Gargantua and Pantagruel
body hypocritically take there a small hypocritical touch? Will they lie
backwards, and let out their fore-rooms? There’s a fine question to be
asked, cried Pantagruel. Yes, yes, answered Xenomanes; you may find there
many goodly hypocritesses, jolly spiritual actresses, kind hermitesses,
women that have a plaguy deal of religion; then there’s the copies of ‘em,
little hypocritillons, sham sanctitos, and hermitillons. Foh! away with
them, cried Friar John; a young saint, an old devil! (Mark this, an old
saying, and as true a one as, a young whore, an old saint.) Were there not
such, continued Xenomanes, the isle of Chaneph, for want of a
multiplication of progeny, had long ere this been desert and desolate.
Pantagruel sent them by Gymnast in the pinnace seventy-eight thousand fine
pretty little gold half-crowns, of those that are marked with a lantern.
After this he asked, What’s o’clock? Past nine, answered Epistemon. It is
then the best time to go to dinner, said Pantagruel; for the sacred line so
celebrated by Aristophanes in his play called Concionatrices is at hand,
never failing when the shadow is decempedal.
Formerly, among the Persians, dinner-time was at a set hour only for kings;
as for all others, their appetite and their belly was their clock; when
that chimed, they thought it time to go to dinner. So we find in Plautus a
certain parasite making a heavy do, and sadly railing at the inventors of
hour-glasses and dials as being unnecessary things, there being no clock
more regular than the belly.
Diogenes being asked at what times a man ought to eat, answered, The rich
when he is hungry, the poor when he has anything to eat. Physicians more
properly say that the canonical hours are,
To rise at five, to dine at nine,
To sup at five, to sleep at nine.
The famous king Petosiris’s magic was different,--Here the officers for the
gut came in, and got ready the tables and cupboards; laid the cloth, whose
sight and pleasant smell were very comfortable; and brought plates,
napkins, salts, tankards, flagons, tall-boys, ewers, tumblers, cups,
goblets, basins, and cisterns.
Friar John, at the head of the stewards, sewers, yeomen of the pantry, and
of the mouth, tasters, carvers, cupbearers, and cupboard-keepers, brought
four stately pasties, so huge that they put me in mind of the four bastions
at Turin. Ods-fish, how manfully did they storm them! What havoc did they
make with the long train of dishes that came after them! How bravely did
they stand to their pan-puddings, and paid off their dust! How merrily did
they soak their noses!
The fruit was not yet brought in, when a fresh gale at west and by north
began to fill the main-course, mizen-sail, fore-sail, tops, and
top-gallants; for which blessing they all sung divers hymns of thanks and
praise.
When the fruit was on the table, Pantagruel asked, Now tell me, gentlemen,
are your doubts fully resolved or no? I gape and yawn no more, answered
Rhizotome. I sleep no longer like a dog, said Ponocrates. I have cleared
my eyesight, said Gymnast. I have broke my fast, said Eusthenes; so that
for this whole day I shall be secure from the danger of my spittle.
Asps. Black wag leg-flies. Domeses.
Amphisbenes. Spanish flies. Dryinades.
Anerudutes. Catoblepes. Dragons.
Abedissimons. Horned snakes. Elopes.
Alhartrafz. Caterpillars. Enhydrides.
Ammobates. Crocodiles. Falvises.
Apimaos. Toads. Galeotes.
Alhatrabans. Nightmares. Harmenes.
Aractes. Mad dogs. Handons.
Asterions. Colotes. Icles.
Alcharates. Cychriodes. Jarraries.
Arges. Cafezates. Ilicines.
Spiders. Cauhares. Pharaoh’s mice.
Starry lizards. Snakes. Kesudures.
Attelabes. Cuhersks, two- Sea-hares.
Ascalabotes. tongued adders. Chalcidic newts.
Haemorrhoids. Amphibious ser- Footed serpents.
Basilisks. pents. Manticores.
Fitches. Cenchres. Molures.
Sucking water- Cockatrices. Mouse-serpents.
snakes. Dipsades. Shrew-mice.
Miliares. Salamanders. Stinkfish.
Megalaunes. Slowworms. Stuphes.
Spitting-asps. Stellions. Sabrins.
Porphyri. Scorpenes. Blood-sucking flies.
Pareades. Scorpions. Hornfretters.
Phalanges. Hornworms. Scolopendres.
Penphredons. Scalavotins. Tarantulas.
Pinetree-worms. Solofuidars. Blind worms.
Ruteles. Deaf-asps. Tetragnathias.
Worms. Horseleeches. Teristales.
Rhagions. Salt-haters. Vipers, &c.
Rhaganes. Rot-serpents.
Chapter 4.LXV.
How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants.
In what hierarchy of such venomous creatures do you place Panurge’s future
spouse? asked Friar John. Art thou speaking ill of women, cried Panurge,
thou mangy scoundrel, thou sorry, noddy-peaked shaveling monk? By the
cenomanic paunch and gixy, said Epistemon, Euripides has written, and makes
Andromache say it, that by industry, and the help of the gods, men had
found remedies against all poisonous creatures; but none was yet found
against a bad wife.
