No More Learning

ff. et l. quaesitum.
ff. de leg. 3. The manner is such as is set down in gl. p. quaest. 1. c.
Paulus.

Debile principium melior fortuna sequetur.

Like your other worships, also the sergeants, catchpoles, pursuivants,
messengers, summoners, apparitors, ushers, door-keepers, pettifoggers,
attorneys, proctors, commissioners, justices of the peace, judge delegates,
arbitrators, overseers, sequestrators, advocates, inquisitors, jurors,
searchers, examiners, notaries, tabellions, scribes, scriveners, clerks,
pregnotaries, secondaries, and expedanean judges, de quibus tit. est. l. 3.
c. , by sucking very much, and that exceeding forcibly, and licking at the
purses of the pleading parties, they, to the suits already begot and
engendered, form, fashion, and frame head, feet, claws, talons, beaks,
bills, teeth, hands, veins, sinews, arteries, muscles, humours, and so
forth, through all the similary and dissimilary parts of the whole; which
parts, particles, pendicles, and appurtenances are the law pokes and bags,
gl. de cons. d. 4. c. accepisti. Qualis vestis erit, talia corda gerit.
Hic notandum est, that in this respect the pleaders, litigants, and
law-suitors are happier than the officers, ministers, and administrators of
justice. For beatius est dare quam accipere. ff. commun. l. 3. extra. de
celebr. Miss. c. cum Marthae. et 24. quaest. 1. cap. Od. gl.

Affectum dantis pensat censura tonantis.

Thus becometh the action or process by their care and industry to be of a
complete and goodly bulk, well shaped, framed, formed, and fashioned
according to the canonical gloss.

Accipe, sume, cape, sunt verba placentia Papae.

Which speech hath been more clearly explained by Albert de Ros, in verbo
Roma.

Roma manus rodit, quas rodere non valet, odit.
Dantes custodit, non dantes spernit, et odit.

The reason whereof is thought to be this:

Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora.

ut est gl. in l. quum hi. ff. de transact. Nor is this all; for the
inconvenience of the contrary is set down in gloss. c. de allu. l. fin.

Quum labor in damno est, crescit mortalis egestas.

In confirmation whereof we find that the true etymology and exposition of
the word process is purchase, viz. of good store of money to the lawyers,
and of many pokes--id est, prou-sacks--to the pleaders, upon which subject
we have most celestial quips, gibes, and girds.

Ligitando jura crescunt; litigando jus acquiritur.

Item gl. in cap. illud extrem. de praesumpt. et c. de prob. l. instrum. l.
non epistolis. l. non nudis.

Et si non prosunt singula, multa juvant.

Yea but, asked Trinquamelle, how do you proceed, my friend, in criminal
causes, the culpable and guilty party being taken and seized upon flagrante
crimine? Even as your other worships use to do, answered Bridlegoose.
First, I permit the plaintiff to depart from the court, enjoining him not
to presume to return thither till he preallably should have taken a good
sound and profound sleep, which is to serve for the prime entry and
introduction to the legal carrying on of the business. In the next place,
a formal report is to be made to me of his having slept. Thirdly, I issue
forth a warrant to convene him before me. Fourthly, he is to produce a
sufficient and authentic attestation of his having thoroughly and entirely
slept, conform to the Gloss. 37. Quest. 7. c. Si quis cum.

Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.

Being thus far advanced in the formality of the process, I find that this
consopiating act engendereth another act, whence ariseth the articulating
of a member. That again produceth a third act, fashionative of another
member; which third bringing forth a fourth, procreative of another act.
New members in a no fewer number are shapen and framed, one still breeding
and begetting another--as, link after link, the coat of mail at length is
made--till thus, piece after piece, by little and little, by information
upon information, the process be completely well formed and perfect in all
his members. Finally, having proceeded this length, I have recourse to my
dice, nor is it to be thought that this interruption, respite, or
interpellation is by me occasioned without very good reason inducing me
thereunto, and a notable experience of a most convincing and irrefragable
force.

I remember, on a time, that in the camp at Stockholm there was a certain
Gascon named Gratianauld, native of the town of Saint Sever, who having
lost all his money at play, and consecutively being very angry thereat--as
you know, Pecunia est alter sanguis, ut ait Anto. de Burtio, in c.
accedens. 2. extra ut lit. non contest. et Bald. in l. si tuis. c. de opt.
leg. per tot. in l. advocati. c. de advoc. div. jud. Pecunia est vita
hominis et optimus fide-jussor in necessitatibus--did, at his coming forth
of the gaming-house, in the presence of the whole company that was there,
with a very loud voice speak in his own language these following words:
Pao cap de bious hillots, que maux de pipes bous tresbire: ares que de
pergudes sont les mires bingt, et quouatre bagnelles, ta pla donnerien
pics, trucs, et patacts, Sey degun de bous aulx, qui boille truquar ambe
iou a bels embis. Finding that none would make him any answer, he passed
from thence to that part of the leaguer where the huff-snuff, honder
sponder, swashbuckling High Germans were, to whom he renewed these very
terms, provoking them to fight with him; but all the return he had from
them to his stout challenge was only, Der Gasconner thut sich ausz mit ein
iedem zu schlagen, aber er ist geneigter zu stehlen, darum, liebe frawen,
habt sorg zu euerm hauszrath. Finding also that none of that band of
Teutonic soldiers offered himself to the combat, he passed to that quarter
of the leaguer where the French freebooting adventurers were encamped, and
reiterating unto them what he had before repeated to the Dutch warriors,
challenged them likewise to fight with him, and therewithal made some
pretty little Gasconado frisking gambols to oblige them the more cheerfully
and gallantly to cope with him in the lists of a duellizing engagement; but
no answer at all was made unto him. Whereupon the Gascon, despairing of
meeting with any antagonists, departed from thence, and laying himself down
not far from the pavilions of the grand Christian cavalier Crissie, fell
fast asleep. When he had thoroughly slept an hour or two, another
adventurous and all-hazarding blade of the forlorn hope of the lavishingly
wasting gamesters, having also lost all his moneys, sallied forth with
sword in his hand, of a firm resolution to fight with the aforesaid Gascon,
seeing he had lost as well as he.

Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris,

saith the Gl. de poenitent. distinct. 3. c. sunt plures. To this effect
having made inquiry and search for him throughout the whole camp, and in
sequel thereof found him asleep, he said unto him, Up, ho, good fellow, in
the name of all the devils of hell, rise up, rise up, get up! I have lost
my money as well as thou hast done; let us therefore go fight lustily
together, grapple and scuffle it to some purpose. Thou mayest look and see
that my tuck is no longer than thy rapier. The Gascon, altogether
astonished at his unexpected provocation, without altering his former
dialect spoke thus: Cap de Saint Arnault, quau seys to you, qui me
rebeillez? Que mau de taberne te gire. Ho Saint Siobe, cap de Gascoigne,
ta pla dormy jou, quand aquoest taquain me bingut estee. The venturous
roister inviteth him again to the duel, but the Gascon, without
condescending to his desire, said only this: He paovret jou tesquinerie
ares, que son pla reposat. Vayne un pauque te pausar com jou, peusse
truqueren. Thus, in forgetting his loss, he forgot the eagerness which he
had to fight. In conclusion, after that the other had likewise slept a
little, they, instead of fighting, and possibly killing one another, went
jointly to a sutler's tent, where they drank together very amicably, each
upon the pawn of his sword. Thus by a little sleep was pacified the ardent
fury of two warlike champions. There, gossip, comes the golden word of
John Andr. in cap. ult. de sent. et re. judic. l. sexto.

Sedendo, et dormiendo fit anima prudens.

Chapter 3. XLIII.

How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing actions at
law by the chance of the dice.

With this Bridlegoose held his peace. Whereupon Trinquamelle bid him
withdraw from the court--which accordingly was done--and then directed his
discourse to Pantagruel after this manner: It is fitting, most illustrious
prince, not only by reason of the deep obligations wherein this present
parliament, together with the whole marquisate of Mirelingues, stand bound
to your royal highness for the innumerable benefits which, as effects of
mere grace, they have received from your incomparable bounty, but for that
excellent wit also, prime judgment, and admirable learning wherewith
Almighty God, the giver of all good things, hath most richly qualified and
endowed you, we tender and present unto you the decision of this new,
strange, and paradoxical case of Bridlegoose; who, in your presence, to
your both hearing and seeing, hath plainly confessed his final judging and
determinating of suits of law by the mere chance and fortune of the dice.
Therefore do we beseech you that you may be pleased to give sentence
therein as unto you shall seem most just and equitable. To this Pantagruel
answered: Gentlemen, it is not unknown to you how my condition is somewhat
remote from the profession of deciding law controversies; yet, seeing you
are pleased to do me the honour to put that task upon me, instead of
undergoing the office of a judge I will become your humble supplicant. I
observe, gentlemen, in this Bridlegoose several things which induce me to
represent before you that it is my opinion he should be pardoned. In the
first place, his old age; secondly, his simplicity; to both which qualities
our statute and common laws, civil and municipal together, allow many
excuses for any slips or escapes which, through the invincible imperfection
of either, have been inconsiderately stumbled upon by a person so
qualified. Thirdly, gentlemen, I must needs display before you another
case, which in equity and justice maketh much for the advantage of
Bridlegoose, to wit, that this one, sole, and single fault of his ought to
be quite forgotten, abolished, and swallowed up by that immense and vast
ocean of just dooms and sentences which heretofore he hath given and
pronounced; his demeanours, for these forty years and upwards that he hath
been a judge, having been so evenly balanced in the scales of uprightness,
that envy itself till now could not have been so impudent as to accuse and
twit him with any act worthy of a check or reprehension; as, if a drop of
the sea were thrown into the Loire, none could perceive or say that by this
single drop the whole river should be salt and brackish.

Truly, it seemeth unto me, that in the whole series of Bridlegoose's
juridical decrees there hath been I know not what of extraordinary
savouring of the unspeakable benignity of God, that all those his preceding
sentences, awards, and judgments, have been confirmed and approved of by
yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court. For it is
usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifest
his own ineffable glory in blunting the perspicacy of the eyes of the wise,
in weakening the strength of potent oppressors, in depressing the pride of
rich extortioners, and in erecting, comforting, protecting, supporting,
upholding, and shoring up the poor, feeble, humble, silly, and foolish ones
of the earth. But, waiving all these matters, I shall only beseech you,
not by the obligations which you pretend to owe to my family, for which I
thank you, but for that constant and unfeigned love and affection which you
have always found in me, both on this and on the other side of Loire, for
the maintenance and establishment of your places, offices, and dignities,
that for this one time you would pardon and forgive him upon these two
conditions. First, that he satisfy, or put a sufficient surety for the
satisfaction of the party wronged by the injustice of the sentence in
question. For the fulfilment of this article I will provide sufficiently.
And, secondly, that for his subsidiary aid in the weighty charge of
administrating justice you would be pleased to appoint and assign unto him
some pretty little virtuous counsellor, younger, learneder, and wiser than
he, by the square and rule of whose advice he may regulate, guide, temper,
and moderate in times coming all his judiciary procedures; or otherwise, if
you intend totally to depose him from his office, and to deprive him
altogether of the state and dignity of a judge, I shall cordially entreat
you to make a present and free gift of him to me, who shall find in my
kingdoms charges and employments enough wherewith to embusy him, for the
bettering of his own fortunes and furtherance of my service. In the
meantime, I implore the Creator, Saviour, and Sanctifier of all good
things, in his grace, mercy, and kindness, to preserve you all now and
evermore, world without end.

