How the Monk made
Gargantua
sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
If you be there, be there no more; and if
you are not there, I have no more to say. But a ruffian gunner, whose
charge was to attend the portcullis over the gate, let fly a cannon-ball at
him, and hit him with that shot most furiously on the right temple of his
head, yet did him no more hurt than if he had but cast a prune or kernel of
a wine-grape at him. What is this? said Gargantua; do you throw at us
grape-kernels here? The vintage shall cost you dear; thinking indeed that
the bullet had been the kernel of a grape, or raisin-kernel.
Those who were within the castle, being till then busy at the pillage, when
they heard this noise ran to the towers and fortresses, from whence they
shot at him above nine thousand and five-and-twenty falconshot and
arquebusades, aiming all at his head, and so thick did they shoot at him
that he cried out, Ponocrates, my friend, these flies here are like to put
out mine eyes; give me a branch of those willow-trees to drive them away,
thinking that the bullets and stones shot out of the great ordnance had
been but dunflies. Ponocrates looked and saw that there were no other
flies but great shot which they had shot from the castle. Then was it that
he rushed with his great tree against the castle, and with mighty blows
overthrew both towers and fortresses, and laid all level with the ground,
by which means all that were within were slain and broken in pieces. Going
from thence, they came to the bridge at the mill, where they found all the
ford covered with dead bodies, so thick that they had choked up the mill
and stopped the current of its water, and these were those that were
destroyed in the urinal deluge of the mare. There they were at a stand,
consulting how they might pass without hindrance by these dead carcasses.
But Gymnast said, If the devils have passed there, I will pass well enough.
The devils have passed there, said Eudemon, to carry away the damned souls.
By St. Treignan! said Ponocrates, then by necessary consequence he shall
pass there. Yes, yes, said Gymnastes, or I shall stick in the way. Then
setting spurs to his horse, he passed through freely, his horse not fearing
nor being anything affrighted at the sight of the dead bodies; for he had
accustomed him, according to the doctrine of Aelian, not to fear armour,
nor the carcasses of dead men; and that not by killing men as Diomedes did
the Thracians, or as Ulysses did in throwing the corpses of his enemies at
his horse's feet, as Homer saith, but by putting a Jack-a-lent amongst his
hay, and making him go over it ordinarily when he gave him his oats. The
other three followed him very close, except Eudemon only, whose horse's
fore-right or far forefoot sank up to the knee in the paunch of a great fat
chuff who lay there upon his back drowned, and could not get it out. There
was he pestered, until Gargantua, with the end of his staff, thrust down
the rest of the villain's tripes into the water whilst the horse pulled out
his foot; and, which is a wonderful thing in hippiatry, the said horse was
thoroughly cured of a ringbone which he had in that foot by this touch of
the burst guts of that great looby.
Chapter 1. XXXVII.
How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of
his hair.
Being come out of the river of Vede, they came very shortly after to
Grangousier's castle, who waited for them with great longing. At their
coming they were entertained with many congees, and cherished with
embraces. Never was seen a more joyful company, for Supplementum
Supplementi Chronicorum saith that Gargamelle died there with joy; for my
part, truly I cannot tell, neither do I care very much for her, nor for
anybody else. The truth was, that Gargantua, in shifting his clothes, and
combing his head with a comb, which was nine hundred foot long of the
Jewish cane measure, and whereof the teeth were great tusks of elephants,
whole and entire, he made fall at every rake above seven balls of bullets,
at a dozen the ball, that stuck in his hair at the razing of the castle of
the wood of Vede. Which his father Grangousier seeing, thought they had
been lice, and said unto him, What, my dear son, hast thou brought us this
far some short-winged hawks of the college of Montague? I did not mean
that thou shouldst reside there. Then answered Ponocrates, My sovereign
lord, think not that I have placed him in that lousy college which they
call Montague; I had rather have put him amongst the grave-diggers of Sanct
Innocent, so enormous is the cruelty and villainy that I have known there:
for the galley-slaves are far better used amongst the Moors and Tartars,
the murderers in the criminal dungeons, yea, the very dogs in your house,
than are the poor wretched students in the aforesaid college. And if I
were King of Paris, the devil take me if I would not set it on fire, and
burn both principal and regents, for suffering this inhumanity to be
exercised before their eyes. Then, taking up one of these bullets, he
said, These are cannon-shot, which your son Gargantua hath lately received
by the treachery of your enemies, as he was passing before the wood of
Vede.
But they have been so rewarded, that they are all destroyed in the ruin of
the castle, as were the Philistines by the policy of Samson, and those whom
the tower of Silohim slew, as it is written in the thirteenth of Luke. My
opinion is, that we pursue them whilst the luck is on our side; for
occasion hath all her hair on her forehead; when she is passed, you may not
recall her,--she hath no tuft whereby you can lay hold on her, for she is
bald in the hind-part of her head, and never returneth again. Truly, said
Grangousier, it shall not be at this time; for I will make you a feast
this night, and bid you welcome.
This said, they made ready supper, and, of extraordinary besides his daily
fare, were roasted sixteen oxen, three heifers, two and thirty calves,
three score and three fat kids, four score and fifteen wethers, three
hundred farrow pigs or sheats soused in sweet wine or must, eleven score
partridges, seven hundred snipes and woodcocks, four hundred Loudun and
Cornwall capons, six thousand pullets, and as many pigeons, six hundred
crammed hens, fourteen hundred leverets, or young hares and rabbits, three
hundred and three buzzards, and one thousand and seven hundred cockerels.
For venison, they could not so suddenly come by it, only eleven wild boars,
which the Abbot of Turpenay sent, and eighteen fallow deer which the Lord
of Gramount bestowed; together with seven score pheasants, which were sent
by the Lord of Essars; and some dozens of queests, coushats, ringdoves, and
woodculvers; river-fowl, teals and awteals, bitterns, courtes, plovers,
francolins, briganders, tyrasons, young lapwings, tame ducks, shovellers,
woodlanders, herons, moorhens, criels, storks, canepetiers, oranges,
flamans, which are phaenicopters, or crimson-winged sea-fowls, terrigoles,
turkeys, arbens, coots, solan-geese, curlews, termagants, and
water-wagtails, with a great deal of cream, curds, and fresh cheese, and
store of soup, pottages, and brewis with great variety. Without doubt there
was meat enough, and it was handsomely dressed by Snapsauce, Hotchpot, and
Brayverjuice, Grangousier's cooks. Jenkin Trudgeapace and Cleanglass were
very careful to fill them drink.
Chapter 1. XXXVIII.
How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad.
The story requireth that we relate that which happened unto six pilgrims
who came from Sebastian near to Nantes, and who for shelter that night,
being afraid of the enemy, had hid themselves in the garden upon the
chichling peas, among the cabbages and lettuces. Gargantua finding himself
somewhat dry, asked whether they could get any lettuce to make him a salad;
and hearing that there were the greatest and fairest in the country, for
they were as great as plum-trees or as walnut-trees, he would go thither
himself, and brought thence in his hand what he thought good, and withal
carried away the six pilgrims, who were in so great fear that they did not
dare to speak nor cough.
Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one to
another softly, What shall we do? We are almost drowned here amongst these
lettuce, shall we speak? But if we speak, he will kill us for spies. And,
as they were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua put them with the
lettuce into a platter of the house, as large as the huge tun of the White
Friars of the Cistercian order; which done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, he
ate them up, to refresh himself a little before supper, and had already
swallowed up five of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totally
hid under a lettuce, except his bourdon or staff that appeared, and nothing
else. Which Grangousier seeing, said to Gargantua, I think that is the
horn of a shell-snail, do not eat it. Why not? said Gargantua, they are
good all this month: which he no sooner said, but, drawing up the staff,
and therewith taking up the pilgrim, he ate him very well, then drank a
terrible draught of excellent white wine. The pilgrims, thus devoured,
made shift to save themselves as well as they could, by withdrawing their
bodies out of the reach of the grinders of his teeth, but could not escape
from thinking they had been put in the lowest dungeon of a prison. And
when Gargantua whiffed the great draught, they thought to have been drowned
in his mouth, and the flood of wine had almost carried them away into the
gulf of his stomach. Nevertheless, skipping with their bourdons, as St.
Michael's palmers use to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger of
that inundation under the banks of his teeth. But one of them by chance,
groping or sounding the country with his staff, to try whether they were in
safety or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the
mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very great
pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To ease himself
therefore of his smarting ache, he called for his toothpicker, and rubbing
towards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you my
gentlemen pilgrims.
For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, another by the pocket,
another by the scarf, another by the band of the breeches, and the poor
fellow that had hurt him with the bourdon, him he hooked to him by the
codpiece, which snatch nevertheless did him a great deal of good, for it
pierced unto him a pocky botch he had in the groin, which grievously
tormented him ever since they were past Ancenis. The pilgrims, thus
dislodged, ran away athwart the plain a pretty fast pace, and the pain
ceased, even just at the time when by Eudemon he was called to supper, for
all was ready. I will go then, said he, and piss away my misfortune; which
he did do in such a copious measure, that the urine taking away the feet
from the pilgrims, they were carried along with the stream unto the bank of
a tuft of trees. Upon which, as soon as they had taken footing, and that
for their self-preservation they had run a little out of the road, they on
a sudden fell all six, except Fourniller, into a trap that had been made to
take wolves by a train, out of which, nevertheless, they escaped by the
industry of the said Fourniller, who broke all the snares and ropes. Being
gone from thence, they lay all the rest of that night in a lodge near unto
Coudray, where they were comforted in their miseries by the gracious words
of one of their company, called Sweer-to-go, who showed them that this
adventure had been foretold by the prophet David, Psalm. Quum exsurgerent
homines in nos, forte vivos deglutissent nos; when we were eaten in the
salad, with salt, oil, and vinegar. Quum irasceretur furor eorum in nos,
forsitan aqua absorbuisset nos; when he drank the great draught. Torrentem
pertransivit anima nostra; when the stream of his water carried us to the
thicket. Forsitan pertransisset anima nostra aquam intolerabilem; that is,
the water of his urine, the flood whereof, cutting our way, took our feet
from us. Benedictus Dominus qui non dedit nos in captionem dentibus eorum.
Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est de laqueo venantium; when we fell in
the trap. Laqueus contritus est, by Fourniller, et nos liberati sumus.
Adjutorium nostrum, &c.
Chapter 1. XXXIX.
How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial discourse they had
at supper.
