FRANCIS RABELAIS. VOL. I. i,ooo copies printed for England and America. No. Jics. ,. l:^^ah,^j^^f4,,xcuAit- S^i.enJ.'^J'a f^ .:, STJ.aiUa^cch^UPal^)vUTcif,mdO. Master Francis Rabelais FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES, HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL TRANSLAIED INTO ENGLISH Br SIR THOMAS URQUHART OF CROMARTY AND PETER ANTONY MOTTEUX IfTTH AN INTRODUCriON BT ANATOLE DE MONTAIGLON ILLUSTRATIONS BT LOUIS CHALON Volume I LONDON: LAWRENCE AND BULLEN 1 6, HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1892 CHISWICK PRESS: — C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. ^f^ ?^S8S W^^"^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^> ■^^^^^S %^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^1 i^fe^^r ^^^^^^^wi Wl ..M ^^^^ ^P ^(^^^•W J ^^^^^^^^^^ ^S B^^i ^^^^^ PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 1— •- - "—a HE text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the first edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled " M " are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other foot- notes are by the translator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. appeared posthumously in 1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under Motteux's editorship. Motteux's rendering of Books IV. and V. followed in 1708. Occasionally (as the footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored from the 1738 copy edited by Ozell. We have pleasure in announcing that M. Anatole de Montaiglon is preparing for us a volume of Notes on Rabelais. zznd November, 1892. Contents, PACE Introduction iv C|)e JFirst TBoofe. J. De la Salle, to the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais ... 3 Rablophila 6 The Author's Prologue to the First Book o Rabelais to the Reader ij Chapter I. Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua 15 II. The Antidoted Fanfreluches : or, a Galiraatia of extravagant Conceits found in an ancient Monument 17 III. How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly 20 IV. How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of tripes 22 V. The Discourse of the Drinkers 23 VI. How Gargantua was born in a strange manner 27 VII. After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled, bibbed, and curried the can 29 VIII. How they apparelled Gargantua 30 IX. The colours and liveries of Gargantua 33 X. Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue ... 36 XI. Of the youthful age of Gargantua 30 XII. Of Gargantua's wooden horses 41 XIII. How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipe- breech 43 XIV. How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister 4.7 XV. How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters .... 49 XVI. How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rode on ; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce 51 viii CONTENTS. PACE Chapter XVII. How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away the great bells of Our Lady's Church . . 52 XVIII. How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells 54 XIX. The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells 55 XX. How the Sophistcr carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law against the other masters 57 XXI. The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmasters the Sophisters 59 XXII. The games of Gargantua 61 XXIII. How Gargantua was instrudfed by Ponocrates, and in such sort disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day 66 XXIV. How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather .... 72 XXV. How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the cake-bakers of Lern6, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon were waged great wars 74 XXVI. How the inhabitants of Lern^, by the commandment of Picrochole their king, assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua unexpeftedly and on a sudden 76 XXVII. How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being ransacked by the enemy 78 XXVIII. How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock Cler- mond, and of Grangousier's unwillingness and aversion from the undertaking of war 83 XXIX. The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to his son Gargantua 85 XXX. How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole 86 XXXI. The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole 87 XXXII. How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be restored . 89 XXXIII. How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrained counsel, put him in extreme danger 92 XXXIV. How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour his country, and how Gymnast encountered with the enemy ... 96 XXXV. How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain Tripet and others of Picrochole's men 98 XXXVI. How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how they passed the ford 100 XXXVII. How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of his hair 102 XXXVIII. How Gargantua did cat up six pilgrims in a salad .... 104 XXXIX. How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial discourse they had at supper 106 XL. Why monks are the outcasts of the world ; and wherefore some have bigger noses than others 109 CONTENTS. » PACE Chapter XLI. How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries Ill XLII. How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon a tree 113 XLIII. How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth, and then was taken prisoner by his enemies 11; XLIV. How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picro- chole's forlorn hope was defeated 1 1 8 XLV. How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good words that Grangousier gave them 120 XLVI. How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner 1 22 XLVII. How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucet slew Rashcalf, and was afterwards executed by the command of Picrochole 125 XLVIII. How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rock Clermond, and utterly defeated the army of the said Picrochole . . 