HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF
Translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux
Introduction.
FRANCIS RABELAIS.
Chapter 1.I.—Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.II.—-The Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia of extravagant Conceits found in an ancient Monument.
Chapter 1.III.—How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly.
Chapter 1.IV.—-How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of tripes.
Chapter 1.V.—The Discourse of the Drinkers.
Chapter 1.VI.—How Gargantua was born in a strange manner.
Chapter 1.VII.—After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled, bibbed, and curried the can.
Chapter 1.VIII.—How they apparelled Gargantua.
Chapter 1.IX.—The colours and liveries of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.X.—Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.
Chapter 1.XI.—Of the youthful age of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.XII.—Of Gargantua's wooden horses.
Chapter 1.XIII.—How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech.
Chapter 1.XIV.—How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister.
Chapter 1.XV.—How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters.
Chapter 1.XVI.—How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the huge great mare that he rode on; how she destroyed the oxflies of the Beauce.
Chapter 1.XVII.—How Gargantua paid his welcome to the Parisians, and how he took away the great bells of Our Lady's Church.
Chapter 1.XVIII.—How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells.
Chapter 1.XIX.—The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.
Chapter 1.XX.—How the Sophister carried away his cloth, and how he had a suit in law against the other masters.
Chapter 1.XXI.—The study of Gargantua, according to the discipline of his schoolmasters the Sophisters.
Chapter 1.XXII.—The games of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.XXIII.—How Gargantua was instructed by Ponocrates, and in such sort disciplinated, that he lost not one hour of the day.
Chapter 1.XXIV.—How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather.
Chapter 1.XXV.—How there was great strife and debate raised betwixt the cake-bakers of Lerne, and those of Gargantua's country, whereupon were waged great wars.
Chapter 1.XXVI.—How the inhabitants of Lerne, by the commandment of Picrochole their king, assaulted the shepherds of Gargantua unexpectedly and on a sudden.
Chapter 1.XXVII.—How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being ransacked by the enemy.
Chapter 1.XXVIII.—How Picrochole stormed and took by assault the rock Clermond, and of Grangousier's unwillingness and aversion from the undertaking of war.
Chapter 1.XXIX.—The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to his son Gargantua.
Chapter 1.XXX.—How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole.
Chapter 1.XXXI.—The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole.
Chapter 1.XXXII.—How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be restored.
Chapter 1.XXXIII.—How some statesmen of Picrochole, by hairbrained counsel, put him in extreme danger.
Chapter 1.XXXIV.—How Gargantua left the city of Paris to succour his country, and how Gymnast encountered with the enemy.
Chapter 1.XXXV.—How Gymnast very souply and cunningly killed Captain Tripet and others of Picrochole's men.
Chapter 1.XXXVI.—How Gargantua demolished the castle at the ford of Vede, and how they passed the ford.
Chapter 1.XXXVII.—How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of his hair.
Chapter 1.XXXVIII.—How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad.
Chapter 1.XXXIX.—How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua, and of the jovial discourse they had at supper.
Chapter 1.XL.—Why monks are the outcasts of the world; and wherefore some have bigger noses than others.
Chapter 1.XLI.—How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
Chapter 1.XLII.—How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon a tree.
Chapter 1.XLIII.—How the scouts and fore-party of Picrochole were met with by Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Drawforth (Tirevant.), and then was taken prisoner by his enemies.
Chapter 1.XLIV.—How the Monk rid himself of his keepers, and how Picrochole's forlorn hope was defeated.
Chapter 1.XLV.—How the Monk carried along with him the Pilgrims, and of the good words that Grangousier gave them.
Chapter 1.XLVI.—How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner.
Chapter 1.XLVII.—How Grangousier sent for his legions, and how Touchfaucet slew Rashcalf, and was afterwards executed by the command of Picrochole.
Chapter 1.XLVIII.—How Gargantua set upon Picrochole within the rock Clermond, and utterly defeated the army of the said Picrochole.
Chapter 1.XLIX.—How Picrochole in his flight fell into great misfortunes, and what Gargantua did after the battle.
Chapter 1.L.—Gargantua's speech to the vanquished.
Chapter 1.LI.—How the victorious Gargantuists were recompensed after the battle.
Chapter 1.LII.—How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey of Theleme.
Chapter 1.LIII.—How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed.
Chapter 1.LIV.—The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme.
Chapter 1.LV.—What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had.
Chapter 1.LVI.—How the men and women of the religious order of Theleme were apparelled.
Chapter 1.LVII.—How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living.
Chapter 1.LVIII.—A prophetical Riddle.
Chapter 2.I.—Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel.
Chapter 2.II.—Of the nativity of the most dread and redoubted Pantagruel.