When Gargantua was set down at table, after all of them had somewhat stayed
their stomachs by a snatch or two of the first bits eaten heartily,
Grangousier began to relate the source and cause of the war raised between
him and Picrochole; and came to tell how Friar John of the Funnels had
triumphed at the defence of the close of the abbey, and extolled him for
his valour above Camillus, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar, and Themistocles. Then
Gargantua desired that he might be presently sent for, to the end that with
him they might consult of what was to be done. Whereupon, by a joint
consent, his steward went for him, and brought him along merrily, with his
staff of the cross, upon Grangousier's mule. When he was come, a thousand
huggings, a thousand embracements, a thousand good days were given. Ha,
Friar John, my friend Friar John, my brave cousin Friar John from the
devil! Let me clip thee, my heart, about the neck; to me an armful. I
must grip thee, my ballock, till thy back crack with it. Come, my cod, let
me coll thee till I kill thee. And Friar John, the gladdest man in the
world, never was man made welcomer, never was any more courteously and
graciously received than Friar John. Come, come, said Gargantua, a stool
here close by me at this end. I am content, said the monk, seeing you will
have it so. Some water, page; fill, my boy, fill; it is to refresh my
liver. Give me some, child, to gargle my throat withal. Deposita cappa,
said Gymnast, let us pull off this frock. Ho, by G--, gentlemen, said the
monk, there is a chapter in Statutis Ordinis which opposeth my laying of it
down. Pish! said Gymnast, a fig for your chapter! This frock breaks both
your shoulders, put it off. My friend, said the monk, let me alone with
it; for, by G--, I'll drink the better that it is on. It makes all my body
jocund. If I should lay it aside, the waggish pages would cut to
themselves garters out of it, as I was once served at Coulaines. And,
which is worse, I shall lose my appetite. But if in this habit I sit down
at table, I will drink, by G--, both to thee and to thy horse, and so
courage, frolic, God save the company! I have already supped, yet will I
eat never a whit the less for that; for I have a paved stomach, as hollow
as a butt of malvoisie or St. Benedictus' boot (butt), and always open like
a lawyer's pouch. Of all fishes but the tench take the wing of a partridge
or the thigh of a nun. Doth not he die like a good fellow that dies with a
stiff catso? Our prior loves exceedingly the white of a capon. In that,
said Gymnast, he doth not resemble the foxes; for of the capons, hens, and
pullets which they carry away they never eat the white. Why? said the
monk. Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, if
they be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; the
redness of meats being a token that they have not got enough of the fire,
whether by boiling, roasting, or otherwise, except the shrimps, lobsters,
crabs, and crayfishes, which are cardinalized with boiling. By God's
feast-gazers, said the monk, the porter of our abbey then hath not his head
well boiled, for his eyes are as red as a mazer made of an alder-tree. The
thigh of this leveret is good for those that have the gout. To the purpose
of the truel,--what is the reason that the thighs of a gentlewoman are
always fresh and cool? This problem, said Gargantua, is neither in
Aristotle, in Alexander Aphrodiseus, nor in Plutarch. There are three
causes, said the monk, by which that place is naturally refreshed. Primo,
because the water runs all along by it. Secundo, because it is a shady
place, obscure and dark, upon which the sun never shines. And thirdly,
because it is continually flabbelled, blown upon, and aired by the north
winds of the hole arstick, the fan of the smock, and flipflap of the
codpiece. And lusty, my lads. Some bousing liquor, page! So! crack,
crack, crack. O how good is God, that gives us of this excellent juice! I
call him to witness, if I had been in the time of Jesus Christ, I would
have kept him from being taken by the Jews in the garden of Olivet. And
the devil fail me, if I should have failed to cut off the hams of these
gentlemen apostles who ran away so basely after they had well supped, and
left their good master in the lurch. I hate that man worse than poison
that offers to run away when he should fight and lay stoutly about him. Oh
that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G--, I
should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia. A plague take them;
why did they not choose rather to die there than to leave their good prince
in that pinch and necessity? Is it not better and more honourable to
perish in fighting valiantly than to live in disgrace by a cowardly running
away? We are like to eat no great store of goslings this year; therefore,
friend, reach me some of that roasted pig there.
Diavolo, is there no more must? No more sweet wine? Germinavit radix
Jesse. Je renie ma vie, je meurs de soif; I renounce my life, I rage for
thirst. This wine is none of the worst. What wine drink you at Paris? I
give myself to the devil, if I did not once keep open house at Paris for
all comers six months together. Do you know Friar Claude of the high
kilderkins? Oh the good fellow that he is! But I do not know what fly
hath stung him of late, he is become so hard a student. For my part, I
study not at all. In our abbey we never study for fear of the mumps, which
disease in horses is called the mourning in the chine. Our late abbot was
wont to say that it is a monstrous thing to see a learned monk. By G--,
master, my friend, Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes.
You never saw so many hares as there are this year. I could not anywhere
come by a goshawk nor tassel of falcon. My Lord Belloniere promised me a
lanner, but he wrote to me not long ago that he was become pursy. The
partridges will so multiply henceforth, that they will go near to eat up
our ears. I take no delight in the stalking-horse, for I catch such cold
that I am like to founder myself at that sport. If I do not run, toil,
travel, and trot about, I am not well at ease. True it is that in leaping
over the hedges and bushes my frock leaves always some of its wool behind
it. I have recovered a dainty greyhound; I give him to the devil, if he
suffer a hare to escape him. A groom was leading him to my Lord
Huntlittle, and I robbed him of him. Did I ill? No, Friar John, said
Gymnast, no, by all the devils that are, no! So, said the monk, do I
attest these same devils so long as they last, or rather, virtue (of) G--,
what could that gouty limpard have done with so fine a dog? By the body of
G--, he is better pleased when one presents him with a good yoke of oxen.
How now, said Ponocrates, you swear, Friar John. It is only, said the
monk, but to grace and adorn my speech. They are colours of a Ciceronian
rhetoric.
Chapter 1. XL.
Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some have bigger
noses than others.
By the faith of a Christian, said Eudemon, I do wonderfully dote and enter
in a great ecstasy when I consider the honesty and good fellowship of this
monk, for he makes us here all merry. How is it, then, that they exclude
the monks from all good companies, calling them feast-troublers, marrers of
mirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation, as the bees drive away the
drones from their hives? Ignavum fucos pecus, said Maro, a praesepibus
arcent. Hereunto, answered Gargantua, there is nothing so true as that the
frock and cowl draw unto itself the opprobries, injuries, and maledictions
of the world, just as the wind called Cecias attracts the clouds. The
peremptory reason is, because they eat the ordure and excrements of the
world, that is to say, the sins of the people, and, like dung-chewers and
excrementitious eaters, they are cast into the privies and secessive
places, that is, the convents and abbeys, separated from political
conversation, as the jakes and retreats of a house are. But if you
conceive how an ape in a family is always mocked and provokingly incensed,
you shall easily apprehend how monks are shunned of all men, both young and
old. The ape keeps not the house as a dog doth, he draws not in the plough
as the ox, he yields neither milk nor wool as the sheep, he carrieth no
burden as a horse doth. That which he doth, is only to conskite, spoil,
and defile all, which is the cause wherefore he hath of all men mocks,
frumperies, and bastinadoes.
After the same manner a monk--I mean those lither, idle, lazy monks--doth
not labour and work, as do the peasant and artificer; doth not ward and
defend the country, as doth the man of war; cureth not the sick and
diseased, as the physician doth; doth neither preach nor teach, as do the
evangelical doctors and schoolmasters; doth not import commodities and
things necessary for the commonwealth, as the merchant doth. Therefore is
it that by and of all men they are hooted at, hated, and abhorred. Yea,
but, said Grangousier, they pray to God for us. Nothing less, answered
Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they
trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said the
monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble out
great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say
many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or
apprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which truly I call mocking
of God, and not prayers. But so help them God, as they pray for us, and
not for being afraid to lose their victuals, their manchots, and good fat
pottage. All true Christians, of all estates and conditions, in all places
and at all times, send up their prayers to God, and the Mediator prayeth
and intercedeth for them, and God is gracious to them. Now such a one is
our good Friar John; therefore every man desireth to have him in his
company. He is no bigot or hypocrite; he is not torn and divided betwixt
reality and appearance; no wretch of a rugged and peevish disposition, but
honest, jovial, resolute, and a good fellow. He travels, he labours, he
defends the oppressed, comforts the afflicted, helps the needy, and keeps
the close of the abbey. Nay, said the monk, I do a great deal more than
that; for whilst we are in despatching our matins and anniversaries in the
choir, I make withal some crossbow-strings, polish glass bottles and bolts,
I twist lines and weave purse nets wherein to catch coneys. I am never
idle. But now, hither come, some drink, some drink here! Bring the fruit.
These chestnuts are of the wood of Estrox, and with good new wine are able
to make you a fine cracker and composer of bum-sonnets. You are not as
yet, it seems, well moistened in this house with the sweet wine and must.
By G--, I drink to all men freely, and at all fords, like a proctor or
promoter's horse. Friar John, said Gymnast, take away the snot that hangs
at your nose. Ha, ha, said the monk, am not I in danger of drowning,
seeing I am in water even to the nose? No, no, Quare? Quia, though some
water come out from thence, there never goes in any; for it is well
antidoted with pot-proof armour and syrup of the vine-leaf.
Oh, my friend, he that hath winter-boots made of such leather may boldly
fish for oysters, for they will never take water. What is the cause, said
Gargantua, that Friar John hath such a fair nose? Because, said
Grangousier, that God would have it so, who frameth us in such form and for
such end as is most agreeable with his divine will, even as a potter
fashioneth his vessels. Because, said Ponocrates, he came with the first
to the fair of noses, and therefore made choice of the fairest and the
greatest. Pish, said the monk, that is not the reason of it, but,
according to the true monastical philosophy, it is because my nurse had
soft teats, by virtue whereof, whilst she gave me suck, my nose did sink in
as in so much butter. The hard breasts of nurses make children
short-nosed. But hey, gay, Ad formam nasi cognoscitur ad te levavi. I
never eat any confections, page, whilst I am at the bibbery. Item, bring
me rather some toasts.
Chapter 1. XLI.
How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
Supper being ended, they consulted of the business in hand, and concluded
that about midnight they should fall unawares upon the enemy, to know what
manner of watch and ward they kept, and that in the meanwhile they should
take a little rest the better to refresh themselves. But Gargantua could
not sleep by any means, on which side soever he turned himself. Whereupon
the monk said to him, I never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or
prayers. Let us therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms,
to try whether you shall not quickly fall asleep. The conceit pleased
Gargantua very well, and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as
they came to the words Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the
other. But the monk, for his being formerly accustomed to the hour of
claustral matins, failed not to awake a little before midnight, and, being
up himself, awaked all the rest, in singing aloud, and with a full clear
voice, the song:
Awake, O Reinian, ho, awake!
Awake, O Reinian, ho!
Get up, you no more sleep must take;
Get up, for we must go.
When they were all roused and up, he said, My masters, it is a usual
saying, that we begin matins with coughing and supper with drinking. Let
us now, in doing clean contrarily, begin our matins with drinking, and at
night before supper we shall cough as hard as we can. What, said
Gargantua, to drink so soon after sleep? This is not to live according to
the diet and prescript rule of the physicians, for you ought first to scour
and cleanse your stomach of all its superfluities and excrements. Oh, well
physicked, said the monk; a hundred devils leap into my body, if there be
not more old drunkards than old physicians! I have made this paction and
covenant with my appetite, that it always lieth down and goes to bed with
myself, for to that I every day give very good order; then the next morning
it also riseth with me and gets up when I am awake. Mind you your charges,
gentlemen, or tend your cures as much as you will. I will get me to my
drawer; in terms of falconry, my tiring. What drawer or tiring do you
mean? said Gargantua. My breviary, said the monk, for just as the
falconers, before they feed their hawks, do make them draw at a hen's leg
to purge their brains of phlegm and sharpen them to a good appetite, so, by
taking this merry little breviary in the morning, I scour all my lungs and
am presently ready to drink.
