Gargantua and Pantagruel
and power; for ‘tis in its power to fill the soul with all truth, learning,
and philosophy.
If you observe what is written in Ionic letters on the temple gate, you may
have understood that truth is in wine. The Goddess-Bottle therefore
directs you to that divine liquor; be yourself the expounder of your
undertaking.
It is impossible, said Pantagruel to Panurge, to speak more to the purpose
than does this true priestess; you may remember I told you as much when you
first spoke to me about it.
Trinc then: what says your heart, elevated by Bacchic enthusiasm?
With this quoth Panurge:
Trinc, trinc; by Bacchus, let us tope,
And tope again; for, now I hope
To see some brawny, juicy rump
Well tickled with my carnal stump.
Ere long, my friends, I shall be wedded,
Sure as my trap-stick has a red-head;
And my sweet wife shall hold the combat
Long as my baws can on her bum beat.
O what a battle of a-- fighting
Will there be, which I much delight in!
What pleasing pains then shall I take
To keep myself and spouse awake!
All heart and juice, I’ll up and ride,
And make a duchess of my bride.
Sing Io paean! loudly sing
To Hymen, who all joys will bring.
Well, Friar John, I’ll take my oath,
This oracle is full of troth;
Intelligible truth it bears,
More certain than the sieve and shears.
Chapter 5.XLVI.
How Panurge and the rest rhymed with poetic fury.
What a pox ails the fellow? quoth Friar John. Stark staring mad, or
bewitched, o’ my word! Do but hear the chiming dotterel gabble in rhyme.
What o’ devil has he swallowed? His eyes roll in his loggerhead just for
the world like a dying goat’s. Will the addle-pated wight have the grace
to sheer off? Will he rid us of his damned company, to go shite out his
nasty rhyming balderdash in some bog-house? Will nobody be so kind as to
cram some dog’s-bur down the poor cur’s gullet? or will he, monk-like, run
his fist up to the elbow into his throat to his very maw, to scour and
clear his flanks? Will he take a hair of the same dog?
Pantagruel chid Friar John, and said:
Bold monk, forbear! this, I’ll assure ye,
Proceeds all from poetic fury;
Warmed by the god, inspired with wine,
His human soul is made divine.
For without jest,
His hallowed breast,
With wine possessed,
Could have no rest
Till he’d expressed
Some thoughts at least
Of his great guest.
Then straight he flies
Above the skies,
And mortifies,
With prophecies,
Our miseries.
And since divinely he’s inspired,
Adore the soul by wine acquired,
And let the tosspot be admired.
How, quoth the friar, the fit rhyming is upon you too? Is’t come to that?
Then we are all peppered, or the devil pepper me. What would I not give to
have Gargantua see us while we are in this maggotty crambo-vein! Now may I
be cursed with living on that damned empty food, if I can tell whether I
shall scape the catching distemper. The devil a bit do I understand which
way to go about it; however, the spirit of fustian possesses us all, I
find. Well, by St. John, I’ll poetize, since everybody does; I find it
coming. Stay, and pray pardon me if I don’t rhyme in crimson; ‘tis my
first essay.
Thou, who canst water turn to wine,
Transform my bum, by power divine,
Into a lantern, that may light
My neighbour in the darkest night.
Panurge then proceeds in his rapture, and says:
From Pythian Tripos ne’er were heard
More truths, nor more to be revered.
I think from Delphos to this spring
Some wizard brought that conjuring thing.
Had honest Plutarch here been toping,
He then so long had ne’er been groping
To find, according to his wishes,
Why oracles are mute as fishes
At Delphos. Now the reason’s clear;
No more at Delphos they’re, but here.
Here is the tripos, out of which
Is spoke the doom of poor and rich.
For Athenaeus does relate
This Bottle is the Womb of Fate;
Prolific of mysterious wine,
And big with prescience divine,
It brings the truth with pleasure forth;
Besides you ha’t a pennyworth.
So, Friar John, I must exhort you
To wait a word that may import you,
And to inquire, while here we tarry,
If it shall be your luck to marry.
Friar John answers him in a rage, and says:
How, marry! By St. Bennet’s boot,
And his gambadoes, I’ll never do’t.
No man that knows me e’er shall judge
I mean to make myself a drudge;
Or that pilgarlic e’er will dote
Upon a paltry petticoat.