Chapter 2.III.—Of the grief wherewith Gargantua was moved at the decease of his wife Badebec.
Chapter 2.IV.—Of the infancy of Pantagruel.
Chapter 2.V.—Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age.
Chapter 2.VI.—How Pantagruel met with a Limousin, who too affectedly did counterfeit the French language.
Chapter 2.VII.—How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library of St. Victor.
Chapter 2.VIII.—How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father Gargantua, and the copy of them.
Chapter 2.IX.—How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his lifetime.
Chapter 2.X.—How Pantagruel judged so equitably of a controversy, which was wonderfully obscure and difficult, that, by reason of his just decree therein, he was reputed to have a most admirable judgment.
Chapter 2.XI.—How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel without and attorney.
Chapter 2.XII.—How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel.
Chapter 2.XIII.—How Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords.
Chapter 2.XIV.—How Panurge related the manner how he escaped out of the hands of the Turks.
Chapter 2.XV.—How Panurge showed a very new way to build the walls of Paris.
Chapter 2.XVI.—Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge.
Chapter 2.XVII.—How Panurge gained the pardons, and married the old women, and of the suit in law which he had at Paris.
Chapter 2.XVIII.—How a great scholar of England would have argued against Pantagruel, and was overcome by Panurge.
Chapter 2.XIX.—How Panurge put to a nonplus the Englishman that argued by signs.
Chapter 2.XX.—How Thaumast relateth the virtues and knowledge of Panurge.
Chapter 2.XXI.—How Panurge was in love with a lady of Paris.
Chapter 2.XXII.—How Panurge served a Parisian lady a trick that pleased her not very well.
Chapter 2.XXIII.—How Pantagruel departed from Paris, hearing news that the Dipsodes had invaded the land of the Amaurots; and the cause wherefore the leagues are so short in France.
Chapter 2.XXIV.—A letter which a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady of Paris, together with the exposition of a posy written in a gold ring.
Chapter 2.XXV.—How Panurge, Carpalin, Eusthenes, and Epistemon, the gentlemen attendants of Pantagruel, vanquished and discomfited six hundred and threescore horsemen very cunningly.
Chapter 2.XXVI.—How Pantagruel and his company were weary in eating still salt meats; and how Carpalin went a-hunting to have some venison.
Chapter 2.XXVII.—How Pantagruel set up one trophy in memorial of their valour, and Panurge another in remembrance of the hares. How Pantagruel likewise with his farts begat little men, and with his fisgs little women; and how Panurge broke a great staff over two glasses.
Chapter 2.XXVIII.—How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over the Dipsodes and the Giants.
Chapter 2.XXIX.—How Pantagruel discomfited the three hundred giants armed with free-stone, and Loupgarou their captain.
Chapter 2.XXX.—How Epistemon, who had his head cut off, was finely healed by Panurge, and of the news which he brought from the devils, and of the damned people in hell.
Chapter 2.XXXI.—How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots, and how Panurge married King Anarchus to an old lantern-carrying hag, and made him a crier of green sauce.
Chapter 2.XXXII.—How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and what the author saw in his mouth.
Chapter 2.XXXIII.—How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was recovered.
Chapter 2.XXXIV.—The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author.
Chapter 3.I.—How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody.
Chapter 3.II.—How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did waste his revenue before it came in.
Chapter 3.III.—How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers.
Chapter 3.IV.—Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and lenders.
Chapter 3.V.—How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers.
Chapter 3.VI.—Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars.
Chapter 3.VII.—How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece.
Chapter 3.VIII.—Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors.
Chapter 3.IX.—How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should marry, yea, or no.
Chapter 3.X.—How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving advice in the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth somewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries.
Chapter 3.XI.—How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of dice to be unlawful.
Chapter 3.XII.—How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurge shall have in his marriage.
Chapter 3.XIII.—How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of his marriage by dreams.
Chapter 3.XIV.—Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof.
Chapter 3.XV.—Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery concerning powdered beef.
Chapter 3.XVI.—How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibyl of Panzoust.
Chapter 3.XVII.—How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust.
Chapter 3.XVIII.—How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound the verses of the Sibyl of Panzoust.
Chapter 3.XIX.—How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men.
Chapter 3.XX.—How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge.
Chapter 3.XXI.—How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named Raminagrobis.
Chapter 3.XXII.—How Panurge patrocinates and defendeth the Order of the Begging Friars.
Chapter 3.XXIII.—How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis.
Chapter 3.XXIV.—How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon.
Chapter 3.XXV.—How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa.
Chapter 3.XXVI.—How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels.
Chapter 3.XXVII.—How Friar John merrily and sportingly counselleth Panurge.
Chapter 3.XXVIII.—How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matter of cuckoldry.