These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg with
such a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree and
eminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and master-speaker of that
Mirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the whole court, and went out
of the chamber; at the door whereof finding Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John,
and others, he forthwith, attended by them, walked to the outer gate, where
all of them immediately took horse to return towards Gargantua. Pantagruel
by the way related to them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose's
sententiating differences at law. Friar John said that he had seen Peter
Dandin, and was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in the
monastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon. Gymnast
likewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand Christian cavalier
De Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made answer to the
adventurer. Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the matter of believing
that it was morally possible Bridlegoose should have been for such a long
space of time so continually fortunate in that aleatory way of deciding law
debates. Epistemon said to Pantagruel, Such another story, not much unlike
to that in all the circumstances thereof, is vulgarly reported of the
provost of Montlehery. In good sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is to
be wondered at. To have hit right twice or thrice in a judgment so given
by haphazard might have fallen out well enough, especially in controversies
that were ambiguous, intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure.



Chapter 3. XLIV.

How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human
judgment.

Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty
debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella,
proconsul in Asia. The case was this.

A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece. He dying,
she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to her second
husband bore a boy called Effege. A pretty long time thereafter it
happened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and stepdams is very
rare towards the children of the first fathers and mothers deceased, that
this husband, with the help of his son Effege, secretly, wittingly,
willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece. The woman came no sooner to
get information of the fact, but, that it might not go unpunished, she
caused kill them both, to revenge the death of her first son. She was
apprehended and carried before Cneius Dolabella, in whose presence she,
without dissembling anything, confessed all that was laid to her charge;
yet alleged that she had both right and reason on her side for the killing
of them. Thus was the state of the question. He found the business so
dubious and intricate, that he knew not what to determine therein, nor
which of the parties to incline to. On the one hand, it was an execrable
crime to cut off at once both her second husband and her son. On the other
hand, the cause of the murder seemed to be so natural, as to be grounded
upon the law of nations and the rational instinct of all the people of the
world, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyed
her first son; not that they had been in any manner of way wronged,
outraged, or injured by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his
inheritance. In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon,
he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their
advice and judgment. That judicious senate, very sagely perpending the
reasons of his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally to
compear before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to some
interrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in the
verbal defence. Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in their
opinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what to
say or judge therein. Who had decided that plea by the chance and fortune
of the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which side soever he
had passed his casting and condemnatory sentence. If against the woman,
she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign authority by taking that
vengeance at her own hand, the inflicting whereof was only competent to the
supreme power to administer justice in criminal cases. If for her, the
just resentment of a so atrocious injury done unto her, in murdering her
innocent son, did fully excuse and vindicate her of any trespass or offence
about that particular committed by her. But this continuation of
Bridlegoose for so many years still hitting the nail on the head, never
missing the mark, and always judging aright, by the mere throwing of the
dice and chance thereof, is that which most astonisheth and amazeth me.

To answer, quoth Pantagruel (Epistemon, says the English edition of 1694,
following the reading of the modern French editions. Le Duchat has pointed
out the mistake. --M. ), categorically to that which you wonder at, I must
ingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet, conjecturally to guess at
the reason of it, I would refer the cause of that marvellously
long-continued happy success in the judiciary results of his definitive
sentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and benignity of the
intelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after having
contemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of Judge
Bridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did regulate that for
him by chance which by the profoundest act of his maturest deliberation he
was not able to reach unto. That, likewise, which possibly made him to
diffide in his own skill and capacity, notwithstanding his being an expert
and understanding lawyer, for anything that I know to the contrary, was the
knowledge and experience which he had of the antinomies, contrarieties,
antilogies, contradictions, traversings, and thwartings of laws, customs,
edicts, statutes, orders, and ordinances, in which dangerous opposition,
equity and justice being structured and founded on either of the opposite
terms, and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice and
iniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, being
assuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequently
transformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light,
maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and pens of
his ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing judges,
law-monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-like
law-wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black to
white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply. For the more
expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleading
parties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is well
known that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find an
advocate to patrocinate and defend it,--else would there be no process in
the world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at the bar. He did in these
extremities, as I conceive, most humbly recommend the direction of his
judicial proceedings to the upright judge of judges, God Almighty; did
submit himself to the conduct and guideship of the blessed Spirit in the
hazard and perplexity of the definitive sentence, and, by this aleatory
lot, did as it were implore and explore the divine decree of his goodwill
and pleasure, instead of that which we call the final judgment of a court.
To this effect, to the better attaining to his purpose, which was to judge
righteously, he did, in my opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the end
that by the providence aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whose
action was uprightest, and backed with greatest reason. In doing whereof
he did not stray from the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is so
little harm in that manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety and
perplexedness of human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasure
of his divine will.

Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that the
unstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those of
the parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose was
arraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worse
practice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance and
hazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have it
remitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are full
of blood and hearts of wry affections. Besides that, their principal
direction in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, a
wicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, so
pernicious, unjust, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was his
ordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, and
ordinances, as at an outroop or putsale, to him who offered most for them.
Thus did he shape measures for the pleaders, and cut their morsels to them
by and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits, scantlings, and shreds
of the law now in use, altogether concealing, suppressing, disannulling,
and abolishing the remainder, which did make for the total law; fearing
that, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge of
such as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctors
of the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts,
his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the
public notice of the world.
Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that
is to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical
case should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination
of what is their right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees;
as Cato in his time wished and advised that every judiciary court should be
paved with caltrops.



Chapter 3. XLV.

How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.

