Gargantua and Pantagruel
by
Francois Rabelais
Part 11 out of 16
Honest fellow, said Mercury, I leave it thee; take it; and because thou
hast wished and chosen moderately in point of hatchet, by Jupiter's command
I give thee these two others; thou hast now wherewith to make thyself rich:
be honest. Honest Tom gave Mercury a whole cartload of thanks, and revered
the most great Jupiter. His old hatchet he fastens close to his leathern
girdle, and girds it above his breech like Martin of Cambray; the two
others, being more heavy, he lays on his shoulder. Thus he plods on,
trudging over the fields, keeping a good countenance amongst his neighbours
and fellow-parishioners, with one merry saying or other after Patelin's
way. The next day, having put on a clean white jacket, he takes on his
back the two precious hatchets and comes to Chinon, the famous city, noble
city, ancient city, yea, the first city in the world, according to the
judgment and assertion of the most learned Massorets. At Chinon he turned
his silver hatchet into fine testons, crown-pieces, and other white cash;
his golden hatchet into fine angels, curious ducats, substantial ridders,
spankers, and rose-nobles; then with them purchases a good number of farms,
barns, houses, out-houses, thatched houses, stables, meadows, orchards,
fields, vineyards, woods, arable lands, pastures, ponds, mills, gardens,
nurseries, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, hogs, asses, horses, hens,
cocks, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, ducks, drakes, and a world of all
other necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in the
country, nay, even richer than that limping scrape-good Maulevrier. His
brother bumpkins, and the other yeomen and country-puts thereabouts,
perceiving his good fortune, were not a little amazed, insomuch that their
former pity of poor Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so great and
unexpected rise; and as they could not for their souls devise how this came
about, they made it their business to pry up and down, and lay their heads
together, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by what means, in what
place, on what day, what hour, how, why, and wherefore, he had come by this
great treasure.
At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, Ha, ha! said they, was there
no more to do but to lose a hatchet to make us rich? Mum for that; 'tis as
easy as pissing a bed, and will cost but little. Are then at this time the
revolutions of the heavens, the constellations of the firmament, and
aspects of the planets such, that whosoever shall lose a hatchet shall
immediately grow rich? Ha, ha, ha! by Jove, you shall e'en be lost, an't
please you, my dear hatchet. With this they all fairly lost their hatchets
out of hand. The devil of one that had a hatchet left; he was not his
mother's son that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled or
cleaved in that country through want of hatchets. Nay, the Aesopian
apologue even saith that certain petty country gents of the lower class,
who had sold Wellhung their little mill and little field to have
wherewithal to make a figure at the next muster, having been told that his
treasure was come to him by that only means, sold the only badge of their
gentility, their swords, to purchase hatchets to go lose them, as the silly
clodpates did, in hopes to gain store of chink by that loss.
You would have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty spiritual
usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others, to buy
store of mandates, a pennyworth of a new-made pope.
Now they cried out and brayed, and prayed and bawled, and lamented, and
invoked Jupiter: My hatchet! my hatchet! Jupiter, my hatchet! on this
side, My hatchet! on that side, My hatchet! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Jupiter, my
hatchet! The air round about rung again with the cries and howlings of
these rascally losers of hatchets.
Mercury was nimble in bringing them hatchets; to each offering that which
he had lost, as also another of gold, and a third of silver.
Every he still was for that of gold, giving thanks in abundance to the
great giver, Jupiter; but in the very nick of time that they bowed and
stooped to take it from the ground, whip, in a trice, Mercury lopped off
their heads, as Jupiter had commanded; and of heads thus cut off the number
was just equal to that of the lost hatchets.
You see how it is now; you see how it goes with those who in the simplicity
of their hearts wish and desire with moderation. Take warning by this, all
you greedy, fresh-water sharks, who scorn to wish for anything under ten
thousand pounds; and do not for the future run on impudently, as I have
sometimes heard you wishing, Would to God I had now one hundred seventy-
eight millions of gold! Oh! how I should tickle it off. The deuce on you,
what more might a king, an emperor, or a pope wish for? For that reason,
indeed, you see that after you have made such hopeful wishes, all the good
that comes to you of it is the itch or the scab, and not a cross in your
breeches to scare the devil that tempts you to make these wishes: no more
than those two mumpers, wishers after the custom of Paris; one of whom only
wished to have in good old gold as much as hath been spent, bought, and
sold in Paris, since its first foundations were laid, to this hour; all of
it valued at the price, sale, and rate of the dearest year in all that
space of time. Do you think the fellow was bashful? Had he eaten sour
plums unpeeled? Were his teeth on edge, I pray you? The other wished Our
Lady's Church brimful of steel needles, from the floor to the top of the
roof, and to have as many ducats as might be crammed into as many bags as
might be sewed with each and everyone of those needles, till they were all
either broke at the point or eye. This is to wish with a vengeance! What
think you of it? What did they get by't, in your opinion? Why at night
both my gentlemen had kibed heels, a tetter in the chin, a churchyard cough
in the lungs, a catarrh in the throat, a swingeing boil at the rump, and
the devil of one musty crust of a brown george the poor dogs had to scour
their grinders with. Wish therefore for mediocrity, and it shall be given
unto you, and over and above yet; that is to say, provided you bestir
yourself manfully, and do your best in the meantime.
Ay, but say you, God might as soon have given me seventy-eight thousand as
the thirteenth part of one half; for he is omnipotent, and a million of
gold is no more to him than one farthing. Oh, ho! pray tell me who taught
you to talk at this rate of the power and predestination of God, poor silly
people? Peace, tush, st, st, st! fall down before his sacred face and own
the nothingness of your nothing.
Upon this, O ye that labour under the affliction of the gout, I ground my
hopes; firmly believing, that if so it pleases the divine goodness, you
shall obtain health; since you wish and ask for nothing else, at least for
the present. Well, stay yet a little longer with half an ounce of
patience.
The Genoese do not use, like you, to be satisfied with wishing health
alone, when after they have all the livelong morning been in a brown study,
talked, pondered, ruminated, and resolved in the counting-houses of whom
and how they may squeeze the ready, and who by their craft must be hooked
in, wheedled, bubbled, sharped, overreached, and choused; they go to the
exchange, and greet one another with a Sanita e guadagno, Messer! health
and gain to you, sir! Health alone will not go down with the greedy
curmudgeons; they over and above must wish for gain, with a pox to 'em; ay,
and for the fine crowns, or scudi di Guadaigne; whence, heaven be praised!
it happens many a time that the silly wishers and woulders are baulked, and
get neither.
Now, my lads, as you hope for good health, cough once aloud with lungs of
leather; take me off three swingeing bumpers; prick up your ears; and you
shall hear me tell wonders of the noble and good Pantagruel.
THE FOURTH BOOK.
Chapter 4.I.
How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the Holy
Bottle.
In the month of June, on Vesta's holiday, the very numerical day on which
Brutus, conquering Spain, taught its strutting dons to truckle under him,
and that niggardly miser Crassus was routed and knocked on the head by the
Parthians, Pantagruel took his leave of the good Gargantua, his royal
father. The old gentleman, according to the laudable custom of the
primitive Christians, devoutly prayed for the happy voyage of his son and
his whole company, and then they took shipping at the port of Thalassa.
Pantagruel had with him Panurge, Friar John des Entomeures, alias of the
Funnels, Epistemon, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, Carpalin, cum multis
aliis, his ancient servants and domestics; also Xenomanes, the great
traveller, who had crossed so many dangerous roads, dikes, ponds, seas, and
so forth, and was come some time before, having been sent for by Panurge.
For certain good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, he had
left with Gargantua, and marked out, in his great and universal
hydrographical chart, the course which they were to steer to visit the
Oracle of the Holy Bottle Bacbuc. The number of ships were such as I
described in the third book, convoyed by a like number of triremes, men of
war, galleons, and feluccas, well-rigged, caulked, and stored with a good
quantity of Pantagruelion.
All the officers, droggermen, pilots, captains, mates, boatswains,
midshipmen, quartermasters, and sailors, met in the Thalamege, Pantagruel's
principal flag-ship, which had in her stern for her ensign a huge large
bottle, half silver well polished, the other half gold enamelled with
carnation; whereby it was easy to guess that white and red were the colours
of the noble travellers, and that they went for the word of the Bottle.
On the stern of the second was a lantern like those of the ancients,
industriously made with diaphanous stone, implying that they were to pass
by Lanternland. The third ship had for her device a fine deep china ewer.
The fourth, a double-handed jar of gold, much like an ancient urn. The
fifth, a famous can made of sperm of emerald. The sixth, a monk's mumping
bottle made of the four metals together. The seventh, an ebony funnel, all
embossed and wrought with gold after the Tauchic manner. The eighth, an
ivy goblet, very precious, inlaid with gold. The ninth, a cup of fine
Obriz gold. The tenth, a tumbler of aromatic agoloch (you call it lignum
aloes) edged with Cyprian gold, after the Azemine make. The eleventh, a
golden vine-tub of mosaic work. The twelfth, a runlet of unpolished gold,
covered with a small vine of large Indian pearl of Topiarian work.
Insomuch that there was not a man, however in the dumps, musty, sour-
looked, or melancholic he were, not even excepting that blubbering whiner
Heraclitus, had he been there, but seeing this noble convoy of ships and
their devices, must have been seized with present gladness of heart, and,
smiling at the conceit, have said that the travellers were all honest
topers, true pitcher-men, and have judged by a most sure prognostication
that their voyage, both outward and homeward-bound, would be performed in
mirth and perfect health.
In the Thalamege, where was the general meeting, Pantagruel made a short
but sweet exhortation, wholly backed with authorities from Scripture upon
navigation; which being ended, with an audible voice prayers were said in
the presence and hearing of all the burghers of Thalassa, who had flocked
to the mole to see them take shipping. After the prayers was melodiously
sung a psalm of the holy King David, which begins, When Israel went out of
Egypt; and that being ended, tables were placed upon deck, and a feast
speedily served up. The Thalassians, who had also borne a chorus in the
psalm, caused store of belly-timber to be brought out of their houses. All
drank to them; they drank to all; which was the cause that none of the
whole company gave up what they had eaten, nor were sea-sick, with a pain
at the head and stomach; which inconveniency they could not so easily have
prevented by drinking, for some time before, salt water, either alone or
mixed with wine; using quinces, citron peel, juice of pomegranates, sourish
sweetmeats, fasting a long time, covering their stomachs with paper, or
following such other idle remedies as foolish physicians prescribe to those
that go to sea.
Having often renewed their tipplings, each mother's son retired on board
his own ship, and set sail all so fast with a merry gale at south-east; to
which point of the compass the chief pilot, James Brayer by name, had
shaped his course, and fixed all things accordingly. For seeing that the
Oracle of the Holy Bottle lay near Cathay, in the Upper India, his advice,
and that of Xenomanes also, was not to steer the course which the
Portuguese use, while sailing through the torrid zone, and Cape Bona
Speranza, at the south point of Africa, beyond the equinoctial line, and
losing sight of the northern pole, their guide, they make a prodigious long
voyage; but rather to keep as near the parallel of the said India as
possible, and to tack to the westward of the said pole, so that winding
under the north, they might find themselves in the latitude of the port of
Olone, without coming nearer it for fear of being shut up in the frozen
sea; whereas, following this canonical turn, by the said parallel, they
must have that on the right to the eastward, which at their departure was
on their left.
This proved a much shorter cut; for without shipwreck, danger, or loss of
men, with uninterrupted good weather, except one day near the island of the
Macreons, they performed in less than four months the voyage of Upper
India, which the Portuguese, with a thousand inconveniences and innumerable
dangers, can hardly complete in three years. And it is my opinion, with
submission to better judgments, that this course was perhaps steered by
those Indians who sailed to Germany, and were honourably received by the
King of the Swedes, while Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul of the
Gauls; as Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny after them tell us.
Chapter 4.II.
How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island of Medamothy.
That day and the two following they neither discovered land nor anything
new; for they had formerly sailed that way: but on the fourth they made an
island called Medamothy, of a fine and delightful prospect, by reason of
the vast number of lighthouses and high marble towers in its circuit, which
is not less than that of Canada (sic). Pantagruel, inquiring who governed
there, heard that it was King Philophanes, absent at that time upon account
of the marriage of his brother Philotheamon with the infanta of the kingdom
of Engys.
