CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE HART MEMORIAL LIBRARY 3 1924 092 731 656 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092731656 THE WORKS OF RABELAIS COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY URQUHART AND MOTTEUX WITH VARIORUM NOTES TEN FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS By CHALON LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE TRADE (E^onUnts. PAGE. Imtrodvctiok , t t • • 17 ZH Sitat (gfooft. J. De la Salle, to the Honoured, Noble Translator ov Rabelais ......' 3 Rablofhila . 5 The Author's Prologue to the First Book ... & Rabelais to the Reader IS Chapter I. Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua 15 II. Th^ Antidoted Fanfreluches : or, a Galimatia of extravagant Conceits found in an ancient Monument 17 III. How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly 20 IV. How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of tripes 23 V. The Discourse of the Drinkers 24 VI. How Gargantua was bom in a strange manner 28- VII. After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled, bibbed, and curried the can 30' VIII. How they apparelled Gargantua .... 32 IX. The colours and liveries of Gargantua ... 36- X. Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue ; . . . 38 XI. Of the youthful age of Gargantua .... 42 XII. Of Gargantua's wooden horses 45 XIII. How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipe- breech 47 ii CONTENTS PAGE-. Chapter XIV. How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister 5t XV. How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters 53 XVI. How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rode on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce 53 XVII. How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away the great bells of Our Lady's Church . i 57 XVIII. How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells . . 59 XIX. The oration of Master Janotus de Brag- mardo for recovery of the bells ... 61 XX. How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law against the other masters 63 XXI. The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmasters the Sophisters 65 XXII. The games of Gargantua 68 XXIII. How Gargantua was instructed by Pono- crates, and in such sort disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day . . 72 XXIV. How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather 79 XXV. How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the cake-bakers of Lerne, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon were waged great wars . . 82 XXVI. How the inhabitants of Lerne, by the commandment of Picrochole their king, assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua unexpectedly and on a sudden ... 84 XXVII. How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being ransacked by the enemy 86 XXVIII. How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock Clermond, and of Grangousier's unwillingness and aver- sion from the undertaking of war . . 92 XXIX. The tenour oi the letter which Gran- gousier wrote to his son Gragantua . . 94. XXX. How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole 95 XXXI. The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole . 96 XXXII. How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be restored 99 XXXIII. How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hair brained counsel, put him in extreme danger 102 / CONTENTS iii i-AGB, Chapter XXXIV. How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour his country, and how Gymnast encountered with the enemy 107 XXXV. How Gymnast very souply and cun- ningly killed Captain Tripet and others of Picrochole's men . . . 109 XXXVI. How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how they passed the ford Ill XXXVII. How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of his hair 114 XXXVIII. How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad 116 XXXIX. How the Monk was feasted by Gar- gantua, and of the jovial discourse they had at supper IIS XL. Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and Wherefore some have bigger noses than others . . . 122; XLI. How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and brevi- aries 124 XLII. How the Monk encouraged his fellow- champions, and how he hanged upon, a tree 127 XLIII. How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gar- gantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth, and then was taken prisoner by his enemies . . 129 XLIV. How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's for- lorn hope was defeated . . . 132 XLV. How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good words that Grangousier gave them 134 XLVI. How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet, his prisoner 137 XL VII. How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucet slew Rash- calf, and was afterwards executed by the command of Picrochole . 140 XLVIII. How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rock Clermond, and utterly defeated the army of the said Picrochole 14S XLIX. How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and what Gar- gantua did after the battle . . . 146 iv CONTENTS PAOB. Chapter L. Gargantua's speech to the vanquished . . 147 LI. How the victorious Gargantuists were rec- ompensed after the battle 151 LI I. How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey of Theleme . . . ■ . 153 LIII. How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed 155 LIV. The inscription set upon th« great gate of Theleme 157 LV. What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had 160 LVI. How the men and women of the reUgious order of Theleme were apparelled . . . 162 LVII. How the Thelemites were governed, and ot their manner of living . . . , . . . 165 LVIII. A prophetical Riddle , . 167 ^e ^econb QSooft. For the Reader 171 Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais 173 The Author's Prologue 175 Chapter I. Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel 179 II. Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel 184 III. Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wife Badebec 187 IV. Of the infancy of Pantagruel 190 V. Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age 193 VI. How Pantagruel met with a. Limousin, who too affectedly did coimterfeit the French language 197 VII. How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library of St. Victor 199 VIII. How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father Gargantua, and _„ _^ the copy of them 205 IX. How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime 211 X. How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was wonderfully ob- scure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree therein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment . . . . 216 CONTENTS V PAGE. Chapter XI. How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel without an attorney 221 XII. How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel . 225 XIII. How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords 229 XIV. How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the hands ,of the Turks . 232 XV. How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris 238 XVI. Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge 243 XVII. How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suit in- law which he had at Paris .... 248 XVIII. How a great scholar of England would have argued against Pantagruel, and was overcome by Panurge 252 XIX. How Panurge put to a nonplus the English- man that argued by signs 257 XX. How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge 261 XXI. How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris 263 XXII. How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleased her not very well .... 267 XXIII. How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that the Dipsodes had in- vaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause wherefore the leagues are so short in France 270 XXIV. A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady of Paris, to- gether with the exposition of a posy written in a gold ring 271 XXV. How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the gentlemen attendants of Pantagruel, vanquished and discom- fited six himdred and threescore horse- men very cunningly 275 XXVI. How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating still salt meats; and how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison 277 XXVII. How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of their valour, and Panurge another in remembrance of the hares. How Pantagruel likewise With his farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women; and how Panurge broke a great staff over two glasses 280 vi CONTENTS PAGE. Chapter XXVIII. How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over tlie Dipsodes and the Giants ' .... 284 XXIX. How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed with free- stone, and Loupgarou their cap- tain 288 XXX. How Epistemon, who had his head cut , off, was finely healed by Panurge, and of the news which he brought from the devils, and of the damned people in hell 294 XXXI. How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how Panurge married King Amarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and made him a crier of green sauce 301 XXXII. How Pantagruel with his tongfue covered a whole army, and what the author saw in his mouth . . 303 XXXIII. How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was recovered . . 307 XXXIV. The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author . . 309 tU t^irb (f ooll. Francis Rabelais to the Soul op the deceased Queen of Navarre 311 The Author's Prologue 313 Chapter I. How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody 323 II. How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigon- din in Dipsody, and did waste his revenue before it came in 327 III. How. Panurge praiseth the debtors and bor- rowers 332 IV. Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and lenders .... 337 V. How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers .,,.... 341 VI. Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars 344 VII. How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and for- bore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece , 347 CONTENTS vii PAGE. Chapter VIII. Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors . . 350 IX. How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should marry, yea or no . 354 X. How Pantagruel representeth unto Pan- urge the difficulty of giving advice in the matter of marriage ; and to that purpose mentioneth somewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries . . . 357 XI. How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of dice to be unlawful 361 XII. How Pantagruel doth explore by the Vir- gilian lottery what fortune Panurge shall have in his marriage . . . . . 363 XIII How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of his mar- riage by dreams 368 J)u6ft4et'B Qlofice. THE text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the first edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled "M" are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are by the translator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. appeared posthumously in 1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under Motteux's editor- ship. Motteux's rendering of Books IV. and V. fol- lowed in 1708. Occasionally (as the footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored from tb& 1738 copy edited by Ozell. 3nttobuction. HAD Rabelais never written his strange and mar- vellous romance, no one would ever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands out- side other things — a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of personalities and broad gen- eralization, of the comic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar. Throughout the whole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of good sense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with the greatest; and his peers are not many. You may like him or not, may attack him or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him. He is of those that die hard. Be as fastidious as you will; make up your mind to recognize only those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above all others; however few the names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain. We may know his work, may know it well, and admire It more every time we read it. After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we may return again to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning. Yet there is no possibility of knowing his own life in the same fashion. In spite of all the , efforts, often successful, that have been made to throw light on it, to bring for- ward a fresh document, or some obscure mention in a forgotten book, to add some little fact, to fix a date moie precisely, i$ remains nevertheless full of uncer- tainty and of gaps. Besides, it has been burdened and xviii INTRODUCTION. sullied by all kinds of wearisome stories and foolish anecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out than to add. This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the six- teenth century, in the furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, who seems to have drawn his conclusions concerning the author from ■fhe book, and, more especially, in the regretable satirical epitaph of Ronsard, piqued, it is said, that the Guises had given him only a. little pavilion in the Forest j_of Meudon, whereas the presbytery|was dose to the chateau. From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has completely travestied him, till, bit by bit, it has^made of him a buffoon, a veritable clown, a vagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard. The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He has been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an incorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always laughing. The picture would have surprised his friends no less than himself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen many such. They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater number are con- ceived in this jovial and popular style. As a matter of fact there is only one portrait of him that Qounts, that has more than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the Chronologie collee or coupee. Under this double name is known and cited a large sheet divided by lines and cross lines into little squares, containing about a|hundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen. This sheet was stuck on pasteboard for hanging on the wall, and was cut in little pieces, so that the portraits might be sold separately. The majority of the portraits are of known persons and can therefore be verified. Now it can be'seen that these have been selected with care, and taken from the most authentic sources; from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass, for the persons of most distinction, from earlier en- gravings for the others. Moreover, those of which no other copies exist, and which are therefore the most valuable, have each an individuality very distinct, in INTRODUCTION xix the features, the hair, the beard, as well as in the cos- tume. Not one of them is like another. There has been no tampering with them, no forgery. On the contrary, there is in each a difference, a very marked personality, Leonard Gaultier, who published this en- graving towards the end of the sixteenth century, reproduced a great many portraits besides from chalk drawings, in the style of his master, Thomas de Leu. It must have been such drawings that were the origi- nals of those portraits which he alone has issued, and which may therefore be as authentic and reliable as the others whose correctness we are in a position to verify. Now Rabelais has here nothing of the Roger Bon- temps of low degree about him. His features are strong, vigorously cut, and furrowed with deep wrinkles; his beard is short and scanty ; his cheeks are thin and already worn-looking. On his head he wears the square cap of the doctors and the clerks, and his dominant expres- sion, somewhat rigid and severe, is that of a physician and a scholar. And this is the only portrait to which we need attach any importance. This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaustive study. At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to fix a few certain dates, to hang some general observations. The date of Rabe- lais's birth is very doubtful. For long it was placed as far back as 1483: now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495. The reason, a good one, is that all those whom he has mentioned as his friends, or in any real sense his contemporaries, were born at the very end of the fifteenth century. And, indeed, it is in the references in his romance to names, persons, and places, that the most certain and valuable evidence is to be found of his intercourse, his patrons, his friend- ships, his sojoumings, and his travels: his own work is the best and richest mine in which to search for the details of his life. Like Descartes and Balzac, he was a native of Touraine , and Tours aild Chinon have only done their duty in each of them erecting in recent years a statue to his honour, a twofold homage reflecting credit both on the XX INTRODUCTION province and on the town. But the precise facts about his birth are nevertheless vague. Huet speaks of the village of Benais, near Bourgueil, of whose vineyards Rabelais makes mention. As the little vineyard of La Devini^re, near Chinon, and familiar to all his readers, is supposed to have belonged to his father, Thomas Rabelais, some, would have him born there. It is better to hold to the earlier general opinion that Chinon was his native town; Chinon, whose praises he sang with such heartiness and affection. There he might well have been born in the Lamproie house, which belonged to his father, who, to judge from this circumstance, must have been in easy circumstances, with the position of a well-to-do citizen. As La Lamproie in the seven- teenth century was a hostelry, the father of Rabelais has been set down as an innkeeper. More probably he was an apothecary, which would fit in with the medi- cal profession adopted by his son in after years. Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself. Perhaps because he was the youngest, his father destined him for the Church. The time he spent while a child with the Benedictine monks at SeuilM is uncertain. There he might have made the acquaintance of the prototype of his Friar John, a brother of the name of Buinart, afterwards Prior of Sermaize. He was longer at the Abbey of the Cordeliers at La Baumette, half a mile from Angers, where he became a novice. As the brothers Du Bellay, who were later his Maecenases, were then studying at the University of Angers, where it is certain he was not a student, it is doubtless from this youthful period that his acquaintance and alliance with them should date. Voluntarily, or induced by his family, Rabelais now embraced the ecclesiastical profession, and entered the monastery of the Franciscan Cordeliers at Fontenay-le- Comte, in Lower Poitou, which was honoured by his long sojourn at the vital period of his life when his powers were ripening. There it was he began to study and to think, and there also began his troubles. In spite of the wide-spread ignorance among the monks of that age, the encyclopaedic movement of the INTRODUCTION xxi Renaissance was attracting all the lofty minds. Rabelais threw himself into it with enthusiasm, and Latin an- tiquity was not enough for him. Greek, a study dis- countenanced by the Church, which looked on it as dangerous and tending to freethought and heresy, took possession of him. To it he owed the warm friendship of Pierre Amy and of the celebrated Guillaume Budd. In fact, the Greek letters of the latter are the best source of information concerning this period of Rabelais' life. It was at Fontenay-le-Comte also that he became acquainted with the Brissons and the great jurist Andre Tiraqueau, whom he never mentions but with admira- tion and deep affection. Tiraqueau's treatise, De legibus connuhialibus, published for the first time in 15 13, has an important bearing on the life of Rabelais. There we learn that, dissatisfied with the incomplete translation of Herodotus by Laurent Valla, Rabelais had retrans- lated into Latin the first book of the History. That translation unfortunately is lost, as so many other of his scattered works. It is probably in this direction that the hazard of fortune has most discoveries and surprises in store for the lucky searcher. Moreover, as in this law treatise Tiraqueau attacked women in a merciless fashion. President Amaury Bouchard pub- lished in 1522 a book in their defence, and Rabelais, who was a friend of both the antagonists, took the side of Tiraqueau. It should be observed also in passing, that there are several pages of such audacious plain-speaking, that Rabelais, though he did not copy these in his Mar- riage of Panurge, has there been, in his own fashion, as outspoken as Tiraqtieau. If such freedom of language could be permitted in a grave treatise of law, similar liberties were certainly, in the same century, more natural in a book which was meant to amuse. The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness, which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value. La Bruydre, in the chapter Des ouvrages de I'esprit, not in the first edition of the Caracteres, but in the fifth, that is to say in 1690, at the end of the great century, gives xxii INTRODUCTION us on this subject his own opinion and that of his age: "Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable in their habit of scattering filth about their writings. Both of them had genius enough and wit enough to do without any- such expedient, even for the amusement of those per- sons who look more to the laugh to be got out of a book than to what is admirable in it. Rabelais especially is incomprehensible. His book' is an enigma, — one may- say inexplicable. It is a Chimera ; it is like the face of a lovely woman with the feet and the tail of a reptile, or of some creature still more loa^thsome. It is a mon- strous confusion of fine and rare morality with filthy corruption. Where it is bad, it goes beyond the worst; it is the delight of the basest of men. Where it is good, it reaches the exquisite, the very best; it ministers to the most delicate tastes." Putting aside the rather sHght connection established between two men of whom one is of very little importance compared with the other, this is otherwise very ad- mirably said, and the judgment is a very just one, except with regard to one point — the misunderstanding of the atmosphere in which the book was created, and the ignoring of the examples of a similar tendency furnished by literature as well as by the popular taste. Was it not the Ancients that began it? Aristophanes, Catullus, Petronius, Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas as well as in the words they used, and they dragged after them in this direction not a few of the Latin poets of the Renaissance, who believed themselves bound to imitate therti. Is Italy without fault in this respect? Her story-tellers in prose lie open to easy accusation. Her Capitoli in verse go to incredible lengths; and the astonishing success of Aretino must not be forgotten, nor the licence of the whole Italian comic theatre of the sixteenth century. The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards a Cardinal, and the Mandragola of Machia- velli, are evidence enough, and these were played before Popes, who were not a whit embarrassed. Even in England the drama went very far for a time, and the comic authors of the reign of Charles II., evidently from a reaction, and to shake off the excess and the INTRODUCTION xxiii wearisomeness of Puritan prudery and affectation, which sent them to the opposite extreme, are not exactly noted for their reserve. But we need not go beyond France. Slight indications, very easily verifiedj are all that may be set down here; a formal and detailed proof would be altogether too dangerous. Thus, for instance, the old Fabliaux — the Farces of the Fifteenth century, the story-tellers of the sixteenth — reveal one of the sides, one of the veins, so to speak, of our literature. The art that addresses itself to the ?ye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptures on the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of certain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was, without any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet she used to go up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes were not offended at seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent carving of a monk and a nun. Neither did she te::r out of her book of Hours the large miniature of the winter month, in which, careless of her neighbours' eyes, the mistress of the house, sitting before her great fireplace, warms herself in a fashion which it is not advisable that dames of our age should imitate. The statue of Cybele by the Tribolo, executed for Francis I., and placed, not against a wall, but in the middle of Queen Claude's chamber at Fori- tainebleau, has behind it an attribute which would have been more in place on a statue of Priapus, and which was the symbol of generativeness. The tone of the conversations was ordinarily of a surprising coarseness, and the Pr^cieuses, in spite of their absurdities, did j. very good work in setting themselves in opposition to it. The worthy Chevaher de La-Tour-Landry, in his Instructions *- his own daughters, without a thought of harm, gives examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's translation these are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amo'.-.reux, printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers that they were the little society diversions of the Duch- esses of Burgundy and of the great ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the French court. xxiv INTRODUCTION which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis XI. Rabelais' pleasantry about the woman folle a la messe is exactly in the style of the Adevineaux. A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept in mind — for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated into French — as also the Dames Galantes of Brantdme. Read the Journal of Heroard, that honest doctor, who day by day wrote down the details concerning the health of Louis XIII. from his birth, and you will understand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV. The jokes at a country wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness. Le Moyen de Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the two celebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII., could be written, printed, and read. The collection of songs formed by Clairambault shows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no purer than the sixteenth. Some of the most ribald songs are actually the work of Princesses of the royal House. It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, to charge him alone with the sins of every- body else. He spoke as those of his time used to speak; when amusing them he used their language to make himself understood, and, to slip in his asides, which without this sauce would never have been accepted, would have found neither eyes nor ears. Let us blame not him, therefore, but the manners of his time. Besides, his gaiety, however coarse it may appear to us— and how rare a thing is gaiety! — has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it; and this is too often overlooked. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty? Where, even indirectly, does he gives pernicious advice? Whom has he led to evil ways? Does he ever inspire feelings that breed misconduct and vice, or is he ever the apologist of these? Many poets and romance writers, under cover of a fastidious ■ style, without one coarse expression, have been really and actively hurt- ful; and of that it is impossible to accuse Rabelais. Women in particular quickly revolt from him, and turn away repulsed at once by the archaic form of the Ian- INTRODUCTION xxv guage and by the outspokenness of the words. But if he be read aloud to them, , omitting the rougher parts and modernizing the pronunciation, it will be seen that they too are impressed by his lively wit as by the lofti- ness of his thought. It would be possible, too, to ex- , tract, for young persons, without modification, admir- able passages of incomparable force. But those who have brought out expurgated editions of him, or who have thought to improve him by trying to rewrite him in modem French, have been fools for their pains, and their insulting attempts have had, and always will have, the success they deserve. His dedications prove to what extent his whole work ■ was accepted. Not to speak of his epistolary relations J with Bud^, with the Cardinal d'Armagnac and with Pellissier, the ambassador of Francis I. and Bishop of Maguelonne, or of his dedication to Tiraqueau of his Lyons edition of the Epistolm Medicinales of Giovanni Manardi of Ferrara, of the one addressed to the Presi- dent Amaury Bouchard of the two legal texts which he believed antique, there is still the evidence of his other and more important dedications. In 1532 he dedicated his Hippocrates and his Galen to Geoffroy d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, to whom in 1535 and 1536 he ad- dressed from Rome the three news letters, which alone have been preserved; and in 1534 he dedicated from Lyons his edition of the Latin book of Marliani on the topography of Rome to Jean du Bellay (at that time Bishop of Paris) who was raised to the Cardinalate in 1535. Beside these dedications we must set the privi- lege of Francis I. of September, 1545, and the new privilege granted by Henry II. on August 6, 1550, Cardinal de Chatillon present, for the third book, which was dedicated, in an eight -lined stanza, to the Spirit of the Queen of Navarre. These privileges, from the praises and eulogies they express in terms very personal and very exceptional, are as important in Rabelais' life as were, in connection with other matters, the Apostolic Pastorals in his favour. Of course, in these the popes had not to introduce his books of diversions, which, nevertheless, would have seemed in their eyes but very xxvi INTRODUCTION venial sins. The Sciomachie of 1549, an account of the festivities arranged at Rome by Cardinal du Bellay in honour of the birth of the second son of Henry II., was addressed to Cardinal de Guise, and in 1552 the fourth book was dedicated in a new prologue, to Cardinal de Chatillon, the brother of Admiral de Coligny. These are no unknown or insignificant personages, but the greatest lords and princes of the Church. They loved and admired and. protected Rabelais, and put no restrictions in his way. Why should we be more fas- tidious and severe than they were? Their high con- temporary appreciation gives much food for thought. There are few translations of Rabelais in foreign tongues; and certainly the task is no light one, and de- mands more than a familiarity with ordinary French. It would have been easier in Italy than anywhere else. Italian, from its flexibility and its analogy to French, would have lent itself admirably to the purpose; the instrument was ready, but the hand was not forthcom- ing. Neither is there any Spanish translation, a fact which can be more easily understood. The Inquisition would have been a far more serious opponent than the Paris' Sorbonne, and no one ventured on the experi- ment. Yet Rabelais forces comparison with Cervantes, whose precursor he was in reality, though the two books and the two minds are very different. They have only one point in common, their attack and ridicule of the romances of chivalry and of the wildly improbable ad- ventures of knight-errants. But in Don Quixote there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes knew Rabelais' book or owed anything to it whatso- ever, even the starting-point of his subject. Perhaps it was better he should not have been influenced by him, in however slight a degree; his originality is the more intact and the more genial. On the other hand, Rabelais has been several times translated into German. In the present century Regis published at Leipsic, from 1831 to 1841, with copious notes, a close and faithful translation. The first one cannot be so described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz or Strasburg, who died in 1614. He was a INTRODUCTION. xxvii Protestant controversialist, and a satirist of fantastic and abundant imagination. In 1575 appeared his trans- lation of Rabelais' first book, and in 1590 he published the comic catalogue of the library of Saint Victor, bor- rowed from the second book. It is not a translation, but a recast in the boldest style, full of alterations and of exaggerations, both as regards the coarse expressions which he took upon himself to develop and to add to, and in the attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. According to Jean Paul Richter, Fischart is much supe- rior to Rabelais in style and in the fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal in erudition and in the invention of new expressions after the manner of Aristophanes. He is sure that his work was successful, because it was often reprinted during his lifetime; but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul would hardly carry conviction in France. Who treads in another's footprints must follow in the rear. Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator. Those who take the ideas of others to modify them, and make of them creations of their own, like Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France, may be superior to those who have served them with sugges- tions; Taut then the new works must be altogether differ- ent, must exist by themselves. Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to have destroyed their models. Those copyists, if we call them so, created such works of genius that the only pity is they are so rare. This is not the case with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some one thoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at least, by long extracts from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German taste when it thought it could do better than Rabelais. It is dangerous to tamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk of burning his fingers. England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have brought her success. But, before speak- ing of Urquhart's translation, it is but right to mention the English- French Dictionary of Randle Cotgrave, the first edition of which dates from 1611. It is in every way exceedingly valuable, and superior to that of Nicot, xxviii INTRODUCTION. because instead of keeping to the plane of classic and Latin French, it showed an acquaintance with and mastery of the popular tongue as well as of the written and learned language. As a foreigner, Cotgrave is a little behind in his information. He is not aware of all the changes and novelties of the passing fashion. The Pleiad School he evidently knew nothing of, but kept to the writers of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Thus words out of Rabelais, which he always translates with admirable skill, are frequent, and he attaches to them their author's name. So Rabelais had already crossed the Channel, and was read in his own tongue. Somewhat later, during the full sway of the Commonwealth — and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier must have been a surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity — Captain IJrquhart undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely in England. Thomas Urquhart belonged to a very old family of good standing in the North of Scotland. After study- ing in Aberdeen he travelled in France, Spain, and Italy, where his sword was as active as that intelligent curiosity of his which is evidenced by his familiarity with three languages and the large library, which he brought back, according to his own account, from six- teen countries he had visited. On his return to England he entered the service of Charles I., who knighted him in 1641. Next year, after the death of his father, he went to Scotland to set his family affairs in order, and to redeem his house in Crom- artyl But, in spite of another sojourn in foreign lands, his efforts to free himself from pecuniary embarass- ments were unavailing. At the king's death his Scottish loyalty caused him to side with those who opposed the Parliament. Formally proscribed in 1649, taken pris- oner at the defeat of Worcester in 1651, stripped of all his belongings, he was brought to London, but was released on parole at Cromwell's recommendation. After receiving permission to spend five months in Scotland to try once more to settle his affairs, he came back to London to escape from his creditors. And there he INTRODUCTION. xxix must have died, though the date of his death is un- known. It probably took place after 1653, the date of the publication of the two first books, and after having written the translation of the third, which was not printed from his manuscript till the end of the seven- teenth century. His life was therefore not without its troubles, and literary activity must have been almost his only con- solation. His writings reveal him as the strangest character, fantastic, and full of a naive vanity, which even at the time he was translating the genealogy of Gargantua — surely well calculated to cure any ponder- ing on his own — caused him to trace his unbroken de- scent from Adam, and to state that his family name was derived from his ancestor -Esormon, Prince of Achaia, 2139 B. c, who was sumamed Ouroxartos, that is to say the Fortunate and the Well-beloved. A Gascon could not have surpassed this. Gifted as he was, learned in many directions, an enthusiastic mathematician, master of several lan- guages, occasionally full of wit and humour, and even good sense, yet he gave his books the strangest titles, and his ideas were no less whimsical. His style is mystic, fastidious, and too often of a wearisome length and obscurity; his verses rhyme anyhow, or not at all; but vivacity, force and heat are never lacking, and the Maitland Club did well in reprinting, in 1834, his various works, which are very rare. Yet, in spite of their curious interest, he owes his real distinction and the survival of his name to his translation of Rabelais. The first two books appeared in 1653. The original edition, exceedingly scarce, was carefully reprinted in 1838, only a hundred copies being issued, by an English bibliophile, T[heodore] M[artin], whose interesting preface I regret to sum up so cursorily. At the end of the seventeenth century, in 1693, a French refugee, Peter Antony Mo'tteux, whose English verses and whose plays are not without value, published in a little octavo volume a reprint, very incorrect as to the text, of the first two books, to which he added, the third, from the manu- script found amongst Urquhart's . papers. The success XXX INTRODUCTION which attended this venture suggested to Motteit^ the idea of completing the work, and a second edition, in two volumes, appeared in 1708, with the translation of the fourth and fifth books, and notes. Nineteen years after his death, John Ozell, translator on a large scale of French, Italian, and Spanish authors, revised Mot- teux's edition, which he published in five volumes in 1737, adding Le Duchat's notes; and this version has often been reprinted since. The continuation by Motteux, who was also the trans- lator of Don Quixote, has merits of its own. It is pre- cise, elegant, and very faithful. Urquhart's, without taking liberties with Rabelais like Fischart, is not al- ways so closely literal and exact. Nevertheless, it is much superior to Motteux's. If Urquhart does not con- stantly adhere to the form of the expression, if he makes a few slight additions, not only has he an understanding of the original, but he feels it, and renders the sense with a force and a vivacity full of warmth and bril- liancy. His own learning made the comprehension of the work easy to him, and his anglicization of words fabricated by Rabelais is particularly successful. The necessity of keeping to his text prevented his indulgence in the convolutions and divagations dictated by his ex- uberant fancy when writing on his own account. His style, always full of life and vigour, is here balanced, ■■'icid, and picturesque. Never elsewhere did he write so well. And thus the translation reproduces the very accent of the original, besides possessing a very remark- able character of its own. Such a literary tone and such literary qualities are rarely found in a 'translation. Urquhart's, very useful for the interpretation of ob- scure passages, may, and indeed should be read as a whole, both for Rabelais and for its own merits. Holland, too, possesses a translation of Rabelais They knew French in that country in the seventeenth century better than they do to-day, and there Rabelais' works were reprinted when no editions were appearing in France. This Dutch translation was puljhshed at Amsterdam in 1682, by J. Tenhoom. The name at- tached to it, Claudia Gallitalo (Caudius French-Italian) INTRODUCTION xxxi must certainly bl a pseudonym. Only a Dutch scholar could identify the translator, and state the value to be assigned to his work. Rabelais' style has many different sources. Besides its force and brilliancy, its gaiety, wit, and dignity, its abundant richness is no less remarkable. It would be impossible and useless to compile a glossary of VoAaire's words. No French writer has uesd so few, and all of them are of the simplest. There is not one of them that is no part of the common speech, or which demands a note or an explanation. Rabelais' vocabulary, on the other hand, if of an astonishing variety. Where does it all come from? As a fact, he had at his command something like three languages, which he used in turn, or which he mixed according to the effect he wished to produce. First of all, of course, he had ready to his hand the ■whole speech of his time, which had no secrets for him. Provincials have been too eager to appropriate himj to make of him a local author, the pride of some village, in order that their district might have the merit of being one of the causes, one of the factors of his genius. Every neighbourhood where he ever lived has declared that his distinction was due, to his knowledge of its popular speech. But these dialect-patriots have fallen out among themselves. To which dialect was he indebted? Was it that of Touraine, or Berri, or Poitou, or Paris? It is too often forgotten, in regard to French patois — leaving out of count the languages of the South — that the words or expressions that are no longer in use to- day are but a survival, a still living trace of the tongue and the pronunciation of other days. Rabelais' more than any other writer, took advantage of the happy chances and the richness of the popular speech, but he wrote in French, and nothing but French. That is why he remains so forcible, so lucid, and so living, more living even — speaking onlv of his style out of charity to the others — than any of his contemporaries. It has been said that great French prose is solely the work of the seventeenth century. There were never- theless, before that, two men, certainly very different XXXll INTRODUCTION. and even hostile, who were its initiators and its masters, Calvin on the one hand, on the other Rabelais. Rabelais had a wonderful knowledge of the prose and the verse of the fifteenth century ; he was familiar with Villon, Pathelin, the Quinze Joies de Marriage, the Cent Nouvelles, the chronicles and the romances, and even earlier works, too, such as the Roman de la Rose. Their words, their turns of expression came naturally to his pen, and added a piquancy and, as it were, a kind of gloss of antique novelty to his work. He fabricated words, too, on Greek and Latin models, with great ease, sometimes audaciously and with needless frequency. These were for him so many means, so many elements of variety. Sometimes he did this in mockery, as in the humorous discourse of the Limousin scholar, for which he is not a little indebted to GeofEroy Tory in the Champfieury sometimes, on the , contrary, seriously, from a habit acquired in dealing with classical tongues. Again, another reason of the richness of his vocabulary was that he invented and forged words for himself. Following the example of Aristophanes, he coined an enormous number of interminable words, droll expres- sions, sudden and surprising constructions. What had made Greece and the Athenians laugh was worth trans- porting to Paris. With an instrument so rich, resources so endless, and the skill to use them, it is no wonder that he could give voice to anything, be as humorous as he could be serious, as comic as he could be grave, that he could express himself and everybody else, from the lowest to the highest. He had every colour on his palette, and such skill w'as in his fingersthat he could depict every variety of light and shade. We have evidence that Rabelais did not always write in the same fashion. The Chronique Gargantuaine is uniform in style and quite simple, but cannot with cer- tainty be attributed to him. His lettfers are bombastic and. thin; his few attempts at verse are heavy, lumbering, and obscure, altogether lacking in harmony, and quite as bad as those of his friend, Jean Bouchet. He had no gift of poetic form, as indeed is evident even from his INTRODUCTION xxxiii prose. And his letters from Rome to the Bishop of Maillezais, interesting as they are in regard to the matter, are as dull, bare, flat, and dry in style as possible. With- out his signature no one would possibly have thought of attributing them to him. He is only a literary artist when he wishes to be such ; and in his romance he changes the style completely every other moment: it has no con- stant character or uniform manner, and therefore unity is almost entirely wanting in his work, while his endeav- ours after contrast are unceasing. There is through- out the whole the evidence of careful and conscious elaboration. Hence, however lucid and free be the style of his romance, and though its flexibility and ease seem at first sight to have cost no trouble at all, yet its merit lies precisely in the fact that it succeeds in concealing the toil, in hiding the seams. He could not have reached this perfection at a first attempt. He must have worked long at the task, revised it again and again, corrected much, and added rather than cut away. The aptness of form and expression has been arrived at by deliberate means, and owes nothing to chance. Apart "from the toning down of certain bold passages, to soften their effect, and appease the storm — for these were not literary alterations, but were imposed on him by prudence — one can see how numerous are the variations in his text, how necessary it is to take account of them, and to collect them. A good edition, of course, would make no attempt at amalgamating these. That would give a false impression and end in^onfusion ; but it should note them all, and show them all, not combined, but simply as variations. After Le Duchat; all the editions, in their care that nothing should be lost, made the mistake of collecting and placing side by side things which had no connection with each other, which had even been substituted for each other. The result was a fabricated text, full of contradictions naturally. But since the edition issued by M. Jannet, the well-known publisher of the Bibli- otheque Elzevirienne, who was the first to get rid of this patchwork, this mosaic, Rabelais' latest text has xxsdv INTRODUCTION been given, accompanied by all the earlier variations, to show the changes he made, as well as his suppressions and additions. It would also be possible to reverse the method. It would be interesting to take his first text as the basis, noting the later modifications. This would be quite as instructive and really worth doing. Per- haps one might then see more clearly with what care he made his revisions, after what fashion he corrected, and especially what were the additions he made. No more striking instance can be quoted than the admirable chapter about the shipwreck. It was not always so long as Rabelais made it in the end: it was much shorter at first. As a rule, when an author re- casts some passage that he wishes to revise, he does so by rewriting the whole, or at least by interpolating passages at one stroke, so to speak. Nothing of the kind is seen here. Rabelais suppressed nothing, modified nothing; he did not change his plan at all. What he did was to make insertions, to slip in between two clauses a new one. He expressed his meaning in a lengthier way, and the former clause is found in its integrity along with the additional one, of which it forms, as it were, the warp. It was by this method of touching up the smallest derails, by making here and there such little noticeable additions, that he succeeded in heightening the effect without either change or loss. In the end it looks as if he had altered nothing, added nothing new, as if it had always been so from the first and had never been meddled with. The comparison is most instructive, showing us to what an extent Rabelais' admirable style was due to conscious effort, care, and elaboration, a fact which is generally too much overlooked, and how instead of leaving any trace which would reveal toil and study, it has on the contrary a marvellous cohesion, precision, and brilliancy. It was modelled and remodelled, re- paired, touched up, and yet it has all the appearance of having been created at a single stroke, or of having been run like molten wax into its final form. Something should be said here of the sources from which Rabelais borrowed. He was not the first in INTRODUCTION xxxv France to satirize the romances of chivalry. The ro- mance in verse by Baudouin de Sebourc, printed in recent years, was a parody of the Chansons de Gcste. In the Montage Guillaume, and especially in the Montage Rainouart, in which there is a kind of giant, and occa- sionally a comic giant, there are situations and scenes which remind us of Rabelais. The kind of Fabliaux in mono-rhyme quatrains of the old Aubery anticipate his coarse and popular jests. But all that is beside the question; Rabelais did not know these. Nothing is of direct interest save what was known to him, what fell under his eyes, what lay to his hand — as the Facetim of Poggio, and the last sermonnaires. In the course of one's reading one may often enough come across the origin of some of Rabelais' witticisms; here and there we may discover how he has developed a situation. While gathering his materials wherever he could find them, he was nevertheless profoundly original. On this point much research and investigation might be employed. But there is no need why these researches should be extended to the region of fancy. Gargantua has been proved by some to be of Celtic origin. Very often he is a solar myth, and the statement that Rabelais only collected popular traditions and gave new life to ancient legends is said to be proved by the large number oi megalithic monuments to which is attached the name of Gargantua. It was, of course, quite right to make a list of these, to draw up, as it were, a chart of them, but the conclusion is not justified. The name, instead jf being earlier, is really later, and is a witness, not to the origin, but to the success and rapid popularity of his novel. No one has ever yet produced a written passage or any ancient testimony, to prove the existence of the name before Rabelais. To place such a tradition on a sure basis, positive traces must be forthcoming; and they cannot be adduced even for the most cele- brated of these monuments, since he mentions himself the great menhir near Poitiers, which he christened by the name of Passelourdin. That there is something in the theory is possible. Perrault found the subjects of his stories in the tales told by mothers and nurses. He xxxvi INTRODUCTION fixed them finally by writing them down. Floating about vaguely as they were, he seized them, worked them up, gave them shape, and yet of scarcely any of them is there to be found before his time a single trace. So we must resign ourselves to know just as little of what Gargantua and Pantagrue] were before the sixteenth century. In a book of a contemporary of Rabelais, the Legende de Pierre Faifeu by the Angevin, Charles de Bourdign6, the first edition of which dates from 1526 and the second 1531 — both so rare and so forgotten that the work is only known since the eighteenth century by the reprint of Custelier — in the introductory ballad which recom- mends this book to readers, occur these lines in the list of popular books which Faifeu would desire to replace: "Laissez ester Caillette le folastre, Les qtiatre fUz Aymon vestuz de bleu, Gargantua qui a cheveux de piastre." He has not "cheveux de piastre" in Rabelais. If the rhyme had not suggested the phrase — and the exigencies of the strict form of the ballade and its forced repeti- tions often imposed an idea which had its whole origin in the rhyme — we might here see a dramatic trace found nowhere else. The name of Pantagruel is mentioned too, incidentally, in a Mystery of the fifteenth century. These are the only references to the names which up till now have been discovered, and they are, as one sees» of but little account. On the other hand, the influence of Aristophanes and of Lucian, his intimate acquaintance with nearly all the writers of antiquity, Greek as well as Latin, with whom Rabelais is more permeated even than Mon- taigne, were a mine of inspiration. The proof of it is everywhere. Pliny especially was his encyclopaedia, his constant companion. All he says of the Pantagruelian ^erb, though he amply developed it for himself, is taken from Pliny's chapter on flax. And there is a great deal more of this kind to be discovered, for Rabelais does not always give it as quotation. On the other hand. When he writes, "Such an one says," it would be difi&- INTRODUCTION xxxvii cult enough to find who is meant, for the "such an one" is a fictitious writer. The method is amusing, but it is curious to account for it. The question of the Chronique Gargantuaine is still undecided. Is it by Rabelais or by someone else ? Both theories are defensible, and can be supported by good reasons. In the Chronique everything is heavy, occa- sionally meaningless, and nearly always insipid. Can the same man have written the Chronique and Gar- gantua, replaced a book really commonplace by a master- piece, changed the facts and incidents, transformed a heavy icy pleasantry into a work glowing with wit and life, made it no longer a mass of laborious trifling and cold-blooded exaggerations but a satire on human life of the highest genius. Still there are points common to the two. Besides, Rabelais wrote other things; and it is only in his romance that he shows literary skill. The conception of it would have entered his mind first only in a bare and summary fashion. It would have been taken up again, expanded, developed, metamorphosed. That is possible, and, for my part, I am of those who, like Brunet and Nodier, are inclined to think that the Chronique, in spite of its inferiority, is really a first at- tempt, condemned as soon as the idea was conceived in another form. As its earlier date is incontestable, we must conclude that if the Chronique is not by him, his Gargantua and its continuation would not have existed without it. This would be a great obligation to stand under to some unknown author, and in that case it is astonishing that his enemies did not reproach him. dur- ing his lifetime with being merely an imitator and a plagiarist. So there are reasons for and against his authorship of it, and it would be dangerous to make too bold an assertion. One fact which is absolutely certain and beyond all controversy, is that Rabelais owed much to one of his contemporaries, an Italian, to the Histoire Macaronique of Merlin Coccaie. Its author, Theophilus Folengo, who was also a monk, was bom in 1491, and died only a short time before Rabelais, in 1544. But his burlesque poem was published in 1517. It was in Latin verse,. xxxviii INTRODUCTION ■written in an elaborately fabricated style. It is not dog Latin, but Latin ingeniously Italianized, or rather Italian, even Mantuan, latinized. The contrast between the modern form of the word and its Roman garb produces the most amusing effect. In the original it is some- times diffictdt to read, for Folengo has no objection to using the most colloquial words and phrases. The subject is quite different. It is the adventures of Baldo, son of Guy de Montauban, the very lively his- tory of his youth, his trial, imprisonment and deliver- ance, his journey in search of his father, during which he visits the Planets and Hell. The narration is con- stantly interrupted by incidental adventures. Occa- sionally they are what would be called to-day very naturalistic, and sometimes they are madly extravagant. But Fracasso, Baldo's friend, is a giant, another friend, Cingar, who delivers him, is Panurge exactly, and quite as much given to practical joking. The women in the senile amour of the old Tognazzo, the judges, and the poor sergeants, are no more gently dealt with by Folengo than by the monk of the lies d'Hyeres. If Dindenaut's name does not occur, there are the sheep. The tempest is there, and the invocation to all the saints. Rabelais improves ,all he borrows, but it is from Folengo he starts. He does not reproduce the words, but, like the Italian, he revels in drinking scenes, junkettings, gormandizing, battles, scuffles, wounds and corpses, magic, witches, speeches, repeated enumera- tions, lengthiness, and a solemnly minute precision of impossible dates and numbers. The atmosphere, the tone, the methods are the same, and to know Rabelais well, you must know, Folengo well too. Detailed proof of this would be too lengthy a matter ; one would have to quote too many passages, but on this question of sources nothing is more interesting than a perusal of the Opus Macaronicorum. It was translated into French only in 1606 — Paris, Gilley Robinot. This translation of course cannot reproduce all the many amusing forms of words, but it is useful, nevertheless, in showing more clearly the points of resemblance 'be- tween the two works, — how far in form, ideas, details. INTRODUCTION xxxlac and phrases Rabelais was permeated by Folengo. The anonymous translator saw this quite well, and said so in his title, "Histoire macaronique de Merlin Coccaie, prototype of Rabelais." It is nothing but the truth, and Rabelais, who does not hide it from himself, bn more than one occasion mentions the name of Merlin Coccaie. Besides, Rabelais was fed on the Italians of his time as on the Greeks and Romans. Panurge, who owes much to Cingar, is also not free from obligations to the miscreant Margutte in the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci. Had Rabelais in his mind the tale from the Florentine Chronicles, how in the Savonarola riots, when the Piagnoni and the Arrabiati came to blows in the church of the Dominican convent of San-Marco, Fra Pietro in the scuffle broke the heads of the assailants with the bronze crucifix he had taken from the altar? A well- handled cross could so readily be used as a weapon, that probably it has served as such more than once, and other and even quite modern instances might be quoted. But other Italian sources are absolutely certain. There are few more wonderful, chapters in Rabelais than the one about the drinkers. It is not a dialogue : those short exclamations exploding from every side, all referring to the same thing, never repeating themselves, and yet always varying the same theme. At the end of the Novelle of Gentile Sermini of Siena, there is a chapter called II Giuoco delta pugna, the Game of Battle. Here are the first lines of it: "Apre, apre, apre. Chi gioca, chi gioca — ^uh, uh! — A Porrione, a Porrione. — Vielk, viela; date a ognuno. — AUe mantella, alle mantella. — Oltre di corsa; non vi fermate. — Voltate qui; ecco cos- toro; fate veli innanzi.