Dizain by Master Hugues Salel "To the Author of this Book"
Prologue of the Author
1. Of the origin and antiquity of the great Pantagruel.
2. Of the nativity of the highly redoubtable Pantagruel.
3. How Gargantua mourned for the death of his wife Badebec.
4. Of Pantagruel's childhood.
5. Of the deeds of the noble Pantagruel in his youth.
6. How Pantagruel met a Limousin who counterfeited the French
language.
7. How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the fair books of the
Library of Saint-Victor.
8. How Pantagruel, while in Paris, received a letter from his father
Gargantua, and a copy of the same.
9. How Pantagruel found Panurge, whom he loved all his life.
10. How Pantagruel equitably judged a marvelously difficult and
obscure controversy, so justly that his judgment was pronounced
most admirable.
11. How Lords Kissass and Sniffshit pleaded before Pantagruel
without advocates.
12. How Lord Sniffshit pleaded before Pantagruel.
13. How Pantagruel gave his decision on the disagreement between
the two lords.
14. How Panurge relates the way in which he escaped from the
hands of the Turks.
15. How Panurge teaches a very new way of building the walls of
Paris.
16. Of the ways and dispositions of Panurge.
17. How Panurge got pardons and married off old women, and of the
lawsuits he had in Paris.
18. How a great scholar from England wanted to debate against
Pantagruel, and was vanquished by Panurge.
19. How Panurge made a monkey of the Englishman who argued by signs.
20. How Thaumaste recounts the virtues and knowledge of Panurge.
21. How Panurge was smitten by a great lady of Paris.
22. How Panurge played a trick on the Parisian lady that was not at
all to her advantage.
23. How Pantagruel left Paris, hearing news that the Dipsodes were
invading the land of the Amaurots, and the reason why the leagues
are so short in France.
24. A letter that a messenger brought to Pantagruel from a lady of
Paris, and the explanation of a phrase inscribed in a gold ring.
25. How Panurge, Carpalim, Eusthenes, Epistemon, Pantagruel's
companions, very subtly defeated six hundred and sixty knights.
26. How Pantagruel and his companions were fed up with eating
salt meat, and how Carpalim went hunting to get some venison.
27. How Pantagruel set up a trophy in memory of their exploits, and
Panurge another in memory of the hares. How Pantagruel of his farts
engendered the little men, and of his fizzles the little
women, and how Panurge broke a big stick over two glasses.
28. How Pantagruel won the victory very strangely over the Dipsodes
and giants.
29. How Pantagruel defeated the three hundred giants armed with
freestone and their captain Werewolf
30. How Epistemon had his chop headed off, was cleverly cured by
Panurge, and how they got some news of the devils and the damned.
31. How Pantagruel entered the city of the Amaurots and how
Panurge married off King Anarche and made him a hawker of green
sauce.
32. How Pantagruel with his tongue covered a whole army, and what
the author saw inside his mouth.
33. How Pantagruel was sick, and the way in which he got well.
34. The conclusion of the present book, and the author's excuse.


　　　Dizain by Master Hugues Salel177
　　　　　　　　　To the Author of this Book


　　　　　　If writers who both teach and entertain
　　　　　　Are honored by their fellow men, I find
　　　　　　That your pursuit of praise shall not be vain.
　　　　　　The proof is that your understanding mind
　　　　　　Has in this book so cleverly combined
　　　　　　Pleasure and profit for the general weal.
　　　　　　That you, a new Democritus. I feel,
　　　　　　Make merry at the human enterprise.
　　　　　　So give us more; for praise both sure and real,
　　　　　　If not on earth, awaits you in the skies.



Prologue of the Author



Most illustrious and most valorous champions, who gladly devote yourselves to all
things nice and honorable, not long ago you saw, read, and came to know the Great
and Inestimable Chronicles of the Enormous Giant Gargantua,178 and, as true faithful,
you had the courtesy to believe them, and you have spent your time many times with
the honorable older and younger ladies, telling them beautiful long stories from
these when you ran out of things to say, which makes you most worthy of great
praise and eternal remembrance.

And it would be my will that everyone should leave his own job, take no heed of his
trade, and forget about his own affairs, to see to these entirely, without his mind
being involved elsewhere, until he knew them by heart, so that if the art of print-
ing ceased or in case all books perish, in the time to come they might be taught
accurately to his children and pass them as if from hand to hand to his successors
and survivors like some religious cabala;179 for there is more fruit in it than may
be supposed by a whole great bunch of swashbucklers all covered with crusts who
understand much less about these little jollities than does even Raclet about the
Institutes.180

I've known a good number of powerful high lords who, on their way to hunt big game
or set birds flying after ducks, if it happened that the quarry was not found in its
traces. or the falcon took to hovering as the prey got away in flight; they were
very disappointed, as you can well understand; but their refuge and comfort, was to
keep from catching cold and to recall the inestimable deeds of the said Gargantua.
There are others around the world (these are no silly tales) who, when in great
pain from a toothache, after spending all their means on medicines with no profit,
found no more expedient remedy than to wrap the said Chronicles between good hot
cloths and apply them to the place where it hurt, sprinkling them with a little
poudre d'onints [powdered dung].

But what am I to say of the poor poxies and gouties? How many times we have seen
them, at the moment when they were well greased and duly anointed, as their face
shone like the lock-plate of a larder, and their teeth were chattering like organ
or spinet keys when someone plays on them, and their throat was rothing like a wild
boar's that the dogs have run down into the toils! What did they used to do then?
Their whole consolation was only to hear some page of the said book read, and we
have seen some who used to give themselves to a hundred pipes of old devils in case
they had not felt some manifest relief in the reading of the said book when they
were being held in limbo,181 neither more nor less than women in labor when they
were read the Life of Saint Marguerite, then? Find me a book, in whatever language,
whatever faculty and area it may be, that has such virtues, properties, and prero-
gatives, and I'll pay for a pint of tripes. No, gentlemen, it is peerless, incom-
parable, and unmatched. I maintain this up to the stake exclusive182 [but no further).
And as for those who would maintain the contrary, consider them abusers, prestin-
ators,183 and misleaders.

Quite true it is that certain occult properties may be found in certain topnotch
books, in whose number is found Fessepinte [Tosspint], Orlando Furioso, Robert it
Diable, Fierabras, William the Fearless, Huon de Bordeaux, Montevieille and Mata-
brune;184 but they are not to be compared with the one we're talking about. People
have unfailingly recognized by experience the great profit and great utility that
came from the said Gargantuan Chronicle-, for more of these have been sold by the
printers in two months than there will be Bibles sold in nine years.

So I. your humble slave, wanting to augment your pastime further, offer you at
present another book of the same caliber, were it not that it is a little more
objective and trustworthy than the other one. For do not suppose (if you don't
want to make a mistake knowingly) that I speak of it as the Jews used to speak
about the Law. I was not born on such a planet, and it has never happened that
I lied, or gave assurance of anything that was not truthful. I speak of this like a
lusty pelican [onocrotalch or rather crapponotary Icrotenotairel of martyred sui-
tors and crunchnotary Icrocquenotairer185 of amours: Quad vidimus testamur
["we testify to what we have seen," John 3.1i]. This is about the horrible deeds
and exploits of Pantagruel, whom I have served as a menial ever since I got
through as a page until the present, when by his leave I have come to visit
this cow country of mine and see if any relative of mine was still alive.

And so, to make an end of this prologue, even as I give myself to a thousand
basketfuls of fine devils, body and soul. tripes and bowels, in case I lie by a
single word in the whole story; so likewise, may Saint Anthony's Fire burn you,
the falling sickness spin you, squinancy (p6che de jeunesse] and the wolf in
your stomach truss you,

　　　　　　Erysipelas with piercing flare,
　　　　　　As stinging thin as a cow's hair,
　　　　　　With quicksilver to make it firm,
　　　　　　Plunge up your bunghole till you squirm.

And, like Sodom and Gomorrah, may you fall into sulfur, fire, and the abyss, in
case you do not firmly believe all I will relate to you in this present
Chronicle!






CHAPTER 1


Of the origin and antiquity
of the great Pantagruel.


IT will not be a useless or idle thing, seeing that we are at leisure, to remind
you of the first source and origin from which was born to us the good Pantagruel;
for I see that all good historiographers have treated their Chronicles thus; not
only the Arabs, barbarians, and Latins, but also the Greeks and
Gentiles, who were everlasting drinkers.

So you should note that at the beginning of the world (a long time ago, more than
forty times forty nights back, to reckon as the ancient Druids did),186 soon after
Abel was slain by his brother Cain, the earth, steeped in the blood of the just,
for a certain year was very fertile in all fruits that are produced for us from
her loins, and especially in great medlars--for three of them made up a bushel.

In that year the calends were found throughout the breviaries of the Greeks. The
month of March was missing from Lent, and mid-August was May. In the month of
October, it seems to me, or else in September (to make no mistake, for I want to
be careful to avoid that), came the week so renowned in the annals, which is call-
ed the week of the three Thursdays; for there were three of them, because of the
irregular bissextiles, when the sun swerved a little to the left, as debitoribus,187 and
the moon varied more than five fathoms in her course, and there was manifestly
seen the trembling movement in the firmament known as Aplanes, so much so that
the middle Plciad, leaving its companions, declined toward the equinox, and the star
called Spica left of Virgo, moving back toward the Balance; which are mighty fright-
ening events, and matters so tough and difficult that the astrologers cannot get
their teeth into them; and indeed they would have to have very long teeth to reach
that far! You may count on this, that everyone gladly ate of the said medlars, for
they were fair to the eye and delicious to the taste; but even as Noah--that holy
nun (to whom we are so obliged and beholden that for us he planted the vine, whence
we get that nectarean, delicious, precious, celestial, joyous, and deific liquor that
we call piot)--was fooled when he drank it, for he did not know its great virtue
and power;188 likewise, the men and women of that time ate with great pleasure of
that fine big fruit.

But very varied accidents befell them, for there came upon all a most horrible swell-
ing of the body, but not all in the same place. For some swelled in the belly and
their bellies grew a hump like a tun, of whom it is written, Ventrem omnipotentem
[Almighty Belly],189 who were all good folks and merry blades; and of this race were
born Saint Paunchy and Shrove Tuesday.190

Others swelled at the shoulders, and grew so hunchbacked that they were called Mont-
ifers, as if to say Mountain-bearers. You will see some of these around of different
sexes and dignities, and of this race came Aesop. whose fine deeds and words you have
in writing. Others swelled in the member that is called naturc's plowman, so that
theirs was wonderfully long, big, stout, plump, verdant, and lusty in the good old
style, so that they used it as a belt, winding it five or six times around their body;
and if it happened to be at the ready with the wind astern, to see them you would
have said that they were men with their lances set to go jousting at the quintain.
And of these the race is lost, as the women say, for they continually lament that
There are no more big ones like that. etc.

You know the rest of the song.

Others grew so enormously in the matter of balls that three of them quite filled a
hogshead. From these are descended the ballocks of Lorraine, which never dwell in
a codpiece; they always come down to the bottom of the breeches.

Others grew in the legs, and to see them you would have thought they were cranes or
flamingos, or else walking on stilts; and the little grammar-school kids called them
iambus.191

Others grew so much in their nose that it was like the flute of an alembic, all mot-
tled, all sparkling with pimples, sprouting, cmpurpled, and all spangled, a mosaic,
and embroidered with gules,192 and such as you have seen on Canon Panzoult and Piede-
boys [Woodfootl, the doctor from Angers, from which race there are few who loved herb
tea, but all were lovers of Septembral potion. Naso [Grand Neal and Ovid193 originated
from those, and all those of whom it is said: "Lord only knows..."194

Others grew in the cars, which soon were so big that out of one of them they made up
a doublet, breech, and long jacket, while with the other they covered themselves with
a Spanish-style cape; and they say that in the Bourbonnais that descendance still
lasts, whence the phrase "Bourbonnais cars."Others grew in length of body. And of
these came the giants, and of that line Pantagruel. And the first was Chalbroth,195
who begat Sarabroth, who begat Faribroth, who begat Hurtaly, who was a great downer
of dips and ruled at the time of the Flood; who begat Nimrod, who begat Atlas, who
by his shoulders kept the heavens from falling; who begat Goliath, who begat Eryx,
inventor of the goblet game; who begat Titus. who begat Orion, who begat Polyphemus.
who begat Cacus, who begat Edon, who was the first man to get the pox, for not drink-
ing cool in summer; as Bartachim attests; who begat Enceladus, who begat Ceus, who
begat Typhoeus. who begat Alocus, who begat Otus, who begat Aegeon, who begat Briareus,
who had a hundred hands; who begat Porphyry, who begat Adarnauor, who begat Antacus,
who begat Agatho, who begat Porus, whom Alexander the Great met in battle. Porus begat
Aranthas, who begat Gabbara, who first invented drinking toasts; who begat Goliath of
Secundilla, who begat Offot, who built himself a terribly fine nose by drinking out
of a barrel; who begat Artachaeus, who begat Oromedon, who begat Gemmagog, who was
the inventor of buckled shoes; who begat Sisyphus, who begat the Titans, of whom was
born Hercules, who begat Enoc, a great expert at getting mites out of hands; who begat
Fierabras, who was vanquished by Oliver. peer of France and comrade to Roland; who
begat Morgante, who was the first man in the world to play at dice with his spectac-
les; who begat Fracassus, of whom Merlin Coccai has written;196 of whom was born Fer-
ragus,197 who begat Flycatcher, who first invented smoking ox tongue by the fireplace;
for theretofore people salted them as they do hams; who begat Bolivorax, who begat
Longus, who begat Gayoffe, whose balls were of poplar and his prick of sorb apple
wood; who begat Grccdygut [Maschcfain), who begat Ironbumer [Brusleferl, who begat
Windswallower (Engoleventl, who begat Galahad, the inventor of flagons; who begat
Malang) [Mirclangaultl, who begat Galaffre, who begat Falourdin, who begat Roboaster,
who begat Sortibrant of Coimbra, who begat Bruslant de Monmire [Brushant de Mommiere],
who begat Bruyer, who was vanquished by Ogier the Dane, peer of France; who begat
Maubrun [Mabrunl, who begat Donkeyfucker [Foutasnonl, who begat Hacquelebac, who begat
Grainprick [Vitdegrain], who begat Grand Gosier (Grandgousierl. who begat Gargantua,
who begat the noble Pantagruel, my master.

I quite understand that in reading this passage you are raising within yourselves a
very reasonable doubt and asking how it can possibly be, since at the time of the Flood
everyone perished except Noah and seven persons with him in the Ark, in whose number
the said Hurtaly198 was not included.

The question is no doubt well taken and quite apparent; but the answer will content
you, or my wits are ill calked. And since I was not around at the time to tell you it
any way I please, I'll cite you the authority of the Massoretes, good ballocky types
and fine Hebraic bagpipers, who affirm that indeed Hurtaly was not in Noah's ark, in-
deed he couldn't have got in, for he was too big; but he was sitting on top astride
it, one leg on one side, one leg on the other, like little children on hobbyhorses.
and as the Great Bull of Bern. who was killed at Marignano,199 was riding on his mount
astride a great stone-throwing cannon, an animal with a fine amble, and no mistake.
In this way he saved after God, the said ark from shipwreck; for he set it in motion
with his legs, and with his foot he turned it wherever he wanted as they do with the
rudder of a ship. The people inside sent him victuals aplenty through a chimney, in
recognition of the good he was doing them; and sometimes they conferred together, as
did Icaromenippus with Jupiter, according to Lucian's report.

Have you understood that well? Then drink a good snort without water. For, if you
don't believe it, "nor do 1," said she.200



CHAPTER 2


Of the nativity of the
highly redoubtable Pantagruel.


GARGANTUA, at the age of four hundred four score and forty-four years, begat his son Pan-
tagruel by his wife Badebec, daughter of the king of the Amaurots in Utopia, who died in
childbirth; for he was so wonderfully big and heavy that he could not come into the light
of day without choking his mother.

But to understand fully the cause and reason for his name, which was given him at his bap-
tism, you must note that there was such a great drought that year in all the land of Af-
rica that there passed thirty-six months three weeks four days thirteen hours and a little
bit more without rain, with the heat of the sun so violent that the whole earth was parch-
ed. And even in the time of Elijah201 it was no hotter than it was then, for there was no
tree above ground that had either leaf or flower. The grasses had no verdure, the streams
and springs were dried up; the poor fish deserted by their elements wandered screaming hor-
ribly about the land; the birds fell from the air for lack of dew; the wolves, foxes, stags,
boats, deer, hares, rabbits, weasels, badgers, and other animals, were found dead all over
the fields, their throats gaping. As regards men, it was most pitiful. You would have seen
them with their tongues hanging out, like greyhounds that have run for six hours; many
threw themselves into the wells; others climbed into a cow's belly to be in the shade, and
Homer calls them Alibantes.202

The whole country was at anchor. It was a piteous thing to see the travail of humans to pro-
tect themselves from this horrific drought. For it was all anyone could do to save the holy
water in the churches from being used up; but they so ordered it, on the advice of My Lords
the Cardinals and the Holy Father, that no one dared take more than one helping. Even so,
when anyone went into the church, you would have seen them by the score, poor parched wretch-
es coming in behind the priest who was distributing it, their jaws gaping to have one tiny
droplet, like the wicked rich man (of Luke 16.19-2.51, so that none of it should be lost. O
how happy that year was the man who had a cool, well-stocked cellar!

The Philosopher relates, in dealing with the question why sea water is salty, that in the time
when Phoebus gave over the driving of his lucific chariot to his son Phaethon, the said Phae-
thon, ill schooled in the art and not knowing how to follow the ecliptic line between the two
tropics of the sun's orbit, strayed off his track and came so close to earth that he dried up
all the countries lying underneath, burning a great part of the sky that the philosophers call
the Via lactea and fiddlefaddlers call Saint James's Way, although the cockiest poets say that
that area is where Juno's milk spilled when she suckled Hercules; then the earth was so heat-
ed that it burst into an enormous sweat, from which it sweated out the entire sea, which there-
fore is salty, as all sweat is salty, which you will say is true if you will taste your own--
or else that of the poxies when they make them sweat--it's all one to me.

Almost the same thing happened in the said year; for one Friday. when all were busy with their
devotions and were making a fine procession with lots of litanies and fine preachers, implor-
ing Almighty God to cast a merciful eye on them in such great distress, great drops of water
were visibly seen coming out of the ground, just as when a person sweats copiously. And the
poor folk began to rejoice, as if it had been a thing very profitable for them; some even
said that there was not one drop of moisture in the air from which any rain might fall, and
the earth did not supply the default of that. Other learned men said it was rain from the An-
tipodes, such as Seneca tells about in the fourth book of his Quaestiones naturales, speaking
of the origin and source of the River Nile. But they were wrong about it, for when the pro-
cession was over, when everyone wanted to gather up some of this dew and drink a whole jug of
it, they found that it was nothing but brine, saltier and worse than sea water.

And because on that very day was born Pantagruel, his father pinned on him such a name: for
panta, in Greek, amounts to saying "all" and gruel in Hagarene amounts to "thirsty"; meaning to
signify that at the time of his nativity the earth was all thirsty, and seeing in a spirit of proph-
ecy that one day he would be the dominator of the thirsties, which was demonstrated to him at
that very moment by another more evident sign. For when his mother Badebec was bearing him,
and the midwives were waiting to receive him, there issued first from his belly sixty-eight
salt-vendors, each one tugging by the halter a mule all loaded with salt; after which came out
nine dromedaries laden with hams and smoked ox tongues, seven camels loaded with baby eels;
then twenty-five cartloads of leeks, garlic, onions, and chives, which really terrified the
said midwives; but some of them said:

"Here are good provisions. You see, we were drinking only meagerly, not eagerly;203 this is sim-
ply a good sign, these are goads to wine."