Hearing this, he went ashore in the harbour, and while every ship's crew
watered, passed his time in viewing divers pictures, pieces of tapestry,
animals, fishes, birds, and other exotic and foreign merchandises, which
were along the walks of the mole and in the markets of the port. For it
was the third day of the great and famous fair of the place, to which the
chief merchants of Africa and Asia resorted. Out of these Friar John
bought him two rare pictures; in one of which the face of a man that brings
in an appeal was drawn to the life; and in the other a servant that wants a
master, with every needful particular, action, countenance, look, gait,
feature, and deportment, being an original by Master Charles Charmois,
principal painter to King Megistus; and he paid for them in the court
fashion, with conge and grimace. Panurge bought a large picture, copied
and done from the needle-work formerly wrought by Philomela, showing to her
sister Progne how her brother-in-law Tereus had by force handselled her
copyhold, and then cut out her tongue that she might not (as women will)
tell tales. I vow and swear by the handle of my paper lantern that it was
a gallant, a mirific, nay, a most admirable piece. Nor do you think, I
pray you, that in it was the picture of a man playing the beast with two
backs with a female; this had been too silly and gross: no, no; it was
another-guise thing, and much plainer. You may, if you please, see it at
Theleme, on the left hand as you go into the high gallery. Epistemon
bought another, wherein were painted to the life the ideas of Plato and the
atoms of Epicurus. Rhizotome purchased another, wherein Echo was drawn to
the life. Pantagruel caused to be bought, by Gymnast, the life and deeds
of Achilles, in seventy-eight pieces of tapestry, four fathom long, and
three fathom broad, all of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver;
the work beginning at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, continuing to the
birth of Achilles; his youth, described by Statius Papinius; his warlike
achievements, celebrated by Homer; his death and obsequies, written by Ovid
and Quintus Calaber; and ending at the appearance of his ghost, and
Polyxena's sacrifice, rehearsed by Euripides.
He also caused to be bought three fine young unicorns; one of them a male
of a chestnut colour, and two grey dappled females; also a tarand, whom he
bought of a Scythian of the Gelones' country.
A tarand is an animal as big as a bullock, having a head like a stag, or a
little bigger, two stately horns with large branches, cloven feet, hair
long like that of a furred Muscovite, I mean a bear, and a skin almost as
hard as steel armour. The Scythian said that there are but few tarands to
be found in Scythia, because it varieth its colour according to the
diversity of the places where it grazes and abides, and represents the
colour of the grass, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, meadows, rocks, and
generally of all things near which it comes. It hath this common with the
sea-pulp, or polypus, with the thoes, with the wolves of India, and with
the chameleon, which is a kind of a lizard so wonderful that Democritus
hath written a whole book of its figure and anatomy, as also of its virtue
and propriety in magic. This I can affirm, that I have seen it change its
colour, not only at the approach of things that have a colour, but by its
own voluntary impulse, according to its fear or other affections; as, for
example, upon a green carpet I have certainly seen it become green; but
having remained there some time, it turned yellow, blue, tanned, and purple
in course, in the same manner as you see a turkey-cock's comb change colour
according to its passions. But what we find most surprising in this tarand
is, that not only its face and skin, but also its hair could take whatever
colour was about it. Near Panurge, with his kersey coat, its hair used to
turn grey; near Pantagruel, with his scarlet mantle, its hair and skin grew
red; near the pilot, dressed after the fashion of the Isiacs of Anubis in
Egypt, its hair seemed all white, which two last colours the chameleons
cannot borrow.
When the creature was free from any fear or affection, the colour of its
hair was just such as you see that of the asses of Meung.
Chapter 4.III.
How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of the
strange way to have speedy news from far distant places.
While Pantagruel was taken up with the purchase of those foreign animals,
the noise of ten guns and culverins, together with a loud and joyful cheer
of all the fleet, was heard from the mole. Pantagruel looked towards the
haven, and perceived that this was occasioned by the arrival of one of his
father Gargantua's celoces, or advice-boats, named the Chelidonia; because
on the stern of it was carved in Corinthian brass a sea-swallow, which is a
fish as large as a dare-fish of Loire, all flesh, without scale, with
cartilaginous wings (like a bat's) very long and broad, by the means of
which I have seen them fly about three fathom above water, about a bow-
shot. At Marseilles 'tis called lendole. And indeed that ship was as
light as a swallow, so that it rather seemed to fly on the sea than to
sail. Malicorne, Gargantua's esquire carver, was come in her, being sent
expressly by his master to have an account of his son's health and
circumstances, and to bring him credentials. When Malicorne had saluted
Pantagruel, before the prince opened the letters, the first thing he said
to him was, Have you here the Gozal, the heavenly messenger? Yes, sir,
said he; here it is swaddled up in this basket. It was a grey pigeon,
taken out of Gargantua's dove-house, whose young ones were just hatched
when the advice-boat was going off.
If any ill fortune had befallen Pantagruel, he would have fastened some
black ribbon to his feet; but because all things had succeeded happily
hitherto, having caused it to be undressed, he tied to its feet a white
ribbon, and without any further delay let it loose. The pigeon presently
flew away, cutting the air with an incredible speed, as you know that there
is no flight like a pigeon's, especially when it hath eggs or young ones,
through the extreme care which nature hath fixed in it to relieve and be
with its young; insomuch that in less than two hours it compassed in the
air the long tract which the advice-boat, with all her diligence, with oars
and sails, and a fair wind, could not go through in less than three days
and three nights; and was seen as it went into the dove-house in its nest.
Whereupon Gargantua, hearing that it had the white ribbon on, was joyful
and secure of his son's welfare. This was the custom of the noble
Gargantua and Pantagruel when they would have speedy news of something of
great concern; as the event of some battle, either by sea or land; the
surrendering or holding out of some strong place; the determination of some
difference of moment; the safe or unhappy delivery of some queen or great
lady; the death or recovery of their sick friends or allies, and so forth.
They used to take the gozal, and had it carried from one to another by the
post, to the places whence they desired to have news. The gozal, bearing
either a black or white ribbon, according to the occurrences and accidents,
used to remove their doubts at its return, making in the space of one hour
more way through the air than thirty postboys could have done in one
natural day. May not this be said to redeem and gain time with a
vengeance, think you? For the like service, therefore, you may believe as
a most true thing that in the dove-houses of their farms there were to be
found all the year long store of pigeons hatching eggs or rearing their
young. Which may be easily done in aviaries and voleries by the help of
saltpetre and the sacred herb vervain.
The gozal being let fly, Pantagruel perused his father Gargantua's letter,
the contents of which were as followeth:
My dearest Son,--The affection that naturally a father bears a beloved son
is so much increased in me by reflecting on the particular gifts which by
the divine goodness have been heaped on thee, that since thy departure it
hath often banished all other thoughts out of my mind, leaving my heart
wholly possessed with fear lest some misfortune has attended thy voyage;
for thou knowest that fear was ever the attendant of true and sincere love.
Now because, as Hesiod saith, A good beginning of anything is the half of
it; or, Well begun's half done, according to the old saying; to free my
mind from this anxiety I have expressly despatched Malicorne, that he may
give me a true account of thy health at the beginning of thy voyage. For
if it be good, and such as I wish it, I shall easily foresee the rest.
I have met with some diverting books, which the bearer will deliver thee;
thou mayest read them when thou wantest to unbend and ease thy mind from
thy better studies. He will also give thee at large the news at court.
The peace of the Lord be with thee. Remember me to Panurge, Friar John,
Epistemon, Xenomanes, Gymnast, and thy other principal domestics. Dated at
our paternal seat, this 13th day of June.
Thy father and friend, Gargantua.
Chapter 4.IV.
How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent him several
curiosities.
Pantagruel, having perused the letter, had a long conference with the
esquire Malicorne; insomuch that Panurge, at last interrupting them, asked
him, Pray, sir, when do you design to drink? When shall we drink? When
shall the worshipful esquire drink? What a devil! have you not talked long
enough to drink? It is a good motion, answered Pantagruel: go, get us
something ready at the next inn; I think 'tis the Centaur. In the meantime
he writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent by the aforesaid esquire:
Most gracious Father,--As our senses and animal faculties are more
discomposed at the news of events unexpected, though desired (even to an
immediate dissolution of the soul from the body), than if those accidents
had been foreseen, so the coming of Malicorne hath much surprised and
disordered me. For I had no hopes to see any of your servants, or to hear
from you, before I had finished our voyage; and contented myself with the
dear remembrance of your august majesty, deeply impressed in the hindmost
ventricle of my brain, often representing you to my mind.
But since you have made me happy beyond expectation by the perusal of your
gracious letter, and the faith I have in your esquire hath revived my
spirits by the news of your welfare, I am as it were compelled to do what
formerly I did freely, that is, first to praise the blessed Redeemer, who
by his divine goodness preserves you in this long enjoyment of perfect
health; then to return you eternal thanks for the fervent affection which
you have for me your most humble son and unprofitable servant.
Formerly a Roman, named Furnius, said to Augustus, who had received his
father into favour, and pardoned him after he had sided with Antony, that
by that action the emperor had reduced him to this extremity, that for want
of power to be grateful, both while he lived and after it, he should be
obliged to be taxed with ingratitude. So I may say, that the excess of
your fatherly affection drives me into such a strait, that I shall be
forced to live and die ungrateful; unless that crime be redressed by the
sentence of the Stoics, who say that there are three parts in a benefit,
the one of the giver, the other of the receiver, the third of the
remunerator; and that the receiver rewards the giver when he freely
receives the benefit and always remembers it; as, on the contrary, that man
is most ungrateful who despises and forgets a benefit. Therefore, being
overwhelmed with infinite favours, all proceeding from your extreme
goodness, and on the other side wholly incapable of making the smallest
return, I hope at least to free myself from the imputation of ingratitude,
since they can never be blotted out of my mind; and my tongue shall never
cease to own that to thank you as I ought transcends my capacity.
As for us, I have this assurance in the Lord's mercy and help, that the end
of our voyage will be answerable to its beginning, and so it will be
entirely performed in health and mirth. I will not fail to set down in a
journal a full account of our navigation, that at our return you may have
an exact relation of the whole.
I have found here a Scythian tarand, an animal strange and wonderful for
the variations of colour on its skin and hair, according to the distinction
of neighbouring things; it is as tractable and easily kept as a lamb. Be
pleased to accept of it.
I also send you three young unicorns, which are the tamest of creatures.
I have conferred with the esquire, and taught him how they must be fed.
These cannot graze on the ground by reason of the long horn on their
forehead, but are forced to browse on fruit trees, or on proper racks, or
to be fed by hand, with herbs, sheaves, apples, pears, barley, rye, and
other fruits and roots, being placed before them.
I am amazed that ancient writers should report them to be so wild, furious,
and dangerous, and never seen alive; far from it, you will find that they
are the mildest things in the world, provided they are not maliciously
offended. Likewise I send you the life and deeds of Achilles in curious
tapestry; assuring you whatever rarities of animals, plants, birds, or
precious stones, and others, I shall be able to find and purchase in our
travels, shall be brought to you, God willing, whom I beseech, by his
blessed grace, to preserve you.
From Medamothy, this 15th of June. Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon,
Zenomanes, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, and Carpalin, having most humbly
kissed your hand, return your salute a thousand times.
Your most dutiful son and servant, Pantagruel.
While Pantagruel was writing this letter, Malicorne was made welcome by all
with a thousand goodly good-morrows and how-d'ye's; they clung about him so
that I cannot tell you how much they made of him, how many humble services,
how many from my love and to my love were sent with him. Pantagruel,
having writ his letters, sat down at table with him, and afterwards
presented him with a large chain of gold, weighing eight hundred crowns,
between whose septenary links some large diamonds, rubies, emeralds,
turquoise stones, and unions were alternately set in. To each of his
bark's crew he ordered to be given five hundred crowns. To Gargantua, his
father, he sent the tarand covered with a cloth of satin, brocaded with
gold, and the tapestry containing the life and deeds of Achilles, with the
three unicorns in friezed cloth of gold trappings; and so they left
Medamothy--Malicorne to return to Gargantua, Pantagruel to proceed in his
voyage, during which Epistemon read to him the books which the esquire had
brought, and because he found them jovial and pleasant, I shall give you an
account of them, if you earnestly desire it.