On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very same
hour that Triboulet was by water come from Blois. Panurge, at his arrival,
gave him a hog's bladder puffed up with wind, and resounding because of the
hard peas that were within it. Moreover he did present him with a gilt
wooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell, an osier-wattled
wicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty apples of the
orchard of Blandureau.

If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is no
more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage. Triboulet
girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, ate
some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge very wistly and
heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seen
ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drink
heartily, and by good long draughts. When Triboulet had done with his
drinking, Panurge laid out before him and exposed the sum of the business
wherein he was to require his advice, in eloquent and choicely-sorted
terms, adorned with flourishes of rhetoric. But, before he had altogether
done, Triboulet with his fist gave him a bouncing whirret between the
shoulders, rendered back into his hand again the empty bottle, fillipped
and flirted him in the nose with the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a final
resolution, shaking and wagging his head strongly and disorderly, he
answered nothing else but this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk,
Buzansay hornpipe! These words thus finished, he slipped himself out of
the company, went aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight in
the melody of the rickling crackling noise of the peas. After which time
it lay not in the power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate
sound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about to
interrogate him further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would have
stuck him therewith. I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought my
pigs to a fine market. Have I not got a brave determination of all my
doubts, and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it?
He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who
brought him hither to me,--That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at
me,--but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of
my thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny.

Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quoth
Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the gestures
and speech which he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably, quoth he,
have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable mysteries; yea, of
such important worth and weight, that I shall never henceforth be
astonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal of worship
and reverence honour and respect natural fools equally with their primest
doctors, muftis, divines, and prophets. Did not you take heed, quoth he, a
little before he opened his mouth to speak, what a shogging, shaking, and
wagging his head did keep? By the approved doctrine of the ancient
philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most expert magicians, and
the received opinions of the learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitation
and moving should by us all be judged to proceed from, and be quickened and
suscitated by the coming and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical
spirit, which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacle
of a debile substance (for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, a
little head containeth not much brains), was the cause of that commotion.
This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, when
they affirm that shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a human
body, partly because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden
and load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness and
imbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ. A manifest example
whereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to their
head a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in the
hand that holds it. This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mystical
pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always, before the
uttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of her domestic
laurel. Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to
acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holy
days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the
head of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake.
Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoever
he walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furious
lolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that he commonly affrighted those
who casually met with him in his way. The said author in another place,
showing a reason why Charmides shook and brangled his head, assevered that
he was transported and in an ecstasy. Catullus after the same manner
maketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the
Menades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented
prophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads.
As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were
wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according
to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination,
for kubistan signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and
play the part of one that is wry-necked.

Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the
Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize and
vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shrugging
of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used then
most punctually. For the common voice of the philosophers, together with
the opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth that
vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without the
concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the said
presaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspired
declareth and manifesteth it unto others. The learned lawyer Julian, being
asked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful and
in a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, and
enraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without a
noddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging
at the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent
enough. Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and
instructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do
a pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication,
stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the
sage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them
up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of
theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strange
and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly by
disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of a
wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All which Virgil
acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo Cynthius.



Chapter 3. XLVI.

How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.

He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in your
old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your
pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his
codpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk. Upon mine honour, it
gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk. Nay, I will
engage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in my
possession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe,
Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the horned
brotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute to
the wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles and
responses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, without
descending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitch
upon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess who
is to be the copesmate of your wife and hornifier of your proper self.
Thus noble Triboulet tells it us plainly, from whose words we may gather
with all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much
the more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously
contaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he says
that you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned,
hornified, and cornuted. And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the
Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes
of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for
another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet,
and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud,
obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay
hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder,
and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the
back. This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, and
fillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, as
you stole the hog's bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton.

Flat contrary, quoth Panurge;--not that I would impudently exempt myself
from being a vassal in the territory of folly. I hold of that
jurisdiction, and am subject thereto, I confess it. And why should I not?
For the whole world is foolish. In the old Lorraine language, fou for tou,
all and fool, were the same thing. Besides, it is avouched by Solomon that
infinite is the number of fools. From an infinity nothing can be deducted
or abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything thereto be
added or subjoined. Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I should
not hold myself a fool. After the same manner of speaking, we may aver the
number of the mad and enraged folks to be infinite. Avicenna maketh no
bones to assert that the several kinds of madness are infinite. Though
this much of Triboulet's words tend little to my advantage, howbeit the
prejudice which I sustain thereby be common with me to all other men, yet
the rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me. He said to my
wife, Be wary of the monkey; that is as much as if she should be cheery,
and take as much delight in a monkey as ever did the Lesbia of Catullus in
her sparrow; who will for his recreation pass his time no less joyfully at
the exercise of snatching flies than heretofore did the merciless
fly-catcher Domitian. Withal he meant, by another part of his discourse,
that she should be of a jovial country-like humour, as gay and pleasing as a
harmonious hornpipe of Saulieau or Buzansay. The veridical Triboulet did
therein hint at what I liked well, as perfectly knowing the inclinations and
propensions of my mind, my natural disposition, and the bias of my interior
passions and affections. For you may be assured that my humour is much
better satisfied and contented with the pretty, frolic, rural, dishevelled
shepherdesses, whose bums through their coarse canvas smocks smell of the
clover grass of the field, than with those great ladies in magnific courts,
with their flandan top-knots and sultanas, their polvil, pastillos, and
cosmetics. The homely sound, likewise, of a rustical hornpipe is more
agreeable to my ears than the curious warbling and musical quavering of
lutes, theorbos, viols, rebecs, and violins. He gave me a lusty rapping
thwack on my back,--what then? Let it pass, in the name and for the love of
God, as an abatement of and deduction from so much of my future pains in
purgatory. He did it not out of any evil intent. He thought, belike, to
have hit some of the pages. He is an honest fool, and an innocent
changeling. It is a sin to harbour in the heart any bad conceit of him. As
for myself, I heartily pardon him. He flirted me on the nose. In that
there is no harm; for it importeth nothing else but that betwixt my wife and
me there will occur some toyish wanton tricks which usually happen to all
new-married folks.