And as they were prattling with one another with such small talk, here comes Pantagruel, all hairy
as a bear, and at this in a spirit of prophecy one of them said:

"He's born with all his hair on,204 he'll do wonders; and if he lives, he'll be a grownup."



CHAPTER 3


How Gargantua mourned
for the death of his wife Badebec.


WHEN Pantagruel was born, who do you suppose was all stunned and perplexed? His father Gargan-
tua. For, seeing on the one hand his wife Badebec dead, and on the other his son Pantagruel
born so big and handsome, he didn't know what to say or do; and the uncertainty that troubled
his understanding was whether he was to weep in mourning for his wife, or laugh aloud for joy
over his son. On one side and the other he had sophistical arguments enough to choke him; for
he shaped them very well in modo et figura,205 but he could not resolve them; and in this way
he remained stuck like a mouse in pitch206 or a kite caught in a snare.

"Am I to weep?" he said. "Yes, and why? My good wife is dead, who rwas the most this, the
most that, in all the world. Never will I see her again, never will I find another like her;
it's an inestimable loss for me! O God what had I done to Thee tp punish me so? Why didst
Thou not send death to me first, before her? For to live without her is just languishing
for me! Ah, Badebec, my darling, my love, my little cunt--to be sure, she had one a good
three acres and two sesterees in size--my little tenderloin, my codpiece, my gym shoe, my
slipper, never will I see you. Ah, poor Pantagruel, you have lost your good mother, your
sweet nurse, your beloved lady! Ah, traitorous death, so hostile you are to me, so outra-
geous, to snatch from me her to whom by right immortality was due!"

And so saying, he wailed like a cow. But then suddenly, when Pantagruel came back to mind,
he guffawed like a calf.

"Ho, my little son," he kept saying, "my ballock, my little imp, how pretty you are, and how
grateful am to God for giving me such a handsome son, so merry, so smiling, so pretty! Ho
ho ho! How happy I am! Let's drink, ho, and put aside all melancholy! Bring some of the best,
rinse the glasses, on with the tablecloth, put otitRhose dogs, blow that fire up, send those
poor on their way, but give them what they're asking! Take my gown, let me wear just my
doublet, the better to regale the gossips!"

So saying, he heard the litany and Mementos,207 of the priests bearing his wife to the earth,
whereupon he left off his good talk and was suddenly transported elsewhere, saying:

"Lord God, must I again be sad? That grieves me; I'm no longer young, I'm getting old, the
weather is dangerous, I may catch a fever and be all besotted. 'Pon my word as a gentleman,208
it's better to weep less and drink more! My wife is dead. Well, in God's name (da jurandi)209
I won't bring her back by my tears. She's fine, she's in paradise at least, if not bet-
ter yet; she's praying to God for us, she no longer worries about our miseries and calam-
ities; the same thing hangs over our heads, so God help the rest of us! I must be thinking
of finding another.

"But here's what you do," he said to the midwives (Where are they? Good folks, I can't see
you).210 Go to the burial of her. I'll rock my baby son right here, for I feel quite parched,
and might be in danger of falling ill; but first have a good stiff drink; for you'll feel
the better for it, believe me on my honor."

Following these directions, they went to the burial and funeral, and poor Gargantua stayed
home. And meanwhile he composed this epitaph, to be engraved in the manner that follows:

She bore my child, and childbirth laid her low.
Alas, fair Badebec, to come to this!
In face as lean and fair as any crow,
Spanish-thin body, belly round and Swiss.
Pray God He take her to eternal bliss,
Forgiving her if ever she did stray.
Never did this her body go amiss;
And died the year and day she passed away.



CHAPTER 4


Of Pantagruel's childhood.


I find in the ancient historiographers and poets that many people have been born into the
world in very strange fashions, which would be too long to relate. Read Book 7 of Pliny,
if you have the leisure. But you never heard of one as wonderful as Pantagruel's, for it
was hard to believe how he grew in body and in strength in a short time, and Hercules was
nothing, who, while in his cradle killed two snakes, for the said snakes were very small
and frail; but Pantagruel, while still in his cradle, did some very frightful things.

I forbear from telling you how at each of his meals he imbibed the milk of four thousand
six hundred cows, and how, to make him a saucepan to cook his pap in, all the braziers
were busied from Saumur in Anjou, from Villedieu in Normandy, and from Bramont in Lor-
raine. And they gave him the said pap in a big bowl which at present is still at Bour-
ges,211 near the palace; but his teeth were already so tough and strong that with them
he broke off a big piece of the said bowl, as very clearly appears.

On a certain day, toward morning, when they wanted to have him suck milk from one of
his cows (for of nurses he never had any other sort, so the story goes), he got one
of his arms free from the bonds that held him in the cradle, and up and takes the
said cow under the hams and ate her two udders and half her belly, with the liver and
kidneys, and would have eaten her all up, but that she was screaming horribly as if
the wolves had her by the legs, at which scream people came up, and took the said
cow away from Pantagruel; but they could not manage to help his keeping the shin
just as he was holding it, and he was eating it nicely as you would a sausage; and
when they tried to take away the bone, he promptly swallowed it as a cormorant would
a little fish; and after that he started saying:

"Good! Good! Good!" for he still did not know how to speak very well; meaning to say
that he had found it very good, and all he needed was more of the same. Seeing which,
those who had him bound with big cables, such as are th'ose they make at Tain for
the salt trip to Lyon, or as are those of the great ship Francoyse212 that is in the
port of Le Havre de Grace in Normandy.

But once when a big bear that his father was bringing up escaped, and came to lick his
face, for the nurse had not swabbed off his lips properly, he broke free of the said
cables as easily as Samson from among the Philistines, and up and took Mister Bear
and tore him in pieces like a chicken, and made himself a fine tidbit of him for that
meal.

Wherefore Gargantua, fearing that he might hurt himself, had four stout iron chains
made to bind him, and flying buttresses, well mounted, for his cradle. And of these
chains you have one at La Rochelle, which they raise at night between the two great
towers in the harbor; another is in Lyon, another in Anger, and the fourth was car-
ried off by the devils to bind Lucifer, who was breaking loose at that time, because
he was extraordinarily tormented by a colic for having eaten for his breakfast the
soul of a sergeant in a fricassee. On this you may well believe what Nicolas de Lyra
says about the passage in the Psalter [Psalms 136.20] where it is written Et Og regem
Basan [And Og king of Basjan], that the said Og, while still little, was so strong
and robust that he had to be bound into his cradle with iron chains [see de Lyra's
commentary on Deuteronomy, and the text of Deuteronomy 3.3-4]. And thus he [Panta-
gruel] remained quiet and peaceful, for he could not break the said chains so easily,
especially because he had no room in the cradle to give a shake with his arms.

But here is what happened the day of a great banquet his father Gargantua was giv-
ing for all the princes of his court. I really believe that all the court officers
were so busy serving the feast that no one thought of poor Pantagruel, so he was
left off in a corner. What did he do?

What did he do, my hearties? Listen.213

He tried to break the chains of the cradle with his arms; but he could not, for they
were too strong. So he banged his feet so hard that he broke off the end of his cra-
dle, which, however, was a great beam seven span square, and, once he had got his
feet out, he slid down as best he could, so that his feet touched ground; and then
with great power he hoisted himself upright, carrying the cradle bound thus on his
back, like a tortoise climbing up against a wall; and to look at him it seemed he
was a great five-hundred-ton carrick standing on end.

In that state he came into the hall where they were banqueting, and boldly, so that
he quite frightened the people there; but inasmuch as he had his arms bound inside,
he couldn't take anything to eat, and was bending down with great difficulty to
lick up some little mouthful with his tongue. Seeing this, his father readily un-
derstood that he had been left without anything to eat, and ordered him to be un-
bound from the said chains, this with the advice of the princes and lords present;
beside which, too, Gargantua's doctors said that if he were kept in the cradle that
way, he would all his life be subject to kidney stones. When he was unchained, they
had him sit down, and fed him very well; an he knocked this said cradle into over
five hundred thousand pieces by hitting it in the middle with his fist out of spite,
protesting that he would never go back there:



CHAPTER 5


Of the deeds of the noble Pantagruel
in his youth.


THUS Pantagruel went on growing from day to day and thrived visibly, at which his
father rejoiced by natural affection., and had him made, since he was small, a cross-
bow to play at hunting little birds, which nowadays is called the great crossbow of
Chantelle,214 then sent him to school to learn
and to spend his youth.

And thus he came to Poitiers to study, and profited well by it; in which place,
seeing that the students were sometimes at loose ends and did not know how to spend
the time, he had compassion on them, and one day took, from a huge mass of rock
that they call Passelourdin, a big boulder about twelve fathoms square and four-
teen span thick, and set it on four pillars in the middle of a field, very casual-
ly; so that the said students, Bvhen they didn't know what else to do, might spend
their time climbing on the said boulder and feasting there with flagons, hams, and
pasties galore, and scratching their names on it with a knife; and now it is called
The Raised Stone [La Pierre Levee]. And in memory of this, today no one is entered as,
matriculated in the said University of Poitiers, unless he has drunk of the Cabal-
line spring of Croustelles, gone to Passelourdin,215 and climbed up onto the Raised
Stone.

Subsequently, reading the fair chronicles of his ancestors, he found that of Geoffroy
de Lusignan, known as Geoffroy Sabertooth, grandfather of the cousin-in-law of the
elder sister of the aunt of the son-in-law of the uncle of his mother-in-law's dau-
ghter-in-law, was buried at Maillezais; so one day he took French leave to pay him
a visit as a good man should. And, leaving Poitiers with some of his mates, they
passed through Liguge, visiting the noble Abbe Ardillon, through Lusignan, through
Sansay, through Celles, through Colognes, through Fontenay-le-Comte, paying their
respects to the learned Tiraqueau; and from there they reached Maillezais, where he
visited the sepulcher of the said Geoffroy Sabertooth, which gave him a little scare,
seeing how he is represented as a madman, drawing his great scimitar halfway out of
its scabbard; and he kept asking the cause of this. The canons of the said place
said there was no other cause than of this. The canons of the said place said there
was no other cause than

Pictoribus atque Poetis, etc.216

that is to say that painters and poets have the freedom to portray whatever they
wish at their pleasure. But he did not rest content with their reply, and said:

"He is not portrayed thus without cause; and I suspect that at his death someone
did him some wrong, for which he is asking vengeance of his relatives. I will look
into this more fully, and will do about it what reason demands."

Then he went back, but not to Poitiers; rather he wanted to visit the other univer-
sities of France, so, going via La Rochelle, he put to sea and came to Bordeaux,
where he found not much going on except the dockers playing cards on the riverbank.

From there he came to Toulouse, where he learned right well to dance and to play
with the two-handed sword, as is the way of the students at the said university;
but he did not stay long when he saw that they had their teachers burned alive like
red herrings, saying: "God forbid I should die that way, for I'm parched enough by
nature without heating myself up any further."

Then he came to Montpellier, where he found very good Mireval wines and merry com-
pany;217 and he thought of starting to study medicine; but he considered that doctors
smelled like old devils of enemas. Therefore he determined to study law; but seeing
that there were only three mangy law experts and one bald one at the said place, _
he left; and on the road he made the Pont du Gard and the Amphitheater at Nimes, in
less than three hours, which nevertheless seem to be works more divine than human;
and he came to Avignon, where' he had been three days when he became enamored; for
the women the-re love to play clinchcruppers, because it's papal territory.

Seeing which his tutor, Epistemon by name, took him out of there and away to Valence218
in Dauphine; but he saw that there was not much doing there and that the town rough-
necks used to beat up the students, which made him angry; and one fine Sunday when
everyone was dancing in public and one student tried to join in the dance, the
roughnecks wouldn't let him. Seeing which, Pantagruel gave chase to them all right
up to the edge of the Rhone, and tried to get them all drowned; but they took cover
like moles in the ground, a good half league under the Rhone. The opening still
shows there.219

Afterward he left, and in three steps and a hop came to Angers, where he was just
fine, and would have stayed for some time had the plague not driven them out.

So he came to Bourges, where he studied quite a long time, and learned a lot in
the law school; and sometimes he used to say that the law books seemed to him a
beautiful golden gown that was bordered with shit. "For," he said, "there are no
books in the world so beautiful, so ornate, so elegant, as are the texts of the
Pandects; but their border, to wit, the gloss by Accursius, is so foul, unspeak-
able, and smelly, that it's nothing but sewage and sludge."

Leaving Bourges, he came to Orleans, and there found many loutish students who
made a big fuss over him when he arrived; and in a short time with them he learn-
ed to play tennis so well that he was a master at it; for the students of the
said place are great practitioners of that.

And sometimes they would take him to the Islands to enjoy the game or-Push-it-
in [poussavant]; and as regards beating his brains out in hard studying, he did none
of that, for fear of weakening his eyesight, especially since one of his professors,
a character, often said in his lectures that there is nothing so bad for the eyesight
as eye disease. And one day when they gave a licentiate in law to one of the stu-
dents he knew who had no more knowledge of it than he could carry, but to make
up for it knew a lot about dancing and playing good tennis, Pantagruel composed the
epitome and motto of the licentiates of the said university, saying:

A tennis ball at your command,
A tennis racket in your hand,
A law to quote (misunderstood):
You're fit for your licentiate's hood.220



CHAPTER 6


How Pantagruel met a Limousin221
who counterfeited the French language.


ONE day, I don't know when, Pantagruel was strolling with his companions after
supper near the gate by which you go to Paris. There he met a very natty student
coming along that road, and, after they had exchanged greetings, asked him:

"My friend, where are you coming from at this time of day?"

The student answered: "From the alme, inclyte, and celebrated academy that is
vocitated Lutece."

"What does that mean?" asked Pantagruel of one of his men.

"It means," he said, "from Paris."

"So you come from Paris?" he said. "And how do you spend your time you gentle-
man students, in the said Paris?"

Replied the student: "We transfretate the Sequana at the dilucule and crepus-
cule; we deambulate through the compita and quadrivia of the city; we despumate
the Latial verbocination, and, like verisimilar amorabunds, we captate the ben-
evolence of the omnijunctive, omniform, and omnigenous feminine sex. On certain
diecules, we invisitate the lupanars, and, in venerean ecstasy, inculcate our
vereters into the most recondite recesses of the pudenda of these most amiable
meretricules,222 then we cauponize, in the meritorius tabernae of the Fir Cone,
the Castle, the Magdalen, and the Mule, lovely vervecine spatulae, perforaminate
with petrosil; and if, by force of fortune, there is a rarity of pecunia in our
marsupiae, and these are drained of ferruginous metal, for the scot we dimit our
codices and oppignorated vestments, restolating the tabellaries to come from the
patristic penates and Lares."223

To which Pantagruel said: "What the devil language is this? By God, you're some
sort of heretic."

"No, Signor," said the student; "for liberissimily, as soon as there illucesces
some minutule sliver of daylight, I denigrate into one of these so well archi-
tectated minsters, and there, irrorating myself with fair lustral water, I mumble
a snatch of some missic precation of our sacrificules. And, submirmillating my
horary precules, I elave and absterge my anima of its nocturnal inquinations. I
revere the Olympicoles, I worshipfully venerate the supernal astripotent. I del-
ectate and redame my proximates.

I serve the Decaligic prescripts, and, according to the faculty let of my vis,
do not discede from them the width of an unguicule. Veriform indeed it is that,
by reason that Mammon does not supergurgitate a drop into locules, I am just a
bit rare and slow to supererogate eleemosynae to these egents, queritating their
tipe hostiately."224

"Oh, turds, turds, turds," said Pantagruel, "what is this lunatic trying to say?
I think he's concocting some devilish language here, and putting a spell on us
like some enchanter."

To which one of his men said: "My Lord, beyond a doubt this fop is trying to
counterfeit the language of the Parisians; but he does nothing but flay Latin,
and thinks he's Pindarizing that way; and it really seems to him that he's some
great orator in French, becatile-"he disdains the common way of speaking."

To which Pantagruel said: "Is that true?"

The student replied: "Signor Missayre, my genius is not nately apt for what
this flagitious nebulon says, to excoriate the cutucle of our Gallic vernacule,
but viceversically I fervidly operate, and by veles and amesn applicate myself
to locuplete it from the Latinidome redundance."225

"By God!" said Pantagruel, "I'll teach you to talk; but first answer me: Where
are you from?"

To which the student said: "The primeval origin of my ayes and ataves was in-
digenous to the Lemovic regions, where requiesces the corpus of the agiotate
Saint Martial."227

"I quite understand," said Pantagruel; "you're a Limousin, that's the size of
it, and here you want to counterfeit the Parisian All right, come here now,
let me give you a lick with the comb!"

Then he took him by the throat and said to him: "You flay Latin; by Saint
John, I'll make you flay the fox, for I'm going to skin you alive."

Then the poor Limousin started saying: "Hey, lookee here, gempmun.

Oh, Saint Marsault, hep me. 0, 0, lemme be, i' the name o' Goddsmighty, and
doan' touch me no more."

To which Pantagruel said: "Now you're talking naturally."

And so he left him, for the poor Limousin was beshitting all his breeches,
which were made codtail style and not full-bottom, at which Pantagruel said:
"Saint Alipentin! What civet!' Devil take the turnipeater, he stinks so!"

And he left him. But this gave him such an aftershock for all his life,
and he was so parched, that he often said that Pantagruel had him by the
throat, and a few years later he died the Roland's death, this being done
by divine justice, and demonstrating what the philosopher says, and Aulus

Gellius: that it befits us to talk according to the accepted language, and,
as Octavian Augustus used to say [see Aulus Gellius 1.10], that we should a-
void derelict words with the same diligence as ships' masters avoid rocks at
sea.



CHAPTER 7


How Pantagruel came to Paris,
and of the fair books
of the Library of Saint-Victor.


AFTER Pantagruel had studied very well in Orleans [Aurelian], he de-termined to
visit the great University of Paris. But before leaving, he was notified that
there was a great enormous bell at Saint-Aignan in the said Orkans, in the ground
for the last two hundred and fourteen years, for it was so big that by no contri-
vance whatever could they even get it out of the ground, although they had applied
to it all the means set down by Vitruvius, De architeaura, Albertus, De re aedifi-
catoria, Euclid, Theon, Archimedes, and Hero, De ingeniis; for all this was no use
at all. Wherefore, willingly bowing to the humble request of the citizens and in-
habitants of the said city, he determined to carry it to the bell tower destined
for that.

Indeed, he came to the place where it was and lifted it out of the ground with his
little finger, as easily as you would a sparrowhawk's jingle. And before carrying
it to the bell tower, Pantagruel undertook to play an aubade with it throughout
the town, and have it rung in all the streets, while carrying it in his hand, which
greatly delighted everyone; but one great misfortune resulted, for, from his carry-
ing it thus and ringing it in all the streets, all the good Orleans wine turned
and spoiled, which people noticed only the following night, for everyone felt so
thirsty from having drunk of the turned wines that they did nothing but spit as
white as Maltese cotton, and said: "We've got the Pantagruel, and our throats are
salty."

This done, he came to Paris with his men. And at his entry everyone came out to see
him--as you well know, the populace of Paris is stupid by nature: stupid, natural,
sharp, and flat--and they looked at him in great consternation, and not without great
fear that he might carry off the Law Courts somewhere else, into some land a remotis
[far away], as his father had carried off the bells of Notre-Dame to fasten on his
mare's neck.