After what manner, said Gargantua, do you say these fair hours and prayers
of yours? After the manner of Whipfield (Fessecamp, and corruptly Fecan. ),
said the monk, by three psalms and three lessons, or nothing at all, he
that will. I never tie myself to hours, prayers, and sacraments; for they
are made for the man and not the man for them. Therefore is it that I make
my prayers in fashion of stirrup-leathers; I shorten or lengthen them when
I think good. Brevis oratio penetrat caelos et longa potatio evacuat
scyphos. Where is that written? By my faith, said Ponocrates, I cannot
tell, my pillicock, but thou art more worth than gold. Therein, said the
monk, I am like you; but, venite, apotemus. Then made they ready store of
carbonadoes, or rashers on the coals, and good fat soups, or brewis with
sippets; and the monk drank what he pleased. Some kept him company, and
the rest did forbear, for their stomachs were not as yet opened.
Afterwards every man began to arm and befit himself for the field. And they
armed the monk against his will; for he desired no other armour for back
and breast but his frock, nor any other weapon in his hand but the staff of
the cross. Yet at their pleasure was he completely armed cap-a-pie, and
mounted upon one of the best horses in the kingdom, with a good slashing
shable by his side, together with Gargantua, Ponocrates, Gymnast, Eudemon,
and five-and-twenty more of the most resolute and adventurous of
Grangousier's house, all armed at proof with their lances in their hands,
mounted like St. George, and everyone of them having an arquebusier behind
him.
Chapter 1. XLII.
How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon a
tree.
Thus went out those valiant champions on their adventure, in full
resolution to know what enterprise they should undertake, and what to take
heed of and look well to in the day of the great and horrible battle. And
the monk encouraged them, saying, My children, do not fear nor doubt, I
will conduct you safely. God and Sanct Benedict be with us! If I had
strength answerable to my courage, by's death, I would plume them for you
like ducks. I fear nothing but the great ordnance; yet I know of a charm
by way of prayer, which the subsexton of our abbey taught me, that will
preserve a man from the violence of guns and all manner of fire-weapons and
engines; but it will do me no good, because I do not believe it.
Nevertheless, I hope my staff of the cross shall this day play devilish
pranks amongst them. By G--, whoever of our party shall offer to play the
duck, and shrink when blows are a-dealing, I give myself to the devil, if I
do not make a monk of him in my stead, and hamper him within my frock,
which is a sovereign cure against cowardice. Did you never hear of my Lord
Meurles his greyhound, which was not worth a straw in the fields? He put a
frock about his neck: by the body of G--, there was neither hare nor fox
that could escape him, and, which is more, he lined all the bitches in the
country, though before that he was feeble-reined and ex frigidis et
maleficiatis.
The monk uttering these words in choler, as he passed under a walnut-tree,
in his way towards the causey, he broached the vizor of his helmet on the
stump of a great branch of the said tree. Nevertheless, he set his spurs
so fiercely to the horse, who was full of mettle and quick on the spur,
that he bounded forwards, and the monk going about to ungrapple his vizor,
let go his hold of the bridle, and so hanged by his hand upon the bough,
whilst his horse stole away from under him. By this means was the monk
left hanging on the walnut-tree, and crying for help, murder, murder,
swearing also that he was betrayed. Eudemon perceived him first, and
calling Gargantua said, Sir, come and see Absalom hanging. Gargantua,
being come, considered the countenance of the monk, and in what posture he
hanged; wherefore he said to Eudemon, You were mistaken in comparing him to
Absalom; for Absalom hung by his hair, but this shaveling monk hangeth by
the ears. Help me, said the monk, in the devil's name; is this a time for
you to prate? You seem to me to be like the decretalist preachers, who say
that whosoever shall see his neighbour in the danger of death, ought, upon
pain of trisulk excommunication, rather choose to admonish him to make his
confession to a priest, and put his conscience in the state of peace, than
otherwise to help and relieve him.
And therefore when I shall see them fallen into a river, and ready to be
drowned, I shall make them a fair long sermon de contemptu mundi, et fuga
seculi; and when they are stark dead, shall then go to their aid and
succour in fishing after them. Be quiet, said Gymnast, and stir not, my
minion. I am now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom, for
thou art a pretty little gentle monachus. Monachus in claustro non valet
ova duo; sed quando est extra, bene valet triginta. I have seen above five
hundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better countenance in his
dangling and pendilatory swagging. Truly, if I had so good a one, I would
willingly hang thus all my lifetime. What, said the monk, have you almost
done preaching? Help me, in the name of God, seeing you will not in the
name of the other spirit, or, by the habit which I wear, you shall repent
it, tempore et loco praelibatis.
Then Gymnast alighted from his horse, and, climbing up the walnut-tree,
lifted up the monk with one hand by the gussets of his armour under the
armpits, and with the other undid his vizor from the stump of the broken
branch; which done, he let him fall to the ground and himself after. As
soon as the monk was down, he put off all his armour, and threw away one
piece after another about the field, and, taking to him again his staff of
the cross, remounted up to his horse, which Eudemon had caught in his
running away. Then went they on merrily, riding along on the highway.
Chapter 1. XLIII.
How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gargantua, and
how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth (Tirevant. ), and then was taken
prisoner by his enemies.
Picrochole, at the relation of those who had escaped out of the broil and
defeat wherein Tripet was untriped, grew very angry that the devils should
have so run upon his men, and held all that night a counsel of war, at
which Rashcalf and Touchfaucet (Hastiveau, Touquedillon. ), concluded his
power to be such that he was able to defeat all the devils of hell if they
should come to jostle with his forces. This Picrochole did not fully
believe, though he doubted not much of it. Therefore sent he under the
command and conduct of the Count Drawforth, for discovering of the country,
the number of sixteen hundred horsemen, all well mounted upon light horses
for skirmish and thoroughly besprinkled with holy water; and everyone for
their field-mark or cognizance had the sign of a star in his scarf, to
serve at all adventures in case they should happen to encounter with
devils, that by the virtue, as well of that Gregorian water as of the stars
which they wore, they might make them disappear and evanish.
In this equipage they made an excursion upon the country till they came
near to the Vauguyon, which is the valley of Guyon, and to the spital, but
could never find anybody to speak unto; whereupon they returned a little
back, and took occasion to pass above the aforesaid hospital to try what
intelligence they could come by in those parts. In which resolution riding
on, and by chance in a pastoral lodge or shepherd's cottage near to Coudray
hitting upon the five pilgrims, they carried them way-bound and manacled,
as if they had been spies, for all the exclamations, adjurations, and
requests that they could make. Being come down from thence towards
Seville, they were heard by Gargantua, who said then unto those that were
with him, Comrades and fellow-soldiers, we have here met with an encounter,
and they are ten times in number more than we. Shall we charge them or no?
What a devil, said the monk, shall we do else? Do you esteem men by their
number rather than by their valour and prowess? With this he cried out,
Charge, devils, charge! Which when the enemies heard, they thought
certainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began all
of them to run away as hard as they could drive, Drawforth only excepted,
who immediately settled his lance on its rest, and therewith hit the monk
with all his force on the very middle of his breast, but, coming against
his horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the blow either broke
off or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you had struck against
an anvil with a little wax-candle.
Then did the monk with his staff of the cross give him such a sturdy thump
and whirret betwixt his neck and shoulders, upon the acromion bone, that he
made him lose both sense and motion and fall down stone dead at his horse's
feet; and, seeing the sign of the star which he wore scarfwise, he said
unto Gargantua, These men are but priests, which is but the beginning of a
monk; by St. John, I am a perfect monk, I will kill them to you like flies.
Then ran he after them at a swift and full gallop till he overtook the
rear, and felled them down like tree-leaves, striking athwart and alongst
and every way. Gymnast presently asked Gargantua if they should pursue
them. To whom Gargantua answered, By no means; for, according to right
military discipline, you must never drive your enemy unto despair, for that
such a strait doth multiply his force and increase his courage, which was
before broken and cast down; neither is there any better help or outrage of
relief for men that are amazed, out of heart, toiled, and spent, than to
hope for no favour at all. How many victories have been taken out of the
hands of the victors by the vanquished, when they would not rest satisfied
with reason, but attempt to put all to the sword, and totally to destroy
their enemies, without leaving so much as one to carry home news of the
defeat of his fellows. Open, therefore, unto your enemies all the gates
and ways, and make to them a bridge of silver rather than fail, that you
may be rid of them. Yea, but, said Gymnast, they have the monk. Have they
the monk? said Gargantua. Upon mine honour, then, it will prove to their
cost. But to prevent all dangers, let us not yet retreat, but halt here
quietly as in an ambush; for I think I do already understand the policy and
judgment of our enemies. They are truly more directed by chance and mere
fortune than by good advice and counsel. In the meanwhile, whilst these
made a stop under the walnut-trees, the monk pursued on the chase, charging
all he overtook, and giving quarter to none, until he met with a trooper
who carried behind him one of the poor pilgrims, and there would have
rifled him. The pilgrim, in hope of relief at the sight of the monk, cried
out, Ha, my lord prior, my good friend, my lord prior, save me, I beseech
you, save me! Which words being heard by those that rode in the van, they
instantly faced about, and seeing there was nobody but the monk that made
this great havoc and slaughter among them, they loaded him with blows as
thick as they use to do an ass with wood. But of all this he felt nothing,
especially when they struck upon his frock, his skin was so hard. Then
they committed him to two of the marshal's men to keep, and, looking about,
saw nobody coming against them, whereupon they thought that Gargantua and
his party were fled. Then was it that they rode as hard as they could
towards the walnut-trees to meet with them, and left the monk there all
alone, with his two foresaid men to guard him. Gargantua heard the noise
and neighing of the horses, and said to his men, Comrades, I hear the track
and beating of the enemy's horse-feet, and withal perceive that some of
them come in a troop and full body against us. Let us rally and close
here, then set forward in order, and by this means we shall be able to
receive their charge to their loss and our honour.
Chapter 1. XLIV.
How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's forlorn hope
was defeated.
The monk, seeing them break off thus without order, conjectured that they
were to set upon Gargantua and those that were with him, and was
wonderfully grieved that he could not succour them. Then considered he the
countenance of the two keepers in whose custody he was, who would have
willingly run after the troops to get some booty and plunder, and were
always looking towards the valley unto which they were going. Farther, he
syllogized, saying, These men are but badly skilled in matters of war, for
they have not required my parole, neither have they taken my sword from me.
Suddenly hereafter he drew his brackmard or horseman's sword, wherewith he
gave the keeper which held him on the right side such a sound slash that he
cut clean through the jugulary veins and the sphagitid or transparent
arteries of the neck, with the fore-part of the throat called the
gargareon, even unto the two adenes, which are throat kernels; and,
redoubling the blow, he opened the spinal marrow betwixt the second and
third vertebrae. There fell down that keeper stark dead to the ground.
