the great god Pan was dead. Epitherses related that all the mariners and passengers, having heard this, were extremely amazed and frighted ; and that consulting among themselves, whether they had best conceal or divulge what the voice had enjoined ; Thamous said, his advice was, that if they happened to have a fair wind, they should proceed without mentioning a word of it, but if they chanced to be becalmed, he would publish what he had heard. Now when they were near Palodes, they had no wind, neither 142 chap, xxviii.] Pantagruel were they in any current. Thamous then getting up on the top of the ship's forecastle, and casting his eyes on the shore, said that he had been com- manded to proclaim that the great god Pan was dead. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when deep groans, great lamentations, and doleful shrieks, not of one person, but of many together, were heard from the land. The news of this — many being present — was soon spread at Rome ; insomuch that Tiberius, who was then emperor, sent for this Thamous, and having heard him, gave credit to his words. And inquir- ing of the learned in his court, and at Rome, who was that Pan? he found by their relation that he was the son of Mercury and Penelope, as Herodotus and Cicero in his third book of the Nature of the Gods had written before. For my part, I understand it of that great saviour of the faithful, who was shamefully put to death at Jerusalem, by the envy and wickedness of the doctors, priests, and monks of the Mosaic law. And me- thinks, my interpretation is not improper; for he may lawfully be said in the Greek tongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that we live, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in him. He is the god Pan, the great shepherd, who, as the loving shepherd Corydon affirms, hath not only a tender love and affection for his sheep, but also for their shepherds. At his death, complaints, sighs, fears, and lamenta- tions were spread through the whole fabric of the universe, whether heavens, land, sea or hell. The time also concurs with this interpretation of mine: for this most good, most mighty Pan, our only Saviour, died near Jerusalem, during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. H3 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Pantagruel, having ended this discourse, remained silent, and full of contemplation. A little while after, we saw the tears flow out of his eyes 1 as big as ostrich's eggs. God take me presently, if I tell you one single syllable of a lie in the matter. On Chaps. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. and XXVIII.— The island of the Macreons, where the fleet went into harbour after the storm, signifies the island where men are long-lived. Its eldest elderman is named Macrobius, or Long-lived. We are told in the 26th chapter, that it was in the dominions of the ruler of Britain ; consequently it was a safe port against the tempest of persecution, the reformation being openly professed at that time in England under King Edward VI. This causes Rabelais to make his persecuted fleet take shelter there, and to say that men lived long in that island 5 because none were put to death on account of their religion. The ruins of temples, obelisks, pyramids, ancient tombs and monuments, which they see there, denote the decay, downfall, and ruin of Popery, unfrequented, and left in dismal solitude. The souls of the heroes, who are lodged in those ruined mansions, are the true Christians who had cast oft* the yoke of Popery, and of the blind worship of saints, many of them fabulous, to which the superstition of the Papists had made them raise temples, obelisks, and monuments, as formerly the heathens did to their false gods. The old Macrobius says, that the death of one of those heroes had occasioned the storm. By which our author gives us to understand, that troubles and commotions are often raised in kingdoms at the death of those eminent persons who have governed them under their kings ; and probably, he may have had a mind to mark the death of Margaret de Valois, Queen of Navarre, sister to King Francis I., which happened towards the latter end of the year 1549, about a year after the Lady Jane d'Albret, Princess of Navarre, had been married to Anthony de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, Rabelais' Pantagruel. That princess, who had always protected the reformers and the re- 1 When before, 1. 3, c. 2, Rabelais describes Pantagruel as the best little and great good man that ever girded a sword to his side, he seems to hint that the great qualities of that prince were mixed with abundance of others not so great. Here, he makes him weep, out of the constitutional softness of his temper, and the tenderness of his disposition. 144 chap, xxix.-, Pantagruel formed, as has been observed in the preface to the first three books, was not less eminent for her piety, wit, learning, and virtue, than for her royal extraction. CHAPER XXIX HOW PANTAGRUEL SAILED BY THE SNEAKING ISLAND, WHERE SHROVETIDE REIGNED The jovial fleet being refitted and repaired, new stores taken in, the Macreons over and above satisfied and pleased with the money spent there by Pantagruel, our men in better humour than they used to be, if possible, we merrily put to sea the next day, near sunset, with a delicious fresh gale. Xenomanes showed us afar off the Sneaking Island, 1 where reigned Shrovetide, 2 of whom Pantagruel had lieard much talk formerly; for that reason he would gladly have seen him in person, had not Xenomanes advised him to the contrary: first, because this would have been much out of our way; and then for the lean cheer (manger mazgre), 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 1 Vide de Tapinois y in French, means neither more nor less than the habitation of the monks, which in ch. 46 of 1. 3, and in the Prol. of 1. 4, Rabelais calls taupetiers, and their churches tau- petieres ; properly holes which the moles root in the ground 5 because the monks are shut up therein like so many moles (taupes, in French, from talpa, a mole, in Latin). Lent is said to dwell in these monks' convents, where abstinence from flesh is supposed, and ought to reign. 2 Quaresme-prenant. — Rabelais means the beginning of Lent. VOL. IV. 145 K Rabelais' Works [Book iv. hot wardens 3 and muscles; 4 a long-shanked mole- catcher; 5 an overgrown bottler of hay; 6 a mossy- chinned demi-giant, with a double shaven crown, of lantern breed; 7 a very great loitering noddy-peaked youngster, 8 banner-bearer to the fish-eating tribe, 9 dictator of mustard land, 10 flogger of little children, 11 calciner of ashes, 12 father and foster-father to physicians; 13 swarming with pardons, 14 indulgences 3 Grey peas, in the original. 4 Rabelais rather means herrings ; his expression is ung grand cacquerotier (not cacquerolier). Now cacquerotier is cacquerup tier ; one that makes ruptures in cags (or barrels) of herrings, which in time of Lent the cloistral folks are often doing, because it is a great article of their subsistence. 5 Lent is the chief season of the whole year for mole-catching. 6 Hay beginning to be scarce in Lent, there is much of it sold by bottles, or trusses. 7 Lent is mossy, or downy-chinned, because it has not been long on the footing it now is. Demi-giant, because of its length. Of lantern-breed, and with shaven crown, because Lent was first established by the ecclesiastics, whom Rabelais else- where calls lanterniers. 8 Bien grand lanternier, in French, and that is all. On which word M. Duchat observes : Lent makes fools of [lanterne) those that keep it 5 and furthermore, as there are in Lent many nocturnal devotions, there are lanterns then to be seen trotting about in proportion. 