He ogles
it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle with it;
for it is reserved for their worships.
it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle with it;
for it is reserved for their worships.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
By gold!
this is the first time since I have reigned that
anyone has had the impudence to speak before he was bidden. How came this
mad fellow to break loose? (Villain, thou liest, said Friar John, without
stirring his lips. ) Sirrah, sirrah, continued Gripe-men-all, I doubt thou
wilt have business enough on thy hands when it comes to thy turn to answer.
(Damme, thou liest, said Friar John, silently. ) Dost thou think, continued
my lord, thou art in the wilderness of your foolish university, wrangling
and bawling among the idle, wandering searchers and hunters after truth? By
gold, we have here other fish to fry; we go another gate's-way to work, that
we do. By gold, people here must give categorical answers to what they
don't know. By gold, they must confess they have done those things which
they have not nor ought to have done. By gold, they must protest that they
know what they never knew in their lives; and, after all, patience perforce
must be their only remedy, as well as a mad dog's. Here silly geese are
plucked, yet cackle not. Sirrah, give me--an account whether you had a
letter of attorney, or whether you were feed or no, that you offered to bawl
in another man's cause? I see you had no authority to speak, and I may
chance to have you wed to something you won't like. Oh, you devils, cried
Friar John, proto-devils, panto-devils, you would wed a monk, would you? Ho
hu! ho hu! A heretic! a heretic! I'll give thee out for a rank heretic.
Chapter 5. XIII.
How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle.
Gripe-men-all, as if he had not heard what Friar John said, directed his
discourse to Panurge, saying to him, Well, what have you to say for
yourself, Mr. Rogue-enough, hah? Give, give me out of hand--an answer.
Say? quoth Panurge; why, what would you have me say? I say that we are
damnably beshit, since you give no heed at all to the equity of the plea,
and the devil sings among you. Let this answer serve for all, I beseech
you, and let us go out about our business; I am no longer able to hold out,
as gad shall judge me.
Go to, go to, cried Gripe-men-all; when did you ever hear that for these
three hundred years last past anybody ever got out of this weel without
leaving something of his behind him? No, no, get out of the trap if you
can without losing leather, life, or at least some hair, and you will have
done more than ever was done yet. For why, this would bring the wisdom of
the court into question, as if we had took you up for nothing, and dealt
wrongfully by you. Well, by hook or by crook, we must have something out
of you. Look ye, it is a folly to make a rout for a fart and ado; one word
is as good as twenty. I have no more to say to thee, but that, as thou
likest thy former entertainment, thou wilt tell me more of the next; for it
will go ten times worse with thee unless, by gold, you give me--a solution
to the riddle I propounded. Give, give--it, without any more ado.
By gold, quoth Panurge, 'tis a black mite or weevil which is born of a
white bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the mite
being turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes flies over
hills and dales. Now Pythagoras, the philosopher, and his sect, besides
many others, wondering at its birth in such a place (which makes some argue
for equivocal generation), thought that by a metempsychosis the body of
that insect was the lodging of a human soul. Now, were you men here, after
your welcomed death, according to his opinion, your souls would most
certainly enter into the body of mites or weevils; for in your present
state of life you are good for nothing in the world but to gnaw, bite, eat,
and devour all things, so in the next you'll e'en gnaw and devour your
mother's very sides, as the vipers do. Now, by gold, I think I have fairly
solved and resolved your riddle.
May my bauble be turned into a nutcracker, quoth Friar John, if I could not
almost find in my heart to wish that what comes out at my bunghole were
beans, that these evil weevils might feed as they deserve.
Panurge then, without any more ado, threw a large leathern purse stuffed
with gold crowns (ecus au soleil) among them.
The Furred Law-cats no sooner heard the jingling of the chink but they all
began to bestir their claws, like a parcel of fiddlers running a division;
and then fell to't, squimble, squamble, catch that catch can. They all
said aloud, These are the fees, these are the gloves; now, this is somewhat
like a tansy. Oh! 'twas a pretty trial, a sweet trial, a dainty trial. O'
my word, they did not starve the cause. These are none of your snivelling
forma pauperis's; no, they are noble clients, gentlemen every inch of them.
By gold, it is gold, quoth Panurge, good old gold, I'll assure you.
Saith Gripe-men-all, The court, upon a full hearing (of the gold, quoth
Panurge), and weighty reasons given, finds the prisoners not guilty, and
accordingly orders them to be discharged out of custody, paying their fees.
Now, gentlemen, proceed, go forwards, said he to us; we have not so much of
the devil in us as we have of his hue; though we are stout, we are
merciful.
As we came out at the wicket, we were conducted to the port by a detachment
of certain highland griffins, scribere cum dashoes, who advised us before
we came to our ships not to offer to leave the place until we had made the
usual presents, first to the Lady Gripe-men-all, then to all the Furred
Law-pusses; otherwise we must return to the place from whence we came.
Well, well, said Friar John, we'll fumble in our fobs, examine every one of
us his concern, and e'en give the women their due; we'll ne'er boggle or
stick out on that account; as we tickled the men in the palm, we'll tickle
the women in the right place. Pray, gentlemen, added they, don't forget to
leave somewhat behind you for us poor devils to drink your healths. O
lawd! never fear, answered Friar John, I don't remember that I ever went
anywhere yet where the poor devils are not remembered and encouraged.
Chapter 5. XIV.
How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption.
Friar John had hardly said those words ere he perceived seventy-eight
galleys and frigates just arriving at the port. So he hied him thither to
learn some news; and as he asked what goods they had o' board, he soon
found that their whole cargo was venison, hares, capons, turkeys, pigs,
swine, bacon, kids, calves, hens, ducks, teals, geese, and other poultry
and wildfowl.
He also spied among these some pieces of velvet, satin, and damask. This
made him ask the new-comers whither and to whom they were going to carry
those dainty goods. They answered that they were for Gripe-men-all and the
Furred Law-cats.
Pray, asked he, what is the true name of all these things in your country
language? Corruption, they replied. If they live on corruption, said the
friar, they will perish with their generation. May the devil be damned, I
have it now: their fathers devoured the good gentlemen who, according to
their state of life, used to go much a-hunting and hawking, to be the
better inured to toil in time of war; for hunting is an image of a martial
life, and Xenophon was much in the right of it when he affirmed that
hunting had yielded a great number of excellent warriors, as well as the
Trojan horse. For my part, I am no scholar; I have it but by hearsay, yet
I believe it. Now the souls of those brave fellows, according to
Gripe-men-all's riddle, after their decease enter into wild boars, stags,
roebucks, herns, and such other creatures which they loved, and in quest of
which they went while they were men; and these Furred Law-cats, having
first destroyed and devoured their castles, lands, demesnes, possessions,
rents, and revenues, are still seeking to have their blood and soul in
another life. What an honest fellow was that same mumper who had
forewarned us of all these things, and bid us take notice of the mangers
above the racks!
But, said Panurge to the new-comers, how do you come by all this venison?
Methinks the great king has issued out a proclamation strictly inhibiting
the destroying of stags, does, wild boars, roebucks, or other royal game,
on pain of death. All this is true enough, answered one for the rest, but
the great king is so good and gracious, you must know, and these Furred
Law-cats so curst and cruel, so mad, and thirsting after Christian blood,
that we have less cause to fear in trespassing against that mighty
sovereign's commands than reason to hope to live if we do not continually
stop the mouths of these Furred Law-cats with such bribes and corruption.
Besides, added he, to-morrow Gripe-men-all marries a furred law-puss of his
to a high and mighty double-furred law-tybert. Formerly we used to call
them chop-hay; but alas! they are not such neat creatures now as to eat
any, or chew the cud. We call them chop-hares, chop-partridges,
chop-woodcocks, chop-pheasants, chop-pullets, chop-venison, chop-coneys,
chop-pigs, for they scorn to feed on coarser meat. A t--d for their chops,
cried Friar John, next year we'll have 'em called chop-dung, chop-stront,
chop-filth.
Would you take my advice? added he to the company. What is it? answered
we. Let's do two things, returned he. First, let us secure all this
venison and wild fowl--I mean, paying well for them; for my part, I am but
too much tired already with our salt meat, it heats my flanks so horribly.
In the next place, let's go back to the wicket, and destroy all these
devilish Furred Law-cats. For my part, quoth Panurge, I know better
things; catch me there, and hang me. No, I am somewhat more inclined to be
fearful than bold; I love to sleep in a whole skin.
Chapter 5. XV.
How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats.
Virtue of the frock, quoth Friar John, what kind of voyage are we making?
A shitten one, o' my word; the devil of anything we do but fizzling,
farting, funking, squattering, dozing, raving, and doing nothing.
Ods-belly, 'tisn't in my nature to lie idle; I mortally hate it. Unless I
am doing some heroic feat every foot, I can't sleep one wink o' nights.
Damn it, did you then take me along with you for your chaplain, to sing mass
and shrive you? By Maundy Thursday, the first of ye all that comes to me on
such an account shall be fitted; for the only penance I'll enjoin shall be,
that he immediately throw himself headlong overboard into the sea like a
base cowhearted son of ten fathers. This in deduction of the pains of
purgatory.
What made Hercules such a famous fellow, d'ye think? Nothing but that
while he travelled he still made it his business to rid the world of
tyrannies, errors, dangers, and drudgeries; he still put to death all
robbers, all monsters, all venomous serpents and hurtful creatures. Why
then do we not follow his example, doing as he did in the countries through
which we pass? He destroyed the Stymphalides, the Lernaean hydra, Cacus,
Antheus, the Centaurs, and what not; I am no clericus, those that are such
tell me so.
In imitation of that noble by-blow, let's destroy and root out these wicked
Furred Law-cats, that are a kind of ravenous devils; thus we shall remove
all manner of tyranny out of the land. Mawmet's tutor swallow me body and
soul, tripes and guts, if I would stay to ask your help or advice in the
matter were I but as strong as he was. Come, he that would be thought a
gentleman, let him storm a town; well, then, shall we go? I dare swear
we'll do their business for them with a wet finger; they'll bear it, never
fear; since they could swallow down more foul language that came from us
than ten sows and their babies could swill hogwash. Damn 'em, they don't
value all the ill words or dishonour in the world at a rush, so they but
get the coin into their purses, though they were to have it in a shitten
clout. Come, we may chance to kill 'em all, as Hercules would have done
had they lived in his time. We only want to be set to work by another
Eurystheus, and nothing else for the present, unless it be what I heartily
wish them, that Jupiter may give 'em a short visit, only some two or three
hours long, and walk among their lordships in the same equipage that
attended him when he came last to his Miss Semele, jolly Bacchus's mother.