Chapter 3. XLVII.

How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of the
holy bottle.

There is as yet another point, quoth Panurge, which you have not at all
considered on, although it be the chief and principal head of the matter.
He put the bottle in my hand and restored it me again. How interpret you
that passage? What is the meaning of that? He possibly, quoth Pantagruel,
signifieth thereby that your wife will be such a drunkard as shall daily
take in her liquor kindly, and ply the pots and bottles apace. Quite
otherwise, quoth Panurge; for the bottle was empty. I swear to you, by the
prickling brambly thorn of St. Fiacre in Brie, that our unique morosoph,
whom I formerly termed the lunatic Triboulet, referreth me, for attaining
to the final resolution of my scruple, to the response-giving bottle.
Therefore do I renew afresh the first vow which I made, and here in your
presence protest and make oath, by Styx and Acheron, to carry still
spectacles in my cap, and never to wear a codpiece in my breeches, until
upon the enterprise in hand of my nuptial undertaking I shall have obtained
an answer from the holy bottle. I am acquainted with a prudent,
understanding, and discreet gentleman, and besides a very good friend of
mine, who knoweth the land, country, and place where its temple and oracle
is built and posited. He will guide and conduct us thither sure and
safely. Let us go thither, I beseech you. Deny me not, and say not nay;
reject not the suit I make unto you, I entreat you. I will be to you an
Achates, a Damis, and heartily accompany you all along in the whole voyage,
both in your going forth and coming back. I have of a long time known you
to be a great lover of peregrination, desirous still to learn new things,
and still to see what you had never seen before.

Very willingly, quoth Pantagruel, I condescend to your request. But before
we enter in upon our progress towards the accomplishment of so far a
journey, replenished and fraught with eminent perils, full of innumerable
hazards, and every way stored with evident and manifest dangers,--What
dangers? quoth Panurge, interrupting him. Dangers fly back, run from, and
shun me whithersoever I go, seven leagues around, as in the presence of the
sovereign a subordinate magistracy is eclipsed; or as clouds and darkness
quite evanish at the bright coming of a radiant sun; or as all sores and
sicknesses did suddenly depart at the approach of the body of St. Martin a
Quande. Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, before we adventure to set
forwards on the road of our projected and intended voyage, some few points
are to be discussed, expedited, and despatched. First, let us send back
Triboulet to Blois. Which was instantly done, after that Pantagruel had
given him a frieze coat. Secondly, our design must be backed with the
advice and counsel of the king my father. And, lastly, it is most needful
and expedient for us that we search for and find out some sibyl to serve us
for a guide, truchman, and interpreter. To this Panurge made answer, that
his friend Xenomanes would abundantly suffice for the plenary discharge and
performance of the sibyl's office; and that, furthermore, in passing
through the Lanternatory revelling country, they should take along with
them a learned and profitable Lanternesse, which would be no less useful to
them in their voyage than was the sibyl to Aeneas in his descent to the
Elysian fields. Carpalin, in the interim, as he was upon the conducting
away of Triboulet, in his passing by hearkened a little to the discourse
they were upon; then spoke out, saying, Ho, Panurge, master freeman, take
my Lord Debitis at Calais alongst with you, for he is goud-fallot, a good
fellow. He will not forget those who have been debitors; these are
Lanternes. Thus shall you not lack for both fallot and lanterne. I may
safely with the little skill I have, quoth Pantagruel, prognosticate that
by the way we shall engender no melancholy. I clearly perceive it already.
The only thing that vexeth me is, that I cannot speak the Lanternatory
language. I shall, answered Panurge, speak for you all. I understand it
every whit as well as I do mine own maternal tongue; I have been no less
used to it than to the vulgar French.

Briszmarg dalgotbrick nubstzne zos.
Isquebsz prusq: albok crinqs zacbac.
Mizbe dilbarskz morp nipp stancz bos,
Strombtz, Panurge, walmap quost gruszbac.

Now guess, friend Epistemon, what this is. They are, quoth Epistemon,
names of errant devils, passant devils, and rampant devils. These words of
thine, dear friend of mine, are true, quoth Panurge; yet are they terms
used in the language of the court of the Lanternish people. By the way, as
we go upon our journey, I will make to thee a pretty little dictionary,
which, notwithstanding, shall not last you much longer than a pair of new
shoes. Thou shalt have learned it sooner than thou canst perceive the
dawning of the next subsequent morning. What I have said in the foregoing
tetrastich is thus translated out of the Lanternish tongue into our vulgar
dialect:

All miseries attended me, whilst I
A lover was, and had no good thereby.
Of better luck the married people tell;
Panurge is one of those, and knows it well.

There is little more, then, quoth Pantagruel, to be done, but that we
understand what the will of the king my father will be therein, and
purchase his consent.



Chapter 3. XLVIII.

How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry without the
special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers.