Chapter 4.V.
How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from Lanternland.
On the fifth day we began already to wind by little and little about the
pole; going still farther from the equinoctial line, we discovered a
merchant-man to the windward of us. The joy for this was not small on both
sides; we in hopes to hear news from sea, and those in the merchant-man
from land. So we bore upon 'em, and coming up with them we hailed them;
and finding them to be Frenchmen of Xaintonge, backed our sails and lay by
to talk to them. Pantagruel heard that they came from Lanternland; which
added to his joy, and that of the whole fleet. We inquired about the state
of that country, and the way of living of the Lanterns; and were told that
about the latter end of the following July was the time prefixed for the
meeting of the general chapter of the Lanterns; and that if we arrived
there at that time, as we might easily, we should see a handsome,
honourable, and jolly company of Lanterns; and that great preparations were
making, as if they intended to lanternize there to the purpose. We were
told also that if we touched at the great kingdom of Gebarim, we should be
honourably received and treated by the sovereign of that country, King
Ohabe, who, as well as all his subjects, speaks Touraine French.
While we were listening to these news, Panurge fell out with one Dingdong,
a drover or sheep-merchant of Taillebourg. The occasion of the fray was
thus:
This same Dingdong, seeing Panurge without a codpiece, with his spectacles
fastened to his cap, said to one of his comrades, Prithee, look, is there
not a fine medal of a cuckold? Panurge, by reason of his spectacles, as
you may well think, heard more plainly by half with his ears than usually;
which caused him (hearing this) to say to the saucy dealer in mutton, in a
kind of a pet:
How the devil should I be one of the hornified fraternity, since I am not
yet a brother of the marriage-noose, as thou art; as I guess by thy ill-
favoured phiz?
Yea, verily, quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be otherwise
for all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the magnifying
gimcracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest, prettiest,
handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and soberest piece of
woman's flesh for my wife that is in all the whole country of Xaintonge;
I'll say that for her, and a fart for all the rest. I bring her home a
fine eleven-inch-long branch of red coral for her Christmas-box. What hast
thou to do with it? what's that to thee? who art thou? whence comest thou,
O dark lantern of Antichrist? Answer, if thou art of God. I ask thee, by
the way of question, said Panurge to him very seriously, if with the
consent and countenance of all the elements, I had gingumbobbed, codpieced,
and thumpthumpriggledtickledtwiddled thy so clever, so pretty, so handsome,
so proper, so neat, so tight, so honest, and so sober female importance,
insomuch that the stiff deity that has no forecast, Priapus (who dwells
here at liberty, all subjection of fastened codpieces, or bolts, bars, and
locks, abdicated), remained sticking in her natural Christmas-box in such a
lamentable manner that it were never to come out, but eternally should
stick there unless thou didst pull it out with thy teeth; what wouldst thou
do? Wouldst thou everlastingly leave it there, or wouldst thou pluck it
out with thy grinders? Answer me, O thou ram of Mahomet, since thou art
one of the devil's gang. I would, replied the sheepmonger, take thee such
a woundy cut on this spectacle-bearing lug of thine with my trusty bilbo as
would smite thee dead as a herring. Thus, having taken pepper in the nose,
he was lugging out his sword, but, alas!--cursed cows have short horns,--it
stuck in the scabbard; as you know that at sea cold iron will easily take
rust by reason of the excessive and nitrous moisture. Panurge, so smitten
with terror that his heart sunk down to his midriff, scoured off to
Pantagruel for help; but Friar John laid hand on his flashing scimitar that
was new ground, and would certainly have despatched Dingdong to rights, had
not the skipper and some of his passengers beseeched Pantagruel not to
suffer such an outrage to be committed on board his ship. So the matter
was made up, and Panurge and his antagonist shaked fists, and drank in
course to one another in token of a perfect reconciliation.
Chapter 4.VI.
How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one of Dingdong's sheep.
This quarrel being hushed, Panurge tipped the wink upon Epistemon and Friar
John, and taking them aside, Stand at some distance out of the way, said
he, and take your share of the following scene of mirth. You shall have
rare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but take. Then
addressing himself to the drover, he took off to him a bumper of good
lantern wine. The other pledged him briskly and courteously. This done,
Panurge earnestly entreated him to sell him one of his sheep.
But the other answered him, Is it come to that, friend and neighbour?
Would you put tricks upon travellers? Alas, how finely you love to play
upon poor folk! Nay, you seem a rare chapman, that's the truth on't. Oh,
what a mighty sheep-merchant you are! In good faith, you look liker one of
the diving trade than a buyer of sheep. Adzookers, what a blessing it
would be to have one's purse well lined with chink near your worship at a
tripe-house when it begins to thaw! Humph, humph, did not we know you
well, you might serve one a slippery trick! Pray do but see, good people,
what a mighty conjuror the fellow would be reckoned. Patience, said
Panurge; but waiving that, be so kind as to sell me one of your sheep.
Come, how much? What do you mean, master of mine? answered the other.
They are long-wool sheep; from these did Jason take his golden fleece. The
gold of the house of Burgundy was drawn from them. Zwoons, man, they are
oriental sheep, topping sheep, fatted sheep, sheep of quality. Be it so,
said Panurge; but sell me one of them, I beseech you; and that for a cause,
paying you ready money upon the nail, in good and lawful occidental current
cash. Wilt say how much? Friend, neighbour, answered the seller of
mutton, hark ye me a little, on the ear.
Panurge. On which side you please; I hear you.
Dingdong. You are going to Lanternland, they say.
Panurge. Yea, verily.
Dingdong. To see fashions?
Panurge. Even so.
Dingdong. And be merry?
Panurge. And be merry.
Dingdong. Your name is, as I take it, Robin Mutton?
Panurge. As you please for that, sweet sir.
Dingdong. Nay, without offence.
Panurge. So I would have it.
Dingdong. You are, as I take it, the king's jester; aren't you?
Panurge. Ay, ay, anything.
Dingdong. Give me your hand--humph, humph, you go to see fashions, you
are the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton! Do you see this same
ram? His name, too, is Robin. Here, Robin, Robin, Robin! Baea, baea,
baea. Hath he not a rare voice?
Panurge. Ay, marry has he, a very fine and harmonious voice.
Dingdong. Well, this bargain shall be made between you and me, friend
and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be
put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you a
peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he shall outdo you,
and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner as when you shall
be hanged and suspended.
Patience, said Panurge; but you would do much for me and your whole
posterity if you would chaffer with me for him, or some other of his
inferiors. I beg it of you; good your worship, be so kind. Hark ye,
friend of mine, answered the other; with the fleece of these your fine
Rouen cloth is to be made; your Leominster superfine wool is mine arse to
it; mere flock in comparison. Of their skins the best cordovan will be
made, which shall be sold for Turkey and Montelimart, or for Spanish
leather at least. Of the guts shall be made fiddle and harp strings that
will sell as dear as if they came from Munican or Aquileia. What do you
think on't, hah? If you please, sell me one of them, said Panurge, and I
will be yours for ever. Look, here's ready cash. What's the price? This
he said exhibiting his purse stuffed with new Henricuses.
Chapter 4.VII.
Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with Dingdong.
Neighbour, my friend, answered Dingdong, they are meat for none but kings
and princes; their flesh is so delicate, so savoury, and so dainty that one
would swear it melted in the mouth. I bring them out of a country where
the very hogs, God be with us, live on nothing but myrobolans. The sows in
the styes when they lie-in (saving the honour of this good company) are fed
only with orange-flowers. But, said Panurge, drive a bargain with me for
one of them, and I will pay you for't like a king, upon the honest word of
a true Trojan; come, come, what do you ask? Not so fast, Robin, answered
the trader; these sheep are lineally descended from the very family of the
ram that wafted Phryxus and Helle over the sea since called the Hellespont.
A pox on't, said Panurge, you are clericus vel addiscens! Ita is a
cabbage, and vere a leek, answered the merchant. But, rr, rrr, rrrr,
rrrrr, hoh Robin, rr, rrrrrrr, you don't understand that gibberish, do you?
Now I think on't, over all the fields where they piss, corn grows as fast
as if the Lord had pissed there; they need neither be tilled nor dunged.
Besides, man, your chemists extract the best saltpetre in the world out of
their urine. Nay, with their very dung (with reverence be it spoken) the
doctors in our country make pills that cure seventy-eight kinds of
diseases, the least of which is the evil of St. Eutropius of Xaintes, from
which, good Lord, deliver us! Now what do you think on't, neighbour, my
friend? The truth is, they cost me money, that they do. Cost what they
will, cried Panurge, trade with me for one of them, paying you well. Our
friend, quoth the quacklike sheepman, do but mind the wonders of nature
that are found in those animals, even in a member which one would think
were of no use. Take me but these horns, and bray them a little with an
iron pestle, or with an andiron, which you please, it is all one to me;
then bury them wherever you will, provided it be where the sun may shine,
and water them frequently; in a few months I'll engage you will have the
best asparagus in the world, not even excepting those of Ravenna. Now,
come and tell me whether the horns of your other knights of the bull's
feather have such a virtue and wonderful propriety?
Patience, said Panurge. I don't know whether you be a scholar or no,
pursued Dingdong; I have seen a world of scholars, I say great scholars,
that were cuckolds, I'll assure you. But hark you me, if you were a
scholar, you should know that in the most inferior members of those
animals, which are the feet, there is a bone, which is the heel, the
astragalus, if you will have it so, wherewith, and with that of no other
creature breathing, except the Indian ass and the dorcades of Libya, they
used in old times to play at the royal game of dice, whereat Augustus the
emperor won above fifty thousand crowns one evening. Now such cuckolds as
you will be hanged ere you get half so much at it. Patience, said Panurge;
but let us despatch. And when, my friend and neighbour, continued the
canting sheepseller, shall I have duly praised the inward members, the
shoulders, the legs, the knuckles, the neck, the breast, the liver, the
spleen, the tripes, the kidneys, the bladder, wherewith they make
footballs; the ribs, which serve in Pigmyland to make little crossbows to
pelt the cranes with cherry-stones; the head, which with a little brimstone
serves to make a miraculous decoction to loosen and ease the belly of
costive dogs? A turd on't, said the skipper to his preaching passenger,
what a fiddle-faddle have we here? There is too long a lecture by half:
sell him if thou wilt; if thou won't, don't let the man lose more time. I
hate a gibble-gabble and a rimble-ramble talk. I am for a man of brevity.
I will, for your sake, replied the holder-forth; but then he shall give me
three livres, French money, for each pick and choose. It is a woundy
price, cried Panurge; in our country I could have five, nay six, for the
money; see that you do not overreach me, master. You are not the first man
whom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if not
breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrain
seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the
worthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times
better than those which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain,
used to sell for a gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou
Hibernian fool, that a talent of gold was worth? Sweet sir, you fall into
a passion, I see, returned Panurge; well, hold, here is your money.
Panurge, having paid his money, chose him out of all the flock a fine
topping ram; and as he was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, all
the rest, hearing and bleating in concert, stared to see whither their
brother-ram should be carried. In the meanwhile the drover was saying to
his shepherds: Ah! how well the knave could choose him out a ram; the
whoreson has skill in cattle. On my honest word, I reserved that very
piece of flesh for the Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition; for
the good man is naturally overjoyed when he holds a good-sized handsome
shoulder of mutton, instead of a left-handed racket, in one hand, with a
good sharp carver in the other. God wot, how he belabours himself then.
Chapter 4.VIII.
How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea.
On a sudden, you would wonder how the thing was so soon done--for my part I
cannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it--our friend Panurge,
without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard into the
middle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise. Upon this all the
other sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone, made all the
haste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after another; and great
was the throng who should leap in first after their leader. It was
impossible to hinder them; for you know that it is the nature of sheep
always to follow the first wheresoever it goes; which makes Aristotle, lib.
