Gargantua and Pantagruel
yon buxom lasses. Why, what would you do with them? cried Homenas. Quoth
Friar John, No harm, only bleed the kind-hearted souls straight between the
two great toes with certain clever lancets of the right stamp; by which
operation good Christian children would be inoculated upon them, and the
breed be multiplied in our country, in which there are not many over-good,
the more’s the pity.
Nay, verily, replied Homenas, we cannot do this; for you would make them
tread their shoes awry, crack their pipkins, and spoil their shapes. You
love mutton, I see; you will run at sheep. I know you by that same nose
and hair of yours, though I never saw your face before. Alas! alas! how
kind you are! And would you indeed damn your precious soul? Our decretals
forbid this. Ah, I wish you had them at your finger’s-end. Patience, said
Friar John; but, si tu non vis dare, praesta, quaesumus. Matter of
breviary. As for that, I defy all the world, and I fear no man that wears
a head and a hood, though he were a crystalline, I mean a decretaline
doctor.
Dinner being over, we took our leave of the right reverend Homenas, and of
all the good people, humbly giving thanks; and, to make them amends for
their kind entertainment, promised them that, at our coming to Rome, we
would make our applications so effectually to the pope that he would
speedily be sure to come to visit them in person. After this we went
o’board.
Pantagruel, by an act of generosity, and as an acknowledgment of the sight
of the pope’s picture, gave Homenas nine pieces of double friezed cloth of
gold to be set before the grates of the window. He also caused the church
box for its repairs and fabric to be quite filled with double crowns of
gold; and ordered nine hundred and fourteen angels to be delivered to each
of the lasses who had waited at table, to buy them husbands when they could
get them.
Chapter 4.LV.
How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words.
When we were at sea, junketting, tippling, discoursing, and telling
stories, Pantagruel rose and stood up to look out; then asked us, Do you
hear nothing, gentlemen? Methinks I hear some people talking in the air,
yet I can see nobody. Hark! According to his command we listened, and
with full ears sucked in the air as some of you suck oysters, to find if we
could hear some sound scattered through the sky; and to lose none of it,
like the Emperor Antoninus some of us laid their hands hollow next to their
ears; but all this would not do, nor could we hear any voice. Yet
Pantagruel continued to assure us he heard various voices in the air, some
of men, and some of women.
At last we began to fancy that we also heard something, or at least that
our ears tingled; and the more we listened, the plainer we discerned the
voices, so as to distinguish articulate sounds. This mightily frightened
us, and not without cause; since we could see nothing, yet heard such
various sounds and voices of men, women, children, horses, &c., insomuch
that Panurge cried out, Cods-belly, there is no fooling with the devil; we
are all beshit, let’s fly. There is some ambuscado hereabouts. Friar
John, art thou here my love? I pray thee, stay by me, old boy. Hast thou
got thy swindging tool? See that it do not stick in thy scabbard; thou
never scourest it half as it should be. We are undone. Hark! They are
guns, gad judge me. Let’s fly, I do not say with hands and feet, as Brutus
said at the battle of Pharsalia; I say, with sails and oars. Let’s whip it
away. I never find myself to have a bit of courage at sea; in cellars and
elsewhere I have more than enough. Let’s fly and save our bacon. I do not
say this for any fear that I have; for I dread nothing but danger, that I
don’t; I always say it that shouldn’t. The free archer of Baignolet said
as much. Let us hazard nothing, therefore, I say, lest we come off bluely.
Tack about, helm a-lee, thou son of a bachelor. Would I were now well in
Quinquenais, though I were never to marry. Haste away, let’s make all the
sail we can. They’ll be too hard for us; we are not able to cope with
them; they are ten to our one, I’ll warrant you. Nay, and they are on
their dunghill, while we do not know the country. They will be the death
of us. We’ll lose no honour by flying. Demosthenes saith that the man
that runs away may fight another day. At least let us retreat to the
leeward. Helm a-lee; bring the main-tack aboard, haul the bowlines, hoist
the top-gallants. We are all dead men; get off, in the devil’s name, get
off.
Pantagruel, hearing the sad outcry which Panurge made, said, Who talks of
flying? Let’s first see who they are; perhaps they may be friends. I can
discover nobody yet, though I can see a hundred miles round me. But let’s
consider a little. I have read that a philosopher named Petron was of
opinion that there were several worlds that touched each other in an
equilateral triangle; in whose centre, he said, was the dwelling of truth;
and that the words, ideas, copies, and images of all things past and to
come resided there; round which was the age; and that with success of time
part of them used to fall on mankind like rheums and mildews, just as the
dew fell on Gideon’s fleece, till the age was fulfilled.
I also remember, continued he, that Aristotle affirms Homer’s words to be
flying, moving, and consequently animated. Besides, Antiphanes said that
Plato’s philosophy was like words which, being spoken in some country
during a hard winter, are immediately congealed, frozen up, and not heard;
for what Plato taught young lads could hardly be understood by them when
they were grown old. Now, continued he, we should philosophize and search
whether this be not the place where those words are thawed.
You would wonder very much should this be the head and lyre of Orpheus.