'Tis a very great mercy, quoth Panurge, that you have got out of their
clutches. For my part, I have no stomach to go there again; I'm hardly
come to myself yet, so scared and appalled I was. My hair still stands up
an end when I think on't; and most damnably troubled I was there, for three
very weighty reasons. First, because I was troubled. Secondly, because I
was troubled. Thirdly and lastly, because I was troubled. Hearken to me a
little on thy right side, Friar John, my left cod, since thou'lt not hear
at the other. Whenever the maggot bites thee to take a trip down to hell
and visit the tribunal of Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, (and Dis,) do but
tell me, and I'll be sure to bear thee company, and never leave thee as
long as my name's Panurge, but will wade over Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus,
drink whole bumpers of Lethe's water--though I mortally hate that element
--and even pay thy passage to that bawling, cross-grained ferryman, Charon.
But as for the damned wicket, if thou art so weary of thy life as to go
thither again, thou mayst e'en look for somebody else to bear thee company,
for I'll not move one step that way; e'en rest satisfied with this positive
answer. By my good will I'll not stir a foot to go thither as long as I
live, any more than Calpe will come over to Abyla (Here Motteux adds the
following note: 'Calpe is a mountain in Spain that faces another, called
Abyla, in Mauritania, both said to have been severed by Hercules. '). Was
Ulysses so mad as to go back into the Cyclop's cave to fetch his sword?
No, marry was he not. Now I have left nothing behind me at the wicket
through forgetfulness; why then should I think of going thither?
Well, quoth Friar John, as good sit still as rise up and fall; what cannot
be cured must be endured. But, prithee, let's hear one another speak.
Come, wert thou not a wise doctor to fling away a whole purse of gold on
those mangy scoundrels? Ha! A squinsy choke thee! we were too rich, were
we? Had it not been enough to have thrown the hell-hounds a few cropped
pieces of white cash?
How could I help it? returned Panurge. Did you not see how Gripe-men-all
held his gaping velvet pouch, and every moment roared and bellowed, By
gold, give me out of hand; by gold, give, give, give me presently? Now,
thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free. I'll e'en stop
their mouths with gold, that the wicket may be opened, and we may get out;
the sooner the better. And I judged that lousy silver would not do the
business; for, d'ye see, velvet pouches do not use to gape for little
paltry clipt silver and small cash; no, they are made for gold, my friend
John; that they are, my dainty cod. Ah! when thou hast been larded,
basted, and roasted, as I was, thou wilt hardly talk at this rate, I doubt.
But now what is to be done? We are enjoined by them to go forwards.
The scabby slabberdegullions still waited for us at the port, expecting to
be greased in the fist as well as their masters. Now when they perceived
that we were ready to put to sea, they came to Friar John and begged that
we would not forget to gratify the apparitors before we went off, according
to the assessment for the fees at our discharge. Hell and damnation! cried
Friar John; are ye here still, ye bloodhounds, ye citing, scribbling imps
of Satan? Rot you, am I not vexed enough already, but you must have the
impudence to come and plague me, ye scurvy fly-catchers you? By
cob's-body, I'll gratify your ruffianships as you deserve; I'll apparitorize
you presently with a wannion, that I will. With this, he lugged out his
slashing cutlass, and in a mighty heat came out of the ship to cut the
cozening varlets into steaks, but they scampered away and got out of sight
in a trice.
However, there was somewhat more to do, for some of our sailors, having got
leave of Pantagruel to go ashore while we were had before Gripe-men-all,
had been at a tavern near the haven to make much of themselves, and roar
it, as seamen will do when they come into some port. Now I don't know
whether they had paid their reckoning to the full or no, but, however it
was, an old fat hostess, meeting Friar John on the quay, was making a
woeful complaint before a sergeant, son-in-law to one of the furred
law-cats, and a brace of bums, his assistants.
The friar, who did not much care to be tired with their impertinent
prating, said to them, Harkee me, ye lubberly gnat-snappers! do ye presume
to say that our seamen are not honest men? I'll maintain they are, ye
dotterels, and will prove it to your brazen faces, by justice--I mean, this
trusty piece of cold iron by my side. With this he lugged it out and
flourished with it. The forlorn lobcocks soon showed him their backs,
betaking themselves to their heels; but the old fusty landlady kept her
ground, swearing like any butter-whore that the tarpaulins were very honest
cods, but that they only forgot to pay for the bed on which they had lain
after dinner, and she asked fivepence, French money, for the said bed. May
I never sup, said the friar, if it be not dog-cheap; they are sorry guests
and unkind customers, that they are; they do not know when they have a
pennyworth, and will not always meet with such bargains. Come, I myself
will pay you the money, but I would willingly see it first.
The hostess immediately took him home with her, and showed him the bed, and
having praised it for all its good qualifications, said that she thought as
times went she was not out of the way in asking fivepence for it. Friar
John then gave her the fivepence; and she no sooner turned her back but he
presently began to rip up the ticking of the feather-bed and bolster, and
threw all the feathers out at the window. In the meantime the old hag came
down and roared out for help, crying out murder to set all the
neighbourhood in an uproar. Yet she also fell to gathering the feathers
that flew up and down in the air, being scattered by the wind. Friar John
let her bawl on, and, without any further ado, marched off with the
blanket, quilt, and both the sheets, which he brought aboard undiscovered,
for the air was darkened with the feathers, as it uses sometimes to be with
snow. He gave them away to the sailors; then said to Pantagruel that beds
were much cheaper at that place than in Chinnonois, though we have there
the famous geese of Pautile; for the old beldam had asked him but fivepence
for a bed which in Chinnonois had been worth about twelve francs. (As soon
as Friar John and the rest of the company were embarked, Pantagruel set
sail. But there arose a south-east wind, which blew so vehemently they
lost their way, and in a manner going back to the country of the Furred
Law-cats, they entered into a huge gulf, where the sea ran so high and
terrible that the shipboy on the top of the mast cried out he again saw the
habitation of Gripe-men-all; upon which Panurge, frightened almost out of
his wits, roared out, Dear master, in spite of the wind and waves, change
your course, and turn the ship's head about. O my friend, let us come no
more into that cursed country where I left my purse. So the wind carried
them near an island, where however they did not dare at first to land, but
entered about a mile off. (Motteux omitted this passage altogether in the
edition of 1694. It was restored by Ozell in the edition of 1738. ))
Chapter 5. XVI.
How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or Ignoramuses, with
long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventures and monsters there.
As soon as we had cast anchor and had moored the ship, the pinnace was put
over the ship's side and manned by the coxswain's crew. When the good
Pantagruel had prayed publicly, and given thanks to the Lord that had
delivered him from so great a danger, he stepped into it with his whole
company to go on shore, which was no ways difficult to do, for, as the sea
was calm and the winds laid, they soon got to the cliffs. When they were
set on shore, Epistemon, who was admiring the situation of the place and
the strange shape of the rocks, discovered some of the natives. The first
he met had on a short purple gown, a doublet cut in panes, like a Spanish
leather jerkin, half sleeves of satin, and the upper part of them leather,
a coif like a black pot tipped with tin. He was a good likely sort of a
body, and his name, as we heard afterwards, was Double-fee. Epistemon
asked him how they called those strange craggy rocks and deep valleys. He
told them it was a colony brought out of Attorneyland, and called Process,
and that if we forded the river somewhat further beyond the rocks we should
come into the island of the Apedefers. By the memory of the decretals,
said Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on?
Could not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine? I can
see nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live on
nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come
through my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then? Do you
fleece 'em? Ay, ay, their purse, answered Double-fee; nothing else. By
the foot of Pharaoh, cried Panurge, the devil a sou will you get of me.
However, sweet sir, be so kind as to show an honest man the way to those
Apedefers, or ignorant people, for I come from the land of the learned,
where I did not learn over much.
Still talking on, they got to the island of the Apedefers, for they were
soon got over the ford. Pantagruel was not a little taken up with admiring
the structure and habitation of the people of the place. For they live in
a swingeing wine-press, fifty steps up to it. You must know there are some
of all sorts, little, great, private, middle-sized, and so forth. You go
through a large peristyle, alias a long entry set about with pillars, in
which you see, in a kind of landscape, the ruins of almost the whole world,
besides so many great robbers' gibbets, so many gallows and racks, that
'tis enough to fright you out of your seven senses. Double-fee perceiving
that Pantagruel was taken up with contemplating those things, Let us go
further, sir, said he to him; all this is nothing yet. Nothing, quotha,
cried Friar John; by the soul of my overheated codpiece, friend Panurge and
I here shake and quiver for mere hunger. I had rather be drinking than
staring at these ruins. Pray come along, sir, said Double-fee. He then
led us into a little wine-press that lay backwards in a blind corner, and
was called Pithies in the language of the country. You need not ask
whether Master John and Panurge made much of their sweet selves there; it
is enough that I tell you there was no want of Bolognia sausages, turkey
poots, capons, bustards, malmsey, and all other sorts of good belly-timber,
very well dressed.
A pimping son of ten fathers, who, for want of a better, did the office of
a butler, seeing that Friar John had cast a sheep's eye at a choice bottle
that stood near a cupboard by itself, at some distance from the rest of the
bottellic magazine, like a jack-in-an-office said to Pantagruel, Sir, I
perceive that one of your men here is making love to this bottle.
He ogles
it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle with it;
for it is reserved for their worships. How, cried Panurge, there are some
grandees here then, I see. It is vintage time with you, I perceive.
Then Double-fee led us up to a private staircase, and showed us into a
room, whence, without being seen, out at a loophole we could see their
worships in the great wine-press, where none could be admitted without
their leave. Their worships, as he called them, were about a score of
fusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all posted before a
bar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs. Their paws were as
long as a crane's foot, and their claws four-and-twenty inches long at
least; for you must know they are enjoined never to pare off the least chip
of them, so that they grow as crooked as a Welsh hook or a hedging-bill.
We saw a swingeing bunch of grapes that are gathered and squeezed in that
country, brought in by them. As soon as it was laid down, they clapped it
into the press, and there was not a bit of it out of which each of them did
not squeeze some oil of gold; insomuch that the poor grape was tried with a
witness, and brought off so drained and picked, and so dry, that there was
not the least moisture, juice, or substance left in it; for they had
pressed out its very quintessence.
Double-fee told us they had not often such huge bunches; but, let the worst
come to the worst, they were sure never to be without others in their
press. But hark you me, master of mine, asked Panurge, have they not some
of different growth? Ay, marry have they, quoth Double-fee. Do you see
here this little bunch, to which they are going to give t'other wrench? It
is of tithe-growth, you must know; they crushed, wrung, squeezed and
strained out the very heart's blood of it but the other day; but it did not
bleed freely; the oil came hard, and smelt of the priest's chest; so that
they found there was not much good to be got out of it. Why then, said
Pantagruel, do they put it again into the press? Only, answered
Double-fee, for fear there should still lurk some juice among the husks and
hullings in the mother of the grape. The devil be damned! cried Friar
John; do you call these same folks illiterate lobcocks and duncical
doddipolls? May I be broiled like a red herring if I do not think they are
wise enough to skin a flint and draw oil out of a brick wall. So they are,
said Double-fee; for they sometimes put castles, parks, and forests into
the press, and out of them all extract aurum potabile. You mean portabile,
I suppose, cried Epistemon, such as may be borne. I mean as I said,
replied Double-fee, potabile, such as may be drunk; for it makes them drink
many a good bottle more than otherwise they should.