9. De. Hist. Animal., mark them for the most silly and foolish animals in
the world. Dingdong, at his wits' end, and stark staring mad, as a man who
saw his sheep destroy and drown themselves before his face, strove to
hinder and keep them back with might and main; but all in vain: they all
one after t'other frisked and jumped into the sea, and were lost. At last
he laid hold on a huge sturdy one by the fleece, upon the deck of the ship,
hoping to keep it back, and so save that and the rest; but the ram was so
strong that it proved too hard for him, and carried its master into the
herring pond in spite of his teeth--where it is supposed he drank somewhat
more than his fill, so that he was drowned--in the same manner as one-eyed
Polyphemus' sheep carried out of the den Ulysses and his companions. The
like happened to the shepherds and all their gang, some laying hold on
their beloved tup, this by the horns, t'other by the legs, a third by the
rump, and others by the fleece; till in fine they were all of them forced
to sea, and drowned like so many rats. Panurge, on the gunnel of the ship,
with an oar in his hand, not to help them you may swear, but to keep them
from swimming to the ship and saving themselves from drowning, preached and
canted to them all the while like any little Friar (Oliver) Maillard, or
another Friar John Burgess; laying before them rhetorical commonplaces
concerning the miseries of this life and the blessings and felicity of the
next; assuring them that the dead were much happier than the living in this
vale of misery, and promised to erect a stately cenotaph and honorary tomb
to every one of them on the highest summit of Mount Cenis at his return
from Lanternland; wishing them, nevertheless, in case they were not yet
disposed to shake hands with this life, and did not like their salt liquor,
they might have the good luck to meet with some kind whale which might set
them ashore safe and sound on some blessed land of Gotham, after a famous
example.
The ship being cleared of Dingdong and his tups: Is there ever another
sheepish soul left lurking on board? cried Panurge. Where are those of
Toby Lamb and Robin Ram that sleep while the rest are a-feeding? Faith, I
can't tell myself. This was an old coaster's trick. What think'st of it,
Friar John, hah? Rarely performed, answered Friar John; only methinks that
as formerly in war, on the day of battle, a double pay was commonly
promised the soldiers for that day; for if they overcame, there was enough
to pay them; and if they lost, it would have been shameful for them to
demand it, as the cowardly foresters did after the battle of Cerizoles;
likewise, my friend, you ought not to have paid your man, and the money had
been saved. A fart for the money, said Panurge; have I not had above fifty
thousand pounds' worth of sport? Come now, let's be gone; the wind is
fair. Hark you me, my friend John; never did man do me a good turn, but I
returned, or at least acknowledged it; no, I scorn to be ungrateful; I
never was, nor ever will be. Never did man do me an ill one without rueing
the day that he did it, either in this world or the next. I am not yet so
much a fool neither. Thou damn'st thyself like any old devil, quoth Friar
John; it is written, Mihi vindictam, &c. Matter of breviary, mark ye me
(Motteux adds unnecessarily (by way of explanation), 'that's holy stuff.').
Chapter 4.IX.
How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of the strange ways of
being akin in that country.
We had still the wind at south-south-west, and had been a whole day without
making land. On the third day, at the flies' uprising (which, you know, is
some two or three hours after the sun's), we got sight of a triangular
island, very much like Sicily for its form and situation. It was called
the Island of Alliances.
The people there are much like your carrot-pated Poitevins, save only that
all of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped like an ace
of clubs. For that reason the ancient name of the country was Ennasin.
They were all akin, as the mayor of the place told us; at least they
boasted so.
You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing that, out of the
family of the Fabii at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th of
February, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since named
Scelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, between the
Tarpeian rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of Etruria
three hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each other, with
five thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals, who were all
slain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of Beccano. Now
from this same country of Ennasin, in case of need, above three hundred
thousand, all relations and of one family, might march out. Their degrees
of consanguinity and alliance are very strange; for being thus akin and
allied to one another, we found that none was either father or mother,
brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, son-in-law or daughter-
in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other; unless, truly, a tall flat-
nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a little shitten-arsed girl
of three or four years old, father, and the child called him daughter.
Their distinction of degrees of kindred was thus: a man used to call a
woman, my lean bit; the woman called him, my porpoise. Those, said Friar
John, must needs stink damnably of fish when they have rubbed their bacon
one with the other. One, smiling on a young buxom baggage, said, Good
morrow, dear currycomb. She, to return him his civility, said, The like to
you, my steed. Ha! ha! ha! said Panurge, that is pretty well, in faith;
for indeed it stands her in good stead to currycomb this steed. Another
greeted his buttock with a Farewell, my case. She replied, Adieu, trial.
By St. Winifred's placket, cried Gymnast, this case has been often tried.
Another asked a she-friend of his, How is it, hatchet? She answered him,
At your service, dear helve. Odds belly, saith Carpalin, this helve and
this hatchet are well matched. As we went on, I saw one who, calling his
she-relation, styled her my crumb, and she called him, my crust.
Quoth one to a brisk, plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear tap.
So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she. One called a
wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal: one named his, my slipper;
and she, my foot: another, my boot; she, my shasoon.
In the same degree of kindred, one called his, my butter; she called him,
my eggs; and they were akin just like a dish of buttered eggs. I heard one
call his, my tripe, and she him, my faggot. Now I could not, for the
heart's blood of me, pick out or discover what parentage, alliance,
affinity, or consanguinity was between them, with reference to our custom;
only they told us that she was faggot's tripe. (Tripe de fagot means the
smallest sticks in a faggot.) Another, complimenting his convenient, said,
Yours, my shell; she replied, I was yours before, sweet oyster. I reckon,
said Carpalin, she hath gutted his oyster. Another long-shanked ugly
rogue, mounted on a pair of high-heeled wooden slippers, meeting a
strapping, fusty, squabbed dowdy, says he to her, How is't my top? She was
short upon him, and arrogantly replied, Never the better for you, my whip.
By St. Antony's hog, said Xenomanes, I believe so; for how can this whip be
sufficient to lash this top?
A college professor, well provided with cod, and powdered and prinked up,
having a while discoursed with a great lady, taking his leave with these
words, Thank you, sweetmeat; she cried, There needs no thanks, sour-sauce.
Saith Pantagruel, This is not altogether incongruous, for sweet meat must
have sour sauce. A wooden loggerhead said to a young wench, It is long
since I saw you, bag; All the better, cried she, pipe. Set them together,
said Panurge, then blow in their arses, it will be a bagpipe. We saw,
after that, a diminutive humpbacked gallant, pretty near us, taking leave
of a she-relation of his, thus: Fare thee well, friend hole; she
reparteed, Save thee, friend peg. Quoth Friar John, What could they say
more, were he all peg and she all hole? But now would I give something to
know if every cranny of the hole can be stopped up with that same peg.
A bawdy bachelor, talking with an old trout, was saying, Remember, rusty
gun. I will not fail, said she, scourer. Do you reckon these two to be
akin? said Pantagruel to the mayor. I rather take them to be foes. In our
country a woman would take this as a mortal affront. Good people of
t'other world, replied the mayor, you have few such and so near relations
as this gun and scourer are to one another; for they both come out of one
shop. What, was the shop their mother? quoth Panurge. What mother, said
the mayor, does the man mean? That must be some of your world's affinity;
we have here neither father nor mother. Your little paltry fellows that
live on t'other side the water, poor rogues, booted with wisps of hay, may
indeed have such; but we scorn it. The good Pantagruel stood gazing and
listening; but at those words he had like to have lost all patience. (Here
Motteux adds an aside--'os kai nun o Ermeneutes. P.M.').
Having very exactly viewed the situation of the island and the way of
living of the Enassed nation, we went to take a cup of the creature at a
tavern, where there happened to be a wedding after the manner of the
country. Bating that shocking custom, there was special good cheer.
While we were there, a pleasant match was struck up betwixt a female called
Pear (a tight thing, as we thought, but by some, who knew better things,
said to be quaggy and flabby), and a young soft male, called Cheese,
somewhat sandy. (Many such matches have been, and they were formerly much
commended.) In our country we say, Il ne fut onques tel mariage, qu'est de
la poire et du fromage; there is no match like that made between the pear
and the cheese; and in many other places good store of such bargains have
been driven. Besides, when the women are at their last prayers, it is to
this day a noted saying, that after cheese comes nothing.
In another room I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young pliable
buskin. Pantagruel was told that young buskin took old boot to have and to
hold because she was of special leather, in good case, and waxed, seared,
liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had been for the
fisherman that went to bed with his boots on. In another room below, I saw
a young brogue taking a young slipper for better for worse; which, they
told us, was neither for the sake of her piety, parts, or person, but for
the fourth comprehensive p, portion; the spankers, spur-royals, rose-
nobles, and other coriander seed with which she was quilted all over.
Chapter 4.X.
How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where he saw King St.
Panigon.
We sailed right before the wind, which we had at west, leaving those odd
alliancers with their ace-of-clubs snouts, and having taken height by the
sun, stood in for Chely, a large, fruitful, wealthy, and well-peopled
island. King St. Panigon, first of the name, reigned there, and, attended
by the princes his sons and the nobles of his court, came as far as the
port to receive Pantagruel, and conducted him to his palace; near the gate
of which the queen, attended by the princesses her daughters and the court
ladies, received us. Panigon directed her and all her retinue to salute
Pantagruel and his men with a kiss; for such was the civil custom of the
country; and they were all fairly bussed accordingly, except Friar John,
who stepped aside and sneaked off among the king's officers. Panigon used
all the entreaties imaginable to persuade Pantagruel to tarry there that
day and the next; but he would needs be gone, and excused himself upon the
opportunity of wind and weather, which, being oftener desired than enjoyed,
ought not to be neglected when it comes. Panigon, having heard these
reasons, let us go, but first made us take off some five-and-twenty or
thirty bumpers each.
Pantagruel, returning to the port, missed Friar John, and asked why he was
not with the rest of the company. Panurge could not tell how to excuse
him, and would have gone back to the palace to call him, when Friar John
overtook them, and merrily cried, Long live the noble Panigon! As I love
my belly, he minds good eating, and keeps a noble house and a dainty
kitchen. I have been there, boys. Everything goes about by dozens. I was
in good hopes to have stuffed my puddings there like a monk. What! always
in a kitchen, friend? said Pantagruel. By the belly of St. Cramcapon,
quoth the friar, I understand the customs and ceremonies which are used
there much better than all the formal stuff, antique postures, and
nonsensical fiddle-faddle that must be used with those women, magni magna,
shittencumshita, cringes, grimaces, scrapes, bows, and congees; double
honours this way, triple salutes that way, the embrace, the grasp, the
squeeze, the hug, the leer, the smack, baso las manos de vostra merce, de
vostra maesta. You are most tarabin, tarabas, Stront; that's downright
Dutch. Why all this ado? I don't say but a man might be for a bit by the
bye and away, to be doing as well as his neighbours; but this little nasty
cringing and courtesying made me as mad as any March devil. You talk of
kissing ladies; by the worthy and sacred frock I wear, I seldom venture
upon it, lest I be served as was the Lord of Guyercharois. What was it?
said Pantagruel; I know him. He is one of the best friends I have.
He was invited to a sumptuous feast, said Friar John, by a relation and
neighbour of his, together with all the gentlemen and ladies in the
neighbourhood. Now some of the latter expecting his coming, dressed the
pages in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies; then ordered
them to meet my lord at his coming near the drawbridge. So the
complimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads with
great formality. At last the ladies, who minded passages in the gallery,
burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off their
dress; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he durst make
up to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they had disguised
the pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were certainly the very
footmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised. Odds fish, da jurandi,
why do not we rather remove our humanities into some good warm kitchen of
God, that noble laboratory, and there admire the turning of the spits, the
harmonious rattling of the jacks and fenders, criticise on the position of
the lard, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert,
and the order of the wine service? Beati immaculati in via. Matter of
breviary, my masters.
Chapter 4.XI.
Why monks love to be in kitchens.
This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right
monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put me in mind
of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a
company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing
the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we viewed the situation and
beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the
churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their
due; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry,
scandalized, and out of all patience, told us, I don't know what the devil
you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part I
have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think my
eyesight is as clear as another body's, and what can one see after all?