No sooner had Pantagruel entered in at the door of the great hall of the
castle, than that he encountered full butt with the good honest Gargantua
coming forth from the council board, unto whom he made a succinct and
summary narrative of what had passed and occurred, worthy of his
observation, in his travels abroad, since their last interview; then,
acquainting him with the design he had in hand, besought him that it might
stand with his goodwill and pleasure to grant him leave to prosecute and go
through-stitch with the enterprise which he had undertaken. The good man
Gargantua, having in one hand two great bundles of petitions endorsed and
answered, and in the other some remembrancing notes and bills, to put him
in mind of such other requests of supplicants, which, albeit presented, had
nevertheless been neither read nor heard, he gave both to Ulric Gallet, his
ancient and faithful Master of Requests; then drew aside Pantagruel, and,
with a countenance more serene and jovial than customary, spoke to him
thus: I praise God, and have great reason so to do, my most dear son, that
he hath been pleased to entertain in you a constant inclination to virtuous
actions. I am well content that the voyage which you have motioned to me
be by you accomplished, but withal I could wish you would have a mind and
desire to marry, for that I see you are of competent years. Panurge in the
meanwhile was in a readiness of preparing and providing for remedies,
salves, and cures against all such lets, obstacles, and impediments as he
could in the height of his fancy conceive might by Gargantua be cast in the
way of their itinerary design. Is it your pleasure, most dear father, that
you speak? answered Pantagruel. For my part, I have not yet thought upon
it. In all this affair I wholly submit and rest in your good liking and
paternal authority. For I shall rather pray unto God that he would throw
me down stark dead at your feet, in your pleasure, than that against your
pleasure I should be found married alive. I never yet heard that by any
law, whether sacred or profane, yea, amongst the rudest and most barbarous
nations in the world, it was allowed and approved of that children may be
suffered and tolerated to marry at their own goodwill and pleasure, without
the knowledge, advice, or consent asked and had thereto of their fathers,
mothers, and nearest kindred. All legislators, everywhere upon the face of
the whole earth, have taken away and removed this licentious liberty from
children, and totally reserved it to the discretion of the parents.

My dearly beloved son, quoth Gargantua, I believe you, and from my heart
thank God for having endowed you with the grace of having both a perfect
notice of and entire liking to laudable and praiseworthy things; and that
through the windows of your exterior senses he hath vouchsafed to transmit
unto the interior faculties of your mind nothing but what is good and
virtuous. For in my time there hath been found on the continent a certain
country, wherein are I know not what kind of Pastophorian mole-catching
priests, who, albeit averse from engaging their proper persons into a
matrimonial duty, like the pontifical flamens of Cybele in Phrygia, as if
they were capons, and not cocks full of lasciviousness, salacity, and
wantonness, who yet have, nevertheless, in the matter of conjugal affairs,
taken upon them to prescribe laws and ordinances to married folks. I
cannot goodly determine what I should most abhor, detest, loathe, and
abominate,--whether the tyrannical presumption of those dreaded sacerdotal
mole-catchers, who, not being willing to contain and coop up themselves
within the grates and trellises of their own mysterious temples, do deal
in, meddle with, obtrude upon, and thrust their sickles into harvests of
secular businesses quite contrary and diametrically opposite to the
quality, state, and condition of their callings, professions, and
vocations; or the superstitious stupidity and senseless scrupulousness of
married folks, who have yielded obedience, and submitted their bodies,
fortunes, and estates to the discretion and authority of such odious,
perverse, barbarous, and unreasonable laws. Nor do they see that which is
clearer than the light and splendour of the morning star,--how all these
nuptial and connubial sanctions, statutes, and ordinances have been
decreed, made, and instituted for the sole benefit, profit, and advantage
of the flaminal mysts and mysterious flamens, and nothing at all for the
good, utility, or emolument of the silly hoodwinked married people. Which
administereth unto others a sufficient cause for rendering these churchmen
suspicious of iniquity, and of an unjust and fraudulent manner of dealing,
no more to be connived at nor countenanced, after that it be well weighed
in the scales of reason, than if with a reciprocal temerity the laics, by
way of compensation, would impose laws to be followed and observed by those
mysts and flamens, how they should behave themselves in the making and
performance of their rites and ceremonies, and after what manner they ought
to proceed in the offering up and immolating of their various oblations,
victims, and sacrifices; seeing that, besides the decimation and
tithe-haling of their goods, they cut off and take parings, shreddings, and
clippings of the gain proceeding from the labour of their hands and sweat
of their brows, therewith to entertain themselves the better. Upon which
consideration, in my opinion, their injunctions and commands would not
prove so pernicious and impertinent as those of the ecclesiastic power unto
which they had tendered their blind obedience. For, as you have very well
said, there is no place in the world where, legally, a licence is granted
to the children to marry without the advice and consent of their parents
and kindred. Nevertheless, by those wicked laws and mole-catching customs,
whereat there is a little hinted in what I have already spoken to you,
there is no scurvy, measly, leprous, or pocky ruffian, pander, knave,
rogue, skellum, robber, or thief, pilloried, whipped, and burn-marked in
his own country for his crimes and felonies, who may not violently snatch
away and ravish what maid soever he had a mind to pitch upon, how noble,
how fair, how rich, honest, and chaste soever she be, and that out of the
house of her own father, in his own presence, from the bosom of her mother,
and in the sight and despite of her friends and kindred looking on a so
woeful spectacle, provided that the rascal villain be so cunning as to
associate unto himself some mystical flamen, who, according to the covenant
made betwixt them two, shall be in hope some day to participate of the
prey.