Chapter 3.XXIX.—How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician, lawyer, and philosopher, for extricating Panurge out of the perplexity wherein he was.
Chapter 3.XXX.—How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurge in the matter and business of his nuptial enterprise.
Chapter 3.XXXI.—How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge.
Chapter 3.XXXII.—How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one of the appendances of marriage.
Chapter 3.XXXIII.—Rondibilis the physician's cure of cuckoldry.
Chapter 3.XXXIV.—How women ordinarily have the greatest longing after things prohibited.
Chapter 3.XXXV.—How the philosopher Trouillogan handleth the difficulty of marriage.
Chapter 3.XXXVI.—A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian philosopher Trouillogan.
Chapter 3.XXXVII.—How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of a fool.
Chapter 3.XXXVIII.—How Triboulet is set forth and blazed by Pantagruel and Panurge.
Chapter 3.XXXIX.—How Pantagruel was present at the trial of Judge Bridlegoose, who decided causes and controversies in law by the chance and fortune of the dice.
Chapter 3.XL.—How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions which he decided by the chance of the dice.
Chapter 3.XLI.—How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties at variance in matters of law.
Chapter 3.XLII.—How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to their perfect growth.
Chapter 3.XLIII.—How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing actions at law by the chance of the dice.
Chapter 3.XLIV.—How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human judgment.
Chapter 3.XLV.—How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.
Chapter 3.XLVI.—How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
Chapter 3.XLVII.—How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of the holy bottle.
Chapter 3.XLVIII.—How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry without the special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers.
Chapter 3.XLIX.—How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and of the herb named Pantagruelion.
Chapter 3.L.—How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought.
Chapter 3.LI.—Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof.
Chapter 3.LII.—How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire is not able to consume it.
Chapter 4.I.—How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the Holy Bottle.
Chapter 4.II.—How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island of Medamothy.
Chapter 4.III.—How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of the strange way to have speedy news from far distant places.
Chapter 4.IV.—How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent him several curiosities.
Chapter 4.V.—How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from Lanternland.
Chapter 4.VI.—How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one of Dingdong's sheep.
Chapter 4.VII.—Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with Dingdong.
Chapter 4.VIII.—How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea.
Chapter 4.IX.—How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of the strange ways of being akin in that country.
Chapter 4.X.—How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where he saw King St. Panigon.
Chapter 4.XI.—Why monks love to be in kitchens.
Chapter 4.XII.—How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange way of living among the Catchpoles.
Chapter 4.XIII.—How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche commended his servants.
Chapter 4.XIV.—A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche's house.
Chapter 4.XV.—How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.
Chapter 4.XVI.—How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles.
Chapter 4.XVII.—How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of the strange death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills.
Chapter 4.XVIII.—How Pantagruel met with a great storm at sea.
Chapter 4.XIX.—What countenances Panurge and Friar John kept during the storm.
Chapter 4.XX.—How the pilots were forsaking their ships in the greatest stress of weather.
Chapter 4.XXI.—A continuation of the storm, with a short discourse on the subject of making testaments at sea.
Chapter 4.XXII.—An end of the storm.
Chapter 4.XXIII.—How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over.
Chapter 4.XXIV.—How Panurge was said to have been afraid without reason during the storm.
Chapter 4.XXV.—How, after the storm, Pantagruel went on shore in the islands of the Macreons.
Chapter 4.XXVI.—How the good Macrobius gave us an account of the mansion and decease of the heroes.
Chapter 4.XXVII.—Pantagruel's discourse of the decease of heroic souls; and of the dreadful prodigies that happened before the death of the late Lord de Langey.
Chapter 4.XXVIII.—How Pantagruel related a very sad story of the death of the heroes.
Chapter 4.XXIX.—How Pantagruel sailed by the Sneaking Island, where Shrovetide reigned.
Chapter 4.XXX.—How Shrovetide is anatomized and described by Xenomanes.
Chapter 4.XXXI.—Shrovetide's outward parts anatomized.
Chapter 4.XXXII.—A continuation of Shrovetide's countenance.
Chapter 4.XXXIII.—How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, near the Wild Island.
Chapter 4.XXXIV.—How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel.
Chapter 4.XXXV.—How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, the ancient abode of the Chitterlings.
Chapter 4.XXXVI.—How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado for Pantagruel.
Chapter 4.XXXVII.—How Pantagruel sent for Colonel Maul-chitterling and Colonel Cut-pudding; with a discourse well worth your hearing about the names of places and persons.
Chapter 4.XXXVIII.—How Chitterlings are not to be slighted by men.
Chapter 4.XXXIX.—How Friar John joined with the cooks to fight the Chitterlings.