Then the monk, reining his horse to the left, ran upon the other, who,
seeing his fellow dead, and the monk to have the advantage of him, cried
with a loud voice, Ha, my lord prior, quarter; I yield, my lord prior,
quarter; quarter, my good friend, my lord prior. And the monk cried
likewise, My lord posterior, my friend, my lord posterior, you shall have
it upon your posteriorums. Ha, said the keeper, my lord prior, my minion,
my gentle lord prior, I pray God make you an abbot. By the habit, said the
monk, which I wear, I will here make you a cardinal. What! do you use to
pay ransoms to religious men? You shall therefore have by-and-by a red hat
of my giving. And the fellow cried, Ha, my lord prior, my lord prior, my
lord abbot that shall be, my lord cardinal, my lord all! Ha, ha, hes, no,
my lord prior, my good little lord the prior, I yield, render and deliver
myself up to you. And I deliver thee, said the monk, to all the devils in
hell. Then at one stroke he cut off his head, cutting his scalp upon the
temple-bones, and lifting up in the upper part of the skull the two
triangulary bones called sincipital, or the two bones bregmatis, together
with the sagittal commissure or dartlike seam which distinguisheth the
right side of the head from the left, as also a great part of the coronal
or forehead bone, by which terrible blow likewise he cut the two meninges
or films which enwrap the brain, and made a deep wound in the brain's two
posterior ventricles, and the cranium or skull abode hanging upon his
shoulders by the skin of the pericranium behind, in form of a doctor's
bonnet, black without and red within. Thus fell he down also to the ground
stark dead.
And presently the monk gave his horse the spur, and kept the way that the
enemy held, who had met with Gargantua and his companions in the broad
highway, and were so diminished of their number for the enormous slaughter
that Gargantua had made with his great tree amongst them, as also Gymnast,
Ponocrates, Eudemon, and the rest, that they began to retreat disorderly
and in great haste, as men altogether affrighted and troubled in both sense
and understanding, and as if they had seen the very proper species and form
of death before their eyes; or rather, as when you see an ass with a brizze
or gadbee under his tail, or fly that stings him, run hither and thither
without keeping any path or way, throwing down his load to the ground,
breaking his bridle and reins, and taking no breath nor rest, and no man
can tell what ails him, for they see not anything touch him. So fled these
people destitute of wit, without knowing any cause of flying, only pursued
by a panic terror which in their minds they had conceived. The monk,
perceiving that their whole intent was to betake themselves to their heels,
alighted from his horse and got upon a big large rock which was in the way,
and with his great brackmard sword laid such load upon those runaways, and
with main strength fetching a compass with his arm without feigning or
sparing, slew and overthrew so many that his sword broke in two pieces.
Then thought he within himself that he had slain and killed sufficiently,
and that the rest should escape to carry news. Therefore he took up a
battle-axe of those that lay there dead, and got upon the rock again,
passing his time to see the enemy thus flying and to tumble himself amongst
the dead bodies, only that he suffered none to carry pike, sword, lance,
nor gun with him, and those who carried the pilgrims bound he made to
alight, and gave their horses unto the said pilgrims, keeping them there
with him under the hedge, and also Touchfaucet, who was then his prisoner.
Chapter 1. XLV.
How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good words
that Grangousier gave them.
This skirmish being ended, Gargantua retreated with his men, excepting the
monk, and about the dawning of the day they came unto Grangousier, who in
his bed was praying unto God for their safety and victory. And seeing them
all safe and sound, he embraced them lovingly, and asked what was become of
the monk. Gargantua answered him that without doubt the enemies had the
monk. Then have they mischief and ill luck, said Grangousier; which was
very true. Therefore is it a common proverb to this day, to give a man the
monk, or, as in French, lui bailler le moine, when they would express the
doing unto one a mischief. Then commanded he a good breakfast to be
provided for their refreshment. When all was ready, they called Gargantua,
but he was so aggrieved that the monk was not to be heard of that he would
neither eat nor drink. In the meanwhile the monk comes, and from the gate
of the outer court cries out aloud, Fresh wine, fresh wine, Gymnast my
friend! Gymnast went out and saw that it was Friar John, who brought along
with him five pilgrims and Touchfaucet prisoners; whereupon Gargantua
likewise went forth to meet him, and all of them made him the best welcome
that possibly they could, and brought him before Grangousier, who asked him
of all his adventures. The monk told him all, both how he was taken, how
he rid himself of his keepers, of the slaughter he had made by the way, and
how he had rescued the pilgrims and brought along with him Captain
Touchfaucet. Then did they altogether fall to banqueting most merrily. In
the meantime Grangousier asked the pilgrims what countrymen they were,
whence they came, and whither they went. Sweer-to-go in the name of the
rest answered, My sovereign lord, I am of Saint Genou in Berry, this man is
of Palvau, this other is of Onzay, this of Argy, this of St. Nazarand, and
this man of Villebrenin. We come from Saint Sebastian near Nantes, and are
now returning, as we best may, by easy journeys. Yea, but, said
Grangousier, what went you to do at Saint Sebastian? We went, said
Sweer-to-go, to offer up unto that sanct our vows against the plague. Ah,
poor men! said Grangousier, do you think that the plague comes from Saint
Sebastian? Yes, truly, answered Sweer-to-go, our preachers tell us so
indeed. But is it so, said Grangousier, do the false prophets teach you
such abuses? Do they thus blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as to
make them like unto the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind,--as
Homer writeth, that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks by
Apollo, and as the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievous
gods. So did a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay,
that Saint Anthony sent the fire into men's legs, that Saint Eutropius made
men hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish.
But I punished him so exemplarily, though he called me heretic for it, that
since that time no such hypocritical rogue durst set his foot within my
territories. And truly I wonder that your king should suffer them in their
sermons to publish such scandalous doctrine in his dominions; for they
deserve to be chastised with greater severity than those who, by magical
art, or any other device, have brought the pestilence into a country. The
pest killeth but the bodies, but such abominable imposters empoison our
very souls. As he spake these words, in came the monk very resolute, and
asked them, Whence are you, you poor wretches? Of Saint Genou, said they.
And how, said the monk, does the Abbot Gulligut, the good drinker,--and the
monks, what cheer make they? By G-- body, they'll have a fling at your
wives, and breast them to some purpose, whilst you are upon your roaming
rant and gadding pilgrimage. Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraid
of mine, for he that shall see her by day will never break his neck to come
to her in the night-time. Yea, marry, said the monk, now you have hit it.
Let her be as ugly as ever was Proserpina, she will once, by the Lord G--,
be overturned, and get her skin-coat shaken, if there dwell any monks near
to her; for a good carpenter will make use of any kind of timber. Let me
be peppered with the pox, if you find not all your wives with child at your
return; for the very shadow of the steeple of an abbey is fruitful. It is,
said Gargantua, like the water of Nilus in Egypt, if you believe Strabo and
Pliny, Lib. 7, cap. 3. What virtue will there be then, said the monk, in
their bullets of concupiscence, their habits and their bodies?
Then, said Grangousier, go your ways, poor men, in the name of God the
Creator, to whom I pray to guide you perpetually, and henceforward be not
so ready to undertake these idle and unprofitable journeys. Look to your
families, labour every man in his vocation, instruct your children, and
live as the good apostle St. Paul directeth you; in doing whereof, God, his
angels and sancts, will guard and protect you, and no evil or plague at any
time shall befall you. Then Gargantua led them into the hall to take their
refection; but the pilgrims did nothing but sigh, and said to Gargantua, O
how happy is that land which hath such a man for their lord! We have been
more edified and instructed by the talk which he had with us, than by all
the sermons that ever were preached in our town. This is, said Gargantua,
that which Plato saith, Lib. 5 de Republ. , that those commonwealths are
happy, whose rulers philosophate, and whose philosophers rule. Then caused
he their wallets to be filled with victuals and their bottles with wine,
and gave unto each of them a horse to ease them upon the way, together with
some pence to live by.
Chapter 1. XLVI.
How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner.
Touchfaucet was presented unto Grangousier, and by him examined upon the
enterprise and attempt of Picrochole, what it was he could pretend to, or
aim at, by the rustling stir and tumultuary coil of this his sudden
invasion. Whereunto he answered, that his end and purpose was to conquer
all the country, if he could, for the injury done to his cake-bakers. It
is too great an undertaking, said Grangousier; and, as the proverb is, He
that grips too much, holds fast but little. The time is not now as
formerly, to conquer the kingdoms of our neighbour princes, and to build up
our own greatness upon the loss of our nearest Christian Brother. This
imitation of the ancient Herculeses, Alexanders, Hannibals, Scipios,
Caesars, and other such heroes, is quite contrary to the profession of the
gospel of Christ, by which we are commanded to preserve, keep, rule, and
govern every man his own country and lands, and not in a hostile manner to
invade others; and that which heretofore the Barbars and Saracens called
prowess and valour, we do now call robbing, thievery, and wickedness. It
would have been more commendable in him to have contained himself within
the bounds of his own territories, royally governing them, than to insult
and domineer in mine, pillaging and plundering everywhere like a most
unmerciful enemy; for, by ruling his own with discretion, he might have
increased his greatness, but by robbing me he cannot escape destruction.
Go your ways in the name of God, prosecute good enterprises, show your king
what is amiss, and never counsel him with regard unto your own particular
profit, for the public loss will swallow up the private benefit. As for
your ransom, I do freely remit it to you, and will that your arms and horse
be restored to you; so should good neighbours do, and ancient friends,
seeing this our difference is not properly war. As Plato, Lib. 5 de
Repub. , would not have it called war, but sedition, when the Greeks took up
arms against one another, and that therefore, when such combustions should
arise amongst them, his advice was to behave themselves in the managing of
them with all discretion and modesty. Although you call it war, it is but
superficial; it entereth not into the closet and inmost cabinet of our
hearts. For neither of us hath been wronged in his honour, nor is there
any question betwixt us in the main, but only how to redress, by the bye,
some petty faults committed by our men,--I mean, both yours and ours,
which, although you knew, you ought to let pass; for these quarrelsome
persons deserve rather to be contemned than mentioned, especially seeing I
offered them satisfaction according to the wrong. God shall be the just
judge of our variances, whom I beseech by death rather to take me out of
this life, and to permit my goods to perish and be destroyed before mine
eyes, than that by me or mine he should in any sort be wronged. These
words uttered, he called the monk, and before them all thus spoke unto him,
Friar John, my good friend, it is you that took prisoner the Captain
Touchfaucet here present? Sir, said the monk, seeing himself is here, and
that he is of the years of discretion, I had rather you should know it by
his confession than by any words of mine. Then said Touchfaucet, My
sovereign lord it is he indeed that took me, and I do therefore most freely
yield myself his prisoner. Have you put him to any ransom? said
Grangousier to the monk. No, said the monk, of that I take no care. How
much would you have for having taken him?
you are not there, I have no more to say. But a ruffian gunner, whose
charge was to attend the portcullis over the gate, let fly a cannon-ball at
him, and hit him with that shot most furiously on the right temple of his
head, yet did him no more hurt than if he had but cast a prune or kernel of
a wine-grape at him. What is this? said Gargantua; do you throw at us
grape-kernels here? The vintage shall cost you dear; thinking indeed that
the bullet had been the kernel of a grape, or raisin-kernel.