There are fine houses, indeed and that's all. But the cage does not feed
the birds. God and Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in
all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet
I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a
commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with
the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and
left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a
spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town. Now at Amiens, in four,
nay, five times less ground than we have trod in our contemplations, I
could have shown you above fourteen streets of roasting cooks, most
ancient, savoury, and aromatic. I cannot imagine what kind of pleasure you
can have taken in gazing on the lions and Africans (so methinks you call
their tigers) near the belfry, or in ogling the porcupines and estridges in
the Lord Philip Strozzi's palace. Faith and truth I had rather see a good
fat goose at the spit. This porphyry, those marbles are fine; I say
nothing to the contrary; but our cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in my
mind. These ancient statues are well made; I am willing to believe it;
but, by St. Ferreol of Abbeville, we have young wenches in our country
which please me better a thousand times.
What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found in
kitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there? Is there not,
said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in the
kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monks
there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings? Or is it a natural
induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself
leads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they will
or no? He would speak of forms following matter, as Averroes calls them,
answered Epistemon. Right, said Friar John.
I will not offer to solve this problem, said Pantagruel; for it is somewhat
ticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off scurvily; but I
will tell you what I have heard.
Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming into one of the tents, where his
cooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet Antagoras frying a
conger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked him, Pray, Mr. Poet, was
Homer frying congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon? Antagoras
readily answered: But do you think, sir, that when Agamemnon did them he
made it his business to know if any in his camp were frying congers? The
king thought it an indecency that a poet should be thus a-frying in a
kitchen; and the poet let the king know that it was a more indecent thing
for a king to be found in such a place. I'll clap another story upon the
neck of this, quoth Panurge, and will tell you what Breton Villandry
answered one day to the Duke of Guise.
They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis against Charles
the Fifth, Breton, armed cap-a-pie to the teeth, and mounted like St.
George, yet sneaked off, and played least in sight during the engagement.
Blood and oons, answered Breton, I was there, and can prove it easily; nay,
even where you, my lord, dared not have been. The duke began to resent
this as too rash and saucy; but Breton easily appeased him, and set them
all a-laughing. Egad, my lord, quoth he, I kept out of harm's way; I was
all the while with your page Jack, skulking in a certain place where you
had not dared hide your head as I did. Thus discoursing, they got to their
ships, and left the island of Chely.
Chapter 4.XII.
How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange way
of living among the Catchpoles.
Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through Pettifogging,
a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly tell what to make
on't. There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles, rogues that will hang
their father for a groat. They neither invited us to eat or drink; but,
with a multiplied train of scrapes and cringes, said they were all at our
service for the Legem pone.
One of our droggermen related to Pantagruel their strange way of living,
diametrically opposed to that of our modern Romans; for at Rome a world of
folks get an honest livelihood by poisoning, drubbing, lambasting,
stabbing, and murthering; but the catchpoles earn theirs by being thrashed;
so that if they were long without a tight lambasting, the poor dogs with
their wives and children would be starved. This is just, quoth Panurge,
like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towards
the equinoctial circle unless they are soundly flogged. By St. Patrick's
slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting me
right, throw me off the saddle, in the devil's name.
The way is this, said the interpreter. When a monk, levite, close-fisted
usurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he sends to
him one of those catchpoles or apparitors, who nabs, or at least cites him,
serves a writ or warrant upon him, thumps, abuses, and affronts him
impudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious instructions;
insomuch, that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his brains, and is not
more stupid than a gyrin frog, he will find himself obliged either to apply
a faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal's jobbernowl, give him the gentle
lash, or make him cut a caper out at the window, by way of correction.
This done, Catchpole is rich for four months at least, as if bastinadoes
were his real harvest; for the monk, levite, usurer, or lawyer will reward
him roundly; and my gentleman must pay him such swingeing damages that his
acres must bleed for it, and he be in danger of miserably rotting within a
stone doublet, as if he had struck the king.
Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this used by the Lord of
Basche. What is it? said Pantagruel. The Lord of Basche, said Panurge,
was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his return from the
long war in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of the French, bravely
defended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the Second, was every day
cited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit and for the sport and fancy of
the fat prior of St. Louant.
One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for he
loved to be sometimes among them) he sent for one Loire, his baker, and his
spouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was also his
butler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them before his
gentlemen and other servants: You all see how I am daily plagued with
these rascally catchpoles. Truly, if you do not lend me your helping hand,
I am finally resolved to leave the country, and go fight for the sultan, or
the devil, rather than be thus eternally teased. Therefore, to be rid of
their damned visits, hereafter, when any of them come here, be ready, you
baker and your wife, to make your personal appearance in my great hall, in
your wedding clothes, as if you were going to be affianced. Here, take
these ducats, which I give you to keep you in a fitting garb. As for you,
Sir Oudart, be sure you make your personal appearance there in your fine
surplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wed
them. Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipe
and tabor. The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; then
all of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one
another the remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow with
your fist, bidding the party struck remember the nuptials by that token.
This will but make you have the better stomach to your supper; but when you
come to the catchpole's turn, thrash him thrice and threefold, as you would
a sheaf of green corn; do not spare him; maul him, drub him, lambast him,
swinge him off, I pray you. Here, take these steel gauntlets, covered with
kid. Head, back, belly, and sides, give him blows innumerable; he that
gives him most shall be my best friend. Fear not to be called to an
account about it; I will stand by you; for the blows must seem to be given
in jest, as it is customary among us at all weddings.
Ay, but how shall we know the catchpole? said the man of God. All sorts of
people daily resort to this castle. I have taken care of that, replied the
lord. When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade, with a large
broad silver ring on his thumb, comes to the door, he is certainly a
catchpole; the porter having civilly let him in, shall ring the bell; then
be all ready, and come into the hall, to act the tragi-comedy whose plot I
have now laid for you.
That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old fat ruddy
catchpole. Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men will
do, the porter soon found him out, by his large greasy spatterdashes, his
jaded hollow-flanked mare, his bagful of writs and informations dangling at
his girdle, but, above all, by the large silver hoop on his left thumb.
The porter was civil to him, admitted him in kindly, and rung the bell
briskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on their
best clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall, keeping their
gravities like a new-made judge. The dominie put on his surplice and
stole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole, had him in
there, and made him suck his face a good while, while the gauntlets were
drawing on all hands; and then told him, You are come just in pudding-time;
my lord is in his right cue. We shall feast like kings anon; here is to be
swingeing doings; we have a wedding in the house; here, drink and cheer up;
pull away.
While these two were at it hand-to-fist, Basche, seeing all his people in
the hall in their proper equipage, sends for the vicar. Oudart comes with
the holy-water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into the
hall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then served
Basche with a writ. Basche gave him grimace for grimace, slipped an angel
into his mutton-fist, and prayed him to assist at the contract and
ceremony; which he did. When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began to
fly about among the assistants; but when it came to the catchpole's turn,
they all laid on him so unmercifully with their gauntlets that they at last
settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one of
his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, his
omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces; and all this
in jest, and no harm done. God wot how the levite belaboured him, hiding
within the long sleeve of his canonical shirt his huge steel gauntlet lined
with ermine; for he was a strong-built ball, and an old dog at fisticuffs.
The catchpole, all of a bloody tiger-like stripe, with much ado crawled
home to L'Isle Bouchart, well pleased and edified, however, with Basche's
kind reception; and, with the help of the good surgeons of the place, lived
as long as you would have him. From that time to this, not a word of the
business; the memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rung
with joy at his funeral.
Chapter 4.XIII.
How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche commended his servants.
The catchpole being packed off on blind Sorrel--so he called his one-eyed
mare--Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his servants, into the
arbour of his garden; had wine brought, attended with good store of
pasties, hams, fruit, and other table-ammunition, for a nunchion; drank
with them joyfully, and then told them this story:
Master Francis Villon in his old age retired to St. Maxent in Poitou, under
the patronage of a good honest abbot of the place. There to make sport for
the mob, he undertook to get the Passion acted, after the way, and in the
dialect of the country. The parts being distributed, the play having been
rehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and aldermen that the
mystery might be ready after Niort fair, and that there only wanted
properties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the parts; so the
mayor and his brethren took care to get them.
Villon, to dress an old clownish father greybeard, who was to represent God
the father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan
friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole. Tickletoby refused
him, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously forbidden
to give or lend anything to players. Villon replied that the statute
reached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games,
and that he asked no more than what he had seen allowed at Brussels and
other places. Tickletoby notwithstanding peremptorily bid him provide
himself elsewhere if he would, and not to hope for anything out of his
monastical wardrobe. Villon gave an account of this to the players, as of
a most abominable action; adding, that God would shortly revenge himself,
and make an example of Tickletoby.
The Saturday following he had notice given him that Tickletoby, upon the
filly of the convent--so they call a young mare that was never leaped yet--
was gone a-mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be back about two in the
afternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his devils of the Passion
through the town. They were all rigged with wolves', calves', and rams'
skins, laced and trimmed with sheep's heads, bull's feathers, and large
kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles, whereat hanged
dangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells, which made a horrid din. Some
held in their claws black sticks full of squibs and crackers; others had
long lighted pieces of wood, upon which, at the corner of every street,
they flung whole handfuls of rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire and
smoke. Having thus led them about, to the great diversion of the mob and
the dreadful fear of little children, he finally carried them to an
entertainment at a summer-house without the gate that leads to St.
Ligarius.
As they came near to the place, he espied Tickletoby afar off, coming home
from mumping, and told them in macaronic verse:
Hic est de patria, natus, de gente belistra,
Qui solet antiqua bribas portare bisacco. (Motteux reads:
'Hic est mumpator natus de gente Cucowli,
Qui solet antiquo Scrappas portare bisacco.')
A plague on his friarship, said the devils then; the lousy beggar would not
lend a poor cope to the fatherly father; let us fright him. Well said,
cried Villon; but let us hide ourselves till he comes by, and then charge
him home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks. Tickletoby being
come to the place, they all rushed on a sudden into the road to meet him,
and in a frightful manner threw fire from all sides upon him and his filly
foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so many real
devils, Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hou
hho, hho, hhoi. Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely? The filly
was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, to
squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it,
to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to
curvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw down
Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with might
and main. Now his straps and stirrups were of cord; and on the right side
his sandals were so entangled and twisted that he could not for the heart's
blood of him get out his foot. Thus he was dragged about by the filly
through the road, scratching his bare breech all the way; she still
multiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge and
ditch, insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so that his cockle
brains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross. Then his arms fell
to pieces, one this way and the other that way; and even so were his legs
served at the same time. Then she made a bloody havoc with his puddings;
and being got to the convent, brought back only his right foot and twisted
sandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the rest.
Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to his
devils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely; I dare
engage you'll top your parts. I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay,
Montmorillon, Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, by gad, even those of
Poictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you.
Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee that hereafter you will act rarely
this tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfully
hampered, bethwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole. From this day
I double your wages. As for you, my dear, said he to his lady, make your
gratifications as you please; you are my treasurer, you know. For my part,
first and foremost, I drink to you all. Come on, box it about; it is good
and cool. In the second place, you, Mr. Steward, take this silver basin; I
give it you freely. Then you, my gentlemen of the horse, take these two
silver-gilt cups, and let not the pages be horsewhipped these three months.
My dear, let them have my best white plumes of feathers, with the gold
buckles to them. Sir Oudart, this silver flagon falls to your share; this
other I give to the cooks. To the valets de chambre I give this silver
basket; to the grooms, this silver-gilt boat; to the porter, these two
plates; to the hostlers, these ten porringers. Trudon, take you these
silver spoons and this sugar-box. You, footman, take this large salt.
Serve me well, and I will remember you. For, on the word of a gentleman, I
had rather bear in war one hundred blows on my helmet in the service of my
country than be once cited by these knavish catchpoles merely to humour
this same gorbellied prior.
Chapter 4.XIV.
A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche's house.
Four days after another young, long-shanked, raw-boned catchpole coming to
serve Basche with a writ at the fat prior's request, was no sooner at the
gate but the porter smelt him out and rung the bell; at whose second pull
all the family understood the mystery. Loire was kneading his dough; his
wife was sifting meal; Oudart was toping in his office; the gentlemen were
playing at tennis; the Lord Basche at in-and-out with my lady; the waiting-
men and gentle-women at push-pin; the officers at lanterloo, and the pages
at hot-cockles, giving one another smart bangs. They were all immediately
informed that a catchpole was housed.
Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife their
nuptial badges; Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad; all made
haste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets. Basche went into the
outward yard; there the catchpole meeting him fell on his marrow-bones,
begged of him not to take it ill if he served him with a writ at the suit
of the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know that he was a
public person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to the abbatial
mitre, ready to do as much for him, nay, for the least of his servants,
whensoever he would employ and use him.
Nay, truly, said the lord, you shall not serve your writ till you have
tasted some of my good Quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a wedding
which we are to have this very minute. Let him drink and refresh himself,
added he, turning towards the levitical butler, and then bring him into the
hall. After which, Catchpole, well stuffed and moistened, came with Oudart
to the place where all the actors in the farce stood ready to begin. The
sight of their game set them a-laughing, and the messenger of mischief
grinned also for company's sake. Then the mysterious words were muttered
to and by the couple, their hands joined, the bride bussed, and all
besprinkled with holy water. While they were bringing wine and kickshaws,
thumps began to trot about by dozens. The catchpole gave the levite
several blows. Oudart, who had his gauntlet hid under his canonical shirt,
draws it on like a mitten, and then, with his clenched fist, souse he fell
on the catchpole and mauled him like a devil; the junior gauntlets dropped
on him likewise like so many battering rams. Remember the wedding by this,
by that, by these blows, said they. In short, they stroked him so to the
purpose that he pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and was
bruised, thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck,
breast, arms, and so forth. Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnival
time play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole's
microcosm. At last down he fell.
They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of his
doublet a fine yellow and green favour, and got him upon his snotty beast,
and God knows how he got to L'Isle Bouchart; where I cannot truly tell you
whether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by his spouse and the
able doctors of the country; for the thing never came to my ears.
The next day they had a third part to the same tune, because it did not
appear by the lean catchpole's bag that he had served his writ. So the fat
prior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums for his garde du
corps, to summon my lord. The porter ringing the bell, the whole family
was overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue. Basche was at dinner
with his lady and the gentlemen; so he sent for the catchpole, made him sit
by him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat till their bellies
cracked with their breeches unbuttoned. The fruit being served, the
catchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited Basche. Basche
kindly asked him for a copy of the warrant, which the other had got ready;
he then takes witness and a copy of the summons. To the catchpole and his
bums he ordered four ducats for civility money. In the meantime all were
withdrawn for the farce. So Trudon gave the alarm with his tabor. Basche
desired the catchpole to stay and see one of his servants married, and
witness the contract of marriage, paying him his fee. The catchpole
slapdash was ready, took out his inkhorn, got paper immediately, and his
bums by him.
Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with the
gentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements. Oudart, in
pontificalibus, takes them both by their hands, asketh them their will,
giveth them the matrimonial blessing, and was very liberal of holy water.
The contract written, signed, and registered, on one side was brought wine
and comfits; on the other, white and orange-tawny-coloured favours were
distributed; on another, gauntlets privately handed about.
Chapter 4.XV.
How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.
The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of Breton
wine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean? You do not give one
another the memento of the wedding. By St. Joseph's wooden shoe, all good
customs are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is scampered; and the
nest, but the birds are flown. There are no true friends nowadays. You
see how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling on
account of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, is come to nothing. The
world is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Now
come on; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this. This
he said, striking Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite. Then
the tabor beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty;
insomuch that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine
places. One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other
his upper jaw-bone or mandibule dislocated so that it hid half his chin,
with a denudation of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory, and
canine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were carefully
hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of the
company. So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpole
and his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell,
complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincornifistibulated his
nether shoulder-blade. Nevertheless, he scorned to be thought a flincher,
and made shift to tope to him on the square.
The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by signs
begged his pardon; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom made his
moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with his
shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was grown quite
esperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no small
loss of mistress bride.
But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with his
kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were not
satisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, and
morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my poor eyes,
but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed are commonly
beaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but drummers are well
entertained and never beaten. Now let Beelzebub e'en take the drum, to
make his devilship a nightcap. Brother, said the lame catchpole, never
fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine, large, old patent,
which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum, and for Madame St.
Ann's sake I pray thee forgive us. By Our Lady of Riviere, the blessed
dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn. One of the equerries,
who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limping
Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the pouting
jaw, and told him: What, Mr. Manhound, was it not enough thus to have
morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our upper
members with your botched mittens, but you must also apply such
morderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurintimpaniments on our
shinbones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled shoes. Do
you call this children's play? By the mass, 'tis no jest. The bum,
wringing his hands, seemed to beg his pardon, muttering with his tongue,
Mon, mon, mon, vrelon, von, von, like a dumb man. The bride crying
laughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not satisfied with
drubbing her without choice or distinction of members, but had also rudely
roused and toused her, pulled off her topping, and not having the fear of
her husband before his eyes, treacherously
trepignemanpenillorifrizonoufresterfumbled tumbled and squeezed her lower
parts. The devil go with it, said Basche; there was much need indeed that
this same Master King (this was the catchpole's name) should thus break my
wife's back; however, I forgive him now; these are little nuptial
caresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me like an angel, and
drubbed me like a devil. He had something in him of Friar Thumpwell.
Come, for all this, I must drink to him, and to you likewise, his trusty
esquires. But, said his lady, why hath he been so very liberal of his
manual kindness to me, without the least provocation? I assure you, I by
no means like it; but this I dare say for him, that he hath the hardest
knuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders. The steward held his left arm
in a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain. I think it was the
devil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials; shame on ill
luck; I must needs be meddling with a pox, and now see what I have got by
the bargain, both my arms are wretchedly engoulevezinemassed and bruised.
Do you call this a wedding? By St. Bridget's tooth, I had rather be at
that of a Tom T--d-man. This is, o' my word, even just such another feast
as was that of the Lapithae, described by the philosopher of Samosata.
One of the bums had lost his tongue. The other two, tho' they had more
need to complain, made their excuse as well as they could, protesting that
they had no ill design in this dumbfounding; begging that, for goodness
sake, they would forgive them; and so, tho' they could hardly budge a
foot, or wag along, away they crawled. About a mile from Basche's seat,
the catchpole found himself somewhat out of sorts. The bums got to L'Isle
Bouchart, publicly saying that since they were born they had never seen an
honester gentleman than the Lord of Basche, or civiller people than his,
and that they had never been at the like wedding (which I verily believe);
but that it was their own faults if they had been tickled off, and tossed
about from post to pillar, since themselves had began the beating. So
they lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after this. But from
that time to this it was held for a certain truth that Basche's money was
more pestilential, mortal, and pernicious to the catchpoles and bums than
were formerly the aurum Tholosanum and the Sejan horse to those that
possessed them. Ever since this he lived quietly, and Basche's wedding
grew into a common proverb.
Chapter 4.XVI.
How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles.
This story would seem pleasant enough, said Pantagruel, were we not to have
always the fear of God before our eyes. It had been better, said
Epistemon, if those gauntlets had fallen upon the fat prior. Since he took
a pleasure in spending his money partly to vex Basche, partly to see those
catchpoles banged, good lusty thumps would have done well on his shaved
crown, considering the horrid concussions nowadays among those puny judges.
What harm had done those poor devils the catchpoles? This puts me in mind,
said Pantagruel, of an ancient Roman named L. Neratius. He was of noble
blood, and for some time was rich; but had this tyrannical inclination,
that whenever he went out of doors he caused his servants to fill their
pockets with gold and silver, and meeting in the street your spruce
gallants and better sort of beaux, without the least provocation, for his
fancy, he used to strike them hard on the face with his fist; and
immediately after that, to appease them and hinder them from complaining to
the magistrates, he would give them as much money as satisfied them
according to the law of the twelve tables. Thus he used to spend his
revenue, beating people for the price of his money. By St. Bennet's sacred
boot, quoth Friar John, I will know the truth of it presently.
This said, he went on shore, put his hand in his fob, and took out twenty
ducats; then said with a loud voice, in the hearing of a shoal of the
nation of catchpoles, Who will earn twenty ducats for being beaten like the
devil? Io, Io, Io, said they all; you will cripple us for ever, sir, that
is most certain; but the money is tempting. With this they were all
thronging who should be first to be thus preciously beaten. Friar John
singled him out of the whole knot of these rogues in grain, a red-snouted
catchpole, who upon his right thumb wore a thick broad silver hoop, wherein
was set a good large toadstone. He had no sooner picked him out from the
rest, but I perceived that they all muttered and grumbled; and I heard a
young thin-jawed catchpole, a notable scholar, a pretty fellow at his pen,
and, according to public report, much cried up for his honesty at Doctors'
Commons, making his complaint and muttering because this same crimson phiz
carried away all the practice, and that if there were but a score and a
half of bastinadoes to be got, he would certainly run away with eight and
twenty of them. But all this was looked upon to be nothing but mere envy.
Friar John so unmercifully thrashed, thumped, and belaboured Red-snout,
back and belly, sides, legs, and arms, head, feet, and so forth, with the
home and frequently repeated application of one of the best members of a
faggot, that I took him to be a dead man; then he gave him the twenty
ducats, which made the dog get on his legs, pleased like a little king or
two. The rest were saying to Friar John, Sir, sir, brother devil, if it
please you to do us the favour to beat some of us for less money, we are
all at your devilship's command, bags, papers, pens, and all. Red-snout
cried out against them, saying, with a loud voice, Body of me, you little
prigs, will you offer to take the bread out of my mouth? will you take my
bargain over my head? would you draw and inveigle from me my clients and
customers? Take notice, I summon you before the official this day
sevennight; I will law and claw you like any old devil of Vauverd, that I
will--Then turning himself towards Friar John, with a smiling and joyful
look, he said to him, Reverend father in the devil, if you have found me a
good hide, and have a mind to divert yourself once more by beating your
humble servant, I will bate you half in half this time rather than lose
your custom; do not spare me, I beseech you; I am all, and more than all,
yours, good Mr. Devil; head, lungs, tripes, guts, and garbage; and that at
a pennyworth, I'll assure you. Friar John never heeded his proffers, but
even left them. The other catchpoles were making addresses to Panurge,
Epistemon, Gymnast, and others, entreating them charitably to bestow upon
their carcasses a small beating, for otherwise they were in danger of
keeping a long fast; but none of them had a stomach to it. Some time
after, seeking fresh water for the ship's company, we met a couple of old
female catchpoles of the place, miserably howling and weeping in concert.
Pantagruel had kept on board, and already had caused a retreat to be
sounded. Thinking that they might be related to the catchpole that was
bastinadoed, we asked them the occasion of their grief. They replied that
they had too much cause to weep; for that very hour, from an exalted triple
tree, two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cut
a caper on nothing. Cut a caper on nothing, said Gymnast; my pages use to
cut capers on the ground; to cut a caper on nothing should be hanging and
choking, or I am out. Ay, ay, said Friar John; you speak of it like St.
John de la Palisse.
We asked them why they treated these worthy persons with such a choking
hempen salad. They told us they had only borrowed, alias stolen, the tools
of the mass and hid them under the handle of the parish. This is a very
allegorical way of speaking, said Epistemon.
Chapter 4.XVII.
How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of the strange
death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills.
That day Pantagruel came to the two islands of Tohu and Bohu, where the
devil a bit we could find anything to fry with. For one Wide-nostrils, a
huge giant, had swallowed every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-
pan, dripping-pan, and brass and iron pot in the land, for want of
windmills, which were his daily food. Whence it happened that somewhat
before day, about the hour of his digestion, the greedy churl was taken
very ill with a kind of a surfeit, or crudity of stomach, occasioned, as
the physicians said, by the weakness of the concocting faculty of his
stomach, naturally disposed to digest whole windmills at a gust, yet unable
to consume perfectly the pans and skillets; though it had indeed pretty
well digested the kettles and pots, as they said they knew by the
hypostases and eneoremes of four tubs of second-hand drink which he had
evacuated at two different times that morning. They made use of divers
remedies, according to art, to give him ease; but all would not do; the
distemper prevailed over the remedies; insomuch that the famous Wide-
nostrils died that morning of so strange a death that I think you ought no
longer to wonder at that of the poet Aeschylus. It had been foretold him
by the soothsayers that he would die on a certain day by the ruin of
something that should fall on him. The fatal day being come in its turn,
he removed himself out of town, far from all houses, trees, (rocks,) or any
other things that can fall and endanger by their ruin; and strayed in a
large field, trusting himself to the open sky; there very secure, as he
thought, unless indeed the sky should happen to fall, which he held to be
impossible. Yet they say that the larks are much afraid of it; for if it
should fall, they must all be taken.