And after he had stayed there a certain length of time and had studied extremely well
in all the seven liberal arts, he was wont to say that it was a good town to live in
but not to die in. for the gravediggers at Saint-Innocent's used to warm their tails
with dead men's bones.228 And he found the Library of Saint-Victor most magnificent,
especially certain books he found in it, of which the repertory follows; and primo:229

Bigua salutis [The cart of salvation].
Bragueta juris [The codpiece of the law].
Pantofla decretorum [The slipper of the decrees].
Malogranatum vitiorum [The pomegranate of vices].
The Nest Egg of Theology.
Le Vistempenard des Prescheun, compose par Turelupin [The Feather Duster of the Preach-
ers, composed by Hooligan].
La Couillcbarine des Prcux [The Elephant Balls of the Worthies]. The Saltpeter of the
Bishops.230
Mannotreus De baboinis et cingis, cum commento d'Orbellis [Marmosetus, On baboons and
monkeys, with comments by des Orbeaux.231
Decree of the University of Paris concerning the gorgiasity of harlots. The Apparition
of Saint Gertrude to a Nun of Poissy in Labor.
Ars honeste pettandi in soaetate [The art of fatting decorously in society], by Master
Hardouin.
The Mustard-Pot of Penitence.
The Leggings, alias the Boots, of Patience.
Formicarium artium [The anthill of the College of the Arts].
De brodiorum usu et honestate chopinandi, per Silvestrem Prieratem,
Jacospinum [On the use of broths, and on respectable tippling, by Silvester
of Prierio, a Jacobite].
The Wittol in Court.
The Notaries' Sweet Spot.
The Marriage Packet.
The Crucible of Contemplation.
The Balderdash of Law.
The Goad to Wine.
The Spur of Cheese..
Decrotatorium scholarium [The scouring-brush of the students]. Tartaretus, De modo cacandi
[Craparetus, On the methodology of shitting].
The Fanfares of Rome.
Bricot, De differentiis soupparum [On the distinctions between dips]. Le Culot de Discipline
[The Bottom Line of Discipline].
[The Gym Shoe of Humility.]
Le Tripier de bon Pensement [The Tripod of Worthy Thinking; sounds like "The Tripe of Good
Paunch-Filling"].
The Caldron of Magnanimity.
The Entangling Enticements of the Confessors.
The Curates' Flick on the Nose.
Reverendi Patris Fratris Lubini, Provincialis Bavardie, De croquendis lardonibus libri tres
[Reverend Father Friar Gulligut Smellsmock, Pro-vincial of Prattleborough, On the nibbling
of bacon snacks, three books].
Pasquilli, Doctoris marmorei, De capreolis cum chardoneta comedendis, tempore Papali ab Ec-
clesia interdicto [Pasquin, the Marmoreal Doctor,232 On eating roe-deer with artichokes in
Lenten time when it is forbidden by the Church].
The Invention of the Holy Cross,233 for six characters, played by the clerics of Sharpersville.
The Spectacles of the Roming [lit. Rome-bound; but also roaming] Pilgrims.
On the manner of making black puddings, by Mayr.
The Bagpipe of the Prelates.
Beda, De optimitate triparum [On the optimity of tripes].234
The Advocates' Lament over the Reform of Goodies [dragees].235
The Pettifoggery of the Attorneys.
On peas with bacon, with commentary [cum commento].
The Goodies of Indulgences.
The most Illustrious doctor of both branches of the law, Master Pilferus Scrapepenny, On
coping with the idiocies of the glosses of Accursius, a most lucidly unraveled treatise.
The Stratagems of the Franc-Archer of Baignolet.236
Franc-Taupin, [On military matters, with illustrations, by Weakknees [Tevoti].
On the practice and utility of skinning horses and mares, written by Our Master de Quebecu.
The Sauciness of the Husbandmen.
Our Master Rostocostokickintheass, On serving mustard after the meal, fourteen books, col-
lected by Master Vaurillon.237
The Groom's Party of the Church Officers.
A most subtle question, whether a chimera, bombinating in the void, can devour second in-
tentions, and it was debated for ten days at the Council of Constance.
The Insatiable Appetite of the Advocates.
The Jumblebotches [barbouilamenta] of Scotus.
The Batwing Headgear of the Cardinal's]
On removing spurs, eleven decades, by Master Albericum de Rosata. By the same, On a military
occupation of the hair, three books.
The Entry of Antonio de Leiva into the Territory of Brazil.238
Marforio, a scholarship student with a baccalaureate in Rome, On skinning and pulping the
cardinals' mules.239
Response by him Against those who say that the pope's mule eats only at his hours. ,
Prognostication that begins: "To Silvius Bullyballock," offered by Our Master Emptyhead
[Silvi Triquebille...M.n. Songecruyson].
Nine novenas of Bishop Boudarin, [On the profits from emulgences with a papal privilege for
three years, no more.
The Shittershatter [chiabrena] of the Maidens. The Shaven Tail of the Widows.
The Capuchin [coqueluche] of the Monk240
The Pray-Acting of the Celestine Fathers.
The Toll-Collection of Mendicancy.
The Tooth-Clatter of the Down-and-Outers.
The Rat-Trap of the Theologians,
The Mouthpiece of the Master of Arts.
The Single-Tonsured Scullions of Ockham.
Our Master Saucelicker, On scrutinifications of the canonical hours, forty books.
The Tumbletorium of the Confrairies, author unknown.
The Bottomless Pit of the Gluttonous Monks.
The Goatstink of the Spaniards, supercockcrowed by Brother Inigo241
The Worming-Powder of the Sad Sacks.
The Poltroonery of Matters Italian, by Master Brillefer.242
R. Lullius, On the casual tomfooleries of princes.
The Twatatorium of hypocrisy, author Jacob Hochstraten, here-ticometrist.243
Hotballs [chaultcouillons], On the guzzling-bouts of doctoral candidates and doctors, eight
highly lively books.
The Fart-Volleys of the Bullists, Copyists, Scriveners, Brief-Writers, Referencaries, and
Daters, compiled by Regis.
Perpetual Almanac for Gouties and Poxies.
The way to sweep out glues [Maneries ramonandi fournellos], by Master
Eccium.244
The String of the Merchants.
The Creature Comforts of Monastic Life.
The Gallimaufry of the Bigots.
The History of the Hobgoblins.
The Mendicancy of the Well-Paid Soldiers.
The Booby Traps of the Ecclesiastical Judges.
The Thatch of the Treasurer's Roofs.
The fun and games of the sophists [Badinatorium sophistarum].
Antipericatametanaparbeugedamphicribrationes merdicantium.245
The Symbolic Snail of the Rhymesters.
The Propelling Bellows of the Alchemists.
The Flimflam of the Questing Friars, Pickscraped Up, by Brother Serratis.
The Shackles of Life in Orders.
The Rackets of the Tumblers.
The Elbow-Rest of Old Age.
The Provender-Bag of Nobility.
Monkey's Paternoster.
The Handcuffs of Piety.
The Kettle of Ember Days._
The Judge's Cap of Political Life.
The Fly-Whisk of the Hermits.
The Capuchin of the Penitentiary Priests
The Backgammon of the Banging Friars.
Blockheadus, On the life and decency of show-offs [De vita et honestate].
Moral interpretations [Moralisationes] of the Sorbonic lyripipion, by Master Doltium.
The Knickknacks of the Travelers.
The Medications of the Potative Bishops.246
The Clangjanglings [Tarraballationes] of the doctors of Cologne against Reuchlin.247
The Ladies' Jingle-Bells.248
The Martingale249 of the Crappers.
The Whirligigs of the Tennis-Scorers, by Friar Poopball [F. Pedebilletis].
The Clodhoppers of Stoutheartedness.
The Masquerades of the Sprites and Goblins.
Gerson, On the removability of a pope by the Church.250
The Broom of the Titled and the Graduates.
Johannes Dytebrodius,251 On the terribilidity of excommunications, a headless little book
[libellus acephalos].
The device for invoking devils and she-devils, by Master Guingolfus.252
The Hodgepodge of the Perpetual Beggars.
The Morris Dance of the Heretics.
The Crutches of Cajetan.
Babybib, the Cherubic Doctor,253 On the origin of the hairypaws and the rites of the wrynecks
[De origine patepelutarum et torticollorum ritibus], seven books.
Sixty-Nine Well-Thumbed Vintage Breviaries.
The Midnight Mass [Godemarre] 254 of the Five Orders of Mendicant Friars.
The Lady Skinner of Rascals, extracted from the tawny boot incornifistibulated in the An-
gelic Summa.255
The Brooder Over Cases of Conscience.
The Pot-Belly of Presiding Judges.
The Donkeyprickery of the Abbots.
Sutoris [Couturier] Against someone who called him a scoundrel, and that scoundrels are not
condemned by the Church
The commode-pot of the medics [Cacatorium medicorum].
The Chimney-Sweep of Astrology.
Fields of enemas [Campi clysteriorum], by S. C.256
The Fart-Puller of the Apothecaries.
The Kissass of Surgery.
Justinian, De cagotis tollendis [On the exaltation of hypocrites].
The Antidotery of the soul [Antidotarium animae].
Merlin Coccai, On the fatherland of the devils.

Of which some are already in print, and the others are now being printed in that noble city
of Tubingen.257



CHAPTER 8


How Pantagruel, while in Paris,
received a letter from his father Gargantua,
and a copy of the same.


PANTAGRUEL studied verywell, as you understand well enough, and profited accordingly, for the
had understanding enough for two, and a memory with a capacity of twelve skins and bottles of
oil, and, as he was thus staying there, one day he received from his father a etter couched in
the following manner:

"Very Dear Son,

"Among the gifts, graces, and prerogatives with which God Almighty the Sovereign Plasmator
endowed and adorned human nature in its beginning, this one seems to me singular and excellent
by which it can, in its mortal state, acquire a species of immortality, and, in the course of
our transitory life, perpetuate its name and its seed, which is done by lineage sprung from
us in lawful marriage. Whereby is to some extent restored to us what was taken from us by the
sin of our first parents, who were told thatrbecause they had not been obedient to the command
of God the Creator, they would die, and by death would be reduced to nothing that most magni-
ficent plasmature in which man had been created.

"But, by this means of seminal propagation, there remains in the children what was lost in the
parent, and in the grandchildren what perished in the children, and so on in succession until
the hour of the final judgment, when Jesus Christ will have restored to God the Father His king-
dom, peaceful, out of all danger and contamination of sin; for then will cease all generations
and corruptions, and the elements will be through with their continual transmutations, seeing
that peace, so greatly desired, will be consummate and perfected, and that all things will be
reduced to their end and period.258

"So not without just and equitable cause I give thanks unto God, my Preserver, for having given
me the power to see my hoary old age flower again in your youth; for when, by the pleasure of Him
Who rules and orders all things, when my soul shall leave this human habitation, I shall not
account myself to be totally dying, but passing from one place to another, considering that in
you and through you I remain in my visible image in this world, living, seeing, and frequenting
honorable people and my friends as I used to; which association of mine has been, thanks to the
help and grace of God, not without sin, I confess (for we all sin, and continually beseech God
to erase our sins), but without reproach.

"Wherefore, even as in you abides the image of my body, if the soul's behavior did not likewise
shine out, you would not be judged the guardian and treasure-house of the immortality of our
name, and the pleasure I would take in seeing this would be small, considering that the least
part of me, which is the body, would remain, and the best, which is the soul (and by which our
name remains held in benediction among men), would be degenerated and adulterated; which I do
not say from any distrust I might have of your virtue, whic has already been tested for me be-
fore now, but to encourage you the more strongly to profit, from well to better. And what I
write you at present is not so much in order that you may live in this virtuous way, as that
two in living and having lived thus you may rejoice, and refresh yourself with as good a heart,
for the future.

"You may well remember how, to perfect and consummate this undertaking, I have spared nothing,
but have assisted you just as if I had no other treasure in this world but to see you once in
my life absolute and perfect both in virtue, honor, and valor, and in every liberal and praise-
worthy branch of learning, and' to leave you so, after my death, as a mirror representing the
person of-myself your father, and if not as excellent and such in fact as I wish you to be,
assuredly indeed such in desire. '

"But even though my late father, of esteemed memory,

Grandgousier, had devoted all his endeavor to having me profit in all politic perfection and
learning, and my labor and application corre-sponded very well to his desire, indeed surpassed
it, nonetheless, as you may well understand, the time was not so suitable or favorable for let-
ters as it is at present, and I did not have the abundance of such tutors as you have had.

"The time was still dark, and smacking of the infelicity and calamity of the Goths,259 who had
brought all good literature to destruction; but, by God's goodness, in my day light and dignity
has been restored to letters, and I see such improvement in these that at present I would hardly
be accepted into the lowest class of little grammar-school boys, I who in my prime was reputed
(not wrongly) the most learned man of the said century, which I do not say out of vain boastful-
ness although I might honorably do so in writing you, as you have the authority of Marcus Tullius
in his book On old age, and Plutarch's statement in the book entitled How a man may praise him-
self without opprobrium-but to instill in you the desire to aim still higher.

"Now all branches of learning are reestablished, languages restored: Greek, without which it is
shameful for a man to call himself learned; Hebrew, Chaldean, Latin; truly elegant and correct
printings are now customary, which were invented in my time by divine inspiration, as was, con-
versely, artillery by diabolical suggestion. The whole world is full of erudites, of very learn-
ed teachers, of very ample libraries; and, in my judgment, neither in Plato's time, nor Cicero's,
nor Papinian's, were there such facilities for study as we see now; and henceforth no one must
appear in public or in company if he is not well polished in Minerva's workshop.

"I see today's brigands, hangmen, adventurers, and grooms more learned than the scholars of
my time. What am I to say next? Women and girls have aspired to his celestial laud and manna
of good learning, with the result that at the age I am now, I have been constrained to learn
Greek letters, which I had not despised like Cato but had not had time to master in my youth;
and I am prone to take delight in reading Plutarch's Moralia, Plato's Dialogues, the Monuments
of Pausanias, and the Antiquities of Athenaeus, as I await the hour when it shall please God
my Creator to call me and bid me depart from this earth.

"Wherefore, my son, I exhort you to employ your youth to profit well in studies and virtues.
You are in Paris, you have your tutor Epistemon: one of them by live spoken instructions, the
other by laudable examples, can teach you.

"I intend and want you to learn languages perfectly: first Greek, as Quintilian will have it;
secondly, Latin; then Hebrew for the Holy Writ, and likewise Chaldean and Arabic; and for you
to form your style, as regards Greek, in imitation of Plato; as for Latin, of Cicero. Let there
not be a history you do not have present in your memory, for which you will find help in the
cosmography of those who have written about it.

"Of the liberal arts, geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave you a little taste when you were
still small, at age five or six; go after the rest, and know all the canons of astronomy, but
leave aside divinatory astrology and Lully's art as abuses and vanities.

"Of civil law, I want you to know the fine texts by heart, and collate them philosophically.
And as for the knowledge of nature's works, I want you to devote yourself to that with care,
let there be no sea, stream, or spring, whose fish you do not know; all the birds of the air,
all the trees, shrubs, and bushes of the forests, all the herbs of the earth, all the metal
hidden in the bowels of the depths, the precious stones of the entire Orient and Southern Hem-
isphere, let nothing be unknown to you.

"Then carefully review the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin doctors, without disdaining
the Talmudists and Cabalists, and, by frequent dissections,260 get yourself a perfect knowledge
of the other world, which is man.261 And for certain hours of the day begin to get acquainted
with the Holy Scriptures, first in Greek the New Testament and Acts of the Apostles, then the
Old Testament in Hebrew. In sum, let me see you an abyss of knowledge; for now that you are
growing up and becoming a man, you will have to come forth out of this tranquillity and repose
of study, and knighthood and the use of arms to defend my house and succor our friends in all
their affairs against the assaults of evildoers.

"And I want you shortly to test how much you have gained, which　you cannot do better than by
maintaining conclusions in every branch of knowledge, publicly, before all corners and against all
comers,262 and frequenting the literati who abound both in Paris and elsewhere.

"But because according to Solomon the wise, wisdom does not enter into an ill-disposed soul,
and science without conscience263 is but ruin of the soul—it behooves you to serve, love, and
fear God, and in Him put all yoirr thoughts and all your hope; and by faith formed of char-
ity,' be adjoined to Him, in such wise that you will never be sundered from Him by sin. Hold
suspect the abuses of the world; set not your heart on vanity, for this life is transitory,
but the word of God abides eternally. Be helpful to all your neighbors, and love them as
yourself. Revere your tutors. Shun the company of those you don't want to resemble; and
as for the graces that God has granted you, these do not receive in vain. And when you know
you have all the learning acquired yonder, return to me, so that I may see you and give you
my blessing before I die.'

"My son, the peke and grace of Our Lord be with you. Amen.

"From Utopia, this seventeenth day of the month of March,

Your father,
GARGANTUA."

This letter received and read, Pantagruel took fresh heart and was inflamed more than ever
to profit; so that, to see him study and progress, you would have said that his mind among
the books was like fire amid the heather, so tireless and enthusiastic it was.




CHAPTER 9


How Pantagruel found Panurge,
whom he loved all his life.


0NE day Pantagruel, strolling outside the city near the Abbaye Saint-Antoine, chatting and
philosophizing with his men and a few students, met a man of handsome stature and elegant
in every bodily feature, but pitiably wounded in various parts, and in such sorry condition
that he seemed to have made his escape from the dogs, or rather he looked like an apple pick-
er from the Perche country.

From as far off as Pantagruel saw him, he said to his companions:.

"Do you see that man coming along the Charanton Bridge road? 'Pon my word, he is poor only
in fortune, for from his physiognomy I assure you that Nature brought him forth from some
rich and noble line, but the accidents that happen to the adventurous have reduced him to
such penury and indigence."

And as soon as he was right up among them, he asked:

"My friend, I request you please to stay here a bit and answer the questions I ask, and you
will not be sorry, for I am very eager to give you what help I can in the plight I see you
in, for I have great pity for you. Therefore, my friend, tell me: Who are you? Where are
you coming from? Where are you going? What are you seeking? And what is your name?"

The fellow answers him in the Germanic tongue:

"Juncker, Gott geb euch Gluck unnd hail. Zuvor, lieber Juncker, ich las euch wissen, das
da it mich von fragt, ist ein arm unnd erbarmglich ding, unnd wer vil darvon zu sagen,
welches euch verdruslich zu hoeren, unnd mir zu erzelen wer, vie vol, die Poeten unnd O-
rators vorzeiten haben gesagt in irem Spruchen and Sentenzen, das die Gedechtnus des Ell-
ends unnd Armuot vorlangs erlitten ist ain grosser Lust."264

To which Pantagruel replied: "My friend, I don't understand a thing of this gibberish; so, if
you want to be understood, speak another language."

Then the fellow answered him: "Al barildim gotfano dech min brin alabo dordin falbroth
ringuam albaras. Nin porth zadikim almucathim milko prin al elmim enthoth dal heben en-
souim: kuthim al dum alkatim nim broth dechoth porth min michais im endoth, pruch dal
maisoulum hol moth dansrilrim lupaldas im voldemoth. Nin hur diavosth mnarbotim dal
gousch palfrapin duch im scoth pruch galeth dal Chinon, min foulchrich al conin buta-
then doth dal prim."265

"Do you make anything out of that?" said Pantagruel to the others. To which Epistemon
said: "I think it's a language of the Antipodes; the devil himself couldn't get his teeth
into it."

Then said Pantagruel: "Mate, I don't know if the walls will understand you, but not one
of us understands a word."

Then the fellow said: "Signor mio, voi vedete per exemplo che la cornamusa non suona
mai, s'ela non a it ventre pino; cosi io parimente non vi saprei contare le mie fortune, se
prima it tribulato ventre non a la solita refectione, al quale e adviso che le mani e
li denti abbui perso it loro ordine naturale et del tuto annichillati."266

To which Epistemon retorted: "As much out of one as the other."

Then said Panurge: "Lard, ghest tholb be sua virtiuss be intelligence ass yi body schall
biss be naturall relvtht, tholb suld of me pety have, for nature bass ulss egualy maide;
bot fortune sum exaltit hess, an oyis deprevit. Non ye less viois mou virtius deprevit
and virtiuss men discrivis, for, anen ye lad end, iss non gud."267

"Even less," responded Pantagruel.

