Gargantua and Pantagruel
voided without doors. The great God made the planets, and we make the
platters neat. I have the word of the gospel in my mouth, Sitio. The
stone called asbestos is not more unquenchable than the thirst of my
paternity. Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston, but the thirst goes
away with drinking. I have a remedy against thirst, quite contrary to that
which is good against the biting of a mad dog. Keep running after a dog,
and he will never bite you; drink always before the thirst, and it will
never come upon you. There I catch you, I awake you. Argus had a hundred
eyes for his sight, a butler should have (like Briareus) a hundred hands
wherewith to fill us wine indefatigably. Hey now, lads, let us moisten
ourselves, it will be time to dry hereafter. White wine here, wine, boys!
Pour out all in the name of Lucifer, fill here, you, fill and fill
(peascods on you) till it be full. My tongue peels. Lans trinque; to
thee, countryman, I drink to thee, good fellow, comrade to thee, lusty,
lively! Ha, la, la, that was drunk to some purpose, and bravely gulped
over. O lachryma Christi, it is of the best grape! I’faith, pure Greek,
Greek! O the fine white wine! upon my conscience, it is a kind of taffetas
wine,--hin, hin, it is of one ear, well wrought, and of good wool.
Courage, comrade, up thy heart, billy! We will not be beasted at this
bout, for I have got one trick. Ex hoc in hoc. There is no enchantment
nor charm there, every one of you hath seen it. My ‘prenticeship is out, I
am a free man at this trade. I am prester mast (Prestre mace, maistre
passe.), Prish, Brum! I should say, master past. O the drinkers, those
that are a-dry, O poor thirsty souls! Good page, my friend, fill me here
some, and crown the wine, I pray thee. Like a cardinal! Natura abhorret
vacuum. Would you say that a fly could drink in this? This is after the
fashion of Switzerland. Clear off, neat, supernaculum! Come, therefore,
blades, to this divine liquor and celestial juice, swill it over heartily,
and spare not! It is a decoction of nectar and ambrosia.
Chapter 1.VI.
How Gargantua was born in a strange manner.
Whilst they were on this discourse and pleasant tattle of drinking,
Gargamelle began to be a little unwell in her lower parts; whereupon
Grangousier arose from off the grass, and fell to comfort her very honestly
and kindly, suspecting that she was in travail, and told her that it was
best for her to sit down upon the grass under the willows, because she was
like very shortly to see young feet, and that therefore it was convenient
she should pluck up her spirits, and take a good heart of new at the fresh
arrival of her baby; saying to her withal, that although the pain was
somewhat grievous to her, it would be but of short continuance, and that
the succeeding joy would quickly remove that sorrow, in such sort that she
should not so much as remember it. On, with a sheep’s courage! quoth he.
Despatch this boy, and we will speedily fall to work for the making of
another. Ha! said she, so well as you speak at your own ease, you that are
men! Well, then, in the name of God, I’ll do my best, seeing that you will
have it so, but would to God that it were cut off from you! What? said
Grangousier. Ha, said she, you are a good man indeed, you understand it
well enough. What, my member? said he. By the goat’s blood, if it please
you, that shall be done instantly; cause bring hither a knife. Alas, said
she, the Lord forbid, and pray Jesus to forgive me! I did not say it from
my heart, therefore let it alone, and do not do it neither more nor less
any kind of harm for my speaking so to you. But I am like to have work
enough to do to-day and all for your member, yet God bless you and it.
Courage, courage, said he, take you no care of the matter, let the four
foremost oxen do the work. I will yet go drink one whiff more, and if in
the mean time anything befall you that may require my presence, I will be
so near to you, that, at the first whistling in your fist, I shall be with
you forthwith. A little while after she began to groan, lament and cry.
Then suddenly came the midwives from all quarters, who groping her below,
found some peloderies, which was a certain filthy stuff, and of a taste
truly bad enough. This they thought had been the child, but it was her
fundament, that was slipped out with the mollification of her straight
entrail, which you call the bum-gut, and that merely by eating of too many
tripes, as we have showed you before. Whereupon an old ugly trot in the
company, who had the repute of an expert she-physician, and was come from
Brisepaille, near to Saint Genou, three score years before, made her so
horrible a restrictive and binding medicine, and whereby all her larris,
arse-pipes, and conduits were so oppilated, stopped, obstructed, and
contracted, that you could hardly have opened and enlarged them with your
teeth, which is a terrible thing to think upon; seeing the Devil at the
mass at Saint Martin’s was puzzled with the like task, when with his teeth
he had lengthened out the parchment whereon he wrote the tittle-tattle of
two young mangy whores. By this inconvenient the cotyledons of her matrix
were presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped, and
so, entering into the hollow vein, did climb by the diaphragm even above
her shoulders, where the vein divides itself into two, and from thence
taking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear. As
soon as he was born, he cried not as other babes use to do, Miez, miez,
miez, miez, but with a high, sturdy, and big voice shouted about, Some
drink, some drink, some drink, as inviting all the world to drink with him.
