Yes, yes,
answered
Grangousier.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
What is it that induceth you, what stirs you up to
believe, or who told you that white signifieth faith, and blue constancy?
An old paltry book, say you, sold by the hawking pedlars and balladmongers,
entitled The Blason of Colours. Who made it? Whoever it was, he was wise
in that he did not set his name to it. But, besides, I know not what I
should rather admire in him, his presumption or his sottishness. His
presumption and overweening, for that he should without reason, without
cause, or without any appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by his
private authority, what things should be denotated and signified by the
colour: which is the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bear
sway in stead of equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with the
evidence of reason satisfy their readers. His sottishness and want of
spirit, in that he thought that, without any other demonstration or
sufficient argument, the world would be pleased to make his blockish and
ridiculous impositions the rule of their devices. In effect, according to
the proverb, To a shitten tail fails never ordure, he hath found, it seems,
some simple ninny in those rude times of old, when the wearing of high
round bonnets was in fashion, who gave some trust to his writings,
according to which they carved and engraved their apophthegms and mottoes,
trapped and caparisoned their mules and sumpter-horses, apparelled their
pages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves, fringed the
curtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns, composed songs,
and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jugglings and unworthy base
tricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest matrons and most reverend
sciences. In the like darkness and mist of ignorance are wrapped up these
vain-glorious courtiers and name-transposers, who, going about in their
impresas to signify esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere--and
birds' pennes for pains--l'ancholie (which is the flower colombine) for
melancholy--a waning moon or crescent, to show the increasing or rising of
one's fortune--a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt--non and a
corslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabit, it shall not last), un
lit sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, a
graduated person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; which
are equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that a
fox's tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of a
cowsherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after the
restitution of learning, to make use of any such fopperies in France.
By the same reasons (if reasons I should call them, and not ravings rather,
and idle triflings about words), might I cause paint a pannier, to signify
that I am in pain--a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much for't--one
pissing upwards for a bishop--the bottom of a pair of breeches for a vessel
full of fart-hings--a codpiece for the office of the clerks of the
sentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English bears it, for
the tail of a codfish--and a dog's turd for the dainty turret wherein lies
the love of my sweetheart. Far otherwise did heretofore the sages of
Egypt, when they wrote by letters, which they called hieroglyphics, which
none understood who were not skilled in the virtue, property, and nature of
the things represented by them. Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greek
composed two books, and Polyphilus, in his Dream of Love, set down more.
In France you have a taste of them in the device or impresa of my Lord
Admiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus. But my
little skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no
further, therefore must I return to the port from whence I came. Yet do I
hope one day to write more at large of these things, and to show both by
philosophical arguments and authorities, received and approved of by and
from all antiquity, what, and how many colours there are in nature, and
what may be signified by every one of them, if God save the mould of my
cap, which is my best wine-pot, as my grandam said.
Chapter 1. X.
Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.
The white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness, and that not at
random, but upon just and very good grounds: which you may perceive to be
true, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give ear to
what presently I shall expound unto you.
Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as good
and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure and
pain, joy and grief,--and so of others,--if you couple them in such manner
that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the contrary of the
other, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary must answer to
the remanent opposite to that wherewith it is conferred. As, for example,
virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so are good and evil. If one of
the contraries of the first kind be consonant to one of those of the
second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue is good, so
shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice, have the same
connection, for vice is evil.
This logical rule being understood, take these two contraries, joy and
sadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are physically
contrary. If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by good reason then
should white import joy. Nor is this signification instituted by human
imposition, but by the universal consent of the world received, which
philosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an uncontrollable
right of force in all countries whatsoever. For you know well enough that
all people, and all languages and nations, except the ancient Syracusans
and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when they mean
outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and all mourning
is done with black. Which general consent is not without some argument and
reason in nature, the which every man may by himself very suddenly
comprehend, without the instruction of any--and this we call the law of
nature. By virtue of the same natural instinct we know that by white all
the world hath understood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight. In
former times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, and
fortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunate
ones with black. Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic? It is
black and dark by the privation of light. Doth not the light comfort all
the world? And it is more white than anything else. Which to prove, I
could direct you to the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but an
evangelical testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that,
at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut
lux, his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsome
whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure of
the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to the
word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, was
wont to say, Bona lux. And Tobit, chap. 5, after he had lost his sight,
when Raphael saluted him, answered, What joy can I have, that do not see
the light of Heaven? In that colour did the angels testify the joy of the
whole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20, and at his
ascension, Acts 1. With the like colour of vesture did St. John the
Evangelist, Apoc. 4. 7, see the faithful clothed in the heavenly and blessed
Jerusalem.
Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories, and you shall find that
the town of Alba (the first pattern of Rome) was founded and so named by
reason of a white sow that was seen there. You shall likewise find in
those stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished his enemies, was
by decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he usually rode in
a chariot drawn by white horses: which in the ovation triumph was also the
custom; for by no sign or colour would they so significantly express the
joy of their coming as by the white. You shall there also find, how
Pericles, the general of the Athenians, would needs have that part of his
army unto whose lot befell the white beans, to spend the whole day in
mirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were a-fighting. A thousand
other examples and places could I allege to this purpose, but that it is
not here where I should do it.
By understanding hereof, you may resolve one problem, which Alexander
Aphrodiseus hath accounted unanswerable: why the lion, who with his only
cry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth only a white cock?
For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the
presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of all
terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white
cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical
quality, than with a lion. He saith, furthermore, that devils have been
often seen in the shape of lions, which at the sight of a white cock have
presently vanished. This is the cause why Galli or Gallices (so are the
Frenchmen called, because they are naturally white as milk, which the
Greeks call Gala,) do willingly wear in their caps white feathers, for by
nature they are of a candid disposition, merry, kind, gracious, and
well-beloved, and for their cognizance and arms have the whitest flower
of any, the Flower de luce or Lily.
If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand joy and
gladness, I answer, that the analogy and uniformity is thus. For, as the
white doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the sight, whereby
the optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the opinion of
Aristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you may likewise
perceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered with snow, how
you will complain that you cannot see well; as Xenophon writes to have
happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth, lib. 10, de usu
partium: just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, and
suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so far
on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence
of life itself, by this perichary or extremity of gladness, as Galen saith,
lib. 12, method, lib. 5, de locis affectis, and lib. 2, de symptomatum
causis. And as it hath come to pass in former times, witness Marcus
Tullius, lib. 1, Quaest. Tuscul. , Verrius, Aristotle, Titus Livius, in his
relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32 and 34, A.
Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers,--to Diagoras the Rhodian,
Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, Philippides, Philemon,
Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others who died with joy. And as
Avicen speaketh, in 2 canon et lib. de virib. cordis, of the saffron, that
it doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of it excessively, it will
by a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it altogether of life.
Here peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. 1, Probl. , cap. 19, and that for a
cause. But what? It seems I am entered further into this point than I
intended at the first. Here, therefore, will I strike sail, referring the
rest to that book of mine which handleth this matter to the full.
Meanwhile, in a word I will tell you, that blue doth certainly signify
heaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and symbols that white
signifieth joy and pleasure.
Chapter 1. XI.
Of the youthful age of Gargantua.
Gargantua, from three years upwards unto five, was brought up and
instructed in all convenient discipline by the commandment of his father;
and spent that time like the other little children of the country, that is,
in drinking, eating, and sleeping: in eating, sleeping, and drinking: and
in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed and rolled up and
down himself in the mire and dirt--he blurred and sullied his nose with
filth--he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of scurvy stuff--he
trod down his shoes in the heel--at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and
ran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to his
father. He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his nose on
his sleeve--he did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage, and
dabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere--he would drink in his slipper,
and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier. He sharpened his teeth
with a top, washed his hands with his broth, and combed his head with a
bowl. He would sit down betwixt two stools, and his arse to the ground
--would cover himself with a wet sack, and drink in eating of his soup. He
did eat his cake sometimes without bread, would bite in laughing, and laugh
in biting. Oftentimes did he spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, piss
against the sun, and hide himself in the water for fear of rain. He would
strike out of the cold iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggle
it. He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep,
and turn the hogs to the hay. He would beat the dogs before the lion, put
the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pump
one to draw somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast nothing,
and always eat his white bread first. He shoed the geese, kept a
self-tickling to make himself laugh, and was very steadable in the kitchen:
made a mock at the gods, would cause sing Magnificat at matins, and found
it very convenient so to do. He would eat cabbage, and shite beets,--knew
flies in a dish of milk, and would make them lose their feet. He would
scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away as hard as he could. He would
pull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then reckon without his
host. He would beat the bushes without catching the birds, thought the
moon was made of green cheese, and that bladders are lanterns. Out of one
sack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass's
part to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet. He took the
cranes at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made link
after link. He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from the
cock to the ass, and put one ripe between two green. By robbing Peter he
paid Paul, he kept the moon from the wolves, and hoped to catch larks if
ever the heavens should fall. He did make of necessity virtue, of such
bread such pottage, and cared as little for the peeled as for the shaven.
Every morning he did cast up his gorge, and his father's little dogs eat
out of the dish with him, and he with them. He would bite their ears, and
they would scratch his nose--he would blow in their arses, and they would
lick his chaps.
But hearken, good fellows, the spigot ill betake you, and whirl round your
brains, if you do not give ear! This little lecher was always groping his
nurses and governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsyturvy, harri
bourriquet, with a Yacco haick, hyck gio! handling them very rudely in
jumbling and tumbling them to keep them going; for he had already begun to
exercise the tools, and put his codpiece in practice. Which codpiece, or
braguette, his governesses did every day deck up and adorn with fair
nosegays, curious rubies, sweet flowers, and fine silken tufts, and very
pleasantly would pass their time in taking you know what between their
fingers, and dandling it, till it did revive and creep up to the bulk and
stiffness of a suppository, or street magdaleon, which is a hard rolled-up
salve spread upon leather. Then did they burst out in laughing, when they
saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them would
call it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin,
her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her
membretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, her
female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for
ladies. And some of the other women would give it these names,--my
bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my pretty
borer, my coney-burrow-ferret, my little piercer, my augretine, my dangling
hangers, down right to it, stiff and stout, in and to, my pusher, dresser,
pouting stick, my honey pipe, my pretty pillicock, linky pinky, futilletie,
my lusty andouille, and crimson chitterling, my little couille bredouille,
my pretty rogue, and so forth. It belongs to me, said one. It is mine,
said the other. What, quoth a third, shall I have no share in it? By my
faith, I will cut it then. Ha, to cut it, said the other, would hurt him.