Chapter 4.XL.—How Friar John fitted up the sow; and of the valiant cooks that went into it.
Chapter 4.XLI.—How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees.
Chapter 4.XLII.—How Pantagruel held a treaty with Niphleseth, Queen of the Chitterlings.
Chapter 4.XLIII.—How Pantagruel went into the island of Ruach.
Chapter 4.XLIV.—How small rain lays a high wind.
Chapter 4.XLV.—How Pantagruel went ashore in the island of Pope-Figland.
Chapter 4.XLVI.—How a junior devil was fooled by a husbandman of Pope-Figland.
Chapter 4.XLVII.—How the devil was deceived by an old woman of Pope-Figland.
Chapter 4.XLVIII.—How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany.
Chapter 4.XLIX.—How Homenas, Bishop of Papimany, showed us the Uranopet decretals.
Chapter 4.L.—How Homenas showed us the archetype, or representation of a pope.
Chapter 4.LI.—Table-talk in praise of the decretals.
Chapter 4.LII.—A continuation of the miracles caused by the decretals.
Chapter 4.LIII.—How by the virtue of the decretals, gold is subtilely drawn out of France to Rome.
Chapter 4.LIV.—How Homenas gave Pantagruel some bon-Christian pears.
Chapter 4.LV.—How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words.
Chapter 4.LVI.—How among the frozen words Pantagruel found some odd ones.
Chapter 4.LVII.—How Pantagruel went ashore at the dwelling of Gaster, the first master of arts in the world.
Chapter 4.LVIII.—How, at the court of the master of ingenuity, Pantagruel detested the Engastrimythes and the Gastrolaters.
Chapter 4.LIX.—Of the ridiculous statue Manduce; and how and what the Gastrolaters sacrifice to their ventripotent god.
Chapter 4.LX.—What the Gastrolaters sacrificed to their god on interlarded fish-days.
Chapter 4.LXI.—How Gaster invented means to get and preserve corn.
Chapter 4.LXII.—How Gaster invented an art to avoid being hurt or touched by cannon-balls.
Chapter 4.LXIII.—How Pantagruel fell asleep near the island of Chaneph, and of the problems proposed to be solved when he waked.
Chapter 4.LXIV.—How Pantagruel gave no answer to the problems.
Chapter 4.LXV.—How Pantagruel passed the time with his servants.
Chapter 4.LXVI.—How, by Pantagruel's order, the Muses were saluted near the isle of Ganabim.
Chapter 4.LXVII.—How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge cat Rodilardus, which he took for a puny devil.
Chapter 5.I.—How Pantagruel arrived at the Ringing Island, and of the noise that we heard.
Chapter 5.II.—How the Ringing Island had been inhabited by the Siticines, who were become birds.
Chapter 5.III.—How there is but one pope-hawk in the Ringing Island.
Chapter 5.IV.—How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers.
Chapter 5.V.—Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island.
Chapter 5.VI.—How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island.
Chapter 5.VII.—How Panurge related to Master Aedituus the fable of the horse and the ass.
Chapter 5.VIII.—How with much ado we got a sight of the pope-hawk.
Chapter 5.IX.—How we arrived at the island of Tools.
Chapter 5.X.—How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping.
Chapter 5.XI.—How we passed through the wicket inhabited by Gripe-men-all, Archduke of the Furred Law-cats.
Chapter 5.XII.—How Gripe-men-all propounded a riddle to us.
Chapter 5.XIII.—How Panurge solved Gripe-men-all's riddle.
Chapter 5.XIV.—How the Furred Law-cats live on corruption.
Chapter 5.XV.—How Friar John talks of rooting out the Furred Law-cats.
Chapter 5.XVI.—How Pantagruel came to the island of the Apedefers, or Ignoramuses, with long claws and crooked paws, and of terrible adventures and monsters there.
Chapter 5.XVII.—How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.
Chapter 5.XVIII.—How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people that were subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte).
Chapter 5.XIX.—How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy.
Chapter 5.XX.—How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song.
Chapter 5.XXI.—How the Queen passed her time after dinner.
Chapter 5.XXII.—How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the said lady retained us among her abstractors.
Chapter 5.XXIII.—How the Queen was served at dinner, and of her way of eating.
Chapter 5.XXIV.—How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, at which Queen Whims was present.
Chapter 5.XXV.—How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought.
Chapter 5.XXVI.—How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and down.
Chapter 5.XXVII.—How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of Semiquaver Friars.
Chapter 5.XXVIII.—How Panurge asked a Semiquaver Friar many questions, and was only answered in monosyllables.
Chapter 5.XXIX.—How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent.
Chapter 5.XXX.—How we came to the land of Satin.
Chapter 5.XXXI.—How in the land of Satin we saw Hearsay, who kept a school of vouching.