Those who were within the castle, being till then busy at the pillage, when
they heard this noise ran to the towers and fortresses, from whence they
shot at him above nine thousand and five-and-twenty falconshot and
arquebusades, aiming all at his head, and so thick did they shoot at him
that he cried out, Ponocrates, my friend, these flies here are like to put
out mine eyes; give me a branch of those willow-trees to drive them away,
thinking that the bullets and stones shot out of the great ordnance had
been but dunflies. Ponocrates looked and saw that there were no other
flies but great shot which they had shot from the castle. Then was it that
he rushed with his great tree against the castle, and with mighty blows
overthrew both towers and fortresses, and laid all level with the ground,
by which means all that were within were slain and broken in pieces. Going
from thence, they came to the bridge at the mill, where they found all the
ford covered with dead bodies, so thick that they had choked up the mill
and stopped the current of its water, and these were those that were
destroyed in the urinal deluge of the mare. There they were at a stand,
consulting how they might pass without hindrance by these dead carcasses.
But Gymnast said, If the devils have passed there, I will pass well enough.
The devils have passed there, said Eudemon, to carry away the damned souls.
By St. Treignan! said Ponocrates, then by necessary consequence he shall
pass there. Yes, yes, said Gymnastes, or I shall stick in the way. Then
setting spurs to his horse, he passed through freely, his horse not fearing
nor being anything affrighted at the sight of the dead bodies; for he had
accustomed him, according to the doctrine of Aelian, not to fear armour,
nor the carcasses of dead men; and that not by killing men as Diomedes did
the Thracians, or as Ulysses did in throwing the corpses of his enemies at
his horse's feet, as Homer saith, but by putting a Jack-a-lent amongst his
hay, and making him go over it ordinarily when he gave him his oats. The
other three followed him very close, except Eudemon only, whose horse's
fore-right or far forefoot sank up to the knee in the paunch of a great fat
chuff who lay there upon his back drowned, and could not get it out. There
was he pestered, until Gargantua, with the end of his staff, thrust down
the rest of the villain's tripes into the water whilst the horse pulled out
his foot; and, which is a wonderful thing in hippiatry, the said horse was
thoroughly cured of a ringbone which he had in that foot by this touch of
the burst guts of that great looby.
Chapter 1. XXXVII.
How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of
his hair.
Being come out of the river of Vede, they came very shortly after to
Grangousier's castle, who waited for them with great longing. At their
coming they were entertained with many congees, and cherished with
embraces. Never was seen a more joyful company, for Supplementum
Supplementi Chronicorum saith that Gargamelle died there with joy; for my
part, truly I cannot tell, neither do I care very much for her, nor for
anybody else. The truth was, that Gargantua, in shifting his clothes, and
combing his head with a comb, which was nine hundred foot long of the
Jewish cane measure, and whereof the teeth were great tusks of elephants,
whole and entire, he made fall at every rake above seven balls of bullets,
at a dozen the ball, that stuck in his hair at the razing of the castle of
the wood of Vede. Which his father Grangousier seeing, thought they had
been lice, and said unto him, What, my dear son, hast thou brought us this
far some short-winged hawks of the college of Montague? I did not mean
that thou shouldst reside there. Then answered Ponocrates, My sovereign
lord, think not that I have placed him in that lousy college which they
call Montague; I had rather have put him amongst the grave-diggers of Sanct
Innocent, so enormous is the cruelty and villainy that I have known there:
for the galley-slaves are far better used amongst the Moors and Tartars,
the murderers in the criminal dungeons, yea, the very dogs in your house,
than are the poor wretched students in the aforesaid college. And if I
were King of Paris, the devil take me if I would not set it on fire, and
burn both principal and regents, for suffering this inhumanity to be
exercised before their eyes. Then, taking up one of these bullets, he
said, These are cannon-shot, which your son Gargantua hath lately received
by the treachery of your enemies, as he was passing before the wood of
Vede.
But they have been so rewarded, that they are all destroyed in the ruin of
the castle, as were the Philistines by the policy of Samson, and those whom
the tower of Silohim slew, as it is written in the thirteenth of Luke. My
opinion is, that we pursue them whilst the luck is on our side; for
occasion hath all her hair on her forehead; when she is passed, you may not
recall her,--she hath no tuft whereby you can lay hold on her, for she is
bald in the hind-part of her head, and never returneth again. Truly, said
Grangousier, it shall not be at this time; for I will make you a feast
this night, and bid you welcome.
This said, they made ready supper, and, of extraordinary besides his daily
fare, were roasted sixteen oxen, three heifers, two and thirty calves,
three score and three fat kids, four score and fifteen wethers, three
hundred farrow pigs or sheats soused in sweet wine or must, eleven score
partridges, seven hundred snipes and woodcocks, four hundred Loudun and
Cornwall capons, six thousand pullets, and as many pigeons, six hundred
crammed hens, fourteen hundred leverets, or young hares and rabbits, three
hundred and three buzzards, and one thousand and seven hundred cockerels.
For venison, they could not so suddenly come by it, only eleven wild boars,
which the Abbot of Turpenay sent, and eighteen fallow deer which the Lord
of Gramount bestowed; together with seven score pheasants, which were sent
by the Lord of Essars; and some dozens of queests, coushats, ringdoves, and
woodculvers; river-fowl, teals and awteals, bitterns, courtes, plovers,
francolins, briganders, tyrasons, young lapwings, tame ducks, shovellers,
woodlanders, herons, moorhens, criels, storks, canepetiers, oranges,
flamans, which are phaenicopters, or crimson-winged sea-fowls, terrigoles,
turkeys, arbens, coots, solan-geese, curlews, termagants, and
water-wagtails, with a great deal of cream, curds, and fresh cheese, and
store of soup, pottages, and brewis with great variety. Without doubt there
was meat enough, and it was handsomely dressed by Snapsauce, Hotchpot, and
Brayverjuice, Grangousier's cooks. Jenkin Trudgeapace and Cleanglass were
very careful to fill them drink.
Chapter 1. XXXVIII.
How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad.
The story requireth that we relate that which happened unto six pilgrims
who came from Sebastian near to Nantes, and who for shelter that night,
being afraid of the enemy, had hid themselves in the garden upon the
chichling peas, among the cabbages and lettuces. Gargantua finding himself
somewhat dry, asked whether they could get any lettuce to make him a salad;
and hearing that there were the greatest and fairest in the country, for
they were as great as plum-trees or as walnut-trees, he would go thither
himself, and brought thence in his hand what he thought good, and withal
carried away the six pilgrims, who were in so great fear that they did not
dare to speak nor cough.
Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims said one to
another softly, What shall we do? We are almost drowned here amongst these
lettuce, shall we speak? But if we speak, he will kill us for spies. And,
as they were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua put them with the
lettuce into a platter of the house, as large as the huge tun of the White
Friars of the Cistercian order; which done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, he
ate them up, to refresh himself a little before supper, and had already
swallowed up five of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totally
hid under a lettuce, except his bourdon or staff that appeared, and nothing
else. Which Grangousier seeing, said to Gargantua, I think that is the
horn of a shell-snail, do not eat it. Why not? said Gargantua, they are
good all this month: which he no sooner said, but, drawing up the staff,
and therewith taking up the pilgrim, he ate him very well, then drank a
terrible draught of excellent white wine. The pilgrims, thus devoured,
made shift to save themselves as well as they could, by withdrawing their
bodies out of the reach of the grinders of his teeth, but could not escape
from thinking they had been put in the lowest dungeon of a prison. And
when Gargantua whiffed the great draught, they thought to have been drowned
in his mouth, and the flood of wine had almost carried them away into the
gulf of his stomach. Nevertheless, skipping with their bourdons, as St.
Michael's palmers use to do, they sheltered themselves from the danger of
that inundation under the banks of his teeth. But one of them by chance,
groping or sounding the country with his staff, to try whether they were in
safety or no, struck hard against the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the
mandibulary sinew or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very great
pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To ease himself
therefore of his smarting ache, he called for his toothpicker, and rubbing
towards a young walnut-tree, where they lay skulking, unnestled you my
gentlemen pilgrims.
For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, another by the pocket,
another by the scarf, another by the band of the breeches, and the poor
fellow that had hurt him with the bourdon, him he hooked to him by the
codpiece, which snatch nevertheless did him a great deal of good, for it
pierced unto him a pocky botch he had in the groin, which grievously
tormented him ever since they were past Ancenis. The pilgrims, thus
dislodged, ran away athwart the plain a pretty fast pace, and the pain
ceased, even just at the time when by Eudemon he was called to supper, for
all was ready. I will go then, said he, and piss away my misfortune; which
he did do in such a copious measure, that the urine taking away the feet
from the pilgrims, they were carried along with the stream unto the bank of
a tuft of trees. Upon which, as soon as they had taken footing, and that
for their self-preservation they had run a little out of the road, they on
a sudden fell all six, except Fourniller, into a trap that had been made to
take wolves by a train, out of which, nevertheless, they escaped by the
industry of the said Fourniller, who broke all the snares and ropes. Being
gone from thence, they lay all the rest of that night in a lodge near unto
Coudray, where they were comforted in their miseries by the gracious words
of one of their company, called Sweer-to-go, who showed them that this
adventure had been foretold by the prophet David, Psalm. Quum exsurgerent
homines in nos, forte vivos deglutissent nos; when we were eaten in the
salad, with salt, oil, and vinegar. Quum irasceretur furor eorum in nos,
forsitan aqua absorbuisset nos; when he drank the great draught. Torrentem
pertransivit anima nostra; when the stream of his water carried us to the
thicket. Forsitan pertransisset anima nostra aquam intolerabilem; that is,
the water of his urine, the flood whereof, cutting our way, took our feet
from us. Benedictus Dominus qui non dedit nos in captionem dentibus eorum.
Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est de laqueo venantium; when we fell in
the trap. Laqueus contritus est, by Fourniller, et nos liberati sumus.
Adjutorium nostrum, &c.
Chapter 1. XXXIX.
How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial discourse they had
at supper.