Madam, do you cut little children's things? Were his cut off, he would be
then Monsieur sans queue, the curtailed master. And that he might play and
sport himself after the manner of the other little children of the country,
they made him a fair weather whirl-jack of the wings of the windmill of
Myrebalais.
Chapter 1. XII.
Of Gargantua's wooden horses.
Afterwards, that he might be all his lifetime a good rider, they made to
him a fair great horse of wood, which he did make leap, curvet, jerk out
behind, and skip forward, all at a time: to pace, trot, rack, gallop,
amble, to play the hobby, the hackney-gelding: go the gait of the camel,
and of the wild ass. He made him also change his colour of hair, as the
monks of Coultibo (according to the variety of their holidays) use to do
their clothes, from bay brown, to sorrel, dapple-grey, mouse-dun,
deer-colour, roan, cow-colour, gingioline, skewed colour, piebald, and the
colour of the savage elk.
Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily
service of the beam of a vinepress: and of a great oak made up a mule,
with a footcloth, for his chamber. Besides this, he had ten or twelve
spare horses, and seven horses for post; and all these were lodged in his
own chamber, close by his bedside. One day the Lord of Breadinbag
(Painensac. ) came to visit his father in great bravery, and with a gallant
train: and, at the same time, to see him came likewise the Duke of
Freemeal (Francrepas. ) and the Earl of Wetgullet (Mouillevent. ). The house
truly for so many guests at once was somewhat narrow, but especially the
stables; whereupon the steward and harbinger of the said Lord Breadinbag,
to know if there were any other empty stable in the house, came to
Gargantua, a little young lad, and secretly asked him where the stables of
the great horses were, thinking that children would be ready to tell all.
Then he led them up along the stairs of the castle, passing by the second
hall unto a broad great gallery, by which they entered into a large tower,
and as they were going up at another pair of stairs, said the harbinger to
the steward, This child deceives us, for the stables are never on the top
of the house. You may be mistaken, said the steward, for I know some
places at Lyons, at the Basmette, at Chaisnon, and elsewhere, which have
their stables at the very tops of the houses: so it may be that behind the
house there is a way to come to this ascent. But I will question with him
further. Then said he to Gargantua, My pretty little boy, whither do you
lead us? To the stable, said he, of my great horses. We are almost come
to it; we have but these stairs to go up at. Then leading them alongst
another great hall, he brought them into his chamber, and, opening the
door, said unto them, This is the stable you ask for; this is my jennet;
this is my gelding; this is my courser, and this is my hackney, and laid on
them with a great lever. I will bestow upon you, said he, this Friesland
horse; I had him from Frankfort, yet will I give him you; for he is a
pretty little nag, and will go very well, with a tessel of goshawks, half a
dozen of spaniels, and a brace of greyhounds: thus are you king of the
hares and partridges for all this winter. By St. John, said they, now we
are paid, he hath gleeked us to some purpose, bobbed we are now for ever.
I deny it, said he,--he was not here above three days. Judge you now,
whether they had most cause, either to hide their heads for shame, or to
laugh at the jest. As they were going down again thus amazed, he asked
them, Will you have a whimwham (Aubeliere. )? What is that, said they? It
is, said he, five turds to make you a muzzle. To-day, said the steward,
though we happen to be roasted, we shall not be burnt, for we are pretty
well quipped and larded, in my opinion. O my jolly dapper boy, thou hast
given us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die. I think so, said
he, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay a
perfect papelard, that is, dissembler. Well, well, said the harbinger.
But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother's
smock. Sixteen, quoth the harbinger. You do not speak gospel, said
Gargantua, for there is cent before, and cent behind, and you did not
reckon them ill, considering the two under holes. When? said the
harbinger. Even then, said Gargantua, when they made a shovel of your nose
to take up a quarter of dirt, and of your throat a funnel, wherewith to put
it into another vessel, because the bottom of the old one was out.
Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater. Farewell, master
tattler, God keep you, so goodly are the words which you come out with, and
so fresh in your mouth, that it had need to be salted.
Thus going down in great haste, under the arch of the stairs they let fall
the great lever, which he had put upon their backs; whereupon Gargantua
said, What a devil! you are, it seems, but bad horsemen, that suffer your
bilder to fail you when you need him most. If you were to go from hence to
Cahusac, whether had you rather, ride on a gosling or lead a sow in a
leash? I had rather drink, said the harbinger. With this they entered
into the lower hall, where the company was, and relating to them this new
story, they made them laugh like a swarm of flies.
Chapter 1. XIII.
How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father
Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech.
About the end of the fifth year, Grangousier returning from the conquest of
the Canarians, went by the way to see his son Gargantua. There was he
filled with joy, as such a father might be at the sight of such a child of
his: and whilst he kissed and embraced him, he asked many childish
questions of him about divers matters, and drank very freely with him and
with his governesses, of whom in great earnest he asked, amongst other
things, whether they had been careful to keep him clean and sweet. To this
Gargantua answered, that he had taken such a course for that himself, that
in all the country there was not to be found a cleanlier boy than he. How
is that? said Grangousier. I have, answered Gargantua, by a long and
curious experience, found out a means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the
most excellent, and the most convenient that ever was seen. What is that?
said Grangousier, how is it? I will tell you by-and-by, said Gargantua.
Once I did wipe me with a gentle-woman's velvet mask, and found it to be
good; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my
fundament. Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that
was comfortable. At another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after that
I wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but there
was such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a pox
take them) that they fetched away all the skin of my tail with a vengeance.
Now I wish St. Antony's fire burn the bum-gut of the goldsmith that made
them, and of her that wore them! This hurt I cured by wiping myself with a
page's cap, garnished with a feather after the Switzers' fashion.
Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it I
wiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched and
exulcerated all my perinee. Of this I recovered the next morning
thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most excellent
perfume and scent of the Arabian Benin. After that I wiped me with sage,
with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with gourd-leaves, with
beets, with colewort, with leaves of the vine-tree, with mallows,
wool-blade, which is a tail-scarlet, with lettuce, and with spinach leaves.
All this did very great good to my leg. Then with mercury, with parsley,
with nettles, with comfrey, but that gave me the bloody flux of Lombardy,
which I healed by wiping me with my braguette. Then I wiped my tail in the
sheets, in the coverlet, in the curtains, with a cushion, with arras
hangings, with a green carpet, with a table-cloth, with a napkin, with a
handkerchief, with a combing-cloth; in all which I found more pleasure than
do the mangy dogs when you rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, which
torchecul did you find to be the best? I was coming to it, said Gargantua,
and by-and-by shall you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and
knot of the matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with
thatch-rushes, with flax, with wool, with paper, but,
Who his foul tail with paper wipes,
Shall at his ballocks leave some chips.
What, said Grangousier, my little rogue, hast thou been at the pot, that
thou dost rhyme already? Yes, yes, my lord the king, answered Gargantua, I
can rhyme gallantly, and rhyme till I become hoarse with rheum. Hark, what
our privy says to the skiters:
Shittard,
Squirtard,
Crackard,
Turdous,
Thy bung
Hath flung
Some dung
On us:
Filthard,
Cackard,
Stinkard,
St. Antony's fire seize on thy toane (bone? ),
If thy
Dirty
Dounby
Thou do not wipe, ere thou be gone.
Will you have any more of it?
Yes, yes, answered Grangousier. Then, said
Gargantua,
A Roundelay.
In shitting yes'day I did know
The sess I to my arse did owe:
The smell was such came from that slunk,
That I was with it all bestunk:
O had but then some brave Signor
Brought her to me I waited for,
In shitting!
I would have cleft her watergap,
And join'd it close to my flipflap,
Whilst she had with her fingers guarded
My foul nockandrow, all bemerded
In shitting.
Now say that I can do nothing! By the Merdi, they are not of my making,
but I heard them of this good old grandam, that you see here, and ever
since have retained them in the budget of my memory.
Let us return to our purpose, said Grangousier. What, said Gargantua, to
skite? No, said Grangousier, but to wipe our tail. But, said Gargantua,
will not you be content to pay a puncheon of Breton wine, if I do not blank
and gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus? Yes, truly, said
Grangousier.
There is no need of wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is foul;
foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we must
before we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, said
Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee very
shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, by
G--, for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in this
torcheculative, or wipe-bummatory discourse, and by my beard I swear, for
one puncheon, thou shalt have threescore pipes, I mean of the good Breton
wine, not that which grows in Britain, but in the good country of Verron.
Afterwards I wiped my bum, said Gargantua, with a kerchief, with a pillow,
with a pantoufle, with a pouch, with a pannier, but that was a wicked and
unpleasant torchecul; then with a hat. Of hats, note that some are shorn,
and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered with taffeties, and others
with satin. The best of all these is the shaggy hat, for it makes a very
neat abstersion of the fecal matter.
Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a
calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an
attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But,
to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps,
bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is
none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed,
if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine
honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful
pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the
temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut
and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of
the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and
demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel,
ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but in this,
according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the neck of a
goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of
Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.
Chapter 1. XIV.
How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister.