Then said Panurge: "Jona andie, guaussa goussyetan behar da erremedio, beharde, versela
ysser lan da. Anbates, otoyyes nausu, eyn essassu gourr ay proposian ordine den. Non yssena
bayta facheria egabe, genherassy badia sadassu noura assia. Aran hondovan gualde eydassu
nay dassuna. Estou oussyc eguinan soury hin er darstura eguy harm. Genicoa plasar vadu."268

"Are you there, Genicoa?" replied Epistemon.

At which Carpalim said: "Sain Ninian! you're a fucking Scotchman, or I miss my guess."

Then Panurge replied: "Prug frest strinst sorgdmand strochdt drhds pag brleland Gravot
Chavigny Pomardiere rusth pkalhdracg Deviniere pres Nays: Bouille kalmuch monach drupp
delmeupplistrincq dlrnd dodelb up drent loch minc stzrinquald de vins ders cordelis hur
jocststzampenards."269

At which Epistemon remarked: "Are you speaking Christian, my friend, or Pathelin language.
No, that's Lanternese talk."

Then said Panurge: "Heere, ie en spreeke anders geen taele, dan kersten taele: my dunct
nochtans, al en seg ie v niet een woordt, myuen noot v claert ghenonch wat ie beglere;
gheest my unyt bermherticheyt yet waer un ie ghevoet mach zunch."270

To which Pantagruel retorted: "As much as that."

Then said Panurge: "Seignor, de tanto hablar yo soy cansado. Por que suplico a Vostra
Reverentia que mire a los preceptos evangeliquos, para que ellos movant Vostra Reveren-
tia a lo que es de conscientia; y si ellos non bastarent para mover Vostra Reverentia
a piedad, supplico que mire a la piedad natural, la qual yo creo que le movra como es
de razon, y con esto non digo mas."271

To which Pantagruel replied; "All right my friend, I have no doubt whatever that you
can speak various languages well; but tell us what you want in some language we can
understand."

Then said the fellow: "Myn Herre, endog, jeg med inghen tunge talede, lygesom boeen,
ocg uskvvlig creatner! Myne Kleebon, och my ne legoms magerhed uudviser allygue klalig
huvad tyng meg meest behoff girereb, som aer sandeligh mad och drycke: hwarfor forbarme
teg omsyder offvermeg; och bef ael at gyffuc meg nogeth; aff huylket ieg kand styre
myne groeendes maghe lygeruss son mand Cerbero en soppe forsetthr. Soa shal tue loeffve
lenge och lycksaligth."272

"I think," said Eusthenes, "that the Goths spoke thus, and, if God so willed it, thus
would we speak with our rump."

Then said the fellow: "Adoni, scolom lecha. Im ischar harob hal habdeca, bemeherah
thithen li kikar lehem, chancathub: Laah al Adonai chonen ral."273

To which Epistemon replied: "Now I have fully understood: for this is Hebrew talk very
eloquently pronounced."

Then said the fellow: "Despota ti nyn panagathe doiti sy mi uc artodotis? horas gar
limo analis comenon eme athlios. Ce en to metaxy eme uc eleis udamos, zetis de par emu
ha u chre, ce homos philologi pandes homologusi tote logus to ce rhemata peritta hyrpa-
rchiri, opote pragma asto pasi delon esti. Entha gar anancei monon logi isin, hina
pragmata (hon peri amphisbetumen) me phosphoros epiphenete."274

"What?" said Carpalim, Pantagruel's lackey. "That's Greek, I under-stood it. And how
so? have you lived in Greece?"

Then said the fellow: "Agonou dont oussys you denaguez algarou, nou den farou zamist
vous mariston ulbrou, fousquez you brol tam bredaguez moupreton den goul houst, daguez
daguez nou croupys fost bardounnoflist nou grou. Agou paston tol nalprissys hourtou los
echatonous, prou dhouquys brol panygou den bascrou noudous caguons goulfren goul oust
troppassou."275

"It seems to me I understand," said Pantagruel: "for either this is the language of my
country of Utopia, or else it sounds like it."

And as he meant to begin some remark, the fellow said: "Jam toties vos, per sacra, perque
deos deasque omnis obtestatus sum, ut, si qua vos pietas permovet, egestatem meam solar-
emini, nec hilum proficio clamans et ejulans. Sinite, queso, sinite, viri impii,

Quo me fata vocant.

"Abire, nec ultra vanis vestris interpellationibus obtundatis, memores veteris illius adagii, quo
venter famelicus auriculis carere dicitur."276

"Really, my friend," said Pantagruel, "don't you know how to speak French?"

"Indeed I do very well, My Lord," replied the fellow, "thank God. It's my native mother
tongue, for as a youngster I was born and brought up in the garden of France, that is
Touraine."

"Then," said Pantagruel, "tell us what is your name, and where you come from; for 'pon my
word, I've already taken such a great liking for you that if you will grant me my will,
you will never budge from my company, and you and I will form a new pair in friendship
such as was that which existed between Aeneas and Achates."

"My Lord," said the fellow, "my real proper baptismal name is Panurge, and at present I am
coming from Turkey, where I was taken as a prisoner when to my misfortune we went to Myti-
lene,"277 and I'd be glad to tell you my adventures, which are more wonderful than those of
Ulysses; but since you wish to keep me with you—and I gladly accept the offer, and protest
that I will never leave you, were you to go to all the devils—we shall have, at a more con-
venient time, ample leisure for me to tell them; for at the present moment I have a very
urgent need to feed: sharpened teeth, empty stomach, dry throat, clamorous appetite, every-
thing is set and ready. If you want to put me to work, it will be a pleasure for you to
watch me guzzle. For Heaven's sake, arrange it.

Then Pantagruel ordered them to take him to his lodging and bring him victuals aplenty,
which was done, and he ate very well that evening, and went to bed right after, and slept
until dinner time the next day, so that it took him only three steps and a hop from bed to
table.



CHAPTER 10


How Pantagruel equitably judged
a marvelously difficult and obscure controversy,
so justly that his judgment
was pronounced most admirable.


PANTAGRUEL, fully mindful of his father's letter and admonitions, one day decided to test
out his learning.

Accordingly, at all the city's crossroads he posted conclusions278 in the number of nine thou-
sand seven hundred and sixty-four, in all fields of learning, in these touching on all the
gravest doubts there were in all these fields.

And first of all, on the Rue du Feurre, he maintained them against all the theologians, for
a period of six weeks, from four o'clock in the morning until six in the evening, except for
a two-hour interval for eating and refreshment.

And present at this were most of the lords of the Court, the masters of requests, presidents,
councillors, treasury men, secretaries, advocates, and others, together with the sheriffs of
the said city, besides the doctors and the professors of canon law. And note that most of
these really took the bit in their teeth; but notwithstanding their ergos279 and fallacies, he
made monkeys of them all, and showed them all visibly that they were just calves in frocks.

Whereat everyone began sounding off and talking about his marvelous learning, even to the gam-
mers, washerwomen, women brokers, women roast meat sellers, penknife sellers, and others, who,
when he passed in the street, used to say: "He's the one!" At which he took pleasure, as did
Demosthenes, prince of Greek orators, when a huddled old woman, pointing her finger at him,
said: "That's the one!" [See Erasmus Adages 1.10.43].

Now in this very season there was a suit pending in court between two great lords, one of whom
was Milord of Kissass, plaintiff, on the one hand, and Milord of Sniffshit, defendant, on the
other, whose controversy was so lofty and difficult in point of law that the court of the Par-
lement could make out of it nothing but High German.

Wherefore, by command of the king, were assembled the four stoutest and most learned men of all
the Parlements of France, together with the Great Council, and all the principal professors of
the universities, not only of France but also of England and Italy, like Jason, Philippus Decius,
Petrus de Petronibus, and a pile of other old Rabanists. Thus assembled, for the space of forty-
six weeks they had not been able to get their teeth into it or understand the case clearly to
put it into law in any way whatever, at which they were so vexed that they were foully beshitt-
ing themselves for shame.

But one of them, named Du Douhet, the most learned, expert, and prudent of them all, one day when
they were all philogrobilized in the brain, said to them:

"Gentlemen, we've been here a long time now already without doing anything but spend, and we can
find neither bottom nor shore in this matter, and the more we study it the less we understand a-
bout it, which is a great shame to us and burden on our conscience; and in my opinion we shall
come out of it only to our dishonor, for in our deliberations we do nothing but prattle. But here
is what has occurred to me. You have certainly heard of that great personage named Master Panta-
gruel, who has been recognized to be learned beyond the capacity of the present day in the great
disputations he has held publicly against all corners? My advice is that we call him and confer
with him about this matter, for never will man get to the bottom of this if that man does not."

To which all these councillors and doctors willingly consented.

And so they sent for him immediately, and asked him to be good enough to canvas the case and scru-
tinize it thoroughly, and make his report to them on it as he should see fit to in real legal form;
and they delivered into his hands the briefsacks and documents, which made up almost a load for
four stout jackasses.

But Pantagruel said to them: "Gentlemen, are the two lords who have this lawsuit between them
still alive?"

To which he was answered "yes."

"Then what the devil," said he, "is the use of all these tumblejumbles of papers and copies you're
handing me? Isn't the best thing to hear their dispute by the spoken word rather than to read these
babooneries, which are nothing but deceits, diabolical wiles of Cepola, and subversions of justice?
For I am sure that you and all those through whose hands the lawsuit has passed have contrived what-
ever you could pro and contra, and, in case their controversy was patent and easy to judge, have
obscured it by stupid and irrational reasons and inept opinions of Accursius, Baldus, Bartolus, De
Castro, De Imola, Hippolytus, Panormitanus, Bertachin, Alexander, Curtius and those other old cur-
mudgeons who never understood the slightest law of the Pandects, and were nothing but fat black-
heads, ignorant of everything necessary for the understanding of the laws.

"For, as is fully certain, they had no knowledge of any language either Greek or Latin, but only
Gothic and barbarian; and nevertheless the laws are taken first of all from the Greeks, as you have
Ulpian's testimony, l. posteriori De orig. juris, and all the laws are full of Greek words and say-
ings; and secondly, they are all drawn up in Latin, the most elegant and ornate there is in the
whole Latin language, and I would not readily except from this either Sallust, or Varro, or Cicero,
or Seneca, or Livy, or Quintilian. So how could those old dreamers have been able to understand the
text of the laws, who never set eyes on a good book in the Latin language, as appears manifestly
from their style, which is the style of a chimney sweep or a cook and bottlewasher, not of a juri-
sconsult?

"Furthermore, seeing that the laws are extracted from the milieu of moral and natural philosophy,
how are these idiots to understand it who, by God, have studied less philosophy than my mule. In
regard to humane letters and knowledge of antiquities and history, they were loaded with them like
a toad with feathers, yet of these matters the laws are all full, and cannot be understood without
them, as some day I will demonstrate to you more evidently in writing.

"Therefore, if you want me to take cognizance of this lawsuit, first of all have all these papers
burned for me, and secondly have the two gentlemen come before me in person, and when I have heard
them, I'll tell you my opinion on this, without the slightest feigning or dissimulation."

Which a few of them spoke against, since you know that in all companies there are more fools than
wise men and the larger part always outnumbers the better one, as Livy says, speaking of the Cartha-
ginians. But the said Du Douhet manfully upheld the contrary maintaining that Pantagruel had spoken
well, that these registers, bills of inquest, replications, discreditings, supportings, and other
such deviltries were nothing but subversions of justice and prolongation of suits, and that the dev-
il would carry them all off if they did not proceed otherwise, according to Evangelical and philos-
ophical equity.

In short, all the papers were burned; and the two gentlemen summoned in person. And then Pantagruel
said to them:

"Are you the ones who have this vast disagreement between you?" "Yes, Sir," said they.

"Which one of you is the plaintiff?"

"I am," said Lord Kissass.

"Now, my friend, tell me your business point by point and in truth; for 'Odsbody, if you lie about
it in one single word, I'll take your head right off your shoulders and show you that in matters of
justice and judgment one must speak nothing but the truth. Therefore take good care not to add or
subtract anything in the account of your case. Speak on."



CHAPTER 11


How lords Kissass and Sniff:shit
pleaded before Pantagruel without advocates.
So Kissass began in the following manner:


"My Lord, it is true that a gammer of my household was taking some eggs to sell in the market . . . "

"Do put your hat on,280 Kissass," said Pantagruel.

"Many thanks, My Lord," said Kissass. "But to come to the point, there was passing between the two
tropics six half-sous toward the zenith and a halfpenny, inasmuch as the Ruffian Mountains that year
had had a great sterility of boobytraps, resulting from a sedition of Fiddlefaddles [Ballivernes] a-
risen between the Gabblers [Barragouyns] and the Accursianists favoring the rebellion of the Swiss,
who had assembled up to the number of a good angle to go handseling on the first hole in the year,
when you give a sop to the oxen and the key to the charcoal to the maids for them to give the oats
to the dogs.

"All night long, hand on the pot, they did nothing but dispatch papal bulls on foot, bulls on horse-
back, to hold back the boats, for the tailors wanted to make, out of the pilfered leftovers, a sack-
but to cover the Ocean Sea, which for the time was pregnant with a potful of cabbage, in the opinion
of the hay balers; but the doctors said that from its urine they recognized no evident sign, in the
bustard's step, of eating axes with mustard, unless the Gentlemen of the Court gave a command in B-
flat to the pox not to go gleaning after the silkworms, for the roughnecks already had a good start
on dancing the estrindore281 to a diapason, one foot in the fire and the head in the middle, as good
old Ragot used to say.

"Ah, gentlemen, God moderates all things at His pleasure, and against the adversities of fortune a
carter broke his whip flicking noses. It was on the way back from La Bicoque,282 when they gave Numb-
skullus de Cressponds [Antitus des Crossonniers] his Master's License in all dolt-ishness; as the
canon lawyers say: `Beati lourdes, quoniam ipsi trebuchaverunt [Blessed are the dolts, for they have
stumbled and fallen].' But what makes Lent so high, by Saint Fiacre of Brie, is nothing else but
that

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Pentecost
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Never comes but at a cost;
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　May, on we go again,
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Big wind yields to little rain.283

"Considering that the sergeant put the bull's eye so high at the butts that the court clerk did not
therefore orbicularly lick his fingers feathered with goose plumes and we manifestly see that ever-
yone takes the rap for--it, unless they look ocularly in perspective toward the fireplace, to the
spot where hangs the sign of the wine with forty hoops which are necessary for twenty stockings
at five years' respite. At the very least, who would not rather loose the bird before slaps in the
face than uncover him, for you often lose your memory when you put your hose on backward. So,
God keep from harm Thibaut Mitaine!"284

Then said Pantagruel: "Easy now, my friend, easy, speak quietly, without anger. I understand the
case, so go on."

"Now, Sir, said Kissass, "the said gammer, saying her Gaude Marias and Audi Nos,285 could not protect
herself against a backhand feint arising by virtue of the privileges of the University, except by
warming herself at an angle with a basin, covering it with a seven of diamonds and giving it a fly-
ing stab as near the place as possible where they sell the old rags that the Flemish painters use
when they want to put horseshoes on the grasshoppers right, and I very much marvel that the world
does not lay eggs, since it's so nice to brood over them."

Here Lord Sniffshit tried to interrupt and say something, so Pantagruel said to him:

"Here, by Saint Anthony's belly, is it for you to speak without command? Here I am sweating and
straining to understand the way your disagreement comes about, and you still come pestering me?
Peace, in the devil's name, peace! You'll talk all you like when this man has finished. Go on," he
said to Kissass, "and don't hurry."

"So," said Kissass, "seeing that the Pragmatic Sanction made no mention of it, the pope set ever-
yone at liberty to fart at their ease, if the hose linings were not streaked, whatever poverty there
might be in the world, provided one did not cross oneself with the scum of the earth, the rainbow,
newly forged in Milan to hatch larks, consented that the gammer should burst the tail of the sciatic
nerves on the complaint of the ballocky little fishes who then were necessary in order to under-
stand the construction of old boots.

"Wherefore Johncalf, her cousin Gervais, stirred up by a piece of firewood, advised her not to place
herself at that risk of seconding the wriggling steam without first dipping the paper in alum until
pille, nade, jocque, fore:286 for

Non de ponte vadit, qui cum sapientia cadit

[He does not walk from the bridge who falls in wisely],287

considering that the Gentlemen of the Treasury did not agree in totting up the lampreys, of which
had been built the Lunettes des Princes,288 newly printed in Antwerp.

"And there, Gentlemen, is what gives a bad report, and I believe the opposing party in sacer verbo
dotis:289 for, wishing to satisfy the king's pleasure, I had armed myself cap-à-pie with belly timber
to go and see how my grape pickers had slashed their tall caps the better to play tumblemaid, and the
weather was somewhat dangerous from the fair, so that several free-archers had been kept out of the
parade, notwithstanding that the chimneys were high enough according to the proposition of friend
Baudichon's windgalls and malanders.

"And by that means it was a great year for snailshells in the whole Artois region, which was no small
improvement for my lords the fire-wood haulers, when they ate the shells without unsheathing and unbut-
toned at the belly. And if I had my will everyone would have as fine a voice: people would play far
better tennis for it, and those little tricks that people play to etymologize clogs would go down more
easily into the Seine to serve forever at the Font aux Meusniers, as was once decreed by the king of
Canarre, and the decision on it is still in the registry in here.

"Therefore, My Lord, I request that by your Lordship be stated and declared as is reasonable, with
costs, damages, and interest."

Then said Pantagruel: "My friend, do you want to say anything more?" Replied Kissass: "No, Sir, for
I have told the whole to autem, and have not altered a thing, on my honor."

"Then you," said Pantagruel, "My Lord Sniffshit, say what you want to, and be brief, but without
leaving out anything that will serve the purpose."



CHAPTER 12


How Lord Sniffshit
pleaded before Pantagruel.


THEN Milord of Sniffshit began as follows:

"My Lord and Gentlemen, if the iniquity of men were easily seen in categorical judgment, as flies can
be recognized in milk,290 the world, quatre boeufs,291 would not be as rat-eaten as it is, and there would
be many ears on earth that would have been gnawed away too laxly: for although everything the opposing
party has said is of real down, quite true as to the letter and story of the factum, nevertheless, Gen-
tlemen, hidden beneath the pot of roses are trickery and little entangling enticements.

"Must I endure that at the moment when I'm eating mylunch with my fellows, without speaking or thinking
any harm, they come and vex and harass my brain, and play the antic, saying:

He who drinks as he eats his dip,
When he's dead, doesn't see one bit?292

"And, Holy Mother, how many great captains have we seen right on the battlefield, when they were giving
out big chunks of the confraternity's holy bread so as to deliberate more handsomely, play the lute,
sound off with the tail, and do little platform jumps! But now the world is all untracked from the cor-
ners of the bales of Leicester fleeces: one man becomes debauched, the other five, four, and two, and
if the court does not impose some orders it will be as bad gleaning this year as it was, or else it will
make goblets If a poor person goes to the vats to get his muzzle lit up with cow-turds or to buy win-
ter boots, and with sergeants passing, or else the men of the watch, receive the decoction of a clyster
or the fecal matter of a chamber pot on the racket they make must one therefore pare down the test-
oons and fricassee the crown pieces? Are they wooden?

"Sometimes we think one thing but God does the other, and, when the sun is down, all animals are in
the dark. don't .want to be believed on that unless I prove it decisively by people in broad daylight.

"In the year thirty-six, I had bought a German curtal, tall and short, of rather good wool and dyed
in the grain, so the goldsmiths assured me, nevertheless the notary put some cetera on it. I'm not
cleric enough to catch the moon in my teeth, but, at the butter pot where they were sealing the vul-
canic instruments, the rumor was that the salt beef made you find the wine without a candle, even
were it hidden at the bottom of a collier's sack and shod and bound with the headpiece and greave
required for properly fricasseeing rusterie, that is, sheep's head. And it's just what they say in
the proverb, that it is good to see black cows in burnt woods when you're enjoying your amours. I
had Milords the clerics consulted about the matter; and for their conclusion they resolved in fris-
esomorum293 that there is nothing like reaping in summer in a cellar well furnished with paper and ink,
with pens and penknife from Lyon on the Rhone, taradiddle folderol [tarabin, tarabas]; for as soon
as the suit of armor smells of garlic, rust eats out its liver, then all you do is peck back wrynecked,
skirting after-dinner sleep. And that is what makes salt so dear.