When Gargantua was set down at table, after all of them had somewhat stayed
their stomachs by a snatch or two of the first bits eaten heartily,
Grangousier began to relate the source and cause of the war raised between
him and Picrochole; and came to tell how Friar John of the Funnels had
triumphed at the defence of the close of the abbey, and extolled him for
his valour above Camillus, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar, and Themistocles. Then
Gargantua desired that he might be presently sent for, to the end that with
him they might consult of what was to be done. Whereupon, by a joint
consent, his steward went for him, and brought him along merrily, with his
staff of the cross, upon Grangousier's mule. When he was come, a thousand
huggings, a thousand embracements, a thousand good days were given. Ha,
Friar John, my friend Friar John, my brave cousin Friar John from the
devil! Let me clip thee, my heart, about the neck; to me an armful. I
must grip thee, my ballock, till thy back crack with it. Come, my cod, let
me coll thee till I kill thee. And Friar John, the gladdest man in the
world, never was man made welcomer, never was any more courteously and
graciously received than Friar John. Come, come, said Gargantua, a stool
here close by me at this end. I am content, said the monk, seeing you will
have it so. Some water, page; fill, my boy, fill; it is to refresh my
liver. Give me some, child, to gargle my throat withal. Deposita cappa,
said Gymnast, let us pull off this frock. Ho, by G--, gentlemen, said the
monk, there is a chapter in Statutis Ordinis which opposeth my laying of it
down. Pish! said Gymnast, a fig for your chapter! This frock breaks both
your shoulders, put it off. My friend, said the monk, let me alone with
it; for, by G--, I'll drink the better that it is on. It makes all my body
jocund. If I should lay it aside, the waggish pages would cut to
themselves garters out of it, as I was once served at Coulaines. And,
which is worse, I shall lose my appetite. But if in this habit I sit down
at table, I will drink, by G--, both to thee and to thy horse, and so
courage, frolic, God save the company! I have already supped, yet will I
eat never a whit the less for that; for I have a paved stomach, as hollow
as a butt of malvoisie or St. Benedictus' boot (butt), and always open like
a lawyer's pouch. Of all fishes but the tench take the wing of a partridge
or the thigh of a nun. Doth not he die like a good fellow that dies with a
stiff catso? Our prior loves exceedingly the white of a capon. In that,
said Gymnast, he doth not resemble the foxes; for of the capons, hens, and
pullets which they carry away they never eat the white. Why? said the
monk. Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, if
they be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; the
redness of meats being a token that they have not got enough of the fire,
whether by boiling, roasting, or otherwise, except the shrimps, lobsters,
crabs, and crayfishes, which are cardinalized with boiling. By God's
feast-gazers, said the monk, the porter of our abbey then hath not his head
well boiled, for his eyes are as red as a mazer made of an alder-tree. The
thigh of this leveret is good for those that have the gout. To the purpose
of the truel,--what is the reason that the thighs of a gentlewoman are
always fresh and cool? This problem, said Gargantua, is neither in
Aristotle, in Alexander Aphrodiseus, nor in Plutarch. There are three
causes, said the monk, by which that place is naturally refreshed. Primo,
because the water runs all along by it. Secundo, because it is a shady
place, obscure and dark, upon which the sun never shines. And thirdly,
because it is continually flabbelled, blown upon, and aired by the north
winds of the hole arstick, the fan of the smock, and flipflap of the
codpiece. And lusty, my lads. Some bousing liquor, page! So! crack,
crack, crack. O how good is God, that gives us of this excellent juice! I
call him to witness, if I had been in the time of Jesus Christ, I would
have kept him from being taken by the Jews in the garden of Olivet. And
the devil fail me, if I should have failed to cut off the hams of these
gentlemen apostles who ran away so basely after they had well supped, and
left their good master in the lurch. I hate that man worse than poison
that offers to run away when he should fight and lay stoutly about him. Oh
that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G--, I
should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia. A plague take them;
why did they not choose rather to die there than to leave their good prince
in that pinch and necessity? Is it not better and more honourable to
perish in fighting valiantly than to live in disgrace by a cowardly running
away? We are like to eat no great store of goslings this year; therefore,
friend, reach me some of that roasted pig there.
Diavolo, is there no more must? No more sweet wine? Germinavit radix
Jesse. Je renie ma vie, je meurs de soif; I renounce my life, I rage for
thirst. This wine is none of the worst. What wine drink you at Paris? I
give myself to the devil, if I did not once keep open house at Paris for
all comers six months together. Do you know Friar Claude of the high
kilderkins? Oh the good fellow that he is! But I do not know what fly
hath stung him of late, he is become so hard a student. For my part, I
study not at all. In our abbey we never study for fear of the mumps, which
disease in horses is called the mourning in the chine. Our late abbot was
wont to say that it is a monstrous thing to see a learned monk. By G--,
master, my friend, Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes.
You never saw so many hares as there are this year. I could not anywhere
come by a goshawk nor tassel of falcon. My Lord Belloniere promised me a
lanner, but he wrote to me not long ago that he was become pursy. The
partridges will so multiply henceforth, that they will go near to eat up
our ears. I take no delight in the stalking-horse, for I catch such cold
that I am like to founder myself at that sport. If I do not run, toil,
travel, and trot about, I am not well at ease. True it is that in leaping
over the hedges and bushes my frock leaves always some of its wool behind
it. I have recovered a dainty greyhound; I give him to the devil, if he
suffer a hare to escape him. A groom was leading him to my Lord
Huntlittle, and I robbed him of him. Did I ill? No, Friar John, said
Gymnast, no, by all the devils that are, no! So, said the monk, do I
attest these same devils so long as they last, or rather, virtue (of) G--,
what could that gouty limpard have done with so fine a dog? By the body of
G--, he is better pleased when one presents him with a good yoke of oxen.
How now, said Ponocrates, you swear, Friar John. It is only, said the
monk, but to grace and adorn my speech. They are colours of a Ciceronian
rhetoric.
Chapter 1. XL.
Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some have bigger
noses than others.
By the faith of a Christian, said Eudemon, I do wonderfully dote and enter
in a great ecstasy when I consider the honesty and good fellowship of this
monk, for he makes us here all merry. How is it, then, that they exclude
the monks from all good companies, calling them feast-troublers, marrers of
mirth, and disturbers of all civil conversation, as the bees drive away the
drones from their hives? Ignavum fucos pecus, said Maro, a praesepibus
arcent. Hereunto, answered Gargantua, there is nothing so true as that the
frock and cowl draw unto itself the opprobries, injuries, and maledictions
of the world, just as the wind called Cecias attracts the clouds. The
peremptory reason is, because they eat the ordure and excrements of the
world, that is to say, the sins of the people, and, like dung-chewers and
excrementitious eaters, they are cast into the privies and secessive
places, that is, the convents and abbeys, separated from political
conversation, as the jakes and retreats of a house are. But if you
conceive how an ape in a family is always mocked and provokingly incensed,
you shall easily apprehend how monks are shunned of all men, both young and
old. The ape keeps not the house as a dog doth, he draws not in the plough
as the ox, he yields neither milk nor wool as the sheep, he carrieth no
burden as a horse doth. That which he doth, is only to conskite, spoil,
and defile all, which is the cause wherefore he hath of all men mocks,
frumperies, and bastinadoes.
After the same manner a monk--I mean those lither, idle, lazy monks--doth
not labour and work, as do the peasant and artificer; doth not ward and
defend the country, as doth the man of war; cureth not the sick and
diseased, as the physician doth; doth neither preach nor teach, as do the
evangelical doctors and schoolmasters; doth not import commodities and
things necessary for the commonwealth, as the merchant doth. Therefore is
it that by and of all men they are hooted at, hated, and abhorred. Yea,
but, said Grangousier, they pray to God for us. Nothing less, answered
Gargantua. True it is, that with a tingle tangle jangling of bells they
trouble and disquiet all their neighbours about them. Right, said the
monk; a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung, are half said. They mumble out
great store of legends and psalms, by them not at all understood; they say
many paternosters interlarded with Ave-Maries, without thinking upon or
apprehending the meaning of what it is they say, which truly I call mocking
of God, and not prayers. But so help them God, as they pray for us, and
not for being afraid to lose their victuals, their manchots, and good fat
pottage. All true Christians, of all estates and conditions, in all places
and at all times, send up their prayers to God, and the Mediator prayeth
and intercedeth for them, and God is gracious to them. Now such a one is
our good Friar John; therefore every man desireth to have him in his
company. He is no bigot or hypocrite; he is not torn and divided betwixt
reality and appearance; no wretch of a rugged and peevish disposition, but
honest, jovial, resolute, and a good fellow. He travels, he labours, he
defends the oppressed, comforts the afflicted, helps the needy, and keeps
the close of the abbey. Nay, said the monk, I do a great deal more than
that; for whilst we are in despatching our matins and anniversaries in the
choir, I make withal some crossbow-strings, polish glass bottles and bolts,
I twist lines and weave purse nets wherein to catch coneys. I am never
idle. But now, hither come, some drink, some drink here! Bring the fruit.
These chestnuts are of the wood of Estrox, and with good new wine are able
to make you a fine cracker and composer of bum-sonnets. You are not as
yet, it seems, well moistened in this house with the sweet wine and must.
By G--, I drink to all men freely, and at all fords, like a proctor or
promoter's horse. Friar John, said Gymnast, take away the snot that hangs
at your nose. Ha, ha, said the monk, am not I in danger of drowning,
seeing I am in water even to the nose? No, no, Quare? Quia, though some
water come out from thence, there never goes in any; for it is well
antidoted with pot-proof armour and syrup of the vine-leaf.
Oh, my friend, he that hath winter-boots made of such leather may boldly
fish for oysters, for they will never take water. What is the cause, said
Gargantua, that Friar John hath such a fair nose? Because, said
Grangousier, that God would have it so, who frameth us in such form and for
such end as is most agreeable with his divine will, even as a potter
fashioneth his vessels. Because, said Ponocrates, he came with the first
to the fair of noses, and therefore made choice of the fairest and the
greatest. Pish, said the monk, that is not the reason of it, but,
according to the true monastical philosophy, it is because my nurse had
soft teats, by virtue whereof, whilst she gave me suck, my nose did sink in
as in so much butter. The hard breasts of nurses make children
short-nosed. But hey, gay, Ad formam nasi cognoscitur ad te levavi. I
never eat any confections, page, whilst I am at the bibbery. Item, bring
me rather some toasts.
Chapter 1. XLI.
How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
Supper being ended, they consulted of the business in hand, and concluded
that about midnight they should fall unawares upon the enemy, to know what
manner of watch and ward they kept, and that in the meanwhile they should
take a little rest the better to refresh themselves. But Gargantua could
not sleep by any means, on which side soever he turned himself. Whereupon
the monk said to him, I never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or
prayers. Let us therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms,
to try whether you shall not quickly fall asleep. The conceit pleased
Gargantua very well, and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as
they came to the words Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the
other. But the monk, for his being formerly accustomed to the hour of
claustral matins, failed not to awake a little before midnight, and, being
up himself, awaked all the rest, in singing aloud, and with a full clear
voice, the song:
Awake, O Reinian, ho, awake!
Awake, O Reinian, ho!
Get up, you no more sleep must take;
Get up, for we must go.
When they were all roused and up, he said, My masters, it is a usual
saying, that we begin matins with coughing and supper with drinking. Let
us now, in doing clean contrarily, begin our matins with drinking, and at
night before supper we shall cough as hard as we can. What, said
Gargantua, to drink so soon after sleep? This is not to live according to
the diet and prescript rule of the physicians, for you ought first to scour
and cleanse your stomach of all its superfluities and excrements. Oh, well
physicked, said the monk; a hundred devils leap into my body, if there be
not more old drunkards than old physicians! I have made this paction and
covenant with my appetite, that it always lieth down and goes to bed with
myself, for to that I every day give very good order; then the next morning
it also riseth with me and gets up when I am awake. Mind you your charges,
gentlemen, or tend your cures as much as you will. I will get me to my
drawer; in terms of falconry, my tiring. What drawer or tiring do you
mean? said Gargantua. My breviary, said the monk, for just as the
falconers, before they feed their hawks, do make them draw at a hen's leg
to purge their brains of phlegm and sharpen them to a good appetite, so, by
taking this merry little breviary in the morning, I scour all my lungs and
am presently ready to drink.