9 Rabelais so calls the first day of Lent, because it precedes many other days on which fish is always eaten. 10 Because in many of the Lent dishes there is mustard used. 11 Partly because fasting, and likewise a melancholy bilious diet, in Lent, is apt to make parents and schoolmasters very peevish to their children 5 and partly because during the holy week, the whipping part is redoubled among the cucullated gentry. 12 Both on account of people's going -to church on Ash Wednesday, to have ashes put on their heads 5 and also because in Lent there being plenty of brands on the hearths, then, or never, is the time to reduce the same to ashes, for lye to wash and cleanse their linen with. 13 In ch. 29 of 1. 5. The food people use in Lent engenders the distempers of the whole year. *4 In time of Lent people run a stationing (/.£., visiting the 14* chap, xxix.] Pantagruel and stations; a very honest man; a good catholic, and as brimful of devotion as ever he can hold. He weeps the three-fourth parts of the day, and never assists at any weddings I5 but, give the devil his due, he is the most industrious larding-stick and skewer-maker l6 in forty kingdoms. About six years ago, as I passed through Sneaking- land, I brought home a large skewer 17 from thence, and made a present of it to the butchers of Quande, who set a great value upon them, and that for a cause. Some time or other, if ever we live to come back to our own country, I will show you two of them fastened on the great church porch. His usual food is pickled coats of mail, 18 salt helmets and head pieces, and salt salads; which sometimes make him piss pins and needles. As for his clothing, it is comical enough of conscience, both for make and colour; for he wears grey and cold, 19 nothing before, and nought behind, with the sleeves of the same. churches), to gain the pardons and indigencies each church abounds with. 15 The church forbids marrying in Lent. 16 In Lent, especially towards the end, butchers begin to busy themselves to make skewers; and cooks, laiding-sticks, and the like. 17 It should be a gross of skewers (12 dozen). J' en emportay une grosse. Mr Motteux took grosse for the feminine of gros, large. 18 The original has salt coats of mail, salt casks, salt morrions, and salt salads. On which M. Duchat's note is: all Lent food is high seasoned, and hard of digestion, and the name such meats go by, are those of salades, a sort of head-piece so-called; morions, another sort of head-piece, &c. (though this latter means, like- wise, a small red delicious mushroom, called morillios, salted for winter use). J 9 Lent weather is generally grey and cold; but that is not all Rabelais means. His 'nothing before, nothing behind, and sleeves of the same,' alludes to Saint Francis' rule, enjoining the grey friars to wear no shirts, and to reiterate in time of Lent the discipline (whip) on their naked skin. 147 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. You will do me a kindness, said Pantagruel, if, as you have described his clothes, food, actions, and pastimes, you will also give me an account of his shape and disposition in all its parts. Prithee do, dear cod, said Friar John, for I have found him in my breviary, and then follows the moveable holy-days. With all my heart, answered Xenomanes; we may chance to hear more of him as we touch at the Wild Island, the dominions of the squob Chitterlings, his enemies; against whom he is eternally at odds: and were it not for the help of the noble Carnival, their protector and good neighbour, this meagre-looking Shrovetide would long before this have made sad work among them, and rooted them out of their habitation. Are these same Chitterlings, said Friar John, male or female, angels, or mortals, women or maids ? They are, replied Xenomanes, females in sex, mortal in condition, some of them maids, other not. The devil have me, said Friar John, if I be not for them. What a shameful disorder in nature, is it not, to make war against women ? Let us go back, and hack the villain to pieces. — What ! meddle with Shrovetide ? cried Panurge, in the name of Belzebub, I am not yet so weary of my life. No, I am not yet so mad as that comes to. Quid juris P Suppose we should find ourselves pent up between the Chitter- lings and Shrovetide ? between the anvil and the hammers? 20 Shankers and buboes stand off! god- zooks, let us make the best of our way, I bid you good night, sweet Mr Shrovetide; I recommend to you the Chitterlings, and pray don't forget the puddings. 20 It is Lent (called by the translator Shrovetide), that is the striker and persecutor. The Chitterlings are the sufferers, the party struck and persecuted. I48 chap, xxx.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XXX HOW SHROVETIDE IS ANATOMISED AND DESCRIBED BY XENOMANES As for the inward parts of Shrovetide, said Xeno- manes; his brain is (at least it was in my time) in bigness, 1 colours, substance, and strength, much like the left cod of a he hand-worm. The ventricles of his said brain The lungs, like a prebend's fur like an auger. gown. The worm-like excrescence, like a The heart, like a cope. christmas-box. The mediastine, like an earthen The membranes, like a monk's cup. cowl. The pleura, like a crow's bill. The funnel, like a mason's chisel. The arteries, like a watch-coat. The fornix, like a casket. The midriff, like a montero-cap. The glandula pinealis, like a bag- The liver, like a double-tongued pipe. mattock. The rete mirabile, like a gutter. The veins, like a sash window. The dug-like processus, like a patch. The spleen, like a catcal. The tympanums, like a whirly-gig. The guts, like a trammel. The rocky bones, like a goose wing. The gall, like a cooper's adze. The nape of the neck, like a paper The entrails, like a gantlet. lantern. The mesentery, like an abbot's The nerves, like a pipkin. mitre. The uvula, like a sackbut. The hungry-gut, like a button. The palate, like a mitten. The blind gut, like a breast-plate. The spittle, like a shuttle. The colon like a bridle. The almonds, like a telescope. The arse-gut like a monk's leathern The bridge of his nose, like a bottle. wheelbarrow. The kidneys, like a trowel. The head of the larynx, like a The loins, like a padlock. vintage basket. The ureters, like a pot-hook. The stomach, like a belt. The emulgent veins, like two gilli- The pylorus, like a pitchfork. flowers. The wind-pipe, like an oyster knife. The spermatic vessels, like a cully- The throat, like a pincushion mully-puff. stuffed with oakum. The parastata, like an inkpot. 1 Whoever invented Lent, in Rabelais' opinion, had no great share of wisdom. 149 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. The bladder, like a stone-bow, The cartilages, like a field tortoise The neck, like a mill-clapper. (alias a mole). 2 The mirach, or lower parts of the The glandules in the mouth, like a belly, like a high-crowned hat. pruning-knife. The siphach, or its inner rind, like The animal spirits, like swingeing a wooden cuff. fisty-cuffs. The muscles, like a pair of bellows. The blood-fermenting, like a multi- The tendons, like a hawking-glove. plication of flirts on the nose. The ligaments like a tinker's budget. The urine, like a fig-pecker. The bones, like three-cornered The sperm, like a hundred ten- cheese-cakes, penny nails. The marrow, like a wallet. And his nurse told me, that being married to Mid- lent, 3 he only begot a good number of local adverbs, and certain double fasts. His memory he had like a scarf. His undertakings, like the ballast His common sense, like a buzzing of a galleon. of bees. His understanding, like a torn His imagination, like the chime of breviary. a set of bells. His notions, like snails crawling His thoughts, like a flight of star- out of strawberries. lings. His will, like three filberts in a His conscience, like the unnestling porringer. of a parcel of young herons. His desire, like six trusses of hay. His deliberations, like a set of His judgment, like a shoeing horn. organs. His discretion, like the truckle of His repentance,* like the carriage a pulley. of a double cannon. His reason, like a cricket stool. 