The good man Grangousier having heard this discourse, was ravished with
admiration, considering the high reach and marvellous understanding of his
son Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip, king of Macedon, knew
the great wit of his son Alexander by his skilful managing of a horse; for
his horse Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventure
to ride him, after that he had given to his riders such devilish falls,
breaking the neck of this man, the other man's leg, braining one, and
putting another out of his jawbone. This by Alexander being considered,
one day in the hippodrome (which was a place appointed for the breaking and
managing of great horses), he perceived that the fury of the horse
proceeded merely from the fear he had of his own shadow, whereupon getting
on his back, he run him against the sun, so that the shadow fell behind,
and by that means tamed the horse and brought him to his hand. Whereby his
father, knowing the divine judgment that was in him, caused him most
carefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highly
renowned above all the philosophers of Greece. After the same manner I
tell you, that by this only discourse, which now I have here had before you
with my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth participate of
some divinity, and that, if he be well taught, and have that education
which is fitting, he will attain to a supreme degree of wisdom. Therefore
will I commit him to some learned man, to have him indoctrinated according
to his capacity, and will spare no cost. Presently they appointed him a
great sophister-doctor, called Master Tubal Holofernes, who taught him his
ABC so well, that he could say it by heart backwards; and about this he was
five years and three months. Then read he to him Donat, Le Facet,
Theodolet, and Alanus in parabolis. About this he was thirteen years, six
months, and two weeks. But you must remark that in the mean time he did
learn to write in Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books--for
the art of printing was not then in use--and did ordinarily carry a great
pen and inkhorn, weighing about seven thousand quintals (that is, 700,000
pound weight), the penner whereof was as big and as long as the great
pillars of Enay, and the horn was hanging to it in great iron chains, it
being of the wideness of a tun of merchant ware. After that he read unto
him the book de modis significandi, with the commentaries of Hurtbise, of
Fasquin, of Tropdieux, of Gualhaut, of John Calf, of Billonio, of
Berlinguandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more than
eighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that, to try
masteries in school disputes with his condisciples, he would recite it by
heart backwards, and did sometimes prove on his finger-ends to his mother,
quod de modis significandi non erat scientia. Then did he read to him the
compost for knowing the age of the moon, the seasons of the year, and tides
of the sea, on which he spent sixteen years and two months, and that justly
at the time that his said preceptor died of the French pox, which was in
the year one thousand four hundred and twenty. Afterwards he got an old
coughing fellow to teach him, named Master Jobelin Bride, or muzzled dolt,
who read unto him Hugutio, Hebrard('s) Grecism, the Doctrinal, the Parts,
the Quid est, the Supplementum, Marmotretus, De moribus in mensa servandis,
Seneca de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus, Passavantus cum commento, and
Dormi secure for the holidays, and some other of such like mealy stuff, by
reading whereof he became as wise as any we ever since baked in an oven.
Chapter 1. XV.
How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters.
At the last his father perceived that indeed he studied hard, and that,
although he spent all his time in it, he did nevertheless profit nothing,
but which is worse, grew thereby foolish, simple, doted, and blockish,
whereof making a heavy regret to Don Philip of Marays, Viceroy or Depute
King of Papeligosse, he found that it were better for him to learn nothing
at all, than to be taught such-like books, under such schoolmasters;
because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness, and their wisdom but
blunt foppish toys, serving only to bastardize good and noble spirits, and
to corrupt all the flower of youth. That it is so, take, said he, any
young boy of this time who hath only studied two years,--if he have not a
better judgment, a better discourse, and that expressed in better terms
than your son, with a completer carriage and civility to all manner of
persons, account me for ever hereafter a very clounch and bacon-slicer of
Brene. This pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that it should
be done. At night at supper, the said Des Marays brought in a young page
of his, of Ville-gouges, called Eudemon, so neat, so trim, so handsome in
his apparel, so spruce, with his hair in so good order, and so sweet and
comely in his behaviour, that he had the resemblance of a little angel more
than of a human creature. Then he said to Grangousier, Do you see this
young boy? He is not as yet full twelve years old. Let us try, if it
please you, what difference there is betwixt the knowledge of the doting
Mateologians of old time and the young lads that are now. The trial
pleased Grangousier, and he commanded the page to begin. Then Eudemon,
asking leave of the vice-king his master so to do, with his cap in his
hand, a clear and open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes
steady, and his looks fixed upon Gargantua with a youthful modesty,
standing up straight on his feet, began very gracefully to commend him;
first, for his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge,
thirdly, for his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily accomplishments; and,
in the fifth place, most sweetly exhorted him to reverence his father with
all due observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up. In the
end he prayed him, that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst the
least of his servants; for other favour at that time desired he none of
heaven, but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service. All
this was by him delivered with such proper gestures, such distinct
pronunciation, so pleasant a delivery, in such exquisite fine terms, and so
good Latin, that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an Aemilius of the
time past, than a youth of this age. But all the countenance that
Gargantua kept was, that he fell to crying like a cow, and cast down his
face, hiding it with his cap, nor could they possibly draw one word from
him, no more than a fart from a dead ass. Whereat his father was so
grievously vexed that he would have killed Master Jobelin, but the said Des
Marays withheld him from it by fair persuasions, so that at length he
pacified his wrath. Then Grangousier commanded he should be paid his
wages, that they should whittle him up soundly, like a sophister, with good
drink, and then give him leave to go to all the devils in hell. At least,
said he, today shall it not cost his host much if by chance he should die
as drunk as a Switzer. Master Jobelin being gone out of the house,
Grangousier consulted with the Viceroy what schoolmaster they should choose
for him, and it was betwixt them resolved that Ponocrates, the tutor of
Eudemon, should have the charge, and that they should go altogether to
Paris, to know what was the study of the young men of France at that time.
Chapter 1. XVI.
How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rode
on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce.
In the same season Fayoles, the fourth King of Numidia, sent out of the
country of Africa to Grangousier the most hideously great mare that ever
was seen, and of the strangest form, for you know well enough how it is
said that Africa always is productive of some new thing. She was as big as
six elephants, and had her feet cloven into fingers, like Julius Caesar's
horse, with slouch-hanging ears, like the goats in Languedoc, and a little
horn on her buttock. She was of a burnt sorrel hue, with a little mixture
of dapple-grey spots, but above all she had a horrible tail; for it was
little more or less than every whit as great as the steeple-pillar of St.
Mark beside Langes: and squared as that is, with tuffs and ennicroches or
hair-plaits wrought within one another, no otherwise than as the beards are
upon the ears of corn.
If you wonder at this, wonder rather at the tails of the Scythian rams,
which weighed above thirty pounds each; and of the Surian sheep, who need,
if Tenaud say true, a little cart at their heels to bear up their tail, it
is so long and heavy. You female lechers in the plain countries have no
such tails. And she was brought by sea in three carricks and a brigantine
unto the harbour of Olone in Thalmondois. When Grangousier saw her, Here
is, said he, what is fit to carry my son to Paris. So now, in the name of
God, all will be well. He will in times coming be a great scholar. If it
were not, my masters, for the beasts, we should live like clerks. The next
morning--after they had drunk, you must understand--they took their
journey; Gargantua, his pedagogue Ponocrates, and his train, and with them
Eudemon, the young page. And because the weather was fair and temperate,
his father caused to be made for him a pair of dun boots,--Babin calls them
buskins. Thus did they merrily pass their time in travelling on their high
way, always making good cheer, and were very pleasant till they came a
little above Orleans, in which place there was a forest of five-and-thirty
leagues long, and seventeen in breadth, or thereabouts. This forest was
most horribly fertile and copious in dorflies, hornets, and wasps, so that
it was a very purgatory for the poor mares, asses, and horses. But
Gargantua's mare did avenge herself handsomely of all the outrages therein
committed upon beasts of her kind, and that by a trick whereof they had no
suspicion. For as soon as ever they were entered into the said forest, and
that the wasps had given the assault, she drew out and unsheathed her tail,
and therewith skirmishing, did so sweep them that she overthrew all the
wood alongst and athwart, here and there, this way and that way, longwise
and sidewise, over and under, and felled everywhere the wood with as much
ease as a mower doth the grass, in such sort that never since hath there
been there neither wood nor dorflies: for all the country was thereby
reduced to a plain champaign field. Which Gargantua took great pleasure to
behold, and said to his company no more but this: Je trouve beau ce (I
find this pretty); whereupon that country hath been ever since that time
called Beauce. But all the breakfast the mare got that day was but a
little yawning and gaping, in memory whereof the gentlemen of Beauce do as
yet to this day break their fast with gaping, which they find to be very
good, and do spit the better for it. At last they came to Paris, where
Gargantua refreshed himself two or three days, making very merry with his
folks, and inquiring what men of learning there were then in the city, and
what wine they drunk there.
Chapter 1. XVII.
How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away the
great bells of Our Lady's Church.
Some few days after that they had refreshed themselves, he went to see the
city, and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for the
people of Paris are so sottish, so badot, so foolish and fond by nature,
that a juggler, a carrier of indulgences, a sumpter-horse, or mule with
cymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross lane,
shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an evangelical
preacher. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to
rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At which place, seeing
so many about him, he said with a loud voice, I believe that these buzzards
will have me to pay them here my welcome hither, and my Proficiat. It is
but good reason. I will now give them their wine, but it shall be only in
sport. Then smiling, he untied his fair braguette, and drawing out his
mentul into the open air, he so bitterly all-to-bepissed them, that he
drowned two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen, besides
the women and little children. Some, nevertheless, of the company escaped
this piss-flood by mere speed of foot, who, when they were at the higher
end of the university, sweating, coughing, spitting, and out of breath,
they began to swear and curse, some in good hot earnest, and others in
jest. Carimari, carimara: golynoly, golynolo. By my sweet Sanctess, we
are washed in sport, a sport truly to laugh at;--in French, Par ris, for
which that city hath been ever since called Paris; whose name formerly was
Leucotia, as Strabo testifieth, lib. quarto, from the Greek word leukotes,
whiteness,--because of the white thighs of the ladies of that place. And
forasmuch as, at this imposition of a new name, all the people that were
there swore everyone by the Sancts of his parish, the Parisians, which are
patched up of all nations and all pieces of countries, are by nature both
good jurors and good jurists, and somewhat overweening; whereupon Joanninus
de Barrauco, libro de copiositate reverentiarum, thinks that they are
called Parisians from the Greek word parresia, which signifies boldness and
liberty in speech. This done, he considered the great bells, which were in
the said towers, and made them sound very harmoniously. Which whilst he
was doing, it came into his mind that they would serve very well for
tingling tantans and ringing campanels to hang about his mare's neck when
she should be sent back to his father, as he intended to do, loaded with
Brie cheese and fresh herring. And indeed he forthwith carried them to his
lodging. In the meanwhile there came a master beggar of the friars of St.
Anthony to demand in his canting way the usual benevolence of some hoggish
stuff, who, that he might be heard afar off, and to make the bacon he was
in quest of shake in the very chimneys, made account to filch them away
privily. Nevertheless, he left them behind very honestly, not for that
they were too hot, but that they were somewhat too heavy for his carriage.
This was not he of Bourg, for he was too good a friend of mine. All the
city was risen up in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight
occasion, so ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations
wonder at the patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice
restrain them from such tumultuous courses, seeing the manifold
inconveniences which thence arise from day to day. Would to God I knew the
shop wherein are forged these divisions and factious combinations, that I
might bring them to light in the confraternities of my parish! Believe for
a truth, that the place wherein the people gathered together, were thus
sulphured, hopurymated, moiled, and bepissed, was called Nesle, where then
was, but now is no more, the oracle of Leucotia. There was the case
proposed, and the inconvenience showed of the transporting of the bells.