I’ll ne’er my liberty betray
All for a little leapfrog play;
And ever after wear a clog
Like monkey or like mastiff-dog.
No, I’d not have, upon my life,
Great Alexander for my wife,
Nor Pompey, nor his dad-in-law,
Who did each other clapperclaw.
Not the best he that wears a head
Shall win me to his truckle-bed.
Panurge, pulling off his gaberdine and mystical accoutrements, replied:
Wherefore thou shalt, thou filthy beast,
Be damned twelve fathoms deep at least;
While I shall reign in Paradise,
Whence on thy loggerhead I’ll piss.
Now when that dreadful hour is come,
That thou in hell receiv’st thy doom,
E’en there, I know, thou’lt play some trick,
And Proserpine shan’t scape a prick
Of the long pin within thy breeches.
But when thou’rt using these capriches,
And caterwauling in her cavern,
Send Pluto to the farthest tavern
For the best wine that’s to be had,
Lest he should see, and run horn-mad.
She’s kind, and ever did admire
A well-fed monk or well-hung friar.
Go to, quoth Friar John, thou old noddy, thou doddipolled ninny, go to the
devil thou’rt prating of. I’ve done with rhyming; the rheum gripes me at
the gullet. Let’s talk of paying and going; come.
Chapter 5.XLVII.
How we took our leave of Bacbuc, and left the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.
Do not trouble yourself about anything here, said the priestess to the
friar; if you be but satisfied, we are. Here below, in these circumcentral
regions, we place the sovereign good, not in taking and receiving, but in
bestowing and giving; so that we esteem ourselves happy, not if we take and
receive much of others, as perhaps the sects of teachers do in your world,
but rather if we impart and give much. All I have to beg of you is that
you leave us here your names in writing, in this ritual. She then opened a
fine large book, and as we gave our names one of her mystagogues with a
gold pin drew some lines on it, as if she had been writing; but we could
not see any characters.
This done, she filled three glasses with fantastic water, and giving them
into our hands, said, Now, my friends, you may depart, and may that
intellectual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere,
whom we call GOD, keep you in his almighty protection. When you come into
your world, do not fail to affirm and witness that the greatest treasures
and most admirable things are hidden underground, and not without reason.
Ceres was worshipped because she taught mankind the art of husbandry, and
by the use of corn, which she invented, abolished that beastly way of
feeding on acorns; and she grievously lamented her daughter’s banishment
into our subterranean regions, certainly foreseeing that Proserpine would
meet with more excellent things, more desirable enjoyments, below, than she
her mother could be blessed with above.
What do you think is become of the art of forcing the thunder and celestial
fire down, which the wise Prometheus had formerly invented? ‘Tis most
certain you have lost it; ‘tis no more on your hemisphere; but here below
we have it. And without a cause you sometimes wonder to see whole towns
burned and destroyed by lightning and ethereal fire, and are at a loss
about knowing from whom, by whom, and to what end those dreadful mischiefs
were sent. Now, they are familiar and useful to us; and your philosophers
who complain that the ancients have left them nothing to write of or to
invent, are very much mistaken. Those phenomena which you see in the sky,
whatever the surface of the earth affords you, and the sea, and every river
contain, is not to be compared with what is hid within the bowels of the
earth.
For this reason the subterranean ruler has justly gained in almost every
language the epithet of rich. Now when your sages shall wholly apply their
minds to a diligent and studious search after truth, humbly begging the
assistance of the sovereign God, whom formerly the Egyptians in their
language called The Hidden and the Concealed, and invoking him by that
name, beseech him to reveal and make himself known to them, that Almighty
Being will, out of his infinite goodness, not only make his creatures, but
even himself known to them.
Thus will they be guided by good lanterns. For all the ancient
philosophers and sages have held two things necessary safely and pleasantly
to arrive at the knowledge of God and true wisdom; first, God’s gracious
guidance, then man’s assistance.
So, among the philosophers, Zoroaster took Arimaspes for the companion of
his travels; Aesculapius, Mercury; Orpheus, Musaeus; Pythagoras,
Aglaophemus; and, among princes and warriors, Hercules in his most
difficult achievements had his singular friend Theseus; Ulysses, Diomedes;
Aeneas, Achates. You followed their examples, and came under the conduct
of an illustrious lantern. Now, in God’s name depart, and may he go along
with you!
THE END OF THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF THE NOBLE
PANTAGRUEL.