2 Alias a mole, is of Mr Motteux's own putting in. Rabelais says, tortue de guarriges: which is a sort of land tortoise, nothing of the mole-kind. 3 During the whole time of Lent, except on mid-Lent day, none, in the Romish communion, are allowed to marry. This suggested to Rabelais the thought of making a match between la Mi-careme, i.e., Mid-lent, and le Careme, i.e., Lent himself; and as Lent, in point of marriages, is barren, thence it comes that, from such a match, can proceed nothing but local adverbs, and certain double fasts: the fastings indeed beginning to increase after mid-Lent, and everybody desiring to know, ivhither they must go \_i.e. y to what church]; whence [from what church] they must come; and lastly through what church they must pass to gain the indulgences. 4 Slow, and attended with great preparatives. '5° Chap, xxxi.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XXXI SHROVETIDE S OUTWARD PARTS ANATOMISED Shrovetide, continued Xenomanes, is somewhat better proportioned in his outward parts, excepting the seven ribs which he had over and above the common shape of men. His toes, were like a virginal on an organ. His nails, like a gimlet. His feet, like a guitar. His heels, like a club. The soles of his feet, like a crucible. His legs, like a hawk's lure. His knees, like a joint-stool. His thighs, like a steel cap. His hips, like a wimble. His belly as big as a tun, buttoned after the old fashion, with a girdle riding over the middle of his bosom. His navel, like a cymbal. His groin, like a minced pie. His member, like a slipper. His purse, like an oil cruet. His genitals, like a joiner's planer. Their erecting muscles, like a racket. The perineum, like a flageolet. His arse-hole, like crystal looking- glass. His bum, like a harrow. His loins, like a butter-pot. The peritonaeum, or caul, wherein his bowels were wrapped, like a billiard table. His back, like an overgrown rack- bent cross-bow. The vertebrae, or joints of his back- bone, like a bagpipe. His ribs, like a spinning-wheel. His brisket, like a canopy. His shoulder-blades, like a mortar. His breast, like a game at nine-pins. His paps, like a horn-pipe. His arm-pits, like a chequer. His shoulders, like a hand-barrow. His arms, like a riding-hood. His fingers, like a brotherhood's andirons. The fibulae, or lesser bones of his legs, like a pair of stilts. His shin-bones, like sickles. His elbows, like a mouse trap. His hands, like a curry-comb. His neck, like a talboy. ' His throat, like a felt to distil hip- pocras. The knob in his throat, like a barrel, where hanged two brazen wens, very fine and harmonious, in the shape of an hour-glass. His beard, like a lantern. His chin, like a mushroom. His ears, like a pair of gloves. His nose, like a buskin. His nostrils, like a forehead cloth. His eyebrows, like a dripping-pan. On his left brow was a mark of the shape and bigness of an urinal. His eyelids, like a fiddle. His eyes, like a comb-box. His optic nerves, like a tinder-box. 15 1 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. His forehead, like a false cup. His mouth, like a horse-cloth. His temples, like the cock of a His face embroidered like a mule's cistern. pack saddle. His cheeks, like a pair of wooden His head contrived like a still. shoes. His skull, like a pouch. His jaws, like a caudle cup. The. suturae, or seams of his skull, His teeth, like a hunter's staff. 1 like the annulus piscatoris, or Of such colt's teeth as his, you the fisher's signet. 3 will find one at Colonges les His skin, like a gabardine. Royaux, in Poictou, and two at His epidermis, or outward skin, la Brosse, 2 in Xaintonge, on the like a bolting-cloth. cellar door. His hair, like a scrubbing-brush. His tongue, like a Jew's harp. His fur, such as above said. CHAPTER XXXII A CONTINUATION OF SHROVETIDE^ COUNTENANCE, POSTURES, AND WAY OF BEHAVING It is a wonderful thing, continued Xenomanes, to hear and see the state of Shrovetide. If he chanced to spit, it was whole When he sneezed, it was whole baskets full of goldfinches. tubs full of mustard. If he blowed his nose, it was When he coughed, it was boxes of pickled grigs. marmalade. When he wept, it was ducks with When he sobbed, it was water- onion sauce. cresses. When he trembled, it was large When he yawned, it was pots full venison pasties. of pickled pease. When he did sweat, it was old When he sighed, it was dried ling with butter sauce. neats' tongues. When he belched, it was bushels of When he whistled, it was a whole oysters. scuttle full of green apes. 1 Long, by much fasting. 2 Boccace, in his Genealogy of the Gods, gives an historical account of some giant's teeth, two whereof were found at Drepano, in Sicily, fastened to the roof of our lady's church there, by two iron chains. 3 The Pope's seal is doubtless meant by this. 152 chap, xxxii.] Pantagruel When he snored, it was a whole When he stepped back, it was sea pan full of fried beans. cockle-shells. When he frowned, it was soused When he slabbered, it was common hogs' feet. ovens. When he spoke, it was coarse When he was hoarse, it was an brown russet cloth 5 so little it entry of morrice-dancers. was like crimson silk, with When he broke wind, it was dun which Parisatis desired that the cows' leather spatterdashes. words of such as spoke to her When he funcked, it was washed- son Cyrus, King of Persia, leather boots. should be interwoven. When he scratched himself it was When he blowed, it was indulgence new proclamations. money-boxes. When he sung, it was peas in cods. When he winked, it was buttered When he evacuated, it was mush- buns, rooms and morilles. When he grumbled, it was March When he puffed, it was cabbages cats. with oil, alias caules amb'olif. 4 When he nodded, it was iron- When he talked, it was the last bound waggons. year's snow. When he made mouths, it was When he dreamt, it was of a cock broken staves. and a bull. When he muttered, it was lawyer's When he gave nothing, so much revels. for the bearer. When he hopped about, it was If he thought to himself, it was letters of licence and protec- whimsies and maggots. 5 tions. If he dozed, it was leases of lands. What is yet more strange, he used to work doing nothing, and did nothing though he worked; caroused sleeping, and slept carousing, with his eyes open, like 4 Caules amb'olifin Rabelais: on which M. Duchat says, cabbages or coleworts, with oil, is a common dish among the people of Gascony and Languedoc, who abound more with oil than butter. Ambe d'oli, avec d'huile, is the true Languedocian word, though Rabelais spells it otherwise. 5 Rabelais says, ' S'il songeoit, c'etoient vits volants et rampans contre une muraille.' If he dreamt, it was whim-whams, flying in the air, or creeping up a wall. Such dreams prove sometimes dangerous, especially to the fair sex, as we learn from Beroalde de Verville's Moyen de Parvenir. Mademoiselle de Lescar, says he, dream- ing one night that she was in a ploughed field, where they were sow- ing such things, she sprung out of bed on a sudden, and broke her arm in straining to catch one of the largest size, as it was falling to the ground. This she confessed to the king's surgeon. 