Chapter 5.XXXII.—How we came in sight of Lantern-land.
Chapter 5.XXXIII.—How we landed at the port of the Lychnobii, and came to Lantern-land.
Chapter 5.XXXIV.—How we arrived at the Oracle of the Bottle.
Chapter 5.XXXV.—How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle, and how Chinon is the oldest city in the world.
Chapter 5.XXXVI.—How we went down the tetradic steps, and of Panurge's fear.
Chapter 5.XXXVII.—How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened of themselves.
Chapter 5.XXXVIII.—Of the Temple's admirable pavement.
Chapter 5.XXXIX.—How we saw Bacchus's army drawn up in battalia in mosaic work.
Chapter 5.XL.—How the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians was represented in mosaic work.
Chapter 5.XLI.—How the temple was illuminated with a wonderful lamp.
Chapter 5.XLII —How the Priestess Bacbuc showed us a fantastic fountain in the temple, and how the fountain-water had the taste of wine, according to the imagination of those who drank of it.
Chapter 5.XLIII.—How the Priestess Bacbuc equipped Panurge in order to have the word of the Bottle.
Chapter 5.XLIV.—How Bacbuc, the high-priestess, brought Panurge before the Holy Bottle.
Chapter 5.XLV.—How Bacbuc explained the word of the Goddess-Bottle.
Chapter 5.XLVI.—How Panurge and the rest rhymed with poetic fury.
Chapter 5.XLVII.—How we took our leave of Bacbuc, and left the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.
Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one would ever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands outside other things—a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of personalities and broad generalization, of the comic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar. Throughout the whole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of good sense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with the greatest; and his peers are not many. You may like him or not, may attack him or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him. He is of those that die hard. Be as fastidious as you will; make up your mind to recognize only those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above all others; however few the names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain.
We may know his work, may know it well, and admire it more every time we read it. After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we may return again to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning. Yet there is no possibility of knowing his own life in the same fashion. In spite of all the efforts, often successful, that have been made to throw light on it, to bring forward a fresh document, or some obscure mention in a forgotten book, to add some little fact, to fix a date more precisely, it remains nevertheless full of uncertainty and of gaps. Besides, it has been burdened and sullied by all kinds of wearisome stories and foolish anecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out than to add.
This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the sixteenth century, in the furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, who seems to have drawn his conclusions concerning the author from the book, and, more especially, in the regrettable satirical epitaph of Ronsard, piqued, it is said, that the Guises had given him only a little pavillon in the Forest of Meudon, whereas the presbytery was close to the chateau. From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has completely travestied him, till, bit by bit, it has made of him a buffoon, a veritable clown, a vagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard.
The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He has been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an incorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always laughing. The picture would have surprised his friends no less than himself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen many such. They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater number are conceived in this jovial and popular style.
As a matter of fact there is only one portrait of him that counts, that has more than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the Chronologie collee or coupee. Under this double name is known and cited a large sheet divided by lines and cross lines into little squares, containing about a hundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen. This sheet was stuck on pasteboard for hanging on the wall, and was cut in little pieces, so that the portraits might be sold separately. The majority of the portraits are of known persons and can therefore be verified. Now it can be seen that these have been selected with care, and taken from the most authentic sources; from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass, for the persons of most distinction, from earlier engravings for the others. Moreover, those of which no other copies exist, and which are therefore the most valuable, have each an individuality very distinct, in the features, the hair, the beard, as well as in the costume. Not one of them is like another. There has been no tampering with them, no forgery. On the contrary, there is in each a difference, a very marked personality. Leonard Gaultier, who published this engraving towards the end of the sixteenth century, reproduced a great many portraits besides from chalk drawings, in the style of his master, Thomas de Leu. It must have been such drawings that were the originals of those portraits which he alone has issued, and which may therefore be as authentic and reliable as the others whose correctness we are in a position to verify.
Now Rabelais has here nothing of the Roger Bontemps of low degree about him. His features are strong, vigorously cut, and furrowed with deep wrinkles; his beard is short and scanty; his cheeks are thin and already worn-looking. On his head he wears the square cap of the doctors and the clerks, and his dominant expression, somewhat rigid and severe, is that of a physician and a scholar. And this is the only portrait to which we need attach any importance.
This is not the place for a detailed biography, nor for an exhaustive study. At most this introduction will serve as a framework on which to fix a few certain dates, to hang some general observations. The date of Rabelais' birth is very doubtful. For long it was placed as far back as 1483: now scholars are disposed to put it forward to about 1495. The reason, a good one, is that all those whom he has mentioned as his friends, or in any real sense his contemporaries, were born at the very end of the fifteenth century. And, indeed, it is in the references in his romance to names, persons, and places, that the most certain and valuable evidence is to be found of his intercourse, his patrons, his friendships, his sojournings, and his travels: his own work is the best and richest mine in which to search for the details of his life.