-^Vielk, vielk; date costi. — Chi la fk? lo — Ed io. — Dagli; ah, ah, buona, fu. — Or cosi; alia mascella, al fianco. — Dagli basso; di punta, di punta. — Ah, ah, buon gioco, buon gioco." And thus it goes on with fire and animation for pages. Rabelais probably translated or directly imitated it. He changed the scene; there was no giuooco delta pugna in France. He transferred to a drinking-bout tills xl INTRODUCTION clatter of exclamations which go off by ijhemselves, which cross each other and get no answer. He made a wonderful thing of it. But though he did not copy Sermini, yet Sermini's work provided him with the form of the subject, and was the theme for Rabelais' mar- vellous variations. Who does not remember the fantastic quarrel of the cook with the poor devil who had flavoured his dry bread with the smoke of the roast, and the judgment of Seyny John, truly worthy of Solomon? It comes from the Cento Novelle Antiche, rewritten from tales older than Boccaccio, and moreover of an extreme brevity and dry- ness. They are only the framework, the notes, the skeleton of tales. The subject is often wonderful, but nothing ig made of it: it is left unshaped. Rabelais wrote a version of one, the ninth. The scene takes place, not at Paris, but at Alexandria in Egypt among the Saracens, and the cook is called Fabrac. But the surprise at the end, the sagacious judgment by which the sound of a piece of money was made the price of the smoke, is the same. Now the first dated edition of the Cento Novelle (which were frequently reprinted) appeared at Bologna in 1525, and it is certain that Rabelais had read the tales. And there would be much else of the same kind to learn if we knew Rabelais' library. A still stranger fact of this sort may be given to show how nothing came amiss to him. He must have known, and even copied the I/atin Chronicle of the Counts of Anjou. It is accepted, and rightly so, as an historical document, but that is no reason for thinking that the truth may not have been manipulated and adorned. The Counts of Anjou were not saints. They were proud, quarrelsome, violent, rapacious, and extrava- gant, as greedy as they were charitable to the Church, treacherous and cruel. Yet their anonymous panegyrist has made them patterns of all the virtues. In reality it is both a history and in some sort a romance ; especially is it a collection of examples wotthy of being followed, in the style of the Cyropcedia, our Juvenal of the fif- teenth century, and a little like F^elon's Telemaque. Des (5tfU§ merneflletiir tu mntf 6arganttta d i^antasroel tt>n(\{y,mf DesBfpfOo Des:en(l^2onr(qtie^pac fttt«^al6re ailcD fribas:a&Sra cfettrDeqtHti I 5 4 I* xlii INTRODUCTION. Now in it there occurs the address of one of the counts to those who rebelled against him and who were at his mercy. Rabelais must have known it, for he has copied it, or rather, literally translated whole lines of it in the wonderful speech of Gargantua to the vanquished. His contemporaries, who approved of his borrowing from antiquity, could not detect this one, because the book -was not printed till much later. But Rabelais lived in Maine. In Anjou, which often figures among the local- ities he names, he must have met with and read the Chronicles of the Counts in manuscript, probably in some monastery library, whether at Fontenay-le-Comte or elsewhere it matters little. There is not only a like- ness in the ideas and tone, but in the words too, which cannot be a mere matter of chance. He must have known the Chronicles of the Counts of Anjou, and they inspired one of his finest pages. One sees, therefore, how varied were the sources whence he drew, and how many of them must probably always escape us. When, as has been done for Moliere, a critical tibliog- Taphy of the works relating to Rabelais is drawn up — ■which, bye the bye, will entail a very great amount of labour — ^the easiest part will certainly be the bibliog- raphy of the old editions.* That is the section that has been most satisfactorily and most completely worked out. M. Brunet said the last word on the subject in his Researches in 1852, and in the important article in the fifth edition of his Manuel du Libraire (iv., 1863, pp. 1037-1071.) The facts about the fifth book cannot be summed up briefly. It was printed as a whole at first, without the uame of the place, in 1564, and next year at Lyons by Jean Martin. It has given, and even still gives rise to two contradictory opinions. Is it Rabelais' or not? First of all, if he had left it complete, would sixteen years have gone by before it was printed? -Then, does it bear evident marks of his workmanship? Is the hand of the master visible throughout? Antoine Du Verdier in the 1605 edition of his Prosopographie writes; * The bibliography will be treated hereafter in the volume of Notes that I am preparing. INTRODUCTION xliii "[Rabelais'] misfortune has been that everybody has wished to 'pantagruehze!' and several books have ap- peared under his name, and have been added to his works, which are not by him, as, for instance, I'lle Sonnante, written by a certain scholar of Valence and others." The scholar of Valence might be Guillaume des Autels, to whom with more certainty can be ascribed the author- ship of a dull imitation of Rabelais, the History of. Fan- freluche and Gaudichon, published in 1578, which, to say the least of it, is very much inferior to the fifth book. Louis Guyon, in his Diverses Lecons, is still more positive: "As to the last book which has been included in his works, entitled I'lle Sonnante, the object of which seems to be to find fault with and laugh at the members and the authorities of the Catholic Church, I protest that he did not compose it, for it was written loiig after his death. I was at Paris when it was written, and I know quite well who was its author; he was not a doc- tor." That is very emphatic, and it is impossible to ignore it. Yet every one must recognize that there is a great deal of Rabelais in the fifth book. He must have planned it and begun it. Remembering that in 154& he had published, not as an experiment, but rather as a bait and as an announcement, the first eleven chapters of the fourth book, we may conclude that the first six- teen chapters of the fifth book published by themselves nine years after his death, in 1562, represent the remainder of his definitely finished work. This is the more certain because these first chapters, which contain the Apologue of the Horse and the Ass and the terrible Furred Law- cats, are markedly better than what follows them. They are not the only ones where the master's hand, may be traced, but they are the only ones where no other hand could possibly have interfered. , In the remainder the sentiment is distinctly Protestant. Rabelais was much struck by the vices of the clergy and did not spare them. Whether we are unable to forgive his criticisms because they were conceived in Xliv INTRODUCTION a spirit of raillery, or whether, on the other hand, we feel admiration tor him on this point, yet Rabelais was not in the least a sectary. If he strongly desired a moral reform, indirectly pointing out the need of it in his mocking fashion, he was not favourable to a political reform. Those who would make of him a Protestant altogether forget that the Protestants of his time were not for him, but against him. Henri Estienne, for in- stance, Ramus, Theodore de Beze, and especially Calvin, should know how he was to be regarded. Rabelais be- longed to what may be called the early reformation, to that band of honest men in the beginning of the sixteenth century, precursors of the later one perhaps, but, like Erasmus, between the two extremes. He was neither Lutheran nor Calvinist, neither German nor Genevese, and it is quite natural that his work was not reprinted in Switzerland, which would certainly have happened had the Protestants looked on him as one of themselves. That Rabelais collected the materials for the fifth book, had begun it, and got on some way, there can be no doubt: the excellence of a large number of passages prove it, but — taken as a whole — the fifth book has not the value, the verve, and the variety of the others. The style is quite different, less rich, briefer, ■ less elaborate, drier, in parts even wearisome. In the first four books Rabelais seldom repeats himself. The fifth book con- tains from the point qf view of the vocabulary really the least novelty. On the contrary, it is full of words and expressions already met with, which is very natural in an imitation, in a copy, forced to keep to a similar tone, and to show by such reminders and likenesses that it is really by the same pen. A very striking point is the profound difference in the use of anatomical terms. In the other books they are most frequently used in a humorous sense, and nonsensically, with a quite other meaning than their own; in the fifth they are applied correctly. It was necessary to include such terms to keep up the practice, but the writer has not thought of using them to add to the comic effect : one cannot always think of everything. Trouble has been taken, of course, INTRODUCTION. xlv tc include enumerations, but there are much fewer fabricated and fantastic words. In short, the hand of the maker is far from showing the same suppleness and strength. A eulogistic quatrain is signed Nature quite, which, it is generally agreed, is an anagram of Jean Turquet.. Did the adapter of the fifth book sign his work in this, indirect fashion? He might be of the Genevese family to whom Louis Turquet and his son Theodore belonged, both well-known, and both strong Protestants. The obscurity relating to this matter is far from being cleared- up, and perhaps neveT will be. It fell to my lot — ^here, unfortunately, I am forced to- speak of a personal matter — to print for the first time the manuscript of the fifth book. At first it was hoped, it might be in Rabelais' own hand; afterwards that it- might be at least a copy of his unfinished work. The. task was a difficult one, for the writing, extremely flowing and rapid, is execrable, and most difficult to- decipher and to transcribe accurately. Besides, it often happens in the sixteenth and the end of the fifteenth- century, that manuscripts are much less correct than, the printed versions, even when they have not beeiL copied by clumsy and ignorant hands. In this case,, it is the writing of a clerk executed as quickly as possible. The farther it goes the more incorrect it becomes, as. if the writer were in haste to finish. What is really the origin of it ? It has less the appear- ance of notes or fragments prepared by Rabelais than of a first attempt at revision. It is not an author's rough, draft ; still less is it his manuscript. If I had not printed this enigmatical text with scrupulous and painful fidelity I would do it now. It was necessary to do it so as to= clear the way. But as the thing is done, and accessible to those who may be interested, and who wish to criti- cally examine it, there is no further need of reprinting it.. All the editions of Rabelais continue, and rightly, tO' reproduce the edition of 1564. It is not the real Rabe- lais, but however open to criticism it may be, it was; under that form that the fifth book appeared in the six- teenth century, under that f6rm it was accepted. Con- xlvi INTRODUCTION sequently it, is convenient and even necessary to follow and keep to the original edition. The first sixteen chapters may, and really must be, the text of Rabelais, in the final form as left by him, and found after his death; the framework, and a num- ber of the passages in the continuation, the best ones, of course, are his, but have been patched up and tampered with. Nothing can have been suppressed of what ex- isted; it was evidently thought that everything should be admitted with the final revision; but the tone' was changed, additions were made, and "improvements." Adapters are always strangely vain. In the seventeenth century, the French printing-press save for an edition issued at Troyes in 1613, gave up publishing Rabelais, and the work passed to foreign countries. Jean, Fuet reprinted him at Antwerp in 1602. After the Amsterdam edition of 1659, where for the first time appears "The Alphabet of the French Author," comes the Elzevir edition of 1663. The type, an imitation of what made the reputation of the little volumes of the Gryphes of Lyons, is charming, the print- ing is perfect-, and the paper, which is French — the de- velopment of paper-making in Holland and England did not take place till after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes — is excellent. They are pretty volumes to the eye, but, as in all the reprints of the seventeenth cen- tury, the text is full of faults and most untrustworthy. France, through a representative in a foreign land, however, comes into line again in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in a really serious fashion, thanks to the very considerable learning of a French refugee, Jacob Le Duchat, who died in 1748. He had a most thorough knowledge of the French prose-writers of the sixteenth century, and he made them accessible by his editions of the Quinze Joies du Manage, of Henri Estienne, of Agrippa d'Aubigne, of L'Etoile, and of the Satyre Menippee. In 171 1 he published an edition of Rabelais at Amsterdam, through Henry Bordesius, in five duodecimo volumes. The reprint in quarto which he issued in 1741, seven years before his death, is, with its engravings by Bernard Picot, a fine library edition. PLAI^^ANTTE, liT lOYEVSE hiftoyri d\x grand Geant Garganiua. ri&t)ia>ncinent reueue & de beaaeoup augmcot6e fat I'Auheutmcflne. 7^ y*^!^ ^ \¥k S^ ({ %, w « s *ii U' jj^ T^''^^ R) ~--ivte*M s N i 22 1 7 V '^Z^fgjf \ V "^ ^H* ^oy rtirfpa ^^ i@ taS ^ l^alence, Che's Claude UYille. xlviii INTRODUCTION Le Duchat's is the first of the critical editions. It takes account of differences in the texts, and begins to point out the variations. His very numerous notes are re- markable, and are still worthy of most serious con- sideration. .He was the first to offer useful elucida- tions, and these have been repeated after him, and with good reason will continue to be so. The Abb^ de Massy's edition of 1752, also an Amsterdam production, has made use of Le Duchat's, but does not take its place. Finally, at the end of the century, Cazin printed Rabelais in his little volume, in 1782, and Bartiers issued two editions (of no importance) at Paris in 1782 and 1798. For- tunately the nineteenth century has occupied itself with the great "Satyrique" in a more competent and useful fashion. ' In 1820 L'Aulnaye published through Desoer his three little volumes, printed in exquisite style, and which have other merits besides. His volume of annotations, in which, that nothing might be lost of his own notes, he has included many things not directly relating to Rabelais, is full of observations and curious remarks which are very useful additions to Le Duchat. One fault to be found with him is his further complication of the spelling. This he did in accordance with a princi- ple that the words should be referred to their real ety- mology. Learned though he was, Rabelais had little care to be so etymological, and it is not ftis theories but those of the modern scholar that have been ventilated. Somewhat later, from 1823 to 1826, Fsmangart and Johanneau issued a variorum edition in nine volumes, in which the text is often encumbered by notes which are really too numerous, and, above all, too long. The work was an enormous one, but the best part of it is Le Duchat's, and what is not his, is too often absolutely hypothetical and beside the truth. Le Duchat had already given too much importance to the false historical explanation. Here it is constantly coming in, and it rests on no evidence. In reality, there is no need of the key to Rabelais by which to discover the meaning of subtle allusions. He is neither so complicated nor so full of riddles. We know how he has scattered the IlVTRODUCTION. xlix names of contemporaries about his work, sometimes of friends, sometimes of enemies, and without disguising them under any mask. He is no more Panurge than Louis XII. is Gargantua or Francis I. Pantagruel. Rabelais says what he wants, all he wants, and in the way he wants. There are no mysteries below the surface, and it is a waste of time to look for knots in a bulrush. All the historical explanations are purely imaginary, utterly without proof, and should the more emphatically be looked on as baseless and dismissed. They are radi- cally false, and therefore both worthless and harmful. In 1840 there appeared in the Bibliptheque Char- pentier the Rabelais in a single dUodeciino volume, be- gun by Charles Labiche, and, after his death, completed by M. Paul Lacroix, whose share is the larger. The text is that of L'Aulnaye; the short footnotes, with all their brevity, contain useful explanations of difficult words. Amongst the editions of Rabelais this is one of the most important, because it brought him many readers and admirers. No other has made him so well and so widely known as this portable volume, which has been constantly reprinted. No other has been so widely circulated, and the sale still goes on. It was, and must still be looked on as a most serviceable edition. The edition published by Didot in 1857 has an alto- gether special character. In the biographical notice M. Rathery for. the first time treated as they deserve the foolish prejudices which have made Rabelais mis- understood, and M. Burgaud des Marets set the text on a quite new base. Having proved, what of course is very evident, that in the original editions the spelling and the language too, were of the simplest and clearest, and were not bristling with the nonsensical and super- fluous consonants which have given rise to the idea that Rabelais is difficult to read, he took the trouble first of all to note the spelling of each word. Whenever in a single instance he found it in accordance with modem spelling, he made it the same throughout. The task was a hard one, and Rabelais certainly gained in clearness, but over- zeal is often fatal to a reform. In respect to its precision and the value of its notes, which are short and very I INTRODUCTION judicious Burgaud des Marets' edition is valuable, and is amongst those which should be known and taken into account. Since Le Duchat all the editions have a common fault. They are not exactly guilty of fabricating, but they set up an artificial text in the sense that, in order to lose as little as possible, they have collected and united what originally were variations — ^the revisions, in short, of the original editions. Guided by the wise counsels given by Brunet in 1852 ih his Researches on the old editions of Rabelais, Pierre Jannet published the first three books in 1858; then, when the publication of tHe Bibliotheque Elzevirienne was discontinued, he took up the work again and finished the edition in Picard's blue library, in little volumes, each book quite distinct. It was M. Jannet who in our days first restored the pure and exact text of Rabelais, not only without retouching it, but without making additions or insertions, or juxta- position of things that were not formerly found together. For each of the books he has followed the last edition issued by Rabelais, and all the earlier differences he gives as variations. It is astonishing that a thing so simple and so fitting should not have been done before, and the result is that this absolutely exact fidelity has restored a lucidity which was not wanting in Rabelais' time, but which had since been obscured. All who have come after Jannet have followed in his path, and there is no reason for straying from it.j Co i6e gonouteb, Qto^fe t'tanB^iox of (JU6e0at0« RABELAIS, w/ioje W4< prodigiously was made. All men, professions, actions to invade, With so much furious vigour, as if it Had lived o'er each of them,, and each had quit, Yet with such happy sleight and careless skill, As, like the serpent, doth with laughter kill; So that although his noble leaves appear Antic and Gottish, and dull souls forbear To turn them o'er, lest they should only find Nothing but savage monsters of a mind, — No shapen beauteous thoughts; yet when the wise Seriously strip him of his wild disguise, Melt down his dross, refine his massy ore. And polish that which seem'd rough-cast before, Search his deep sense, unveil his hidden mirth. And make that fiery which before seem'd earth (Conquering those things of highest consequence, What's difficult of language or of sense), He will appear some noble table writ In the old Egyptian hieroglyphic wit; Where, though you monsters and grotescoes see, You meet all mysteries of philosophy. For he was wise and sovereignly bred To know what mankind is, hotv't may he led: He stoop'd unto them, like thai wise man, who Rid on a stick, when's children would do JO.' For 'liit are easy sullen things, and mvA TO THE TRANSLATOR Be laugh'd aright, and cheated into trust; Whilst a black piece of phlegm, that lays about Dull menaces, and terrifies the rout. And cajoles it, with all its peevish strength Piteously stretch'd and botch'd up into lengjth, Whilst the tired rabble sleepily obey Such opiate talk, and snore away the day, By all his noise as much their minds relieves. As caterwauling of wild cats frights thieves. But Rabelais was another thing, a man Made up of all that art and nature can Form from a fiery genius, — he was one Whose soul so universally was thrown Through all the arts of life, who understood Each stratagem by which we stray from, good; So that he best might solid virtue teach. As some 'gainst sins of their own bosoms preach: He from wise choice did the true means prefer. In the fool's coat acting th' philosopher Thus hoary Msop's beasts did mildly tame Fierce man, and moralize him into shame; Thus brave romances, while they seem to lay; Great trains of iust, platonic love display; Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chance Show'd a drunk slave, teach children temperance; Thus did the later poets nobly bring The scene to height, making the fool the king. And, noble sir, you vigorously have trod In this hard path unknown, un-understood By its own countrymen, 'tis you appear Our full enjoyment which was our despair. Scattering his mists, cheering his cynic frowns {For radiant brightness now dark Rabelais crowns). Leaving your brave heroic cares, which must Make better mankind and embalm your dtist, So undeceiving us, that now we see All wit in Gascon and in Cromarty, Besides that Rabelais is convey'd to us. And that our Scotland is not barbarous. J. Db la Salle. M The Commendation. USA! canas nostrorum in testimonium Amorum, Et Gargantueas perpetuate faces, Utque homini tali resultet nobilis Eccho: Quicquid Fama canit, Pantagruelis erit. ailii* Argument. Here I intend mysteriously to sing With a pell pluck'd from Fame's own wing Of Garagantua that learn'd breech-wiping king. Swabe % firat. I. Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blaze Benumbs me! I must sound the praise Of him hath tum'd this crabbed work in such heroic phrase. II. What wit would not court martyrdom to hold Upon his head a laurel of gold, Where for eaich rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told: e t^ABLOPHlLA III. And such a one is this, art's masterpiece, A thing ne'er equall'd by old Greece: A. thing ne'er match'd as yet, a real Golden Fl( IV. \nce is a soldier fights against mankind; Which you mav look but never find ! For 'tis an envious 'hing, with cunning interlined. V. And thus he rails at drinking all before 'em. And for lewd women does be-whore 'em, And brings their painted faces and black patches to th' quorum. VI. To drink he was a furious enemy Contented with a six-penny — |,\Vith diamond hat-band, silver spurs, six horses.) pie — VII. And for tobacco's pate-retunding smoke, Much had he said, and much more spoke, But 'twas not th'ai found out, so the design was broke. VIII. Muse ! Fancy ! Faith ! come now arise aloud, Assembled in a blue-vein 'd cloud, And this tall infant in angelic arms now shroud. IX. To praise it further I would now begin Were't now a thoroughfare and inn. It harbours vice, though't be to catch it in a gin. X, Therefore, my Muse, draw up thy flowing sail, And acclamate a gentle hail \Hnth all thy art and metaphors, which must prevaiL RABLOPHILA Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri. Imparibus restat danda secunda modis. i Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam, Cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais. Malevolus. Reader, the Errata, which in this book are not a few, are casually lost; and therefore the Translator, not having leisure to collect them again, craves thy pardon for such as thou may'st -meet with. C5e ^ut6ot'0 (ptofogue to i^t ^^et QSoofL MOST noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice precious pockified blades (for to you, and none else, do I dedicate my writings), Alcibiades, ,in that dialogue of Plato's, which is entitled The Banquet, whilst he was setting forth the praises of his school- master Socrates (without all question the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that purpose, said that he resembled the Silenes. Silenes of old were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton t03Hlsh figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, homed hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such- like counterfeited' pictures at discretion, to excite people nnto laughter, as Silenus himself, who was the foster- father of good Bacchus, was wont to do; but within those capricious caskets were carefully preserved and kept many rich jewels and fine drugs, such as balm, ambergris, amomon, musk, civet, with several kinds of precious stones, and other things of great price. Just such another thing was Socrates. For to have eyed his outside, and esteemed of him by his exterior appear- ance, you would not have given the peel of an onion for him, so deformed he was in body, and ridiculous in his gesture. He had a sharp pointed nose, with the look of a bull, and countenance of a fool : he was in his carriage simple, boorish in his apparel, in fortune poor, unhappy in his wives, unfit for all offices in the common- wealth, always, laiaghing, tippling, and merrily carousing to everyone, witli continual gibes and jeers, the better by those means to conceal his divine knowledge. Now, opening this box you would have found within it a heavenly and inestimable drug, a more than human lo THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE understanding, an admirable virtue, matchless learning, invincible courage, unimitable sobriety, certain content- ment of mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible mis- regard of all that for which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail, fight, travel, toil and turmoil themselves. Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of a preamble tend? For so much as you, my good disciples, and some other jolly fools of ease and leisure,, reading the pleasant titles of some books of our invention, as Gargantua, Pantagruel, Whippot,* the Dignity of Codpieces, of Pease and Bacon with a Commentary, &c.,^ are too ready to judge that there is nothing in them but jests, mockeries, lascivious discourse, and recreative lies; because the outside (which is the title) is usually, without any further inquiry, entertained with scoflSng and derision. But truly it is very unbeseeming to make so slight account of the works of men, seeing yourselves avouch that it is not the habit makes the monk, many being monasterially accoutred, who inwardly are noth- ing less than monachal, and that there are of those that wear Spanish capes, who have but little of the valour of Spaniards in them. Therefore is it, that you must open the book, and seriously consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall you find that it containeth things of far higher value than the box did promise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so foolish as by the title at the first sight it would appear to be. And put the case, that in the literal sense you meet with purposes merry and solacious enough, and conse- quently very correspondent to their inscriptions, yet must not you stop there as at the melody of the charm- ing syrens, but endeavour to interpret that in a sub- limer sense which possibly you intended to have spoken in the jollity of your heart. Did you ever pick the lock of a cupboard to steal a bottle of wine out of it? Tell me truly, and, if you did, call to mind the countenance which then you had. Or, did you ever see a dog with a marrowbone in his mouth, — the beast of all other, says Plato, lib. 2, de Republica, the most philosophical? If you have seen him, you might have remarked with * Fessepinte. THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE ix what devotion and circumspectness he wards and watcheth it: with what care he keeps it: how fervently he holds it: how prudently he gobbets it: with what affection he breaks it: and with what diligence he sucks it. To what end all this? What mpveth him to take all these pains? What are the hopes of his labour? What doth he expect to reap thereby? Nothing but a little njiarrow. True it is, that this little is more savoury and delicious than the great quantities of other sorts of meat, because the marrow (as Galen testifieth, 5. facult. nat. & 11. de usu partium) is a nourishment most perfectly elaboured by nature. In imitation of this dog, it becomes you to be wise, to smell, feel and have in estimation these fair goodly books, stuffed with high conceptions, which, though seemingly easy in the pursuit, are in the cope and en- counter somewhat difficult. And then, like him, you must, by a sedulous lecture, and frequent meditation, break the bone, and suck out the marrow, — that is, my allegorical sense, or the things I to myself propose to be signified by these Pythagorical symbols, with assured hope, that in so doing you will at last attain to be both well-advised and valiant by the reading of them: for in the perusal of this treatise you shall find another kind of taste, and a doctrine of a more profound and abstrue consideration, which will disclose unto you the most glorious sacraments and dreadful mysteries, as well in what concemeth your religion, as matters of the public state, and life economical. Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was a-couching his Iliads and Odysses, had any thought upon those allegories, which Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Comutus squeezed out of him, and which Politian filched again from them? If you trust it, with neither hand nor foot do you come near to my opinion, which judgeth them to have been as little dreamed of by Homer, as the Gospel sacraments were by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, though a certain gulligut friar* and true bacon-picker would have under- taken to prove it, if perhaps he had met with as very ♦ Frere Lubin croquelardon. 12 THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE fools as himself, (and as the proverb says) a lid worthy of such a kettle. If you give no credit thereto, why do not you the same in these jovial new chronicles of mine? Albeit when I did dictate them, I thought upon no more than you, who possibly were drinking the whilst as I was. For in the composing of this lordly book, I never lost nor bestowed any more, nor any other time than what was appointed to serve me for taking of -my bodily re- fection, that is, whilst I was eating and drinking. And indeed that is the fittest and most proper hour wherein to write these high matters and deep sciences : as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologues, and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, although a certain sneaking jobeTnoJ, alleged that his verses smelled more of the wine than oil. So saith a turlupin or a new start-up grub of my books, but a turd for him. The fragrant odour of the wine, O how much more dainty, pleasant, laughing,* celestial and delicious it is, than that smell of oil! And I will glory as much when it is said of me, that I have spent more on wine than oil, as did Demosthenes, when it was told him, that his expense on oil was greater than on wine. I truly hold it for an honour and praise to be called and reputed a Frolic Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow; for under this name am I welcome in all choice companies of Pantagruelists. It was upbraided to Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his Orations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy oil- vessel. For this cause interpret you all my deeds and sayings in the perfectest sense; reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with these fair billevezees and trifling jollities, and do what lies in you to keep me always merry. Be frolic now, my lads, cheer up your hearts, and joyfully read the rest, with all the ease of your body and profit of your reins. But hearken, joltheads, you viedazes, or dickens take ye, remember to drink a health to me for the like favour again, and 1 will pledge you instantly. Tout ares-metys. * Riant priant, f riant. (gaBefdte io t^e (geAbet. GOOD friends, my Readers; who peruse this Book. Be not offended, whilst on it you look: Denude yourselves of all depraved affection. For it contains no badness, nor infection : 'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth Of any value, but in point of mirth ; Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind Consume, I could no apter subject find; One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span; Because to laugh is proper to the man. ^aidaiB CHAPTER I. Of the Gbnealogy and Antiquity op Gargantua. I MUST refer you to the great chronicle of Pantagruel for the knowledge of that genealogy and antiquity of race by which Gargantua is come unto us. In it you may understand more at large how the giants were bom in this world, and how from them by a direct line issued Gargantua, the father of Pantagruel: and do not take it ill, if for this time I pass by it, although the sub- ject be such, that the oftener it were remembered, thfe more it would please your worshipful Seniorias ; according to which you have the authority of Plato in Philebo and Gorgias; and of Flaccus, who says tnat there are some kinds of purposes (such as these are without doubt), which, the frequentlier they be repeated, still prove the more delectable. Would to God everyone had as certain knowledge of his genealogy since the time of the ark of Noah until this age. I think many are at this day emperors, kings, dukes, princes, and popes on the earth, whose extraction is from some porters and pardon-pedlars; as, on the con- trary, many are now poor wandering beggars, wretched and miserable, who are descended of the blood and line- age of great kings and emperors, occasioned, as I con- ceive it, by the transport and revolution of kingdoms and empires, from the Assyrians to the Medes^ from the iCedes to the Persians, froin ^Jbe Persians to the Mace* l6 RABELAIS. donians, from the Macedonians to the Romans, from the Romans to the Greeks, from the Greeks to the French. And to give you some hint concerning myself, who speaks unto you, I cannot think but I am come of the race of some rich king or prince in former times; for never yet saw you any man that had a greater desire to be a king, and to be rich, than I have, and that only that I may make good cheer, do nothing, nor care for an3rthing, and plentifully enrich my friends, and all honest and learned men. But herein do I comfort myself, that in the other world I shall be so, yea and greater too than at this present I dare wish. As for you, with the same or a better conceit consolate yourselves in your distresses, and drink fresh if you can come lay it. To return to our wethers, I say that by the sovereign gift, of heaven, the antiquity and genealogy of Gargantua hath been reserved for our use more full and perfect than any other except that of the Messias, whereof I mean not to speak; for it belongs not unto my purpose, and the devils, that is to say, the false accusers and dis- sembled gospellers, will therein oppose me. This gene- alogy was found by John Andrew in a meadow, which he had near the pole-arch, under the olive-tree, as you go to Narsay; where, as he was making cast up some ditches, the diggers with their mattocks struck against a great brazen tomb, and unmeasurably long, for they could never find the end thereof, by reason that it entered too far within the sluices of Vienne. Opening this tomb in a certain place thereof, sealed on the top with the mark of a goblet, about which was written in Etrurian letters Hic bibitur, they found nine flagons set in such order as they use to rank their kyles in Gas- cony, of which that which was placed in the middle had under it a big, fat, great, grey, pretty, small, mouldy, little pamphlet, smelling stronger, but no better than roses. In that book the said genealogy was found written all at length, in a chancery hand, not in paper not in parchment, nor in nax, but in the bark of an elm- tree, yet so worn with the long tract of time, that hardly could three letters together be there perfectly discerned. RABELAIS 17 I (though unworthy) was sent for thither, and with inuch help of those spectacles, whereby the art of read- ing dim writings, and letters that do not clearly appear to the sight, is practised, as Aristotle teacheth it, did translate the book as you may see in your Pantagrue- lizing, that is to say, in drinking stifHy to your own heart's desire, and reading the dreadful and horrific acts of Pantagruel. At the end of the book there was a little treatise entitled the Antidoted Fanfreluches, or a Galimatia of extravagant conceits. The rats and moths, or (that I may not lie) other wicked beasts, had nibbled off the beginning: the rest I have hereto subjoined, for the reverence I bear to antiauitv. CHAPTER It. Thb Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia op extravagant concelts found in an ancient Monument. NO sooner did the Cymbrians' overcomer Pass through the air to shun the dew of suram'^^ But at his coming straight great tubs were fiU'd", With pure fresh butter down in showers distill'd: Wherewith when watered was his grandam, Hey, Aloud he cried. Fish it, sir, I pray y' ; Because his beard is almost all beray'd ; Or, that he would hold to 'm a scale, he pray'd. To lick his slipper, some told was much better. Than to gain pardons, and the merit greater. In th' interim a crafty chuff approaches. From the depth issued, where they fish for roaches; Who said. Good sirs, some of them let us save, The eel is here, and in this hollow cave You'll find, if that our looks on it demur, A great waste in the bottom of his fur. l8 RABELAIS. To read this chapter when he did begin, Nothing but a calf's horns were found there-n I feel, quoth he, the mitre which doth hold My head so chill, it makes my brains take cold. Being with the perfume of a turnip warm'd, To stay by chimney hearths himself he arm'd. Provided that a new thill-horse they made Of every person of a hair-brain'd head. They talked of the bunghole of Saint Knowles, Of Gilbathar and thousand other holes, If they might be reduced t' a scarry stuff, Such as might not be subject to the cough:_ Since ev'ry man unseemingly did it find, To see them gaping thus at ev'ry wind; For, if perhaps they handsomely were closed, For pledges they to men might be exposed. In this arrest by Hercules the raven Was flayed at her [his] return from Lybia haven. Why am not I, said Minos, there invited? Unless it be myself, not one's omitted: And then it is their mind, I do no more Of frogs and oysters send them any store; In case they spare my life and prOve but civil, I give their sale of distaffs to the devil. To quell him comes Q. B., whojlimping frets At the safe pass of tricksy crackarets; The boulter, the grand Cyclops' cousin, those Did massacre, whilst each one wiped his nose; Few ingles in this fallow ground are bred. But on a tanner's mill are winnowed. Run thither all of you, th' alarms sound clear. You shall have more than you had the last year. Short while thereafter was the bird of Jove Resolved to speak, though dismal it should prove; Yet was afraid, when he saw them in ire., They should o'erthrow quite flat down dead th' empirei He rather choosed the fire from heaven to steal. RABELAIS lo To boats where were red herrings put to sale; Than to be calm 'gainst those, who strive to brave us, And to the Massorets' fond words enslave us. All this at last concluded gallantly, In spite of Ate and her hem-like thigh, Who, sitting, saw Penthesilea ta'en. In her old age, for a cress-selling quean. Each one cried out. Thou filthy collier toad, Doth it become thee to be found abroad? Thou has the Roman standard filch'd away, Which they in rags of parchment did display. Juno was bom, who, under the rainbow, Was a-bird-catching with her duck below: When her with such a grievous trick they plied That she had almost been bethwacked by it. The bargain was, that, of that throatful, she Should of Proserpina have two eggs free; And if that she thereafter should be found. She to a hawthom hill should be fast bound. Seven months thereafter, lacking twenty-two, He, that of old did Carthage town undo, Did bravely midst them all himself advance, Requiring of them his inheritance; Although they justly made up the division, According to the shoe-welt-law's decision. By distributing store of brews and beef To these poor fellows that did pen the brief. But th' year will come, sign of a Turkish bow, Five spindles yam'd, and three pot-bottoms tooii Wherein of a discourteous king the dock Shall pepper'd be under an hermit's frock. Ah ! that for one she hypocrite you must Permit so many acres to be lost ! Cease, cease, this vizard may become anothei, Withdraw yourselves unto the serpent's brother. 'Tis in times past, that he who is shall reign 20 RABELAIS With his good friends in peace now and again. No rash nor heady prince shall then rule crave. Each good will its arbitrement shall have; And the joy, promised of old as doom To the heaven's guests, shall in its beacon come. Then shall the breeding mares, that benumb'd were, Like royal palfreys ride triumphant there. And this continue shall from time to time. Till Mars be fetter'd for an unknown crime; Then shall one come, who others will surpass. Delightful, pleasing, matchless, full of grace. Cheer up your hearts, approach to this repast, All trusty friends of mine ; for he's deceased, Who would not for a world return again, So highly shall time past be cried up then. He who was made of wax shall lodge each member Close by the hinges of a block of timber. We then no more shall Master, master, whoot, The swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out ; Could one seize on the dagger which he bears. Heads would be free from tingling in the ears, To baffle the whole storehouse of abuses. And thus farewell Apollo and the Muses. CHAPTER III. How GaRGANTUA was carried El^EVEN MONTHS IN HIS ' mother's BEl.IvY. GRANGOUSIER was a good fellow in his time, and notable jester; he loved to drink neat, as much as any man that then was in the world, and would willingly eat salt meat. To this intent he ■was ordinarily well furnished with gammons of bacon, both of Westphalia, Mayence and Bayonne, with store RABELAIS 21 of dried neat's tongues, plenty of links, chitteriings and puddings in their season; together with salt beef and mustard, a good deal of hard roes of powdered mullet called botargos, great provision of sausages, not of Bolonia (for he feared the Lombard Boccone), but of Bigorre, Longaulnay, Brene, and Rouargue. In the vigour of his age he married Gargamelle, daughter to- the King of the Parpaillons, a jolly pug, and well- mouthed wench. These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and fretting their bacon 'gainst one another, in so far, that at last she became great with child of a fair son, and went with him unto the eleventh month; for so long, yea longer, may a woman carry her great belly, especially when it is some masterpiece of nature, and a person predestinated to the performance, in his due time, of great exploits. As Homer says, that the child, which Neptune begot upon the nymph, was bom a whole year after the conception, tbat is, in the twelfth month. For, as Aulus Gellius saith, lib. 3, this long time was suitable to the majesty of Neptune, that in it the child might re- ceive his perfect form. For the like reason Jupiter made the night, wherein he lay with Alcmena, last forty-eight hours, a shorter time not being sufficient for the forging of Hercules, who cleansed the world 'of the monsters and tyrants wherewith it was suppressed. My masters, the ancient Pantagruelists, have confirmed that which I say, and withal declared it to be not only- possible, but also maintained the lawful birth and legiti- mation of the infant born of a woman in the eleventk month after the decease of her husband. Hypbcrates, lib. de alimento. Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 5. Plautus, in his. Cistelleria. Marcus Varro, in his satire inscribed The Testament, alleging to this purpose the authority of Aristotle. CensorinUs, lib. de die natali. Arist. lib. 7,, cap. 3 6* 4, de natura animalium. Gellius, lib. 3, cap. 16. ServiuS, in his exposition upon this verse of Vigil's eclogues, Matri longa decern, &c., and a thousand other fools, whose number hath been increased by the law- yers, fj. de suis, et legit I. intestate, paragrapho. fin. and in Auth. de restitut. et ea quce parit in xi mense. More- -22 RABELAIS over upon these grounds they have foisted in their Robidilardic, pr Lapiturolive law. Gallus ft. de lib. el posth. I. sept. ff. de stat. horn., and some other laws, ■which at this time I dare not name. By means whereof the honest widows may without danger play at the close huttock game with might and main, and as hard as they can, for the space of the first two months after the de- cease of their husbands. I pray you, my good lusty springal lads, if you find any of these females, that are worth the pains of untying the cod-piece-point, get up, ride upon them, and bring them to me ; for, if they hap- pen within the third month to conceive, the child shall be heir to the deceased, if, before he died, he had no other children, and the mother shall pass for an honest woman. When -_ le is known to have conceived, thrust forward boldly, spare her not, whatever betide you, seeing the paunch is full. As Julia, the daughter of the Emperor Octavian, never prostituted herself to her belly-bumpers, but when she found herself with child, after the manner of ships, that receive not their steersman till they have their ballast and lading. And if any blame them for this their rtttaconniculation, and reiterated lechery upon their pregnancy and big-belliedness, seeing beasts, in the like exigent of their fulness, will never suffer the male-masculant to encroach them, their answer will be, that those are beasts, but they are women, very well skilled in the pretty vales and small fees of the pleasant trade and mysteries of superfetation : as Populia hereto- fore answered, according to the relation of Macrobius, lib. 2. Salurnal. If the devil will not have them to bag, he must wring hard the spigot, and stop the bung- hole. CHAPTER IV. How GargamellE, being great with Gargantua^ DID EAT A huge DEAIv OF TRIPES. THE occasion and manner how Gargamelle wag brought to bed, and delivered of her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros. Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox- stalls, or in the fresh g^imo meadows. Guimo meadows are those that for their fruitfulness may be mowed twice a year. Of those fat beeves they had killed three hun- dred sixty-seven thousand and fourteen, to be salted at Shrovetide, that in the entering of the spring they might have plenty of powdered beef, wherewith to season their mouths at the beginning of their meals, and to taste their wine the better. They had abundance of tripes, as you have heard, and -they were so delicious, that everyone licked his fingers. But the mischief was this, that, for all men could do, there was no possibility to keep them long in that relish; for in a very short while they would have stunk, which had been an undecent thing. It was therefore concluded, that they should be all of them gulched up, without losing anything. To this effect they invited all the burghers of Sainais, of SuilM, of the Roche-Clermaud, of Vaugaudry, without omitting the Coudray, Monpensier, the Gu^ de V^de, and other their neighbours, all stiff drinkers, brave fellows, and good players at the kyles. The good man Grangousier took great pleasure in their company, and commanded there should be no want nor pinching for anything. Nevertheless he bade his wife eat sparingly, because she 23 ^4 RABELAIS was near her time, and that these tripes were no very- commendable meat. They would fain, said he, be at the chewing of ordure, that would eat the case wherein it was. Notwithstanding these admonitions, she did eat sixteen quarters, two bushels, three pecks and a pipkin full. O the fair fecality wherewith she swelled, by the ingrediency of such shitten stuff! After dinner they all went out in a hurl to the grove of the, willows, where, on the green grass, to the sound of the merry flutes and pleasant bagpipes, they danced so gallantly, that it was a sweet and heavenly sport to see them so frolic, CHAPTER V. The Discourse of the Drinkers. THEN did they fall upon the chat of victuals and some belly furniture to be snatched at in the very same place. Which purpose was no sooner mentioned, but forthwith began flagons to go, gammons to trot, goblets to fly, great bowls to ting, glasses to ring. Draw, reach, fill, mix, give it me without water. So, my friend, so, whip me off this glass neatly, bring me hither some claret, a full weeping glass till it run over. A cessation and truce with thirst. Ha, thou false fever, wilt thou not be gone? By my figgins, godmother, I cannot as yet enter in the humour of being ' merry, nor drink so currently as I would. You have catched a cold, gammer? Yea, forsooth, sir. By the belly of Sanct Buff, let us talk of our drink: I never drink but at my hours, like the Pope's mule. And I never drink but in my breviary, like a fair father guardian. Which was first, thirst or drinking? Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would have drunk without being athirst? Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatio frcesupponit habitum. I am learned, you see ; FcBcundi RABELAIS 25 calices quern non fecere disertum? We poor innocents drink but too much without thirst. Not I truly, who am a sinner, for I never drink without thirst, either present or future. To prevent it, as you know, I drink for the thirst to come. I drink eternally. This is to me an eternity of drinking, and drinking of eternity. Let us sing, let us drink, and tune up our roundelays. Where is my funnel? What, it seems I do not drink but by an attorney? Do you wet yourselves to dry, or do you dry to wet you? Pish, I understand not the rhetoric (theoric, I should say), but I help myself some- , what by the practice. Baste! enough! I sup, I wet;, I humect, I moisten my gullet, I drink, and all for fear of dying. Drink always and you shall never die. If 1 drink not, I am a-ground, dry, gravelled and spent. I am stark dead without drink, and my, soul ready to fly into some marsh amongst frogs; the soul never dwells in a dry place, drouth kills it. O you butlers, creators of new forms, make me of no drinker a drinker, a perennity and everlastingness of sprinkling and bedewing me through these my parched and sinewy bowels. He drinks in vain that feels not the pleasure of it. This entereth into my veins, — the pissing tools and urinal vessels shall have nothing of it. I would willingly wash the tripes of the calf which I apparelled this morning. I have pretty well now ballasted my stomach and stuffed my paunch. If the papers of my bonds and bills could drink as well as I do, my creditors would not want for wine when they come to see me, or when they are to make any formal exhibition of their rights to what of me they can demand. This hand of yours spoils your nose. O how many other such will enter here before this go out! What, drink so shallow? It is enough to break both girds and petrel. This is called a cup of dissimulation, or flagonal hypocrisy. What difference is there between a bottle and a flagon. Great difference; for the bottle is stopped and shut up with a stopple, but the flagon with a vice.* Bravely and well played upon the words! Our fathers drank Uistily, and emptied their cans. Well cacked, well sung! * La bouteille est fenn6e k bouchon. et le ilaccon k vis. 26 RABELAIS. Come, let us drink; ^vill you send nothing to the river? Here is one going to wash the tripes. I drink no more than a sponge. I drink like a Templar knight. And I, tanqtuim sponsus. And I, sicut terra sine aqua. Give me a synonymon for a gammon of bacon. It is the compulsory of drinkers; it is a pulley. By a pulley- rope wine is let down into a cellar, and by a gammon into the stomach. Hey! now, boys, hither, some drink, some drink. There is no trouble in it. Respice per- sonam, pone pro duos, bus non est in usu. If I could get -up as well as I can swallow down, I had been long ere now very high in the air. ^ Thus became Tom Tosspoi rich, — ^thus went in the tailor's stitch. Thus did Bacchus conquer th' Inde — thus Philosophy, Melinde. A little rain allays a great deal of wind; long tippling breaks the thunder. But if there came such liquor from my ballock, would you not "willingly thereafter suck the udder whence it issued? Here, page, ftU! I prithee, forget me not when it comes to my turn, and I will enter the election I have made of thee into the very register of my heart. Sup, Guillot, and spare not, there is somewhat in the pot. I appeal from thirst, and disclaim its jurisdiction. Page,. sue out my appeal in form. This remnant in the bottom of the glass must follow its leader. I was wont heretofore to drink out all, but now I leave nothing. Let us not make too much haste* it is requisite we carry all along "with us. Heyday, here are tripes fit for our sport, and, in earnest, excellent godebillios of the dun ox (you know) with the black streak. 0, for God's sake let us lash them soundly, yet thriftily. Drink, or I will, — No, no, drink, I beseech you.* Sparrows will not eat unless you bob them on the tail, nor can I drink if I be not fairly spoke to. The concavities of my body are like another Hell for their capacity. Lagonsedatera.f There is not a comer, nor coney-burrow in all my body, where this wine doth not ferret out my thirst. Ho, this will bang it soundly. But this shall banish it utterly. Let us wind our horns by the sound of fiagonsi and bottles, * Ou je vous, je vous prie. + Laczn lateris cavitas; aidgs orcus; and etepos alter. RABELAIS 27 and cry aloud, that whoever hath lost his thirst come not hither to seek it. Long clysters of drinking are to be voided without doors. The great God made the planets, and we make the platters neat. I have the word of the gospel in my mouth, Sitio. The stone called asbestos is not more unquenchable than the thirst of my paternity. Appetite comes with eating, says Anges- ton, but the thirst goes away with drinking. I have a remedy against thirst, quite contrary to that which is good against the biting of a mad dog. Keep running after a dog, and he will never bite you; drink always before the thirst, and it will never come upon you. There I catch you, I awake you. Argus had a hundred eyes for his sight, a butler should have (like Briareus) a hundred hands wherewith to fill us wine indefatigably. Hey now, lads, let us moisten ourselves, it will be time to dry hereafter. White wine here, wine, boys! Pour out all in the name of Lucifer, fill here, you, fill and fill (peascods on you) till it be full. My tongue peels. Lans trinque; to thee, countryman, I drink to thee, good fellow, comrade to thee, .lusty, lively ! Ha, la, la, that was drunk to some purpose, and bravely gulped over. O lachryma Christi, it is of the best grape! I 'faith, pure Greek, Greek! O the fine white wipe! upon my conscience, it is a kind of taffetas wine, — hin, hin, it is of one ear, well wrought, and of good wool. Courage, comrade, up thy heart, billy! We will not be beasted at this bout, for I have got one trick. Ex hoc in hoc. There is no enchantment nor charm there, every one of you hath seen it. My 'prenticeship is out, I am a free man at this trade. 