153 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. the hares in our country, for fear of being taken nap- ing by the Chitterlings, his inveterate enemies; biting he laughed, and laughing bit; eat nothing fasting, and fasted eating nothing; mumbled upon suspicion, drank by imagination, swam on the tops of high steeples, dried his clothes in ponds and rivers, fished in the air, and there used to catch decumane lobsters; hunted at the bottom of the herring-pond, and caught there ibices, stamboucs, 6 chamois, and other wild goats; used to put out the eyes of all the crows which he took sneakingly; 7 feared nothing but his own shadow, and the cries of fat kids; 8 used to gad abroad some days, like a truant schoolboy; played with the ropes of bells on festival days of saints; 9 made a mallet of his fist, and writ on hairy parchment 10 6 From the German word stein-bock, i.e., rock or mountain goats, not unlike a roe-buck. 7 In the Sneaking Island rather. En Tapinois. By the crows whose eyes he put out, may be meant the monks, who, the moment they make profession, are to see nothing but with their superior's eyes. 8 Rabelais seems here to point at such monks as long to eat flesh, but are afraid of two things : first, lest their companion should betray them ; secondly, lest the cries of the kid they have a mind to feast upon, should discover them. Monks usually go abroad in couples to visit the sick or to gather contributions for the sick, etc., etc., etc. 9 This is far from what Rabelais means by, se jouoit es cordes des ceincts. Ceinct (from cinctus, in Latin) is one that is girded about or cinctured, as the cordeliers are with a cord (corde, in French) ; with which cord or rope they play, and divert them- selves, when they are within the walls of their convent •, but abroad they trumpet forth its praises, and extol its merit and virtue to the skies. Some of the new editions of Rabelais have it indeed, se jouoit es cordes des saincts : but Rabelais, even in that case, does not allude at all to church bell-ropes, but puns upon the coincidence of sounds between cordes and corps des saincts; as if he had said, they play with the bodies of saints and reliques, and make use of them as ways and means to get money. 10 Took a great deal of pains to no purpose. To write with a pen on hairy parchment, is losing one's labour and time too. 154 chap, xxxii.] Pantagruel prognostications and almanacks with his huge pin- case. Is that the gentleman ? said Friar John: he is my man: this is the very fellow I looked for; I will send him a challenge immediately. This is, said Panta- gruel, a strange and monstrous sort of man, if I may call him a man. You put me in mind of the form and looks of Amodunt and Dissonance. How were they made, said Friar John ? May I be peeled like a raw onion, if ever I heard a word of them. I'll tell you what I read of them in some ancient apologues, replied Pantagruel. Physis — that is to say Nature — at her first burthen begat Beauty and Harmony, without carnal copula- tion, being of herself very fruitful and prolific. Antiphysis, who ever was the antagonist of Nature, immediately, out of a malicious spite against her for her beautiful and honourable productions, in oppo- sition begot Amodunt and Dissonance, 11 by copula- tion with Tellumon. 12 Their heads were round like 11 Or Amodun, that is, says the Dutch scholiast, sine modo, from the primitive a, and the noun modus). A deformed, irregular, enormous thing. Thus, says our author, Amodunt and Discordance were the offspring of Antiphysis, i.e., repugnant to, or against nature. 12 As all the learned men I have hitherto consulted (says M. Duchat) on this pretended ancient apologue, have confessed them- selves to be utterly ignorant who was the author of it : till such time as it is discovered, adds he, supposing it not to be Rabelais himself, which is very possible, I shall only take notice, after Varro, in the fragments of his De Diis; S. Augustin, 1. 7, c. 23, of the City of God 5 and Stuckius de Gent ilium sacris, etc., Zurich edition, 1598 ; I say, I shall content myself with observing, that the Romans who made Tellumon one of their divinities, dis- tinguished him from their deity Tellus in this, viz., the latter, Tellus, according to their theology, was the earth, as to concep- tion, and Tellumon the same earth, as to production. [It is copied from Coelius Calcagninus, Opera, Bale, 1544, folio, page 622.] 155 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. a football, and not gently flatted on both sides, like the common shape of men. Their ears stood pricked up like those of asses; their eyes, as hard as those of crabs, and without brows, stared out of their heads, fixed on bones like those of our heels; their feet were round, like tennis-balls; their arms and hands turned backwards towards the shoulders; and they walked on their heads, continually turning round like a ball, topsy-turvey, heels over head. Yet — as you know that ape esteem their young the handsomest in the world — Antiphysis extolled her offspring, and strove to prove, that their shape was handsomer and neater than that of the children of Physis: saying, that thus to have spherical heads and feet, and walk in a circular manner, wheeling round, had something in it of the perfection of the divine power, which makes all beings eternally turn in that fashion; and that to have our feet uppermost, and the head below them, was to imitate the Creator of the Universe; the hair being like the roots, 13 and the legs like the branches of man: for trees are better planted by their roots, than they could be by their branches. By this demonstration she implied, that her children were much more to be praised for being like a standing tree, than those of Physis, that made a figure of a tree upside down. As for the arms and hands, she pretended to prove that they were more justly turned towards the shoulders, because that part of the body ought not to be without defence, while the forepart is duly fenced with teeth, which a man can not only use to chew, but also to defend himself against those things that offend him. Thus, by the testimony and astipulation of the brute beasts, she drew all the witless herd and mob of fools into her 13 Hardly intelligible. Read therefore as Rabelais wrote it ; seeing the hair is in man like roots, and the legs like branches. 156 chap, xxxii.] Pantagruel opinion, and was admired by all brainless and non- sensical people. Since that, she begot the hypocritical tribes of eavesdropping dissemblers, superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots, the frantic Pistolets, 1 ! the demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva, 15 the scrapers of benefices, apparitors with the devil in them, and other grinders and squeezers of livings, herb-stinking hermits, 16 gulli-gutted dunces of the cowl, church vermin, false zealots, devourers of the substance of men, and many more other deformed and ill-favoured monsters, made in spite of nature. On Chaps. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. and XXXII.— The Sneaking Island, which Pantagruel sailed by when he left that of the Macreons, is the dwelling of Shrovetide 5 by which we must understand Lent ; for the ecclesiastics of the church of Rome begin their Lent before the laity 5 Shrove Tuesday is to them a day of humiliation, and is properly the time when men are shriven ; our author calls it Quaresmeprenant, that is, the beginning of Quadragesima ; in opposition to Mardigras, Shrove Tuesday. His design seems to expose the superstition of the Papists about Lent, and how much the practice of it, their way, shocked good sense ; this made him run on for two or three chapters with an odd description of that ridiculous monster 5 and probably also to secure himself from the informations of his prying enemies, by that mixture of comical-seeming nonsense. For, as in the time of Lent, the superstition, grimaces, and hypocrisy of the Papists are most observable, and they look on it in a manner as the x 4 Under the name of Pistolets, Rabelais alludes to the black and white factions, a sort of Guelphs and Ghibellines, who, about the year 1300, sprung up in Italy, in the little town of Pistoia ; which place likewise gave name afterwards to (pistolets de pGche) pocket-pistols. 