But I cannot better satisfy you as to the growth of the vine-tree sirup
that is here squeezed out of grapes, than in desiring you to look yonder in
that back-yard, where you will see above a thousand different growths that
lie waiting to be squeezed every moment. Here are some of the public and
some of the private growth; some of the builders' fortifications, loans,
gifts, and gratuities, escheats, forfeitures, fines, and recoveries, penal
statutes, crown lands, and demesne, privy purse, post-offices, offerings,
lordships of manors, and a world of other growths, for which we want names.
Pray, quoth Epistemon, tell me of what growth is that great one, with all
those little grapelings about it. Oh, oh! returned Double-fee, that plump
one is of the treasury, the very best growth in the whole country.
Whenever anyone of that growth is squeezed, there is not one of their
worships but gets juice enough of it to soak his nose six months together.
When their worships were up, Pantagruel desired Double-fee to take us into
that great wine-press, which he readily did. As soon as we were in,
Epistemon, who understood all sorts of tongues, began to show us many
devices on the press, which was large and fine, and made of the wood of the
cross--at least Double-fee told us so. On each part of it were names of
everything in the language of the country. The spindle of the press was
called receipt; the trough, cost and damages; the hole for the vice-pin,
state; the side-boards, money paid into the office; the great beam, respite
of homage; the branches, radietur; the side-beams, recuperetur; the fats,
ignoramus; the two-handled basket, the rolls; the treading-place,
acquittance; the dossers, validation; the panniers, authentic decrees; the
pailes, potentials; the funnels, quietus est.
By the Queen of the Chitterlings, quoth Panurge, all the hieroglyphics of
Egypt are mine a-- to this jargon. Why! here are a parcel of words full as
analogous as chalk and cheese, or a cat and a cart-wheel! But why,
prithee, dear Double-fee, do they call these worshipful dons of yours
ignorant fellows? Only, said Double-fee, because they neither are, nor
ought to be, clerks, and all must be ignorant as to what they transact
here; nor is there to be any other reason given, but, The court hath said
it; The court will have it so; The court has decreed it. Cop's body, quoth
Pantagruel, they might full as well have called 'em necessity; for
necessity has no law.
From thence, as he was leading us to see a thousand little puny presses, we
spied another paltry bar, about which sat four are five ignorant waspish
churls, of so testy, fuming a temper, (like an ass with squibs and crackers
tied to its tail,) and so ready to take pepper in the nose for yea and nay,
that a dog would not have lived with 'em. They were hard at it with the
lees and dregs of the grapes, which they gripped over and over again, might
and main, with their clenched fists. They were called contractors in the
language of the country. These are the ugliest, misshapen, grim-looking
scrubs, said Friar John, that ever were beheld, with or without spectacles.
Then we passed by an infinite number of little pimping wine-presses all
full of vintage-mongers, who were picking, examining, and raking the grapes
with some instruments called bills-of-charge.
Finally we came into a hall downstairs, where we saw an overgrown cursed
mangy cur with a pair of heads, a wolf's belly, and claws like the devil of
hell. The son of a bitch was fed with costs, for he lived on a
multiplicity of fine amonds and amerciaments by order of their worships, to
each of whom the monster was worth more than the best farm in the land. In
their tongue of ignorance they called him Twofold. His dam lay by him, and
her hair and shape was like her whelp's, only she had four heads, two male
and two female, and her name was Fourfold. She was certainly the most
cursed and dangerous creature of the place, except her grandam, which we
saw, and had been kept locked up in a dungeon time out of mind, and her
name was Refusing-of-fees.
Friar John, who had always twenty yards of gut ready empty to swallow a
gallimaufry of lawyers, began to be somewhat out of humour, and desired
Pantagruel to remember he had not dined, and bring Double-fee along with
him. So away we went, and as we marched out at the back-gate whom should
we meet but an old piece of mortality in chains. He was half ignorant and
half learned, like an hermaphrodite of Satan. The fellow was all
caparisoned with spectacles as a tortoise is with shells, and lived on
nothing but a sort of food which, in their gibberish, was called appeals.
Pantagruel asked Double-fee of what breed was that prothonotary, and what
name they gave him. Double-fee told us that time out of mind he had been
kept there in chains, to the great grief of their worships, who starved
him, and his name was Review. By the pope's sanctified two-pounders, cried
Friar John, I do not much wonder at the meagre cheer which this old chuff
finds among their worships. Do but look a little on the weather-beaten
scratch-toby, friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I'll lay five
pounds to a hazel-nut the foul thief has the very looks of Gripe-me-now.
These same fellows here, ignorant as they be, are as sharp and knowing as
other folk. But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib in
his breech like a rogue as he is. By my oriental barnacles, quoth Panurge,
honest friar, thou art in the right; for if we but examine that treacherous
Review's ill-favoured phiz, we find that the filthy snudge is yet more
mischievous and ignorant than these ignorant wretches here, since they
(honest dunces) grapple and glean with as little harm and pother as they
can, without any long fiddle-cum-farts or tantalizing in the case; nor do
they dally and demur in your suit, but in two or three words, whip-stitch,
in a trice, they finish the vintage of the close, bating you all these
damned tedious interlocutories, examinations, and appointments which fret
to the heart's blood your furred law-cats.
Chapter 5. XVII.
How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.
We put to sea that very moment, steering our course forwards, and gave
Pantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck him
with compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to divert
himself during the voyage. When we were safe in the port we took some
refreshment, and took in fresh water and wood. The people of the place,
who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions, were all of
them forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat. And we saw some who
slashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the fat, that it might
swell out at the slits and gashes which they made; neither more nor less
than the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink and cut open their
breeches that the taffety on the inside may stand out and be puffed up.
They said that what they did was not out of pride or ostentation, but
because otherwise their skins would not hold them without much pain.
Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow much bigger, like the
young trees on whose barks the gardeners make incisions that they may grow
the better.
Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine and
stately. We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of the
forward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought some
notable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all that
throng were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all his
friends and relations to hasten thither.
We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that country by
that bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as we do in ours by
betrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching (of women), shearing
(of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home), and many other junketting
bouts that end in -ing. But we soon heard that there was no such matter in
hand.
The master of the house, you must know, had been a good fellow in his time,
loved heartily to wind up his bottom, to bang the pitcher, and lick his
dish. He used to be a very fair swallower of gravy soup, a notable
accountant in matter of hours, and his whole life was one continual dinner,
like mine host at Rouillac (in Perigord). But now, having farted out much
fat for ten years together, according to the custom of the country, he was
drawing towards his bursting hour; for neither the inner thin kell
wherewith the entrails are covered, nor his skin that had been jagged and
mangled so many years, were able to hold and enclose his guts any longer,
or hinder them from forcing their way out. Pray, quoth Panurge, is there
no remedy, no help for the poor man, good people? Why don't you swaddle
him round with good tight girths, or secure his natural tub with a strong
sorb-apple-tree hoop? Nay, why don't you iron-bind him, if needs be? This
would keep the man from flying out and bursting. The word was not yet out
of his mouth when we heard something give a loud report, as if a huge
sturdy oak had been split in two. Then some of the neighbours told us that
the bursting was over, and that the clap or crack which we heard was the
last fart, and so there was an end of mine host.
This made me call to mind a saying of the venerable abbot of Castilliers,
the very same who never cared to hump his chambermaids but when he was in
pontificalibus. That pious person, being much dunned, teased, and
importuned by his relations to resign his abbey in his old age, said and
professed that he would not strip till he was ready to go to bed, and that
the last fart which his reverend paternity was to utter should be the fart
of an abbot.
Chapter 5. XVIII.
How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people that were
subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte).
We weighed and set sail with a merry westerly gale. When about seven
leagues off (twenty-two miles) some gusts or scuds of wind suddenly arose,
and the wind veering and shifting from point to point, was, as they say,
like an old woman's breech, at no certainty; so we first got our starboard
tacks aboard, and hauled off our lee-sheets. Then the gusts increased, and
by fits blowed all at once from several quarters, yet we neither settled
nor braided up close our sails, but only let fly the sheets, not to go
against the master of the ship's direction; and thus having let go amain,
lest we should spend our topsails, or the ship's quick-side should lie in
the water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that is, in a
landloper's phrase, we temporized it. For he assured us that, as these
gusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could not do us
much harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as also the
clearness of the sky and calmness of the current. So that we were to
observe the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or go
according to the time.
However, these whirlwinds and gusts lasted so long that we persuaded the
master to let us go and lie at trie with our main course; that is, to haul
the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the bowline set up, and the helm tied
close aboard; so, after a stormy gale of wind, we broke through the
whirlwind. But it was like falling into Scylla to avoid Charybdis (out of
the frying-pan into the fire). For we had not sailed a league ere our
ships were stranded upon some sands such as are the flats of St. Maixent.
All our company seemed mightily disturbed except Friar John, who was not a
jot daunted, and with sweet sugar-plum words comforted now one and then
another, giving them hopes of speedy assistance from above, and telling
them that he had seen Castor at the main-yardarm. Oh! that I were but now
ashore, cried Panurge, that is all I wish for myself at present, and that
you who like the sea so well had each man of you two hundred thousand
crowns. I would fairly let you set up shop on these sands, and would get a
fat calf dressed and a hundred of faggots (i. e. bottles of wine) cooled for
you against you come ashore. I freely consent never to mount a wife, so
you but set me ashore and mount me on a horse, that I may go home. No
matter for a servant, I will be contented to serve myself; I am never
better treated than when I am without a man. Faith, old Plautus was in the
right on't when he said the more servants the more crosses; for such they
are, even supposing they could want what they all have but too much of, a
tongue, that most busy, dangerous, and pernicious member of servants.
Accordingly, 'twas for their sakes alone that the racks and tortures for
confession were invented, though some foreign civilians in our time have
drawn alogical and unreasonable consequences from it.
That very moment we spied a sail that made towards us. When it was close
by us, we soon knew what was the lading of the ship and who was aboard of
her. She was full freighted with drums. I was acquainted with many of the
passengers that came in her, who were most of 'em of good families; among
the rest Harry Cotiral, an old toast, who had got a swinging ass's
touch-tripe (penis) fastened to his waist, as the good women's beads are to their
girdle. In his left hand he held an old overgrown greasy foul cap, such as
your scald-pated fellows wear, and in the right a huge cabbage-stump.