Like Descartes and Balzac, he was a native of Touraine, and Tours and Chinon have only done their duty in each of them erecting in recent years a statue to his honour, a twofold homage reflecting credit both on the province and on the town. But the precise facts about his birth are nevertheless vague. Huet speaks of the village of Benais, near Bourgeuil, of whose vineyards Rabelais makes mention. As the little vineyard of La Deviniere, near Chinon, and familiar to all his readers, is supposed to have belonged to his father, Thomas Rabelais, some would have him born there. It is better to hold to the earlier general opinion that Chinon was his native town; Chinon, whose praises he sang with such heartiness and affection. There he might well have been born in the Lamproie house, which belonged to his father, who, to judge from this circumstance, must have been in easy circumstances, with the position of a well-to-do citizen. As La Lamproie in the seventeenth century was a hostelry, the father of Rabelais has been set down as an innkeeper. More probably he was an apothecary, which would fit in with the medical profession adopted by his son in after years. Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself. Perhaps because he was the youngest, his father destined him for the Church.
The time he spent while a child with the Benedictine monks at Seuille is uncertain. There he might have made the acquaintance of the prototype of his Friar John, a brother of the name of Buinart, afterwards Prior of Sermaize. He was longer at the Abbey of the Cordeliers at La Baumette, half a mile from Angers, where he became a novice. As the brothers Du Bellay, who were later his Maecenases, were then studying at the University of Angers, where it is certain he was not a student, it is doubtless from this youthful period that his acquaintance and alliance with them should date. Voluntarily, or induced by his family, Rabelais now embraced the ecclesiastical profession, and entered the monastery of the Franciscan Cordeliers at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou, which was honoured by his long sojourn at the vital period of his life when his powers were ripening. There it was he began to study and to think, and there also began his troubles.
In spite of the wide-spread ignorance among the monks of that age, the encyclopaedic movement of the Renaissance was attracting all the lofty minds. Rabelais threw himself into it with enthusiasm, and Latin antiquity was not enough for him. Greek, a study discountenanced by the Church, which looked on it as dangerous and tending to freethought and heresy, took possession of him. To it he owed the warm friendship of Pierre Amy and of the celebrated Guillaume Bude. In fact, the Greek letters of the latter are the best source of information concerning this period of Rabelais' life. It was at Fontenay-le-Comte also that he became acquainted with the Brissons and the great jurist Andre Tiraqueau, whom he never mentions but with admiration and deep affection. Tiraqueau's treatise, De legibus connubialibus, published for the first time in 1513, has an important bearing on the life of Rabelais. There we learn that, dissatisfied with the incomplete translation of Herodotus by Laurent Valla, Rabelais had retranslated into Latin the first book of the History. That translation unfortunately is lost, as so many other of his scattered works. It is probably in this direction that the hazard of fortune has most discoveries and surprises in store for the lucky searcher. Moreover, as in this law treatise Tiraqueau attacked women in a merciless fashion, President Amaury Bouchard published in 1522 a book in their defence, and Rabelais, who was a friend of both the antagonists, took the side of Tiraqueau. It should be observed also in passing, that there are several pages of such audacious plain-speaking, that Rabelais, though he did not copy these in his Marriage of Panurge, has there been, in his own fashion, as out spoken as Tiraqueau. If such freedom of language could be permitted in a grave treatise of law, similar liberties were certainly, in the same century, more natural in a book which was meant to amuse.
The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness, which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value. La Bruyere, in the chapter Des ouvrages de l'esprit, not in the first edition of the Caracteres, but in the fifth, that is to say in 1690, at the end of the great century, gives us on this subject his own opinion and that of his age:
'Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable in their habit of scattering filth about their writings. Both of them had genius enough and wit enough to do without any such expedient, even for the amusement of those persons who look more to the laugh to be got out of a book than to what is admirable in it. Rabelais especially is incomprehensible. His book is an enigma,—one may say inexplicable. It is a Chimera; it is like the face of a lovely woman with the feet and the tail of a reptile, or of some creature still more loathsome. It is a monstrous confusion of fine and rare morality with filthy corruption. Where it is bad, it goes beyond the worst; it is the delight of the basest of men. Where it is good, it reaches the exquisite, the very best; it ministers to the most delicate tastes.'