"Gentlemen, do not believe that at the time when the said gammer snared the spoonbill with birdlime
the better to endow the sergeant's witness, and when the innards for black pudding beat about the
bush by way of the userer's purses, there was nothing better for guarding yourself from the cannibals
than to take a bunch of onions, tied with three hundred turnips, and a little bit of calves' chaw-
dron [a spicy sauce of chopped entrails], of the best alloy the alchemists have, and thoroughly smear
and calcinate one's slippers fee fie fo fum, with a nice hayrack sauce, and hide in some little mole-
hole, always saving the bacon snacks.

"And if the dice won't give you any throw but ambesace294 and a chance for three at the big end, set
the lady on the corner of the bed, feel her up hi diddle diddle, and drink bottoms up depiscando
grenoillibus [unconcerned about the frogs], with fine buskined hose; that will be for the little
molting goslings, who are having fun playing blow-out-the-candle, while waiting to beat the metal
and heat the wax for the drinkers of good ale.

"Quite true it is that the four oxen in question had slightly short memories; at all events, since
they knew the scale, they had no fear of any cormorant or Savoy duck, and the good folk of my re-
gion had good hopes for them, and said:

"These children will become great in algorism: this will be a rubric of the law for us. We cannot
fail to catch the Wolf, setting our hedges on top of the windmill, of which the opposing party has
spoken. But the great Devil himself became envious and set the Germans to the rear, who tippled
like the devils: 'Herr, trink, trink!' Each scoring for two, for there is no likelihood that in Paris on
the Petit Pont, hens on straw, and ever were they as cocky as swamp hoopers, unless they really
sacrificed the pimples to the newly-forged ink with cursive or printed capital letters, it's all one
to me, provided the book's headband does not breed worms there.

"And, putting the case that in the coupling of running dogs the lady' jesters had sounded the
catch before the notary had delivered his report by cabalistic art, it does not follow (saving
better judgment by the Court) that six acres of meadow in full measure made three butts of fine
ink without paying cash on the line, considering that at King Charles's [Charles viii] funeral295
they had the fleece in the open market for one two and one--I mean, on my oath, a wool fleece.

"And I ordinarily see in all good bagpipes that when they go piping to lure birds, by making three
sweeps with a broom around a fireplace and insinuating their nomination, all they do is tense their
loins and blow in her tail, if by chance it is too hot, and set 'em up in the other alley [quille
luy bille],

　　　　　　The letter seen and read, straightway
　　　　　　The cows were back that very day.'296

"And a similar decision was rendered on Saint Martin's Day in the year seventeen for the bad cov-
ering of Louzefougerouse,297 to which may it please the court to give due consideration.

"I do not say indeed that one may not dispossess, in equity and with just cause, those who would
drink of holy water, as they do with a weaver's trident, of which they make suppositories for
those who won't hand over unless for good compensation.

"'Tunc,' Gentlemen, 'quid juris pro minoribus? [Then what law for minors?].' For the common usage
of the Salic Law is that the first firebug who steals the cow, who blows his nose in the middle
of the chant without solfa-ing the cobbler's stitches, in Hail-Mary times must sublimate the
penury of his member with moss gathered when you catch cold at midnight mass, to give the strap-
pado to these Anjou wines that trip you up, neck to neck, Breton fashion.

"Concluding as above, with costs, damages, and interest."

After Lord Sniffshit had finished, Pantagruel said to Lord Kissass: "My friend, do you want to
make any reply?"

To which Lord Kissass replied: "No, Sir, for I have spoken nothing but the truth about it, and
in God's name let us have an end to our difference, for we are not here without great expense."



CHAPTER 13


How Pantagruel gave his decision
on the disagreement between the two lords.


THEN Pantagruel rises and assembles all the presidents, councillors, and doctors there present,
and says to them: "Now then, gentlemen, you have heard, vive vocis oraculo [from the oracle in
its living voice], the disagreement in question. What do you think about it?"

To which they replied: "We have indeed heard it, but we haven't understood devil a bit of the
cause of it. Wherefore we beg you with one voice and implore you by your mercy to be willing to
pronounce the sentence as you see it, and ex nunc prout ex tunc [from now just as from then],
we find it agreeable and ratify it with our full consent."

"Well, Gentlemen," said Pantagruel, "since it is your wish, I shall do so; but I do not find
the case as difficult as you do. Your paragraph Cato,298 the law Prater, the law Gallus, the law
Quinque pedum, the law Vinum, the law Si dominus, the law Mater, the law Mulier bona, the law
Si quis, the law Pomponius, the law Fundi, the law Emptor, the law Pretor, the law Venditor,
and so many others, are much more difficult, in my opinion."

And after that remark, he walked a turn or two around the hall, think-ing very deeply, as one
could judge, for he was groaning like a donkey that is saddled too tight, thinking that he must
do right by each and every one, without differentiating or favoring anyone; then he went back
to sit down and began to pronounce the decision as follows:

"Having seen, understood, and carefully assessed the disagreement between the Lords of Kiss-
ass and Sniffshit, the court says to them:

"That, considering the horripilation of the bat gallantly declining from the festival solstice
to make passes at rifles that have been checkmated by the pawn by the evil vexations of the
lucifuges which are around the latitude of Rome from an ape on horseback bending a crossbow
backward, the plaintiff had just cause to calk the galleon that the gammer was inflating,
one foot shod and the other bare, reimbursing him low and stiff in his conscience for as many
knicknacks as there is hair on eighteen cows, and as many for the embroiderer.299

"Likewise he is declared innocent of the privileged case of the streaks of dried turd that he
was thought to have incurred because he could not shit blithely, by the decision of a pair
of gloves perfumed with fart-volleys fragrant of walnut tapers such as they use in his region
of Mirebalais, releasing the bowline with the bronze bullets, from which the stable boys,
like military commanders, made pies of his peas and beans interbasted by the lore with the
sparrowhawk jingles made of Hungarian point which his brother-in-law carried as a memorial
in a nearby basket, embroidered in gules with three chevrons weary of close scrutiny, at the
angular blind from which they shoot at the vermiform popinjay with the fox-tail broom.

"But in that he charges the defendant that he was a cobbler, a cheese eater, and a man who
tarred mummies, that this has not been found true on shaking it down, since the said defend-
ant has disputed it well, and the court condemns him to pay three porringerfuls of cemented
curds, prelorelitanted and codpieced as is the custom of the country, to the said defendant,
payable at mid-August, in May; but the said defendant will be bound to furnish hay and tow
for stopping up guttural caltrops, confustibulated with gobbets well scrutinized on the knee-
cap.

"And friends as before, without cost and with good reason."

This decision pronounced, the two parties departed, both content with the verdict, which was
an almost incredible thing: for it had not come about since the great rains300 and will not
happen for thirteen jubilees that two parties, both contending in contradictory judgment,
should be equally contented with a definitive verdict.

As for the councillors and other doctors who were present there, they remained swooning in
ecstasy for a good three hours, and all ravished in admiration of the more than human wis-
dom of Pantagruel, which they had clearly recognized in the deciding of this judgment, so
difficult andthorny, and they would have been there yet, except that people brought a lot
of vinegar and rose water to restore to them their accustomed sense and understanding, for
which God be everywhere praised.



CHAPTER 14


How Panurge relates the way in which
he escaped from the hands of the Turks.


PANTAGRUEL'S decision was immediately known and understood by everyone, and printed
in large numbers, and entered in the court archives, so that people began to say:

"Solomon, who on a hunch restored the child to its mother, never demonstrated such a mas-
terpiece of wisdom as the good Pantagruel has done. We are fortunate to have him in our
country."

And indeed, they tried to make him master of requests and president in the Court; but he
refused everything with gracious thanks:

"For," he said, "there is too much servitude in those offices, and those who exercise them
can be saved only with great difficulty, in view of the corruption of men, and I think that,
if the empty seats of the angels are not filled with a different kind of men, for thirty-
seven jubilees we shall not have the Last Judgment, and Cusanus will be mistaken in his
conjecture; and I inform you of this early. But if you have a few hogsheads of good wine,
I would willingly accept a present of them."

Which they did willingly, and sent him the best in the city, and he drank pretty well; but
poor Panurge drank of it valiantly, for he was as dry and emaciated as a red herring; so he
went plodding along at it like a lean cat.

And someone admonished him, when he was half out of breath from a great tankard full of red
wine, saying: "Easy, mate! You're drinking like a madman." "Devil take me," said he. You're
not talking to one of your little Paris sippers, who don't drink any more than a finch, and,
like the sparrows, don't take their beakful unless you tap them on the tail. Oh, buddy, if
I went up as well as I put it down [si je montasse aussi bien comme je avalle], I'd already
be with Empedocles above the sphere of the moon! but I don't know what the devil this means:
this wine is very good and truly delicious but the more I drink of it the thirstier I am.
I think the shadow of My Lord Pantagruel engenders the thirsties, as the moon breeds catarrhs.

At which those present started laughing. Seeing which, Pantagruel said: "Panurge, what do
you have to laugh about?"

"My Lord," said he, "I was telling them how very unhappy those devils the Turks are not to
drink a drop of wine. If there were no other harm in Mahomet's Alcoran, still I would hardly
place myself under his law."

"But now, tell me" said Pantagruel, "how you escaped from their hands?"

"By God, My Lord," said Panurge, "I won't lie about it in a single word.

"The blasted Turks had put me on a spit, all larded like a rabbit, for I was so emaciated
that otherwise my flesh would have made very bad meat; and in that state they were having
me roasted alive. Even as they were roasting me, I was commending myself to the Divine Grace,
keeping in mind good Saint Lawrence, and I kept hoping in God that He would deliver me from
that torment; which was done in a very strange way; for even as I was most heartily commend-
ing myself to God, crying: `Lord God, help me! Lord God, save me! Lord God, take me out of
this torment in which these treacherous dogs are holding me for maintaining Thy law!' the
roaster fell asleep by the divine will, or that of some benign Mercury, who cleverly put
to sleep Argus, who had a hundred eyes.

"When I saw that he was no longer turning me around and roasting me, I look at him and see
that he's falling asleep.' Then with my teeth I pick up an ember by the side where it isn't
burned, and toss it in the lap of my roaster, and another I toss, the best I can, under a
camp bed near the fireplace where lay my Mister Roaster's straw mattress.

"Immediately the fire caught in the straw, and from the straw to the bed, and from the bed
to the ceiling, which was paneled with pine cut like lamp bottoms. But the good one was that
the fire I had thrown into my villain roaster's lap burned his entire groin and was catch-
ing on his balls; but he himself stank so that he didn't smell it until daylight, and, jump-
ing up like a stupid goat, he shouted out the window all he could: Dal baroth, dal baroth!'
which amounts to saying 'Fire, fire!' and came straight for me to throw me all the way into
the fire, and he had already cut the cords they had tied my hands with and was cutting the
bonds on my feet.

"But the master of the house, hearing the cry of fire and already smelling the smoke from
the street, where he was strolling with a few other pashas and mussafis,301 ran up as hard
as he could to give help and carry out his baggage.

"As soon as he arrives he pulls out the spit I was spitted on and killed my roaster stone
dead; and he died from this for lack of proper direction or some other reason; for he ran
the spit a little above the navel toward the right flank and pierced the third lobe of his
liver, and the blow moving upward penetrated his diaphragm; and, running through his peri-
cardium, the spit came out through the top of his shoulders between the spondyls [vertebrae]
and the left shoulder-blade.

"True it is that on his drawing the spit out of my body I fell to the ground near the and-
irons, and the fall did me little harm, at all events not much, for the lard strips broke the
shock.

"Then my pasha, seeing that the situation was desperate and his house was burned beyond
reprieve and all his property lost, gave himself up to all the devils, calling Grilgoth, Ast-
aroth, Rappallus, and Gribouillis, each nine times.302 Seeing which, I felt more than a nick-
el's worth [pour plus de cinq solz] of fright, with this fear: Now the devils will come to
carry off this lunatic; might they be just the people to carry me off too? I'm already half
roasted. My lard strips will be the cause of my trouble, for these devils have a taste for
lard strips, as you have the authority of the philosopher lamblichus and Murmault in his
Apologia De bossutis et contrefactis pro magistros nostros [On hunchbacks and the deformed,
for our masters]. But I made the sign of the cross, shouting `Agyos athanatos, ho Theos!
[God is Holy and Immortal!].'303 And no one came.

"Knowing this my rogue wished to pierce his heart with my spit, and to that purpose had set
it against his breast, but it could not enter because it was not sharp enough even tht ugh
he pressed with all his force.

"So I came up to him and said: 'Missaire Buggerino, now you're wasting your time, for you'll
never kill yourself that way; yes, you will wound yourself with a good blow, and languish
all your life in the hands of the barber-surgeons; but if you want, I'll kill you clean out-
right, so you won't feel anything; and take my word for it, for I've killed many others who
have found themselves well off for it."

"Ah, my friend," he said, "please do! And for doing it I'll give you my purse. Here! Here
it is! There are six hundred seraphs in it, and a few perfect diamonds and rubies."

"And where are they?" said Epistemon.

"By Saint John!" said Panurge, "they're a long way off if they're still going":

Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?
[But where are the snows of yesteryear]

"That was the greatest concern that was felt by the Parisian poet Villon."304

Do finish," said Pantagruel, "I ask you, so we may know how you ' handled the pasha."

"On my word as a good man," said Panurge, "I'm not lying in one word. I bind him up with
a miserable strip of linen that I find there, half burned, and tie him up saucily, hand and
foot, with my cords, so thoroughly that he could not have resisted; then I thrust my spit
through his throat and hanged him, attaching the spit to two big hooks that used to hold
halberds; and I up and light a fine fire underneath, and was busy toasting my fine milord
as you do red herrings in the fireplace. Then, taking his purse and a little javelin that
was on the hooks, I run away at a fine gallop, and Lord knows how I smelled like a shoulder
of mutton!305

"When I had come down into the street, I found everybody there, having come up to the fire
with lots of water to put it out, and seeing me half roasted, they naturally had pity on
me and threw all their water on me and cooled me off joyously, which did me very much good;
then they gave me something to eat, but I wasn't eating much, for they gave me only water
to drink, in their way.

"No other harm did they do me, except for one ugly little Turk, hunchbacked in front, who
kept furtively nibbling my lard strips; but I gave him such a hard knock on the fingers
with my javelin that he didn't come back a second time; and one young Corinthian wench,306
who had brought me a pot of East Indian Emblic plums conserved in their manner, and who
was looking at my poor fly-bitten fellow here, how he had come out of the fire, for then
he was reaching only down onto my knees. But note that that roasting completely cured me
of a sciatica that I had been subject to for over seven years, on the side on whch my
roaster let me burn when he went to sleep.

"Now while they were keeping busy with me, the fire was gaining, don't ask how, and catch-
ing more than two thousand houses, so that one of them noticed it and shouted out, saying:
Mahomet's belly, the whole city is burning and we're wasting time here!' So everyone went
off to his everyhome [Ainsi chascun s'en va a sa chascuniere].307

"As for me, I make my way toward the gate. When I was on the little rise that is next to
it, I turn around to the rear, like Lot's wife, and I saw the whole city burning, at which
I was so happy I thought I'd beshit my breeches for joy; but God punished me proper for it."

"How so?" said Pantawgel.

"Even," said Panurge, "as I was watching that beautiful fire in high glee, snickering and
saying: `Ah, poor fleas, poor mice, you're going to have a bad winter, the fire is in your
bed-straw!' out came more than six, indeed more than thirteen hundred and eleven dogs, large
and small, all together out of the city, fleeing the fire. As soon as they came, they ran
right at me, smelling the odor of my wretched half-roasted flesh, and they would have de-
voured me then and there if my good angel had not inspired me well, teaching me a very op-
portune remedy against tooth trouble."

"And for what reason," said Pantagruel, "were you afraid of tooth trouble? Weren't you cured
of your colds?"

"Holy Palm Sunday! [Pasques de soles!]," replied Panurge, "is there any greater tooth trouble
than when the dogs have you by the legs? But suddenly I thought of my lard strips and kept
throwing them into the midst of them. Then the dogs went and fought among themselves with
bared fangs to see which one would get the lard strip.[By that device they left me, and also
I left them, scrapping with one another. So I escaped lusty and merry, and long live roast-
ing!"



CHAPTER 15


How Panurge teaches a very new way
of building the walls of Paris.


0NE day Pantagruel, to refresh himself from his studies, was strolling in the direction of
the Saint-Marceau suburb [les faulxbours Sainct Marceau], wanting to see the Gobelin country
seat. Panurge was with him,s always carrying under his gown a flagon and an odd piece of ham;
for without that he never went out, saying it was his bodyguard. No other sword did he wear,
and when Pantagruel wanted to give him one, he replied that it would heat up his spleen.

"True," said Epistemon, "but if someone attacked you, how would you defend yourself?"

"With strong gusts from a clean pair of heels, he replied, "provided that thrusts were forbid-
den."

On their way back, Panurgt kept looking over the walls of Paris, and said to Pantagruel in
derision: "Just look at these fine walls! O how strong they are, and in good shape to protect
molting goslings! By my beard, they are appropriately bad for such a city as this for a cow
with one fart could knock down over six fathoms of them."

"O my friend," said Pantagruel, "are you well aware of what Agesilaus said when he was asked
why the great city of Lacedaemon was never girded with walls? For, pointing to the inhabitants
and citizens of the town, so very expert in military knowhow and so strong and well armed,
here,' he said 'are the city walls,' meaning that there is no wall but of bone, and that cities
and towns could have no safer and stronger wall than the valor of the citizens and inhabitants;

"Thus this city is so strong by the multitude of the warlike people who are in it that they
do not worry about building other walls. Furthermore, if anyone wanted to wall it around like
Strasbourg, Orleans, or Ferrara, it would be impossible, so excessive would be the costs and
expenses."

"True," said Panurge, "but it still is a good thing to have some semblance of stone when you
are invaded by your enemies, were it only to ask: 'Who's out there.'

"As regards the numerous costs you say are necessary if anyone wanted to wall it, if my lords
of the city want to give me some good pot of wine, I'll teach them a very novel way in which
they can build them at a very low cost."

"How?" said Pantagruel.

"Don't tell it to anyone," said Panurge, "if I teach you it."

I see that women's whatchamacallits [les callibistrys] in this part of the country are cheaper
than stones. Of these they should build the walls, arranging them in good architectural symmetry
and putting the biggest in the front ranks, and then, building them up donkey-back style, arrange
the mediums and the little ones, and then make fine intermingled assortment, in diamond points
as in the great tower of Bourges, of all those stiffened weapons that dwell on claustral cod-
pieces. What devil could break down such walls? There is no metal so resistant to blows. And
then, if the culverins came and rubbed up against them, you would see (by God!) immediately
distilled from them some of that blessed fruit of the pox, as fine as rain, dry in the devil's
name. Moreover, lightning would never strike them; and why? They are all blessed or consecrated.
I see only one drawback to this."

"Ho ho, ha ha ha!" said Pantagruel, "and what's that?"

"It's just that flies are extraordinarily fond of them, and would swarm around and leave their
droppings there, and there would be the work spoiled. But here's how you'd remedy that: you'd
have to brush the flies away thoroughly with nice foxtails, or big donkey pricks from Provence.
And speaking of that, I want to tell you (on our way to supper) a good example noted by Frater
Lubinus's book De compotationibus mendicantium.

