Gargantua and Pantagruel
And thus the first battle ended to the unspeakable joy of all the
spectators.
After this the two brigades took their former stations, and began to tilt a
second time, much as they had done before, only the music played somewhat
faster than at the first battle, and the motions were altogether different.
I saw the golden queen sally out one of the first, with an archer and a
knight, as it were angry at the former defeat, and she had like to have
fallen upon the silvered king in his tent among his officers; but having
been baulked in her attempt, she skirmished briskly, and overthrew so many
silvered nymphs and officers that it was a most amazing sight. You would
have sworn she had been another Penthesilea; for she behaved herself with
as much bravery as that Amazonian queen did at Troy.
But this havoc did not last long; for the silvered party, exasperated by
their loss, resolved to perish or stop her progress; and having posted an
archer in ambuscado on a distant angle, together with a knight-errant, her
highness fell into their hands and was carried out of the field. The rest
were soon routed after the taking of their queen, who, without doubt, from
that time resolved to be more wary and keep near her king, without
venturing so far amidst her enemies unless with more force to defend her.
Thus the silvered brigade once more got the victory.
This did not dishearten or deject the golden party; far from it. They soon
appeared again in the field to face their enemies; and being posted as
before, both the armies seemed more resolute and cheerful than ever. Now
the martial concert began, and the music was above a hemiole the quicker,
according to the warlike Phrygian mode, such as was invented by Marsyas.
Then our combatants began to wheel about, and charge with such a swiftness
that in an instant they made four moves, besides the usual salutations. So
that they were continually in action, flying, hovering, jumping, vaulting,
curvetting, with petauristical turns and motions, and often intermingled.
Seeing them then turn about on one foot after they had made their honours,
we compared them to your tops or gigs, such as boys use to whip about,
making them turn round so swiftly that they sleep, as they call it, and
motion cannot be perceived, but resembles rest, its contrary; so that if
you make a point or mark on some part of one of those gigs, ‘twill be
perceived not as a point, but a continual line, in a most divine manner, as
Cusanus has wisely observed.
While they were thus warmly engaged, we heard continually the claps and
episemapsies which those of the two bands reiterated at the taking of their
enemies; and this, joined to the variety of their motions and music, would
have forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the never-laughing Crassus,
the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even whining Heraclitus, though he
abhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man. For who could
have forborne? seeing those young warriors, with their nymphs and queens,
so briskly and gracefully advance, retire, jump, leap, skip, spring, fly,
vault, caper, move to the right, to the left, every way still in time, so
swiftly, and yet so dexterously, that they never touched one another but
methodically.
As the number of the combatants lessened, the pleasure of the spectators
increased; for the stratagems and motions of the remaining forces were more
singular. I shall only add that this pleasing entertainment charmed us to
such a degree that our minds were ravished with admiration and delight, and
the martial harmony moved our souls so powerfully that we easily believed
what is said of Ismenias’s having excited Alexander to rise from table and
run to his arms, with such a warlike melody. At last the golden king
remained master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, Queen
Whims vanished, so that we saw her no more from that day to this.
Then Geber’s michelots conducted us, and we were set down among her
abstractors, as her queenship had commanded. After that we returned to the
port of Mateotechny, and thence straight aboard our ships; for the wind was
fair, and had we not hoisted out of hand, we could hardly have got off in
three quarters of a moon in the wane.
Chapter 5.XXVI.
How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and down.
We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days made
the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing. The ways
there are animals; so true is Aristotle’s saying, that all self-moving
things are animals. Now the ways walk there. Ergo, they are then animals.
Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those of the planets; others
are highways, crossways, and byways. I perceived that the travellers and
inhabitants of that country asked, Whither does this way go? Whither does
that way go? Some answered, Between Midy and Fevrolles, to the parish
church, to the city, to the river, and so forth. Being thus in their right
way, they used to reach their journey’s end without any further trouble,
just like those who go by water from Lyons to Avignon or Arles.
Now, as you know that nothing is perfect here below, we heard there was a
sort of people whom they called highwaymen, waybeaters, and makers of
inroads in roads; and that the poor ways were sadly afraid of them, and
shunned them as you do robbers. For these used to waylay them, as people
lay trains for wolves, and set gins for woodcocks. I saw one who was taken
up with a lord chief justice’s warrant for having unjustly, and in spite of
Pallas, taken the schoolway, which is the longest. Another boasted that he
had fairly taken his shortest, and that doing so he first compassed his
design. Thus, Carpalin, meeting once Epistemon looking upon a wall with
his fiddle-diddle, or live urinal, in his hand, to make a little maid’s
water, cried that he did not wonder now how the other came to be still the
first at Pantagruel’s levee, since he held his shortest and least used.