1 am prester mast,* Prish, Brum! I should say, master past. O the drinkers, those that are a-dry, O poor thirsty souls! Good page, my friend, fill me here some, and crown the wine, 1 pray thee. Like a cardinal! Natura abhorret vacuum. Would you say that a fly could drink in this.' This is after the fashion of Switzerland. Clear off, neat, supernaculum! Come, therefore, blades, to this divine liquor and celes- tial juice, swill it over heartily, and spare not! It is a decoction of nectar and ambrosia. * Prestre maoe, maistre passe. CHAPTER VI. How Gargantua was born in a strange manner. WHILST they were on this discourse and pleasant tattle of drinking, Gargamelle began to be a little unwell in her lower parts; whereupon Grangousier arose from off the grass, and fell to comfort her very honestly and kindly, suspecting that she was in travail, and told her that it was best for her to sit down upon the grass under the willows, because she was like very shortly to see young feet, and that therefore it was convenient she should pluck up her spirits, and take a good heart of new at the fresh arrival of her baby ; saying to her withal, that although the pain was somewhat grievous to her, it would be but of short continuance, and that the succeeding joy would quickly remove that sorrow, in such sort that she should not so much as remember it. On, with a sheep's courage! quoth he. Despatch this boy, and we will speedily fall to work for the making of another. • Ha ! said she, so well as you speak at your own ease, you that are men! Well, then, in the name of God, I'll do my best, seeing that you will have it so, but would to God that it were cut off from you! What? said Grangousier. Ha, said she, you are a good man in- deed, you understand it well enough. What, my mem- ber? said he. By the goat's blood, if it please you, that shall be done instantly; cause bring hither a knife. Alas, said she, the Lord forbid, and pray Jesus to for- give me! I did not say it from my heart, therefore let it alone, and do not do it neither more nor less any kind of harm for my speaking so to you. But I am like to have work enough to do to-day. and all for your member yet God bless you and it. Courage, courage, said he, take you no care of the matter, let the four foremost oxen do the work. I will yet go drink one whiff more, and if in the mean time 28 RABELAIS 29 anything befall you that may require my presence, I will be so near to you, that, at the first whistling in your fist, I shall be with you forthwith, A little while after she began to groan, lament, and cry. Then suddenly came tiie midwives from all quarters, who groping her below, found some peloderies, which was a certain filthy stuff, and of a taste truly bad enough. This they thought had been the child, but it was her fundament, that was slipped out with the mollification of her straight entrail, which you call the bum-gut, and that merely by eating of too many tripes, as we have showed you before. Whereupon an old ugly trot in the company, who had the repute of an expert she-physician, and was come from Brisepaille, near to Saint Genou, three score years before, made her so horrible a restrictive and binding medicine, and whereby all her larris, arse-pipes, and conduits were so oppilated, stopped, obstructed, and contracted, that you could hardly have opened and enlarged them with your teeth, which is a terrible thing to think upon; seeing the Devil at the mass at Saint Martin's was puzzled with the like task, when with his teeth he had , lengthened out the parchment whereon he wrote the tittle-tattle of two young mangy whores. By this inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrix were presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped, and so, entering into the hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even above her shoulders, where the vein divides itself into two, and from thence taking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear. As soon as he was born, he cried not as other babes use to do, Miez, miez, miez, miez, but with a high sturdy, and big voice shouted about, Some drink, some drink, some drink, as inviting all the world to drink with him. The noise hereof was so extremely giiEat, that it was heard in both the countries at once of Beaijce and Bibarois. I doubt me, that you do not thoroughly believe the truth of this strange nativity. Though you believe it not, I care not much : but an honest man, and of good judgment, believeth still what is told him, and that which he finds written. Js this beyond oat law or our faitli^-against reason 30 RABELAIS or the holy Scripture? For my part, I find nothing in the sacred Bible that is against it. But tell me, if it had been the will of God, would you say that he could not do it? Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock or inpulregafize your spirits with these vain thoughts and idle conceits; for I tell you, it is not impossible with God, and, if he pleased, all women henceforth should bring forth their children at the ear. Was not Bacchus engendered out of the very thigh of Jupiter? Did not Roquetaillade come out at his moth- er's heel, and Crocmoush from the slipper of his nurse? Was not Minerva born of the brain, even through the ear of Jove ? Adonis, of the bark of a myrrh tree ; and Castor and Pollux of the doupe of that egg which was laid and hatched by Leda? But you would wonder more, and with far greater amffzement, if I should now present you with that chapter of Plinius, wherein he treateth of strange births, and contrary to nature, and yet am not I so impudent a liar as he was. Read the seventh book of his Natural History, chap. 3, and trouble not my head any more about this. CHAPTER VII. After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled, bibbed and curried the can. THE good man Grangousier, drinking and making merry with the rest, heard the horrible noise which his son had made as he entered into the light of this world, when he cried out. Some drink, some drink, some drink, whereupon he said in French Que grand tu as et souple le gousier! that is to say, How great and nimble a throat thou hast. Which the com- pany hearing, said that verily the child ought to be called RABELAIS. 31 Gargantua; because it was the first word that after his birth his father had spoke, in imitation, and at the ex- ample of the ancient Hebrews; whereunto he conde- scended, and his mother was very well pleased therewith. In the meanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a tirelaregot, that is, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he carried to the font, and there baptized, according to the manner of good Christians. Immediately thereafter were appointed for him seven- teen thousand, nine hundred and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and Brehemond, to furnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible to find a nurse sufficient for him in all the country, considering the great quantity of milk that was requisite for his nourish- ment; although there were not wanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who affirmed that his own mother gave him suck, and that she could draw out of her breasts one thousand, four hundred, two pipes, and nine pails of milk at every time. Which indeed is not probable, and this point hath been found duggishly scandalous and offensive to tender ears, for that it savoured a little of heresy. Thus was he handled for one year and ten months; after which time, by the advice of physicians, they began to carry him, and then was made for him a fine little cart drawn with oxen, of the invention of Jan Denio, wherein they led him hither and thither with great joy; and he was worth the seeing, for he was a fine boy, had a burly physiognomy, and almost ten chins. He cried very little, but beshit himself every hour; for, to speak truly of him, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors, both by reason of his natural complexion and the acci- dental disposition which had befallen him by his too much quaffing of the Septembral juice. Yet without a cause did not he sup one drop; for if he happened to be vexed, angry, displeased, or sorry, if he did fret, if he did weep, if he did cry, and what grievous quarter soever he kept, in bringing him some drink, he would be instantly pacified, reseated in his own temper, in a good humour again, and as still and quiet as ever. One of his governesses told me (swearing by her fig), how 32 RABELAIS he was so accustomed to this kind of way, that, at the sound of pints and flagons, he would on a sudden fall into an ecstasy, as if he had then tasted of the joys of paradise; so that they, upon consideration of this, his divine complexion, would every morning, to cheer him up, play with a knife upon the glasses, on the bottles with their stopples, and on the pottle-pots with their fids and covers, at the sound whereof he became gay, did leap for joy, would loll and rock himself in the cradle, then nod with his head, monochordizing with his fingers, and barytonizing with his tail. CHAPTER VIII. How THEY APPAREI.I,ED GaRGANTUA. BEING of this ' age, his father ordained to have clothes made to him in his own livery, which was white and blue. To work then went the tailors, and with great expedition were those clothes made, cut, and sewed, according to the fashion that was then in request. I find by the ancient records or pan- carts, to be seen in the chamber of accounts, or court of the exchequer at Montsoreau, that he was accoutred in manner as followeth. To make him every shirt of his were taken up nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud linen, and two hundred for the gussets, in manner of cushifvis, which they put under his armpits. His shirt was not gathered nor plaited, for the plaiting of shirts was not found out till the seamstresses (when the point of their needle* was broken) began to work and occupy with the tail. There were taken up for his doublet, eight hundred and thirteen ells of white satin, and for his points fifteen hundred and nine dogs' skins and a half. Then was it that men began to tie their breeches * Besongner du cul, Englished The eye of the needle. RABELAIS J3 to their doublets, and not their doublets to their breeches: for it is against nature, as hath most amply been showed by Ockham upon the exponioles of Master Haultec- haussade. For his breeches were taken up eleven hundred and five ells and a third of white broadcloth. They were cut in the form of pillars, chamfered, channelled and pinked behind that they might not overheat his reins: and were, within the panes, puffed out with the lining of as much blue damask as was needful: and remark, that he had very good leg-harness, proportionable to the rest of his stature. For his codpiece wei< used sixteen ells and a quarter of the same cloth, and it was fashioned on the top like unto a triumphant arch, most gallantry fastened with two enamelled clasps, in each of which was set a great emerald, as big as an orange; for, as says Orpheus, lib. de lapidibus, and Plinius, libro ultimo, it hath an erective virtue and comfortative of the natural member. The exiture, outjecting or outstanding, of his codpiece was of the length of a yard, jagged and pinked, and withal bagging, and strutting out with the blue damask lining, after the manner of his breeches. But had you seen the fair embroidery of the small needlework purl, and the curiously interlaced knots, by the goldsmith's art set out and trimmed with rich diamonds, precious rubies, fine turquoises, costly emeralds, and Persian pearls, you would have compared it to a fair cornucopia, or horn of abundance, such as you see in antiques, or as Rhea gave to the two nymphs, Amalthea and Ida, the nurses of Jupiter. And, like to that horn of abundance, it was still gal- lant, succulent, droppy, sappy, pithy, lively, always flourishing, always fructifying, full of juice, full of flower, full of fruit, and all manner of delight. I avow God, it would have done one good to have seen him, but I will tell you more of him in the book which 1 have made of the dignity of codpieces. One thing I will tell you, that as it was both long and large, so was it well furnished and vic- tualled within, nothing like unto the hypocritical cod- 34 RABELAIS. pieces of some fond wooers and wench-courtiers, which are stuffed only with wind, to the great prejudice of the female sex. For his shoes were taken up four hundred and six ells of blue crimson- velvet, and were very neatly cut by parallel lines, joined in uniform cylinders. For the sol- ing of them were made use of eleven hundred hides ef brown cows, shapen like the tail of a keeling. For his coat were taken up eighteen hundred ells of blue velvet, dyed in grain, embroidered in its borders with fair gilliflowers, in the middle decked with silver purl, intermixed with plates of gold and store of pearls, hereby showing that in his time he would prove an especial good fellow and singular whipcan. His girdle was made of three hundred ells and a half of silken serge, half white and half blue, if I mistake it not. His sword was not of Valentia, nor his dagger of Saragossa, for his father could not endure these hidalgos borrachos maranisados como diablos; but he had a fair sword made of wood, and the dagger of boiled leather, as well painted and gilded as any man could wish. His purse was made of the cod of an elephant, which was given him by Herr Pracontal, proconsul of Lybia. For his gown were employed nine thousand six hun- dred ells, wanting two-thirds, of blue velvet, as before, all so diagonally purled, that by true perspective issued thence an unnamed colour, like that you see in the necks of turtle-doves or turkey-cocks, which wonder- fully rejoiced the eyes of the beholders. For his bonnet or cap were taken up three hundred, two ells and a quarter of white velvet, and the form thereof was wide and round, of the bigness of his head; for his father said that the caps of the Marrabaise fashion, made like the cover of a pasty, would one time or other bring a mischief on those that wore them. For his plume, he wore a fair great blue feather, plucked from an onocrotal of the country of Hircania the wild, very prettily hang- ing do^^rn over his right ear. For the jewel or brooch which in his cap he carried, he had in a cake of gold, weighing three score and eight marks, a fair piece enam- elled, wherein was portrayed a man's body with two RABELAIS. 35 heads, looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, two arses, such as Plato, in Symposia, says was the mystical beginning of naan's nature; and about it was written in Ionic letters, Acape ou fgtei eautgs, or rather, Angf wai cunp, sucadd anhrzpos idiaitata, that is, Vir et mulier junctim propriissime homo. To wear about his neck, he had a golden chain, weighing twenty- iive thousand and sixty-three marks of gold, the links thereof being made after the manner of great berries, amongst which were set in work green jaspers engraven and cut dragon- like; all environed with beams and sparks, as king Nicepsos of old was wont to wear them; and it reached down to the very bust of the rising of his belly, whereby he reaped great benefit all his life long, as the Greek physicians know well enough. For his gloves were put in work sixteen otters' skins, and three of the loupgarous, or men-eating wolves, for the bordering of them; and of this stuff were they made, by the appointment of the Cabalists of Sanlouand. As for the rings which his father would have him to wear, to renew the ancient mark of nobility, he had on the forefinger of his left hand a carbuncle as big as an os- trich's egg, enchased very daintly in gold of the fine- ness of a Turkey seraph. Upon the middle finger of the same hand he had a ring made of four metals to- gether, of the strangest fashion that ever was seen; so that the steel did not crash against the gold, nor the silver crush the copper. All this was made by Captain Chappuys, and Alcofribas his good agent. On the medical finger of his right hand he had a ring made spirewise, wherein was set a perfect Balas rutjy, a pointed diamond, and a Physon emerald, of an inestimable value. For Hans Carvel, the king of Melinda's jeweller, esteemed them at the rate of threescore nine millions,, eight hundred ninety-four thousand, and eighteen French crowns of Berry, and at so much did the Foucres of Augstiurg prize them. CHAPTER IX, The colours and liveries of Gargantua. GARGANTUA'S colours were white and blue, as I have showed you before, by which his father would give us to understand that his son to him was a heavenly joy; for the white did signify glad- ness, pleasure, delight, and rejoicing, and the blue, celestial things. I know well enough that, in reading this, you laugh at the old drinker, and hold this exposi- tion of colours to be very extravagant, and utterly disagreeable to reason, because white is said to signify faith, and blue constancy. But without moving, vex- ing, heating, or putting you in a chafe (for the weather is dangerous), answer me if it please you; for no other compulsory way of arguing will I use towards you, or any else: only now and then I will mention a word or two of my bottle. What is it that induceth you, what stirs you up to believe, or who told you that white signifieth faith, and blue constancy? An old paltry book, say you, sold by the hawking pedlars and ballad- mongers, entitled The Blason of Colours. Who made it? Whoever it was, he was wise in that he did not set his name to it. But, besides, I know not what I should rather admire in him, his presumption or his sottishness. His presumption and overweening, for that he should without reason, without cause, or without any appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by his private authority, what things should be denotated and signified by the colour: which is the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bear sway in stead of equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with the evidence of reason satisfy their readers. His sottishness and want of spirit, in that he thought that, without any other demonstra- tion or sufficient argument, the world would be pleased to make his blockish and ridiculous impositions the 36 RABELAIS 37 rule of their devices. In effect, according to Che proverb. To a shitten tail fails never ordure, he hath found, it seems, some simple ninny in those rude times of old, when the wearing of high round bonnets was in fashion, who gave some trust to his writings, according to which they carved and engraved their apophthegms and mottoes, trapped and caparisoned their mules and sumpter-horses, apparelled their pages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves, fringed the curtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns, composed songs, and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jug- glings and unworthy base tricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest matrons and most reverend sciences. In the like darkness and mist of ignorance are wrapped up these vein-glorious courtiers and name-transposers, who, going about in their impresas to signify esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere — and birds' pennes for pains — I'ancholie (which is the flower coion:- bine) for melancnoly — a waning moon or crescent,' to show the increasing or rising of one's fortune — a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt — non and a corslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabii, it shall not last), un lit sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, a graduated person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; which are equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that a fox's tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of a cow sherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after the restitution of learning, to make use of any such fopperies in Franpe. By the same reasons (if reasons I should call them, and not ravings rather, and idle triflings about words), might I cause paint a pannier, to signify that I am in pain — a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much for't — one pissing upwards for a bishop — the bottom of a pair of breeches for a vessel full of fart-hings — a codpiece for the oflBce of the clerks of the sentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English bears it, for the tail of a codfish — and a dog's turd for the dainty turret wherein lies the love of n:y sweetheart. Far otherwise did heretoiore the sages of Egypt, when they wrote by 38 RA BELAIS letters, which they called hieroglyphics, which none understood who were not skilled in the virtue, propertjj, and nature.of ,the things represented by them. ' Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greek composed two books, and Polyphilus, in his Dream of Love, set down more. In France you have a taste of them in the device or impresa of my Lord Admiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus. But my little skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no further, therefore must I return to the port from whence I came. Yet do I hope one day to write more at large of these things, and to show both by philosophical arguments and authorities, received and approved of by and from all antiquity, what, and how many colours there are in nature, and what may be signified by every one of them if God save the mould of my cap, which is my best wine- pot, as my grandam said. CHAPTER X. ■ Op that which is signified by the colours white AND BLUE. THE white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness, and that not at random, but upon just and very good grounds : which you may perceive to be true, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give ear to what presently I shall expound unto yoii. Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as good and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure and pain, joy and grief, — and so of others, — ^if you couple them in such manner that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the contrary of the other, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary must ansv^r RABELAIS 39 to tlie remanent opposite to that wherewith it is con- ferred. As, for example, virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so are good and evil. If one of the con- traries of the first kind be consonant to one of those of the second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue is good, so shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice, have the same connection, for vice is evil. This logical »ule being understood, take these two contraries, joy and sadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are physically contrary. If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by good reason then should white import joy. Nor is this signification insti- tuted by human imposition, but by the universal con- sent of the world received, which philosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an uncontrollable right of force in all countries whatsoever. For you know well enough that all people, and all languages and nations, except the ancient Syracusans and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when tljey mean outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and all mourning is done with black. Which general consent is not without some argument and reason in nature, the which every man may by himself very sud- denly comprehend, without the instruction of any — and this we call the law of nature. By virtue of the same nat- ural instinct we know that by white all the world hath un- derstood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight. In former times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, and fortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunate ones with black. Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic? It is black and dark by the privation of light. Doth not the light comfort all the world? And it is more white than anything else. Which to prove I could direct you to the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but an evangelical testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that, at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut lux, his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsome white- ness lie gave his three apostles to understand the idea 40 RABELAIS and figure of the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to the word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, was wont to say, Bona lux. And Tobit, chap. 5, after he had lost his sight, when Raphael saluted him, answered, What joy can I have, that do not see the light of Heaven? In that colour did the angels testify the joy of the whole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20, and at his ascension, Acts i. With the like colour of ves- ture did St. John the Evangelist, Apoc. 4. 7, see the faithful clothed in the heavenly and blessed Jerusalem. Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories; and you shall find that the town of Alba (the first pattern of Ronie) was founded and so named by reason of a white sow that was seen there. You shall likewise find in those stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished his enemies, was by decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he usually rode in a chariot drawn by white horses: which in the ovation triumph was also the custom; for by no sign or colour would they so significantly express the joy of their coming as by the white. You shall there also find, how Pericles, the general of the Athenians, would iieeds have that part of his army unto whose lot befell the white beans, to spend the whole day in liiirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were a-fighting. A thousand other examples and places could I allege to this purpose, but that it is not here where I should do it. By understanding hereof , you may resolve one problem, which Alexander Aphrodiseus hath accounted unan- swerable : why the lion, who with his only cry and roar- ing affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth only a white cock? For, as Prolcus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and.promptuary of all terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical quality, than with a lion. He saith further- more, that devils have been often seen in the shape of lions, which at the sight of a white cock have presently vanished. This is the cause why Galli or Gallices (so are RABELAIS. 41 the Frenchmen called, because they are naturally white as milk, which the Greeks call Gala,) do willingly wear in their caps white feathers, for by nature they are of a candid disposition, merry, kind, gracious, and well- beloved, and for their cognizance and arms have the whitest flower of any, the Flower de luce or Lily. If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand joy and gladness,! answer, that the analogy and uniformity is there. For, as the white doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the sight, whereby the optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the opinion of Aristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you may likewise perceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered with snow, how you will complain that you cannot see well ; as Xenophon writes to have happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth, lib. 10, de usu partium: just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, and suf- fereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so far on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence of life itself, by this perichary or extremity of gladness, as Galen saith, lib. 1 2 , method, lib. 5 , de locis affectis, and lib. 2 , de symp- tomatum causis. And as it hath come to pass informer times, witness Marcus Tullius, ./i6. i, Qucpst. Tuscul., Verrius, Aristotle, Titus Livius, in his relation of the battle of Cannffi, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32 and 34, A Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers,^ — ^to Diagoras the Rhodian, Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, Philippides, Philemon, Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others who died with joy. And as Avicen speaketh, in 2 canbn et lib. de virib. cordis, of the saffron, that it doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of it excessively, it will by a superfluous resolution and dial- tion deprive it altogether of life. Here Peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. i, Probl., cap. 19, and that for a cause. But what ? It seems I am entered further into this point than I intended at the first. Here, therefore, will I strike sail, referring the rest to that book of mine which han- dleth this matter to the full. Meanwhile, in a word I Will tell vou, that blue doth '42 " ABELAI S certainly signify heaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and sym«,'^1s that white signifieth joy and pleasure. CHAPTER XI. Of the youthful age of Gargantua. GARGANTUA, from three years upwards unto five, was brought up and instructed in all convenient discipline by the commandment of his father; and spent that time like the other little children of the country, that is, in drinking, eating, and sleeping: in eating, sleeping, and drinking: and in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed and rolled up and down himself in the mire and dirt — he blurred and sullied his nose with filth — he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of scurvy stuff — he trod down his shoes in the heel — at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and ran very heartily after the butterflies, the emoire whereof belonged to his father. | He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his nose on his sleeve — he did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage, and dabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere — he would drink in his slipper, and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier. He sharpened his teeth with a top, washed his hands with his broth, and combed his head with a bowl. He would sit down betwixt two stools, and his arse to the ground — would cover himself with a wet sack, and drink in eating of his soup. He did eat his cake sometimes without bread, would bite in laughing, and laugh in biting. Oftentimes he did spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, piss against the sun, and hide himself in the water fbr fear of rain. He would strike out of the cold iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggle it. He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return RA BELAIS 43 to his sheep, and turn the hogs to the hay. He would beat the dogs before the Hon, put the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pump one to draw somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast nothing, and always eat his white bread first. He shoed the geese, kept a self-tickling to make him- self laugh, and was very steadable in the kitchen: made a mock at the gods, would cause sing Magnificant at matins, and found it very convenient so to do. He would eat cabbage, and shite beets, — knew flies in a dish of milk, and would make them lose their feet. He would scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away as hard as he could. He would pull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then reckon without his host. He would be;5.t the bushes without catching the birds, thought the moon was made of green cheese, and that bladders are lanterns. Out of one sack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass's part to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet. He took the cranea at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made link after link. He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from the cock to the ass, and put one ripe between two green. By robbing Peter he paid Paul, he kept the moon from the wolves, and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall. He did make of necessity virtue, of such bread such pottage, and cared as little for the peeled as for the shaven. Every morning he did cast up his gorge, and his father's little dogs eat out of the dish with him, and he with them. He would bite their ears, and they would scratch his nose — he would blow in their arses, and they would lick his chaps. But hearken, good fellows, the spigot ill betake you, and whirl round your brains, if you do not give ear! This little lecher was always groping his nurses and governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsyturvy, harri bourriquet, with a Yacco haick, hyck gio! handling them very rudely in jumbling and tumbling them to keep them going; for he had already begun to exercise the tpols, and put his codpiece in practice Which codpiece, or braguette, his governesses did every day 44 RABELAIS deck up and adorn with fair nosegays, curious rubies, sweet flowers, and fine silken tufts, and very pleasantly would pass their time in taking you know what between their fingers, and dandling it, till it did revive and creep up to the bulk and stiffness of a suppository, or street magdaleon, which is a hard roUed-up salve spread upon leather. Then did they burst out in laughing, when they saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them would call it her little dillie, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin, her dandiloUy. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her mem- bretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, her female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for ladies. And some of the other women would give it these names, — my bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my pretty borer, my coney-burrow-ferret, my little piercer, my augretine, my dangling hangers, down right to it, stiff and stout, in and to, my pusher, dresser, pouting stick, my honey pipe, my pretty pillicock, linky pinky, futilletie, my lusty andoui le, and crimson chit- terling, my little couille bredouille, my pretty rogue, and so forth. It belongs to me, said one. It is mine, said the other. What, quoth a third, shall I have no share in it? By my faith, I will cut it then. Ha, to cut it, said the other, would hurt him. Madam, do you cut little children's things? Were his cut off, he would be then Monsieur sans queue, the curtailed master. And that he might play and sport himself after the man- ner of the other little children of the country, they made him a fair weather whirl-jack of the wings of the windmill of Myrebalais. CHAPTER XII. Of Gargantua's wooden horses. AFTERWARDS, that he might be all his lifetime a good rider, they made to him a fair great horse of wood, which he did make leap, curvet, jerk out behind, and skip forward, all at a time: to pace, trot, rack, gallop, amble, to play the hobby, the hackney- gelding: go the gait of the camel, and of the wild ass. He made him also change his colour of hair, as the monks of Coultibo (according to the variety of their holidays) use to do their clothes, from bay brown, to sorrel, dapple- grey, mouse-dun, deer-colour, roan, cow-colour, gingio- line, skewed colour, piebald, and the colour of the sav- age elk. Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily service of the beam of a vinepress: and of a great oak made up a mule, with a footcloth, for his chamber. Besides this, he had ten or twelve spare horses, and seven horses for post; and all these were lodged in his own chamber, close by his bedside: One day the Lord of Breadinbag* came to visit his father in great bravery, and with a gallant train: and, at the same time, to see him came likewise the Duke of Freemeal and the Earl of Wetgullet.f The house truly for so many guests at once was soraewhat narrow, but especially the stables; whereupon the steward and harbinger of the said Lord Breadinbag, to know if there ■were any other empty stables in the house, came to Gargantua, a little young lad, and secretly asked him where the stables of the great horses were, thinking that children would be ready to tell all. Then he led them up along the stairs of the castle, passing by the second hall unto a broad great gallery, by which they entered into a large tower, and as they were going up * Painensac. t Franorepas Mouillevent. 45 46 RABELAIS at another pair of stairs, said the harbinger to the stew- ard, This child deceives us, for the stables are never on the top of the house. You may be mistaken, said the steward, for I know some places at Lyons, at the Bas- mette, at Chaisnon, and elsewhere, which have their stables at the very tops of the houses: so it may be that behind the house there is a way to come to this ascent. But I will question with him further. Then said he to Gargantua, My pretty little boy', whither do you lead us? To the stable, said he, of my great horses. We are almost come to it we have but these stairs to go up at. Then leading them aloogst another great hall, he brought them into his chamber, and opening the door, said unto them. This is the stable you ask for; this is my jennet; this is my gelding; this is my courser, and this is my hackney, and laid on them with a great lever. I will bestow upon you, said he, this Friesland horse ; I had him from Frankfort, yet will I give him you ; for he is a pretty little nag, and will go very well, with a tessel of goshawks, half a dozen of spaniels, and a brace of greyhounds : thus are you king of the hares and par- tridges for all this winter. By St. John, said they, now we are paid, he hath gleeked us to some purpose, bobbed we are now forever. I deny it, said he, — ^he was not here above three days. Judge you now, whether they had most cause, either to hide their heads for shame, or to laugh at the jest. As they were going down again thus amazed, he asked them. Will you have a whimwham?* What is that.? said they. It is, said he, five turds to make you a muzzle. To-day, said the steward, though we happen to be roasted, we shall not be burnt, for we are pretty well quipped and larded, in my opinion. O my jolly dapper boy, thou hast given us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die. I think so, said he, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay a perfect papelard, that is, dissembler. Well, well, said the harbinger. But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother's smock. Sixteen, quoth the harbinger. You do not speak gospel, said Gargantua, for there is cent ♦Aubeliere. RABELAIS 47 before, and cent behind, and you did not reckon them ill, considering the two under holes. When? said the harbinger. Even then, said Gargantua, when they made a shovel of your nose to take up a quarter of dirt, and of your throat a funnel, wherewith to put it into another vessel, because the bottom of the old one was out. Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater. Farewell, master tattler, God keep you, so goodly are the words which you come out with, and so fresh in your mouth, that it had need to be salted. Thus going down in great haste, under the arch of the stairs they let fall the great lever, which he had put upon their backs; whereupon Gargantua said. What a devil ! you are, it seems, but bad horsemen, that suffer your bilder to fail you when you need him most. If you were to go from hence to Cahusac, whether had you rather, ride on a gosling or lead a sow in a leash .' I had rather drink, said the harbinger. With this they entered into the lower hall, where the company was, and relating to them this new story, they made them laugh like a swarm of flies. CHAPTER XIII. How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became KNOWN TO HIS FATHER GrANGOUSIER, BY THE INVENTION OF A TORCHECUL OR WIPEBREECH. ABOUT the end of the fifth year, Grangousier re- turning from the conquest of the Canarians, went by the way to see his son Gargantua. There was he filled with joy, as such a father might be 'at the sight of such a child of his : and whilst he kissed and embraced him, he asked many childish questions of him about divers matters, and drank very freely with him and with his governesses, of whom in great 48 RABELAIS earnest he asked, amongst other things, whether they had been careful to Keep him clean and sweet. To this Gargantua answered, that he had taken such a course for that himself, that in all the country there was not to be found a cleanlier boy than he. How is that.-* said Grangousier. I have, answered Gargantua, by a long and curious experience, found out a means to, wipe my bum, the most lordly, the most excellent, and the most convenient that ever was seen. What is that? said Grangousier, how is it.' I will tell you by-an-by, said Gargantua. Once I did wipe me with a gentle- woman's velvet mask, and found it to be good; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my fundament. Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that was comfortable. At another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after that I wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but there was such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a pox take them) that they fetched away all the skin of my tail with a vengeance. Now I wish St. Antony's fire bum the bum-gut of the goldsmith that made them, and of her that wore them! This hurt I cured by wiping myself with a page's cap, garnished with a feather after the Switzers' fashion. Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it 1 wiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched and exulcerated all my perinee. Of this I recovered the next morning thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most excellent perfume and scent of the Arabian Benin. After that I wiped me with sage, with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with gourd - leaves, with beets, with colewort, with leaves of the vine-trecj with mallows, wool-blade, which is a tail- scarlet, with lettuce, and with spinach leaves. All this did very great good to my leg. Then with mercury, with parsley, with nettles, with comfrey, but that gave me the bloody fliix of Lombardy, which I healed by wiping me with my braguette. Then I wiped my tail in the sheets, in the coverlet, in the curtains, with a cushion, with arras hangings, with a green carpet, with a RABELAIS. -5„ table-cloth, with a napkin, with a handkerchief, with a combing- cloth; in all which I found more pleasure than do the mangy dogs when you rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, which torchecul did you find to be the best ? I was coming to it, said Gargantua, and by-and-by shall you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and knot of the matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with thatch-ruches, with flax, with wool, with paper, but. Who his foul tail with paper wipes. Shall at his ballocks leave some chips. What, said Grangousier, my little rogue, hast thou been at the pot, that thou dost rhyme already? Yes, yes, my lord the king, answered Gargantua, I can rhyme gallantly, and rhyme till I become hoarse^with rheum. Hark, what our privy says to the skiters: Shittard, Squirtard, Crackard, Turdous, Thy bung Hath flung Some dung On us: Filthard, Cackard, Stinkard, St. Antony's fire seize on thy toane [bone?]. If thy Dirty Dounby - Thou do not wipe, ere thou be gone. Will you have any more of it? Yes, yesy answered Grangousier. Then, said Gargantua, 50 RABELAIS A ROUNDELAY. In siiitting yes'day I did know The sess 1 to my arse did owe : The smell was such came from that slunk, That 1 was with it all bestunk : had but then some brave Signer Brought her to me I waited for, In shitting! 1 would have cleft her watergap, And join'd it close to my flipflap, Whilst she had with her fingers guarded My foul nockandrow, all bemerded In shitting. Now say that I can do nothing! By the Merdi, they are not of my making, but I heard them of this good old grandam, that you see here, and ever since have retained them in the budget of my memory. Let us return to our purpose, said Grangousier. What, said Gangantua, to skite? No, said Grangousier, but to wipe our tail. But, said Gargantua, will not you be content to pay a puncheon of Breton wine, if I do not blank and gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus? Yes, truly, said Grangousier. There is no need of wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is foul; foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we must before we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, said Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee very shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, arid that, by G — , for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in this torcheculative, or wipe-bmmmatory discourse, and by my beard I swear, for one puncheon, thou shalt have threescore pipes, I mean of the good Breton wine, not that which grows in Britain, but in the good country of Verron. After- wards I w'ned my bum, said Gargantua, with a kerchief, with a piilow, with a pantoufle, with a pouch, with a pannier, but that was a wicked and unpleasant torchecul; RABELAIS 5M then with a hat, Of hats, note that some are shorn, and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered with taffeties, and others with satin. The best of all these is the shaggy hat, for it makes a vefy neat abstersion of the fecal matter. Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf's skin,' with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the ntck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temperate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum- gut and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel, am- brosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say^ but in this, according to my judgment, that they wipe their tales with the neck of a goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of Maste* John of Scotland, alias Scotus. CHAPTER XIV. How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister. THE good man Grangousier having heard this dis- course, was ravished with admiration, consider- ing the high reach and marvellous understanding of his son Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip, king of Macedon, knew the great wit of his son Alexan- der by his skilful managing of a horse; for his horse 52 R A BELAIS Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventure to ride him, after that he had given to his riders such devilish falls, breaking the neck of this man, th« other man's leg, braining one, and putting another out of his jawbone. This by Alexander being con- sidered, one day in the hippodrome (which was a place appointed for the breaking and managing of great horses\ he perceived that the fury of the horse proceeded mere' y from the fear he had of his own shadow, whereupon getting on his back, he run him against the sun, so that the shadow fell behind, and by that means tamed the horse and brought him to his hand. Whereby his father, knowing the divine judgment that was in him, caused him most carefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highly renowned above all the philosophers of Greece. After the same manner I tell you, that by this only discourse, which now I have here had before you with my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth participate of some divinity, and that, if he be well taught, and have that education which is fitting, he will attain to a supreme degree of wisdom. Therefore will I commit him to some learned man, to have him indoctrinated according to his capacity, and will spare no cost. Presently they appointed him a great sophister-doctor, called Master Tubal Hole- femes, who taught him his A B G so well, that he could say it by heart backwards; and about this he was five years and three months. Then read he to him Donat, Le Facet, Theodolet, and Alanus in parabolis. About this he was thirteen years, six months, and two weeks. But you must remark that in the mean time he did. learn to write in Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books — ^for the art of printing was not then in use — and did ordinarily carry a great pen and inkhom, weighing about seven thousand quintals (that is, 700,000 pound weight), the penner whereof was as big and as long as the great pillars of Enay, and the horn was hang- ing to it in great iron chains, it being of the wideness of a tun of merchant ware. After that he read unto him the book de modis signifkandi, with the commen \aries of Hurtbise, of Fasquin, of Tropdieux, of Qua? aut, of RABELAIS 53 John Calf, of Billonio, of Berlinguandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more than eighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that to try masteries in school disputes with his condisciples he would recite it by heart backwards, and did some times prove on his finger-ends to his mother, quod dt modis significandi ncn erat scientia. Then did he read to him the compost for knowing the age of the moon, the seasons of the year, and tides of the sea, on which he spent sixteen years and two months, and that justly at the time that his said preceptor died of the French pox, which was in the year one thousand four hundred and twenty. Afterwards he got an old coughing fellow to teach him, named Master Jobelin Brid^, or muzzled dolt, who read unto him Hugutio, Hebrard['s] Grecism, the Doctrinal, the Parts, the Quid est, the Supplementum, Marmotretus, De moribus in mensa servandis, Seneca de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus, Passavantus cum com- mento, and Dormi secure for the holidays, and some other of such like mealy stuff, by reading whereof he became as wise as any we ever since baked in an oven. CHAPTER XV. How Gargantua was put under other schoou MASTERS. AT the last his father perceived that indeed he studied hard, and that, although he spent all his time in it, he did nevertheless profit nothing, but which is worse, grew thereby foolish, simple, doted, and block- ish, whereof making a heavy regret to Don PhiUp of Marays, Viceroy or Depute. King of PapeUgosse, he found that it were better for him to learn nothing at all, than to be taught such-like books, under such school- masters; because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness, and their wisdom but blunt foppish toys 54 RABELAIS serving only to bastardize good and noble spirits, and to corrupt all the flower of youth. That it is so, take said he, any young boy of this time who hath only studied two years, — if he have not a better judgment, a better dis- course, and that expressed in better terms than your son, with a completer carriage and civility to all manner of persons, account me for ever hereafter a very clounch and bacon-slicer of Brene. This pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that it should be done. At night at supper, the said Des Marays brought in a young page of his, of Ville-gouges, called Eudemon, so neat, so trim, so handsome in his apparel, so spruce, with his hair in so good order, and so sweet and comely in his behaviour, that he had the resemblance of a little angel more than of a human creature. Then he said to Grangousier, Do you see this young boy? He is not as yet full twelve years old. Let us try, if it please you, what diffierence there is betwixt the knowledge of the doting Mateologians of old time and the young lads that are now. The trial pleased Grangousier, and he commanded the page to begin. Thefl Eudemon, ask- ing leave of the vice-king his master so to do, with his cap in his hand, a clear and open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes steady, and his looks fixed upon Gargantua with a youthful modesty, standing up straight on his feet, began very gracefully to commend him; first, for his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge; thirdly, for his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily accomplishments; and, in the fifth place, most sweetly exhorted him to reverence his father with all due observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up. In the end he prayed him, that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst the least of his servants; for other favour at that time desired he none of heaven, but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service. All this was by him delivered with such proper gestures, such distinct pronunciation, so pleasant a delivery, in such exquisite fine terms, and so good Latin, that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an ^milius of the time past, than a youth of this age. But all the countenance that Gargantua kept RABELAIS 55 was, that he fell to crying like a cow, and cast down nis face, hiding it with his cap, nor could they possibly draw one word from him, no more than a fart from a dead ass. Whereat his father was so grievously vexed that he would have killed Master Jobelin, but the said Des Marays withheld him from it by fair persuasions, so that at length he pacified his wrath. Then Gran- gousittr commanded he should be paid his wages, that they should whittle him up soundly, like a sophister, with good drink, and then give him leave to go to all the devils in hell. At least, said he, to-day shall it not cost his host much if by chance he should die as drunk as a Switzer. Master Jobelin being gone out of the house, Grangousier consulted with the Viceroy what school master they should choose for him, and it was be- twixt them resolved that Ponocrates, the tutor of Eude- mon, should have the charge, and that they should go altogether to Paris, to know what was the study of the young men of France at that time. CHAPTER XVI. How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and op the hugs GREAT MARE THAT HE RODE ON; HOW SHE • DESTROYED THE OXFUES OF THE BEAUCE. IN the same season Fayoles, the fourth King of Numi- dia, sent out of the country of Africa to Grangousier the most hideously great mare that ever was seen and of the strangest form, for you know well enough how it is said that Africa always is productive of some new thing. She was as big as six elephants, and had her feet cloven into fingers, like Juhus Caesar's horse, with slouch-hanging ears, like the goats in Languedoc, and a little born on her buttock. She was of a burnt S6 RABELAIS sorrel hue, with a little mixture of dapple-grey spot3^ but above all she had a horrible tail; for it was little more or less than every whit as great as the steeple* pillar of St. Mark beside Langes : and squared as that is, with tuffs and ennicroches or hair-plaits wrought within one another, no otherwise than as the beards are upon the ears of com. If you wonder at this, wonder rather at the tails of the Scythian rams, which weighed above thirty pounds each; and of the Suiran sheep, who need, if Tenaud say true, a little cart at their heels to bear up their tail, it is so long and heavy. You female lechers in the plain countries have no such tails. And she was brought by sea in three carricks and a brigantine unto the harbour of Olone in Thalmondois. When Grangousier saw her. Here is, said he, what is fit to carry my son to Paris. So now, in the name of God, all will be well. He will in times coming be a great scholar. If it were not, my masters, for the beasts, we should live like clerks. The next mftrning — after they had drunk, you must under- stand — they took their journey; Gargantua, his peda- gogue Ponocrates, and his train, and with them Eude- mon, the young page. And because the weather was fair and temperate, his father caused to be made for him a pair of dun boots, — Babin calls them buskins. Thus did they merrily pass their time in travelling on their high way, always making good cheer, and were very pleasant till they came a little above Orleans, in which place there was a forest of five-and -thirty leagues long, and seventeen in breadth, or thereabouts. This forest was most horribly fertile and copious in dortlies, hornets, and wasps, so that it was a very purgatory for the poor mares, asses, and horses. But Gargantua's mare did avenge herself handsomely of all the outrages therein committed upon beasts of her kind, and that by a trick whereof they had no suspicion. For as soon as they were entered into the said forest, and that the wasps had given the assault, she drew out and un- sheathed her tail, and therewith skirmishing, did so sweep them that she overthrew all the wood alongst and athwart, here and there, this way and that way. RABELAIS 57 longwise and sidewise, over and under, and felled every- where the wood with as much ease as a mower doth the grass, in such sort that never since hath there been there neither wood nor dorflies : for all the country was thereby reduced to a plain champaign field. Which Gargantua took great pleasure to behold, and said to his company no more but this: Je trouve beau ce (I find this pretty); whereupon that country hath been ever since that time called Beauce. But all the breakfast the mare got that day was but a little yawning and gaping, in memory whereof the gentlemen of Beauce do as yet to this day break their fast with gaping, which they find to be very good, and do spit the better for it. At last they came to Paris, where Gargantua refreshed himself two or three days, making very merry with his folks, and inquiring what men of learning there were then in the city, and what wine they drunk there. CHAPTER XVII. How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, AND how he took AWAY THE GREAT BELLS OF Our Lady's Church. SOME few days after that they had refreshed them- selves, he went to see the city; and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for the people of Paris are so sottish, so badot, so foolish and fond by nature, that a juggler, a carrier of indulgencies, a sumpter-horse, or mule with cymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross lane, shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an evangelical preacher. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At which place, seeing so many about him, he said with a loud voice, I believe that these buzzards will have me to pay them here my welcome 58 RABELAIS. liither, and my Proficiat. It is but good reason. I will now give them their wine, but it shall be only in sport. Then smiling, he untied his fair biraguette, and drawing •out his mentul into the open air, he so bitterly all-to- bepissed them, that he drowned two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen, besides the women ^nd little children. Some, nevertheless, of the company escaped this piss- flood by mere speed of foot, who, when they were at the higher end of the university, sweating, coughing, spitting, and out of breath, they began to swear and curse, some in good hot earnest, and others in jest. Carimari, carimara: golynoly, golynolo. By my sweet Sanctess, we kre washed in sport, a sport truly to laugh at; — ^in French, Par ris, for which that city hath been ever since called Paris ; whose name form- erly was Leucotia, as Strabo testifieth, lib. quarto, from the Greek word lenkotgs, whiteness,^because of the wrhite thighs of the ladies of that place. And foras- much as, at this imposition of a new name, all the people that were there swore everyone by the Sancts of his parish, the Parisians, which are patched up of all nations and all pieces of countries, are by •nature both good jurors and good jurists, and somewhat overweening; whereupon Joanninus de Barrauco, libra de copiositate fever entiarum, thinks that they are called Parisians from the Greek word parrgsia, which signifies boldness and liberty in speech. This done, he considered the great bells, which were in the said towers, and made them sound very harmoniously. Which whilst he was doing, it came into his mind that they would serve very well for tingling tantans and ringing campanels to han^ about his mare's neck when she should be sent back to his father, as he intended to do, loaded with Brie cheese and fresh herring. And indeed he forthwith carried them to his lodging. In the meanwhile there came a master beggar of the friars of St. Anthony to demand in his canting way the usual benevolence of some hog- gish stuff, who, that he might be heard afar off, and to 'make the bacon he was in quest of shake in the very chimneys, made account to filch them away privily. Nevertheless, he left them behind very honestly, not AND THEY PRESSED SO HARD UPON HIM, THAT HE WAS CONSTRAINED TO REST HIMSELF UPON THE TOWERS OF OUR LADIES' CHURCH," Rab., V. i., Bk. i., Oh ii. RABELAIS 59 for that they were too hot, but that they were somewhat too heavy for his carriage. This was not he of Bourg, for he was too good a friend of mine. All the city was risen up in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasion, so ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the patience of the kings! of France, who do not by good justice restrain them from such tumultuous courses, seeing the manifold in- conveniences which thence arise from day to day. Would to God I knew the shop wherein are forged these divi- sions, and factious combinations, that I might bring them to light in the confraternities of my parish! Be- lieve for a truth, that the place wherein the people gathered together, were thus sulphured, hopurymated,. moiled, and bepissed, was called Nesle, where then was, but now is no more, the oracle of Leucotia. There was^ the case proposed, and the inconvenience showed of the transporting of the bells. After they had well ergoted pro and con, they concluded in baralipton, that they should send the oldest and most sufficient of the facult; unto Gargantua, to signify unto him the great and horri- ble prejudice they sustain by the want of those bells. And notwithstanding the good reasons given in by some of the university why this charge was fitter for an orator than a sophister, there was chosen for this purpose our Master Janotus de Bragmardo. CHAPTER XVIII^ How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantwa TO RECOVER THE GREAT BELI^. MASTER JANOTUS, with his hair cut round like a dish a la CcBsarine, in his . most antique ac- coutrement Uripipionated with a graduate'! hood, and having sufficiently antidoted his stomach wHb. i6o RABELAIS oven-marmalades, that is, bread and holy water of th« cellar, transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua^ driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragging after him five or six artless masters, all thor- oughly bedaggled with the mire of the streets. At their entry Ponocrates met them, who was afraid, seeing them so disguised, and thought they had been some masquers out of their wits, which moved him to inquire of one of the said artless masters of the company what this mum- mery meant. It was answered him, that they desired to have their bells restored to them. As soon as Pono- crates heard that, he ran in all haste to carry the news unto Gargantua, that he might be ready to answer them, and speedily resolve what was to be done. Gar- gantua being advertised hereof, called apart his school- master Ponocrates. Philotimus, steward of his house, Gymnastes, his esquire, and Eudemon, and very sum- marily conferred with them, both of what he should do and what answer he should give. They were all of opinion that they should bring them unto the goblet- office, which is the, buttery, and there make them drink like roysters and line their jackets soundly. And that this cougher might not be puffed up with vain-glory by thinking the bells were restored at his request, thef sent, whilst he was chopining and plying the pot, for the mayor of the city, the rector of the faculty, and the vicar of the church, unto whom they resolved to deliver the bells before the sophister had propounded his com- mission. After that, in their hearing, he should pro- nounce his gallant oration, which was done; and they being come, the sophister was brought in full hall, and began as followeth, in coughing. CHAPTER XIX. The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells. HEM, hem, gud-day, sirs, gud-day. Et vobis, my, masters. It were but reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of them. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused good money for thern of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux in Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific, quality of the elementary complexion, which is introiiificated in the terrestreity of their quidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists and whirlwinds upon our vines, indeed not ours, but these round about us. For if we lose the piot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both sense and law. If you restore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by it six basketfuls of sausages and a fine pair of breeches, which do my legs a great deal of good,; or else they will not keep their promise to me. Ho by gob, Domine, a pair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non abhorrebit earn. Ha, ha, a pair of breeches is not so easily got; I have experience of it myself. Con- , sider, Domine, I have been these eighteen days in mata- grabolizing this brave speech. Reddite qucB sunt Ccesaris, Ccssari, et quae sunt Dei, Deo. Ibi jacet lepus. By my icdth, Domine, ii jou will sup with me in cameris, by cox body, charitatis, nos faciemus bonum cherubin. Ega occiditunum porcum, et ego habet bonum vino: but of good wine we cannot make bad Latin. Well, de parte Dei date nobis bellas nostras. Hold, I give you in the name of the faculty a Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give us our bells. Yultis etiam pardonos? Per diem vos habebitis, et nihil payabitis. O sir, Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily , est bonum vobis. They are 61 62 RABELAIS ■useful to everybody. If they fit your mare well, so do they do our faculty; quce comparata est jumentis insipientibus , et similis facta est eis, Psalmo nescio quo. Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et est unum bonum Achilles, a good defending argument. Hem, hem, hem, haikhash ! For I prove unto you, that you should give m.e them. Ego sic argumentor. Omnis bella bellabilis ■in bellerio bellando, bellans bellativo, bellare facit, bella- biliter bellantes. Parisius habet bellas. Ergo glue, Ha, ha, ha. This is spoken to some purpose. It is in tertio primes, in Darii, or elsewhere. By my soul, I have seen the time that I could play the devil in arguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward want nothing but a cup of good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire, my belly to the table, and a good deep dish. Hei, Domine, I beseech you, in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us our bells: and God keep you from evil, and our Lady from health, qui vivit et ■regnal per omnia secula seculorum, Amen. Hem, hash- chehhawksash, qzrchremhemhash. Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio proctd. Edepol, quoniam, ita certe, medius fidius; a town without bells is like a blind man without a staff, an ass without a crupper, and a cow without cymbals. Therefore be assured, until you have restored them unto us, we will never leave crying after you, like a blind man that hath lost his staff, braying like an ass without a crHipper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals. A certain latinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said once, pro- ducing the authority of one Taponnus, — I lie, it was one Pontanus the secular poet, — ^who wished those bells had been made of feathers, and the clapper of a foxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the bowels of his brain, when he was about the composing of his carminiformal lines. But nac petetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot kipipur kipipot put pantse malf, he was declared an heretic. We make them as of wax. And no more saith the deponent. VcUete et plaudite. Calepinus recensui. CHAPTER XX. How THE SOPHISTER CARRIED AWAY HIS CLOTH, AND HOW HE HAD A SUIT IN LAW AGAINST THE OTHER MASTERS. THE sophister had no sooner ended, but Ponocrates and Eudemon burst out in a laughing so heartily, that they had almost spht with it, and given up the ghost, in rendering their souls to God : even just as Crassus did, seeing a lubberly ass eat thistles; and as Philemon, who, for seeing an ass eat those figs which were provided for his own dinner, died with force of laughing. Together with them Master Janotus fell a-laughing too as fast as he could, in which mood of laughing they continued so long, that their eyes did water by the vehement concussion of the substance of the brain, by which these lachrymal humidities, being pressed out, glided through the optic nerves, and so to the full represented Democritus Heraclitizing and Heraclitus Democritizing. When they had done laughing, Gargantua consulted with the prime of his retinue what should be done. There Ponocrates was of opinion that they should make this fair orator drnk again; and seeing h. had showed them more pastime, and made them laugh more than a natural soul could have done, that they should give him ten baskets full of sausages, mentioned in his pleas- ant speech, with a pair of hose, three hundred great billets of logwood, five-and-tv/enty hogsheads of wine, i good large down-bed, and a deep capacious dish, which he said were necessary for his old age. All this was done as they did appoint: only Gargantua, doubt- ing that they could not quickly find out breeches fit for his wearing, because he knew not what fashion would best become the said orator, whether the mar- tingale fashion of breeches, wherein is a spunghole with a drawbridge for the more easy caguing: or the fashion 63 64 RABELAIS of the mariners, for the greater solace and comfort of his kidneys: or that of the Switzers, which keeps warm the bedondaine or belly- tabret: or round breeches with straight cannions, having in the seat a piece like a cod's tail, for fear of over- heating his reins: — ^all which con- sidered, he caused to be given him seven ells of white ■cloth for the linings. The wood was carried by the porters, the masters of arts carried the sausages and the dishes, and Master Janotus himself would carry the cloth. One of the said masters, called Jousse Ban- douille, showed him that it was not seemly nor decent for one of his condition to do so, and that therefore he •should deliver it to one of them. Ha, said Janotus, baudet, baudet, or blockhead, blockhead, thou dost not ■conclude in modo et figura. For lo, to this end serve the suppositions and parva logicalia. Pannus, pro quo ■supponitf Confuse, said Bandouille, et distributive. I do not ask thee, said Janotus, blockhead, quomodo supponit, but pro quo? It is, blockhead, pro tibiis meis, and therefore I will carry it, Egomet, sicut suppositum portal appositum. So did he carry it away very close and covertly, as Patelin the buffoon did his cloth. The best was, that when this cougher, in a full act or assem- bly held at the Mathurins, had with great confidence required his breeches and sausages, and that they were flatly denied him, because he had them of Gar- gantua, according to the informations thereupon made, hp showed them that this was gratis, and out of his liberality, by which they were not in any sort quit of their promises. Notwithstanding this, it was answered him that l^e should be content with reason, without expectation of any other bribe there. Reason? said Janotus. We use none of it here. Unlucky traitors, you are not worth the hanging. 'The earth beareth not more arrant villains than you are. I know it well enough; halt not before the lame. I have practised ■wickedness with you. By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abuses that are forged here and carried underhand by you, and let me be a leper, if he do not bum you alive like sodomites, traitors, heretics and seducers, enemies to God and virtue. RABELAIS 65 Upon these words they framed articles against him: he on the other side warned them to appear. In sum, the process was retained by the court, and is there as- yet. Hereupon the magisters made a vow never tO' decrott themselves in rubbing off the dirt of either their shoes or clothes: Master Janotus with his adherents vowed never to blow or snuff their noses, until judgment were given by a definitive sentence. By these vows do they continue unto this time both dirty and snotty; for the court hath not garbled, sifted,, and fully looked into all the pieces as yet. The judg- ment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the next Greek kalends, that is, never. As you know that they do more than nature, and contrary to their own articles. The articles of Paris maintain that to God alone belongs infinity, and nature produceth noth- ing that is immortal; for she putteth an end and period to all things by her engendered, according to the saying,, Omnia orta cadunt, &c. But these thick mist-swallow- ers make the suits in law depending before them both infinite and immortal. In doing whereof, they have- given occasion to, and verified the saying of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, consecrated to the oracle at Delphos, that misery is the inseparable companion of law- debates; and that pleaders are miserable; for sooner shall they attain to the end of their lives, than to the final decision of their pretended rights. CHAPTER XXI. The study of Gargantua, according to the r>is- CIPLINE OF HIS schoolmasters THE SOPHISTERS. THE first day being thus spent, and the bells put up again in this own place, the citizens of Paris, in acknowledgment of this courtesy, offered to maintain and feed his mare as long as he pleased, which 66 RABELAIS Cargantua took in good part, and they sent her to graze in the forest of Biere. I think she is not there Aovf. This done, he with all his heart submitted his study to the discretion of Ponocrates; who for the be- ginning appointed that he should do as he was accus- tomed, to the end he might understand by what means, in so long time, his old masters had made him so sottish and ignorant. He disposed therefore of his time in such fashion, that ordinarily he did awake betwixt eight and nine o'clock, whether it was day or no*., ^Ox so had his ancient governors ordained, alleging that which David saith, Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere. Then did he tumble and toss, wag his legs, and wallow in the bed some time, the better to stir up and rouse his vital spirits, and apparelled himself according to the season: but willingly he would wear a great long gown of thick frieze, furred with fox-skins. Afterwards he combed his head with an Almain comb, which is the four fingers and the thumb. For his preceptor said that to comb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat, was to lose time in this world. Then he dunged, pissed, spewed, belched, cracked, yawned, spitted, coughed, yexed, sneezed and snotted himself like an archdeacon, and, to suppress the dew and bad air, went to break- fast, having some good fried tripes, fair rashers on the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, store of fine minced meat, and a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fat of the beef -pot, laid upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewed together. Ponocrates showed him that he ought not to eat so soon after rising out of his bed, unless he had performed some exercise beforehand. Gargantua answered. What! have not I sufficiently well exercised myself? I have wallowed and rolled myself six or seven turns in my bed before I rose. Is not that enough? Pope Alexander did so, by the advice of a Jew his physician, and lived till his dying day in despite of his enemies. My first masters have used me to it, saying that to breakfast made a good memory, and therefore they drank first. I am very well after it, and dine but the better. And Master Tubal, who was the first licenciate at Paris, told me that it was not RABELAIS 67 enough to run apace, but to set forth betimes: so doth not the total welfare of our humanity depend upon perpetual drinking in a ribble rabble, like ducks, but on drinking early in the morning; unde versus, To rise betimes is no good hour, To drink betimes is bet^bor sure. After that he had thoroughly broke his fast, he went to church, and they carried to him, in a great basket, a huge impantoufled or thick -covered breviary, weigh- ing, what in grease, clasps, parchment and cover, little more or less than eleven hundred and six pounds. There he heard six-and-twenty or thirty masses. This while, to the same place came his orison-mutterer impale- tocked, or lapped up about the chin like a tufted whoop, and his breath pretty well antidoted with store of the vine-tree-syrup. With ,him he mumbled all his kiriels and dunsicals breborions, which he so curiously thumbed and fingered, that there fell not so much as one grain to the ground. As he went from the church, theybrought him, upon a dray drawn with oxen, a confused heap of paternosters and aves of St. Claude, every one of them being of the bigness of a hat-block; and thus walking through the cloisters, galleries, or garden, he said more in turning them over than sixteen hermits would have done. Then did he study some paltry half -hour with his eyes fixed upon his book; but, as the comic saith, his mind was in the kitchen. Pissing then a full urinal, he sat down at table; and because he was naturally phlegmatic, he began his meal with some dozens of gammons, dried neat's tongues, hard roes of mullet, called botargos, andouilles or sausages, and such other forerunners of wine. In the meanwhile, four of his folks did cast into his mouth one after another con- tinually mustard by whole shovelfuls. Immediately after that, he drank a horrible draught of white wine for the ease of his kidneys. When that was done, he ate according to the season meat agreeable to his appe- tite, and then left oflf eating when his belly beP'an to 68 RABELAIS strout, and was like to crack for fullness. As for his drinking, he had in that neither end nor rule. For he was wont to say, That the limits and bounds of drink- ing were, when the cork .of the shoes of him that drink- eti^ swelleth up half a foot high. CHAPTER XXII. The games of Gargantua. THEN blockishly mumbling with a set on counte- nance a piece of scurvy grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a hog, and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being spread, they brought plenty of cards, many dice, with great store and abundance of chequers and chessboards. There he played. At flush. At love. At primero At th^ chess. At the beast. At Rej^ard the fox. At the rifle. At the squares. At trump. At the cows. At the prick and spare not. At the lottery. At the hundred. At the chance or mum- At the peeny. chance. At the unfortunate woman. At three dice or manifest At the fib. bleaks. At the pass ten. * At the tables. At one-and-thirty. At nivinivinack. At post and pair, or even At the lurch. and sequence. At doublets or queen's game. At three hundred. At the faily. At the unlucky man. At the long tables or fer- At the last couple in hell. keering. RABELAIS. 69 At the hock. At the surly. At the lan^uenet. At the cuckoo. At puff, or let him speak that hath it. At take nothing and throw out. At the marriage. At the frolic or jackdaw. At the opinion. At who doth the one, doth the other. At the sequences. At the ivory bimdles. At the tarots. At losing load him. At he's gulled and esto. At the torture. At the handruff. At the click. At honours. At pinch without laughing. At prickle me tickle me. At the unshoeing of the ass. At the cocksess. At hari hohi. At I set me down. At earl beardy, At the. old mode. At draw the spit. At put out. At gossip lend me your sack. At the ramcod ball. At thrust out the harlot. At Marseilles figs. At nicknamry. At stick and hole. At boke of him, or flaying the fox. At the branching it. At the French trictrac. At feldown. At tod's body. At needs must. At the dames or draughts. At bob and mow. At primus secundus. At mark-knife. At the kej'^s. At span-counter. At even or odd. At cross or pile. At ball and huckle-bones. At ivory balls. At the billiards. At bob and hit. At the owl. At the charming of the hare. At pull yet a little. At trudgepig. At the magatapies. At the horn. At the flowered or Shrove- tide ox. At the madge-owlet. At tilt at weeky. At ninepins. At the cock quintin. At tip and hurl. At the flat bowls. At the veer and turn. At rogue and ruffian. At bumbatch touch. At the mysterious trough. At the short bowls. At the dapple-grey. At cock and crank it. At break-pot. At my desire. At twirly whirlytrill. 70 RABELAIS At trill madam, o- grapple my lady. At the cat selling. At blow the coal At the re-wedding. At the quick and dead judge At uneven the iron. At the false clown. At the flints, or at the nine stones. At to the crutch hulch back. At the Sanct is found. At hinch, pinch and laugh not. At the leek. At bumdockdousse. At the loose gig. At the hoop. At the sow. At belly to belly. .\t the dales or straths. At the twigs. At the quoits. At I'm for that. At I take you napping. At fair and softly pasSeth Lent. At the forked oak. At truss. At the wolf's tail. At bum to buss, or nose in breech. At Geordie, give me my lance. At swaggy, waggy or shoggy- shou. At stook and rook, shear and threave. At the birch. A t the muss. f..t the dil'y dilly darling. At the rush bundles. At the short staff. At the whirling gig. At hide and seek, or are you all hid? .At the picket. At the blank. At the pilferers. At the caveson. At prison bars. At have at the nuts. At cherry-pit. At rub and rice. At whiptop. At the casting top. At the hobgoblins. At the O wonderful. At the soily smutchy. At fast and loose. At scutchbreech. At the broom-besom. At St. Cosme, I come to adore thee. At the lusty brown boy. At greedy glutton. At the morris dance. At feeby. At the whole frisk and gambol. At battabum, or riding of the wild mare. At Hind the ploughman. At the good mawkin. , At the dead beast. At climb the ladder, Billy. At the dying hog. At the salt doup. At the pretty pigeon. At barley break. At the bavine. At the bush leap. RABELAIS 71 At ox moudy. At purpose in purpose. At nine less. At blind-man-buff. At the fallen bridges. At bridled nick. At the white at butts. At thwack swinge him. At apple, pear, plum. At mumgl. At the toad. At cricket. At the pounding stick. At -jack and the box. At the queens. At the trades. At heads and points. At the vine-tree hug. At the bolting cloth. At Jfoan Thomson. At the oat's seed. At black be thy fall. At Greedy Glutton. At the morris dance. At feeby. At the whole frisk and gambol At battabum, or riding of the wild mare. At Hind the ploughman. At the good mawkin. At the dead beast. At the climb of the ladder, Billy. At the dying hog. At the salt doup. At the pretty pigeon. At barley break. At the bavine. At the bush leap. At crossing. At bo-ceep. At the hardit arsepursy. At the harrower's nest. At forward hev. At the fig. At gunshot crack. At mustard peel. At the gome. At the relapse. At jog breech, or prick him forward. At knockpate. At the Cornish c[h]ough. At the crane-dance. At slash and cut. At bobbing, or the flirt on the nose. At the larks. At fiUipping. At ho the distaff. After he had thus well played, revelled, past and spent his time, it was thought fit to drink a little, and that ■was eleven glassfuls the man, and, immediately after making good cheer again, he would stretch himself upon a. fair bench, or a good large bed, and there sleep two or three hours together, without thinking or speaking any hurt. After he was awakened he would shake his ears a little. In the mean time they brought him fresh wine. There he drank better than ever. Ponocrates 72 RABELAIS. showed him that it was an ill diet to drink so after sleep- ing. It is, answered Gargantua, the very life of the patriarchs and holy fathers; for naturally I sleep, salt and my sleep hath been to me in stead of so many gam- mons of bacon. Then began he to study a little, and out came the paternosters or rosary of beads, which the better and more formally to despatch, he got upon an old mule, which had served nine kings, and so mum- bling with his mouth, nodding and dodding his head, would go see a coney ferreted or caught in a gin. At his return he went into the kitchen to know what roast meat was on the spit, and what otherwise was to be dressed for supper. And supped very well, upon my conscience, and commonly did invite some of his neigh- bours that were good drinkers, with whom carousing and drinking merrily, they told stories of all sorts from the old to the new. Amongst others he had for domes- tics the Lords ol t'ou, of Gourville, of Griniot, and of Marigny. After supper were brought in upon the place the fair wooden gospels and the books of the four kings that is to say, many pairs of tables and cards — or the fair flush, one, two, three — or at all, to make short work; or else they went to see the wenches thereabouts, with little small banquets, intermixed with c(5llations and rear-suppers. Then did he sleep, without -itobridling, until eight o'clock in the next morning. CHAPTER XXIII. How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, AND IN SUCH SORT DISCIPLINATED, THAT HE LOST NOT ONE HOUR OF THE DAY. WHEN Ponocrates knew Gargantua's vicious man- ner of living, he resolved to bring him up in another kind; but for a while he bore with him, considering that nature cannot endure a sudden change, without great violence. Therefore, to begin his RABELAH; 73 work the better, he requested a f? lined physician of that time, called Master Theodorus, seriously to perpend, if it were possible, how to bring Gargantua into a better course. The said physician purged him canonically with Antiqyrian hellebore, by which medicine he cleansed all the alteration and pp*~^;erse habitude of his brain. By this means also Pono> Ues made him forget all that he had learned under his ncient preceptors, as Timotheus did to his disciples, wl' i> had been instructed under other musicians. To do this the better, they brought him into the company of learned nii'u, which were there, in whose imitation he had a great desire and affection to study otherwise, and to improve his parts. Afterwards he put himself into such a road and way of studying, that he lost not any one hour in the day, but employed all his time in learning and honest knowledge. Gar- gantua awaked, then, about four o'clock in the morning. Whilst they were in rubbing of him, there was read unto him some chapter of the holy Scripture aloud and clearly, with a pronunciation fit for the matter, and hereunto was appointed a young page born in Basche, named Anagnostes, According to the purpose and argu- ment of that lesson, he oftentimes gave himself to wor- ship, adore, pray, and send up his supplications to that good God, whose Word did show his majesty and mar- vellous judgment. Then went he unto the secret places to make excretion of his natural digestions. There his master repeated what had been read, expounding unto him the most obscure and difiBcult points. In return- ing, they considered the face of the sky, if it was such as they had observed it the night before, and into what signs the sun was entering, as also the moon for that day. This done, he was apparelled, combed, curled, trimmed, and perfumed, during which time they re- peated to him the lessons of the day before. He him- self said them by heart, and upon them would ground some practical cases concerning the estate of man, which he would prosecute sometimes two or three hours, but ordinarily they ceased as soon as he was fully clothed. Then for three good hours he had a lecture read unto bim. . This done, they went forth, still conferring of the 74 RABELAIS substance of the lecture, either unto a field near tiic university called the Brack, or unto the meadows, where they played at the ball, the long-tennis, and at the piletrigone (which is a play wherein we throw a triangu- lar piece of iron at a ring, to pass it^ most • gallantly exercising their bodies, as formerly they had done their minds. All their play was but in liberty, for they left iS when they pleased, and that was commonly when they did sweat over all, their body, or were otherwise weary Then were they very well wiped and rubbed, shifted their shirts, and, walking soberly, went to see if dinner was ready. Whilst they stayed for that, they did clearly and eloquently pronounce some sentences that they had retained of the lecture. In the meantime Master Appetite came, and then very orderly sat they down at table. At the beginning of the meal there was read some pleasant history of the warlike actions of former times, until he had taken a glass of wine. Then,, if they thought good, they continued reading, or began to discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue^ propriety, efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at the table: of bread, of wine, of water, of salt, of fleshes, fishes, fruits, herbs, roots, and of their dressing. By means whereof he learned in a little time all the passages competent for this, that were to be found in Pliny, Athenaeus, Dioscoirdes, Julius Pollux, Galen, porphyry, Oppian, Polybius, Heliodore, Aristotle, .^lian, and others. Whilst they talked of these things, many times, to be the more certain, they caused the very books to be brought to the table, and so well and per- fectly did he in his ^memory retain the things above said, that in that time there waS not a physician that knew half so much as he did. Afterwards they con- ferred of the lessons read in the morning, and, ending ' eir repast with some conserve or marmalade of quinces, ne picked his teeth with mastic tooth-pickers, washed his hands and eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some fine cantiques, made in praise of the divine bounty and munificence. This done, they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks and new inventions, which were all grounded RABELAIS 75 upon arithmetic. By this means he fell in love with that numerical science, and every day after dinner and supper he passed his time in it pleasantly as he was wont to do at cards and dice; so that at last he under- stood so well both the theory and practical part thereof, that Tunstall the EngHshnian, who had written vtry largely of that purpose, confessed that verily in com- parison of him he had no skill at all. And not only in that, but in the other mathematical sciences, as geome- try, astronpmy, music, if^c. For in waiting on the con- coction and attending the digestion of his food, they made a thousand pretty instruments and geometrical figures, and did in some measure practise the astro- nomical canons. After this they recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or five parts, or upon a set theme or ground at random, as it best pleased them. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play upon the lute, the virginals, the harp, the Almain flute with nine holes, the viol, and the sackbut. This hour thus spent, and digestion finished, he did purge his body of natural excrements, then betook himself to his principal study for three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal lectures as to proceed in the book wherein he was, as also to write handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Roman letters. This being done, they went out of their house, and with them a young gentle- man of Touraine, named the Esquire Gymnast, who taught him the art of riding. Changing then his clothes, he rode a Naples courser, a Dutch roussin, a Spanish jennet, a barded or trapped steed, then a light fleet horse, unto whom he gave a hundred carriers, made him go the high saults, bounding in the air, free the ditch with a skip, leap over a style or pale, turn short in a ring both to the right and left hand. There he broke not his lance; for it is the greatest foolery in the world to say, I have broken ten lances at tilts or in fight. A carpenter can do even as much. But it is a glorious and praiseworthy action with one lance, to break and overthrow ten enemies. Therefore, with a sharp, stiff, strong, and well-steeled lance would he usually force up 76 RABELAIS a door, pierce a harness, beat down a tree, carry away the ring, hft up a cuirassier saddle, with the mail-coat and gauntlet. All this he did in complete arms from head to foot. As for the prancing flourishes and smack- ing popisms for the better cherishing of the horse, com- monly used in riding, none did them better than he. The cavallerize of Ferrara was but as an ape compared to him. He was singularly skilful in leaping nimbly from one horse to another without putting foot to ground, and these horses were called desultories. He could like- wise from either side, with a lance in his hand, leap on horseback without stirrups, and rule the horse at his pleasure without a bridle, for such things are useful in military engagements. Another day he exercised the battle-axe, which he so dexterously wielded, both in the nimble, strong, and smooth management of that weapon, and that in all the feats practicable by it, that be passed knights of arms in the field, and at all essays. Then tossed he the pike, played with the two-handed sword, with the backsword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, with a buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart, the roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant, the partridge, and the bustard. He played at the balloon, and made it bound in the air, both with fist and foot. He wrestled, ran, jumped — not at three steps and a leap, called the hops, nor at clochepied, called the hare's leap, nor yet at the Almains ; for, said Gymnast, these jumps are for the wars alto- gether unprofitable, and of no use — but at one leap he would skip over a ditch, spring over a hedge, mount six paces upon a wall, ramp and grapple after this fashion up against a window of the full height of his lance. He did swim in deep waters on his belly, on his back, side- ways, with all his body, with his feet only, with one hand in the air, wherein he held a book, crossing thus the breadth of the river of Seine without wetting it, and dragged along his cloak with his teeth, as did Julius Caesar; then with the help of one hand he entered forci- bly into a boat, from whence he cast himself again head- long into the water, sounded the depths, hollowed the RABELAIS. 77 rocks, and plunged into the pits and gulfs. Then turned he the boat about, governed it, led it swiftly or slowly with the stream and against the stream, stopped it in his course, guided it with one hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoisted the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the edge of the decks, set the compass in order, tackled the bowlines, and steered the helm. Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, and with the same alacrity and swiftness ran down again. He climbed up at trees like a cat, and leaped from the one to the other like a squirrel. He did pull down the great boughs and branches like another Milo; then with two sharp well-steeled daggers and two tried bodkins would he run up by the wall to the very top of a house like a rat ; then suddenly came down from the top to the bottom, with such an even composition of members that by the fall he would catch no harm. He did cast the dart, throw the bar, put the stone, practise the javelin, the boar-spear or partisan, and the halbert. He broke the strongest bows in drawing, bended against his breast the greatest crossbows of steel, took his aim by the eye with the hand-gun, and shot well, traversed and planted the cannon, shot at butt-marks, at the papgay from below upwards, or to a height from above downwards, or to a descent; then before him, sideways, and behind him, like the Par- thians. They tied a cable-rope to the top of a high tower, by one end whereof hanging near the ground he wrought himself with his hands to the very top; then upon the same track came down so sturdily and firm that you could not on a plain meadow have run with more assurance. They set up a great pole fixed upon two trees. There would he hang by his hands, and with them alone, his feet touching at nothing, would go back and fore along the foresaid rope with so great swiftness that hardly could one overtake him with running; and then, to exercise his breast and lungs, he would shout like all the devils in hell. I heard him once call Eude- mon from St. Victor's gate to Montmartre. Stentor had never such a voice at the siege of Troy. Then for the 78 RABELAIS strengthening of his nerves or sinews they made him two great sows of lead, each of them weighing eight thousand and seven hundred quintals, which they called alteres. Those he took up from the ground, in each hand one, then lifted them up over his head, and held them so without stirring three quarters of an hour and more, which was an inimitable force. He fought at barriers with the stoutest and most vigorous companion's; and when it came to the cope, he stood so sturdily on his feet that he abandoned himself unto the strongest, in case they could remove him from his place, as Milo was. wont to do of old. In whose imitation, Ukewise, he held a pomegranate in his hand, to give it unto him that could take it from him. The time being thus be- stowed, and himself rubbed, cleansed, wiped, and re- freshed with other clothes, he retvirned fair and softly; and passing through certain meadows, or other grassy places, beheld the trees and plants, comparing then? with what is written of them in the books of the ancients, such as Theophrast, Dioscorides, Marinus, Pliny, Nican- der, Macer, and Galen, and carried home to the house great handfuls of them, whereof a young page called, Aizotomas had charge; together with little mattocks, pickaxes, grubbing-hooks, cabbies, pruning-knives, and other instruments requisite for herborizing. Being come to their lodging, whilst supper was making ready, they repeated certain passages of that which hath been read, and sat down to table. Here remark, that his dinner was sober and thrifty, for he did then eat only to pre- vent the gnawings of his stomach, but his supper was- copious and large, for he took then as much as was fit to maintain and nourish him; which, indeed, is the true diet prescribed by the art of good and sound physic, although a rabble of loggerheaded physicians, nuzzeled in the brabbling shop of sophisters, counsel the contrary. During that repast was continued the lesson read at dinner as long as they thought good ; the rest was spent in good discour.se, learned and profitable. After that they had given thanks, he set himself to sing vocally, and play upon harmonious instruments, or otherwise passed his time at some pretty sports, made with cards RABELAIS 79 or dice, or in practising the feats of legerdemain with cups and halls. There they stayed some nights in frolicking thus, and making themselves merry till it was time to go to bed; and on other nights they would go make visits unto learned men, or to such as had been travellers in strange and remote countries. When it was full night before they retired themselves, they went unto the most open place of the house to see the face of the sky, and there beheld the comets, if any were, as likewise the figures, situations, as'ccts, oppositions, and conjunctions of both the fixed stars and planets. Then with his master did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done, and understood in the whole course of that day. Then prayed they unto God the Creator, in falling down before him, and strengthening their faith towards him, and glorifying him for his boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto him for the time that was past, they recommended themselves to his divine clemency for the future. Which being done, they went to bed, and betook themselves to their repose and rest. CHAPTER XXIV. How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather. IF it happened that the weather were anything cloudy, foul, and rainy, all the forenoon was employed, as before specified, according to custom, with this difference only, that they had a good clear fire lighted to correct the distempers of the air. But after dinner, instead of their wonted exercitations, they did abide within, and, by way of apotherapy (that is, a making the body healthful by exercise), did recreate themselves in bottling up of hay, in cleaving and sawing of wood, and in threshing sheaves of com at the bam. Thin 8o RABELAIS they studied the art of painting or carving; or brought into use the antique play of tables, as Leonicus hath written of it, and as our good friend Lascaris playeth at it. In playing they examined the passages of ancient authors wherein the said play is mentioned or any metaphor drawn from it. They went likewise to see the drawing of metals, or the casting of great ordnance; how the lapidaries did work; as also the goldsmiths and cutters of precious stones. Nor did they omit to visit the alchemists, money-coiners, upholsters, weavers, velvet- workers, watchmakers, looking-glass framers, printers, organists,^ and other such kind of artificers, and, every- where giving them somewhat to drink, did learn and consider the industry and invention of the trades. They went also to hear the public lectures, the solemn com- mencements, the repetitions, the acclamations, the plead- ings of the gentle lawyers, and sermons of evangelical preachers. He went through the halls and places ap- pointed for fencing, and there played against the masters themselves at all weapons, and showed them by experi- ence that he knew as much in it as, yea more than, they. And, instead of herborizing, they visited the shops of druggists, herbalists, and apothecaries, and dili- gently considered the fruits, roots, leaves, gums, seeds, the grease and ointments of some foreign parts, as also how they did adulterate them. He went to see the jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered their cunning, their shifts, their somersaults and smooth tongue, especially of those of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great praters, and brave givers of fibs, in matter of green apes. At their return they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times, and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive, might by this means be corrected, and that f^"^ ""ight not receive any prejudice for want of their ordinai-y bodily exercise. Thus was Gargantua gov- erned, avd kept on in this course of education, from day to day prt.'itmg, as you may understand such a youhg man of his a^^p may, of a pregnant judgment, with good RABELAIS ' 8i discipline well continued. Which, although at the be- ginning it seemed difficult, became a little after, so sweet, so easy, and so delightful, that it seemed rather the recreation of a king than the study of a scholar. Never- theless Ponocrates, to divert him from his vehement intension of the spirits, thought fit, once a month, in upon some fair and clear day, to go out of the city be- times in the morning, either towards Gentilly, or Bou- logne, or to Montrouge, or Charanton bridge, or to Vanves, or St. Clou, and there spend all the day long in making the greatest cheer that could be devised, sport- ing, making merry, drinking healths, playing, singing, dancing, tumbling in some fair meadow, unnestling of sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crabs. But although that day was passed without books or lecture, yet was it not spent without profit; for in the said meadows they usually repeated certain pleasant verses pf Virgil's agriculture, of Hesiod and of Politian's husbandry, would set a-broach some witty Latin epigrams, then immediately turned them into roundelays and songs for dancing in the French language. In their feasting they would sometimes separate the water from the wine that was therewith mixed, as Cato teacheth, De re rustica, and Pliny with an ivy cup would wash the wine in a basinful of water, then take it out again with a funnel as pure as ever. They made the water go from one glass to another, and contrived a thousand little automatory engines, that is to say, moving of themselves. CHAPTER XXV. How THERE WAS A GREAT STRIFE AND DEBATE RAISEP BETWIXT THE CAKE-BAKERS OF LERNE, AND THOSE OF GaRGANTUA'S COUNTRY, WHEREUPON WERE WAGED GREAT WARS. AT that time, which was the season of vintage, in the beginning of harvest, when the country- shepherds were set to keep the vines, and hinder the starlings from eating up the grapes, as some cake- bakers of Lem^ happened to pass along the broad highway driving into the city ten or twelve horses loaded with cakes, the said shepherds courteously en- treated them to give them some for their money, as the price then ruled in the market. For here it is to be remarked, that it is a celestial food to eat for breakfast hot fresh cakes with grapes, especially the frail clusters, the great red grapes, the muscadine, the verjuice grape, and the laskard, for those that are costive in their belly, because it will make them gush out, and squirt the length of a hunter's staff, like the very tap of a barrel; and oftentimes, thinking to let a squib, they did all-to- besquatter and conskite themselves, whereupon they are commonly called the vintage thinkers. The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their re- quest; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, , drowsy loiter- ers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lub- berly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry cus- tomers, sycophant varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobpocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing brag- garts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol joltheads, jobbemol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch 82 RABELAIS 83 calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gap- ing changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content them- selves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf. To which provoking words, one amongst them, called Forgier, an honest fellow of his person and a notable springal, made answer very calmly thus: How long is it since you have got horns, that you are become so proud? Indeed formerly you were wont to give us some freely, and will you not now let us have any for our money? This is not the part of good neighbours, heither do we serve you thus when you come thither to buy our good com,whereof you make your cakes and buns. Besides that, we would have given you to the bargain some of our grapes, but, by his zoUnds, you may chance to repent it, and possibly have need of us at another time, v/hen we shall use you after the like manner, and therefore remember it. Then Marquet, a prime man in the confraternity of the cake- bakers, said imto him. Yea, sir, thou art pretty well crest- risen this morning, thou didst eat yesternight too much millet and bolymong. Come hither, sirrah, come hither, I will give thee some cakes. W^hereupon Forgier, dreading no harm, in all simplicity went towards him, and drew a sixpence out of his leather satchel, thinking that Marquet would have sold him some of his cakes. But, instead of cakes, he gave him with his whip such a rude lash overthwart the legs, that the marks of the whipcord knots were apparent in them, then would have fled away; but Forgier cried out loud, as he could, O, murder, murder, help, help, help ! and in the meantime threw a great cudgel after him, which he carried under his arm, wherewith he hit him in the coronal joint of his head, upon the crotaphic artery of the right side thereof, so forcibly, that Marquet fell down from his mare more like a dead than a living man. Meanwhile the farmers and country swains, that were watching their walnuts near -to that place, came running with 84 RABELAIS their great poles and long staves, and laid such load on these cake-bakers, as if they had been to thresh upon green rye. The other shepherds and shepherdesses, hearing the lamentable shout of Forgier, came with their slings and slackies following them, and throwing great stones at them, as thick as if it had been hail. At last they overtook them, and took from them about four or five dozen of their cakes. Nevertheless they paid for them the ordinary price, and gave them over and above one hundred eggs and three baskets full of mulberries. Then did the cake-bakers help to get up to his mare Marquet, who was most shrewdly wounded, and forthwith returned to Lerne, changmg the resolu- tion they had to go to Pareille, threatening very sharp and boisterously the cowherds, shepherds, and farmers of Seville and Sinays. This done, the shepherds and shepherdesses made merry with these cakes and fine grapes, and sported themselves together at the sound of the pretty small pipe, scoiBng and laughing at those vainglorious cake-bakers, who had that day met with a mischief for want of crossing themselves with a good hand in the morning. Nor did they forget to apply to Forgier's leg some fair great red medicinal grapes, and so handsomely dressed it and pound it up that he was quickly cured. CHAPTER XXVI. How THE INHABITANTS OP LERNB, BY THE COMMAND- MENT OF PiCEOCHOLE THEIR KING, ASSAULTED THE SHEPHERDS OF GarGANTUA UNEXPECTEDLY AND ON A SUDDEN. THE cake-bakers, being returned to Leme, went presently, before they did either eat or drink, to the Capitol, and there before their king, called Picrochole, the third of that name, made their com- plaint, showing their panniers brol^en, their caps all I I I RABELAIS 85 crumpled, their coats torn, their cakes taken away, but, above all, Mafquet most enormously wounded, saying^ that all that mischief was done by the shepherds and herdsmen of Grangousier, near the broad highway be- yond Seville. Picrochole incontinent grew angry and furious; and, without asking any further what, how,, why, or wherefore, commanded the ban and arriere ban to be sounded throughout all his country, that all his vassals of what condition soever should, upon pain of the halter, come, in the best arms they could, unto the great place before the castle, at the hour of noon, and, the better to strengthen his design, he caused the drum to be beat about the town. Himself, whilst his dinner was making ready, went to see his artillery mounted upon the carriage, to display his colours, and set up the great royal standard, and loaded wains with store of ammunition both for the field and the belly, arms and victuals. At dinner he despatched his commissions, and by his express edict my Lord Shagrag was appointed to command the vanguard, wherein were numbered six- teen thousand and fourteen arquebusiers or firelocks,, together with thirty thousand and eleven volunteer adventurers. The great Touquedillon, master of the horse, had the charge of the ordnance, wherein were reckoned nine hundred and fourteen brazen pieces, in cannons, double cannons, basilisks, serpentines, cul- verins, bombards or murderers, falcons, bases or passe- voHns, spirols, and other sorts of great guns. The rear- guard was committed to the Duke of Scrapegood. In the main battle was the king and the princes of his king- dom. Thus being hastily furnished, before they would set forward, they sent three hundred light horsemen,, • under the conduct of Captain Swillwind, to discover the countrj', clear the avenues, and see whether there, was any ambush laid for them. But, after they had made diligent search, they found all the land round about in peace and quiet, without any meeting or con- vention at all; which Picrochole understanding, com- manded that everyone should march speedily under his colours. Then immediately in all disorder, without keeping either rank or file, they took the fields one amongst S6 RABELAIS another, wasting, spoiling^ destroying, and making havoc ■of all wherever they went, not sparing poor nor rich, privileged or unprivileged places, church nor laity, drove away oxen and cows, bulls, calves, heifers, wethers, ■ewes, lambs, goats, kids, hens, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, goslings, hogs, swine, pigs, and such like; beat- ing down the walnuts, plucking the grapes, tearing the hedges, shaking the fruit-trees, and committing such incomparable abuses, that the like abomination was never heard of. Nevertheless, they met with none to resist them, for everyone submitted to their mercy, beseeching them that they might be dealt with cour- teously in regard that they had always carried themselves as became good and loving neighbours, and that they liad never been guilty of any wrong or outrage done upon them, to be thus suddenly surprised, troubled, and disquieted, and that, if they would not desist, God would punish them very shortly. To which expostular tions and remonstrances no other answer was made, tut that they would teach them to eat cakes. CHAPTER XXVII; How A MONK OF SBVILLE SAVED THE CLOSE OF THE ABBEY FROM BEING RANSACKED BY THE ENEMY. SO much they did, and so far they went pillaging and stealing, that at last they came to Seville, where they robbed both men and women, and took all they could catch: nothing was either too hot or too heavy for them. Although the plague was there in the most part of all the houses, they nevertheless entered ever3rvvhere, then plundered and carried away all that was within, and yet for all this not one of them RABELAIS 87 took any hurt, which is a most wonderful case. For the curates, vicars, preachers, physicians, chirurgeons^ and apothecaries, who went to visit, to dress, to cure, to heal, to preach unto and admonish those that were sick, were all dead of the infection, and these devilish robbers and murderers caught never any harm at all. Whence comes this to pass, my masters? I beseech you think upon it. The town being thus pillaged, they went tmto the abbey with a horrible noise' and tumult, but they found it shut and made fast against them. Whereupon the body of the army marched forward towards a pass or ford called the Gu4 de V^de, except seven companies of foot and two hundred lancers, who, staying there, broke down the walls of the close, to- waste, spoil, and make havoc of all the vines and vin- tage within that place. The monks (poor devils) knew not in that extremity to which of all their sancts they should vow themselves. Nevertheless, at all adven- tures, they rang the bells ad capitulum capitulantes. There it was decreed that they should make a fair pro- cession, stuffed with good lectures, prayers, and litanies lontra hostium insidias, and jolly responses pro pace. There was then in the abbey a claustral monk, called Friar John of the funnels and gobbets, in French de.r entoumeures, young, gallant, frisk, lusty, nimble, quick, active, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, lean, wide- mouthed, long-nosed, a fair despatcher of morning prayers, unbridler of masses, and runner over of vigils; and, to conclude summarily in a word, a right monk, if ever there was any, since the monking world monked a monkery; for the rest, a clerk even to the teeth in. matter of breviary. This monk, hearing the noise that the enemy made within the enclosure of the vineyard, went out to see what they were doing; and perceivings that they were cutting and gathering the grapes, whereon was grounded the foundation of all their next year's- wine, returned unto the choir of the church where the other monks were, all amazed and astonished like so many bell-melters. Whom when he heard sing, ini, nim, pe, ne, ne, ne, ne, nene, tum ne, num, num, im,. j, mi, CO, o, no, o, o, neno, ne, no, no, no, rum, nenum. 88 RABELAIS num: It is well shit, well sung, said he. By the virtue of God, why do not you sing. Panniers, farewell, vintage is done? The devil snatch me, if they be not already within the middle of our ciose, and cut so well both vines and grapes, that, by Cod's body, there will not be found for these four years to come so much as a glean- ing in it. By the belly of Sanct Tames, what shall we poor devils drink the while? Lord God, da miht potum. Then said the prior of the convent: What should this drunken fellow do here? let him be carried to prison for troubling the divine service. Nay, said the monk, the wine service, let us behave ourselves so that it be not troubled; for you yourself, my lord prior, love to drink of the best, and so doth every honest man. Never yet did a man of worth dislike good wine; it is a monastical apophthegm. But these responses that you chant here, by G — , are not in season. Wherefore is it, that our devotions were instituted to be short in the time of harvest and vintage, and long in the advent, and all the winter? The late friar, Massepelosse, of good mem- ory, a true zealous man, or else I give myself to the devil, of our religion, told me, and I remember it well, how the reason was, that in this season we might press and make the wine, and in winter whiff it up. Hark you, my masters, you that love the wine. Cop's body, follow me; for Sanct Anthony bum me as freely as a faggot, if, they get leave to taste one drop of the liquor that will not now come and fight for relief of the wine. Hog's belly, the goods of the church ! Ha, no, no. What the devil, Sanct Thomas of England was well content to die for them ; if I died in the same cause, should not I be a sanct likewise? Yes. Yet shall not I die there for all this, for it is I that must do it to others and send them a-packing. As he spake this he threw off his great monk's habit, and laid hold upon the staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of a sorbapple-tree, it being of the length of a lance, round, of a full grip, and a little pow- dered with lilies called flower de luce, the workmanship ■whereof was almost all defaced and worn out. Thus -went he out in a fair long-skirted jacket, putting his RABELAIS 89 frock scarfwise athwart his breast, and in this equipage. With his staff, shaft or truncheon of the cross, laid on so lustily, brisk, and freely upon his enemies, who, with- out any order, or ensign, or trumpet, or drum, were busied in gathering the grapes of the vineyard. For the comets, guidons, and ensign-bearers had laid down their standards, banners, and colours by the wall sides; the drummers had knocked out the heads of their drums on one end to fill them with grapes ; the trumpeters were loaded with great butidles of bunches and huge knots of clusters; in sum, everyone of them was out of array, and all in disorder. He hurried therefore, upon them, so rudely, without crying gare or beware, that he over- threw them like hogs, tumbled them over like swine, striking athwart and alongst, and by one means or other laid so about him, after the old fashion of fencing, that to some he beat out their brains, to others he crushed their arms, battered their legs, and bethwacked their sides till their ribs cracked with it. To others again he unjoin ted the spondyles or knuckles of the neck, disfigured their chaps, gashed their faces, made their cheeks hang flapping on their chin, and so swinged and belammed them that they fell down before him like hay before a mower. To some others he spoiled the frame of their kidneys, marred their backs, broke their thigh-bones, pashed in their noses, poached out their eyes, cleft their mandibles, tore their jaws, dung in their teeth into their throat, shook asunder their omoplates or shouldef blades, sphacelated their shins, mortified their shanks, inflamed their ankles, heaved off the hinges their ishies, their sciatica or hip-gout, dislocated the joints of their knees, squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs, and so thumped, mauled and belaboured them ever3rwhere, that never was corn so thick and threefold threshed upon by plough men's flails as were the pitifully disjointed members of their mangled bodies under the merciless baton of the cross. If any offered to hide himself amongst the thick- est of the vines, he laid him squat as a flounder, bruised the ridge of his back, and dashed his reins like a dog. If any thought by flight to escape, he made his head to 90 RABELAIS fly in pieces by the lamdoidal commissure, which is a seam in the hinder part of the skull. If anyone did scramble up into a tree, thinking there to be safe, he rent up his perinee, and impaled him in the fundament. If any of his old acquaintance happened to cry out. Ha, Friar John, my friend Friar John, quarter, quarter, I yield myself to you, to you I render myself! So thou shalt, said he, and must, whether thou wouldst or no, and withal render and yield up thy soul to all the devils in hell; then suddenly gave them dronos, that is, so many knocks, thumps, raps, dints, thwacks, and bangs, as sufficed to warn Pluto of their coming and despatch them a-going. If any was so rash and full of temerity as to resist him to his face, then was it he