Gargantua and Pantagruel
to their breeches: for it is against nature, as hath most amply been
showed by Ockham upon the exponibles of Master Haultechaussade.
For his breeches were taken up eleven hundred and five ells and a third of
white broadcloth. They were cut in the form of pillars, chamfered,
channelled and pinked behind that they might not over-heat his reins: and
were, within the panes, puffed out with the lining of as much blue damask
as was needful: and remark, that he had very good leg-harness,
proportionable to the rest of his stature.
For his codpiece were used sixteen ells and a quarter of the same cloth,
and it was fashioned on the top like unto a triumphant arch, most gallantly
fastened with two enamelled clasps, in each of which was set a great
emerald, as big as an orange; for, as says Orpheus, lib. de lapidibus, and
Plinius, libro ultimo, it hath an erective virtue and comfortative of the
natural member. The exiture, outjecting or outstanding, of his codpiece
was of the length of a yard, jagged and pinked, and withal bagging, and
strutting out with the blue damask lining, after the manner of his
breeches. But had you seen the fair embroidery of the small needlework
purl, and the curiously interlaced knots, by the goldsmith’s art set out
and trimmed with rich diamonds, precious rubies, fine turquoises, costly
emeralds, and Persian pearls, you would have compared it to a fair
cornucopia, or horn of abundance, such as you see in antiques, or as Rhea
gave to the two nymphs, Amalthea and Ida, the nurses of Jupiter.
And, like to that horn of abundance, it was still gallant, succulent,
droppy, sappy, pithy, lively, always flourishing, always fructifying, full
of juice, full of flower, full of fruit, and all manner of delight. I avow
God, it would have done one good to have seen him, but I will tell you more
of him in the book which I have made of the dignity of codpieces. One
thing I will tell you, that as it was both long and large, so was it well
furnished and victualled within, nothing like unto the hypocritical
codpieces of some fond wooers and wench-courtiers, which are stuffed only
with wind, to the great prejudice of the female sex.
For his shoes were taken up four hundred and six ells of blue
crimson-velvet, and were very neatly cut by parallel lines, joined in
uniform cylinders. For the soling of them were made use of eleven hundred
hides of brown cows, shapen like the tail of a keeling.
For his coat were taken up eighteen hundred ells of blue velvet, dyed in
grain, embroidered in its borders with fair gilliflowers, in the middle
decked with silver purl, intermixed with plates of gold and store of
pearls, hereby showing that in his time he would prove an especial good
fellow and singular whipcan.
His girdle was made of three hundred ells and a half of silken serge, half
white and half blue, if I mistake it not. His sword was not of Valentia,
nor his dagger of Saragossa, for his father could not endure these hidalgos
borrachos maranisados como diablos: but he had a fair sword made of wood,
and the dagger of boiled leather, as well painted and gilded as any man
could wish.
His purse was made of the cod of an elephant, which was given him by Herr
Pracontal, proconsul of Lybia.
For his gown were employed nine thousand six hundred ells, wanting
two-thirds, of blue velvet, as before, all so diagonally purled, that by
true perspective issued thence an unnamed colour, like that you see in the
necks of turtle-doves or turkey-cocks, which wonderfully rejoiced the eyes
of the beholders. For his bonnet or cap were taken up three hundred, two
ells and a quarter of white velvet, and the form thereof was wide and round,
of the bigness of his head; for his father said that the caps of the
Marrabaise fashion, made like the cover of a pasty, would one time or other
bring a mischief on those that wore them. For his plume, he wore a fair
great blue feather, plucked from an onocrotal of the country of Hircania the
wild, very prettily hanging down over his right ear. For the jewel or
brooch which in his cap he carried, he had in a cake of gold, weighing three
score and eight marks, a fair piece enamelled, wherein was portrayed a man’s
body with two heads, looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, two
arses, such as Plato, in Symposio, says was the mystical beginning of man’s
nature; and about it was written in Ionic letters, Agame ou zetei ta eautes,
or rather, Aner kai gune zugada anthrotos idiaitata, that is, Vir et mulier
junctim propriissime homo. To wear about his neck, he had a golden chain,
weighing twenty-five thousand and sixty-three marks of gold, the links
thereof being made after the manner of great berries, amongst which were set
in work green jaspers engraven and cut dragon-like, all environed with beams
and sparks, as king Nicepsos of old was wont to wear them: and it reached
down to the very bust of the rising of his belly, whereby he reaped great
benefit all his life long, as the Greek physicians know well enough. For
his gloves were put in work sixteen otters’ skins, and three of the
loupgarous, or men-eating wolves, for the bordering of them: and of this
stuff were they made, by the appointment of the Cabalists of Sanlouand. As
for the rings which his father would have him to wear, to renew the ancient
mark of nobility, he had on the forefinger of his left hand a carbuncle as
big as an ostrich’s egg, enchased very daintily in gold of the fineness of a
Turkey seraph. Upon the middle finger of the same hand he had a ring made
of four metals together, of the strangest fashion that ever was seen; so
that the steel did not crash against the gold, nor the silver crush the
copper. All this was made by Captain Chappuys, and Alcofribas his good
agent. On the medical finger of his right hand he had a ring made
spire-wise, wherein was set a perfect Balas ruby, a pointed diamond, and
a Physon emerald, of an inestimable value. For Hans Carvel, the king of
Melinda’s jeweller, esteemed them at the rate of threescore nine millions,
eight hundred ninety-four thousand, and eighteen French crowns of Berry, and
at so much did the Foucres of Augsburg prize them.