As soon as he saw me he was overjoyed, and bawled out to me, What cheer,
ho? How dost like me now? Behold the true Algamana (this he said showing
me the ass's tickle-gizzard). This doctor's cap is my true elixir; and
this (continued he, shaking the cabbage-stump in his fist) is lunaria
major, you old noddy. I have 'em, old boy, I have 'em; we'll make 'em when
thou'rt come back. But pray, father, said I, whence come you? Whither are
you bound? What's your lading? Have you smelt the salt deep? To these
four questions he answered, From Queen Whims; for Touraine; alchemy; to the
very bottom.
Whom have you got o' board? said I. Said he, Astrologers, fortune-tellers,
alchemists, rhymers, poets, painters, projectors, mathematicians,
watchmakers, sing-songs, musicianers, and the devil and all of others that
are subject to Queen Whims (Motteux gives the following footnote:--'La
Quinte, This means a fantastic Humour, Maggots, or a foolish Giddiness of
Brains; and also, a fifth, or the Proportion of Five in music, &c. '). They
have very fair legible patents to show for't, as anybody may see. Panurge
had no sooner heard this but he was upon the high-rope, and began to rail
at them like mad. What o' devil d'ye mean, cried he, to sit idly here like
a pack of loitering sneaksbies, and see us stranded, while you may help us,
and tow us off into the current? A plague o' your whims! you can make all
things whatsoever, they say, so much as good weather and little children;
yet won't make haste to fasten some hawsers and cables, and get us off. I
was just coming to set you afloat, quoth Harry Cotiral; by Trismegistus,
I'll clear you in a trice. With this he caused 7,532,810 huge drums to be
unheaded on one side, and set that open side so that it faced the end of
the streamers and pendants; and having fastened them to good tacklings and
our ship's head to the stern of theirs, with cables fastened to the bits
abaft the manger in the ship's loof, they towed us off ground at one pull
so easily and pleasantly that you'd have wondered at it had you been there.
For the dub-a-dub rattling of the drums, with the soft noise of the gravel
which murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the
sailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when
they roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the
celestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.
We scorned to be behindhand with 'em in civility, and gratefully gave 'em
store of our sausages and chitterlings, with which we filled their drums;
and we were just a-hoisting two-and-sixty hogsheads of wine out of the
hold, when two huge whirlpools with great fury made towards their ship,
spouting more water than is in the river Vienne (Vigenne) from Chinon to
Saumur; to make short, all their drums, all their sails, their concerns,
and themselves were soused, and their very hose were watered by the collar.
Panurge was so overjoyed, seeing this, and laughed so heartily, that he was
forced to hold his sides, and it set him into a fit of the colic for two
hours and more. I had a mind, quoth he, to make the dogs drink, and those
honest whirlpools, egad, have saved me that labour and that cost. There's
sauce for them; ariston men udor. Water is good, saith a poet; let 'em
Pindarize upon't. They never cared for fresh water but to wash their hands
or their glasses. This good salt water will stand 'em in good stead for
want of sal ammoniac and nitre in Geber's kitchen.
We could not hold any further discourse with 'em; for the former whirlwind
hindered our ship from feeling the helm. The pilot advised us
henceforwards to let her run adrift and follow the stream, not busying
ourselves with anything, but making much of our carcasses. For our only
way to arrive safe at the queendom of Whims was to trust to the whirlwind
and be led by the current.
Chapter 5. XIX.
How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy.
We did as he directed us for about twelve hours, and on the third day the
sky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the port of
Mateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the Quintessence.
We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other military
men that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat frighted at first
because they made us all lay down our arms, and in a haughty manner asked
us whence we came.
Cousin, quoth Panurge to him that asked the question, we are of Touraine,
and come from France, being ambitious of paying our respects to the Lady
Quintessence and visit this famous realm of Entelechy.
What do you say? cried they; do you call it Entelechy or Endelechy? Truly,
truly, sweet cousins, quoth Panurge, we are a silly sort of grout-headed
lobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we chance to
knock words out of joint. As for anything else, we are downright honest
fellows and true hearts.
We have not asked you this question without a cause, said they; for a great
number of others who have passed this way from your country of Touraine
seemed as mere jolt-headed doddipolls as ever were scored o'er the coxcomb,
yet spoke as correct as other folks. But there has been here from other
countries a pack of I know not what overweening self-conceited prigs, as
moody as so many mules and as stout as any Scotch lairds, and nothing would
serve these, forsooth, but they must wilfully wrangle and stand out against
us at their coming; and much they got by it after all. Troth, we e'en
fitted them and clawed 'em off with a vengeance, for all they looked so big
and so grum.
Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that you
do not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently talking,
disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady? There was much need that
your Tully, the consul, should go and leave the care of his commonwealth to
busy himself idly about her; and after him your Diogenes Laertius, the
biographer, and your Theodorus Gaza, the philosopher, and your Argiropilus,
the emperor, and your Bessario, the cardinal, and your Politian, the
pedant, and your Budaeus, the judge, and your Lascaris, the ambassador, and
the devil and all of those you call lovers of wisdom; whose number, it
seems, was not thought great enough already, but lately your Scaliger,
Bigot, Chambrier, Francis Fleury, and I cannot tell how many such other
junior sneaking fly-blows must take upon 'em to increase it.
A squinsy gripe the cod's-headed changelings at the swallow and eke at the
cover-weasel; we shall make 'em--But the deuce take 'em! (They flatter the
devil here, and smoothify his name, quoth Panurge, between his teeth. ) You
don't come here, continued the captain, to uphold 'em in their folly; you
have no commission from 'em to this effect; well then, we will talk no more
on't.
Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, was
our sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the name
of Entelechy. Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in tail
beshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family, who
dares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her wrong, and
is a very impudent person. You are heartily welcome, gentlemen. With
this they colled and clipped us about the neck, which was no small comfort
to us, I'll assure you.
Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not been
somewhat afraid this bout? A little, said I. To tell you the truth of it,
quoth he, never were the Ephraimites in a greater fear and quandary when
the Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth instead of
shibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps there is not a
man in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have stopped my
bunghole with a cartload of hay.
The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silently
with great formality. Pantagruel would have said something to him, but the
other, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder or a
very long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereign
lady's will, we would be as tall as you; well, we shall when she pleases.
In the first galleries we saw great numbers of sick persons, differently
placed according to their maladies. The leprous were apart; those that
were poisoned on one side; those that had got the plague on another; those
that had the pox in the first rank, and the rest accordingly.
Chapter 5. XX.
How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song.
The captain showed us the queen, attended with her ladies and gentlemen, in
the second gallery. She looked young, though she was at least eighteen
hundred years old, and was handsome, slender, and as fine as a queen, that
is, as hands could make her. He then said to us: It is not yet a fit time
to speak to the queen; be you but mindful of her doings in the meanwhile.
You have kings in your world that fantastically pretend to cure some
certain diseases, as, for example, scrofula or wens, swelled throats,
nicknamed the king's evil, and quartan agues, only with a touch; now our
queen cures all manner of diseases without so much as touching the sick,
but barely with a song, according to the nature of the distemper. He then
showed us a set of organs, and said that when it was touched by her those
miraculous cures were performed. The organ was indeed the strangest that
ever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula in the cod; the top
and cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the pedas of turbith, and
the clavier or keys of scammony.
While we were examining this wonderful new make of an organ, the leprous
were brought in by her abstractors, spodizators, masticators, pregustics,
tabachins, chachanins, neemanins, rabrebans, nercins, rozuins, nebidins,
tearins, segamions, perarons, chasinins, sarins, soteins, aboth, enilins,
archasdarpenins, mebins, chabourins, and other officers, for whom I want
names; so she played 'em I don't know what sort of a tune or song, and they
were all immediately cured.
Then those who were poisoned were had in, and she had no sooner given them
a song but they began to find a use for their legs, and up they got. Then
came on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too were restored to
their lost faculties and senses with the same remedy; which did so
strangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that down we fell on
our faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in ecstasy, and were not
able to utter one word through the excess of our admiration, till she came,
and having touched Pantagruel with a fine fragrant nosegay of white roses
which she held in her hand, thus made us recover our senses and get up.
Then she made us the following speech in byssin words, such as Parisatis
desired should be spoken to her son Cyrus, or at least of crimson alamode:
The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my
ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues
latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds. For,
contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet reverences,
it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither your
affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation of
liberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that in you are
lodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable profundity of
knowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines, so frequently the
admiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the imperite vulgar. This
gently compels me, who in preceding times indefatigably kept my private
affections absolutely subjugated, to condescend to make my application to
you in the trivial phrase of the plebeian world, and assure you that you
are well, more than most heartily welcome.
I have no hand at making of speeches, quoth Panurge to me privately;
prithee, man, make answer to her for us, if thou canst. This would not
work with me, however; neither did Pantagruel return a word. So that Queen
Whims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving that we stood
as mute as fishes, said: Your taciturnity speaks you not only disciples of
Pythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my progenitors in
successive propagation was emaned and derives its original, but also
discovers, that through the revolution of many retrograde moons, you have
in Egypt pressed the extremities of your fingers with the hard tenants of
your mouths, and scalptized your heads with frequent applications of your
unguicules. In the school of Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol of
abstracted and superlative knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians was
agnited as an expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused the
pontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence,
impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design is
not to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious
formality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to
you my cogitations.
Having spoken this, she only said to her officers, Tabachins, a panacea;
and straight they desired us not to take it amiss if the queen did not
invite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but some
categories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins, chelemins,
second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses, transcendent
prolepsies, and such other light food.
Then they took us into a little closet lined through with alarums, where we
were treated God knows how. It is said that Jupiter writes whatever is
transacted in the world on the dipthera or skin of the Amalthaean goat that
suckled him in Crete, which pelt served him instead of a shield against the
Titans, whence he was nicknamed Aegiochos. Now, as I hate to drink water,
brother topers, I protest it would be impossible to make eighteen goatskins
hold the description of all the good meat they brought before us, though it
were written in characters as small as those in which were penned Homer's
Iliads, which Tully tells us he saw enclosed in a nutshell.
For my part, had I one hundred mouths, as many tongues, a voice of iron, a
heart of oak, and lungs of leather, together with the mellifluous abundance
of Plato, yet I never could give you a full account of a third part of a
second of the whole.
Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic
word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said
to her tabachins, A panacea; just as Lucullus used to say, In Apollo, when
he designed to give his friends a singular treat; though sometimes they
took him at unawares, as, among the rest, Cicero and Hortensius sometimes
used to do.
Chapter 5. XXI.
How the Queen passed her time after dinner.