"In the time when animals spoke (not three days ago), a poor lion, walking around in the Forest
of Bievre and saying his prayers, passed under a tree that a poor charcoal burner had climbed to
cut some wood; seeing the lion, he threw his axe at him and gave him an enormous wound in the
thigh. So the lion, limping, ran around and made such a racket through the forest that he met a
carpenter, who willingly looked at his wound, cleaned it out as best he could and filled it with
moss, telling him to keep brushing his wound off well so the flies could not leave their drop-
pings in it, while waiting for him to go find some carpenter's herb.

"So the lion, all cured, was strolling through the forest, at a time when an everlasting old wom-
an was cutting kindling and gathering firewood through the said forest; who, seeing the lion com-
ing, fell over backward from fear in such wise that the wind blew her dress, petticoat, and smock
way up over her shoulders. Seeing which, the lion ran up out of pity to see if she had done her-
self any harm, and, considering her what's-itsname, said: '0 poor woman, who has wounded you so?'

"As he said this, he noticed a fox, and called and said to him: 'Friend fox, this way, over here,
we need you.'

"When the fox had come, he said to him: 'Buddy, my old friend, this gammer has been very grievous-
ly wounded between the legs, and there is manifest solution of continuity. Look how big the wound
is: five and half span. It came from an axe; I suspect the wound is an old one. Anyway, so the flies
don't come, brush it off good and hard, please both inside and out. You have a good long tail: shoo-
fly my friend, shoo-fly, I beg you, and meanwhile I'm going to get some moss to put in there, for
that's how we must succor and aid one another. Shoo-fly hard; that's it, my friend, shoo-fly well,
for that wound needs to be brushed often; otherwise the person can't be comfortable, so shoo-fly
well, my little friend, brush away. God has generously endowed you with a tail; yours is big and
proportionately thick; brush hard and don't get bored with it. A good shoo-flier who is continuous-
ly shooing flies away with his brush never will be shoo-flied by flies. Shoo-fly, you old goat!
shoo-fly, my little
sprite! I won't be long.'

"Then he goes off to get a lot of moss, and when he was a little distance away he cried out, speak-
ing to the fox: 'Keep right on shoo-flying well, buddy; shoo-fly, and don't ever get weary of shoo-
flying well. I'll get you hired for wages to shoo-fly for Dom Pedro of Castile. Just keep shoo-fly-
ing, shoo-fly, and nothing more.'

"The poor fox was brushing away both near and far, inside and out; but the pestilent old woman was
fizzling and farting and stinking like a hundred devils. The poor fox was very uncomfortable, for
he didn't know which side to turn to get away from the perfume of the fizzles; and as he turned,
he saw that in behind there was another opening, not as big as the one he was brushing, from which
was coming this foul stinking wind.

"Finally the lion comes back, carrying over eighteen bales worth of moss, and began to put in the
wound with a stick he brought along, and he had already put in fully sixteen and a half bales and
was marveling: `What the devil! This wound is deep: you could get in over two cartloads of moss.'

"But the fox advised him: '0 lion old buddy, my friend, please don't put all the moss in there;
keep a little of it, for there's also under here another opening that stinks like five hundred dev-
ils. I'm poisoned with the smell of it, it stinks so.',

"So they should keep the flies off the walls and post hired shoo-fliers on them."

Then said Pantagruel: "How do you know the women's pudenda are so cheap? For in this town there
are many good women, chaste and virgins."

"Et ubi prenus? [And where do you get that?]," said Panurge. "I'll tell you, not my opinion of it,
but my real certainty and assurance. I'm not boasting about having filled four hundred and seven-
teen of them since I've been in this town—and that's only nine days—but this morning I ran across
a good man who, in a sort of knapsack much like Aesop's, was carrying two little girls two or
three years of age at most, one in front, the other behind. He asks me for alms, but I made reply
that I had more ballocks than deniers, and after that I ask him 'Good man, are these two girls vir-
gins?' Brother,' he said, 'I've been carrying them this way for two years, and as regards this one
in front, whom I see continuously, in my opinion she's a virgin; however, I wouldn't want to stick
my finger in the fire for it. As for the one I'm carrying behind, honestly I don't know a thing a-
bout it.' "

"Really," said Pantagruel, "you're good company; I want to dress you in my livery."

And he had him dressed gallantly in the manner of the time it was then, except that Panurge wanted
the codpiece on his breeches to be three feet long and square, not round, which was done and it
did one good to see it. And he often said that people had not yet recognized the advantage and u-
tility there is in wearing a big codpiece; but time would teach them some day, even as in time all
things have been invented.

"God preserve from harm" he used to say, "the fellow whose long codpiece has been worth a hundred
and sixty thousand and nine crowns in one day! God preserve anyone who by his long codpiece has
saved a whole city from dying of hunger! And, by God, I'll write a book On the convenience of long
codpieces when I have more leisure."

Indeed, he composed a fine big book on it with illustrations, but it's not yet printed, as far as
I know.



CHAPTER 16


Of the ways and dispositions of Panurge.


PANURGE was of medium height, neither too tall nor too small, and he had a rather aquiline nose,
shaped like a razor handle; and at that time he was of the age of thirty-five or thereabouts, fit
for gilding like a lead dagger,308 in his personl, a very likely fellow, except that he was somewhat
of a lecher, and by nature subject to a malady that in those days was called Faulte d'argent, c'est
douleur non pareille. [Lack of money, that is unmatched pain.]

However, he had thirty-three ways of finding some for his needs, of which the most usual and hon-
orable was by way of theft furtively perpetrated: an evildoer, cheat, boozer, idler, robber, if
any there was in Paris, and for the rest the nicest guy in the world;309 and he was always contriv-
ing something against the sergeants and against the watch.

For he would collect three or four ruffians, and toward evening have them drink like Templars; a-
fter that he would take them below Sainte-Genevieve or near the College de Navarre, and, at the
time when the watch was coming up that way which he could tell by putting his sword to the pavement,
and his ear next to it—and when he heard his sword quivering, it was an infallible sign that the
watch was near—at that moment then, he and his companions would take a dung cart and set it in mo-
tion, shoving it with might and main on its way down; and thus he threw all the watch onto the
ground like pigs, and then they fled in the other direction; for in less than two days he knew all
the streets, lanes, and crossways in Paris like his Deus det [God grant (us His peace)].310

Another time he would make, in some fine square where the said watch was to pass,/ a train of can-
non powder, and, at the moment when it was passing, he would set fire to it, and then have his fun
watching how graceful they were in flight, as they thought Saint Anthony's Fire had them by the
legs.:_

And as for the poor masters of arts, he persecuted them above all others; when he encountered one
of them in the street, he never failed to do him some harm: now putting a turn in their formal
hoods, now attaching little fox-tails or rabbit ears behind, or some other trick.

One day, when the watch had been assigned to be on the Rue du Feurre, he made a mud-pie com-
posed of lots of garlics, galbanum, asafoetilda, and castoreum, of good warm turds, and steeped it in
ooze from pocky sores; and very early in the morning he greased and anointed the whole pavement
with it, so that the devil himself could not have stood it. And all these fine folk were throwing
up their guts in front of everybody, as if they had flayed the fox: and ten or twelve of them died
of the plague, fourteen were lepers, eighteen were goutie, and over twenty-seven got the pox from
it. But he didn't worry the least bit about it, and ordinarily carried a whip under his gown, with
which unremittingly he whipped the pages he found taking wine to their masters, to keep them
moving along.

In his jacket he had more than twenty-six little pouches and pockets, always full, one with a little
lead die, and a little knife, sharp as a skinner's needle, with which he cut purses; another, with
vinegar, which he threw into the eyes of anyone he met; another, with burdocks feathered with lit-
tle gosling or capon plumes, which he threw onto the gowns and bonnets of worthy people; and often
he made them fine horns of these, which they wore all over town, sometimes all their lives; and
sometimes he put some on the women too, over their hoods, to the rear, shaped like a man's member;
in another, a heap of little paper cones all full of fleas and lice, which he borrowed from the
grave diggers at Saint-Innocent's, and he threw them, with nice little reeds or pens you write
with, onto the collars of the snootiest ladies he found, and especially in church.

He never sat up above in the choir, but always stayed in the nave among the women, both at mass
and at vespers as well as at the sermon; in another, provision aplenty of fish hooks and clasps,
with which he often coupled men and women together in companies where they were crowded, and,
when they tried to separate, they tore all their dresses; in another, a tinder box equipped with
a wick, matches, flint, and all other gear needed for this purpose; in another, two or three burn-
ing mirrors, with which he sometimes drove men and women crazy and put them out of countenance in
church; for he said there was nothing but an inversion between "femme folle a la messe" and "femme
molle a la fesse" ["a woman wild in the mass" and "a woman mild in the ass"]; in another, he had a
store of needles and thread, with which he played a thousand devilish little tricks.

Once, leaving the—Law Court, in the Great Hall, when a Franciscan was to say the Councillors'
Mass, he helped him get dressed and robed; but in dressing him, he sewed his alb onto his robe
and shirt, and then withdrew when the Gentlemen of the Court came and sat down to hear the said
mass. But when it came to the lte, Missa est, and the poor friar tried to take off his alb, he
took off with it both robe and shirt, which were thoroughly sewn together, and so he stripped to
the shoulders, displaying his thingumajig to all the world, and undoubtedly it was no small one.
And the friar kept on tugging; but he uncovered himself all the more, until one of the Gentlemen
of the Court said: "What's this, does this fine friar want to have us give the offertory and kiss
his ass? Saint Anthony's Fire kiss him!"

From then on it was ordained that the poor fine friars should no longer strip themselves in front
of other people, but in their sacristy: especially not in the presence of women, for that could
be for them the occasion for the sin of envy. And people asked why it was that friars had such
long tools. The said Panurge solved the problem very well, saying:

"What makes donkeys ears so big is the fact that their mothers didn't put any little bonnet on
their heads; as De Alliaco says in his Suppositions.311 For a similar reason, what makes the tools
of the poor blessed fathers so long is that they don't wear breeches with any bottom, and their
poor member stretches out at liberty unbridled, and thus goes dangling down onto the knees, as do
rosary beads on women. But the reason why it is proportionately stout is that in that dangling
the humors of the body go down into the said member; for according to the lawmen, agitation and
continual motion is the cause of attraction."

Item, he had another pocket full of itching-powder, some of which he tossed down the backs of the
women he saw to be the cockiest, and thus made them strip in front of everyone, others dance like
a rooster on hot coals, or a drumstick on a drum, still others walk the streets;312 and he ran after,
and for those who stripped, he held his cape over their backs like a courteous and gracious man.

Item, in another he had a little oil flask full of old oil, and when he came across either awoman
or a man who had a fine robe, he greased and befouled all the best-looking parts, on the pretext
of touching them and saying: "This is good material, good satin, good taffeta, Madame; God grant
you your noble heart's desire! You have a brand-new robe, my newfound friend; God keep you in it!"

So saying, he would put his hand on their collar. With that the nasty stain stayed there forever,
so extraordinarily engraved on soul, body, and renown, that the devil himself couldn't have got
it out; then in conclusion he would say to them: "My lady, take good care that you don't fall;
for here is a big dirty hole in front of you."

In another, he had a pocketful of very subtly powdered euphorbium, and in it he put a handsome,
finely worked handkerchief, which he had stolen from the fair courthouse laundress as he took a
flea from under her breast, one which, however, he had put there; and when he found him-self in
the company of a few good ladies, he would work the conversation onto the subject of lingerie,
and put his hand on their bosom, saying: "And is this work Flemish or from Hainault?" And then
he would pull out his handkerchief and say: "Look, here, look at the workmanship on this: is it
from Foutignan or Foutarabie?" And he would shake it very hard under their nose and start them
sneezing for hours without respite. And meanwhile he would fart like a cart horse, and the wo-
men would laugh and say:

"What, you're farting, Panurge?"

"No, I'm not, Madame," he would say; "but I'm tuning in for counter-point to the music you're mak-
ing with your nose."

In another, a picklock, a screwhook, a skeleton key, and a few other iron tools, so that there
was no door nor strongbox whose lock he could not pick.

In another, a whole pouchful of little goblets, with which he played very craftily: for he had
fingers supple as Minerva, or Arachne, and at one time he had hawked quack medicine; and when he
changed a testoon or some other coin, the changer would have had to be sharper than Maistre Mousche
[Master Slick] for Panurge not to cause each time to vanish into thin air five or six big blancs,
visibly, manifestly, without causing any wound or lesion whatever of which the changer would have
felt so much as the breath.



CHAPTER 17


How Panurge got pardons
and married off old women,
and of the lawsuits he had in Paris.


ONE day I found Panurge rather a bit depressed and taciturn, and I fully suspected that he hadn't a
denier; so I said to him:

"Panurge, you're sick, from what I see in your face, and I understand the trouble: you have a flux of
the purse; but don't worry: I still have six sous and a half that never saw father or mother, which
will not fail you any more than the pox in your need."

To which he answered me: "Oh, a turd for the money! I'll have only too much some day, for I have a
philosopher's stone, which draws money to me out of purses as the magnet draws iron. But do you want
to get pardons?"313 said he.

"Well, by my word," I answer him, "I'm no great pardoner in this world; I don't know if I shall be in
the other. But all right, let's go to it, in God's name, for a denier's worth, no more no less."

"But then," said he, "lend me a denier, at interest"

"Not at all, not at all," said I, "I give it to you with all my heart."

"Grates vobis, Dominos,"314 said he.

So off we went, beginning at Saint-Gervais, and I got pardons only at the first box, for I'm content
with little in these matters; then I was saying my little petitions and prayers to Saint Bridget; but
we got them at every box, and always left money to each of the pardoners.

From there we betook ourselves to Notre-Dame, to Saint-Jean, to Saint-Antoine, and so with the other
churches where there were pardons for sale. For my part, I wasn't getting any more, but him, at every
box he would kiss the relics and give to each. To be brief. when we were back, he took me for a drink
to the Cabaret du Chasteau and showed me ten or twelve of his pockets full of money. At which I made
thesign of the Cross and said:

"Where did you get all that money in such a short time?"

To which he replied that he had taken it from the pardons plates: "For when I gave them my first denier,"
said he, "I put it in so supplely that it seemed it was a big half-sou. So with one hand I took twelve
deniers, indeed a good twelve liards or double liards at the least and with the other, three or four
sous, and thus through all the churches we've been to."

"True enough," said I, "but you're damning yourself like a snake, and you're a thief and committing
sacrilege."

"Yes indeed," said he, "as it seems to you; but as for me, it doesn't seem so to me; for the pardoners
give it to me when they tell me, as they offer me the relics to kiss. Centuplum accipies [Thou shalt
receive a hundredfold; Mathew 19.29], that I should take a hundred deniers for one: for accipies is
spoken after the manner of the Hebrews, who use the future instead of the imperative, as you have it
in the law Diliges Dominant and Dilige ["Thou shalt love the Lord" and "Love"]. Thus when the pardoner
says to me Gen:upturn aecipies, he means Centuplum aocipe (Receive a hundredfold); and thus it is ex-
pounded by Rabbi Kimy and Rabbi Ben Ezra and all the Massoretes; and iii Bartolus [there Bartolus,
i.e., Bartolus agrees]. Furthermore, Pope Sixtus gave me fifteen hundred francs of income for curing
him of a cankerous tumor, which was torturing him so that he was nearly lamed for his whole life. So,
since he is not so [lame], I take my payment with my own hands from the said ecclesiastical treasure."

"Oh, my friend," said he, "if you only knew how I feathered my nest from the crusade, you'd be really
flabbergasted. It was worth more than six thousand florins to me."

"And where have they gone?" said I, "for you haven't a halfpenny of them."

"Where they came from," said he; "they did nothing but change masters."

"But I used a good three thousand to marry of not the young girls, for they find only too many husbands,
but these great everlasting old women, who hadn't a tooth in their chops, considering this: These good
women made very good use of their time in their youth, and played clinchcruppers with their tails until
no one wanted any of it any more; and, by God, I'll get them pushed up one more time before they die!
In that way, I would give one a hundred florins, another six score, another three hundred, according to
how loathsome, detestable and abominable they really were; for the more horrible and execrable they were,
the more I had to give them; otherwise the devil himself wouldn't have been willing to cork them. I would
go right away to some big firewood-hauler and arrange the marriage myself; but before showing him the old
women, I would show him the crown coins and say:

'Buddy, here's something for you if you want to tumblcbumble for one good shot.' From that point on the
poor dopes rumpchumped like old mules.

"So I would have them get good and ready by feasting, drinking of the best, and would give the crones
spices aplenty to put them in rut and in heat. To conclude they would plug away like all good souls, e-
xcept that for those who were horribly ugly and decrepit, I had them put a bag over their faces.

"However, I lost many of them [the coins] in lawsuit."

"And what lawsuits could you have?" said I. "You have neither house nor land."

"My friend," said he, "the ladies of this town had discovered, on the instigation of the devil in hell,
a type of collar or neckpiece cut very high, which concealed their breasts so well that you couldn't put
your hand on them from below any more, for the cleft in these garments they had put in the rear, and they
were all closed up in front, at which the poor lovers, doleful and pensive, were unhappy. One fine Tuesday
I presented to the Court a petition bringing suit against the said ladies, and, remonstrating the great
losses I would suffer from this, protesting that, in the same way, I would have the codpiece of my breech-
es sewn on in back, if the Court did not impose order in this. To sum it up, the ladies formed a syndicate,
displayed their fundaments, and appointed attorneys to defend their cause; but I prosecuted them so lust-
ily that by a sentence of the Court it was decreed that these high neckpieces would no longer be worn, un-
less they were slit a little bit in front. But it cost me plenty.

"I had another suit, very filthy dirty, against Master Fify and his crew, so that they should no longer
read clandestinely, by night, The Puncheon Bane! or the Fourth Book of Sentenfiae, but in bright broad
daylight, and that in the schools of the Rue du Feurre, in front of all the other sophists; and here I
was condemned to pay costs, because of some technicality in the sergeant's report.

"Another time I brought a complaint to the Court against the mules of the presidents and councillors and
others, to the effect that when they were put out to champ their bits in the Court's backyard the council-
lors wives should make them bibs, so that they should not mess up the pavement with their drool, and so
that the Court page could comfortably play on it with dice or coxbody [reniguebieu],315 without soiling their
breeches at the knees. And on that I got a good decision; but it cost me a lot. So now count up how much
the little banquets cost me that I give the Court page every day or so."

"And to what purpose?" said I.

"My friend," said he, "you have no pastime in this world. I have some, more than the king; if you wanted
to join forces with me, we'd do the devil's own tricks."

"No, no," said I, "by Saint Adauras,316 for some day you'll be hanged."

"And some day you," said he, "will be buried. Which is the more honorably done, in the air or the earth.
Hey, you great ox! While these pages were banqueting, I'm tending their mules, and I cut the stirrup on
the mounting side [the left], so that it holds by only a thread. When the fat puffed-out councillor, or
someone else, has taken his start up to climb on, they all fall flat as pigs in front of everybody, and
give us over a hundred francs worth of laughing matter. But I laugh even harder when, back home, they
have Mister dc Page beaten like green rye. That way I don't care what it cost me to banquet them."

To sum it all up, he had, as I've said above, sixty-three ways of getting money; but he also had two hun-
dred and fourteen of spending it, besides the repairs right below the nose.



CHAPTER 18


How a great scholar from England
wanted to debate against Pantagnsel,
and was vanquished by Panurge.


IN these same days, a learned man named Thaumaste, hearing the fame and renown of the incomparable learn-
ing of Pantagruel, came from the land of England with this sole intention: to see Pantagruel and come to
know him, and to test whether such was his learning as was the renown of it.

Indeed, once arrived in Paris, he betook himself toward the house of the said Pantagruel, who was staying
at the Hotel Saint-Denis,317 and at that moment was strolling in the garden with Panurge, philosophizing
in the manner of the Peripatetic. On first entering, he had quite a start from fear, seeing him so tall
and stout; then he greeted him as is the fashion, courteously, saying to him:

"Quite true it is, says Plato, prince of philosophers, that if the face of learning and wisdom were cor-
poreal and visible to the eyes of humans, it would excite everyone to admiration of it. For merely the
report of this spread through the air, if it is received by the ears of the studious and the lovers of
it who are known as philosophers, lets them neither rest nor sleep in peace; so much does it stimulate
and inflame them to come running to the spot, and see the person in whom knowledge is said to have es-
tablished her temple and to produce her oracles.