Putting aside the rather slight connection established between two men of whom one is of very little importance compared with the other, this is otherwise very admirably said, and the judgment is a very just one, except with regard to one point—the misunderstanding of the atmosphere in which the book was created, and the ignoring of the examples of a similar tendency furnished by literature as well as by the popular taste. Was it not the Ancients that began it? Aristophanes, Catullus, Petronius, Martial, flew in the face of decency in their ideas as well as in the words they used, and they dragged after them in this direction not a few of the Latin poets of the Renaissance, who believed themselves bound to imitate them. Is Italy without fault in this respect? Her story-tellers in prose lie open to easy accusation. Her Capitoli in verse go to incredible lengths; and the astonishing success of Aretino must not be forgotten, nor the licence of the whole Italian comic theatre of the sixteenth century. The Calandra of Bibbiena, who was afterwards a Cardinal, and the Mandragola of Machiavelli, are evidence enough, and these were played before Popes, who were not a whit embarrassed. Even in England the drama went very far for a time, and the comic authors of the reign of Charles II., evidently from a reaction, and to shake off the excess and the wearisomeness of Puritan prudery and affectation, which sent them to the opposite extreme, are not exactly noted for their reserve. But we need not go beyond France. Slight indications, very easily verified, are all that may be set down here; a formal and detailed proof would be altogether too dangerous.
Thus, for instance, the old Fabliaux—the Farces of the fifteenth century, the story-tellers of the sixteenth—reveal one of the sides, one of the veins, so to speak, of our literature. The art that addresses itself to the eye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptures on the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of certain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was, without any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet she used to go up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes were not offended at seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent carving of a monk and a nun. Neither did she tear out of her book of Hours the large miniature of the winter month, in which, careless of her neighbours' eyes, the mistress of the house, sitting before her great fireplace, warms herself in a fashion which it is not advisable that dames of our age should imitate. The statue of Cybele by the Tribolo, executed for Francis I., and placed, not against a wall, but in the middle of Queen Claude's chamber at Fontainebleau, has behind it an attribute which would have been more in place on a statue of Priapus, and which was the symbol of generativeness. The tone of the conversations was ordinarily of a surprising coarseness, and the Precieuses, in spite of their absurdities, did a very good work in setting themselves in opposition to it. The worthy Chevalier de La-Tour-Landry, in his Instructions to his own daughters, without a thought of harm, gives examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's translation these are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion, are astonishing indeed when one considers that they were the little society diversions of the Duchesses of Burgundy and of the great ladies of a court more luxurious and more refined than the French court, which revelled in the Cent Nouvelles of good King Louis XI. Rabelais' pleasantry about the woman folle a la messe is exactly in the style of the Adevineaux.
A later work than any of his, the Novelle of Bandello, should be kept in mind—for the writer was Bishop of Agen, and his work was translated into French—as also the Dames Galantes of Brantome. Read the Journal of Heroard, that honest doctor, who day by day wrote down the details concerning the health of Louis XIII. from his birth, and you will understand the tone of the conversation of Henry IV. The jokes at a country wedding are trifles compared with this royal coarseness. Le Moyen de Parvenir is nothing but a tissue and a mass of filth, and the too celebrated Cabinet Satyrique proves what, under Louis XIII., could be written, printed, and read. The collection of songs formed by Clairambault shows that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no purer than the sixteenth. Some of the most ribald songs are actually the work of Princesses of the royal House.
It is, therefore, altogether unjust to make Rabelais the scapegoat, to charge him alone with the sins of everybody else. He spoke as those of his time used to speak; when amusing them he used their language to make himself understood, and to slip in his asides, which without this sauce would never have been accepted, would have found neither eyes nor ears. Let us blame not him, therefore, but the manners of his time.
Besides, his gaiety, however coarse it may appear to us—and how rare a thing is gaiety!—has, after all, nothing unwholesome about it; and this is too often overlooked. Where does he tempt one to stray from duty? Where, even indirectly, does he give pernicious advice? Whom has he led to evil ways? Does he ever inspire feelings that breed misconduct and vice, or is he ever the apologist of these? Many poets and romance writers, under cover of a fastidious style, without one coarse expression, have been really and actively hurtful; and of that it is impossible to accuse Rabelais. Women in particular quickly revolt from him, and turn away repulsed at once by the archaic form of the language and by the outspokenness of the words. But if he be read aloud to them, omitting the rougher parts and modernizing the pronunciation, it will be seen that they too are impressed by his lively wit as by the loftiness of his thought. It would be possible, too, to extract, for young persons, without modification, admirable passages of incomparable force. But those who have brought out expurgated editions of him, or who have thought to improve him by trying to rewrite him in modern French, have been fools for their pains, and their insulting attempts have had, and always will have, the success they deserve.