When the Thracian women had torn him to pieces they threw his head and lyre
into the river Hebrus, down which they floated to the Euxine sea as far as
the island of Lesbos; the head continually uttering a doleful song, as it
were lamenting the death of Orpheus, and the lyre, with the wind’s impulse
moving its strings and harmoniously accompanying the voice. Let’s see if
we cannot discover them hereabouts.
Chapter 4.LVI.
How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones.
The skipper made answer: Be not afraid, my lord; we are on the confines of
the Frozen Sea, on which, about the beginning of last winter, happened a
great and bloody fight between the Arimaspians and the Nephelibates. Then
the words and cries of men and women, the hacking, slashing, and hewing of
battle-axes, the shocking, knocking, and jolting of armours and harnesses,
the neighing of horses, and all other martial din and noise, froze in the
air; and now, the rigour of the winter being over, by the succeeding
serenity and warmth of the weather they melt and are heard.
By jingo, quoth Panurge, the man talks somewhat like. I believe him. But
couldn’t we see some of ‘em? I think I have read that, on the edge of the
mountain on which Moses received the Judaic law, the people saw the voices
sensibly. Here, here, said Pantagruel, here are some that are not yet
thawed. He then threw us on the deck whole handfuls of frozen words, which
seemed to us like your rough sugar-plums, of many colours, like those used
in heraldry; some words gules (this means also jests and merry sayings),
some vert, some azure, some black, some or (this means also fair words);
and when we had somewhat warmed them between our hands, they melted like
snow, and we really heard them, but could not understand them, for it was a
barbarous gibberish. One of them only, that was pretty big, having been
warmed between Friar John’s hands, gave a sound much like that of chestnuts
when they are thrown into the fire without being first cut, which made us
all start. This was the report of a field-piece in its time, cried Friar
John.
Panurge prayed Pantagruel to give him some more; but Pantagruel told him
that to give words was the part of a lover. Sell me some then, I pray you,
cried Panurge. That’s the part of a lawyer, returned Pantagruel. I would
sooner sell you silence, though at a dearer rate; as Demosthenes formerly
sold it by the means of his argentangina, or silver squinsy.
However, he threw three or four handfuls of them on the deck; among which I
perceived some very sharp words, and some bloody words, which the pilot
said used sometimes to go back and recoil to the place whence they came,
but it was with a slit weasand. We also saw some terrible words, and some
others not very pleasant to the eye.
When they had been all melted together, we heard a strange noise, hin, hin,
hin, hin, his, tick, tock, taack, bredelinbrededack, frr, frr, frr, bou,
bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, track, track, trr, trr, trr, trrr,
trrrrrr, on, on, on, on, on, on, ououououon, gog, magog, and I do not know
what other barbarous words, which the pilot said were the noise made by the
charging squadrons, the shock and neighing of horses.
Then we heard some large ones go off like drums and fifes, and others like
clarions and trumpets. Believe me, we had very good sport with them. I
would fain have saved some merry odd words, and have preserved them in oil,
as ice and snow are kept, and between clean straw. But Pantagruel would
not let me, saying that ‘tis a folly to hoard up what we are never like to
want or have always at hand, odd, quaint, merry, and fat words of gules
never being scarce among all good and jovial Pantagruelists.
Panurge somewhat vexed Friar John, and put him in the pouts; for he took
him at his word while he dreamed of nothing less. This caused the friar to
threaten him with such a piece of revenge as was put upon G. Jousseaume,
who having taken the merry Patelin at his word when he had overbid himself
in some cloth, was afterwards fairly taken by the horns like a bullock by
his jovial chapman, whom he took at his word like a man. Panurge, well
knowing that threatened folks live long, bobbed and made mouths at him in
token of derision, then cried, Would I had here the word of the Holy
Bottle, without being thus obliged to go further in pilgrimage to her.
Chapter 4.LVII.
How Pantagruel went ashore at the dwelling of Gaster, the first master of
arts in the world.
That day Pantagruel went ashore in an island which, for situation and
governor, may be said not to have its fellow. When you just come into it,
you find it rugged, craggy, and barren, unpleasant to the eye, painful to
the feet, and almost as inaccessible as the mountain of Dauphine, which is
somewhat like a toadstool, and was never climbed as any can remember by any
but Doyac, who had the charge of King Charles the Eighth’s train of
artillery.
This same Doyac with strange tools and engines gained that mountain’s top,
and there he found an old ram. It puzzled many a wise head to guess how it
got thither. Some said that some eagle or great horncoot, having carried
it thither while it was yet a lambkin, it had got away and saved itself
among the bushes.
As for us, having with much toil and sweat overcome the difficult ways at
the entrance, we found the top of the mountain so fertile, healthful, and
pleasant, that I thought I was then in the true garden of Eden, or earthly
paradise, about whose situation our good theologues are in such a quandary
and keep such a pother.
As for Pantagruel, he said that here was the seat of Arete--that is as much
as to say, virtue--described by Hesiod. This, however, with submission to
better judgments. The ruler of this place was one Master Gaster, the first
master of arts in this world. For, if you believe that fire is the great