Chapter 1.IX.
The colours and liveries of Gargantua.
Gargantua’s colours were white and blue, as I have showed you before, by
which his father would give us to understand that his son to him was a
heavenly joy; for the white did signify gladness, pleasure, delight, and
rejoicing, and the blue, celestial things. I know well enough that, in
reading this, you laugh at the old drinker, and hold this exposition of
colours to be very extravagant, and utterly disagreeable to reason, because
white is said to signify faith, and blue constancy. But without moving,
vexing, heating, or putting you in a chafe (for the weather is dangerous),
answer me, if it please you; for no other compulsory way of arguing will I
use towards you, or any else; only now and then I will mention a word or
two of my bottle. What is it that induceth you, what stirs you up to
believe, or who told you that white signifieth faith, and blue constancy?
An old paltry book, say you, sold by the hawking pedlars and balladmongers,
entitled The Blason of Colours. Who made it? Whoever it was, he was wise
in that he did not set his name to it. But, besides, I know not what I
should rather admire in him, his presumption or his sottishness. His
presumption and overweening, for that he should without reason, without
cause, or without any appearance of truth, have dared to prescribe, by his
private authority, what things should be denotated and signified by the
colour: which is the custom of tyrants, who will have their will to bear
sway in stead of equity, and not of the wise and learned, who with the
evidence of reason satisfy their readers. His sottishness and want of
spirit, in that he thought that, without any other demonstration or
sufficient argument, the world would be pleased to make his blockish and
ridiculous impositions the rule of their devices. In effect, according to
the proverb, To a shitten tail fails never ordure, he hath found, it seems,
some simple ninny in those rude times of old, when the wearing of high
round bonnets was in fashion, who gave some trust to his writings,
according to which they carved and engraved their apophthegms and mottoes,
trapped and caparisoned their mules and sumpter-horses, apparelled their
pages, quartered their breeches, bordered their gloves, fringed the
curtains and valances of their beds, painted their ensigns, composed songs,
and, which is worse, placed many deceitful jugglings and unworthy base
tricks undiscoveredly amongst the very chastest matrons and most reverend
sciences. In the like darkness and mist of ignorance are wrapped up these
vain-glorious courtiers and name-transposers, who, going about in their
impresas to signify esperance (that is, hope), have portrayed a sphere--and
birds’ pennes for pains--l’ancholie (which is the flower colombine) for
melancholy--a waning moon or crescent, to show the increasing or rising of
one’s fortune--a bench rotten and broken, to signify bankrupt--non and a
corslet for non dur habit (otherwise non durabit, it shall not last), un
lit sans ciel, that is, a bed without a tester, for un licencie, a
graduated person, as bachelor in divinity or utter barrister-at-law; which
are equivocals so absurd and witless, so barbarous and clownish, that a
fox’s tail should be fastened to the neck-piece of, and a vizard made of a
cowsherd given to everyone that henceforth should offer, after the
restitution of learning, to make use of any such fopperies in France.
By the same reasons (if reasons I should call them, and not ravings rather,
and idle triflings about words), might I cause paint a pannier, to signify
that I am in pain--a mustard-pot, that my heart tarries much for’t--one
pissing upwards for a bishop--the bottom of a pair of breeches for a vessel
full of fart-hings--a codpiece for the office of the clerks of the
sentences, decrees, or judgments, or rather, as the English bears it, for
the tail of a codfish--and a dog’s turd for the dainty turret wherein lies
the love of my sweetheart. Far otherwise did heretofore the sages of
Egypt, when they wrote by letters, which they called hieroglyphics, which
none understood who were not skilled in the virtue, property, and nature of
the things represented by them. Of which Orus Apollon hath in Greek
composed two books, and Polyphilus, in his Dream of Love, set down more.
In France you have a taste of them in the device or impresa of my Lord
Admiral, which was carried before that time by Octavian Augustus. But my
little skiff alongst these unpleasant gulfs and shoals will sail no
further, therefore must I return to the port from whence I came. Yet do I
hope one day to write more at large of these things, and to show both by
philosophical arguments and authorities, received and approved of by and
from all antiquity, what, and how many colours there are in nature, and
what may be signified by every one of them, if God save the mould of my
cap, which is my best wine-pot, as my grandam said.
Chapter 1.X.
Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.
The white therefore signifieth joy, solace, and gladness, and that not at
random, but upon just and very good grounds: which you may perceive to be
true, if laying aside all prejudicate affections, you will but give ear to
what presently I shall expound unto you.
Aristotle saith that, supposing two things contrary in their kind, as good
and evil, virtue and vice, heat and cold, white and black, pleasure and
pain, joy and grief,--and so of others,--if you couple them in such manner
that the contrary of one kind may agree in reason with the contrary of the