15 Rabelais here avenges himself on Calvin, who had attacked him in his work, De Scandalis, published in 1550. 16 Enraige% put/ierbes, it is in Rabelais 5 who does not thereby allude to any herb-stinking hermits, but to a certain monk, a great enemy to our author, whose name was Puy-Herbaut, calling himself Putherbeus ; which, in old French, signifies a well, infected with herbs which make folks mad. 157 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. basis of the Christian religion, it would have been dangerous to have attacked them openly in point. We find that the wise Xenomanes, one of Pantagruel's most experienced companions, advises him not to go where Shrovetide reigned, and says it would be much out of their way to the Oracle of Truth : that there is very lean cheer at this court ; that he is a double-shaveling, banner-bearer to the fish-eating tribe, a flogger of little children, because Papists do penance, and whip themselves then 5 a calciner of ashes, because of Ash Wednesday 5 that he swarms with pardons, indulgences and stations ; which makes the author say, in the 31st chapter, that Shrovetide being married to Mid-Lent, only begot a good number of local adverbs 5 that is, the stations, the churches, and chapels, whither the gulled mob must go, whence they come, and through which they must pass to gain the indulgences. We are told besides, that he never assists at weddings, but, give the devil his due, is the most industrious larding-stick and skewer-maker in forty kingdoms 5 because the butchers have then little else to do but to make some. Lent is an enemy to sausages and chitterlings, because, as well as all other flesh (I mean dead flesh), the people are forbid to taste of any then. Friar John, always daring and hasty, is for destroying Lent 5 but Panurge, still fearful and wary, is not of his mind. Rabelais calls that island Tapinois ; that word in French is generally used adverbially, with the proposition en, to signify an underhand way of acting. Some derive it from the Greek verb TaTreivbu, humilem reddo ; and so it suits with the true design of Lent, to humble man and make him look sneakingly. Besides, Lent, sneaking in some years sooner, and others later, may also for that reason well be said to dwell in Tapinois. The ingenious fable of nature and her counterpart, is brought in to show that those who enjoin things that shock nature, as is the church of Rome's way of keeping Lent, have the confidence to make laws contrary to those of God, and the impudence to pretend to justify them by reason : so Rabelais tells us, that Antiphysis, the mother of Lent, begot also the eavesdropping dissemblers, superstitious pope- mongers and priest-ridden bigots, scrapers of benefices, mad herb- stinking hermits, gulli-gutted dunces of the cowl, church vermin, devourers of the substance of men, and other deformed and ill- favoured monsters, made in spite of nature. — M. 158 chap, xxxiii.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XXXIII HOW PANTAGRUEL DISCOVERED A MONSTROUS PHYSETER, OR WHIRLPOOL, NEAR THE WILD ISLAND About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Panta- gruel spied afar off a huge monstrous physeter, 1 — a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool, — that came right upon us, neighing, snorting, raised above the waves higher than our main-tops, and spouting water all the way into the air, before itself, like a large river falling from a mountain: Pantagruel showed it to the pilot, and to Xenomanes. By the pilot's advice, the trumpets of the Thala- mege were sounded, to warn all the fleet to stand close, and look to themselves. This alarm being given, all the ships, galleons, frigates, brigantines, — according to their naval discipline, — placed themselves in the order and figure of a Greek upsilon ("¥"), the letter of Pythagoras, as cranes do in their flight; and like an acute angle, 2 in whose cone and basis the Thalamege placed herself ready to fight smartly. Friar John, with the grenadiers, 3 got on the forecastle. Poor Panurge began to cry and howl worse than ever : Babillebabou, said he, shrugging up his shoulders, quivering all over with fear, there will be the devil upon dun. This is a worse business 1 A species of whale, seen sometimes off the French coast, particularly towards Bayonne. The Greeks have named this fish Physeter, as much as to say, the blower, on account of the vast quantity of water it blows, as it were, out of a hole in the upper part of his head. 2 This observation on the manner of the cranes flying, is Plutarch's in the treatise where he examines what creatures show most sense. 3 Bombardiers in Rabelais. 159 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. than that the other day. Let us fly, let us fly ; old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan, described by the noble prophet Moses, in the life of patient Job. It will swallow us all, ships and men, shag, rag, and bobtail, like a dose of pills. Alas, it will make no more of us, and we shall hold no more room in its hellish jaws, than a sugar-plum in an ass's throat. Look, look, it is upon us ; let us wheel off, whip it away, and get ashore. I believe it is the very individual sea monster that was formerly designed to devour Andromeda : we are all undone. Oh ! for some valiant Perseus here now to kill the dog. I'll do its business presently, said Pantagruel ; fear nothing. Odds-belly, said Panurge, remove the cause of my fear then. When the devil would you have a man be afraid, but when there is so much cause ? If your destiny be such, as Friar John was saying a while ago,4 replied Pantagruel, you ought to be afraid of Pyroeis, Eous, ^Ethon, and Phlegon, the sun's coach horses, that -breathe fire at the nostrils ; and not of physeters, that spout nothing but water at the snout and mouth. Their water will not endanger your life ; and that element will rather save and preserve than hurt or endanger you. Ay, ay, trust to that, and hang me, quoth Panurge : yours is a very pretty fancy. Odd's fish ! did I not give you a sufficient account of the element's trans- mutation, and the blunders that are made of roast for boiled, and boiled for roast ? Alas, here it is ; I'll go hide myself below. We are dead men, every mother's son of us : I see upon our main-top 4 In ch. 24, Friar John advises Panurge not so much to fear water as fire. 160 chap, xxxiv.] Pantagruel that merciless hag Atropos, 5 with her scissors new ground, ready to cut our threads all at one snip. Oh ! how dreadful and abominable thou art ; thou hast drowned a good many beside us, who never made their brags of it. Did it but spout good, brisk, dainty, delicious white wine, instead of this damned bitter salt water, one might better bear with it, and there would be some cause to be patient; like that English lord, 6 who being doomed to die, and had leave to choose what kind of death he would, chose to be drowned in a butt of malmsey. Here it is. — Oh, oh ! devil ! Sathanas ! Leviathan ! I cannot abide to look upon thee, thou art so abominably ugly. — Go to the bar, go take the pettifoggers. CHAPTER XXXIV HOW THE MONSTROUS PHYSETER WAS SLAIN BY PANTAGRUEL The physeter, coming between the ships and the galleons, threw water by whole tuns upon them, as if it had been the cataracts of the Nile in Ethiopia. 