When we had dined, a chachanin led us into the queen's hall, and there we
saw how, after dinner, with the ladies and the princes of her court, she
used to sift, searce, bolt, range, and pass away time with a fine large
white and blue silk sieve.
anyone has had the impudence to speak before he was bidden. How came this
mad fellow to break loose? (Villain, thou liest, said Friar John, without
stirring his lips. ) Sirrah, sirrah, continued Gripe-men-all, I doubt thou
wilt have business enough on thy hands when it comes to thy turn to answer.
(Damme, thou liest, said Friar John, silently. ) Dost thou think, continued
my lord, thou art in the wilderness of your foolish university, wrangling
and bawling among the idle, wandering searchers and hunters after truth? By
gold, we have here other fish to fry; we go another gate's-way to work, that
we do. By gold, people here must give categorical answers to what they
don't know. By gold, they must confess they have done those things which
they have not nor ought to have done. By gold, they must protest that they
know what they never knew in their lives; and, after all, patience perforce
must be their only remedy, as well as a mad dog's. Here silly geese are
plucked, yet cackle not. Sirrah, give me--an account whether you had a
letter of attorney, or whether you were feed or no, that you offered to bawl
in another man's cause? I see you had no authority to speak, and I may
chance to have you wed to something you won't like. Oh, you devils, cried
Friar John, proto-devils, panto-devils, you would wed a monk, would you? Ho
hu! ho hu! A heretic! a heretic! I'll give thee out for a rank heretic.
Chapter 5. XIII.
How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle.
Gripe-men-all, as if he had not heard what Friar John said, directed his
discourse to Panurge, saying to him, Well, what have you to say for
yourself, Mr. Rogue-enough, hah? Give, give me out of hand--an answer.
Say? quoth Panurge; why, what would you have me say? I say that we are
damnably beshit, since you give no heed at all to the equity of the plea,
and the devil sings among you. Let this answer serve for all, I beseech
you, and let us go out about our business; I am no longer able to hold out,
as gad shall judge me.
Go to, go to, cried Gripe-men-all; when did you ever hear that for these
three hundred years last past anybody ever got out of this weel without
leaving something of his behind him? No, no, get out of the trap if you
can without losing leather, life, or at least some hair, and you will have
done more than ever was done yet. For why, this would bring the wisdom of
the court into question, as if we had took you up for nothing, and dealt
wrongfully by you. Well, by hook or by crook, we must have something out
of you. Look ye, it is a folly to make a rout for a fart and ado; one word
is as good as twenty. I have no more to say to thee, but that, as thou
likest thy former entertainment, thou wilt tell me more of the next; for it
will go ten times worse with thee unless, by gold, you give me--a solution
to the riddle I propounded. Give, give--it, without any more ado.
By gold, quoth Panurge, 'tis a black mite or weevil which is born of a
white bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the mite
being turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes flies over
hills and dales. Now Pythagoras, the philosopher, and his sect, besides
many others, wondering at its birth in such a place (which makes some argue
for equivocal generation), thought that by a metempsychosis the body of
that insect was the lodging of a human soul. Now, were you men here, after
your welcomed death, according to his opinion, your souls would most
certainly enter into the body of mites or weevils; for in your present
state of life you are good for nothing in the world but to gnaw, bite, eat,
and devour all things, so in the next you'll e'en gnaw and devour your
mother's very sides, as the vipers do. Now, by gold, I think I have fairly
solved and resolved your riddle.
May my bauble be turned into a nutcracker, quoth Friar John, if I could not
almost find in my heart to wish that what comes out at my bunghole were
beans, that these evil weevils might feed as they deserve.
Panurge then, without any more ado, threw a large leathern purse stuffed
with gold crowns (ecus au soleil) among them.
The Furred Law-cats no sooner heard the jingling of the chink but they all
began to bestir their claws, like a parcel of fiddlers running a division;
and then fell to't, squimble, squamble, catch that catch can. They all
said aloud, These are the fees, these are the gloves; now, this is somewhat
like a tansy. Oh! 'twas a pretty trial, a sweet trial, a dainty trial. O'
my word, they did not starve the cause. These are none of your snivelling
forma pauperis's; no, they are noble clients, gentlemen every inch of them.
By gold, it is gold, quoth Panurge, good old gold, I'll assure you.
Saith Gripe-men-all, The court, upon a full hearing (of the gold, quoth
Panurge), and weighty reasons given, finds the prisoners not guilty, and
accordingly orders them to be discharged out of custody, paying their fees.
Now, gentlemen, proceed, go forwards, said he to us; we have not so much of
the devil in us as we have of his hue; though we are stout, we are
merciful.
As we came out at the wicket, we were conducted to the port by a detachment
of certain highland griffins, scribere cum dashoes, who advised us before
we came to our ships not to offer to leave the place until we had made the
usual presents, first to the Lady Gripe-men-all, then to all the Furred
Law-pusses; otherwise we must return to the place from whence we came.
Well, well, said Friar John, we'll fumble in our fobs, examine every one of
us his concern, and e'en give the women their due; we'll ne'er boggle or
stick out on that account; as we tickled the men in the palm, we'll tickle
the women in the right place. Pray, gentlemen, added they, don't forget to
leave somewhat behind you for us poor devils to drink your healths. O
lawd! never fear, answered Friar John, I don't remember that I ever went
anywhere yet where the poor devils are not remembered and encouraged.
Chapter 5. XIV.
How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption.
Friar John had hardly said those words ere he perceived seventy-eight
galleys and frigates just arriving at the port. So he hied him thither to
learn some news; and as he asked what goods they had o' board, he soon
found that their whole cargo was venison, hares, capons, turkeys, pigs,
swine, bacon, kids, calves, hens, ducks, teals, geese, and other poultry
and wildfowl.
He also spied among these some pieces of velvet, satin, and damask. This
made him ask the new-comers whither and to whom they were going to carry
those dainty goods. They answered that they were for Gripe-men-all and the
Furred Law-cats.
Pray, asked he, what is the true name of all these things in your country
language? Corruption, they replied. If they live on corruption, said the
friar, they will perish with their generation. May the devil be damned, I
have it now: their fathers devoured the good gentlemen who, according to
their state of life, used to go much a-hunting and hawking, to be the
better inured to toil in time of war; for hunting is an image of a martial
life, and Xenophon was much in the right of it when he affirmed that
hunting had yielded a great number of excellent warriors, as well as the
Trojan horse. For my part, I am no scholar; I have it but by hearsay, yet
I believe it. Now the souls of those brave fellows, according to
Gripe-men-all's riddle, after their decease enter into wild boars, stags,
roebucks, herns, and such other creatures which they loved, and in quest of
which they went while they were men; and these Furred Law-cats, having
first destroyed and devoured their castles, lands, demesnes, possessions,
rents, and revenues, are still seeking to have their blood and soul in
another life. What an honest fellow was that same mumper who had
forewarned us of all these things, and bid us take notice of the mangers
above the racks!
But, said Panurge to the new-comers, how do you come by all this venison?
Methinks the great king has issued out a proclamation strictly inhibiting
the destroying of stags, does, wild boars, roebucks, or other royal game,
on pain of death. All this is true enough, answered one for the rest, but
the great king is so good and gracious, you must know, and these Furred
Law-cats so curst and cruel, so mad, and thirsting after Christian blood,
that we have less cause to fear in trespassing against that mighty
sovereign's commands than reason to hope to live if we do not continually
stop the mouths of these Furred Law-cats with such bribes and corruption.
Besides, added he, to-morrow Gripe-men-all marries a furred law-puss of his
to a high and mighty double-furred law-tybert. Formerly we used to call
them chop-hay; but alas! they are not such neat creatures now as to eat
any, or chew the cud. We call them chop-hares, chop-partridges,
chop-woodcocks, chop-pheasants, chop-pullets, chop-venison, chop-coneys,
chop-pigs, for they scorn to feed on coarser meat. A t--d for their chops,
cried Friar John, next year we'll have 'em called chop-dung, chop-stront,
chop-filth.
Would you take my advice? added he to the company. What is it? answered
we. Let's do two things, returned he. First, let us secure all this
venison and wild fowl--I mean, paying well for them; for my part, I am but
too much tired already with our salt meat, it heats my flanks so horribly.
In the next place, let's go back to the wicket, and destroy all these
devilish Furred Law-cats. For my part, quoth Panurge, I know better
things; catch me there, and hang me. No, I am somewhat more inclined to be
fearful than bold; I love to sleep in a whole skin.
Chapter 5. XV.
How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats.
Virtue of the frock, quoth Friar John, what kind of voyage are we making?
A shitten one, o' my word; the devil of anything we do but fizzling,
farting, funking, squattering, dozing, raving, and doing nothing.
Ods-belly, 'tisn't in my nature to lie idle; I mortally hate it. Unless I
am doing some heroic feat every foot, I can't sleep one wink o' nights.
Damn it, did you then take me along with you for your chaplain, to sing mass
and shrive you? By Maundy Thursday, the first of ye all that comes to me on
such an account shall be fitted; for the only penance I'll enjoin shall be,
that he immediately throw himself headlong overboard into the sea like a
base cowhearted son of ten fathers. This in deduction of the pains of
purgatory.
What made Hercules such a famous fellow, d'ye think? Nothing but that
while he travelled he still made it his business to rid the world of
tyrannies, errors, dangers, and drudgeries; he still put to death all
robbers, all monsters, all venomous serpents and hurtful creatures. Why
then do we not follow his example, doing as he did in the countries through
which we pass? He destroyed the Stymphalides, the Lernaean hydra, Cacus,
Antheus, the Centaurs, and what not; I am no clericus, those that are such
tell me so.
In imitation of that noble by-blow, let's destroy and root out these wicked
Furred Law-cats, that are a kind of ravenous devils; thus we shall remove
all manner of tyranny out of the land. Mawmet's tutor swallow me body and
soul, tripes and guts, if I would stay to ask your help or advice in the
matter were I but as strong as he was. Come, he that would be thought a
gentleman, let him storm a town; well, then, shall we go? I dare swear
we'll do their business for them with a wet finger; they'll bear it, never
fear; since they could swallow down more foul language that came from us
than ten sows and their babies could swill hogwash. Damn 'em, they don't
value all the ill words or dishonour in the world at a rush, so they but
get the coin into their purses, though they were to have it in a shitten
clout. Come, we may chance to kill 'em all, as Hercules would have done
had they lived in his time. We only want to be set to work by another
Eurystheus, and nothing else for the present, unless it be what I heartily
wish them, that Jupiter may give 'em a short visit, only some two or three
hours long, and walk among their lordships in the same equipage that
attended him when he came last to his Miss Semele, jolly Bacchus's mother.