"As was manifestly demonstrated to us in the case of the Queen of Sheba, who came from the limits of
the Orient and the Persian Sea, to see the order of the house of Solomon the wise, and to hear his wis-
dom;318 in Anacharsis, who, from Scythia, went all the way to Athens to see Solon; in Pythagoras, who
visited the Memphitic319 soothsayers; in Plato, who visited the Magi of Egypt and Archycas of Tarentum;
in Apollonius of Tyana, who went all the way to Mount Caucasus, passing through the Scythians, the
Massagetae, and the Indians, navigated the great river Physon as far as the land of the Brahmins to
see Hiarchus, and traveled in Babylonia, Chaldea, Media, Assyria, Parthia, Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia,
Palestine, Alexandria, and as far as Ethiopia, to see the Gymnosophists.

"We have a similar example in Livy, to see and hear whom many studious people came to Rome from the
farthest confines of France and Spain.

"I do not dare to count myself in the number and rank of such perfect people as these; but indeed I
do want to be put down as a studious man and a lover not only of letters but also of men of letters.

"In fact, hearing the fame of your most inestimable learning, I have left country, kinfolk, and home,
and betaken myself here, reckoning as nothing the length of the road, the tedium of the sea voyage,
the unfamiliarity of the country, just to see you and confer with you about certain passages in phil-
osophy, in geomancy, and in the Cabala, about which I have doubts and cannot satisfy my mind, which
if you can resolve for me, I make myself from now on your slave, myself and all my posterity, for I
have no other gift to offer in return that I consider adequate.

"I will put them down in writing, and tomorrow I'll make it known to all the learned men in town, so
that we may debate publicly about these before them.

"But here is the way I mean for us to debate. I don't want to debate pro and contra, the way these
stupid sophists do in this town and elsewhere. Likewise, I don't want to debate in the manner of the
Academics by declamation, nor by numbers either, as Pythagoras used to do and as Pico della Mirandola
tried to do in Rome; rather I want to debate by signs alone, without speaking; for the matters are so
arduously difficult that human words would not suffice to explain them to my satisfaction.

"Therefore, may it please your Magnificence to be present there. It will be in the great hall of the
College de Navarre, at seven o'clock in the morning."

These words completed, Pantagruel said to him honorably: "My lord, of the graces God has given me I
would not want to deny anyone a share, in so far as lies within my power; for all good comes from Him,
and His pleasure is that it be multiplied when we find ourselves among worthy people fit to receive
this celestial manna of honorable learning, in whose number I already clearly perceive that you hold
the first rank; because of which, I notify you that at any hour you will find me ready to grant each
and every one of your requests, according to my poor powers, even though I should rather learn from
you than you from me; but, as you have proclaimed, we shall confer together about your doubts, and
shall seek the solution to them even to the depths of the inexhaustible well in which Heraclitus320
used to say truth is hidden.

"And I greatly applaud the method of debate you have proposed to wit by signs, without speaking; for
by doing that, you and I will understand each other, and we will keep away from those handclappings
that those idiot sophists go in for when people debate, just when they are at the best point in the
argument.

"So tomorrow I shall not fail to be at the time and place you have set me, but I ask that between us
there be neither dispute nor tumult and that we seek neither honor nor mcn's applause, but truth a-
lone."

To which Thaumaste replied; "My lord, God keep you in His grace; and I thank you that your high Mag-
nificence is willing so much to condescend to my little worth. So farewell until tomorrow."

"Farewell," said Pantagruel.

Gentlemen who read this present writing, do not suppose that anyone was ever more elevated and trans-
ported in thought than that night were both Thaumaste and Pantagruel; for the said Thaumaste said to the
concierge at the Hotel de Cluny, where he was staying, that in all his life he had never found himself
as thirsty as he was that night:

"I do believe," said he, "that Pantagruel has me by the throat. Order some drinks for us, please,
and see to it that we have fresh water to gargle my throat."

On the other side, Pantagruel stretched his mind to its highest pitch, and kept doing nothing all
night but brood over:

Bata's book De numeris et signis [On numbers and signs];
Plotinus's book De inertanabitibus [On unnaratables];
Proclus's book De magia [On magic];
The books of Artemidorus Per Onirocriticon [On the meaning of dreams];
Of Anaxagoras Peri Semion [On signs];
Of Ynarius Peri Aphaton [On unutterables];
The books of Philistion;
Hipponax Peri Anacphoneton [On things unpronounced];

and a pile of others, so much that Panurge said to him:

"My Lord, give up all these thoughts and go to bed; for I sense that you are so stimulated in mind
that you would soon fall into some quotidian fever from this excess of thinking. But after first
drinking twenty-five or thirty good drafts, go to bed and sleep your fill, for tomorrow I'll reply to
Mister Englishman and debate with him, and in case I don't set him speechless [ad metan non loqui],
speak ill of me."

"Yes," said Pantagruel; "but Panurge, my friend, he is wondrously leaned; how will you be able to sat-
isfy him?"

"Very well," replied Panurge. "I beg you, don't talk to me about it any more, and let me take care
of it. Is there any man as learned as the devils are?"

"Truly, no," said Pantagruel, "without special divine grace."

"And nevertheless," said Panurge, "I've often argued with them and made monkeys of them and set them
on their tails. Therefore rest assured about this high and mighty Englishman, that tomorrow I'll have
him shitting vinegar in front of everybody."

So Panurge spent the night tossing the pot with the pages and gambling all the points of his breeches
at primus et secundus and peck-point. And when the appointed time came, he brought his master Panta-
gruel to the place assigned, and, take my word for it, there was no one great or small in Paris who
was not present there, with this thought:

"That devil Pantagruel, who convinced all those shifty sophist nincompoops, will get his comeuppance
now, for that Englishman is one more Vauvert devil. We'll see who comes out on top."

With everyone thus assembled, Thaumaste was waiting for them, and when Pantagruel and Panurge came
into the hall, all those students, young and older, started clapping their hands, as is their doltish
custom. But Pantagruel shouted, as loud as the sound of a double cannon, saying:

"Peace, in the devil's name peace by God, you wretches, if you bother me with your racket here, I'll
cut off your heads, every one of you,"

At which statement they all sat as startled as ducks, and did not even dare cough, even if they had
eaten fifteen pounds of feathers, and all were so thirsty just from that voice alone that their tongues
were hanging half a foot out of their chops, as if Pantagruel had salted their throats.

Then Panurge began to speak, saying to the Englishman: "Lord, have you come here to dispute contenti-
ously about these propositions that you have set forth, or rather to learn and know the truth about
them?"

To which Thaumaste replied: "Lord, nothing brings me here if not an honest desire to know what I have
had doubts about all my life, and I have not found a book or a man who has satisfied me in solving
the doubts that I have set forth.

And as regards disputing in a contentious way, I do not want to do it; indeed it is too vile a thing,
and I leave it to these scoundrelly sophists,321 who in their disputations seek not truth, but contra-
diction and strife."

"Then" said Panurge, "if I, who am a little pupil of my master Lord Pantagruel, satisfy and content
you in all and throughout, it would be an unworthy thing to bother my said master with this. Therefore
it will be better for him to preside, judging our statements and contenting you further, if it seems
to you that I have not satisfied your studious desire."

"Truly," said Thaumaste, "that is very well said. So begin."

Now note that Panurge had put on the end of his long codpiece a lovely lock of silk, red, white, green,
and blue, and inside it had put a fine orange.



CHAPTER 19


How Panurge made a monkey
of the Englishman who argued by signs.


So with everyone present listening in proper silence, the Englishman raised both his hands separately
high in the air, closing all his fingertips in the shape called hen's rump in Chinonais talk, and struck
one with the other by the nails four times; then he opened them, and thus with the flat of one, struck
the other with a sharp noise. One more time he joined them as above, struck twice, and, opening them,
four times more; then replaced them, joined and extended one next to the other, seeming as if praying
piously to God.

Panurge suddenly raised his right hand in the air, then put the thumb of it inside the nostril on that
side, holding the four fingers extended and close together in a line parallel to the tip of his nose,
closing his left eye all the way and winking the right with a deep lowering of the eyebrow and eyelid;
then he raised his left hand high, squeezing together hard and extending the four fingers and raising
the thumb, and he was holding it in a line directly corresponding to the position of the right, with a
cubit and a half of distance between the two. That done, he lowered both hands in a similar gesture
down against the ground; finally he held them at the middle, as if pointing straight at the Englishman's
nose.

"And if Mercury . " said the Englishman.

There Panurge interrupts him to say: "Mummer, you spoke!"322

Then the Englishman made a sign like this. His left hand, wide open, he raised high in the air, then
closed the fingers of it into a fist, and placed the extended thumb on the tip of his nose. Immediately
afterward he raised his right hand wide open and lowered it wide open, linking the thumb to the place
enclosed by the little finger of the left, and moved the four fingers of the right slowly through the
air, then, conversely, he did with the right what he had done with the left, and with the left what he
had done with the right.

Panurge, undismayed by this, hoisted into the air his supercolossal codpiece with his left hand, and with
the right took out of it a white rib of beef and two pieces of wood of the same shape, one of black ebony.
the other of flesh-pink Brazilwood, and placed them between the fingers of it in proper symmetry, and,
clicking them together, made a sound such as the lepers do in Brittany with their castanets, only better
resounding and more harmonious; and with his tongue, drawn back into his mouth, he hummed joyously, still
looking at the Englishman.

The theologians, physicians, and surgeons thought that by this sign he was implying that the Englishman
was a leper.

The councillors, jurists, and decretists thought that by doing this he meant to conclude that some sort
of human felicity consisted in the leper's state, as Our Lord used to maintain once upon a time (Luke
16.24]

The Englishman was not frightened at this, and, raising both hands into the air, he held them in such a
position that he squeezed the three main fingers into a fist and passed the thumbs between the index and
middle fingers, and the little fingers remained at their full extension; thus he presented them toward
Panurge, then coupled them in such a way that the right thumb touched the left and the left little fing-
er touched the right.

At this Panurge, without saying a word, raised his hands and with them made a sign like this. With his
left hand he joined the nail of the index finger to the thumbnail, making a sort of ring in the space in
the middle, and on his right hand he squeezed all his fingers into a fist except the right index, which
he pushed and pulled back and forth between the two aforementioned ones of the left hand. Then on his
right hand he extended the index and middle fingers, separating them as much as he could and pointing
them toward Thaumaste. Then he put the thumb of his left hand on the corner of his left eye, extending
the whole hand like a bird's wing or a fish's fin, and moved it very daintily back and forth; and he
did as much with his right on the corner of his right eye.

Thaumaste began to turn pale and tremble, and made him this sign. With his right hand he struck the mid-
dle finger on the palm muscle beneath the thumb, then made the right index finger into a ring like the
left; but he did so from underneath, not from on top, as did Panurge. Then Panurge claps one hand against
the other and blows in his palm. This done, he again puts the index finger of the right hand inside the
ring of the left, pulling it back and forth several times. Then he struck out his chin, looking intently
at Thaumaste.

The spectators, who understood nothing of these signs, understood clearly that in that way he was word-
lessly asking Thaumaste:

"What do you mean by that?"

Sure enough, Thaumaste started sweating great drops, and certainly looked like a man transported in lof-
ty contemplation. Then he bethought himself, and put all the fingernails of his left hand against those
of the right, opening his fingers as if they had been semicircles, and raised his hands as high as he
could in this sign.

At which Panurge promptly put the thumb of his right hand under his jawbone, and the little finger of
it into the ring of the left, and in that position clicked his lower teeth very melodiously against the
uppers.

Thaumaste, with a great effort, got up, but in getting up he let a great baker's fart, and he stank like
all the devils in hell. The spectators started stopping up their noses, for he was beshitting himself
in his perplexity. Then he raised his right hand, closing it in such a way that he brought all the ends
of his fingers together, and he put his left hand fiat open on his chest.

Whereat Panurge pulled out his long codpiece with its silken lock and extended it a cubit and a half,
and held it in the air with his left hand, and with his right took his orange, threw it in the air sev-
eral times, and on the eighth hid it in his right fist, very quietly holding it up; then he began to
shake his fine codpiece, showing it to Thaumaste.

After that, Thaumaste began to puff out both cheeks like a bagpiper, and was breathing as if he were
blowing up a pig's bladder.

Whereat Panurge put one finger of his left hand in his asshole, and with his mouth sucked in air as
when we cat oysters in the shell or sip up our broth. That done, he opens his mouth a little, and struck
on it with the flat of his right hand, thereby making a loud deep sound as if it came from the surface
of the diaphragm by the trachean artery; and he did it sixteen times.

But Thaumaste was still puffing like a goose. Then Panurge placed the index of his right in his mouth,
squeezing it very tight with the muscles of his mouth. Then he pulled it out, and in pulling it he
made a big noise, as do little boys when they fire turnip pellets with a popgun; and he did it nine
times.

Then Thaumaste cried out: "Aha! Gentlemen, the great secret. He put his hand in up to the elbow."

Then he pulled out a dagger he had, holding it point down.

Whereat Panurge took his long codpiece and kept shaking it as hard as he could against his thighs;
then he put both hands, linked in the shape of a comb, on his head, sticking out his tongue as far
as he could and rolling his eyes around in his head like a drying nannygoat.

"Ah, I understand!" said Thaumaste, "but then what?" and made this sign: he put the hilt of his dag-
ger against his chest, and on the point put the flat of his hand, turning back his fingertips a lit-
tle. Whereat Panurge lowered his head on the left side and put his middle finger on his right car,
raising his thumb aloft. Then he crossed both arms over his chest, coughed five times, and on the
fifth tapped his right foot on the ground. Then he raised his left arm, and, squeezing all the fing-
ers into a fist, held his thumb against his forehead, with his right hand striking his chest six times.

But Thaumaste, as if not content with this, put the thumb of his left on the tip of his nose, closing
the rest of the said hand.

Then Panurge put his two forefingers in each side of his mouth, pulling it open all he could and show-
ing all his teeth, and with his two thumbs he pulled his eyelids way down deep, making a pretty ugly
grimace, so it seemed to the spectators.



CHAPTER 20


How Thaumaste recounts the virtues
and knowledge of Panurge.


THEREUPON Thaumaste got up, and, taking his bonnet off his head, softly thanked the said Panurge, then
said to all the spectators:

"My lords, at this moment I may well say the words of the Gospel [Matthew 12.42; Luke my]: 'Et ecce plus
quam Salomon hic [And behold, here is a greater than Solomon].' You have here in your presence an incom-
parable treasure: that is My Lord Pantagruel, whose renown had attracted me from the farthest reach of
England to confer with him about the insoluble problems of magic, alchemy, the cabala, geomancy, astro-
logy, as well as of philosophy, which I had on my mind.

"But now I am indignant at renown, which seems to be envious of him for it reports only the thousandth
part of what in fact there is.

"You have seen how this mere pupil has satisfied me and told me more about it than I was asking; more-
over, he has opened to me and at the same time resolved other inestimable doubts. Wherein I can assure
you that he has opened for me the true well and abyss of encyclopedic knowledge, indeed in such a way
that I did not think these were jestings, and I'll have it printed so that everyone may learn from him
as I have done; whence you might judge what the master would have said, seeing that the pupil performed
such an exploit; for `Non est discipulus super magistrum' (The pupil is not above his master,' Matthew 10.24].
In any case God be praised, and I thank you most humbly for the honor you have paid us at this event. May
God reward you for it eternally."

Similar words of thanksgiving Pantagruel delivered to the entire audience, and leaving there, he took
Thaumaste to dinner with him; and believe me, they drank with bellies unbuttoned (for in those days they
closed their bellies with buttons, like today's collars)--until they didn't know whether they were coming
or going. Holy Mother, how they pulled on the goatskin! and the flagons kept going round and they kept
swigging:

"Draw one!"

"Ginnie!"

"Page, wine!"

"Put it here, in the devil's name, put it here!"

There wasn't a one who didn't drink twenty-Svc or thirty hogsheads; and do you know how? "Sicut terra sine
aqua" ["Like earth without water," Proverbs .16]; for it was hot, and moreover, they had raised a thirst.

As regards the exposition of the propositions set forth by Thaumaste, and the meaning of the signs they
used in debating, I would expound them to you according to their relations to one another, but I have been
told that Thaumaste made of them a great book, printed in London, in which he declares everything without
omitting a thing. Therefore I forbear for the present.




CHAPTER 21


How Panutge was smitten
by a great lady of Paris.


PANURGE began to get a reputation around the town of Paris for this disputation he maintained against the
Englishman, and from then on he put his codpiece to good use, and had it decorated with Roman style embroi-
dery. And people praised him publicly, and a song was written about him, which the little children would
sing going to pick up mustard,323 and he was welcome in all companies of ladies and gentlewomen, and thus he
became cocky, so much that he tried to give her comeuppance324 to one of the great ladies of the city. In fact,
leaving out a pile of long prologues and protestations ordinarily made by those sad and contemplative Lent-
lovers who don't touch flesh at all, he said to her one day:

"My lady, it would be most useful for the whole commonwealth, pleasurable for you, honorable to your line,
and necessary for me, that you should be covered by my breed;325 and take my word for it, for experience will
demonstrate it to you."

The lady, at this remark, set him back more than a hundred leagues, saying: "You crazy wretch, have you any
right to talk to me that way? Whom do you think you're talking to? Go away, never come near me again; for
but for one little thing, I'd have your arms and legs cut off."

"Well, now," said he, "it would be all the same to me to have my arms and legs cut off, on condition that
you and I should have a nice roll in the hay together, playing the stiff lowdown in-and-out game;326 for (show-
ing his long codpiece) here is Master Johnny Jumpup [Maistre Jean Jeudyl, who will sound you an antic dance
that you'll feel to the marrow of your bones. He's a lusty one, and so expert at finding out the little out-
of-the-way spots and swellings in and around the crotch and in the rat-trap that after him there's no need
for dusting."

To which the lady replied: "Be off, you wretch, be off. If you say one more word to me, I'll call my men and
have you beaten to a pulp right here."

"Oh," said he, "you're not as bad as you say, or I'm much mistaken in your physiognomy; for sooner would the
earth climb up to the heavens and the heavens descend into the abyss, and would the whole order of nature be
perverted, than that in such a great beauty and elegance as yours there should be one drop of gall or malice.
It is well said that hardly

Has there ever been a belle
Who was not unkind as well.
[Veit-on jamais femme belle
Qui aussi ne feust rebelle.]

But that is said about those common beauties. Yours is so excellent, so unique, so heavenly, that I believe
nature set it in you as a paragon to give us to understand how much she can do when she wants to employ all
her power and all her knowledge.

"All that is in you is nothing but honey, nothing but sugar, nothing but celestial manna.

"It is to you that Paris should have awarded the golden apple, not to Venus, or Juno, or Minerva; for never was
there so much magnificence in Juno, so much wisdom in Minerva, so much elegance in Venus, as there is in you.

"O celestial gods and goddesses, how happy will be the man to whom you grant that boon to embrace this lady,
to kiss her, and to rub his bacon with her. By God, that will be me, I see it clearly, for already she is madly
in love with me; I know it and am predestined for it by the Fates. So, to save time, let's push-thrust-straddle!"327

And he tried to embrace her, but she made as if to go to the window to call the neighbors for help. Then Pan-
urge soon left and said to her as he fled:

"My lady, wait for me here; I'll go fetch them myself, don't give yourself the trouble."

So off he went, without worrying very much about the refusal he had had, and had none the less fun for it.