5 The physeter, which Panurge's fear represented to him as lifting up its head higher than the main-top. 6 George Duke of Clarence, whom his brother, Edward IV., King of England, put to that sort of death in Feb., 1477, or, according to the Roman calendar, 1478, through a conceit that Merlin's prophecies were relative to the Duke of Clarence, as the person that would one day deprive his (the King's) children of the crown. [Lanquet's Epitome of Chronicles, 1559 (under date 1478), says, ' George Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward of England, was secretly put to death, being drowned in a barrel of malmsey within the Tower of London.'] VOL. IV. l6l L Rabelais' Works [Book iv. On the other side, arrows, darts, gleaves, javelins, spears, harping-irons, and partizans, flew upon it like hail. Friar John did not spare himself in it. Panurge was half dead for fear. The artillery- roared and thundered like mad, and seemed to gall it in good earnest, but did but little good : for the great iron and brass cannon-shot, entering its skin, seemed to melt like tiles in the sun. Pantagruel then, considering the weight and exigency of the matter, stretched out his arms, and showed what he could do. You tell us, and it is recorded, that Commodus, the Roman emperor, could shoot with a bow so dexterously, that at a good distance he would let fly an arrow through a child's fingers, and never touch them. You also tell us of an Indian archer, who lived when Alex- ander the Great conquered India, and was so skilful in drawing the bow, that at a considerable distance he would shoot his arrows through a ring, though they were three cubits long, and their iron so large and weighty, that with them he used to pierce steel cutlasses, thick shields, steel breast-plates, and generally what he did hit, how firm, resisting, haid, and strong soever it were. You also tell us wonders of the industry of the ancient Franks, who were pre- ferred to all others in point of archery; and when they hunted either black or dun beasts, used to rub the head of their arrows with hellebore, because the flesh of the venison, struck with such an arrow, was more tender, dainty, wholesome, and delicious — paring off, nevertheless, the part that was touched round about. You also talk of the Parti ho used to shoot backwards, more dexterously than other nations forwards ; and also celebrate the skill of the Scythians in that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, an ambassador, that made 162 '>/ chap, xxxiv.] Pantagruel him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, without speaking one word ; and being asked what those presents meant, and if he had commission to say anything, answered, that he had not : which puzzled and gravelled Darius very much, till Gobrias, one of the seven captains that had killed the magi, explained it, saying to Darius : By these gifts and offerings the Scythians silently tell you that except the Persians, like birds, fly up to heaven, or like mice, hide themselves near the centre of the earth, or, like frogs, dive to the very bottom of ponds and lakes, they shall be destroyed by the power and arrows of the Scythians. The noble Pantagruel was, without, comparison, more admirable yet in the art of shooting and dart- ing : for with his dreadful piles and darts, nearly resembling the huge beams that support the bridges of Nantes, Saumur, Bergerac, and at Paris the millers' and the changers' bridges, in length, size, weight, and ironwork, he, at a mile's distance, would open an oyster, and never touch the edges ; he would snuff a candle, without putting it out ; would shoot a magpie in the eye ; take off a boot's under- sole, or a riding-hood's lining, without soiling them a bit ; turn over every leaf of Friar John's breviary, one after another, and not tear one. With such darts, of which there was good store in the ship, at the first blow he ran the physeter in at the forehead so furiously, that he pierced both its jaws and tongue : so that from that time to this it no more opened its guttural trap-door, nor drew and spouted water. At the second blow he put out its right eye, and at the third its left : and we had all the pleasure to see the physeter bearing those three horns in its forehead, somewhat leaning forwards in an equilateral triangle. 163 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. Meanwhile it turned about to and fro, staggering and straying like one stunned, blinded, and taking his leave of the world. Pantagruel, not satisfied with this, let fly another dart, which took the monster under the tail likewise sloping ; then with three other on the chine, in a perpendicular line, divided its flank from the tail to the snout at an equal distance : then he larded it with fifty on one side, and after that, to make even work, he darted as many on its other side : so that the body of the physeter seemed like the hulk of a galleon with three masts, joined by a competent dimension of its beams, as if they had been the ribs and chain- wales of the keel ; which was a pleasant sight. The physeter then giving up the ghost, turned itself upon its back, as all dead fishes do; and being thus overturned, with the beams and darts upside down in the sea, it seemed a scolopendra or centipede, as that serpent is described by the ancient sage Nicander. On Chaps. XXXIII. and XXXIV. — The monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, a huge fish which dies of the wounds given him by Pantagruel near the Wild Island, where lived the Chitterlings, Shrovetide's mortal foes, seems to have a relation to the expiration of Lent 5 about which time in France they have conquered all their stores of salt fish, and after which flesh rules on the tables ; and many are so wild for chitterlings, and other meat, that they get flesh dressed on Easter Eve late at night, and fall to like mad, as soon as the clock strikes twelve : for that reason he makes the fish die near a flesh country. — M. 164 chap, xxxv.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XXXV HOW PANTAGRUEL WENT ON SHORE IN THE WILD ISLAND, THE ANCIENT ABODE OF THE CHITTER- LINGS * The boat's crew of the ship Lantern towed the physeter ashore on the neighbouring shore, which happened to be the Wild Island, 2 to make an anatomical dissection of its body, and save the fat of its kidneys, which, they said, was very useful and necessary for the cure of a certain distemper, which they called want of money. As for Panta- gruel, he took no manner of notice of the monster; for he had seen many such, nay, bigger, in the Gallic Ocean. Yet he condescended to land in the Wild Island, to dry and refresh some of his men (whom the physeter had wetted and bedaubed), at a small desert seaport near the south, seated near a fine pleasant grove, out of which flowed a delici- ous brook of fresh, clear, and purling water. Here they pitched their tents, and set up their kitchens ; nor did they spare fuel. Every one having shifted, as they thought fit, Friar John rang the bell, and the cloth was immedi- ately laid, and supper brought in. Pantagruel 1 Andou'illes, which is the word Rabelais has all along used, is properly a big hog's gut stuffed with chitterlings cut small, and other entrails cut into small pieces, and seasoned with pepper and salt, not forgetting sweet herbs. 2 There is reason to believe, that by the Wild Island Rabelais means culinary fire, fire in the kitchens. The company go thither to dry themselves, and the ships' crews to melt the physeter's fat. What is more ; it is the very element of chitter- lings 5 and, lastly, nothing is so wild as fire is, since it devours everything. 