'Tis a very great mercy, quoth Panurge, that you have got out of their
clutches. For my part, I have no stomach to go there again; I'm hardly
come to myself yet, so scared and appalled I was. My hair still stands up
an end when I think on't; and most damnably troubled I was there, for three
very weighty reasons. First, because I was troubled. Secondly, because I
was troubled. Thirdly and lastly, because I was troubled. Hearken to me a
little on thy right side, Friar John, my left cod, since thou'lt not hear
at the other. Whenever the maggot bites thee to take a trip down to hell
and visit the tribunal of Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, (and Dis,) do but
tell me, and I'll be sure to bear thee company, and never leave thee as
long as my name's Panurge, but will wade over Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus,
drink whole bumpers of Lethe's water--though I mortally hate that element
--and even pay thy passage to that bawling, cross-grained ferryman, Charon.
But as for the damned wicket, if thou art so weary of thy life as to go
thither again, thou mayst e'en look for somebody else to bear thee company,
for I'll not move one step that way; e'en rest satisfied with this positive
answer. By my good will I'll not stir a foot to go thither as long as I
live, any more than Calpe will come over to Abyla (Here Motteux adds the
following note: 'Calpe is a mountain in Spain that faces another, called
Abyla, in Mauritania, both said to have been severed by Hercules. '). Was
Ulysses so mad as to go back into the Cyclop's cave to fetch his sword?
No, marry was he not. Now I have left nothing behind me at the wicket
through forgetfulness; why then should I think of going thither?
Well, quoth Friar John, as good sit still as rise up and fall; what cannot
be cured must be endured. But, prithee, let's hear one another speak.
Come, wert thou not a wise doctor to fling away a whole purse of gold on
those mangy scoundrels? Ha! A squinsy choke thee! we were too rich, were
we? Had it not been enough to have thrown the hell-hounds a few cropped
pieces of white cash?
How could I help it? returned Panurge. Did you not see how Gripe-men-all
held his gaping velvet pouch, and every moment roared and bellowed, By
gold, give me out of hand; by gold, give, give, give me presently? Now,
thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free. I'll e'en stop
their mouths with gold, that the wicket may be opened, and we may get out;
the sooner the better. And I judged that lousy silver would not do the
business; for, d'ye see, velvet pouches do not use to gape for little
paltry clipt silver and small cash; no, they are made for gold, my friend
John; that they are, my dainty cod. Ah! when thou hast been larded,
basted, and roasted, as I was, thou wilt hardly talk at this rate, I doubt.
But now what is to be done? We are enjoined by them to go forwards.
The scabby slabberdegullions still waited for us at the port, expecting to
be greased in the fist as well as their masters. Now when they perceived
that we were ready to put to sea, they came to Friar John and begged that
we would not forget to gratify the apparitors before we went off, according
to the assessment for the fees at our discharge. Hell and damnation! cried
Friar John; are ye here still, ye bloodhounds, ye citing, scribbling imps
of Satan? Rot you, am I not vexed enough already, but you must have the
impudence to come and plague me, ye scurvy fly-catchers you? By
cob's-body, I'll gratify your ruffianships as you deserve; I'll apparitorize
you presently with a wannion, that I will. With this, he lugged out his
slashing cutlass, and in a mighty heat came out of the ship to cut the
cozening varlets into steaks, but they scampered away and got out of sight
in a trice.
However, there was somewhat more to do, for some of our sailors, having got
leave of Pantagruel to go ashore while we were had before Gripe-men-all,
had been at a tavern near the haven to make much of themselves, and roar
it, as seamen will do when they come into some port. Now I don't know
whether they had paid their reckoning to the full or no, but, however it
was, an old fat hostess, meeting Friar John on the quay, was making a
woeful complaint before a sergeant, son-in-law to one of the furred
law-cats, and a brace of bums, his assistants.
The friar, who did not much care to be tired with their impertinent
prating, said to them, Harkee me, ye lubberly gnat-snappers! do ye presume
to say that our seamen are not honest men? I'll maintain they are, ye
dotterels, and will prove it to your brazen faces, by justice--I mean, this
trusty piece of cold iron by my side. With this he lugged it out and
flourished with it. The forlorn lobcocks soon showed him their backs,
betaking themselves to their heels; but the old fusty landlady kept her
ground, swearing like any butter-whore that the tarpaulins were very honest
cods, but that they only forgot to pay for the bed on which they had lain
after dinner, and she asked fivepence, French money, for the said bed. May
I never sup, said the friar, if it be not dog-cheap; they are sorry guests
and unkind customers, that they are; they do not know when they have a
pennyworth, and will not always meet with such bargains. Come, I myself
will pay you the money, but I would willingly see it first.
The hostess immediately took him home with her, and showed him the bed, and
having praised it for all its good qualifications, said that she thought as
times went she was not out of the way in asking fivepence for it. Friar
John then gave her the fivepence; and she no sooner turned her back but he
presently began to rip up the ticking of the feather-bed and bolster, and
threw all the feathers out at the window. In the meantime the old hag came
down and roared out for help, crying out murder to set all the
neighbourhood in an uproar. Yet she also fell to gathering the feathers
that flew up and down in the air, being scattered by the wind. Friar John
let her bawl on, and, without any further ado, marched off with the
blanket, quilt, and both the sheets, which he brought aboard undiscovered,
for the air was darkened with the feathers, as it uses sometimes to be with
snow. He gave them away to the sailors; then said to Pantagruel that beds
were much cheaper at that place than in Chinnonois, though we have there
the famous geese of Pautile; for the old beldam had asked him but fivepence
for a bed which in Chinnonois had been worth about twelve francs. (As soon
as Friar John and the rest of the company were embarked, Pantagruel set
sail. But there arose a south-east wind, which blew so vehemently they
lost their way, and in a manner going back to the country of the Furred
Law-cats, they entered into a huge gulf, where the sea ran so high and
terrible that the shipboy on the top of the mast cried out he again saw the
habitation of Gripe-men-all; upon which Panurge, frightened almost out of
his wits, roared out, Dear master, in spite of the wind and waves, change
your course, and turn the ship's head about. O my friend, let us come no
more into that cursed country where I left my purse. So the wind carried
them near an island, where however they did not dare at first to land, but
entered about a mile off. (Motteux omitted this passage altogether in the
edition of 1694. It was restored by Ozell in the edition of 1738. ))
Chapter 5. XVI.
How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or Ignoramuses, with
long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventures and monsters there.
As soon as we had cast anchor and had moored the ship, the pinnace was put
over the ship's side and manned by the coxswain's crew. When the good
Pantagruel had prayed publicly, and given thanks to the Lord that had
delivered him from so great a danger, he stepped into it with his whole
company to go on shore, which was no ways difficult to do, for, as the sea
was calm and the winds laid, they soon got to the cliffs. When they were
set on shore, Epistemon, who was admiring the situation of the place and
the strange shape of the rocks, discovered some of the natives. The first
he met had on a short purple gown, a doublet cut in panes, like a Spanish
leather jerkin, half sleeves of satin, and the upper part of them leather,
a coif like a black pot tipped with tin. He was a good likely sort of a
body, and his name, as we heard afterwards, was Double-fee. Epistemon
asked him how they called those strange craggy rocks and deep valleys. He
told them it was a colony brought out of Attorneyland, and called Process,
and that if we forded the river somewhat further beyond the rocks we should
come into the island of the Apedefers. By the memory of the decretals,
said Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on?
Could not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine? I can
see nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live on
nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come
through my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then? Do you
fleece 'em? Ay, ay, their purse, answered Double-fee; nothing else. By
the foot of Pharaoh, cried Panurge, the devil a sou will you get of me.
However, sweet sir, be so kind as to show an honest man the way to those
Apedefers, or ignorant people, for I come from the land of the learned,
where I did not learn over much.
Still talking on, they got to the island of the Apedefers, for they were
soon got over the ford. Pantagruel was not a little taken up with admiring
the structure and habitation of the people of the place. For they live in
a swingeing wine-press, fifty steps up to it. You must know there are some
of all sorts, little, great, private, middle-sized, and so forth. You go
through a large peristyle, alias a long entry set about with pillars, in
which you see, in a kind of landscape, the ruins of almost the whole world,
besides so many great robbers' gibbets, so many gallows and racks, that
'tis enough to fright you out of your seven senses. Double-fee perceiving
that Pantagruel was taken up with contemplating those things, Let us go
further, sir, said he to him; all this is nothing yet. Nothing, quotha,
cried Friar John; by the soul of my overheated codpiece, friend Panurge and
I here shake and quiver for mere hunger. I had rather be drinking than
staring at these ruins. Pray come along, sir, said Double-fee. He then
led us into a little wine-press that lay backwards in a blind corner, and
was called Pithies in the language of the country. You need not ask
whether Master John and Panurge made much of their sweet selves there; it
is enough that I tell you there was no want of Bolognia sausages, turkey
poots, capons, bustards, malmsey, and all other sorts of good belly-timber,
very well dressed.
A pimping son of ten fathers, who, for want of a better, did the office of
a butler, seeing that Friar John had cast a sheep's eye at a choice bottle
that stood near a cupboard by itself, at some distance from the rest of the
bottellic magazine, like a jack-in-an-office said to Pantagruel, Sir, I
perceive that one of your men here is making love to this bottle.
He ogles
it, and would fain caress it; but I beg that none offer to meddle with it;
for it is reserved for their worships. How, cried Panurge, there are some
grandees here then, I see. It is vintage time with you, I perceive.
Then Double-fee led us up to a private staircase, and showed us into a
room, whence, without being seen, out at a loophole we could see their
worships in the great wine-press, where none could be admitted without
their leave. Their worships, as he called them, were about a score of
fusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all posted before a
bar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs. Their paws were as
long as a crane's foot, and their claws four-and-twenty inches long at
least; for you must know they are enjoined never to pare off the least chip
of them, so that they grow as crooked as a Welsh hook or a hedging-bill.
We saw a swingeing bunch of grapes that are gathered and squeezed in that
country, brought in by them. As soon as it was laid down, they clapped it
into the press, and there was not a bit of it out of which each of them did
not squeeze some oil of gold; insomuch that the poor grape was tried with a
witness, and brought off so drained and picked, and so dry, that there was
not the least moisture, juice, or substance left in it; for they had
pressed out its very quintessence.
Double-fee told us they had not often such huge bunches; but, let the worst
come to the worst, they were sure never to be without others in their
press. But hark you me, master of mine, asked Panurge, have they not some
of different growth? Ay, marry have they, quoth Double-fee. Do you see
here this little bunch, to which they are going to give t'other wrench? It
is of tithe-growth, you must know; they crushed, wrung, squeezed and
strained out the very heart's blood of it but the other day; but it did not
bleed freely; the oil came hard, and smelt of the priest's chest; so that
they found there was not much good to be got out of it. Why then, said
Pantagruel, do they put it again into the press? Only, answered
Double-fee, for fear there should still lurk some juice among the husks and
hullings in the mother of the grape. The devil be damned! cried Friar
John; do you call these same folks illiterate lobcocks and duncical
doddipolls? May I be broiled like a red herring if I do not think they are
wise enough to skin a flint and draw oil out of a brick wall. So they are,
said Double-fee; for they sometimes put castles, parks, and forests into
the press, and out of them all extract aurum potabile. You mean portabile,
I suppose, cried Epistemon, such as may be borne. I mean as I said,
replied Double-fee, potabile, such as may be drunk; for it makes them drink
many a good bottle more than otherwise they should.