His dedications prove to what extent his whole work was accepted. Not to speak of his epistolary relations with Bude, with the Cardinal d'Armagnac and with Pellissier, the ambassador of Francis I. and Bishop of Maguelonne, or of his dedication to Tiraqueau of his Lyons edition of the Epistolae Medicinales of Giovanni Manardi of Ferrara, of the one addressed to the President Amaury Bouchard of the two legal texts which he believed antique, there is still the evidence of his other and more important dedications. In 1532 he dedicated his Hippocrates and his Galen to Geoffroy d'Estissac, Bishop of Maillezais, to whom in 1535 and 1536 he addressed from Rome the three news letters, which alone have been preserved; and in 1534 he dedicated from Lyons his edition of the Latin book of Marliani on the topography of Rome to Jean du Bellay (at that time Bishop of Paris) who was raised to the Cardinalate in 1535. Beside these dedications we must set the privilege of Francis I. of September, 1545, and the new privilege granted by Henry II. on August 6th, 1550, Cardinal de Chatillon present, for the third book, which was dedicated, in an eight-lined stanza, to the Spirit of the Queen of Navarre. These privileges, from the praises and eulogies they express in terms very personal and very exceptional, are as important in Rabelais' life as were, in connection with other matters, the Apostolic Pastorals in his favour. Of course, in these the popes had not to introduce his books of diversions, which, nevertheless, would have seemed in their eyes but very venial sins. The Sciomachie of 1549, an account of the festivities arranged at Rome by Cardinal du Bellay in honour of the birth of the second son of Henry II., was addressed to Cardinal de Guise, and in 1552 the fourth book was dedicated, in a new prologue, to Cardinal de Chatillon, the brother of Admiral de Coligny.
These are no unknown or insignificant personages, but the greatest lords and princes of the Church. They loved and admired and protected Rabelais, and put no restrictions in his way. Why should we be more fastidious and severe than they were? Their high contemporary appreciation gives much food for thought.
There are few translations of Rabelais in foreign tongues; and certainly the task is no light one, and demands more than a familiarity with ordinary French. It would have been easier in Italy than anywhere else. Italian, from its flexibility and its analogy to French, would have lent itself admirably to the purpose; the instrument was ready, but the hand was not forthcoming. Neither is there any Spanish translation, a fact which can be more easily understood. The Inquisition would have been a far more serious opponent than the Paris' Sorbonne, and no one ventured on the experiment. Yet Rabelais forces comparison with Cervantes, whose precursor he was in reality, though the two books and the two minds are very different. They have only one point in common, their attack and ridicule of the romances of chivalry and of the wildly improbable adventures of knight-errants. But in Don Quixote there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes knew Rabelais' book or owed anything to it whatsoever, even the starting-point of his subject. Perhaps it was better he should not have been influenced by him, in however slight a degree; his originality is the more intact and the more genial.
On the other hand, Rabelais has been several times translated into German. In the present century Regis published at Leipsic, from 1831 to 1841, with copious notes, a close and faithful translation. The first one cannot be so described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz or Strasburg, who died in 1614. He was a Protestant controversialist, and a satirist of fantastic and abundant imagination. In 1575 appeared his translation of Rabelais' first book, and in 1590 he published the comic catalogue of the library of Saint Victor, borrowed from the second book. It is not a translation, but a recast in the boldest style, full of alterations and of exaggerations, both as regards the coarse expressions which he took upon himself to develop and to add to, and in the attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. According to Jean Paul Richter, Fischart is much superior to Rabelais in style and in the fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal in erudition and in the invention of new expressions after the manner of Aristophanes. He is sure that his work was successful, because it was often reprinted during his lifetime; but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul would hardly carry conviction in France. Who treads in another's footprints must follow in the rear. Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator. Those who take the ideas of others to modify them, and make of them creations of their own, like Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France, may be superior to those who have served them with suggestions; but then the new works must be altogether different, must exist by themselves. Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to have destroyed their models. These copyists, if we call them so, created such works of genius that the only pity is they are so rare. This is not the case with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some one thoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at least, by long extracts from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German taste when it thought it could do better than Rabelais. It is dangerous to tamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk of burning his fingers.
England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have brought her success. But, before speaking of Urquhart's translation, it is but right to mention the English-French Dictionary of Randle Cotgrave, the first edition of which dates from 1611. It is in every way exceedingly valuable, and superior to that of Nicot, because instead of keeping to the plane of classic and Latin French, it showed an acquaintance with and mastery of the popular tongue as well as of the written and learned language. As a foreigner, Cotgrave is a little behind in his information. He is not aware of all the changes and novelties of the passing fashion. The Pleiad School he evidently knew nothing of, but kept to the writers of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Thus words out of Rabelais, which he always translates with admirable skill, are frequent, and he attaches to them their author's name. So Rabelais had already crossed the Channel, and was read in his own tongue. Somewhat later, during the full sway of the Commonwealth—and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier must have been a surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity—Captain Urquhart undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely in England.