Could the Goths, the Scyths, or Massagets do a worse or more cruel act to
any of the inhabitants of a hostile city, when, after the loss of many of
their most considerable commanders, the expense of a great deal of money,
and a long siege, they shall have stormed and taken it by a violent and
impetuous assault? May not these fathers and mothers, think you, be
sorrowful and heavy-hearted when they see an unknown fellow, a vagabond
stranger, a barbarous lout, a rude cur, rotten, fleshless, putrified,
scraggy, boily, botchy, poor, a forlorn caitiff and miserable sneak, by an
open rapt snatch away before their own eyes their so fair, delicate, neat,
well-behavioured, richly-provided-for and healthful daughters, on whose
breeding and education they had spared no cost nor charges, by bringing
them up in an honest discipline to all the honourable and virtuous
employments becoming one of their sex descended of a noble parentage,
hoping by those commendable and industrious means in an opportune and
convenient time to bestow them on the worthy sons of their well-deserving
neighbours and ancient friends, who had nourished, entertained, taught,
instructed, and schooled their children with the same care and solicitude,
to make them matches fit to attain to the felicity of a so happy marriage,
that from them might issue an offspring and progeny no less heirs to the
laudable endowments and exquisite qualifications of their parents, whom
they every way resemble, than to their personal and real estates, movables,
and inheritances? How doleful, trist, and plangorous would such a sight
and pageantry prove unto them? You shall not need to think that the
collachrymation of the Romans and their confederates at the decease of
Germanicus Drusus was comparable to this lamentation of theirs? Neither
would I have you to believe that the discomfort and anxiety of the
Lacedaemonians, when the Greek Helen, by the perfidiousness of the
adulterous Trojan, Paris, was privily stolen away out of their country, was
greater or more pitiful than this ruthful and deplorable collugency of
theirs? You may very well imagine that Ceres at the ravishment of her
daughter Proserpina was not more attristed, sad, nor mournful than they.
Trust me, and your own reason, that the loss of Osiris was not so
regrettable to Isis, nor did Venus so deplore the death of Adonis, nor yet
did Hercules so bewail the straying of Hylas, nor was the rapt of Polyxena
more throbbingly resented and condoled by Priamus and Hecuba, than this
aforesaid accident would be sympathetically bemoaned, grievous, ruthful,
and anxious to the woefully desolate and disconsolate parents.

Notwithstanding all this, the greater part of so vilely abused parents are
so timorous and afraid of devils and hobgoblins, and so deeply plunged in
superstition, that they dare not gainsay nor contradict, much less oppose
and resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the mole-catcher hath
been present at the perpetrating of the fact, and a party contractor and
covenanter in that detestable bargain. What do they do then? They
wretchedly stay at their own miserable homes, destitute of their
well-beloved daughters, the fathers cursing the days and the hours wherein
they were married, and the mothers howling and crying that it was not their
fortune to have brought forth abortive issues when they happened to be
delivered of such unfortunate girls, and in this pitiful plight spend at
best the remainder of their time with tears and weeping for those their
children, of and from whom they expected, (and, with good reason, should
have obtained and reaped,) in these latter days of theirs, joy and comfort.
Other parents there have been, so impatient of that affront and indignity
put upon them and their families, that, transported with the extremity of
passion, in a mad and frantic mood, through the vehemency of a grievous
fury and raging sorrow, have drowned, hanged, killed, and otherwise put
violent hands on themselves. Others, again, of that parental relation
have, upon the reception of the like injury, been of a more magnanimous and
heroic spirit, who, in imitation and at the example of the children of
Jacob revenging upon the Sichemites the rapt of their sister Dinah, having
found the rascally ruffian in the association of his mystical mole-catcher
closely and in hugger-mugger conferring, parleying, and coming with their
daughters, for the suborning, corrupting, depraving, perverting, and
enticing these innocent unexperienced maids unto filthy lewdnesses, have,
without any further advisement on the matter, cut them instantly into
pieces, and thereupon forthwith thrown out upon the fields their so
dismembered bodies, to serve for food unto the wolves and ravens. Upon the
chivalrous, bold, and courageous achievement of a so valiant, stout, and
manlike act, the other mole-catching symmysts have been so highly incensed,
and have so chafed, fretted, and fumed thereat, that, bills of complaint
and accusations having been in a most odious and detestable manner put in
before the competent judges, the arm of secular authority hath with much
importunity and impetuosity been by them implored and required, they
proudly contending that the servants of God would become contemptible if
exemplary punishment were not speedily taken upon the persons of the
perpetrators of such an enormous, horrid, sacrilegious, crying, heinous,
and execrable crime.

Yet neither by natural equity, by the law of nations, nor by any imperial
law whatsoever, hath there been found so much as one rubric, paragraph,
point, or tittle, by the which any kind of chastisement or correction hath
been adjudged due to be inflicted upon any for their delinquency in that
kind. Reason opposeth, and nature is repugnant. For there is no virtuous
man in the world who both naturally and with good reason will not be more
hugely troubled in mind, hearing of the news of the rapt, disgrace,
ignominy, and dishonour of his daughter, than of her death. Now any man,
finding in hot blood one who with a forethought felony hath murdered his
daughter, may, without tying himself to the formalities and circumstances
of a legal proceeding, kill him on a sudden and out of hand without
incurring any hazard of being attainted and apprehended by the officers of
justice for so doing. What wonder is it then? Or how little strange
should it appear to any rational man, if a lechering rogue, together with
his mole-catching abettor, be entrapped in the flagrant act of suborning
his daughter, and stealing her out of his house, though herself consent
thereto, that the father in such a case of stain and infamy by them brought
upon his family, should put them both to a shameful death, and cast their
carcasses upon dunghills to be devoured and eaten up by dogs and swine, or
otherwise fling them a little further off to the direption, tearing, and
rending asunder of their joints and members by the wild beasts of the field
(as unworthy to receive the gentle, the desired, the last kind embraces of
the great Alma Mater, the earth, commonly called burial).