165 Rabelais' Works [Book w. eating cheerfully with his men, much about the second course, perceived certain little sly Chitter- lings clambering up a high tree near the pantry, as still as so many mice. Which made him ask Xenomanes, what kind of creatures these were ; taking them for squirrels, weazels, martins, or ermines. They are ■ Chitterlings, replied Xeno- manes. This is the Wild Island, of which I spoke to you this morning: there hath been an irrecon- cilable war, this long time, between them and Shrovetide, their malicious and ancient enemy. I believe that the noise of the guns, which we fired at the physeter, hath alarmed them, and made them fear their enemy hath come with his forces to surprise them, or lay the island waste ; as he hath often attempted to do, though he still came off but bluely; by reason of the care and vigilance of the Chitterlings, who (as Dido said to ^Eneas' com- panions, that would have landed at Carthage without her leave or knowledge) were forced to watch and stand upon their guard, considering the malice of their enemy, and the neighbourhood of his territories. Pray, dear friend, said Pantagruel, if you find that by some honest means we may bring this war to an end, and reconcile them together, give me notice of it; I will use my endeavours in it, with all my heart, and spare nothing on my side to moderate and accommodate the points in dispute between both parties. That is impossible at this time, answered Xeno- manes. About four years ago, passing incognito by this country, I endeavoured to make a peace, or at least a long truce among them ; and I certainly had brought them to be good friends and neighbours, if both one and the other parties would have yielded 1 66 chap, xxxv.] Pantagruel to one single article. Shrovetide would not include in the treaty of peace the wild puddings, nor the highland sausages, their ancient gossips and con- federates. The Chitterlings demanded, that the fort of Cacques 3 might be under their government, as is the Castle of Sullouoir,4 and that a parcel of I don't know what stinking villains, 5 murderers, robbers, that held it then, should be expelled. But they could not agree in this, and the terms that were offered seemed too hard to either party. So the treaty broke off, and nothing was done. Nevertheless, they became less severe, and gentler enemies than they, were before ; but since the denunciation of the national Council of Chesil, whereby they — the Chitterlings — were roughly handled, 6 hampered, and cited ; whereby also Shrovetide was declared filthy, beshitten, and be- wrayed, 7 in case he made any league, or agreement 3 Cacque is what we ! call a cag, keg, or barrel, or other vessel, to keep salt fish in, and herrings, which two are Shrovetide's chief ammunition. 4 In some editions, Sallouoir. Allusion between the castle of Souleurre, in Switzerland (castrum Salodorense), and saloir, a powdering tub: which is commonly shaped like an antique tower, and the Chitterlings for the most part keep garrison therein. 5 Stinking herring, and putrefied stock-fish, which are in the cags, enough to poison such as come near them, or eat of them. 6 Read, towzed, groped, grabbled, ruffled, tumbled, crumpled, and berumpled. Farfouillees^ godelurecs, etc. It means the council branded the Chitterling-s with infamy, for suffering themselves and the entrails to be so handled. 7 Add unfledged and stock-fishified : hellebrene and stocjise. Hallebrene; incapable of supporting themselves, or flying, like unfledged wild ducklings, called hallebrens. Stocfise\ excom- municated, or headless like a dried cod, which the Germans call stoc-fisch, from a word which in their language signifies a fish without a head. 167 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. with them ; they are grown wonderfully inveterate, incensed, and obstinate against one another, and there is no way to remedy it. You might sooner reconcile cats and rats, or hounds and hares together. CHAPTER XXXVI HOW THE WILD CHITTERLINGS LAID AN AMBUSCADE FOR PANTAGRUEL While Xenomanes was saying this, Friar John spied twenty or thirty young slender-shaped Chitterlings, posting as fast as they could towards their town, citadel, castle, and fort of Chimney, and said to Pantagruel, I smell a rat : there will be here the devil upon two sticks, 1 or I am much out. These worshipful Chitterlings may chance to mistake you for Shrovetide, though you are not a bit like him. Let us once in our lives leave our junketing for a while, and put ourselves in a posture to give them a bellyful of fighting, if they would be at that sport. There can be no false Latin in this, said Xeno- manes ; Chitterlings are still Chitterlings, always double-hearted, 2 and treacherous. Pantagruel then arose from table, to visit and scour the thicket, and returned presently ; having 1 Rabelais, 'II y aura icy de l'asne, je le prevoy/ We shall have the braying scene here, or I am much out. That is, says M. Duchat, there will be a scene of errors, as between the two country-bumpkins, in Don Quixote, who, by their counterfeit brayings, always met each other, instead of meeting with the ass they were in quest of. 2 He quibbles upon andouilks being (doublees) lined with small guts. chap, xxxvi.] Pantagruel discovered, on the left, an ambuscade of squab Chitterlings ; and on the right, about half a league from thence, a large body of huge giantlike armed Chitterlings, ranged in battalia along a little hill, and marching furiously towards us at the sound of bagpipes, sheep's paunches, and bladders, the merry fifes and drums, trumpets, and clarions, hoping to catch us as Moss caught his mare. By the con- jecture of seventy-eight standards, which we told, we guessed their number to be two and forty thousand, at a modest computation. Their order, proud gait, and resolute looks, made us judge that they were none of your raw, paltry links, but old warlike Chitterlings and Sausages. From the foremost ranks to the colours they were all armed cap-a-pie with small arms, as we reckoned them at a distance: yet, very sharp, and case- hardened. Their right and left wings were lined with a great number of forest puddings, heavy pattipans, and horse sausages, all of them tall and proper islanders, banditti, and wild. Pantagruel was very much daunted, and not with- out cause ; though Epistemon told him that it might be the use and custom of the Chitterlingonians to welcome and receive thus in arms their foreign friends, as the noble kings of France are received and saluted at their first coming into the chief cities of the kingdom, after their advancement to the crown. Perhaps, said he, it may be the usual guard of the queen of the place ; who, having notice given her, by the junior Chitterlings of the forlorn hope whom you saw on the tree, of the arrival of your fine and pompous fleet, hath judged that it was, without doubt, some rich and potent prince, and is come to visit you in person. Pantagruel, little trusting to this, called a council, 169 Rabelais' Works [Bookiv. to have their advice at large in this doubtful case. He briefly showed them how this way of reception, with arms, had often, under colour of compliment and friendship, been fatal. Thus, said he, the Emperor Antonius Caracalla, at one time, destroyed the citizens of Alexandria, and at another time, cut off the attendants of Artabanus, King of Persia, under colour of marrying his daughter : which, by the way, did not pass unpunished : for, a while after, this cost him his life. Thus Jacob's children destroyed the Sichemites, to revenge the rape of their sister Dinah. By such another hypocritical trick, Gallienus, the Roman emperor, put to death the military men in Con- stantinople. Thus, under colour of friendship, Antonius enticed Artavasdes, King of Armenia ; then, having caused him to be bound in heavy chains, and shackled, at last put him to death. We find a thousand such instances in history ; and King Charles VI. is justly commended for his prudence to this day, in that, coming back victorious over the Ghenters and other Flemings, to his good city of Paris, and when he came to Bourget, a league from thence, hearing that the citizens with their mallets — whence they got the name of Maillotins 3 — were \ marched out of town in battalia, twenty thousand strong, he would not go into the town, till they had laid down their arms, and retired to their respective homes ; though they protested to him, that they had taken arms with no other design than to receive him with the greater demonstration of honour and respect. 