I found Bourges highway among these. It went with the deliberation of an
abbot, but was made to scamper at the approach of some waggoners, who
threatened to have it trampled under their horses’ feet, and make their
waggons run over it, as Tullia’s chariot did over her father’s body.
I also espied there the old way between Peronne and St. Quentin, which
seemed to me a very good, honest, plain way, as smooth as a carpet, and as
good as ever was trod upon by shoe of leather.
Among the rocks I knew again the good old way to La Ferrare, mounted on a
huge bear. This at a distance would have put me in mind of St. Jerome’s
picture, had but the bear been a lion; for the poor way was all mortified,
and wore a long hoary beard uncombed and entangled, which looked like the
picture of winter, or at least like a white-frosted bush.
On that way were store of beads or rosaries, coarsely made of wild
pine-tree; and it seemed kneeling, not standing, nor lying flat; but its
sides and middle were beaten with huge stones, insomuch that it proved to us
at once an object of fear and pity.
While we were examining it, a runner, bachelor of the place, took us aside,
and showing us a white smooth way, somewhat filled with straw, said,
Henceforth, gentlemen, do not reject the opinion of Thales the Milesian,
who said that water is the beginning of all things, nor that of Homer, who
tells us that all things derive their original from the ocean; for this
same way which you see here had its beginning from water, and is to return
whence she came before two months come to an end; now carts are driven here
where boats used to be rowed.
Truly, said Pantagruel, you tell us no news; we see five hundred such
changes, and more, every year, in our world. Then reflecting on the
different manner of going of those moving ways, he told us he believed that
Philolaus and Aristarchus had philosophized in this island, and that
Seleucus (Motteux reads--‘that some, indeed, were of opinion.’), indeed,
was of opinion the earth turns round about its poles, and not the heavens,
whatever we may think to the contrary; as, when we are on the river Loire,
we think the trees and the shore moves, though this is only an effect of
our boat’s motion.
As we went back to our ships, we saw three waylayers, who, having been
taken in ambuscado, were going to be broken on the wheel; and a huge
fornicator was burned with a lingering fire for beating a way and breaking
one of its sides; we were told it was the way of the banks of the Nile in
Egypt.
Chapter 5.XXVII.
How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of Semiquaver
Friars.
Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothing
but ling-broth. However, we were very kindly received and entertained by
Benius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had made us drink, took
us with him to show us a spick-and-span new monastery which he had
contrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he called the religious men whom he
had there. For he said that on t’other side the water lived friars who
styled themselves her sweet ladyship’s most humble servants. Item, the
goodly Friar-minors, who are semibreves of bulls; the smoked-herring tribe
of Minim Friars; then the Crotchet Friars. So that these diminutives could
be no more than Semiquavers. By the statutes, bulls, and patents of Queen
Whims, they were all dressed like so many house-burners, except that, as in
Anjou your bricklayers use to quilt their knees when they tile houses, so
these holy friars had usually quilted bellies, and thick quilted paunches
were among them in much repute. Their codpieces were cut slipper-fashion,
and every monk among them wore two--one sewed before and another behind
--reporting that some certain dreadful mysteries were duly represented by
this duplicity of codpieces.
They wore shoes as round as basins, in imitation of those who inhabit the
sandy sea. Their chins were close-shaved, and their feet iron-shod; and to
show they did not value fortune, Benius made them shave and poll the hind
part of their polls as bare as a bird’s arse, from the crown to the
shoulder-blades; but they had leave to let their hair grow before, from the
two triangular bones in the upper part of the skull.
Thus did they not value fortune a button, and cared no more for the goods
of this world than you or I do for hanging. And to show how much they
defied that blind jilt, all of them wore, not in their hands like her, but
at their waist, instead of beads, sharp razors, which they used to
new-grind twice a day and set thrice a night.
Each of them had a round ball on their feet, because Fortune is said to
have one under hers.
The flap of their cowls hanged forward, and not backwards, like those of
others. Thus none could see their noses, and they laughed without fear
both at fortune and the fortunate; neither more nor less than our ladies
laugh at barefaced trulls when they have those mufflers on which they call
masks, and which were formerly much more properly called charity, because
they cover a multitude of sins.
The hind part of their faces were always uncovered, as are our faces, which
made them either go with their belly or the arse foremost, which they
pleased. When their hind face went forwards, you would have sworn this had
been their natural gait, as well on account of their round shoes as of the
double codpiece, and their face behind, which was as bare as the back of my
hand, and coarsely daubed over with two eyes and a mouth, such as you see
on some Indian nuts. Now, if they offered to waddle along with their
bellies forwards, you would have thought they were then playing at
blindman’s buff. May I never be hanged if ‘twas not a comical sight.