After they had well ergoted pro and con, they concluded in baralipton, that
they should send the oldest and most sufficient of the faculty unto
Gargantua, to signify unto him the great and horrible prejudice they
sustain by the want of those bells. And notwithstanding the good reasons
given in by some of the university why this charge was fitter for an orator
than a sophister, there was chosen for this purpose our Master Janotus de
Bragmardo.
Chapter 1. XVIII.
How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells.
Master Janotus, with his hair cut round like a dish a la Caesarine, in his
most antique accoutrement liripipionated with a graduate's hood, and having
sufficiently antidoted his stomach with oven-marmalades, that is, bread and
holy water of the cellar, transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua,
driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragging after him five
or six artless masters, all thoroughly bedaggled with the mire of the
streets. At their entry Ponocrates met them, who was afraid, seeing them
so disguised, and thought they had been some masquers out of their wits,
which moved him to inquire of one of the said artless masters of the
company what this mummery meant. It was answered him, that they desired to
have their bells restored to them. As soon as Ponocrates heard that, he
ran in all haste to carry the news unto Gargantua, that he might be ready
to answer them, and speedily resolve what was to be done. Gargantua being
advertised hereof, called apart his schoolmaster Ponocrates, Philotimus,
steward of his house, Gymnastes, his esquire, and Eudemon, and very
summarily conferred with them, both of what he should do and what answer he
should give. They were all of opinion that they should bring them unto the
goblet-office, which is the buttery, and there make them drink like
roysters and line their jackets soundly. And that this cougher might not
be puffed up with vain-glory by thinking the bells were restored at his
request, they sent, whilst he was chopining and plying the pot, for the
mayor of the city, the rector of the faculty, and the vicar of the church,
unto whom they resolved to deliver the bells before the sophister had
propounded his commission. After that, in their hearing, he should
pronounce his gallant oration, which was done; and they being come, the
sophister was brought in full hall, and began as followeth, in coughing.
Chapter 1. XIX.
The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.
Hem, hem, gud-day, sirs, gud-day. Et vobis, my masters. It were but
reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of
them. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused good
money for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux in
Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific quality of the
elementary complexion, which is intronificated in the terrestreity of their
quidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists and whirlwinds upon
our vines, indeed not ours, but these round about us. For if we lose the
piot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both sense and law. If you
restore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by it six basketfuls of
sausages and a fine pair of breeches, which will do my legs a great deal of
good, or else they will not keep their promise to me. Ho by gob, Domine, a
pair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non abhorrebit eam. Ha, ha, a
pair of breeches is not so easily got; I have experience of it myself.
Consider, Domine, I have been these eighteen days in matagrabolizing this
brave speech. Reddite quae sunt Caesaris, Caesari, et quae sunt Dei, Deo.
Ibi jacet lepus. By my faith, Domine, if you will sup with me in cameris,
by cox body, charitatis, nos faciemus bonum cherubin. Ego occiditunum
porcum, et ego habet bonum vino: but of good wine we cannot make bad
Latin. Well, de parte Dei date nobis bellas nostras. Hold, I give you in
the name of the faculty a Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give us
our bells. Vultis etiam pardonos? Per diem vos habebitis, et nihil
payabitis. O, sir, Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily, est bonum vobis.
They are useful to everybody. If they fit your mare well, so do they do
our faculty; quae comparata est jumentis insipientibus, et similis facta
est eis, Psalmo nescio quo. Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et est
unum bonum Achilles, a good defending argument. Hem, hem, hem, haikhash!
For I prove unto you, that you should give me them. Ego sic argumentor.
Omnis bella bellabilis in bellerio bellando, bellans, bellativo, bellare
facit, bellabiliter bellantes. Parisius habet bellas. Ergo gluc, Ha, ha,
ha. This is spoken to some purpose. It is in tertio primae, in Darii, or
elsewhere. By my soul, I have seen the time that I could play the devil in
arguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward want nothing but a cup
of good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire, my belly to the table, and a
good deep dish. Hei, Domine, I beseech you, in nomine Patris, Filii, et
Spiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us our bells: and God keep you from
evil, and our Lady from health, qui vivit et regnat per omnia secula
seculorum, Amen. Hem, hashchehhawksash, qzrchremhemhash.
Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio procul. Edepol, quoniam, ita certe,
medius fidius; a town without bells is like a blind man without a staff, an
ass without a crupper, and a cow without cymbals. Therefore be assured,
until you have restored them unto us, we will never leave crying after you,
like a blind man that hath lost his staff, braying like an ass without a
crupper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals. A certain
latinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said since, producing the
authority of one Taponnus,--I lie, it was one Pontanus the secular poet,
--who wished those bells had been made of feathers, and the clapper of a
foxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the bowels of his
brain, when he was about the composing of his carminiformal lines. But nac
petetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot kipipur kipipot put pantse
malf, he was declared an heretic. We make them as of wax. And no more
saith the deponent. Valete et plaudite. Calepinus recensui.
Chapter 1. XX.
How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law
against the other masters.
The sophister had no sooner ended, but Ponocrates and Eudemon burst out in
a laughing so heartily, that they had almost split with it, and given up
the ghost, in rendering their souls to God: even just as Crassus did,
seeing a lubberly ass eat thistles; and as Philemon, who, for seeing an ass
eat those figs which were provided for his own dinner, died with force of
laughing. Together with them Master Janotus fell a-laughing too as fast as
he could, in which mood of laughing they continued so long, that their eyes
did water by the vehement concussion of the substance of the brain, by
which these lachrymal humidities, being pressed out, glided through the
optic nerves, and so to the full represented Democritus Heraclitizing and
Heraclitus Democritizing.
When they had done laughing, Gargantua consulted with the prime of his
retinue what should be done. There Ponocrates was of opinion that they
should make this fair orator drink again; and seeing he had showed them
more pastime, and made them laugh more than a natural soul could have done,
that they should give him ten baskets full of sausages, mentioned in his
pleasant speech, with a pair of hose, three hundred great billets of
logwood, five-and-twenty hogsheads of wine, a good large down-bed, and a
deep capacious dish, which he said were necessary for his old age. All
this was done as they did appoint: only Gargantua, doubting that they
could not quickly find out breeches fit for his wearing, because he knew
not what fashion would best become the said orator, whether the martingale
fashion of breeches, wherein is a spunghole with a drawbridge for the more
easy caguing: or the fashion of the mariners, for the greater solace and
comfort of his kidneys: or that of the Switzers, which keeps warm the
bedondaine or belly-tabret: or round breeches with straight cannions,
having in the seat a piece like a cod's tail, for fear of over-heating his
reins:--all which considered, he caused to be given him seven ells of white
cloth for the linings. The wood was carried by the porters, the masters of
arts carried the sausages and the dishes, and Master Janotus himself would
carry the cloth. One of the said masters, called Jousse Bandouille, showed
him that it was not seemly nor decent for one of his condition to do so,
and that therefore he should deliver it to one of them. Ha, said Janotus,
baudet, baudet, or blockhead, blockhead, thou dost not conclude in modo et
figura. For lo, to this end serve the suppositions and parva logicalia.
Pannus, pro quo supponit? Confuse, said Bandouille, et distributive. I do
not ask thee, said Janotus, blockhead, quomodo supponit, but pro quo? It
is, blockhead, pro tibiis meis, and therefore I will carry it, Egomet,
sicut suppositum portat appositum. So did he carry it away very close and
covertly, as Patelin the buffoon did his cloth. The best was, that when
this cougher, in a full act or assembly held at the Mathurins, had with
great confidence required his breeches and sausages, and that they were
flatly denied him, because he had them of Gargantua, according to the
informations thereupon made, he showed them that this was gratis, and out
of his liberality, by which they were not in any sort quit of their
promises. Notwithstanding this, it was answered him that he should be
content with reason, without expectation of any other bribe there. Reason?
said Janotus. We use none of it here. Unlucky traitors, you are not worth
the hanging. The earth beareth not more arrant villains than you are. I
know it well enough; halt not before the lame. I have practised wickedness
with you. By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abuses
that are forged here and carried underhand by you, and let me be a leper,
if he do not burn you alive like sodomites, traitors, heretics and
seducers, enemies to God and virtue.
Upon these words they framed articles against him: he on the other side
warned them to appear. In sum, the process was retained by the court, and
is there as yet. Hereupon the magisters made a vow never to decrott
themselves in rubbing off the dirt of either their shoes or clothes:
Master Janotus with his adherents vowed never to blow or snuff their noses,
until judgment were given by a definitive sentence.
By these vows do they continue unto this time both dirty and snotty; for
the court hath not garbled, sifted, and fully looked into all the pieces as
yet. The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the next
Greek kalends, that is, never. As you know that they do more than nature,
and contrary to their own articles. The articles of Paris maintain that to
God alone belongs infinity, and nature produceth nothing that is immortal;
for she putteth an end and period to all things by her engendered,
according to the saying, Omnia orta cadunt, &c. But these thick
mist-swallowers make the suits in law depending before them both infinite
and immortal. In doing whereof, they have given occasion to, and verified
the saying of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, consecrated to the oracle at Delphos,
that misery is the inseparable companion of law-debates; and that pleaders
are miserable; for sooner shall they attain to the end of their lives, than
to the final decision of their pretended rights.
Chapter 1. XXI.
The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmasters
the Sophisters.
believe, or who told you that white signifieth faith, and blue constancy?
An old paltry book, say you, sold by the hawking pedlars and balladmongers,
entitled The Blason of Colours. Who made it? Whoever it was, he was wise
in that he did not set his name to it. But, besides, I know not what I
should rather admire in him, his presumption or his sottishness. His
presumption and overweening, for that he should without reason, without
cause, or without any appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by his
private authority, what things should be denotated and signified by the
colour: which is the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bear
sway in stead of equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with the
evidence of reason satisfy their readers. His sottishness and want of
spirit, in that he thought that, without any other demonstration or
sufficient argument, the world would be pleased to make his blockish and
ridiculous impositions the rule of their devices. In effect, according to
the proverb, To a shitten tail fails never ordure, he hath found, it seems,
some simple ninny in those rude times of old, when the wearing of high
round bonnets was in fashion, who gave some trust to his writings,
according to which they carved and engraved their apophthegms and mottoes,
trapped and caparisoned their mules and sumpter-horses, apparelled their
pages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves, fringed the
curtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns, composed songs,
and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jugglings and unworthy base
tricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest matrons and most reverend
sciences. In the like darkness and mist of ignorance are wrapped up these
vain-glorious courtiers and name-transposers, who, going about in their
impresas to signify esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere--and
birds' pennes for pains--l'ancholie (which is the flower colombine) for
melancholy--a waning moon or crescent, to show the increasing or rising of
one's fortune--a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt--non and a
corslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabit, it shall not last), un
lit sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, a
graduated person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; which
are equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that a
fox's tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of a
cowsherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after the
restitution of learning, to make use of any such fopperies in France.