But I cannot better satisfy you as to the growth of the vine-tree sirup
that is here squeezed out of grapes, than in desiring you to look yonder in
that back-yard, where you will see above a thousand different growths that
lie waiting to be squeezed every moment. Here are some of the public and
some of the private growth; some of the builders' fortifications, loans,
gifts, and gratuities, escheats, forfeitures, fines, and recoveries, penal
statutes, crown lands, and demesne, privy purse, post-offices, offerings,
lordships of manors, and a world of other growths, for which we want names.
Pray, quoth Epistemon, tell me of what growth is that great one, with all
those little grapelings about it. Oh, oh! returned Double-fee, that plump
one is of the treasury, the very best growth in the whole country.
Whenever anyone of that growth is squeezed, there is not one of their
worships but gets juice enough of it to soak his nose six months together.
When their worships were up, Pantagruel desired Double-fee to take us into
that great wine-press, which he readily did. As soon as we were in,
Epistemon, who understood all sorts of tongues, began to show us many
devices on the press, which was large and fine, and made of the wood of the
cross--at least Double-fee told us so. On each part of it were names of
everything in the language of the country. The spindle of the press was
called receipt; the trough, cost and damages; the hole for the vice-pin,
state; the side-boards, money paid into the office; the great beam, respite
of homage; the branches, radietur; the side-beams, recuperetur; the fats,
ignoramus; the two-handled basket, the rolls; the treading-place,
acquittance; the dossers, validation; the panniers, authentic decrees; the
pailes, potentials; the funnels, quietus est.
By the Queen of the Chitterlings, quoth Panurge, all the hieroglyphics of
Egypt are mine a-- to this jargon. Why! here are a parcel of words full as
analogous as chalk and cheese, or a cat and a cart-wheel! But why,
prithee, dear Double-fee, do they call these worshipful dons of yours
ignorant fellows? Only, said Double-fee, because they neither are, nor
ought to be, clerks, and all must be ignorant as to what they transact
here; nor is there to be any other reason given, but, The court hath said
it; The court will have it so; The court has decreed it. Cop's body, quoth
Pantagruel, they might full as well have called 'em necessity; for
necessity has no law.
From thence, as he was leading us to see a thousand little puny presses, we
spied another paltry bar, about which sat four are five ignorant waspish
churls, of so testy, fuming a temper, (like an ass with squibs and crackers
tied to its tail,) and so ready to take pepper in the nose for yea and nay,
that a dog would not have lived with 'em. They were hard at it with the
lees and dregs of the grapes, which they gripped over and over again, might
and main, with their clenched fists. They were called contractors in the
language of the country. These are the ugliest, misshapen, grim-looking
scrubs, said Friar John, that ever were beheld, with or without spectacles.
Then we passed by an infinite number of little pimping wine-presses all
full of vintage-mongers, who were picking, examining, and raking the grapes
with some instruments called bills-of-charge.
Finally we came into a hall downstairs, where we saw an overgrown cursed
mangy cur with a pair of heads, a wolf's belly, and claws like the devil of
hell. The son of a bitch was fed with costs, for he lived on a
multiplicity of fine amonds and amerciaments by order of their worships, to
each of whom the monster was worth more than the best farm in the land. In
their tongue of ignorance they called him Twofold. His dam lay by him, and
her hair and shape was like her whelp's, only she had four heads, two male
and two female, and her name was Fourfold. She was certainly the most
cursed and dangerous creature of the place, except her grandam, which we
saw, and had been kept locked up in a dungeon time out of mind, and her
name was Refusing-of-fees.
Friar John, who had always twenty yards of gut ready empty to swallow a
gallimaufry of lawyers, began to be somewhat out of humour, and desired
Pantagruel to remember he had not dined, and bring Double-fee along with
him. So away we went, and as we marched out at the back-gate whom should
we meet but an old piece of mortality in chains. He was half ignorant and
half learned, like an hermaphrodite of Satan. The fellow was all
caparisoned with spectacles as a tortoise is with shells, and lived on
nothing but a sort of food which, in their gibberish, was called appeals.
Pantagruel asked Double-fee of what breed was that prothonotary, and what
name they gave him. Double-fee told us that time out of mind he had been
kept there in chains, to the great grief of their worships, who starved
him, and his name was Review. By the pope's sanctified two-pounders, cried
Friar John, I do not much wonder at the meagre cheer which this old chuff
finds among their worships. Do but look a little on the weather-beaten
scratch-toby, friend Panurge; by the sacred tip of my cowl, I'll lay five
pounds to a hazel-nut the foul thief has the very looks of Gripe-me-now.
These same fellows here, ignorant as they be, are as sharp and knowing as
other folk. But were it my case, I would send him packing with a squib in
his breech like a rogue as he is. By my oriental barnacles, quoth Panurge,
honest friar, thou art in the right; for if we but examine that treacherous
Review's ill-favoured phiz, we find that the filthy snudge is yet more
mischievous and ignorant than these ignorant wretches here, since they
(honest dunces) grapple and glean with as little harm and pother as they
can, without any long fiddle-cum-farts or tantalizing in the case; nor do
they dally and demur in your suit, but in two or three words, whip-stitch,
in a trice, they finish the vintage of the close, bating you all these
damned tedious interlocutories, examinations, and appointments which fret
to the heart's blood your furred law-cats.
Chapter 5. XVII.
How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.
We put to sea that very moment, steering our course forwards, and gave
Pantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck him
with compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to divert
himself during the voyage. When we were safe in the port we took some
refreshment, and took in fresh water and wood. The people of the place,
who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions, were all of
them forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat. And we saw some who
slashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the fat, that it might
swell out at the slits and gashes which they made; neither more nor less
than the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink and cut open their
breeches that the taffety on the inside may stand out and be puffed up.
They said that what they did was not out of pride or ostentation, but
because otherwise their skins would not hold them without much pain.
Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow much bigger, like the
young trees on whose barks the gardeners make incisions that they may grow
the better.
Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine and
stately. We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of the
forward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought some
notable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all that
throng were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all his
friends and relations to hasten thither.
We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that country by
that bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as we do in ours by
betrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching (of women), shearing
(of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home), and many other junketting
bouts that end in -ing. But we soon heard that there was no such matter in
hand.
The master of the house, you must know, had been a good fellow in his time,
loved heartily to wind up his bottom, to bang the pitcher, and lick his
dish. He used to be a very fair swallower of gravy soup, a notable
accountant in matter of hours, and his whole life was one continual dinner,
like mine host at Rouillac (in Perigord). But now, having farted out much
fat for ten years together, according to the custom of the country, he was
drawing towards his bursting hour; for neither the inner thin kell
wherewith the entrails are covered, nor his skin that had been jagged and
mangled so many years, were able to hold and enclose his guts any longer,
or hinder them from forcing their way out. Pray, quoth Panurge, is there
no remedy, no help for the poor man, good people? Why don't you swaddle
him round with good tight girths, or secure his natural tub with a strong
sorb-apple-tree hoop? Nay, why don't you iron-bind him, if needs be? This
would keep the man from flying out and bursting. The word was not yet out
of his mouth when we heard something give a loud report, as if a huge
sturdy oak had been split in two. Then some of the neighbours told us that
the bursting was over, and that the clap or crack which we heard was the
last fart, and so there was an end of mine host.
This made me call to mind a saying of the venerable abbot of Castilliers,
the very same who never cared to hump his chambermaids but when he was in
pontificalibus. That pious person, being much dunned, teased, and
importuned by his relations to resign his abbey in his old age, said and
professed that he would not strip till he was ready to go to bed, and that
the last fart which his reverend paternity was to utter should be the fart
of an abbot.
Chapter 5. XVIII.
How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people that were
subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte).
We weighed and set sail with a merry westerly gale. When about seven
leagues off (twenty-two miles) some gusts or scuds of wind suddenly arose,
and the wind veering and shifting from point to point, was, as they say,
like an old woman's breech, at no certainty; so we first got our starboard
tacks aboard, and hauled off our lee-sheets. Then the gusts increased, and
by fits blowed all at once from several quarters, yet we neither settled
nor braided up close our sails, but only let fly the sheets, not to go
against the master of the ship's direction; and thus having let go amain,
lest we should spend our topsails, or the ship's quick-side should lie in
the water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that is, in a
landloper's phrase, we temporized it. For he assured us that, as these
gusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could not do us
much harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as also the
clearness of the sky and calmness of the current. So that we were to
observe the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or go
according to the time.
However, these whirlwinds and gusts lasted so long that we persuaded the
master to let us go and lie at trie with our main course; that is, to haul
the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the bowline set up, and the helm tied
close aboard; so, after a stormy gale of wind, we broke through the
whirlwind. But it was like falling into Scylla to avoid Charybdis (out of
the frying-pan into the fire). For we had not sailed a league ere our
ships were stranded upon some sands such as are the flats of St. Maixent.
All our company seemed mightily disturbed except Friar John, who was not a
jot daunted, and with sweet sugar-plum words comforted now one and then
another, giving them hopes of speedy assistance from above, and telling
them that he had seen Castor at the main-yardarm. Oh! that I were but now
ashore, cried Panurge, that is all I wish for myself at present, and that
you who like the sea so well had each man of you two hundred thousand
crowns. I would fairly let you set up shop on these sands, and would get a
fat calf dressed and a hundred of faggots (i. e. bottles of wine) cooled for
you against you come ashore. I freely consent never to mount a wife, so
you but set me ashore and mount me on a horse, that I may go home. No
matter for a servant, I will be contented to serve myself; I am never
better treated than when I am without a man. Faith, old Plautus was in the
right on't when he said the more servants the more crosses; for such they
are, even supposing they could want what they all have but too much of, a
tongue, that most busy, dangerous, and pernicious member of servants.
Accordingly, 'twas for their sakes alone that the racks and tortures for
confession were invented, though some foreign civilians in our time have
drawn alogical and unreasonable consequences from it.
That very moment we spied a sail that made towards us. When it was close
by us, we soon knew what was the lading of the ship and who was aboard of
her. She was full freighted with drums. I was acquainted with many of the
passengers that came in her, who were most of 'em of good families; among
the rest Harry Cotiral, an old toast, who had got a swinging ass's
touch-tripe (penis) fastened to his waist, as the good women's beads are to their
girdle. In his left hand he held an old overgrown greasy foul cap, such as
your scald-pated fellows wear, and in the right a huge cabbage-stump.