After what manner, said Gargantua, do you say these fair hours and prayers
of yours? After the manner of Whipfield (Fessecamp, and corruptly Fecan. ),
said the monk, by three psalms and three lessons, or nothing at all, he
that will. I never tie myself to hours, prayers, and sacraments; for they
are made for the man and not the man for them. Therefore is it that I make
my prayers in fashion of stirrup-leathers; I shorten or lengthen them when
I think good. Brevis oratio penetrat caelos et longa potatio evacuat
scyphos. Where is that written? By my faith, said Ponocrates, I cannot
tell, my pillicock, but thou art more worth than gold. Therein, said the
monk, I am like you; but, venite, apotemus. Then made they ready store of
carbonadoes, or rashers on the coals, and good fat soups, or brewis with
sippets; and the monk drank what he pleased. Some kept him company, and
the rest did forbear, for their stomachs were not as yet opened.
Afterwards every man began to arm and befit himself for the field. And they
armed the monk against his will; for he desired no other armour for back
and breast but his frock, nor any other weapon in his hand but the staff of
the cross. Yet at their pleasure was he completely armed cap-a-pie, and
mounted upon one of the best horses in the kingdom, with a good slashing
shable by his side, together with Gargantua, Ponocrates, Gymnast, Eudemon,
and five-and-twenty more of the most resolute and adventurous of
Grangousier's house, all armed at proof with their lances in their hands,
mounted like St. George, and everyone of them having an arquebusier behind
him.
Chapter 1. XLII.
How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon a
tree.
Thus went out those valiant champions on their adventure, in full
resolution to know what enterprise they should undertake, and what to take
heed of and look well to in the day of the great and horrible battle. And
the monk encouraged them, saying, My children, do not fear nor doubt, I
will conduct you safely. God and Sanct Benedict be with us! If I had
strength answerable to my courage, by's death, I would plume them for you
like ducks. I fear nothing but the great ordnance; yet I know of a charm
by way of prayer, which the subsexton of our abbey taught me, that will
preserve a man from the violence of guns and all manner of fire-weapons and
engines; but it will do me no good, because I do not believe it.
Nevertheless, I hope my staff of the cross shall this day play devilish
pranks amongst them. By G--, whoever of our party shall offer to play the
duck, and shrink when blows are a-dealing, I give myself to the devil, if I
do not make a monk of him in my stead, and hamper him within my frock,
which is a sovereign cure against cowardice. Did you never hear of my Lord
Meurles his greyhound, which was not worth a straw in the fields? He put a
frock about his neck: by the body of G--, there was neither hare nor fox
that could escape him, and, which is more, he lined all the bitches in the
country, though before that he was feeble-reined and ex frigidis et
maleficiatis.
The monk uttering these words in choler, as he passed under a walnut-tree,
in his way towards the causey, he broached the vizor of his helmet on the
stump of a great branch of the said tree. Nevertheless, he set his spurs
so fiercely to the horse, who was full of mettle and quick on the spur,
that he bounded forwards, and the monk going about to ungrapple his vizor,
let go his hold of the bridle, and so hanged by his hand upon the bough,
whilst his horse stole away from under him. By this means was the monk
left hanging on the walnut-tree, and crying for help, murder, murder,
swearing also that he was betrayed. Eudemon perceived him first, and
calling Gargantua said, Sir, come and see Absalom hanging. Gargantua,
being come, considered the countenance of the monk, and in what posture he
hanged; wherefore he said to Eudemon, You were mistaken in comparing him to
Absalom; for Absalom hung by his hair, but this shaveling monk hangeth by
the ears. Help me, said the monk, in the devil's name; is this a time for
you to prate? You seem to me to be like the decretalist preachers, who say
that whosoever shall see his neighbour in the danger of death, ought, upon
pain of trisulk excommunication, rather choose to admonish him to make his
confession to a priest, and put his conscience in the state of peace, than
otherwise to help and relieve him.
And therefore when I shall see them fallen into a river, and ready to be
drowned, I shall make them a fair long sermon de contemptu mundi, et fuga
seculi; and when they are stark dead, shall then go to their aid and
succour in fishing after them. Be quiet, said Gymnast, and stir not, my
minion. I am now coming to unhang thee and to set thee at freedom, for
thou art a pretty little gentle monachus. Monachus in claustro non valet
ova duo; sed quando est extra, bene valet triginta. I have seen above five
hundred hanged, but I never saw any have a better countenance in his
dangling and pendilatory swagging. Truly, if I had so good a one, I would
willingly hang thus all my lifetime. What, said the monk, have you almost
done preaching? Help me, in the name of God, seeing you will not in the
name of the other spirit, or, by the habit which I wear, you shall repent
it, tempore et loco praelibatis.
Then Gymnast alighted from his horse, and, climbing up the walnut-tree,
lifted up the monk with one hand by the gussets of his armour under the
armpits, and with the other undid his vizor from the stump of the broken
branch; which done, he let him fall to the ground and himself after. As
soon as the monk was down, he put off all his armour, and threw away one
piece after another about the field, and, taking to him again his staff of
the cross, remounted up to his horse, which Eudemon had caught in his
running away. Then went they on merrily, riding along on the highway.
Chapter 1. XLIII.
How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gargantua, and
how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth (Tirevant. ), and then was taken
prisoner by his enemies.
Picrochole, at the relation of those who had escaped out of the broil and
defeat wherein Tripet was untriped, grew very angry that the devils should
have so run upon his men, and held all that night a counsel of war, at
which Rashcalf and Touchfaucet (Hastiveau, Touquedillon. ), concluded his
power to be such that he was able to defeat all the devils of hell if they
should come to jostle with his forces. This Picrochole did not fully
believe, though he doubted not much of it. Therefore sent he under the
command and conduct of the Count Drawforth, for discovering of the country,
the number of sixteen hundred horsemen, all well mounted upon light horses
for skirmish and thoroughly besprinkled with holy water; and everyone for
their field-mark or cognizance had the sign of a star in his scarf, to
serve at all adventures in case they should happen to encounter with
devils, that by the virtue, as well of that Gregorian water as of the stars
which they wore, they might make them disappear and evanish.
In this equipage they made an excursion upon the country till they came
near to the Vauguyon, which is the valley of Guyon, and to the spital, but
could never find anybody to speak unto; whereupon they returned a little
back, and took occasion to pass above the aforesaid hospital to try what
intelligence they could come by in those parts. In which resolution riding
on, and by chance in a pastoral lodge or shepherd's cottage near to Coudray
hitting upon the five pilgrims, they carried them way-bound and manacled,
as if they had been spies, for all the exclamations, adjurations, and
requests that they could make. Being come down from thence towards
Seville, they were heard by Gargantua, who said then unto those that were
with him, Comrades and fellow-soldiers, we have here met with an encounter,
and they are ten times in number more than we. Shall we charge them or no?
What a devil, said the monk, shall we do else? Do you esteem men by their
number rather than by their valour and prowess? With this he cried out,
Charge, devils, charge! Which when the enemies heard, they thought
certainly that they had been very devils, and therefore even then began all
of them to run away as hard as they could drive, Drawforth only excepted,
who immediately settled his lance on its rest, and therewith hit the monk
with all his force on the very middle of his breast, but, coming against
his horrific frock, the point of the iron being with the blow either broke
off or blunted, it was in matter of execution as if you had struck against
an anvil with a little wax-candle.
Then did the monk with his staff of the cross give him such a sturdy thump
and whirret betwixt his neck and shoulders, upon the acromion bone, that he
made him lose both sense and motion and fall down stone dead at his horse's
feet; and, seeing the sign of the star which he wore scarfwise, he said
unto Gargantua, These men are but priests, which is but the beginning of a
monk; by St. John, I am a perfect monk, I will kill them to you like flies.
Then ran he after them at a swift and full gallop till he overtook the
rear, and felled them down like tree-leaves, striking athwart and alongst
and every way. Gymnast presently asked Gargantua if they should pursue
them. To whom Gargantua answered, By no means; for, according to right
military discipline, you must never drive your enemy unto despair, for that
such a strait doth multiply his force and increase his courage, which was
before broken and cast down; neither is there any better help or outrage of
relief for men that are amazed, out of heart, toiled, and spent, than to
hope for no favour at all. How many victories have been taken out of the
hands of the victors by the vanquished, when they would not rest satisfied
with reason, but attempt to put all to the sword, and totally to destroy
their enemies, without leaving so much as one to carry home news of the
defeat of his fellows. Open, therefore, unto your enemies all the gates
and ways, and make to them a bridge of silver rather than fail, that you
may be rid of them. Yea, but, said Gymnast, they have the monk. Have they
the monk? said Gargantua. Upon mine honour, then, it will prove to their
cost. But to prevent all dangers, let us not yet retreat, but halt here
quietly as in an ambush; for I think I do already understand the policy and
judgment of our enemies. They are truly more directed by chance and mere
fortune than by good advice and counsel. In the meanwhile, whilst these
made a stop under the walnut-trees, the monk pursued on the chase, charging
all he overtook, and giving quarter to none, until he met with a trooper
who carried behind him one of the poor pilgrims, and there would have
rifled him. The pilgrim, in hope of relief at the sight of the monk, cried
out, Ha, my lord prior, my good friend, my lord prior, save me, I beseech
you, save me! Which words being heard by those that rode in the van, they
instantly faced about, and seeing there was nobody but the monk that made
this great havoc and slaughter among them, they loaded him with blows as
thick as they use to do an ass with wood. But of all this he felt nothing,
especially when they struck upon his frock, his skin was so hard. Then
they committed him to two of the marshal's men to keep, and, looking about,
saw nobody coming against them, whereupon they thought that Gargantua and
his party were fled. Then was it that they rode as hard as they could
towards the walnut-trees to meet with them, and left the monk there all
alone, with his two foresaid men to guard him. Gargantua heard the noise
and neighing of the horses, and said to his men, Comrades, I hear the track
and beating of the enemy's horse-feet, and withal perceive that some of
them come in a troop and full body against us. Let us rally and close
here, then set forward in order, and by this means we shall be able to
receive their charge to their loss and our honour.
Chapter 1. XLIV.
How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's forlorn hope
was defeated.
The monk, seeing them break off thus without order, conjectured that they
were to set upon Gargantua and those that were with him, and was
wonderfully grieved that he could not succour them. Then considered he the
countenance of the two keepers in whose custody he was, who would have
willingly run after the troops to get some booty and plunder, and were
always looking towards the valley unto which they were going. Farther, he
syllogized, saying, These men are but badly skilled in matters of war, for
they have not required my parole, neither have they taken my sword from me.
Suddenly hereafter he drew his brackmard or horseman's sword, wherewith he
gave the keeper which held him on the right side such a sound slash that he
cut clean through the jugulary veins and the sphagitid or transparent
arteries of the neck, with the fore-part of the throat called the
gargareon, even unto the two adenes, which are throat kernels; and,
redoubling the blow, he opened the spinal marrow betwixt the second and
third vertebrae. There fell down that keeper stark dead to the ground.