By the same reasons (if reasons I should call them, and not ravings rather,
and idle triflings about words), might I cause paint a pannier, to signify
that I am in pain--a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much for't--one
pissing upwards for a bishop--the bottom of a pair of breeches for a vessel
full of fart-hings--a codpiece for the office of the clerks of the
sentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English bears it, for
the tail of a codfish--and a dog's turd for the dainty turret wherein lies
the love of my sweetheart. Far otherwise did heretofore the sages of
Egypt, when they wrote by letters, which they called hieroglyphics, which
none understood who were not skilled in the virtue, property, and nature of
the things represented by them. Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greek
composed two books, and Polyphilus, in his Dream of Love, set down more.
In France you have a taste of them in the device or impresa of my Lord
Admiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus. But my
little skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no
further, therefore must I return to the port from whence I came. Yet do I
hope one day to write more at large of these things, and to show both by
philosophical arguments and authorities, received and approved of by and
from all antiquity, what, and how many colours there are in nature, and
what may be signified by every one of them, if God save the mould of my
cap, which is my best wine-pot, as my grandam said.
Chapter 1. X.
Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.
The white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness, and that not at
random, but upon just and very good grounds: which you may perceive to be
true, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give ear to
what presently I shall expound unto you.
Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as good
and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure and
pain, joy and grief,--and so of others,--if you couple them in such manner
that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the contrary of the
other, it must follow by consequence that the other contrary must answer to
the remanent opposite to that wherewith it is conferred. As, for example,
virtue and vice are contrary in one kind, so are good and evil. If one of
the contraries of the first kind be consonant to one of those of the
second, as virtue and goodness, for it is clear that virtue is good, so
shall the other two contraries, which are evil and vice, have the same
connection, for vice is evil.
This logical rule being understood, take these two contraries, joy and
sadness; then these other two, white and black, for they are physically
contrary. If so be, then, that black do signify grief, by good reason then
should white import joy. Nor is this signification instituted by human
imposition, but by the universal consent of the world received, which
philosophers call Jus Gentium, the Law of Nations, or an uncontrollable
right of force in all countries whatsoever. For you know well enough that
all people, and all languages and nations, except the ancient Syracusans
and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when they mean
outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and all mourning
is done with black. Which general consent is not without some argument and
reason in nature, the which every man may by himself very suddenly
comprehend, without the instruction of any--and this we call the law of
nature. By virtue of the same natural instinct we know that by white all
the world hath understood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight. In
former times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, and
fortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunate
ones with black. Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic? It is
black and dark by the privation of light. Doth not the light comfort all
the world? And it is more white than anything else. Which to prove, I
could direct you to the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but an
evangelical testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that,
at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut
lux, his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsome
whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure of
the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to the
word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, was
wont to say, Bona lux. And Tobit, chap. 5, after he had lost his sight,
when Raphael saluted him, answered, What joy can I have, that do not see
the light of Heaven? In that colour did the angels testify the joy of the
whole world at the resurrection of our Saviour, John 20, and at his
ascension, Acts 1. With the like colour of vesture did St. John the
Evangelist, Apoc. 4. 7, see the faithful clothed in the heavenly and blessed
Jerusalem.
Read the ancient, both Greek and Latin histories, and you shall find that
the town of Alba (the first pattern of Rome) was founded and so named by
reason of a white sow that was seen there. You shall likewise find in
those stories, that when any man, after he had vanquished his enemies, was
by decree of the senate to enter into Rome triumphantly, he usually rode in
a chariot drawn by white horses: which in the ovation triumph was also the
custom; for by no sign or colour would they so significantly express the
joy of their coming as by the white. You shall there also find, how
Pericles, the general of the Athenians, would needs have that part of his
army unto whose lot befell the white beans, to spend the whole day in
mirth, pleasure, and ease, whilst the rest were a-fighting. A thousand
other examples and places could I allege to this purpose, but that it is
not here where I should do it.
By understanding hereof, you may resolve one problem, which Alexander
Aphrodiseus hath accounted unanswerable: why the lion, who with his only
cry and roaring affrights all beasts, dreads and feareth only a white cock?
For, as Proclus saith, Libro de Sacrificio et Magia, it is because the
presence of the virtue of the sun, which is the organ and promptuary of all
terrestrial and sidereal light, doth more symbolize and agree with a white
cock, as well in regard of that colour, as of his property and specifical
quality, than with a lion. He saith, furthermore, that devils have been
often seen in the shape of lions, which at the sight of a white cock have
presently vanished. This is the cause why Galli or Gallices (so are the
Frenchmen called, because they are naturally white as milk, which the
Greeks call Gala,) do willingly wear in their caps white feathers, for by
nature they are of a candid disposition, merry, kind, gracious, and
well-beloved, and for their cognizance and arms have the whitest flower
of any, the Flower de luce or Lily.
If you demand how, by white, nature would have us understand joy and
gladness, I answer, that the analogy and uniformity is thus. For, as the
white doth outwardly disperse and scatter the rays of the sight, whereby
the optic spirits are manifestly dissolved, according to the opinion of
Aristotle in his problems and perspective treatises; as you may likewise
perceive by experience, when you pass over mountains covered with snow, how
you will complain that you cannot see well; as Xenophon writes to have
happened to his men, and as Galen very largely declareth, lib. 10, de usu
partium: just so the heart with excessive joy is inwardly dilated, and
suffereth a manifest resolution of the vital spirits, which may go so far
on that it may thereby be deprived of its nourishment, and by consequence
of life itself, by this perichary or extremity of gladness, as Galen saith,
lib. 12, method, lib. 5, de locis affectis, and lib. 2, de symptomatum
causis. And as it hath come to pass in former times, witness Marcus
Tullius, lib. 1, Quaest. Tuscul. , Verrius, Aristotle, Titus Livius, in his
relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32 and 34, A.
Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers,--to Diagoras the Rhodian,
Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, Philippides, Philemon,
Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others who died with joy. And as
Avicen speaketh, in 2 canon et lib. de virib. cordis, of the saffron, that
it doth so rejoice the heart that, if you take of it excessively, it will
by a superfluous resolution and dilation deprive it altogether of life.
Here peruse Alex. Aphrodiseus, lib. 1, Probl. , cap. 19, and that for a
cause. But what? It seems I am entered further into this point than I
intended at the first. Here, therefore, will I strike sail, referring the
rest to that book of mine which handleth this matter to the full.
Meanwhile, in a word I will tell you, that blue doth certainly signify
heaven and heavenly things, by the same very tokens and symbols that white
signifieth joy and pleasure.
Chapter 1. XI.
Of the youthful age of Gargantua.
Gargantua, from three years upwards unto five, was brought up and
instructed in all convenient discipline by the commandment of his father;
and spent that time like the other little children of the country, that is,
in drinking, eating, and sleeping: in eating, sleeping, and drinking: and
in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed and rolled up and
down himself in the mire and dirt--he blurred and sullied his nose with
filth--he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of scurvy stuff--he
trod down his shoes in the heel--at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and
ran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to his
father. He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his nose on
his sleeve--he did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage, and
dabbled, paddled, and slobbered everywhere--he would drink in his slipper,
and ordinarily rub his belly against a pannier. He sharpened his teeth
with a top, washed his hands with his broth, and combed his head with a
bowl. He would sit down betwixt two stools, and his arse to the ground
--would cover himself with a wet sack, and drink in eating of his soup. He
did eat his cake sometimes without bread, would bite in laughing, and laugh
in biting. Oftentimes did he spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, piss
against the sun, and hide himself in the water for fear of rain. He would
strike out of the cold iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggle
it. He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep,
and turn the hogs to the hay. He would beat the dogs before the lion, put
the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pump
one to draw somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast nothing,
and always eat his white bread first. He shoed the geese, kept a
self-tickling to make himself laugh, and was very steadable in the kitchen:
made a mock at the gods, would cause sing Magnificat at matins, and found
it very convenient so to do. He would eat cabbage, and shite beets,--knew
flies in a dish of milk, and would make them lose their feet. He would
scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away as hard as he could. He would
pull at the kid's leather, or vomit up his dinner, then reckon without his
host. He would beat the bushes without catching the birds, thought the
moon was made of green cheese, and that bladders are lanterns. Out of one
sack he would take two moultures or fees for grinding; would act the ass's
part to get some bran, and of his fist would make a mallet. He took the
cranes at the first leap, and would have the mail-coats to be made link
after link. He always looked a given horse in the mouth, leaped from the
cock to the ass, and put one ripe between two green. By robbing Peter he
paid Paul, he kept the moon from the wolves, and hoped to catch larks if
ever the heavens should fall. He did make of necessity virtue, of such
bread such pottage, and cared as little for the peeled as for the shaven.
Every morning he did cast up his gorge, and his father's little dogs eat
out of the dish with him, and he with them. He would bite their ears, and
they would scratch his nose--he would blow in their arses, and they would
lick his chaps.
But hearken, good fellows, the spigot ill betake you, and whirl round your
brains, if you do not give ear! This little lecher was always groping his
nurses and governesses, upside down, arsiversy, topsyturvy, harri
bourriquet, with a Yacco haick, hyck gio! handling them very rudely in
jumbling and tumbling them to keep them going; for he had already begun to
exercise the tools, and put his codpiece in practice. Which codpiece, or
braguette, his governesses did every day deck up and adorn with fair
nosegays, curious rubies, sweet flowers, and fine silken tufts, and very
pleasantly would pass their time in taking you know what between their
fingers, and dandling it, till it did revive and creep up to the bulk and
stiffness of a suppository, or street magdaleon, which is a hard rolled-up
salve spread upon leather. Then did they burst out in laughing, when they
saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them would
call it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin,
her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her
membretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, her
female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for
ladies. And some of the other women would give it these names,--my
bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my pretty
borer, my coney-burrow-ferret, my little piercer, my augretine, my dangling
hangers, down right to it, stiff and stout, in and to, my pusher, dresser,
pouting stick, my honey pipe, my pretty pillicock, linky pinky, futilletie,
my lusty andouille, and crimson chitterling, my little couille bredouille,
my pretty rogue, and so forth. It belongs to me, said one. It is mine,
said the other. What, quoth a third, shall I have no share in it? By my
faith, I will cut it then. Ha, to cut it, said the other, would hurt him.