The noise hereof was so extremely great, that it was heard in both the
countries at once of Beauce and Bibarois. I doubt me, that you do not
thoroughly believe the truth of this strange nativity. Though you believe
it not, I care not much: but an honest man, and of good judgment,
believeth still what is told him, and that which he finds written.
Is this beyond our law or our faith--against reason or the holy Scripture?
For my part, I find nothing in the sacred Bible that is against it. But
tell me, if it had been the will of God, would you say that he could not do
it? Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock or inpulregafize
your spirits with these vain thoughts and idle conceits; for I tell you, it
is not impossible with God, and, if he pleased, all women henceforth should
bring forth their children at the ear. Was not Bacchus engendered out of
the very thigh of Jupiter? Did not Roquetaillade come out at his mother’s
heel, and Crocmoush from the slipper of his nurse? Was not Minerva born of
the brain, even through the ear of Jove? Adonis, of the bark of a myrrh
tree; and Castor and Pollux of the doupe of that egg which was laid and
hatched by Leda? But you would wonder more, and with far greater
amazement, if I should now present you with that chapter of Plinius,
wherein he treateth of strange births, and contrary to nature, and yet am
not I so impudent a liar as he was. Read the seventh book of his Natural
History, chap.3, and trouble not my head any more about this.
Chapter 1.VII.
After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled,
bibbed, and curried the can.
The good man Grangousier, drinking and making merry with the rest, heard
the horrible noise which his son had made as he entered into the light of
this world, when he cried out, Some drink, some drink, some drink;
whereupon he said in French, Que grand tu as et souple le gousier! that is
to say, How great and nimble a throat thou hast. Which the company
hearing, said that verily the child ought to be called Gargantua; because
it was the first word that after his birth his father had spoke, in
imitation, and at the example of the ancient Hebrews; whereunto he
condescended, and his mother was very well pleased therewith. In the
meanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a tirelaregot, that
is, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he carried to the
font, and there baptized, according to the manner of good Christians.
Immediately thereafter were appointed for him seventeen thousand, nine
hundred, and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and Brehemond, to
furnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible to find a nurse
sufficient for him in all the country, considering the great quantity of
milk that was requisite for his nourishment; although there were not
wanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who affirmed that his own
mother gave him suck, and that she could draw out of her breasts one
thousand, four hundred, two pipes, and nine pails of milk at every time.
Which indeed is not probable, and this point hath been found duggishly
scandalous and offensive to tender ears, for that it savoured a little of
heresy. Thus was he handled for one year and ten months; after which time,
by the advice of physicians, they began to carry him, and then was made for
him a fine little cart drawn with oxen, of the invention of Jan Denio,
wherein they led him hither and thither with great joy; and he was worth
the seeing, for he was a fine boy, had a burly physiognomy, and almost ten
chins. He cried very little, but beshit himself every hour: for, to speak
truly of him, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors, both by
reason of his natural complexion and the accidental disposition which had
befallen him by his too much quaffing of the Septembral juice. Yet without
a cause did not he sup one drop; for if he happened to be vexed, angry,
displeased, or sorry, if he did fret, if he did weep, if he did cry, and
what grievous quarter soever he kept, in bringing him some drink, he would
be instantly pacified, reseated in his own temper, in a good humour again,
and as still and quiet as ever. One of his governesses told me (swearing
by her fig), how he was so accustomed to this kind of way, that, at the
sound of pints and flagons, he would on a sudden fall into an ecstasy, as
if he had then tasted of the joys of paradise; so that they, upon
consideration of this, his divine complexion, would every morning, to cheer
him up, play with a knife upon the glasses, on the bottles with their
stopples, and on the pottle-pots with their lids and covers, at the sound
whereof he became gay, did leap for joy, would loll and rock himself in the
cradle, then nod with his head, monochordizing with his fingers, and
barytonizing with his tail.
Chapter 1.VIII.
How they apparelled Gargantua.
Being of this age, his father ordained to have clothes made to him in his
own livery, which was white and blue. To work then went the tailors, and
with great expedition were those clothes made, cut, and sewed, according to
the fashion that was then in request. I find by the ancient records or
pancarts, to be seen in the chamber of accounts, or court of the exchequer
at Montsoreau, that he was accoutred in manner as followeth. To make him
every shirt of his were taken up nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud linen,
and two hundred for the gussets, in manner of cushions, which they put
under his armpits. His shirt was not gathered nor plaited, for the
plaiting of shirts was not found out till the seamstresses (when the point
of their needle (Besongner du cul, Englished The eye of the needle.) was
broken) began to work and occupy with the tail. There were taken up for
his doublet, eight hundred and thirteen ells of white satin, and for his
points fifteen hundred and nine dogs’ skins and a half. Then was it that
men began to tie their breeches to their doublets, and not their doublets