127 XLIX. How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and what Gargantua did after the battle 130 L. Gargantua's speech to the vanquished 131 LI. How the viftorious Gargantuists were recompensed after the battle 134 LII. How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey ofTheleme 136 Lni. How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed . 138 LIV. The inscription set upon the great gate ofTheleme . . . 14.0 LV. What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had 143 LVI. How the men and women of the religious order of Theleme were apparelled 145 LVII. How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living 147 LVIII. A prophetical Riddle 149 Cbe ^econD Book. For the Reader 155 Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais 157 The Author's Prologue 159 Chapter I. Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel .... 163 II. Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel . . 168 III. Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wife Badebec 171 IV. Of the infancy of Pantagruel 173 b ■i CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter V. Of the afts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age ... 176 VI. How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affeftedly did counterfeit the French language 179 VII. How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library of St. Viftor 181 VIII. How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father Gargantua, and the copy of them 187 IX. How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his life- time 192 X. How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was wonderfully obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree therein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment 196 XI. How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel without an attorney 200 XII. How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel .... 204 XIII. How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords 208 XIV. How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the hands of the Turks 210 XV. How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris 215 XVI. Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge 219 XVII. How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suit in law which he had at Paris 224 XVIII. How a great scholar of England would have argued against Pantagruel, and was overcome by Panurge 227 XIX. How Panurge put to a nonplus the Englishman that argued by signs 232 XX. How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge . 235 XXI. How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris 237 XXII. How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleased her not very well 240 XXIII. How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that the Dipsodes had invaded the land of the Amaurots ; and the cause wherefore the leagues are so short in France .... 243 XXIV. A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady of Paris, together with the exposition of a posy written in a gold ring 244 XXV. How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the gentle- men attendants of Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six hundred and threescore horsemen very cunningly . . . 247 XXVI. How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating still salt meats ; and how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison 249 XXVII. How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of their valour, and Panurge another in remembrance of the hares. How CONTENTS. XI PAGE Pantagruel likewise with his farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women ; and how Panurge broke a great staff over two glasses 252 Chapter XXVIII. How Pantagruel got the viftory very strangely over the Dipsodes and the Giants 255 XXIX. How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed with freestone, and Loupgarou their captain . 250 XXX. How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healed by Panurge, and of the news which he brought from the devils, and of the damned people in hell . . 264 XXXI. How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how Panurge married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and made him a crier of green sauce 270 XXXII. How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and what the author saw in his mouth 272 XXXIII. How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was recovered 275 XXXIV. The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author 277 Cf)C Cf)irD Tdoofe. Francis Rabelais to the Soul of the deceased Queen of Navarre . . . 283 The Author's Prologue 285 Chapter I. How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody . 295 II. How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did waste his revenue before it came in 299 III. How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers 303 IV. Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and lenders 307 V. How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers 311 VI. Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars . 313 VII. How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece 316 VIII. Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors 319 IX. How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should marry, yea or no 322 X. How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving advice in the matter of marriage ; and to that purpose men- tioneth somewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries . . 325 xii CONTENTS. FACE Chapter XI. How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of dice to be unlawful 329 XII. How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurge shall have in his marriage 331 XIII. How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of his marriage by dreams 335 LIST OF PLATES IN VOL. I. Portrait of Rabelais Frontispiece To face page Book I., Chapter VII. If he did weep, if he did cry, and what grievous quarter soever he kept, in bringing him some drink he would be instantly pacified 30 Book I., Chapter XVII. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church . . 53 Book I., Chapter LI. At the taking up of the table he distributed amongst them his whole cupboard of plate 135 Book I., Chapter LV. Before the said lodging of the ladies . . . were placed . . . the theatre or public playhouse, and natatory or place to swim in 14.3 Book I., Chapter LVII. In all their rule and striftest tie of their order was but this one clause to be observed. Do what thou wilt . . . . 147 Book II., Chapter XXIII. She could find no remedy but to retire unto her house, which was a palace. Thither she went, and the dogs after her 242 Book II., Chapter XXXIl. At last I came into his mouth ... I walked there . . . and saw there great rocks 273 Book III., Chapter XL He had no sooner spoke these words than the works of Virgil were brought in 330 / H^^^S ^^^^f^j^^^^^wi 1 ^ ^s ^^^^E ^|6jk<^B,y ■'"Xa.^^S y^ ^^^^ ^s^j^^i ^^y ^^^ 3ntrot)uction, AD Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one would ever have imagined the possibility of its produftion. It stands outside other things — a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of personalities and broad generalization, of the comic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar. Throughout the whole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of good sense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with the greatest ; and his peers are not many. You may like him or not, may attack him or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him.y He is of those that die hard. Be as fastidious as you will ; make up your mind to recognize only those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above all others; however few the names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain. We may know his work, may know it well, and admire it more every time we read it. After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we may return again to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning. Yet there is no possibility of knowing his own hfe in the same fashion. In spite of all the efforts, often successful, that have been made to throw light on it, to bring forward a fresh document, or some obscure mention in a forgotten book, to add some little fadt, to fix a date more precisely, it remains nevertheless full of uncertainty and of gaps. Besides, it has been burdened and sullied by all kinds of wearisome stories and foolish anecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out than to add. INTRODUCTION. This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the sixteenth century, in the furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy- Herbault, who seems to have drawn his conclusions concerning the author from the book, and, more especially, in the regrettable satirical epitaph of Ronsard, piqued, it is said, that the Guises had given him only a little pavilion in the Forest of Meudon, whereas the presbytery was close to the chateau. From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has completely travestied him, till, bit by bit, it has made of him a buffoon, a veritable clown, a vagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard. The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He has been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an in- corrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always laughing. The pidure would have surprised his friends no less than himself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais ; I have seen many such. They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater number are conceived in this jovial and popular style. As a matter of faft there is only one portrait of him that counts, that has more than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the Cbronologie coll'ee or coupee. Under this double name is known and cited a large sheet divided by lines and cross lines into little squares, containing about a hundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen. This sheet was stuck on pasteboard for hanging on the wall, and was cut in little pieces, so that the portraits might be sold separately. The majority of the portraits are of known persons and can therefore be verified. Now it can be seen that these have beetj seledted with PORTRAIT FROM THE CHRONOLOGIE COLLIE. INTRODUCTION. xvii care, and taken from the most authentic sources ; from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass, for the persons of most distinftion, from earlier engravings for the others. Moreover, those of which no other copies exist, and which are therefore the most valuable, have each an individuality very distind, in the features, the hair, the beard, as well as in the costume. Not one of them is like another. There has been no tampering with them, no forgery. On the contrary, there is in each a difference, a very marked personality. Leonard Gaultier, who published this engraving towards the end of the sixteenth century, reproduced a great many portraits besides from chalk drawings, in the style of his master, Thomas de Leu. It must have been such draw- ings that were the originals of those portraits which he alone has issued, and which may therefore be as authentic and reliable as the others whose corredtness we are in a position to verify. Now Rabelais has here nothing of the Roger Bontemps of low degree about him. His features are strong, vigorously cut, and furrowed with deep wrinkles ; his beard is short and scanty ; his cheeks are thin and already worn-looking. On his