Madam, do you cut little children's things? Were his cut off, he would be
then Monsieur sans queue, the curtailed master. And that he might play and
sport himself after the manner of the other little children of the country,
they made him a fair weather whirl-jack of the wings of the windmill of
Myrebalais.
Chapter 1. XII.
Of Gargantua's wooden horses.
Afterwards, that he might be all his lifetime a good rider, they made to
him a fair great horse of wood, which he did make leap, curvet, jerk out
behind, and skip forward, all at a time: to pace, trot, rack, gallop,
amble, to play the hobby, the hackney-gelding: go the gait of the camel,
and of the wild ass. He made him also change his colour of hair, as the
monks of Coultibo (according to the variety of their holidays) use to do
their clothes, from bay brown, to sorrel, dapple-grey, mouse-dun,
deer-colour, roan, cow-colour, gingioline, skewed colour, piebald, and the
colour of the savage elk.
Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and another for daily
service of the beam of a vinepress: and of a great oak made up a mule,
with a footcloth, for his chamber. Besides this, he had ten or twelve
spare horses, and seven horses for post; and all these were lodged in his
own chamber, close by his bedside. One day the Lord of Breadinbag
(Painensac. ) came to visit his father in great bravery, and with a gallant
train: and, at the same time, to see him came likewise the Duke of
Freemeal (Francrepas. ) and the Earl of Wetgullet (Mouillevent. ). The house
truly for so many guests at once was somewhat narrow, but especially the
stables; whereupon the steward and harbinger of the said Lord Breadinbag,
to know if there were any other empty stable in the house, came to
Gargantua, a little young lad, and secretly asked him where the stables of
the great horses were, thinking that children would be ready to tell all.
Then he led them up along the stairs of the castle, passing by the second
hall unto a broad great gallery, by which they entered into a large tower,
and as they were going up at another pair of stairs, said the harbinger to
the steward, This child deceives us, for the stables are never on the top
of the house. You may be mistaken, said the steward, for I know some
places at Lyons, at the Basmette, at Chaisnon, and elsewhere, which have
their stables at the very tops of the houses: so it may be that behind the
house there is a way to come to this ascent. But I will question with him
further. Then said he to Gargantua, My pretty little boy, whither do you
lead us? To the stable, said he, of my great horses. We are almost come
to it; we have but these stairs to go up at. Then leading them alongst
another great hall, he brought them into his chamber, and, opening the
door, said unto them, This is the stable you ask for; this is my jennet;
this is my gelding; this is my courser, and this is my hackney, and laid on
them with a great lever. I will bestow upon you, said he, this Friesland
horse; I had him from Frankfort, yet will I give him you; for he is a
pretty little nag, and will go very well, with a tessel of goshawks, half a
dozen of spaniels, and a brace of greyhounds: thus are you king of the
hares and partridges for all this winter. By St. John, said they, now we
are paid, he hath gleeked us to some purpose, bobbed we are now for ever.
I deny it, said he,--he was not here above three days. Judge you now,
whether they had most cause, either to hide their heads for shame, or to
laugh at the jest. As they were going down again thus amazed, he asked
them, Will you have a whimwham (Aubeliere. )? What is that, said they? It
is, said he, five turds to make you a muzzle. To-day, said the steward,
though we happen to be roasted, we shall not be burnt, for we are pretty
well quipped and larded, in my opinion. O my jolly dapper boy, thou hast
given us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die. I think so, said
he, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay a
perfect papelard, that is, dissembler. Well, well, said the harbinger.
But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother's
smock. Sixteen, quoth the harbinger. You do not speak gospel, said
Gargantua, for there is cent before, and cent behind, and you did not
reckon them ill, considering the two under holes. When? said the
harbinger. Even then, said Gargantua, when they made a shovel of your nose
to take up a quarter of dirt, and of your throat a funnel, wherewith to put
it into another vessel, because the bottom of the old one was out.
Cocksbod, said the steward, we have met with a prater. Farewell, master
tattler, God keep you, so goodly are the words which you come out with, and
so fresh in your mouth, that it had need to be salted.
Thus going down in great haste, under the arch of the stairs they let fall
the great lever, which he had put upon their backs; whereupon Gargantua
said, What a devil! you are, it seems, but bad horsemen, that suffer your
bilder to fail you when you need him most. If you were to go from hence to
Cahusac, whether had you rather, ride on a gosling or lead a sow in a
leash? I had rather drink, said the harbinger. With this they entered
into the lower hall, where the company was, and relating to them this new
story, they made them laugh like a swarm of flies.
Chapter 1. XIII.
How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father
Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech.
About the end of the fifth year, Grangousier returning from the conquest of
the Canarians, went by the way to see his son Gargantua. There was he
filled with joy, as such a father might be at the sight of such a child of
his: and whilst he kissed and embraced him, he asked many childish
questions of him about divers matters, and drank very freely with him and
with his governesses, of whom in great earnest he asked, amongst other
things, whether they had been careful to keep him clean and sweet. To this
Gargantua answered, that he had taken such a course for that himself, that
in all the country there was not to be found a cleanlier boy than he. How
is that? said Grangousier. I have, answered Gargantua, by a long and
curious experience, found out a means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the
most excellent, and the most convenient that ever was seen. What is that?
said Grangousier, how is it? I will tell you by-and-by, said Gargantua.
Once I did wipe me with a gentle-woman's velvet mask, and found it to be
good; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my
fundament. Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that
was comfortable. At another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after that
I wiped me with some ear-pieces of hers made of crimson satin, but there
was such a number of golden spangles in them (turdy round things, a pox
take them) that they fetched away all the skin of my tail with a vengeance.
Now I wish St. Antony's fire burn the bum-gut of the goldsmith that made
them, and of her that wore them! This hurt I cured by wiping myself with a
page's cap, garnished with a feather after the Switzers' fashion.
Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it I
wiped my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they scratched and
exulcerated all my perinee. Of this I recovered the next morning
thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most excellent
perfume and scent of the Arabian Benin. After that I wiped me with sage,
with fennel, with anet, with marjoram, with roses, with gourd-leaves, with
beets, with colewort, with leaves of the vine-tree, with mallows,
wool-blade, which is a tail-scarlet, with lettuce, and with spinach leaves.
All this did very great good to my leg. Then with mercury, with parsley,
with nettles, with comfrey, but that gave me the bloody flux of Lombardy,
which I healed by wiping me with my braguette. Then I wiped my tail in the
sheets, in the coverlet, in the curtains, with a cushion, with arras
hangings, with a green carpet, with a table-cloth, with a napkin, with a
handkerchief, with a combing-cloth; in all which I found more pleasure than
do the mangy dogs when you rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, which
torchecul did you find to be the best? I was coming to it, said Gargantua,
and by-and-by shall you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and
knot of the matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with
thatch-rushes, with flax, with wool, with paper, but,
Who his foul tail with paper wipes,
Shall at his ballocks leave some chips.
What, said Grangousier, my little rogue, hast thou been at the pot, that
thou dost rhyme already? Yes, yes, my lord the king, answered Gargantua, I
can rhyme gallantly, and rhyme till I become hoarse with rheum. Hark, what
our privy says to the skiters:
Shittard,
Squirtard,
Crackard,
Turdous,
Thy bung
Hath flung
Some dung
On us:
Filthard,
Cackard,
Stinkard,
St. Antony's fire seize on thy toane (bone? ),
If thy
Dirty
Dounby
Thou do not wipe, ere thou be gone.
Will you have any more of it?
Yes, yes, answered Grangousier. Then, said
Gargantua,
A Roundelay.
In shitting yes'day I did know
The sess I to my arse did owe:
The smell was such came from that slunk,
That I was with it all bestunk:
O had but then some brave Signor
Brought her to me I waited for,
In shitting!
I would have cleft her watergap,
And join'd it close to my flipflap,
Whilst she had with her fingers guarded
My foul nockandrow, all bemerded
In shitting.
Now say that I can do nothing! By the Merdi, they are not of my making,
but I heard them of this good old grandam, that you see here, and ever
since have retained them in the budget of my memory.
Let us return to our purpose, said Grangousier. What, said Gargantua, to
skite? No, said Grangousier, but to wipe our tail. But, said Gargantua,
will not you be content to pay a puncheon of Breton wine, if I do not blank
and gravel you in this matter, and put you to a non-plus? Yes, truly, said
Grangousier.
There is no need of wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is foul;
foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we must
before we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, said
Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee very
shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, by
G--, for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in this
torcheculative, or wipe-bummatory discourse, and by my beard I swear, for
one puncheon, thou shalt have threescore pipes, I mean of the good Breton
wine, not that which grows in Britain, but in the good country of Verron.
Afterwards I wiped my bum, said Gargantua, with a kerchief, with a pillow,
with a pantoufle, with a pouch, with a pannier, but that was a wicked and
unpleasant torchecul; then with a hat. Of hats, note that some are shorn,
and others shaggy, some velveted, others covered with taffeties, and others
with satin. The best of all these is the shaggy hat, for it makes a very
neat abstersion of the fecal matter.
Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a
calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an
attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But,
to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps,
bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is
none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed,
if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine
honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful
pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the
temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut
and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of
the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and
demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel,
ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but in this,
according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the neck of a
goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of
Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.
Chapter 1. XIV.
How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister.
