Gargantua and Pantagruel
have said, and what manner of people they be whom I do invite; for, to the
end that none be deceived, I, in imitation of Lucilius, who did protest
that he wrote only to his own Tarentines and Consentines, have not pierced
this vessel for any else but you honest men, who are drinkers of the first
edition, and gouty blades of the highest degree. The great dorophages,
bribe-mongers, have on their hands occupation enough, and enough on the
hooks for their venison. There may they follow their prey; here is no
garbage for them. You pettifoggers, garblers, and masters of chicanery,
speak not to me, I beseech you, in the name of, and for the reverence you
bear to the four hips that engendered you and to the quickening peg which
at that time conjoined them. As for hypocrites, much less; although they
were all of them unsound in body, pockified, scurvy, furnished with
unquenchable thirst and insatiable eating. (And wherefore?) Because
indeed they are not of good but of evil, and of that evil from which we
daily pray to God to deliver us. And albeit we see them sometimes
counterfeit devotion, yet never did old ape make pretty moppet. Hence,
mastiffs; dogs in a doublet, get you behind; aloof, villains, out of my
sunshine; curs, to the devil! Do you jog hither, wagging your tails, to
pant at my wine, and bepiss my barrel? Look, here is the cudgel which
Diogenes, in his last will, ordained to be set by him after his death, for
beating away, crushing the reins, and breaking the backs of these bustuary
hobgoblins and Cerberian hellhounds. Pack you hence, therefore, you
hypocrites, to your sheep-dogs; get you gone, you dissemblers, to the
devil! Hay! What, are you there yet? I renounce my part of Papimanie, if
I snatch you, Grr, Grrr, Grrrrrr. Avaunt, avaunt! Will you not be gone?
May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, never
piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise warmed than by the bastinado.
THE THIRD BOOK.
Chapter 3.I.
How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody.
Pantagruel, having wholly subdued the land of Dipsody, transported
thereunto a colony of Utopians, to the number of 9,876,543,210 men, besides
the women and little children, artificers of all trades, and professors of
all sciences, to people, cultivate, and improve that country, which
otherwise was ill inhabited, and in the greatest part thereof but a mere
desert and wilderness; and did transport them (not) so much for the
excessive multitude of men and women, which were in Utopia multiplied, for
number, like grasshoppers upon the face of the land. You understand well
enough, nor is it needful further to explain it to you, that the Utopian
men had so rank and fruitful genitories, and that the Utopian women carried
matrixes so ample, so gluttonous, so tenaciously retentive, and so
architectonically cellulated, that at the end of every ninth month seven
children at the least, what male what female, were brought forth by every
married woman, in imitation of the people of Israel in Egypt, if Anthony
(Nicholas) de Lyra be to be trusted. Nor yet was this transplantation made
so much for the fertility of the soil, the wholesomeness of the air, or
commodity of the country of Dipsody, as to retain that rebellious people
within the bounds of their duty and obedience, by this new transport of his
ancient and most faithful subjects, who, from all time out of mind, never
knew, acknowledged, owned, or served any other sovereign lord but him; and
who likewise, from the very instant of their birth, as soon as they were
entered into this world, had, with the milk of their mothers and nurses,
sucked in the sweetness, humanity, and mildness of his government, to which
they were all of them so nourished and habituated, that there was nothing
surer than that they would sooner abandon their lives than swerve from this
singular and primitive obedience naturally due to their prince,
whithersoever they should be dispersed or removed.
And not only should they, and their children successively descending from
their blood, be such, but also would keep and maintain in this same fealty
and obsequious observance all the nations lately annexed to his empire;
which so truly came to pass that therein he was not disappointed of his
intent. For if the Utopians were before their transplantation thither
dutiful and faithful subjects, the Dipsodes, after some few days conversing
with them, were every whit as, if not more, loyal than they; and that by
virtue of I know not what natural fervency incident to all human creatures
at the beginning of any labour wherein they take delight: solemnly
attesting the heavens and supreme intelligences of their being only sorry
that no sooner unto their knowledge had arrived the great renown of the
good Pantagruel.
Remark therefore here, honest drinkers, that the manner of preserving and
retaining countries newly conquered in obedience is not, as hath been the
erroneous opinion of some tyrannical spirits to their own detriment and
dishonour, to pillage, plunder, force, spoil, trouble, oppress, vex,
disquiet, ruin and destroy the people, ruling, governing and keeping them
in awe with rods of iron; and, in a word, eating and devouring them, after
the fashion that Homer calls an unjust and wicked king, Demoboron, that is
to say, a devourer of his people.