head he wears the square cap of the doftors and the clerks, and his dominant expression, some- what rigid and severe, is that of a physician and a scholar. And this is the only portrait to which we need attach any importance. This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaus- tive study. At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to fix a few certain dates, to hang some general observations. The date of Rabelais' birth is very doubtful. For long it was placed as far back as 1483 : now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495. The reason, a good one, is that all those whom he has mentioned as his friends, or in any real sense his contemporaries, were born at the very end of the fifteenth century. And, indeed, it is in the references in his romance to names, persons, and places, that the most certain and valuable evidence is to be found of his intercourse, his patrons, his friendships, his sojournings, and his travels : his own work is the best and richest mine in which to search for the details of his life. Like Descartes and Balzac, he was a native of Touraine, and Tours and Chinon have only done their duty in each of them erecfting in recent years a statue to his honour, a twofold homage refledling credit both on the province and on the town. But the precise fafts about his birth are nevertheless vague. Huet speaks of the village c xviii INTRODUCTION. of Benais, near Bourgueil, of whose vineyards Rabelais makes mention. As the little vineyard of La Deviniere, near Chinon, and familiar to all his readers, is supposed to have belonged to his father, Thomas Rabelais, some would have him born there. It is better to hold to the earlier general opinion that Chinon was his native town ; Chinon, whose praises he sang with such heartiness and affedion. There he might well have been born in the Lamproie house, which belonged to his father, who, to judge from this circumstance, must have been in easy circumstances, with the position of a well-to-do citizen. As La Lamproie in the seventeenth century was a hostelry, the father of Rabelais has been set down as an innkeeper. More probably he was an apothecary, which would fit in with the medical profession adopted by his son in after years. Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself. Perhaps because he was the youngest, his father destined him for the Church. The time he spent while a child with the Benediftine monks at Seuille is uncertain. There he might have made the acquaintance of the prototype of his Friar John, a brother of the name of Buinart, afterwards Prior of Sermaize. He was longer at the Abbey of the Cordeliers at La Baumette, half a mile from Angers, where he became a novice. As the brothers Du Bellay, who were later his Maecenases, were then studying at the University of Angers, where it is certain he was not a student, it is doubtless from this youthful period that his acquaintance and alliance with them should date. Voluntarily, or induced by his family, Rabelais now embraced the ecclesiastical pro- fession, and entered the monastery of the Franciscan Cordeliers at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou, which was honoured by his long sojourn at the vital period of his life when his powers were ripening. There it was he began to study and to think, and there also began his troubles. In spite of the wide-spread ignorance among the monks of that age, the encyclopaedic movement of the Renaissance was attrafting all the lofty minds. Rabelais threw himself into it with enthu- siasm, and Latin antiquity was not enough for him. Greek, a study discountenanced by the Church, which looked on it as dangerous and tending to freethought and heresy, took possession of him. To it he owed the warm friendship of Pierre Amy and of the celebrated Guillaume Bude. In faft, the Greek letters of the latter are the best source of information concerning this period of Rabelais' INTRODUCTION. xix life. It was at Fontenay-le-Comte also that he became acquainted with the Brissons and the great jurist Andre Tiraqueau, whom he never mentions but with admiration and deep afFedlion. Tiraqueau 's treatise, De legibus connubialibus, published for the first time in 1 5 13, has an important bearing on the hfe of Rabelais. There we learn that, dissatisfied with the incomplete translation of Herodotus by Laurent Valla, Rabelais had retranslated into Latin the first book of the History. That translation unfortunately is lost, as so many other of his scattered works. It is probably in this diredtion that the hazard of fortune has most discoveries and surprises in store for the lucky searcher. Moreover, as in this law treatise Tiraqueau attacked women in a merciless fashion, President Amaury Bouchard published in 1522 a book in their defence, and Rabelais, who was a friend of both the antagonists, took the side of Tiraqueau. It should be observed also in passing, that there are several pages of such audacious plain-speaking, that Rabelais, though he did not copy these in his Marriage of Panurge, has there been, in his own fashion, as out- spoken as Tiraqueau. If such freedom of language could be permitted in a grave treatise of law, similar liberties were certainly, in the same century, more natural in a book which was meant to amuse. The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness, which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value. La Bruyere, in the chapter Des ouvrages de I'esprit^ not in the first edition of the CaraSleres, but in the fifth, that is to say in 1690, at the end of the great century, gives us on this subjed: his own opinion and that of his age : " Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable in their habit of scattering filth about their writings. Both of them had genius enough and wit enough to do without any such expedient, even for the amusement of those persons who look more to the laugh to be