The good man Grangousier having heard this discourse, was ravished with
admiration, considering the high reach and marvellous understanding of his
son Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip, king of Macedon, knew
the great wit of his son Alexander by his skilful managing of a horse; for
his horse Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventure
to ride him, after that he had given to his riders such devilish falls,
breaking the neck of this man, the other man's leg, braining one, and
putting another out of his jawbone. This by Alexander being considered,
one day in the hippodrome (which was a place appointed for the breaking and
managing of great horses), he perceived that the fury of the horse
proceeded merely from the fear he had of his own shadow, whereupon getting
on his back, he run him against the sun, so that the shadow fell behind,
and by that means tamed the horse and brought him to his hand. Whereby his
father, knowing the divine judgment that was in him, caused him most
carefully to be instructed by Aristotle, who at that time was highly
renowned above all the philosophers of Greece. After the same manner I
tell you, that by this only discourse, which now I have here had before you
with my son Gargantua, I know that his understanding doth participate of
some divinity, and that, if he be well taught, and have that education
which is fitting, he will attain to a supreme degree of wisdom. Therefore
will I commit him to some learned man, to have him indoctrinated according
to his capacity, and will spare no cost. Presently they appointed him a
great sophister-doctor, called Master Tubal Holofernes, who taught him his
ABC so well, that he could say it by heart backwards; and about this he was
five years and three months. Then read he to him Donat, Le Facet,
Theodolet, and Alanus in parabolis. About this he was thirteen years, six
months, and two weeks. But you must remark that in the mean time he did
learn to write in Gothic characters, and that he wrote all his books--for
the art of printing was not then in use--and did ordinarily carry a great
pen and inkhorn, weighing about seven thousand quintals (that is, 700,000
pound weight), the penner whereof was as big and as long as the great
pillars of Enay, and the horn was hanging to it in great iron chains, it
being of the wideness of a tun of merchant ware. After that he read unto
him the book de modis significandi, with the commentaries of Hurtbise, of
Fasquin, of Tropdieux, of Gualhaut, of John Calf, of Billonio, of
Berlinguandus, and a rabble of others; and herein he spent more than
eighteen years and eleven months, and was so well versed in it that, to try
masteries in school disputes with his condisciples, he would recite it by
heart backwards, and did sometimes prove on his finger-ends to his mother,
quod de modis significandi non erat scientia. Then did he read to him the
compost for knowing the age of the moon, the seasons of the year, and tides
of the sea, on which he spent sixteen years and two months, and that justly
at the time that his said preceptor died of the French pox, which was in
the year one thousand four hundred and twenty. Afterwards he got an old
coughing fellow to teach him, named Master Jobelin Bride, or muzzled dolt,
who read unto him Hugutio, Hebrard('s) Grecism, the Doctrinal, the Parts,
the Quid est, the Supplementum, Marmotretus, De moribus in mensa servandis,
Seneca de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus, Passavantus cum commento, and
Dormi secure for the holidays, and some other of such like mealy stuff, by
reading whereof he became as wise as any we ever since baked in an oven.
Chapter 1. XV.
How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters.
At the last his father perceived that indeed he studied hard, and that,
although he spent all his time in it, he did nevertheless profit nothing,
but which is worse, grew thereby foolish, simple, doted, and blockish,
whereof making a heavy regret to Don Philip of Marays, Viceroy or Depute
King of Papeligosse, he found that it were better for him to learn nothing
at all, than to be taught such-like books, under such schoolmasters;
because their knowledge was nothing but brutishness, and their wisdom but
blunt foppish toys, serving only to bastardize good and noble spirits, and
to corrupt all the flower of youth. That it is so, take, said he, any
young boy of this time who hath only studied two years,--if he have not a
better judgment, a better discourse, and that expressed in better terms
than your son, with a completer carriage and civility to all manner of
persons, account me for ever hereafter a very clounch and bacon-slicer of
Brene. This pleased Grangousier very well, and he commanded that it should
be done. At night at supper, the said Des Marays brought in a young page
of his, of Ville-gouges, called Eudemon, so neat, so trim, so handsome in
his apparel, so spruce, with his hair in so good order, and so sweet and
comely in his behaviour, that he had the resemblance of a little angel more
than of a human creature. Then he said to Grangousier, Do you see this
young boy? He is not as yet full twelve years old. Let us try, if it
please you, what difference there is betwixt the knowledge of the doting
Mateologians of old time and the young lads that are now. The trial
pleased Grangousier, and he commanded the page to begin. Then Eudemon,
asking leave of the vice-king his master so to do, with his cap in his
hand, a clear and open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes
steady, and his looks fixed upon Gargantua with a youthful modesty,
standing up straight on his feet, began very gracefully to commend him;
first, for his virtue and good manners; secondly, for his knowledge,
thirdly, for his nobility; fourthly, for his bodily accomplishments; and,
in the fifth place, most sweetly exhorted him to reverence his father with
all due observancy, who was so careful to have him well brought up. In the
end he prayed him, that he would vouchsafe to admit of him amongst the
least of his servants; for other favour at that time desired he none of
heaven, but that he might do him some grateful and acceptable service. All
this was by him delivered with such proper gestures, such distinct
pronunciation, so pleasant a delivery, in such exquisite fine terms, and so
good Latin, that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an Aemilius of the
time past, than a youth of this age. But all the countenance that
Gargantua kept was, that he fell to crying like a cow, and cast down his
face, hiding it with his cap, nor could they possibly draw one word from
him, no more than a fart from a dead ass. Whereat his father was so
grievously vexed that he would have killed Master Jobelin, but the said Des
Marays withheld him from it by fair persuasions, so that at length he
pacified his wrath. Then Grangousier commanded he should be paid his
wages, that they should whittle him up soundly, like a sophister, with good
drink, and then give him leave to go to all the devils in hell. At least,
said he, today shall it not cost his host much if by chance he should die
as drunk as a Switzer. Master Jobelin being gone out of the house,
Grangousier consulted with the Viceroy what schoolmaster they should choose
for him, and it was betwixt them resolved that Ponocrates, the tutor of
Eudemon, should have the charge, and that they should go altogether to
Paris, to know what was the study of the young men of France at that time.
Chapter 1. XVI.
How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rode
on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce.
In the same season Fayoles, the fourth King of Numidia, sent out of the
country of Africa to Grangousier the most hideously great mare that ever
was seen, and of the strangest form, for you know well enough how it is
said that Africa always is productive of some new thing. She was as big as
six elephants, and had her feet cloven into fingers, like Julius Caesar's
horse, with slouch-hanging ears, like the goats in Languedoc, and a little
horn on her buttock. She was of a burnt sorrel hue, with a little mixture
of dapple-grey spots, but above all she had a horrible tail; for it was
little more or less than every whit as great as the steeple-pillar of St.
Mark beside Langes: and squared as that is, with tuffs and ennicroches or
hair-plaits wrought within one another, no otherwise than as the beards are
upon the ears of corn.
If you wonder at this, wonder rather at the tails of the Scythian rams,
which weighed above thirty pounds each; and of the Surian sheep, who need,
if Tenaud say true, a little cart at their heels to bear up their tail, it
is so long and heavy. You female lechers in the plain countries have no
such tails. And she was brought by sea in three carricks and a brigantine
unto the harbour of Olone in Thalmondois. When Grangousier saw her, Here
is, said he, what is fit to carry my son to Paris. So now, in the name of
God, all will be well. He will in times coming be a great scholar. If it
were not, my masters, for the beasts, we should live like clerks. The next
morning--after they had drunk, you must understand--they took their
journey; Gargantua, his pedagogue Ponocrates, and his train, and with them
Eudemon, the young page. And because the weather was fair and temperate,
his father caused to be made for him a pair of dun boots,--Babin calls them
buskins. Thus did they merrily pass their time in travelling on their high
way, always making good cheer, and were very pleasant till they came a
little above Orleans, in which place there was a forest of five-and-thirty
leagues long, and seventeen in breadth, or thereabouts. This forest was
most horribly fertile and copious in dorflies, hornets, and wasps, so that
it was a very purgatory for the poor mares, asses, and horses. But
Gargantua's mare did avenge herself handsomely of all the outrages therein
committed upon beasts of her kind, and that by a trick whereof they had no
suspicion. For as soon as ever they were entered into the said forest, and
that the wasps had given the assault, she drew out and unsheathed her tail,
and therewith skirmishing, did so sweep them that she overthrew all the
wood alongst and athwart, here and there, this way and that way, longwise
and sidewise, over and under, and felled everywhere the wood with as much
ease as a mower doth the grass, in such sort that never since hath there
been there neither wood nor dorflies: for all the country was thereby
reduced to a plain champaign field. Which Gargantua took great pleasure to
behold, and said to his company no more but this: Je trouve beau ce (I
find this pretty); whereupon that country hath been ever since that time
called Beauce. But all the breakfast the mare got that day was but a
little yawning and gaping, in memory whereof the gentlemen of Beauce do as
yet to this day break their fast with gaping, which they find to be very
good, and do spit the better for it. At last they came to Paris, where
Gargantua refreshed himself two or three days, making very merry with his
folks, and inquiring what men of learning there were then in the city, and
what wine they drunk there.
Chapter 1. XVII.
How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away the
great bells of Our Lady's Church.
Some few days after that they had refreshed themselves, he went to see the
city, and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for the
people of Paris are so sottish, so badot, so foolish and fond by nature,
that a juggler, a carrier of indulgences, a sumpter-horse, or mule with
cymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross lane,
shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an evangelical
preacher. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to
rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At which place, seeing
so many about him, he said with a loud voice, I believe that these buzzards
will have me to pay them here my welcome hither, and my Proficiat. It is
but good reason. I will now give them their wine, but it shall be only in
sport. Then smiling, he untied his fair braguette, and drawing out his
mentul into the open air, he so bitterly all-to-bepissed them, that he
drowned two hundred and sixty thousand, four hundred and eighteen, besides
the women and little children. Some, nevertheless, of the company escaped
this piss-flood by mere speed of foot, who, when they were at the higher
end of the university, sweating, coughing, spitting, and out of breath,
they began to swear and curse, some in good hot earnest, and others in
jest. Carimari, carimara: golynoly, golynolo. By my sweet Sanctess, we
are washed in sport, a sport truly to laugh at;--in French, Par ris, for
which that city hath been ever since called Paris; whose name formerly was
Leucotia, as Strabo testifieth, lib. quarto, from the Greek word leukotes,
whiteness,--because of the white thighs of the ladies of that place. And
forasmuch as, at this imposition of a new name, all the people that were
there swore everyone by the Sancts of his parish, the Parisians, which are
patched up of all nations and all pieces of countries, are by nature both
good jurors and good jurists, and somewhat overweening; whereupon Joanninus
de Barrauco, libro de copiositate reverentiarum, thinks that they are
called Parisians from the Greek word parresia, which signifies boldness and
liberty in speech. This done, he considered the great bells, which were in
the said towers, and made them sound very harmoniously. Which whilst he
was doing, it came into his mind that they would serve very well for
tingling tantans and ringing campanels to hang about his mare's neck when
she should be sent back to his father, as he intended to do, loaded with
Brie cheese and fresh herring. And indeed he forthwith carried them to his
lodging. In the meanwhile there came a master beggar of the friars of St.
Anthony to demand in his canting way the usual benevolence of some hoggish
stuff, who, that he might be heard afar off, and to make the bacon he was
in quest of shake in the very chimneys, made account to filch them away
privily. Nevertheless, he left them behind very honestly, not for that
they were too hot, but that they were somewhat too heavy for his carriage.