Dearly beloved son, have an especial care that after my decease none of
these laws be received in any of your kingdoms; for whilst I breathe, by
the grace and assistance of God, I shall give good order. Seeing,
therefore, you have totally referred unto my discretion the disposure of
you in marriage, I am fully of an opinion that I shall provide sufficiently
well for you in that point. Make ready and prepare yourself for Panurge's
voyage. Take along with you Epistemon, Friar John, and such others as you
will choose. Do with my treasures what unto yourself shall seem most
expedient. None of your actions, I promise you, can in any manner of way
displease me. Take out of my arsenal Thalasse whatsoever equipage,
furniture, or provision you please, together with such pilots, mariners,
and truchmen as you have a mind to, and with the first fair and favourable
wind set sail and make out to sea in the name of God our Saviour. In the
meanwhile, during your absence, I shall not be neglective of providing a
wife for you, nor of those preparations which are requisite to be made for
the more sumptuous solemnizing of your nuptials with a most splendid feast,
if ever there was any in the world, since the days of Ahasuerus.



Chapter 3. XLIX.

How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and of the herb
named Pantagruelion.

Within very few days after that Pantagruel had taken his leave of the good
Gargantua, who devoutly prayed for his son's happy voyage, he arrived at
the seaport, near to Sammalo, accompanied with Panurge, Epistemon, Friar
John of the Funnels, Abbot of Theleme, and others of the royal house,
especially with Xenomanes the great traveller and thwarter of dangerous
ways, who was come at the bidding and appointment of Panurge, of whose
castlewick of Salmigondin he did hold some petty inheritance by the tenure
of a mesne fee. Pantagruel, being come thither, prepared and made ready
for launching a fleet of ships, to the number of those which Ajax of
Salamine had of old equipped in convoy of the Grecian soldiery against the
Trojan state. He likewise picked out for his use so many mariners, pilots,
sailors, interpreters, artificers, officers, and soldiers, as he thought
fitting, and therewithal made provision of so much victuals of all sorts,
artillery, munition of divers kinds, clothes, moneys, and other such
luggage, stuff, baggage, chaffer, and furniture, as he deemed needful for
carrying on the design of a so tedious, long, and perilous voyage. Amongst
other things, it was observed how he caused some of his vessels to be
fraught and loaded with a great quantity of an herb of his called
Pantagruelion, not only of the green and raw sort of it, but of the
confected also, and of that which was notably well befitted for present use
after the fashion of conserves. The herb Pantagruelion hath a little root
somewhat hard and rough, roundish, terminating in an obtuse and very blunt
point, and having some of its veins, strings, or filaments coloured with
some spots of white, never fixeth itself into the ground above the
profoundness almost of a cubit, or foot and a half. From the root thereof
proceedeth the only stalk, orbicular, cane-like, green without, whitish
within, and hollow like the stem of smyrnium, olus atrum, beans, and
gentian, full of long threads, straight, easy to be broken, jagged,
snipped, nicked, and notched a little after the manner of pillars and
columns, slightly furrowed, chamfered, guttered, and channelled, and full
of fibres, or hairs like strings, in which consisteth the chief value and
dignity of the herb, especially in that part thereof which is termed mesa,
as he would say the mean, and in that other, which hath got the
denomination of milasea. Its height is commonly of five or six foot. Yet
sometimes it is of such a tall growth as doth surpass the length of a
lance, but that is only when it meeteth with a sweet, easy, warm, wet, and
well-soaked soil--as is the ground of the territory of Olone, and that of
Rasea, near to Preneste in Sabinia--and that it want not for rain enough
about the season of the fishers' holidays and the estival solstice. There
are many trees whose height is by it very far exceeded, and you might call
it dendromalache by the authority of Theophrastus. The plant every year
perisheth,--the tree neither in the trunk, root, bark, or boughs being
durable.

From the stalk of this Pantagruelian plant there issue forth several large
and great branches, whose leaves have thrice as much length as breadth,
always green, roughish, and rugged like the orcanet, or Spanish bugloss,
hardish, slit round about like unto a sickle, or as the saxifragum, betony,
and finally ending as it were in the points of a Macedonian spear, or of
such a lancet as surgeons commonly make use of in their phlebotomizing
tiltings. The figure and shape of the leaves thereof is not much different
from that of those of the ash-tree, or of agrimony; the herb itself being
so like the Eupatorian plant that many skilful herbalists have called it
the Domestic Eupator, and the Eupator the Wild Pantagruelion. These leaves
are in equal and parallel distances spread around the stalk by the number
in every rank either of five or seven, nature having so highly favoured and
cherished this plant that she hath richly adorned it with these two odd,
divine, and mysterious numbers. The smell thereof is somewhat strong, and
not very pleasing to nice, tender, and delicate noses. The seed enclosed
therein mounteth up to the very top of its stalk, and a little above it.

This is a numerous herb; for there is no less abundance of it than of any
other whatsoever. Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid, and
some of an oblong shape, and all of those either black, bright-coloured, or
tawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a quickly-blasted-away coat, yet
such a one as is of a delicious taste and savour to all shrill and
sweetly-singing birds, such as linnets, goldfinches, larks, canary birds,
yellow-hammers, and others of that airy chirping choir; but it would quite
extinguish the natural heat and procreative virtue of the semence of any
man who would eat much and often of it. And although that of old amongst
the Greeks there was certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns and
tarts, made thereof, which commonly for a liquorish daintiness were
presented on the table after supper to delight the palate and make the wine
relish the better; yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive to
the stomach. For it engendereth bad and unwholesome blood, and with its
exorbitant heat woundeth them with grievous, hurtful, smart, and noisome
vapours. And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male and
female, which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, the
daffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine,
pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even so in
this herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is very
copious of and abundant in seed. There is likewise in it a female, which
hath great store and plenty of whitish flowers, serviceable to little or no
purpose, nor doth it carry in it seed of any worth at all, at least
comparable to that of the male. It hath also a larger leaf, and much
softer than that of the male, nor doth it altogether grow to so great a
height. This Pantagruelion is to be sown at the first coming of the
swallows, and is to be plucked out of the ground when the grasshoppers
begin to be a little hoarse.



Chapter 3. L.