got out of a book than to what is admirable in it. Rabelais especially is incomprehensible. His book is an enigma, — one may say inexplicable. It is a Chimera ; it is like the face of a lovely woman with the feet and the tail of a reptile, or of some creature still more loathsome. It is a monstrous confusion of fine and rare morality with filthy corruption. Where it is bad, it goes beyond the worst; it is the delight of the basest of men Where it is good, it reaches the exquisite, the very best ; it ministers to the most delicate tastes." IX INTRODUCTION. Putting aside the rather slight connexion established between two men of whom one is of very little importance compared with the other, this is otherwise very admirably said, and the judgment is a very just one, except with regard to one point — -the misunderstanding of the atmosphere in which the book was created, and the ignoring of the examples of a similar tendency furnished by literature as well as by the popular taste. Was it not the Ancients that began it ? Aristophanes, Catullus, Petronius, Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas as well as in the words they used, and they dragged after them in this diredtion not a few of the Latin poets of the Re- naissance, who believed themselves bound to imitate them. Is Italy without fault in this respeft ? Her story-tellers in prose lie open to easy accusation. Her Capitoli in verse go to incredible lengths ; and the astonishing success of Aretino must not be forgotten, nor the licence of the whole Italian comic theatre of the sixteenth century. The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards a Cardinal, and the Mandragola of Machiavelli, are evidence enough, and these were played before Popes, who were not a whit embarrassed. Even in England the drama went very far for a time, and the comic authors of the reign of Charles II., evidently from a readion, and to shake off the excess and the wearisomeness of Puritan prudery and afFedtation, which sent them to the opposite extreme, are not exadly noted for their reserve. But we need not go beyond France. Slight indications, very easily verified, are all that may be set down here ; a formal and detailed proof would be altogether too dangerous. Thus, for instance, the old Fabliaux- — the Farces of the fifteenth century, the story-tellers of the sixteenth — reveal one of the sides, one of the veins, so to speak, of our literature. The art that addresses itself to the eye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptures on the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of certain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was, without any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet she used to go up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes were not offended at seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent carving of a monk and a nun. Neither did she tear out of her book of Hours the large minia- ture of the winter month, in which, careless of her neighbours' eyes, the mistress of the house, sitting before her great fireplace, warms herself in a fashion which it is not advisable that dames of our age INTRODUCTION. xxi should imitate. The statue of Cybele by the Tribolo, executed for Francis I., and placed, not against a wall, but in the middle of Queen Claude's chamber at Fontainebleau, has behind it an attribute which would have been more in place on a statue of Priapus, and which was the symbol of generativeness. The tone of the conversations was ordinarily of a surprising coarseness, and the Precieuses, in spite of their absurdities, did a very good work in setting themselves in opposition to it. The worthy Chevalier de La-Tour-Landry, in his Instruftions to his own daughters, without a thought of harm, gives examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's transla- tion these are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers that they were the little society diversions of the Duchesses of Burgundy and of the great ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the French court, which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis XI. Rabelais' pleasantry about the woman folle d la messe is exaftly in the style of the Adevineaux. A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept in mind — for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated into French — as also the Dames Galantes of Brantome. Read the Journal of Heroard, that honest dodtor, who day by day wrote down the details concerning the health of Louis XIII. from his birth, and you will understand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV, The jokes at a country wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness. Le Moyen de Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the too celebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII., could be written, printed, and read. The collec- tion of songs formed by Clairambault shows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no purer than the sixteenth. Some of the most ribald songs are a(5bually the work of Princesses of the royal House. It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, to charge him alone with the sins of everybody else. He spoke as those of his time used to speak ; when amusing them he used their language to make himself understood, and to slip in his asides, which without this sauce would never have been accepted, would have found neither eyes nor ears. Let us blame not him, therefore, but the manners of his time. Besides, his gaiety, however coarse it may appear to us— and how xxii INTRODUCTION. rare a thing is gaiety ! — has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it ; and this is too often overlooked. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty ? Where, even indiredly, does he give pernicious advice .'' Whom has he led to evil ways ? Does he ever inspire feelings that breed miscondudt and vice, or is he ever the apologist of these.? Many poets and romance writers, under cover of a fastidious style, without one coarse expression, have been really and adively hurtful ; and of that it is impossible to accuse Rabelais. Women in particular quickly revolt from him, and turn away repulsed at once by the archaic form of the language and by the outspokenness of the words. But if he be read aloud to them, omitting the rougher parts and modernizing the pronunciation, it will be seen that they too are impressed by his lively wit as by the loftiness of his thought. It would be possible, too, to extraft, for young persons, without modifi- cation, admirable passages of incomparable force. But those who have brought out expurgated editions of him, or who have thought to improve him by trying to rewrite him in modern French, have been fools for their pains, and their insulting attempts have had, and always will have, the success they deserve. His dedications prove to what extent his whole work was ac- cepted. Not to speak of his epistolary relations with Bude, with the Cardinal d'Armagnac and with Pellissier, the ambassador of Francis I. and Bishop of Maguelonne, or of his dedication to Tiraqueau of his Lyons edition of the Epistola Medicinales of Giovanni Manardi of Ferrara, of the one addressed to the President Amaury Bouchard of the two legal texts which he believed antique, there is still the evidence of his other and more important dedications. In 1532 he dedicated his Hippocrates and his Galen to Geoffroy d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, to whom in 1535 and 1536 he addressed from Rome the three news letters, which alone have been preserved ; and in 1534 he dedicated from Lyons his edition of the Latin book of Marliani on the topography of Rome to Jean du Bellay (at that time Bishop of Paris) who was raised to the Cardinalate in 1535. Beside these dedications we must set the privilege of Francis I. of September, 1545, and the new privilege granted by Henry II. on August 6th, 1550, Cardinal de Chatillon present, for the third book, which was dedicated, in an eight-lined stanza, to the Spirit of the Queen of Navarre. These privileges, from the praises and eulogies they express in terms very personal and very exceptional, are as INTRODUCTION. xxiii important in Rabelais' life as were, in connexion with other matters, the Apostolic Pastorals in his favour. Of course, in these the popes had not to introduce his books of diversions, which, nevertheless, would have seemed in their eyes but very venial sins. The Sciomachie of 1 549, an account of the festivities arranged at Rome by Cardinal du Bellay in honour of the birth of the second son of Henry II., was addressed to Cardinal de Guise, and in 1552 the fourth book was dedicated, in a new prologue, to Cardinal de Chatillon, the brother of Admiral de Coligny. These are no unknown or insignificant personages, but the greatest lords and princes of the Church. They loved and admired and pro- tected Rabelais, and put no restridtions in his way. Why should we be more fastidious and severe than they were ? Their high contemporary appreciation gives much food for thought. There are few translations of Rabelais in foreign tongues ; and certainly the task is no light one, and demands more than a familiarity with ordinary French. It would have been easier in Italy than any- where else. Italian, from its flexibility and its analogy to French, would have lent itself admirably to the purpose; the instrument was ready, but the hand was not forthcoming. Neither is there any Spanish translation, a fadl which can be more easily understood. The Inquisition would have been a far more serious opponent than the Paris' Sorbonne, and no one ventured on the experiment. Yet Rabelais forces comparison with Cervantes, whose precursor he was in reality, though the two books and the two minds are very different. They have only one point in common, their attack and ridicule of the romances of chivalry and of the wildly improbable adventures of knight-errants. But in Don fixate there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes knew Rabelais' book or owed any- thing to it whatsoever, even the starting-point of his subjeft. Perhaps it was better he should not have been influenced by him, in however slight a degree ; his originality is the more intadt and the more genial. On the other hand, Rabelais has been several times translated into German. In the present century Regis published at Leipsic, from 183 1 to 1 841, with copious notes, a close and faithful translation. The first one cannot be so described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz or Strasburg, who died in 16 14. He was a Pro- testant controversialist, and a satirist of fantastic and abundant xxiv INTRODUCTION. imagination. In 1575 appeared his translation of Rabelais' first book, and in i 590 he published the comic catalogue of the library of Saint Vidor, borrowed from the second book. It is not a translation, but a recast in the boldest style, full of alterations and of exaggera- tions, both as regards the coarse expressions which he took upon himself to develop and to add to, and in the attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. According to Jean Paul Richter, Fischart is much superior to Rabelais in style and in the fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal in erudition and in the invention of new expressions after the manner of Aristophanes. He is sure that his work was suc- cessful, because it was often reprinted during his lifetime ; but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul would hardly carry convidtion in France. Who treads in another's footprints must follow in the rear. Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator. Those who take the ideas of others to modify them, and make of them creations of their own, like Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France, may be superior to those who have served them with suggestions ; but then the new works must be altogether different, must exist by themselves. Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to have destroyed their models. Those copyists, if we call them so, created such works of genius that the only pity is they are so rare. This is not the case with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some one thoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at least, by long extrads from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German taste when it thought it could do better than Rabelais. It is dangerous to tamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk of burning his fingers. England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have brought her success. But, before speaking of Urquhart's trans- lation, it is but right to mention the English-French Didtionary of Randle Cotgrave, the first edition of which dates from 1 6 1 1 . It is in every way exceedingly valuable, and superior to that of Nicot, because instead of keeping to the plane of classic and Latin French, it showed an acquaintance with and mastery of the popular tongue as well as of the written and learned language. As a foreigner, Cotgrave is a little behind in his information. He is not aware of all the changes and novelties of the passing fashion. The Pleiad School he evidently knew nothing of, but kept to the writers of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Thus words out of Rabelais, which INTRODUCTION. xxv he always translates with admirable skill, are frequent, and he attaches to them their author's name. So Rabelais had already crossed the Channel, and was read in his own tongue. Somewhat later, during the full sway of the Commonwealth — and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier must have been a surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity — -Captain Urquhart undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely in England. Thomas Urquhart belonged to a very old family of good standing in the North of Scotland. After studying in Aberdeen he travelled in France, Spain, and Italy, where his sword was as acflive as that intelligent curiosity of his which is evidenced by his familiarity with three languages and the large library which he brought back, according to his own account, from sixteen countries he had visited. On his return to England he entered the service of Charles I., who knighted him in 1641. Next year, after the death of his father, he went to Scotland to set his family affairs in order, and to redeem his house in Cromarty, But, in spite of another sojourn in foreign lands, his efforts to free himself from pecuniary embarrassments were unavailing. At the king's death his Scottish loyalty caused him to side with those who opposed the Parliament. Formally proscribed in 1649, t^l'S" prisoner at the defeat of Worcester in 1651, stripped of all his belongings, he was brought to London, but was released on parole at Cromwell's recommendation. After receiving permission to spend five months in Scotland to try once more to settle his affairs, he came back to London to escape from his creditors. And there he must have died, though the date of his death is unknown. It probably took place after 1653, the date of the publication of the two first books, and after having written the trans- lation of the third, which was not printed from his manuscript till the end of the seventeenth century. His life was therefore not without its troubles, and literary adivity must have been almost his only consolation. His writings reveal him as the strangest charader, fantastic, and full of a naive vanity, which, even at the time he was translating the genealogy of Gargantua — surely well calculated to cure any pondering on his own — caused him to trace his unbroken descent from Adam, and to state that his family name was derived from his ancestor Esormon, Prince of Achaia, 2139 ^•^■) who was surnamed Ovpo^xpro?, that is X5cvi INTRODUCTION. to say the Fortunate and the Well -beloved. A Gascon could not have surpassed this. Gifted as he was, learned in many direftions, an enthusiastic mathematician, master of several languages, occasionally full of wit and humour, and even good sense, yet he gave his books the strangest titles, and his ideas were no less whimsical. His style is mystic, fastidious, and too often of a wearisome length and obscurity ; his Verses rhyme anyhow, or not at all ; but vivacity, force and heat are never lacking, and the Maitland Club did well in reprinting, in 1834, his various works, which are very rare. Yet, in spite of their curious interest, he owes his real distinftion and the survival of his name to his translation of Rabelais. The first two books appeared in 1653. The original edition, exceedingly scarce, was carefully reprinted in 1838, only a hundred copies being issued, by an English bibliophile, T[heodore] M[artin], whose interesting preface I regret to sum up so cursorily. At the end of the seventeenth century, in 1693, a French refugee, Peter Antony Motteux, whose English verses and whose plays are not with- out value, published in a little odtavo volume a reprint, very incorrecfh as to the text, of the first two books, to which he added the third, from the manuscript found amongst Urquhart's papers. The success which attended this venture suggested to Motteux the idea of completing the work, and a second edition, in two volumes, appeared in 1708, with the translation of the fourth and fifth books, and notes. Nineteen years after his death, John Ozell, translator on a large scale of French, Italian, and Spanish authors, revised Motteux's edition, which he published in five volumes in 1737, adding Le Duchat's notes ; and this version has often been reprinted since. The continuation by