This flaunting Euripides, cried Panurge, was gabbling against women every
foot, and therefore was devoured by dogs, as a judgment from above; as
Aristophanes observes. Let’s go on. Let him speak that is next. I can
leak now like any stone-horse, said then Epistemon. I am, said Xenomanes,
full as an egg and round as a hoop; my ship’s hold can hold no more, and
will now make shift to bear a steady sail. Said Carpalin, A truce with
thirst, a truce with hunger; they are strong, but wine and meat are
stronger. I’m no more in the dumps cried Panurge; my heart’s a pound
lighter. I’m in the right cue now, as brisk as a body-louse, and as merry
as a beggar. For my part, I know what I do when I drink; and it is a true
thing (though ‘tis in your Euripides) that is said by that jolly toper
Silenus of blessed memory, that--
The man’s emphatically mad,
Who drinks the best, yet can be sad.
We must not fail to return our humble and hearty thanks to the Being who,
with this good bread, this cool delicious wine, these good meats and rare
dainties, removes from our bodies and minds these pains and perturbations,
and at the same time fills us with pleasure and with food.
But methinks, sir, you did not give an answer to Friar John’s question;
which, as I take it, was how to raise good weather. Since you ask no more
than this easy question, answered Pantagruel, I’ll strive to give you
satisfaction; and some other time we’ll talk of the rest of the problems,
if you will.
Well then, Friar John asked how good weather might be raised. Have we not
raised it? Look up and see our full topsails. Hark how the wind whistles
through the shrouds, what a stiff gale it blows. Observe the rattling of
the tacklings, and see the sheets that fasten the mainsail behind; the
force of the wind puts them upon the stretch. While we passed our time
merrily, the dull weather also passed away; and while we raised the glasses
to our mouths, we also raised the wind by a secret sympathy in nature.
Thus Atlas and Hercules clubbed to raise and underprop the falling sky, if
you’ll believe the wise mythologists, but they raised it some half an inch
too high, Atlas to entertain his guest Hercules more pleasantly, and
Hercules to make himself amends for the thirst which some time before had
tormented him in the deserts of Africa. Your good father, said Friar John,
interrupting him, takes care to free many people from such an
inconveniency; for I have been told by many venerable doctors that his
chief-butler, Turelupin, saves above eighteen hundred pipes of wine yearly
to make servants, and all comers and goers, drink before they are a-dry.
As the camels and dromedaries of a caravan, continued Pantagruel, use to
drink for the thirst that’s past, for the present, and for that to come, so
did Hercules; and being thus excessively raised, this gave new motion to
the sky, which is that of titubation and trepidation, about which our
crackbrained astrologers make such a pother. This, said Panurge, makes the
saying good:
While jolly companions carouse it together,
A fig for the storm, it gives way to good weather.
Nay, continued Pantagruel, some will tell you that we have not only
shortened the time of the calm, but also much disburthened the ship; not
like Aesop’s basket, by easing it of the provision, but by breaking our
fasts; and that a man is more terrestrial and heavy when fasting than when
he has eaten and drank, even as they pretend that he weighs more dead than
living. However it is, you will grant they are in the right who take their
morning’s draught and breakfast before a long journey; then say that the
horses will perform the better, and that a spur in the head is worth two in
the flank; or, in the same horse dialect--
That a cup in the pate
Is a mile in the gate.
Don’t you know that formerly the Amycleans worshipped the noble Bacchus
above all other gods, and gave him the name of Psila, which in the Doric
dialect signifies wings; for, as the birds raise themselves by a towering
flight with their wings above the clouds, so, with the help of soaring
Bacchus, the powerful juice of the grape, our spirits are exalted to a
pitch above themselves, our bodies are more sprightly, and their earthly
parts become soft and pliant.
Chapter 4.LXVI.
How, by Pantagruel’s order, the Muses were saluted near the isle of
Ganabim.
This fair wind and as fine talk brought us in sight of a high land, which
Pantagruel discovering afar off, showed it Xenomanes, and asked him, Do you
see yonder to the leeward a high rock with two tops, much like Mount
Parnassus in Phocis? I do plainly, answered Xenomanes; ‘tis the isle of
Ganabim. Have you a mind to go ashore there? No, returned Pantagruel.
You do well, indeed, said Xenomanes; for there is nothing worth seeing in
the place. The people are all thieves; yet there is the finest fountain in
the world, and a very large forest towards the right top of the mountain.
Your fleet may take in wood and water there.
He that spoke last, spoke well, quoth Panurge; let us not by any means be
so mad as to go among a parcel of thieves and sharpers. You may take my
word for’t, this place is just such another as, to my knowledge, formerly
were the islands of Sark and Herm, between the smaller and the greater
Britain; such as was the Poneropolis of Philip in Thrace; islands of
thieves, banditti, picaroons, robbers, ruffians, and murderers, worse than
raw-head and bloody-bones, and full as honest as the senior fellows of the
college of iniquity, the very outcasts of the county gaol’s common-side.
As you love yourself, do not go among ‘em. If you go you’ll come off but
bluely, if you come off at all. If you will not believe me, at least
believe what the good and wise Xenomanes tells you; for may I never stir if
they are not worse than the very cannibals; they would certainly eat us
alive. Do not go among ‘em, I pray you; it were safer to take a journey to
hell. Hark! by Cod’s body, I hear ‘em ringing the alarm-bell most
dreadfully, as the Gascons about Bordeaux used formerly to do against the
commissaries and officers for the tax on salt, or my ears tingle. Let’s
sheer off.
Believe me, sir, said Friar John, let’s rather land; we will rid the world
of that vermin, and inn there for nothing. Old Nick go with thee for me,