I will not bring you to this purpose the testimony of ancient writers. It
shall suffice to put you in mind of what your fathers have seen thereof,
and yourselves too, if you be not very babes. Newborn, they must be given
suck to, rocked in a cradle, and dandled. Trees newly planted must be
supported, underpropped, strengthened and defended against all tempests,
mischiefs, injuries, and calamities. And one lately saved from a long and
dangerous sickness, and new upon his recovery, must be forborn, spared, and
cherished, in such sort that they may harbour in their own breasts this
opinion, that there is not in the world a king or a prince who does not
desire fewer enemies and more friends. Thus Osiris, the great king of the
Egyptians, conquered almost the whole earth, not so much by force of arms
as by easing the people of their troubles, teaching them how to live well,
and honestly giving them good laws, and using them with all possible
affability, courtesy, gentleness, and liberality. Therefore was he by all
men deservedly entitled the Great King Euergetes, that is to say,
Benefactor, which style he obtained by virtue of the command of Jupiter to
(one) Pamyla.
And in effect, Hesiod, in his Hierarchy, placed the good demons (call them
angels if you will, or geniuses,) as intercessors and mediators betwixt the
gods and men, they being of a degree inferior to the gods, but superior to
men. And for that through their hands the riches and benefits we get from
heaven are dealt to us, and that they are continually doing us good and
still protecting us from evil, he saith that they exercise the offices of
kings; because to do always good, and never ill, is an act most singularly
royal.
Just such another was the emperor of the universe, Alexander the
Macedonian. After this manner was Hercules sovereign possessor of the
whole continent, relieving men from monstrous oppressions, exactions, and
tyrannies; governing them with discretion, maintaining them in equity and
justice, instructing them with seasonable policies and wholesome laws,
convenient for and suitable to the soil, climate, and disposition of the
country, supplying what was wanting, abating what was superfluous, and
pardoning all that was past, with a sempiternal forgetfulness of all
preceding offences, as was the amnesty of the Athenians, when by the
prowess, valour, and industry of Thrasybulus the tyrants were
exterminated; afterwards at Rome by Cicero exposed, and renewed under the
Emperor Aurelian. These are the philtres, allurements, iynges,
inveiglements, baits, and enticements of love, by the means whereof that
may be peaceably revived which was painfully acquired. Nor can a
conqueror reign more happily, whether he be a monarch, emperor, king,
prince, or philosopher, than by making his justice to second his valour.
His valour shows itself in victory and conquest; his justice will appear
in the goodwill and affection of the people, when he maketh laws,
publisheth ordinances, establisheth religion, and doth what is right to
everyone, as the noble poet Virgil writes of Octavian Augustus:
Victorque volentes
Per populos dat jura.
Therefore is it that Homer in his Iliads calleth a good prince and great
king Kosmetora laon, that is, the ornament of the people.
Such was the consideration of Numa Pompilius, the second king of the
Romans, a just politician and wise philosopher, when he ordained that to
god Terminus, on the day of his festival called Terminales, nothing should
be sacrificed that had died; teaching us thereby that the bounds, limits,
and frontiers of kingdoms should be guarded, and preserved in peace, amity,
and meekness, without polluting our hands with blood and robbery. Who doth
otherwise, shall not only lose what he hath gained, but also be loaded with
this scandal and reproach, that he is an unjust and wicked purchaser, and
his acquests perish with him; Juxta illud, male parta, male dilabuntur.
And although during his whole lifetime he should have peaceable possession
thereof, yet if what hath been so acquired moulder away in the hands of his
heirs, the same opprobry, scandal, and imputation will be charged upon the
defunct, and his memory remain accursed for his unjust and unwarrantable
conquest; Juxta illud, de male quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres.
Remark, likewise, gentlemen, you gouty feoffees, in this main point worthy
of your observation, how by these means Pantagruel of one angel made two,
which was a contingency opposite to the counsel of Charlemagne, who made
two devils of one when he transplanted the Saxons into Flanders and the
Flemings into Saxony. For, not being able to keep in such subjection the
Saxons, whose dominion he had joined to the empire, but that ever and anon
they would break forth into open rebellion if he should casually be drawn
into Spain or other remote kingdoms, he caused them to be brought unto his
own country of Flanders, the inhabitants whereof did naturally obey him,
and transported the Hainaults and Flemings, his ancient loving subjects,
into Saxony, not mistrusting their loyalty now that they were transplanted
into a strange land. But it happened that the Saxons persisted in their
rebellion and primitive obstinacy, and the Flemings dwelling in Saxony did
imbibe the stubborn manners and conditions of the Saxons.
Chapter 3.II.
How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did waste his
revenue before it came in.
Whilst Pantagruel was giving order for the government of all Dipsody, he
assigned to Panurge the lairdship of Salmigondin, which was yearly worth
6,789,106,789 reals of certain rent, besides the uncertain revenue of the
locusts and periwinkles, amounting, one year with another, to the value of
435,768, or 2,435,769 French crowns of Berry. Sometimes it did amount to
1,230,554,321 seraphs, when it was a good year, and that locusts and
periwinkles were in request; but that was not every year.
Now his worship, the new laird, husbanded this his estate so providently
well and prudently, that in less than fourteen days he wasted and
dilapidated all the certain and uncertain revenue of his lairdship for
three whole years. Yet did not he properly dilapidate it, as you might
say, in founding of monasteries, building of churches, erecting of
colleges, and setting up of hospitals, or casting his bacon-flitches to the