Motteux, who was also the translator of Don Quixote, has merits of its own. It is precise, elegant, and very faithful. Urquhart's, without taking liberties with Rabelais like Fischart, is not always so closely literal and exadt. Nevertheless, it is much superior to Motteux's. If Urquhart does not constantly adhere to the form of the expression, if he makes a few slight additions, not only has he an understanding of the original, but he feels it, and renders the sense with a force and a vivacity full of warmth and brilhancy. His own learning made the comprehension of the work easy to him, and his anglicization of words fabricated by Rabelais is particularly successful. The necessity of keeping to INTRODUCTION. xxvii his text prevented his indulgence in the convolutions and divagations diftated by his exuberant fancy when writing on his own account. His style, always full of life and vigour, is here balanced, lucid, and piduresque. Never elsewhere did he write so well. And thus the translation reproduces the very accent of the original, besides possess- ing a very remarkable charader of its own. Such a literary tone and such literary qualities are rarely found in a translation. Urquhart's, very useful for the interpretation of obscure passages, may, and indeed should be read as a whole, both for Rabelais and for its own merits. Holland, too, possesses a translation of Rabelais. They knew French in that country in the seventeenth century better than they do to-day, and there Rabelais' works were reprinted when no editions were appearing in France. This Dutch translation was published at Amsterdam in 1682, by J. Tenhoorn. The name attached to it, Claudia Gallitalo (Claudius French-Italian) must certainly be a pseudonym. Only a Dutch scholar could identify the translator, and state the value to be assigned to his work. Rabelais' style has many different sources. Besides its force and brilliancy, its gaiety, wit, and dignity, its abundant richness is no less remarkable. It would be impossible and useless to compile a glossary of Voltaire's words. No French writer has used so few, and all of them are of the simplest. There is not one of them that is not part of the common speech, or which demands a note or an explanation. Rabelais' vocabulary, on the other hand, is of an astonishing variety. Where does it all come from .^ As a fadt, he had at his command something like three languages, which he used in turn, or which he mixed according to the efFed: he wished to produce. First of all, of course, he had ready to his hand the whole speech of his time, which had no secrets for him. Provincials have been too eager to appropriate him, to make of him a local author, the pride of some village, in order that their distrid might have the merit of being one of the causes, one of the fadors of his genius. Every neighbourhood where he ever lived has declared that his distindion was due to his knowledge of its popular speech. But these dialed- patriots have fallen out among themselves. To which dialed was he indebted .' Was it that of Touraine, or Berri, or Poitou, or Paris ? It is too often forgotten, in regard to French patois — leaving out of count the languages of the South — that the words or xxviii INTRODUCTION. expressions that are no longer in use to-day are but a survival, a still living trace of the tongue and the pronunciation of other days. Rabelais, more than any other writer, took advantage of the happy chances and the richness of the popular speech, but he wrote in French, and nothing but French. That is why he remains so forcible, so lucid, and so living, more living even — speaking only of his style out of charity to the others — than any of his contemporaries. It has been said that great French prose is solely the work of the seventeenth century. There were nevertheless, before that, two men, certainly very different and even hostile, who were its initiators and its masters, Calvin on the one hand, on the other Rabelais. Rabelais had a wonderful knowledge of the prose and the verse of the fifteenth century : he was familiar with Villon, Pathelin, the ^inze Joies de Manage, the Ceni Nouvelles, the chronicles and the romances, and even earlier works, too, such as the Roman de la Rose. Their words, their turns of expression came naturally to his pen, and added a piquancy and, as it were, a kind of gloss of antique novelty to his work. He fabricated words, too, on Greek and Latin models, with great ease, sometimes audaciously and with needless frequency. These were for him so many means, so many elements of variety. Sometimes he did this in mockery, as in the humorous discourse of the Limousin scholar, for which he is not a little indebted to Geoflroy Tory in the Champfleury ; sometimes, on the contrary, seriously, from a habit acquired in dealing with classical tongues. Again, another reason of the richness of his vocabulary was that he invented and forged words for himself. Following the example of Aristophanes, he coined an enormous number of interminable words, droll expressions, sudden and surprising construftions. What had made Greece and the Athenians laugh was worth transporting to Paris. With an Instrument so rich, resources so endless, and the skill to use them, it is no wonder that he could give voice to anything, be as humorous as he could be serious, as comic as he could be grave, that he could express himself and everybody else, from the lowest to the highest. He had every colour on his palette, and such skill was in his fingers that he could depidl every variety of light and shade. We have evidence that Rabelais did not always write in the same fashion. The Chronique Gargantuaine is uniform in style and quite simple, but cannot with certainty be attributed to him. His Il^ant^gmeu 'Jmi^^im^f^^LJ^ Cfce faki^^pme^cBtu tteftcndme ft§Mf gtdnS geStdl^arQm* (m/Cdpofe^ nouuet(ef mint pat mai^Ki .atit cdtte fee ttabtee/i^ feff? 6?offer c