As soon as he saw me he was overjoyed, and bawled out to me, What cheer,
ho? How dost like me now? Behold the true Algamana (this he said showing
me the ass's tickle-gizzard). This doctor's cap is my true elixir; and
this (continued he, shaking the cabbage-stump in his fist) is lunaria
major, you old noddy. I have 'em, old boy, I have 'em; we'll make 'em when
thou'rt come back. But pray, father, said I, whence come you? Whither are
you bound? What's your lading? Have you smelt the salt deep? To these
four questions he answered, From Queen Whims; for Touraine; alchemy; to the
very bottom.
Whom have you got o' board? said I. Said he, Astrologers, fortune-tellers,
alchemists, rhymers, poets, painters, projectors, mathematicians,
watchmakers, sing-songs, musicianers, and the devil and all of others that
are subject to Queen Whims (Motteux gives the following footnote:--'La
Quinte, This means a fantastic Humour, Maggots, or a foolish Giddiness of
Brains; and also, a fifth, or the Proportion of Five in music, &c. '). They
have very fair legible patents to show for't, as anybody may see. Panurge
had no sooner heard this but he was upon the high-rope, and began to rail
at them like mad. What o' devil d'ye mean, cried he, to sit idly here like
a pack of loitering sneaksbies, and see us stranded, while you may help us,
and tow us off into the current? A plague o' your whims! you can make all
things whatsoever, they say, so much as good weather and little children;
yet won't make haste to fasten some hawsers and cables, and get us off. I
was just coming to set you afloat, quoth Harry Cotiral; by Trismegistus,
I'll clear you in a trice. With this he caused 7,532,810 huge drums to be
unheaded on one side, and set that open side so that it faced the end of
the streamers and pendants; and having fastened them to good tacklings and
our ship's head to the stern of theirs, with cables fastened to the bits
abaft the manger in the ship's loof, they towed us off ground at one pull
so easily and pleasantly that you'd have wondered at it had you been there.
For the dub-a-dub rattling of the drums, with the soft noise of the gravel
which murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the
sailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when
they roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the
celestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.
We scorned to be behindhand with 'em in civility, and gratefully gave 'em
store of our sausages and chitterlings, with which we filled their drums;
and we were just a-hoisting two-and-sixty hogsheads of wine out of the
hold, when two huge whirlpools with great fury made towards their ship,
spouting more water than is in the river Vienne (Vigenne) from Chinon to
Saumur; to make short, all their drums, all their sails, their concerns,
and themselves were soused, and their very hose were watered by the collar.
Panurge was so overjoyed, seeing this, and laughed so heartily, that he was
forced to hold his sides, and it set him into a fit of the colic for two
hours and more. I had a mind, quoth he, to make the dogs drink, and those
honest whirlpools, egad, have saved me that labour and that cost. There's
sauce for them; ariston men udor. Water is good, saith a poet; let 'em
Pindarize upon't. They never cared for fresh water but to wash their hands
or their glasses. This good salt water will stand 'em in good stead for
want of sal ammoniac and nitre in Geber's kitchen.
We could not hold any further discourse with 'em; for the former whirlwind
hindered our ship from feeling the helm. The pilot advised us
henceforwards to let her run adrift and follow the stream, not busying
ourselves with anything, but making much of our carcasses. For our only
way to arrive safe at the queendom of Whims was to trust to the whirlwind
and be led by the current.
Chapter 5. XIX.
How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy.
We did as he directed us for about twelve hours, and on the third day the
sky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the port of
Mateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the Quintessence.
We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other military
men that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat frighted at first
because they made us all lay down our arms, and in a haughty manner asked
us whence we came.
Cousin, quoth Panurge to him that asked the question, we are of Touraine,
and come from France, being ambitious of paying our respects to the Lady
Quintessence and visit this famous realm of Entelechy.
What do you say? cried they; do you call it Entelechy or Endelechy? Truly,
truly, sweet cousins, quoth Panurge, we are a silly sort of grout-headed
lobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we chance to
knock words out of joint. As for anything else, we are downright honest
fellows and true hearts.
We have not asked you this question without a cause, said they; for a great
number of others who have passed this way from your country of Touraine
seemed as mere jolt-headed doddipolls as ever were scored o'er the coxcomb,
yet spoke as correct as other folks. But there has been here from other
countries a pack of I know not what overweening self-conceited prigs, as
moody as so many mules and as stout as any Scotch lairds, and nothing would
serve these, forsooth, but they must wilfully wrangle and stand out against
us at their coming; and much they got by it after all. Troth, we e'en
fitted them and clawed 'em off with a vengeance, for all they looked so big
and so grum.
Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that you
do not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently talking,
disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady? There was much need that
your Tully, the consul, should go and leave the care of his commonwealth to
busy himself idly about her; and after him your Diogenes Laertius, the
biographer, and your Theodorus Gaza, the philosopher, and your Argiropilus,
the emperor, and your Bessario, the cardinal, and your Politian, the
pedant, and your Budaeus, the judge, and your Lascaris, the ambassador, and
the devil and all of those you call lovers of wisdom; whose number, it
seems, was not thought great enough already, but lately your Scaliger,
Bigot, Chambrier, Francis Fleury, and I cannot tell how many such other
junior sneaking fly-blows must take upon 'em to increase it.
A squinsy gripe the cod's-headed changelings at the swallow and eke at the
cover-weasel; we shall make 'em--But the deuce take 'em! (They flatter the
devil here, and smoothify his name, quoth Panurge, between his teeth. ) You
don't come here, continued the captain, to uphold 'em in their folly; you
have no commission from 'em to this effect; well then, we will talk no more
on't.
Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, was
our sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the name
of Entelechy. Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in tail
beshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family, who
dares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her wrong, and
is a very impudent person. You are heartily welcome, gentlemen. With
this they colled and clipped us about the neck, which was no small comfort
to us, I'll assure you.
Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not been
somewhat afraid this bout? A little, said I. To tell you the truth of it,
quoth he, never were the Ephraimites in a greater fear and quandary when
the Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth instead of
shibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps there is not a
man in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have stopped my
bunghole with a cartload of hay.
The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silently
with great formality. Pantagruel would have said something to him, but the
other, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder or a
very long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereign
lady's will, we would be as tall as you; well, we shall when she pleases.
In the first galleries we saw great numbers of sick persons, differently
placed according to their maladies. The leprous were apart; those that
were poisoned on one side; those that had got the plague on another; those
that had the pox in the first rank, and the rest accordingly.
Chapter 5. XX.
How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song.
The captain showed us the queen, attended with her ladies and gentlemen, in
the second gallery. She looked young, though she was at least eighteen
hundred years old, and was handsome, slender, and as fine as a queen, that
is, as hands could make her. He then said to us: It is not yet a fit time
to speak to the queen; be you but mindful of her doings in the meanwhile.
You have kings in your world that fantastically pretend to cure some
certain diseases, as, for example, scrofula or wens, swelled throats,
nicknamed the king's evil, and quartan agues, only with a touch; now our
queen cures all manner of diseases without so much as touching the sick,
but barely with a song, according to the nature of the distemper. He then
showed us a set of organs, and said that when it was touched by her those
miraculous cures were performed. The organ was indeed the strangest that
ever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula in the cod; the top
and cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the pedas of turbith, and
the clavier or keys of scammony.
While we were examining this wonderful new make of an organ, the leprous
were brought in by her abstractors, spodizators, masticators, pregustics,
tabachins, chachanins, neemanins, rabrebans, nercins, rozuins, nebidins,
tearins, segamions, perarons, chasinins, sarins, soteins, aboth, enilins,
archasdarpenins, mebins, chabourins, and other officers, for whom I want
names; so she played 'em I don't know what sort of a tune or song, and they
were all immediately cured.
Then those who were poisoned were had in, and she had no sooner given them
a song but they began to find a use for their legs, and up they got. Then
came on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too were restored to
their lost faculties and senses with the same remedy; which did so
strangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that down we fell on
our faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in ecstasy, and were not
able to utter one word through the excess of our admiration, till she came,
and having touched Pantagruel with a fine fragrant nosegay of white roses
which she held in her hand, thus made us recover our senses and get up.
Then she made us the following speech in byssin words, such as Parisatis
desired should be spoken to her son Cyrus, or at least of crimson alamode:
The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my
ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues
latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds. For,
contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet reverences,
it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither your
affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation of
liberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that in you are
lodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable profundity of
knowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines, so frequently the
admiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the imperite vulgar. This
gently compels me, who in preceding times indefatigably kept my private
affections absolutely subjugated, to condescend to make my application to
you in the trivial phrase of the plebeian world, and assure you that you
are well, more than most heartily welcome.
I have no hand at making of speeches, quoth Panurge to me privately;
prithee, man, make answer to her for us, if thou canst. This would not
work with me, however; neither did Pantagruel return a word. So that Queen
Whims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving that we stood
as mute as fishes, said: Your taciturnity speaks you not only disciples of
Pythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my progenitors in
successive propagation was emaned and derives its original, but also
discovers, that through the revolution of many retrograde moons, you have
in Egypt pressed the extremities of your fingers with the hard tenants of
your mouths, and scalptized your heads with frequent applications of your
unguicules. In the school of Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol of
abstracted and superlative knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians was
agnited as an expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused the
pontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence,
impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design is
not to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious
formality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to
you my cogitations.
Having spoken this, she only said to her officers, Tabachins, a panacea;
and straight they desired us not to take it amiss if the queen did not
invite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but some
categories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins, chelemins,
second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses, transcendent
prolepsies, and such other light food.
Then they took us into a little closet lined through with alarums, where we
were treated God knows how. It is said that Jupiter writes whatever is
transacted in the world on the dipthera or skin of the Amalthaean goat that
suckled him in Crete, which pelt served him instead of a shield against the
Titans, whence he was nicknamed Aegiochos. Now, as I hate to drink water,
brother topers, I protest it would be impossible to make eighteen goatskins
hold the description of all the good meat they brought before us, though it
were written in characters as small as those in which were penned Homer's
Iliads, which Tully tells us he saw enclosed in a nutshell.
For my part, had I one hundred mouths, as many tongues, a voice of iron, a
heart of oak, and lungs of leather, together with the mellifluous abundance
of Plato, yet I never could give you a full account of a third part of a
second of the whole.
Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic
word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said
to her tabachins, A panacea; just as Lucullus used to say, In Apollo, when
he designed to give his friends a singular treat; though sometimes they
took him at unawares, as, among the rest, Cicero and Hortensius sometimes
used to do.
Chapter 5. XXI.
How the Queen passed her time after dinner.
When we had dined, a chachanin led us into the queen's hall, and there we
saw how, after dinner, with the ladies and the princes of her court, she
used to sift, searce, bolt, range, and pass away time with a fine large
white and blue silk sieve.