3 Maillotins. — The Parisians had taken these two-headed hammers (maillets) out of the town house, and this happened in 1413. 170 chap, xxxvii.] Pantagruel CHAPTER XXXVII HOW PANTAGRUEL SENT FOR COLONEL MAUL-CHITTER- LING, AND COLONEL CUT-PUDDING ; WITH A DIS- COURSE WELL WORTH YOUR HEARING, ABOUT THE NAMES OF PLACES AND PERSONS The resolution of the council was, that, let things be how they would, it behoved the Pantagruelists to stand upon their guard. Therefore Carpalim and Gymnast were ordered by Pantagruel to go for the soldiers that were on board the Cup galley, under the command of Colonel Maul-chitterling, and those on board the Vine-tub frigate, under the command of Colonel Cut-pudding the younger. I will ease Gymnast of that trouble, said Panurge, who wanted to be upon the run: you may have occasion for him here. By this worthy frock of mine, quoth Friar John, thou hast a mind to slip thy neck out of the collar, and absent thyself from the fight, thou white- livered son of a dunghill ! upon my virginity thou wilt never come back. Well, there can be no great loss in thee; for thou wouldest do nothing here but howl, bray, weep, and dishearten the good soldiers. I will certainly come back, said Panurge, Friar John, my ghostly father, and speedily too: do but take care that these plaguey Chitterlings do not board our ships. All the while you will be a-fighting, I will pray heartily for your victory, after the example of the valiant captain and guide of the people of Israel, Moses. Having said this, he wheeled off. Then said Epistemon to Pantagruel, the denomina- tion of these two colonels of yours, Maul-chitterling and Cut-pudding, promiseth us assurance, success, and victory, if those Chitterlings should chance to set 171 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. upon us. You take it rightly, said Pantagruel, and it pleaseth me to see you foresee and prognosticate our victory by the name of our Colonels. This way of foretelling by names is not new; it was in old times celebrated, and religiously observed by the Pythagoreans. Several great princes and emperors have formerly made use of it. Octavianus Augustus, second emperor of the Romans, meeting on a day a country fellow named Eutychus, — that is, fortunate, — driving an ass named Nicon,= — that is in Greek, victorious, — moved by the signification of the ass's and ass-driver's names, remained assured of all prosperity and victory. The Emperor Vespasian, being once all alone at prayers in the temple of Serapis, at the sight and unexpected coming of a certain servant of his, named Basilides, — that is, royal, — whom he had left sick a great way behind, took hopes and assurance of obtain- ing the empire of the Romans. Regilian was chosen emperor, by the soldiers, for no other reason, but the signification of his name. See the Cratylus of the divine Plato. (By my thirst I will read him, said Rhizotomus; I hear you so often quote him.) See how the Pythagoreans, by reason of the names and numbers, conclude that Patroclus was to fall by the hand of Hector; Hector by Achilles; Achilles by Paris; Paris by Philoctetes. I am quite lost in my understanding, when I reflect upon the admirable invention of Pythagoras, who by the number, either even or odd, of the syllables of every name, 1 would tell you of what side a man was lame, hunch-backed, blind, gouty, troubled with the palsy, pleurisy, or any other distemper incident to human kind; allotting 1 Read every person's proper name, (Fung chascun nom propre. Nom propre is one's surname ; nom de bateme one's Christian name, says Boyer. 172 chap, xxxvii.] Pantagruel even numbers to the left, and odd ones to the right side of the body. Indeed, said Epistemon, I saw this way of syllabis- ing tried at Xaintes, at a general procession, in the presence of that good, virtuous, learned, and just president, Brian Vallee, 2 Lord of Douhait. When there went by a man or woman that was either lame, blind of one eye, or hump-backed, he had an account brought him of his or her name; and if the syllables of the name were of an odd number, immediately, without seeing the persons, he declared them to be deformed, blind, lame, or crooked of the right side; and of the left, if they were even in number: and such indeed we ever found them. By this syllabical invention, said Pantagruel, the learned have affirmed, that Achilles kneeling, was wounded by the arrow of Paris in the right heel; for his name is of odd syllables (here we ought to observe that the ancients used to kneel the right foot); and that Venus was also wounded before Troy in the left hand; for her name in Greek is Appod/r?), of four syllables; Vulcan lamed of his left foot for the same reason; Philip, King of Macedon, and Hannibal, blind of the right eye; not to speak of sciaticas, broken bellies, and hemicranias, which may be dis- tinguished by this Pythagorean reason. But returning to names: do but consider how Alexander the Great, son of King Philip, of whom we spoke just now, compassed his undertaking, merely by the interpretation of a name. He had besieged the strong city of Tyre, and for several weeks battered it with all his power: but all in vain. His engines and attempts were still baffled by the Tyrians, which 2 It was he who saved Scaliger from the stake when accused of having feasted in Lent. It is not unlikely Rabelais lay under a similar obligation to him. 173 Rabelais' Works [Book iv. made him finally resolve to raise the siege, to his great grief; foreseeing the great stain which such a shameful retreat would be to his reputation. In this anxiety and agitation of mind he fell asleep, and dreamed that a satyr was come into his tent, capering, skipping, and tripping it up and down, with his goatish hoofs, and that he strove to lay hold on him. But the satyr still slipt from him, till at last, having penned him up into a corner, he took him. With this he awoke, and telling his dream to the philo- sophers and sages of his court, they let him know that it was a promise of victory from the gods, and that he should soon be master of Tyre; the word satyr os, divided in two, being sa Tyros, and signifying Tyre is thine; and in truth, at the next onset, he took the town by storm, and, by a complete victory, reduced that stubborn people to subjection. On the other hand, see how, by the signification of one word, Pompey fell into despair. Being over- come by Cassar at the battle of Pharsalia, he had no other way left to escape but by flight; which, attempting by sea, he arrived near the island of Cyprus, and perceived on the shore, near the city of Paphos, a beautiful and stately palace: now asking the pilot what was the name of it, he told him, that it was called Kaxofiatii'kia* that is, evil king; which struck such a dread and terror in him, that he fell into despair, as being assured of losing shortly his life; insomuch that his complaints, sighs, and groans were heard by the mariners and other passengers. And indeed, a while after, a certain strange peasant, called Achillas, cut off his head. To all these examples might be added what happened to L. Paulus Emilius, 4 when the senate 3 Read, KaKo(3a