Then the monk, reining his horse to the left, ran upon the other, who,
seeing his fellow dead, and the monk to have the advantage of him, cried
with a loud voice, Ha, my lord prior, quarter; I yield, my lord prior,
quarter; quarter, my good friend, my lord prior. And the monk cried
likewise, My lord posterior, my friend, my lord posterior, you shall have
it upon your posteriorums. Ha, said the keeper, my lord prior, my minion,
my gentle lord prior, I pray God make you an abbot. By the habit, said the
monk, which I wear, I will here make you a cardinal. What! do you use to
pay ransoms to religious men? You shall therefore have by-and-by a red hat
of my giving. And the fellow cried, Ha, my lord prior, my lord prior, my
lord abbot that shall be, my lord cardinal, my lord all! Ha, ha, hes, no,
my lord prior, my good little lord the prior, I yield, render and deliver
myself up to you. And I deliver thee, said the monk, to all the devils in
hell. Then at one stroke he cut off his head, cutting his scalp upon the
temple-bones, and lifting up in the upper part of the skull the two
triangulary bones called sincipital, or the two bones bregmatis, together
with the sagittal commissure or dartlike seam which distinguisheth the
right side of the head from the left, as also a great part of the coronal
or forehead bone, by which terrible blow likewise he cut the two meninges
or films which enwrap the brain, and made a deep wound in the brain's two
posterior ventricles, and the cranium or skull abode hanging upon his
shoulders by the skin of the pericranium behind, in form of a doctor's
bonnet, black without and red within. Thus fell he down also to the ground
stark dead.
And presently the monk gave his horse the spur, and kept the way that the
enemy held, who had met with Gargantua and his companions in the broad
highway, and were so diminished of their number for the enormous slaughter
that Gargantua had made with his great tree amongst them, as also Gymnast,
Ponocrates, Eudemon, and the rest, that they began to retreat disorderly
and in great haste, as men altogether affrighted and troubled in both sense
and understanding, and as if they had seen the very proper species and form
of death before their eyes; or rather, as when you see an ass with a brizze
or gadbee under his tail, or fly that stings him, run hither and thither
without keeping any path or way, throwing down his load to the ground,
breaking his bridle and reins, and taking no breath nor rest, and no man
can tell what ails him, for they see not anything touch him. So fled these
people destitute of wit, without knowing any cause of flying, only pursued
by a panic terror which in their minds they had conceived. The monk,
perceiving that their whole intent was to betake themselves to their heels,
alighted from his horse and got upon a big large rock which was in the way,
and with his great brackmard sword laid such load upon those runaways, and
with main strength fetching a compass with his arm without feigning or
sparing, slew and overthrew so many that his sword broke in two pieces.
Then thought he within himself that he had slain and killed sufficiently,
and that the rest should escape to carry news. Therefore he took up a
battle-axe of those that lay there dead, and got upon the rock again,
passing his time to see the enemy thus flying and to tumble himself amongst
the dead bodies, only that he suffered none to carry pike, sword, lance,
nor gun with him, and those who carried the pilgrims bound he made to
alight, and gave their horses unto the said pilgrims, keeping them there
with him under the hedge, and also Touchfaucet, who was then his prisoner.
Chapter 1. XLV.
How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good words
that Grangousier gave them.
This skirmish being ended, Gargantua retreated with his men, excepting the
monk, and about the dawning of the day they came unto Grangousier, who in
his bed was praying unto God for their safety and victory. And seeing them
all safe and sound, he embraced them lovingly, and asked what was become of
the monk. Gargantua answered him that without doubt the enemies had the
monk. Then have they mischief and ill luck, said Grangousier; which was
very true. Therefore is it a common proverb to this day, to give a man the
monk, or, as in French, lui bailler le moine, when they would express the
doing unto one a mischief. Then commanded he a good breakfast to be
provided for their refreshment. When all was ready, they called Gargantua,
but he was so aggrieved that the monk was not to be heard of that he would
neither eat nor drink. In the meanwhile the monk comes, and from the gate
of the outer court cries out aloud, Fresh wine, fresh wine, Gymnast my
friend! Gymnast went out and saw that it was Friar John, who brought along
with him five pilgrims and Touchfaucet prisoners; whereupon Gargantua
likewise went forth to meet him, and all of them made him the best welcome
that possibly they could, and brought him before Grangousier, who asked him
of all his adventures. The monk told him all, both how he was taken, how
he rid himself of his keepers, of the slaughter he had made by the way, and
how he had rescued the pilgrims and brought along with him Captain
Touchfaucet. Then did they altogether fall to banqueting most merrily. In
the meantime Grangousier asked the pilgrims what countrymen they were,
whence they came, and whither they went. Sweer-to-go in the name of the
rest answered, My sovereign lord, I am of Saint Genou in Berry, this man is
of Palvau, this other is of Onzay, this of Argy, this of St. Nazarand, and
this man of Villebrenin. We come from Saint Sebastian near Nantes, and are
now returning, as we best may, by easy journeys. Yea, but, said
Grangousier, what went you to do at Saint Sebastian? We went, said
Sweer-to-go, to offer up unto that sanct our vows against the plague. Ah,
poor men! said Grangousier, do you think that the plague comes from Saint
Sebastian? Yes, truly, answered Sweer-to-go, our preachers tell us so
indeed. But is it so, said Grangousier, do the false prophets teach you
such abuses? Do they thus blaspheme the sancts and holy men of God, as to
make them like unto the devils, who do nothing but hurt unto mankind,--as
Homer writeth, that the plague was sent into the camp of the Greeks by
Apollo, and as the poets feign a great rabble of Vejoves and mischievous
gods. So did a certain cafard or dissembling religionary preach at Sinay,
that Saint Anthony sent the fire into men's legs, that Saint Eutropius made
men hydropic, Saint Clidas, fools, and that Saint Genou made them goutish.
But I punished him so exemplarily, though he called me heretic for it, that
since that time no such hypocritical rogue durst set his foot within my
territories. And truly I wonder that your king should suffer them in their
sermons to publish such scandalous doctrine in his dominions; for they
deserve to be chastised with greater severity than those who, by magical
art, or any other device, have brought the pestilence into a country. The
pest killeth but the bodies, but such abominable imposters empoison our
very souls. As he spake these words, in came the monk very resolute, and
asked them, Whence are you, you poor wretches? Of Saint Genou, said they.
And how, said the monk, does the Abbot Gulligut, the good drinker,--and the
monks, what cheer make they? By G-- body, they'll have a fling at your
wives, and breast them to some purpose, whilst you are upon your roaming
rant and gadding pilgrimage. Hin, hen, said Sweer-to-go, I am not afraid
of mine, for he that shall see her by day will never break his neck to come
to her in the night-time. Yea, marry, said the monk, now you have hit it.
Let her be as ugly as ever was Proserpina, she will once, by the Lord G--,
be overturned, and get her skin-coat shaken, if there dwell any monks near
to her; for a good carpenter will make use of any kind of timber. Let me
be peppered with the pox, if you find not all your wives with child at your
return; for the very shadow of the steeple of an abbey is fruitful. It is,
said Gargantua, like the water of Nilus in Egypt, if you believe Strabo and
Pliny, Lib. 7, cap. 3. What virtue will there be then, said the monk, in
their bullets of concupiscence, their habits and their bodies?
Then, said Grangousier, go your ways, poor men, in the name of God the
Creator, to whom I pray to guide you perpetually, and henceforward be not
so ready to undertake these idle and unprofitable journeys. Look to your
families, labour every man in his vocation, instruct your children, and
live as the good apostle St. Paul directeth you; in doing whereof, God, his
angels and sancts, will guard and protect you, and no evil or plague at any
time shall befall you. Then Gargantua led them into the hall to take their
refection; but the pilgrims did nothing but sigh, and said to Gargantua, O
how happy is that land which hath such a man for their lord! We have been
more edified and instructed by the talk which he had with us, than by all
the sermons that ever were preached in our town. This is, said Gargantua,
that which Plato saith, Lib. 5 de Republ. , that those commonwealths are
happy, whose rulers philosophate, and whose philosophers rule. Then caused
he their wallets to be filled with victuals and their bottles with wine,
and gave unto each of them a horse to ease them upon the way, together with
some pence to live by.
Chapter 1. XLVI.
How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner.
Touchfaucet was presented unto Grangousier, and by him examined upon the
enterprise and attempt of Picrochole, what it was he could pretend to, or
aim at, by the rustling stir and tumultuary coil of this his sudden
invasion. Whereunto he answered, that his end and purpose was to conquer
all the country, if he could, for the injury done to his cake-bakers. It
is too great an undertaking, said Grangousier; and, as the proverb is, He
that grips too much, holds fast but little. The time is not now as
formerly, to conquer the kingdoms of our neighbour princes, and to build up
our own greatness upon the loss of our nearest Christian Brother. This
imitation of the ancient Herculeses, Alexanders, Hannibals, Scipios,
Caesars, and other such heroes, is quite contrary to the profession of the
gospel of Christ, by which we are commanded to preserve, keep, rule, and
govern every man his own country and lands, and not in a hostile manner to
invade others; and that which heretofore the Barbars and Saracens called
prowess and valour, we do now call robbing, thievery, and wickedness. It
would have been more commendable in him to have contained himself within
the bounds of his own territories, royally governing them, than to insult
and domineer in mine, pillaging and plundering everywhere like a most
unmerciful enemy; for, by ruling his own with discretion, he might have
increased his greatness, but by robbing me he cannot escape destruction.
Go your ways in the name of God, prosecute good enterprises, show your king
what is amiss, and never counsel him with regard unto your own particular
profit, for the public loss will swallow up the private benefit. As for
your ransom, I do freely remit it to you, and will that your arms and horse
be restored to you; so should good neighbours do, and ancient friends,
seeing this our difference is not properly war. As Plato, Lib. 5 de
Repub. , would not have it called war, but sedition, when the Greeks took up
arms against one another, and that therefore, when such combustions should
arise amongst them, his advice was to behave themselves in the managing of
them with all discretion and modesty. Although you call it war, it is but
superficial; it entereth not into the closet and inmost cabinet of our
hearts. For neither of us hath been wronged in his honour, nor is there
any question betwixt us in the main, but only how to redress, by the bye,
some petty faults committed by our men,--I mean, both yours and ours,
which, although you knew, you ought to let pass; for these quarrelsome
persons deserve rather to be contemned than mentioned, especially seeing I
offered them satisfaction according to the wrong. God shall be the just
judge of our variances, whom I beseech by death rather to take me out of
this life, and to permit my goods to perish and be destroyed before mine
eyes, than that by me or mine he should in any sort be wronged. These
words uttered, he called the monk, and before them all thus spoke unto him,
Friar John, my good friend, it is you that took prisoner the Captain
Touchfaucet here present? Sir, said the monk, seeing himself is here, and
that he is of the years of discretion, I had rather you should know it by
his confession than by any words of mine. Then said Touchfaucet, My
sovereign lord it is he indeed that took me, and I do therefore most freely
yield myself his prisoner. Have you put him to any ransom? said
Grangousier to the monk. No, said the monk, of that I take no care. How
much would you have for having taken him?