This was not he of Bourg, for he was too good a friend of mine. All the
city was risen up in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight
occasion, so ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations
wonder at the patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice
restrain them from such tumultuous courses, seeing the manifold
inconveniences which thence arise from day to day. Would to God I knew the
shop wherein are forged these divisions and factious combinations, that I
might bring them to light in the confraternities of my parish! Believe for
a truth, that the place wherein the people gathered together, were thus
sulphured, hopurymated, moiled, and bepissed, was called Nesle, where then
was, but now is no more, the oracle of Leucotia. There was the case
proposed, and the inconvenience showed of the transporting of the bells.
After they had well ergoted pro and con, they concluded in baralipton, that
they should send the oldest and most sufficient of the faculty unto
Gargantua, to signify unto him the great and horrible prejudice they
sustain by the want of those bells. And notwithstanding the good reasons
given in by some of the university why this charge was fitter for an orator
than a sophister, there was chosen for this purpose our Master Janotus de
Bragmardo.
Chapter 1. XVIII.
How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells.
Master Janotus, with his hair cut round like a dish a la Caesarine, in his
most antique accoutrement liripipionated with a graduate's hood, and having
sufficiently antidoted his stomach with oven-marmalades, that is, bread and
holy water of the cellar, transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua,
driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragging after him five
or six artless masters, all thoroughly bedaggled with the mire of the
streets. At their entry Ponocrates met them, who was afraid, seeing them
so disguised, and thought they had been some masquers out of their wits,
which moved him to inquire of one of the said artless masters of the
company what this mummery meant. It was answered him, that they desired to
have their bells restored to them. As soon as Ponocrates heard that, he
ran in all haste to carry the news unto Gargantua, that he might be ready
to answer them, and speedily resolve what was to be done. Gargantua being
advertised hereof, called apart his schoolmaster Ponocrates, Philotimus,
steward of his house, Gymnastes, his esquire, and Eudemon, and very
summarily conferred with them, both of what he should do and what answer he
should give. They were all of opinion that they should bring them unto the
goblet-office, which is the buttery, and there make them drink like
roysters and line their jackets soundly. And that this cougher might not
be puffed up with vain-glory by thinking the bells were restored at his
request, they sent, whilst he was chopining and plying the pot, for the
mayor of the city, the rector of the faculty, and the vicar of the church,
unto whom they resolved to deliver the bells before the sophister had
propounded his commission. After that, in their hearing, he should
pronounce his gallant oration, which was done; and they being come, the
sophister was brought in full hall, and began as followeth, in coughing.
Chapter 1. XIX.
The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.
Hem, hem, gud-day, sirs, gud-day. Et vobis, my masters. It were but
reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of
them. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused good
money for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux in
Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific quality of the
elementary complexion, which is intronificated in the terrestreity of their
quidditative nature, to extraneize the blasting mists and whirlwinds upon
our vines, indeed not ours, but these round about us. For if we lose the
piot and liquor of the grape, we lose all, both sense and law. If you
restore them unto us at my request, I shall gain by it six basketfuls of
sausages and a fine pair of breeches, which will do my legs a great deal of
good, or else they will not keep their promise to me. Ho by gob, Domine, a
pair of breeches is good, et vir sapiens non abhorrebit eam. Ha, ha, a
pair of breeches is not so easily got; I have experience of it myself.
Consider, Domine, I have been these eighteen days in matagrabolizing this
brave speech. Reddite quae sunt Caesaris, Caesari, et quae sunt Dei, Deo.
Ibi jacet lepus. By my faith, Domine, if you will sup with me in cameris,
by cox body, charitatis, nos faciemus bonum cherubin. Ego occiditunum
porcum, et ego habet bonum vino: but of good wine we cannot make bad
Latin. Well, de parte Dei date nobis bellas nostras. Hold, I give you in
the name of the faculty a Sermones de Utino, that utinam you would give us
our bells. Vultis etiam pardonos? Per diem vos habebitis, et nihil
payabitis. O, sir, Domine, bellagivaminor nobis; verily, est bonum vobis.
They are useful to everybody. If they fit your mare well, so do they do
our faculty; quae comparata est jumentis insipientibus, et similis facta
est eis, Psalmo nescio quo. Yet did I quote it in my note-book, et est
unum bonum Achilles, a good defending argument. Hem, hem, hem, haikhash!
For I prove unto you, that you should give me them. Ego sic argumentor.
Omnis bella bellabilis in bellerio bellando, bellans, bellativo, bellare
facit, bellabiliter bellantes. Parisius habet bellas. Ergo gluc, Ha, ha,
ha. This is spoken to some purpose. It is in tertio primae, in Darii, or
elsewhere. By my soul, I have seen the time that I could play the devil in
arguing, but now I am much failed, and henceforward want nothing but a cup
of good wine, a good bed, my back to the fire, my belly to the table, and a
good deep dish. Hei, Domine, I beseech you, in nomine Patris, Filii, et
Spiritus sancti, Amen, to restore unto us our bells: and God keep you from
evil, and our Lady from health, qui vivit et regnat per omnia secula
seculorum, Amen. Hem, hashchehhawksash, qzrchremhemhash.
Verum enim vero, quandoquidem, dubio procul. Edepol, quoniam, ita certe,
medius fidius; a town without bells is like a blind man without a staff, an
ass without a crupper, and a cow without cymbals. Therefore be assured,
until you have restored them unto us, we will never leave crying after you,
like a blind man that hath lost his staff, braying like an ass without a
crupper, and making a noise like a cow without cymbals. A certain
latinisator, dwelling near the hospital, said since, producing the
authority of one Taponnus,--I lie, it was one Pontanus the secular poet,
--who wished those bells had been made of feathers, and the clapper of a
foxtail, to the end they might have begot a chronicle in the bowels of his
brain, when he was about the composing of his carminiformal lines. But nac
petetin petetac, tic, torche lorgne, or rot kipipur kipipot put pantse
malf, he was declared an heretic. We make them as of wax. And no more
saith the deponent. Valete et plaudite. Calepinus recensui.
Chapter 1. XX.
How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law
against the other masters.
The sophister had no sooner ended, but Ponocrates and Eudemon burst out in
a laughing so heartily, that they had almost split with it, and given up
the ghost, in rendering their souls to God: even just as Crassus did,
seeing a lubberly ass eat thistles; and as Philemon, who, for seeing an ass
eat those figs which were provided for his own dinner, died with force of
laughing. Together with them Master Janotus fell a-laughing too as fast as
he could, in which mood of laughing they continued so long, that their eyes
did water by the vehement concussion of the substance of the brain, by
which these lachrymal humidities, being pressed out, glided through the
optic nerves, and so to the full represented Democritus Heraclitizing and
Heraclitus Democritizing.
When they had done laughing, Gargantua consulted with the prime of his
retinue what should be done. There Ponocrates was of opinion that they
should make this fair orator drink again; and seeing he had showed them
more pastime, and made them laugh more than a natural soul could have done,
that they should give him ten baskets full of sausages, mentioned in his
pleasant speech, with a pair of hose, three hundred great billets of
logwood, five-and-twenty hogsheads of wine, a good large down-bed, and a
deep capacious dish, which he said were necessary for his old age. All
this was done as they did appoint: only Gargantua, doubting that they
could not quickly find out breeches fit for his wearing, because he knew
not what fashion would best become the said orator, whether the martingale
fashion of breeches, wherein is a spunghole with a drawbridge for the more
easy caguing: or the fashion of the mariners, for the greater solace and
comfort of his kidneys: or that of the Switzers, which keeps warm the
bedondaine or belly-tabret: or round breeches with straight cannions,
having in the seat a piece like a cod's tail, for fear of over-heating his
reins:--all which considered, he caused to be given him seven ells of white
cloth for the linings. The wood was carried by the porters, the masters of
arts carried the sausages and the dishes, and Master Janotus himself would
carry the cloth. One of the said masters, called Jousse Bandouille, showed
him that it was not seemly nor decent for one of his condition to do so,
and that therefore he should deliver it to one of them. Ha, said Janotus,
baudet, baudet, or blockhead, blockhead, thou dost not conclude in modo et
figura. For lo, to this end serve the suppositions and parva logicalia.
Pannus, pro quo supponit? Confuse, said Bandouille, et distributive. I do
not ask thee, said Janotus, blockhead, quomodo supponit, but pro quo? It
is, blockhead, pro tibiis meis, and therefore I will carry it, Egomet,
sicut suppositum portat appositum. So did he carry it away very close and
covertly, as Patelin the buffoon did his cloth. The best was, that when
this cougher, in a full act or assembly held at the Mathurins, had with
great confidence required his breeches and sausages, and that they were
flatly denied him, because he had them of Gargantua, according to the
informations thereupon made, he showed them that this was gratis, and out
of his liberality, by which they were not in any sort quit of their
promises. Notwithstanding this, it was answered him that he should be
content with reason, without expectation of any other bribe there. Reason?
said Janotus. We use none of it here. Unlucky traitors, you are not worth
the hanging. The earth beareth not more arrant villains than you are. I
know it well enough; halt not before the lame. I have practised wickedness
with you. By God's rattle, I will inform the king of the enormous abuses
that are forged here and carried underhand by you, and let me be a leper,
if he do not burn you alive like sodomites, traitors, heretics and
seducers, enemies to God and virtue.
Upon these words they framed articles against him: he on the other side
warned them to appear. In sum, the process was retained by the court, and
is there as yet. Hereupon the magisters made a vow never to decrott
themselves in rubbing off the dirt of either their shoes or clothes:
Master Janotus with his adherents vowed never to blow or snuff their noses,
until judgment were given by a definitive sentence.
By these vows do they continue unto this time both dirty and snotty; for
the court hath not garbled, sifted, and fully looked into all the pieces as
yet. The judgment or decree shall be given out and pronounced at the next
Greek kalends, that is, never. As you know that they do more than nature,
and contrary to their own articles. The articles of Paris maintain that to
God alone belongs infinity, and nature produceth nothing that is immortal;
for she putteth an end and period to all things by her engendered,
according to the saying, Omnia orta cadunt, &c. But these thick
mist-swallowers make the suits in law depending before them both infinite
and immortal. In doing whereof, they have given occasion to, and verified
the saying of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, consecrated to the oracle at Delphos,
that misery is the inseparable companion of law-debates; and that pleaders
are miserable; for sooner shall they attain to the end of their lives, than
to the final decision of their pretended rights.
Chapter 1. XXI.
The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmasters
the Sophisters.