The Celts that once lived near the Rhine--they are our noble valiant
French--in ancient times were also afraid of the sky's falling; for being
asked by Alexander the Great what they feared most in this world, hoping
well they would say that they feared none but him, considering his great
achievements, they made answer that they feared nothing but the sky's
falling; however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy with so brave a
king, if you believe Strabo, lib. 7, and Arrian, lib. I.
Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears on the body of the
moon, speaks of one Phenaces, who very much feared the moon should fall on
the earth, and pitied those that live under that planet, as the Aethiopians
and Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever happened to fall on them, and
would have feared the like of heaven and earth had they not been duly
propped up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the ancients believed,
according to Aristotle's testimony, lib. 5, Metaphys. Notwithstanding all
this, poor Aeschylus was killed by the fall of the shell of a tortoise,
which falling from betwixt the claws of an eagle high in the air, just on
his head, dashed out his brains.
Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another poet, I mean old jolly
Anacreon, who was choked with a grape-stone. Nor at that of Fabius the
Roman praetor, who was choked with a single goat's hair as he was supping
up a porringer of milk. Nor at the death of that bashful fool, who by
holding in his wind, and for want of letting out a bum-gunshot, died
suddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius. Nor at that of the
Italian buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who in his epitaph complains
that the bite of a she-puss on his little finger was the cause of his
death. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small a
prick with a needle on his left thumb that it could hardly be discerned.
Nor of Quenelault, a Norman physician, who died suddenly at Montpellier,
merely for having sideways took a worm out of his hand with a penknife.
Nor of Philomenes, whose servant having got him some new figs for the first
course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung
ass got into the house, and seeing the figs on the table, without further
invitation soberly fell to. Philomenes coming into the room and nicely
observing with what gravity the ass ate its dinner, said to the man, who
was come back, Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of
ours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine
to drink. He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased,
and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen
took that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor of
Spurius Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of a
bath. Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking his
grinders with a sage-stalk. Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk and
hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which causes, perhaps, many
not to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident. Nor of the painter
Zeuxis, who killed himself with laughing at the sight of the antique
jobbernowl of an old hag drawn by him. Nor, in short, of a thousand more
of which authors write, as Varrius, Pliny, Valerius, J. Baptista Fulgosus,
and Bacabery the elder. In short, Gaffer Wide-nostrils choked himself with
eating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven by the advice
of physicians.
They likewise told us there that the King of Cullan in Bohu had routed the
grandees of King Mecloth, and made sad work with the fortresses of Belima.
After this, we sailed by the islands of Nargues and Zargues; also by the
islands of Teleniabin and Geleniabin, very fine and fruitful in ingredients
for clysters; and then by the islands of Enig and Evig, on whose account
formerly the Landgrave of Hesse was swinged off with a vengeance.
Chapter 4.XVIII.
How Pantagruel met with a great storm at sea.
The next day we espied nine sail that came spooning before the wind; they
were full of Dominicans, Jesuits, Capuchins, Hermits, Austins, Bernardins,
Egnatins, Celestins, Theatins, Amadeans, Cordeliers, Carmelites, Minims,
and the devil and all of other holy monks and friars, who were going to the
Council of Chesil, to sift and garble some new articles of faith against
the new heretics. Panurge was overjoyed to see them, being most certain of
good luck for that day and a long train of others. So having courteously
saluted the blessed fathers, and recommended the salvation of his precious
soul to their devout prayers and private ejaculations, he caused seventy-
eight dozen of Westphalia hams, units of pots of caviare, tens of Bolonia
sausages, hundreds of botargoes, and thousands of fine angels, for the
souls of the dead, to be thrown on board their ships. Pantagruel seemed
metagrabolized, dozing, out of sorts, and as melancholic as a cat. Friar
John, who soon perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come this
unusual sadness; when the master, whose watch it was, observing the
fluttering of the ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began to
overcast, judged that we should have wind; therefore he bid the boatswain
call all hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, and
cabin-boys, and even the passengers; made them first settle their topsails,
take in their spritsail; then he cried, In with your topsails, lower the
foresail, tallow under parrels, braid up close all them sails, strike your
topmasts to the cap, make all sure with your sheeps-feet, lash your guns
fast. All this was nimbly done. Immediately it blowed a storm; the sea
began to roar and swell mountain-high; the rut of the sea was great, the
waves breaking upon our ship's quarter; the north-west wind blustered and
overblowed; boisterous gusts, dreadful clashing, and deadly scuds of wind
whistled through our yards and made our shrouds rattle again. The thunder
grumbled so horridly that you would have thought heaven had been tumbling
about our ears; at the same time it lightened, rained, hailed; the sky lost
its transparent hue, grew dusky, thick, and gloomy, so that we had no other
light than that of the flashes of lightning and rending of the clouds. The
hurricanes, flaws, and sudden whirlwinds began to make a flame about us by
the lightnings, fiery vapours, and other aerial ejaculations. Oh, how our
looks were full of amazement and trouble, while the saucy winds did rudely
lift up above us the mountainous waves of the main! Believe me, it seemed
to us a lively image of the chaos, where fire, air, sea, land, and all the
elements were in a refractory confusion. Poor Panurge having with the full
contents of the inside of his doublet plentifully fed the fish, greedy
enough of such odious fare, sat on the deck all in a heap, with his nose
and arse together, most sadly cast down, moping and half dead; invoked and
called to his assistance all the blessed he- and she-saints he could muster
up; swore and vowed to confess in time and place convenient, and then
bawled out frightfully, Steward, maitre d'hotel, see ho! my friend, my
father, my uncle, prithee let us have a piece of powdered beef or pork; we
shall drink but too much anon, for aught I see. Eat little and drink the
more will hereafter be my motto, I fear. Would to our dear Lord, and to
our blessed, worthy, and sacred Lady, I were now, I say, this very minute
of an hour, well on shore, on terra firma, hale and easy. O twice and
thrice happy those that plant cabbages! O destinies, why did you not spin
me for a cabbage-planter? O how few are there to whom Jupiter hath been so
favourable as to predestinate them to plant cabbages! They have always one
foot on the ground, and the other not far from it. Dispute who will of
felicity and summum bonum, for my part whosoever plants cabbages is now, by
my decree, proclaimed most happy; for as good a reason as the philosopher
Pyrrho, being in the same danger, and seeing a hog near the shore eating
some scattered oats, declared it happy in two respects; first, because it
had plenty of oats, and besides that, was on shore. Ha, for a divine and
princely habitation, commend me to the cows' floor.
Murder! This wave will sweep us away, blessed Saviour! O my friends! a
little vinegar. I sweat again with mere agony. Alas! the mizen-sail's
split, the gallery's washed away, the masts are sprung, the maintop-
masthead dives into the sea; the keel is up to the sun; our shrouds are
almost all broke, and blown away. Alas! alas! where is our main course?
Al is verlooren, by Godt! our topmast is run adrift. Alas! who shall have
this wreck? Friend, lend me here behind you one of these whales. Your
lantern is fallen, my lads. Alas! do not let go the main-tack nor the
bowline. I hear the block crack; is it broke? For the Lord's sake, let us
have the hull, and let all the rigging be damned. Be, be, be, bous, bous,
bous. Look to the needle of your compass, I beseech you, good Sir
Astrophil, and tell us, if you can, whence comes this storm. My heart's
sunk down below my midriff. By my troth, I am in a sad fright, bou, bou,
bou, bous, bous, I am lost for ever. I conskite myself for mere madness
and fear. Bou, bou, bou, bou, Otto to to to to ti. Bou, bou, bou, ou, ou,
ou, bou, bou, bous. I sink, I'm drowned, I'm gone, good people, I'm
drowned.
Chapter 4.XIX.
What countenances Panurge and Friar John kept during the storm.
Pantagruel, having first implored the help of the great and Almighty
Deliverer, and prayed publicly with fervent devotion, by the pilot's advice
held tightly the mast of the ship. Friar John had stripped himself to his
waistcoat, to help the seamen. Epistemon, Ponocrates, and the rest did as
much. Panurge alone sat on his breech upon deck, weeping and howling.
Friar John espied him going on the quarter-deck, and said to him, Odzoons!
Panurge the calf, Panurge the whiner, Panurge the brayer, would it not
become thee much better to lend us here a helping hand than to lie lowing
like a cow, as thou dost, sitting on thy stones like a bald-breeched
baboon? Be, be, be, bous, bous, bous, returned Panurge; Friar John, my
friend, my good father, I am drowning, my dear friend! I drown! I am a
dead man, my dear father in God; I am a dead man, my friend; your cutting
hanger cannot save me from this; alas! alas! we are above ela. Above the
pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges. Be, be, be, bou, bous. Alas! we
are now above g sol re ut. I sink, I sink, ha, my father, my uncle, my
all. The water is got into my shoes by the collar; bous, bous, bous,
paish, hu, hu, hu, he, he, he, ha, ha, I drown. Alas! alas! Hu, hu, hu,
hu, hu, hu, hu, be, be, bous, bous, bobous, bobous, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho,
alas! alas! Now I am like your tumblers, my feet stand higher than my
head. Would to heaven I were now with those good holy fathers bound for
the council whom we met this morning, so godly, so fat, so merry, so plump
and comely. Holos, bolos, holas, holas, alas! This devilish wave (mea
culpa Deus), I mean this wave of God, will sink our vessel. Alas! Friar
John, my father, my friend, confession. Here I am down on my knees;
confiteor; your holy blessing. Come hither and be damned, thou pitiful
devil, and help us, said Friar John (who fell a-swearing and cursing like a
tinker), in the name of thirty legions of black devils, come; will you
come? Do not let us swear at this time, said Panurge; holy father, my
friend, do not swear, I beseech you; to-morrow as much as you please.
Holos, holos, alas! our ship leaks. I drown, alas, alas! I will give
eighteen hundred thousand crowns to anyone that will set me on shore, all
berayed and bedaubed as I am now. If ever there was a man in my country in
the like pickle. Confiteor, alas! a word or two of testament or codicil at
least. A thousand devils seize the cuckoldy cow-hearted mongrel, cried
Friar John. Ods-belly, art thou talking here of making thy will now we are
in danger, and it behoveth us to bestir our stumps lustily, or never? Wilt
thou come, ho devil? Midshipman, my friend; O the rare lieutenant; here
Gymnast, here on the poop. We are, by the mass, all beshit now; our light
is out. This is hastening to the devil as fast as it can. Alas, bou, bou,
bou, bou, bou, alas, alas, alas, alas! said Panurge; was it here we were
born to perish? Oh! ho! good people, I drown, I die. Consummatum est. I
am sped--Magna, gna, gna, said Friar John. Fie upon him, how ugly the
shitten howler looks. Boy, younker, see hoyh. Mind the pumps or the devil
choke thee. Hast thou hurt thyself? Zoons, here fasten it to one of these
blocks. On this side, in the devil's name, hay--so, my boy. Ah, Friar
John, said Panurge, good ghostly father, dear friend, don't let us swear,
you sin. Oh, ho, oh, ho, be be be bous, bous, bhous, I sink, I die, my
friends. I die in charity with all the world. Farewell, in manus. Bohus
bohous, bhousowauswaus. St. Michael of Aure! St. Nicholas! now, now or
never, I here make you a solemn vow, and to our Saviour, that if you stand
by me this time, I mean if you set me ashore out of this danger, I will
build you a fine large little chapel or two, between Quande and Montsoreau,
where neither cow nor calf shall feed. Oh ho, oh ho. Above eighteen
pailfuls or two of it are got down my gullet; bous, bhous, bhous, bhous,
how damned bitter and salt it is! By the virtue, said Friar John, of the
blood, the flesh, the belly, the head, if I hear thee again howling, thou
cuckoldy cur, I'll maul thee worse than any sea-wolf. Ods-fish, why don't
we take him up by the lugs and throw him overboard to the bottom of the
sea? Hear, sailor; ho, honest fellow. Thus, thus, my friend, hold fast
above. In truth, here is a sad lightning and thundering; I think that all
the devils are got loose; it is holiday with them; or else Madame
Proserpine is in child's labour: all the devils dance a morrice.
Chapter 4.XX.
How the pilots were forsaking their ships in the greatest stress of
weather.
Oh, said Panurge, you sin, Friar John, my former crony! former, I say, for
at this time I am no more, you are no more. It goes against my heart to
tell it you; for I believe this swearing doth your spleen a great deal of
good; as it is a great ease to a wood-cleaver to cry hem at every blow, and
as one who plays at ninepins is wonderfully helped if, when he hath not
thrown his bowl right, and is like to make a bad cast, some ingenious
stander-by leans and screws his body halfway about on that side which the
bowl should have took to hit the pins. Nevertheless, you offend, my sweet
friend. But what do you think of eating some kind of cabirotadoes?
Wouldn't this secure us from this storm? I have read that the ministers of
the gods Cabiri, so much celebrated by Orpheus, Apollonius, Pherecydes,
Strabo, Pausanias, and Herodotus were always secure in time of storm. He
dotes, he raves, the poor devil! A thousand, a million, nay, a hundred
million of devils seize the hornified doddipole. Lend's a hand here, hoh,
tiger, wouldst thou? Here, on the starboard side. Ods-me, thou buffalo's
head stuffed with relics, what ape's paternoster art thou muttering and
chattering here between thy teeth? That devil of a sea-calf is the cause
of all this storm, and is the only man who doth not lend a helping hand.
By G--, if I come near thee, I'll fetch thee out by the head and ears with
a vengeance, and chastise thee like any tempestative devil. Here, mate, my
lad, hold fast, till I have made a double knot. O brave boy! Would to
heaven thou wert abbot of Talemouze, and that he that is were guardian of
Croullay. Hold, brother Ponocrates, you will hurt yourself, man.
Epistemon, prithee stand off out of the hatchway. Methinks I saw the
thunder fall there but just now. Con the ship, so ho--Mind your steerage.
Well said, thus, thus, steady, keep her thus, get the longboat clear--
steady. Ods-fish, the beak-head is staved to pieces. Grumble, devils,
fart, belch, shite, a t--d o' the wave. If this be weather, the devil's a
ram. Nay, by G--, a little more would have washed me clear away into the
current. I think all the legions of devils hold here their provincial
chapter, or are polling, canvassing, and wrangling for the election of a
new rector. Starboard; well said. Take heed; have a care of your noddle,
lad, in the devil's name. So ho, starboard, starboard. Be, be, be, bous,
bous, bous, cried Panurge; bous, bous, be, be, be, bous, bous, I am lost.
I see neither heaven nor earth; of the four elements we have here only fire
and water left. Bou, bou, bou, bous, bous, bous. Would it were the
pleasure of the worthy divine bounty that I were at this present hour in
the close at Seuille, or at Innocent's the pastry-cook over against the
painted wine-vault at Chinon, though I were to strip to my doublet, and
bake the petti-pasties myself.
Honest man, could not you throw me ashore? you can do a world of good
things, they say. I give you all Salmigondinois, and my large shore full
of whelks, cockles, and periwinkles, if, by your industry, I ever set foot
on firm ground. Alas, alas! I drown. Harkee, my friends, since we cannot
get safe into port, let us come to an anchor in some road, no matter
whither. Drop all your anchors; let us be out of danger, I beseech you.
Here, honest tar, get you into the chains, and heave the lead, an't please
you. Let us know how many fathom water we are in. Sound, friend, in the
Lord Harry's name. Let us know whether a man might here drink easily
without stooping. I am apt to believe one might. Helm a-lee, hoh, cried
the pilot. Helm a-lee; a hand or two at the helm; about ships with her;
helm a-lee, helm a-lee. Stand off from the leech of the sail. Hoh! belay,
here make fast below; hoh, helm a-lee, lash sure the helm a-lee, and let
her drive. Is it come to that? said Pantagruel; our good Saviour then help
us. Let her lie under the sea, cried James Brahier, our chief mate; let
her drive. To prayers, to prayers; let all think on their souls, and fall
to prayers; nor hope to escape but by a miracle. Let us, said Panurge,
make some good pious kind of vow; alas, alas, alas! bou, bou, be, be, be,
bous, bous, bous, oho, oho, oho, oho, let us make a pilgrim; come, come,
let every man club his penny towards it, come on. Here, here, on this
side, said Friar John, in the devil's name. Let her drive, for the Lord's
sake unhang the rudder; hoh, let her drive, let her drive, and let us
drink, I say, of the best and most cheering; d'ye hear, steward? produce,
exhibit; for, d'ye see this, and all the rest will as well go to the devil
out of hand. A pox on that wind-broker Aeolus, with his fluster-blusters.
Sirrah, page, bring me here my drawer (for so he called his breviary); stay
a little here; haul, friend, thus. Odzoons, here is a deal of hail and
thunder to no purpose. Hold fast above, I pray you. When have we All-
saints day? I believe it is the unholy holiday of all the devil's crew.
Alas! said Panurge, Friar John damns himself here as black as buttermilk
for the nonce. Oh, what a good friend I lose in him. Alas, alas! this is
another gats-bout than last year's. We are falling out of Scylla into
Charybdis. Oho! I drown. Confiteor; one poor word or two by way of
testament, Friar John, my ghostly father; good Mr. Abstractor, my crony,
my Achates, Xenomanes, my all. Alas! I drown; two words of testament here
upon this ladder.
Chapter 4.XXI.
A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the subject of
making testaments at sea.
To make one's last will, said Epistemon, at this time that we ought to
bestir ourselves and help our seamen, on the penalty of being drowned,
seems to me as idle and ridiculous a maggot as that of some of Caesar's
men, who, at their coming into the Gauls, were mightily busied in making
wills and codicils; bemoaned their fortune and the absence of their spouses
and friends at Rome, when it was absolutely necessary for them to run to
their arms and use their utmost strength against Ariovistus their enemy.
This also is to be as silly as that jolt-headed loblolly of a carter, who,
having laid his waggon fast in a slough, down on his marrow-bones was
calling on the strong-backed deity, Hercules, might and main, to help him
at a dead lift, but all the while forgot to goad on his oxen and lay his
shoulder to the wheels, as it behoved him; as if a Lord have mercy upon us
alone would have got his cart out of the mire.
What will it signify to make your will now? for either we shall come off or
drown for it. If we 'scape, it will not signify a straw to us; for
testaments are of no value or authority but by the death of the testators.
If we are drowned, will it not be drowned too? Prithee, who will transmit
it to the executors? Some kind wave will throw it ashore, like Ulysses,
replied Panurge; and some king's daughter, going to fetch a walk in the
fresco, on the evening will find it, and take care to have it proved and
fulfilled; nay, and have some stately cenotaph erected to my memory, as
Dido had to that of her goodman Sichaeus; Aeneas to Deiphobus, upon the
Trojan shore, near Rhoete; Andromache to Hector, in the city of Buthrot;
Aristotle to Hermias and Eubulus; the Athenians to the poet Euripides; the
Romans to Drusus in Germany, and to Alexander Severus, their emperor, in
the Gauls; Argentier to Callaischre; Xenocrates to Lysidices; Timares to
his son Teleutagoras; Eupolis and Aristodice to their son Theotimus;
Onestus to Timocles; Callimachus to Sopolis, the son of Dioclides; Catullus
to his brother; Statius to his father; Germain of Brie to Herve, the Breton
tarpaulin. Art thou mad, said Friar John, to run on at this rate? Help,
here, in the name of five hundred thousand millions of cartloads of devils,
help! may a shanker gnaw thy moustachios, and the three rows of pock-royals
and cauliflowers cover thy bum and turd-barrel instead of breeches and
codpiece. Codsooks, our ship is almost overset. Ods-death, how shall we
clear her? it is well if she do not founder. What a devilish sea there
runs! She'll neither try nor hull; the sea will overtake her, so we shall
never 'scape; the devil 'scape me. Then Pantagruel was heard to make a sad
exclamation, saying, with a loud voice, Lord save us, we perish; yet not as
we would have it, but thy holy will be done. The Lord and the blessed
Virgin be with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown; be be be bous, be
bous, bous; in manus. Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safe
on shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make shift to sound the
harp, if it be not unstrung. Let nineteen legions of black devils seize
me, said Friar John. (The Lord be with us! whispered Panurge, between his
chattering teeth.) If I come down to thee, I'll show thee to some purpose
that the badge of thy humanity dangles at a calf's breech, thou ragged,
horned, cuckoldy booby--mgna, mgnan, mgnan--come hither and help us, thou
great weeping calf, or may thirty millions of devils leap on thee. Wilt
thou come, sea-calf? Fie; how ugly the howling whelp looks. What, always
the same ditty? Come on now, my bonny drawer. This he said, opening his
breviary. Come forward, thou and I must be somewhat serious for a while;
let me peruse thee stiffly. Beatus vir qui non abiit. Pshaw, I know all
this by heart; let us see the legend of Mons. St. Nicholas.
Horrida tempestas montem turbavit acutum.
Tempest was a mighty flogger of lads at Mountagu College. If pedants be
damned for whipping poor little innocent wretches their scholars, he is,
upon my honour, by this time fixed within Ixion's wheel, lashing the crop-
eared, bobtailed cur that gives it motion. If they are saved for having
whipped innocent lads, he ought to be above the--
Chapter 4.XXII.
An end of the storm.
Shore, shore! cried Pantagruel. Land to, my friends, I see land! Pluck up
a good spirit, boys, 'tis within a kenning. So! we are not far from a
port.--I see the sky clearing up to the northwards.--Look to the south-
east! Courage, my hearts, said the pilot; now she'll bear the hullock of a
sail; the sea is much smoother; some hands aloft to the maintop. Put the
helm a-weather. Steady! steady! Haul your after-mizen bowlines. Haul,
haul, haul! Thus, thus, and no near. Mind your steerage; bring your main-
tack aboard. Clear your sheets; clear your bowlines; port, port. Helm
a-lee. Now to the sheet on the starboard side, thou son of a whore. Thou
art mightily pleased, honest fellow, quoth Friar John, with hearing make
mention of thy mother. Luff, luff, cried the quartermaster that conned the
ship, keep her full, luff the helm. Luff. It is, answered the steersman.
Keep her thus. Get the bonnets fixed. Steady, steady.
That is well said, said Friar John now, this is something like a tansy.
Come, come, come, children, be nimble. Good. Luff, luff, thus. Helm
a-weather. That's well said and thought on. Methinks the storm is almost
over. It was high time, faith; however, the Lord be thanked. Our devils
begin to scamper. Out with all your sails. Hoist your sails. Hoist.
That is spoke like a man, hoist, hoist. Here, a God's name, honest
Ponocrates; thou art a lusty fornicator; the whoreson will get none but
boys. Eusthenes, thou art a notable fellow. Run up to the fore-topsail.
Thus, thus. Well said, i' faith; thus, thus. I dare not fear anything all
this while, for it is holiday. Vea, vea, vea! huzza! This shout of the
seaman is not amiss, and pleases me, for it is holiday. Keep her full
thus. Good. Cheer up, my merry mates all, cried out Epistemon; I see
already Castor on the right. Be, be, bous, bous, bous, said Panurge; I am
much afraid it is the bitch Helen. It is truly Mixarchagenas, returned
Epistemon, if thou likest better that denomination, which the Argives give
him. Ho, ho! I see land too; let her bear in with the harbour; I see a
good many people on the beach; I see a light on an obeliscolychny. Shorten
your sails, said the pilot; fetch the sounding line; we must double that
point of land, and mind the sands. We are clear of them, said the sailors.
Soon after, Away she goes, quoth the pilot, and so doth the rest of our
fleet; help came in good season.
By St. John, said Panurge, this is spoke somewhat like. O the sweet word!
there is the soul of music in it. Mgna, mgna, mgna, said Friar John; if
Back to Full Books
|