The next day he was in the church at the time when she was going to mass. As she came in he gave her holy water,
bowing deeply before her; afterward he knelt down beside her familiarly and said to her:

"My lady, know that I'm so in love with you that I can't piss or shit. I don't know what you think about it; if some
harm came to me, how would things stand?"

"Go away," said she, "go away, it's no concern of mine; leave me alone here to pray to God."

"But," said he, "play inversions with A creek rises for a handsome punt [A Beaumont le Vicomte]."328

"I couldn't do that," said she.

"That," said he, "makes A prick rises for a handsome cunt [A beau con le vit monte]." And on that point, pray
God to give me what your noble heart desires, and of your mercy give me these paternoster beads."

"Here you are," said she, "and don't pester me any more."

This said, she tried to pull out her paternoster beads, which were of lemonwood, with big gold markers for eve-
ry ten. But Panurge promptly pulled out one of his knives and cut them off clean, and took them to the pawn-
shop, saying to her:

"Do you want my knife?"

"No, no," said she.

"But," said he, "apropos, it is quite at your command, body and gods, tripes and bowels."

Meanwhile the lady was not very happy about her paternosters, for that was one of her ways to keep in counte-
nance in church, and she was thinking: "This fine prattler is some braggart, a man from a foreign country; I'll
never get my paternoster beads back. What will my husband say to that? He'll get angry with me; but I'll tell
him that a robber cut them off of me in church, and he'll believe it easily when he sees the bit of ribbon
still at my belt."

After dinner Panurge went to see her, carrying in his sleeve a big purse full of law-court counters and tokens,
and started saying to her:

"Which of us two loves the other more, you me or I you?"

To which she replied: "As far as I'm concerned, I don't hate you, for, as God commands, I love everyone."

"But apropos," said he, "aren't you in love with me?"

"I've already told you ever so many times," said she, "not to talk to me that way any more; if you say any more
about it, I'll show you that I'm not the one for you to talk to in this dishonorable way. Get out of here, and
give me back my paternosters so my husband won't ask men for them."

"How's that, madame?" said he, "your paternosters? No I won't, on my youth;329 but I'm quite willing to give you
some others.

"Will you like some better in nicely enameled gold in the shape of great spheres or nice love-knots, or
else all massive like gold ingots? Or do yuu want them of ebony, or big hyacinths, great cut garnets, with
markers of fine turquoise or of lovely marked topazes, fine sapphires, or beautiful rubies with great markers
of twenty-four carat diamonds?

"No, no, that's too little. I know of a beautiful chaplet of fine emeralds, with markers of dappled ambergris,
at the clasp a giant Persian pearl as big as an orange! It costs only twenty-five thousand ducats, and I want
to make you a present of it, for I have enough ready cash for it."

And as he said this, he jingled his tokens together as if they were sun-crowns.

"Do you want a piece of bright crimson velvet dyed in scarlet, or a piece of embroidered or crimson-dyed satin?
Do you want chains, gilded jewelry, headbands, rings? All you have to do is say yes. Up to fifty thousand ducats,
that's nothing to me."

By virtue of these words he made her mouth water. But she said to him: "No, thank you; I want nothing from you."

"By God," said he, "Me, I want something from you, but it's some-thing that won't cost you anything, and you'll
have no less left. Look (showing his long codpiece), here is Master Peter Pecker [Maistre Jean Chouart] asking
for a nest."

And next he tried to embrace her; but she started screaming, however not too loud. Then Panurge turned his mask
around and said to her: "So you won't let me do my thing a bit any other way? Shit on you. You're not entitled
to such a gift or such honor; rather, by God, I'll have you ridden by the dogs!"

And, that said, he ran away at a good pace, for fear of blows, of which by nature he was afraid.



CHAPTER 22


How Panurge played a trick on the Parisian lady
that was not at all to her advantage.


Now note that the next day was the great holiday of Corpus Christi, on which all the women dress up in their
Sunday best, and for that day the said lady had put on a very beautiful gown of crimson satin, and a very pre-
cious white velvet petticoat. On the day before, Panurge searched high and low so hard that he found a bitch in
heat,330 which he tied with his belt and took into his room, and fed her very well on the said day and all night.
In the morning he killed her and cut out of her what the Greek geomancers know, and cut it in pieces as fine
as he could, and carried them off well concealed and went to where the lady was to go to follow the proces-
sion, as is the custom at the said festival; and when she came in, Panurge gave her holy water, greeting her
very courteously, and a little while after she had said her personal prayers, he goes and joins her in her pew
and gave her a rondeau in writing in the following form.331

RONDEAU

For this time when I dared to make my plea,
To you, fair one, I found you cold to me,
Driving me off with no hope of return,
In word or deed, by doubt or speech too free.
If you viewed my lament so hostilely,
Right to my face you could have said to me:
My friend, please take your leave; let us adjourn
For this one time.

Harmless I speak my mind thus candidly,
When I remonstrate to you how in me
The spark your beauty lights must ever burn;
For nothing do I ask, but that in turn
You tumble blithely into bed with me
For this one time.

And, just as she was opening the paper to see what it was, Panurge promptly strewed the drug he had over her in
various places, and especially in the folds of her sleeves and of her gown, then said to her:

"My lady, poor lovers are not always at ease. As for me, I hope that the bad nights, the torments and troubles
that the love of you keeps me in will serve for a deduction of so many pains in purgatory. At the very least
pray God that he give me patience in my plight."

Panurge had no sooner finished these words when all the dogs that were in the church ran up to this lady, for
the smell of the drug he had sprinkled over her. Great and small, stout and tiny, they all came, freeing up
their members, and sniffing her and pissing all over her. It was the dirtiest mess in the world.

Panurge chased them off just for a bit, then took his leave of her, and withdrew into a chapel to watch the
sport, for those nasty dogs pissed all over all her clothes, to the point where a big greyhound pissed on her
head, the others in her sleeves, the others on her crupper; and the little ones pissed on her shoes, so that
all the women around her had much to do to save her.

And Panurge kept right on laughing, and said to one of the lords of the city: "I think that lady is in heat,
or else some greyhound has covered her recently.'

And when he saw that all the dogs were busy growling over her as they do around a bitch in heat, he left there
and went to fetch Pantagruel.

In all the streets where he found dogs, he gave them a kick and said: "Aren't you going to the wedding with your
friends? Come on, come on, devil take you, come on!"

And on arrival at their lodging, he said to Pantagruel: "Master, I beg you, come and see all the dogs in the
and gathered around a lady, the fairest in this town, and they want to ride her."

To which Pantagruel readily agreed, and saw the show, which he found very fine and novel.

''But the good part was the procession, in which were to be seen over six hundred thousand and fourteen dogs
around her, giving her a thou-sand annoyances; and everywhere she passed, newcomer dogs followed in her tracks,
pissing along the roadway where her clothes had touched.

Everybody stopped at this spectacle, watching the antics of those dogs, who jumped up as high as her neck and
ruined all those fine accouterments for her; to which she could find no remedy except to retire into her house,
and dogs kept going after and she kept hiding, and chambermaids kept laughing.

When she had gone into her house and closed the door after her, all the dogs came running up from half a league
around, and so sturdily bepissed the door of her house that they made a stream of their urines that ducks could
have swum in, and it's that stream that now passes by Saint-Victor, in which Gobelin dyes his scarlet, for the
specific virtue of these pisshounds, as was once preached publicly by our master d'Onbus.

So help you God, a mill could have milled with it; however, not as much as those of the Bazacle in Toulouse.



CHAPTER 23


How Pantagruel left Paris,
hearing news that the Dipsodes were invading
the land of the Amaurots,
and the reason why the leagues
are so short in France.


Ashort time after, Pantagruel heard that his father Gargantua had been translated to Fairyland by Morgan, as were
Ogier and Arthur of old; likewise that on hearing the report of this translation, the Dipsodes had burst out of
their boundaries and laid waste a large area of Utopia, and were holding besieged the great city of the Amaurots.
So he left Paris without saying good-bye to anyone, for the matter was urgent, and came to Rouen.

Along the way, when Pantagruel saw that the leagues in France were much too short, compared to other countries, he
asked Panurge the reason for this; and he told him a story that Marotus du Lac, monk, puts in the Deeds of the
Kings of Canarre, saying that:

"In olden times, countries were not measured in leagues, miles, stadia, or parasangs, until King Pharamond divided
them up, which was done in the following manner: he picked up in Paris a hundred handsome sprightly young blades,
good and purposeful, and a hundred beautiful Picard wenches, had them well feasted and entertained, then summoned
them and to each lad give his wench, with expense money, ordering them to go to various places this way and that,
and at every point where they corked their wenches they should put up a stone, and that could be one league.

"The lads set out joyously, and because they were fresh and rested, they friggle-flaggled at every little field,
and that is why the leagues in France are so short.

"But when they had traveled a long way, and were already tired as poor devils, and there was no more oil in their
lamp, they didn't sup as often. and were quite content (I mean of course the men) with one lousy little time a
day. And that is what makes the leagues so long in Brittany, in Les Landes, in Germany and other more distant
lands. Others propose other reasons; but that one seems the best to me."

To which Pantagruel readily agreed. Leaving Rouen, they arrived in Honfleur, where there put out to sea Panta-
gruel. Panurge. Epistemon. Eusthenes, and (:arpolim. At which place, while waiting for a propitious wind and
calking their ship, Fatitagruel received from a lady of Faris (who he had been close to for a good length of
time) a letter addressed at the top:

"To the best beloved of the fair, and she least faithful of the valiant, P. N. T. G. IL. L."



CHAPTER 24


A letter that a messenger brought
to Pantagniel from a lady of Paris,
and the explanation of a phrase
inscribed in a gold ring.


WHEN Pantiguel had read the address, he was quite appalled, and asking the messenger the name of the woman
who had sent it, he opened the letter, and found nothing written in it. but only a gold ring with a flat-cut diamond.
Then he called Panurge and showed him the thing.

At which Panurge said to him that the sheet of papei was written on. but in such a subtle fashion that you
couldn't see any writing.

And to find this out, he held it to the fire, to see if the writing was done with sal amnuiniac slaked with
water.'332

Then he put it in water, to see if the letter was written with tithynul juice.

Then he held it in front of a candle. if it wasn't written with the juice of white onions.

Then he rubbed part of it with walnut oil, to see if it was not written with fig-tree lye.

Then he rubbed part of it with milk from a woman nursing her firstborn daughter. to see if it was not written
with toad's blood.

Then he rubbed a corner with the ashes of a swallow's nest, to see if it was written with the juice found in
winter-cherries.

Then he rubbed another edge with ear wax, to see if it was written with crow's gall.

Then he dipped it in vinegar, to see if it was written with spurge juice.

Then he oiled it with bat grease, to see if it was written with whale sperm that is called ambergris.

Then he put it very gently in a basin of cold water and promptly pulled it out, to see if it was written with
stone alum.

And, seeing that he couldn't make out anything, he called the messenger and asked him: "Mate, didn't the lady
who sent you here give you a stick to carry?" thinking it was the trick that Aulus Gellius relates.

And the messenger answered him: "No, sir."

Then Panurge wanted to have the man's head shaved, to find out if the lady had someone write in strong ink on
his shaven head what we wanted to send. But, seeing that his hair was very long, he left off considering that
in so short a time his hair wouldn't have grown so long.

Then he said to Pantagruel: "Master. by God's virtues. I don't know what to do or say about it. To find out
whether there is anything written here, I have employed part of what is set down about it by Messere Francesco
di Nianto, the Tuscan, who wrote on the way to read invisible letters, and what Zoroaster writes, Peri grammato
acriton [On ill-disatinguishable letters], and Calpurnius Bassus, Dr literus illegibilibus [On unreadable let-
ters]; but I can't see a thing there, and I think there's nothing else but the ring. Now let's see it."

Then, looking at it, they found written inside in Hebrew:

　　　　　　　　LAMAH HAZABATHANI333

So they called Epistenion and asked him what they meant. To which he replied that they were Hebrew worth sig-
nifying: "Why hest thou forsaken me?" Whereupon Panurge promptly replied:

"I understand the case. Do you see this diamond? It's a fake diamond. So this is the explanation of what the
lady means;

　　　　　　Say, false lover,334 why hag thou forsaken me?

Which explanation Pantagrucl promptly understood, and he remembered how, on leaving, he had not said farewell
to the lady; and it sad-dened him, and he would have been inclined to return to Paris to snake his peace with
her. But Episthnon brought back to his mind the parting of Aeneas from Dido, and the remark of Heraclides of
Tarenmm that when the ship is at anchor and there is an emergency, it is better to cut the rope than to lose
time untying it. and that he should leave aside all other thoughts and get on to his native city, which was
in danger.

Indeed, an hour later the wind arose known as north-northwest, no which they sec kill sails, and took to the
open sea, and in a few days, passing by Porto Santo and Madera, they put in at the Canary Islands.

Leaving there, they passed by Cape Blanco, Senegal, Cape Verde, by Gambia. by Sages, by Melli, by the Cape of
Good Hope, and went ashore in the kingdom of Melinda.335

On leaving there, they set sail to the Transmontane [north] wind, passing by Meden, Ud, Udem, Gelasim, the
islands of the Fairies, and near the kingdom of Achoria; finally they arrived at the port of Utopia, three
leagues and a little more away front the city of the Amaurots.

When they were on land and a litde bit refreshed, Pantagruel said: "Lads. the city is not far from here.
Before we go any further, it would be well to deliberate about what is to be done, so as not to be like the
Athenians, who never consulted unless after the fact. Are you resolved to live and die with me?"

"Yes, Lord." they all said, "rest assured of us as of your own fingers."

"Now, then," said he, "there is just one point that kccps me in suspense and doubtful: this is. that I don't
know in what order and what number are the enemies who are holding the city besieged; for, if I knew that,
I would go ahead with greater assurance. Therefore let's confer together on the way we can find it out."

To which they all said together:

"Let us go see, and you wait for us here; for, with all of today, we'll bring you back certain information."

"I," said Panurge, "undertake to enter into their camp through the midst of the guards and the watch, and
feast with them and thrust [screw] at their expense. without being recognized by anyone; to inspect their
artillery., and all the captains' tents, and strut past their troops, and never be found out.

The devil himself could not outsmart me, for I'm of the lineage of Zopyrus."336

"I" said Epistemon, "know all the stratagems and exploits of the valiant captains and champions of times
past, and all the ruses and nicks of military science. IT go, and even if I should he discovered and found
out, I will escape by making them believe whatever I please about me, for I am of the lineage of Sinon."337

"I" said Eusthenes• "will enter right through their trenches. in spite of the watch and all the guards.
for I'll pass over their bellies and break their arms and legs, were they as strong as the devil, for I
am of the lineage of Hercules."

"I," said Carpalim, will get in there if the birds get in. For my body is so nimble that I will have leapt
over their trenches and cut on through beyond their whole camp before they've noticed me, and I have no
fear of either dart or arrow, or horse, however swift, even were it Persius's Pegasus's. or Pacolet's,
and I'll escape safe and sound ahead of them. I undertake to tread on the sheaves of wheat or the grass
of the meadows without its bending under me. for I am of the lineage of Camilla the Amazon."



CHAPTER 25


How Panurge, Carpalint, Eusthenes, Epistanon,
PantagruePs companions, very subtly
defeated six hundred and sixty knights.


AS he was saying that, they caught sight of six hundred and sixty knights advantageously mounted on light
steeds, who were running up to see what ship it was that had newly arrived in port. and were riding at top
speed, to capture them if they could have.

Then said Patuagruel: "Lads, pull back into the ship. See, here are some of our enemies coming on the run;
but I'll up and kill them here and now like animals, even were they ten times as many. Meanwhile pull back in,
and enjoy the show."

Then Panurge replied: "No, My Lord, it's not right for you to do that; but instead you pull back into the
ship, you and the others, for I'll undo them all alone; but we mustn't delay. You there, forward!"

At which the others said: "That's well said, My Lord, you pull back, and we'll help Panurge here, and you'll
find out what we can do."

Thereupon Pantagruel said: "All right, I'm willing; but in case you should be the weaker, I'll not fail
you."

Then Panurge pulled two great ropes out of the ship and attached them to the capstan on the main deck and
put them on land and made of them two long hoops, the one reaching further, the other inside it, and said
to Epistemon:

"Go on into the ship, and when I give you the signal, turn the capstan on the main deck hard and fast so
as to pull in the two ropes to you."

Then he said to Eusthenes and Carpalim: "Lads, wait here, and present yourselves freely to the enemy and
obey them, and make as if to surrender. But watch that you don't go inside the circle of those ropes;
keep pulling back outside."

And promptly he went inside the ship, and took a load of straw and a barrel of gunpowder and spread them
over the space enclosed by the ropes, and stood by with a firebrand.

Suddenly the horsemen arrived in full force, and the first ones charged up close to the ship, and because
the bank was slippery, they fell, they and their horses, to the number of forty-four. Seeing which, the
others approached, thinking they had met resistance on arrival. But Panurge said to them:

"Gentlemen, I think you hurt yourselves; pardon us, for it's not our doing, but the slipperiness of the
sea water, which is always oily. We surrender to your good pleasure."

So also said his two companions and Epistemon, who was on the main deck.

Meanwhile Panurge was moving away, and, seeing that they were all within the loop of the ropes, and that
his two companions had moved away from it, making room for all these knights, who were crowding up to see
the ship and who was in it, suddenly shouted to Epistemon: "Pull! Pull!"

Then Epistemon started to pull on the capstan, and the two ropes became entangled among the horses and
threw them all to the ground quite easily with the horsemen; but they, seeing this, tugged at their swords
and tried to cut them, whereupon Panurge sets the fire to the train, and had them all burned there like
damned souls. Men and horses, not a one escaped, except one who was mounted on a Turkish horse, who got
away in flight; but when Carpalim noticed him, he ran after him so fast and nimbly that he caught him in
less than a hundred paces, and, vaulting onto the crupper of his horse, clutched him from the rear and
brought him to the ship.

This defeat completed, Pantagruel was very joyous, and showered wondrous praise on the ingenuity of his
companions, and had them refresh themselves and joyfully feed well upon the bank and drink their fill un-
til their bellies touched the ground, and their prisoner with them like one of the family, except that
the poor devil was not sure that Pantagruel would not devour him whole, which he could have done, his
throat was so wide, as easily as you would a little sugar candy, and he wouldn't have measured any higher
in his mouth than a grain of millet in a donkey's gullet.



CHAPTER 26


How Pantagruel and his companions
were fed up with eating salt meat,
and how Carpalim went hunting
to get some venison.


AND so, as they were banqueting, Carpalim said: "Hey, by Saint Quenet's belly, shan't we ever eat venison?
This salt meat completely parches me. I'm going to bring you a thigh of one of those horses we got burned;
it will be well enough roasted."

Just as he was getting up to do this, he spied at the edge of the woods a fine big roebuck, which had come
out of the heavy growth, in my opinion, when it saw Panurge's fire. Instantly he ran after it so hard that
he seemed like a bolt shot from a crossbow, and caught it in an instant, and as he ran caught in his hands
out of the air:

Four great bustards,
Seven bitterns,
Twenty-six gray partridges,
Thirty-two red ones,
Sixteen pheasants,
Nine woodcocks,
Nineteen herons,
Thirty-two ringdoves.

And with his feet he killed ten or twelve young hares and rabbits, some of each, who at the time were past
pageship,

Eighteen coots, paired together,
Fifteen young wild boars,
Two badgers,
Three big foxes.

So, striking the roebuck across the head with his scimitar, he killed it, and, bringing it in, he collect-
ed his hares, coots, and young wild boars, and shouted out from as far away as he could be heard, saying:

"Panurge, my friend, vinegar! vinegar!"

Whereas good old Pantagruel thought he had a pain in the heart and ordered him to be brought vinegar. But
Panurge quite understood that there was hare on the hook; indeed, he showed the noble Pantagruel how Carp-
alim was bearing a fine roebuck on his neck and had his whole belt studded with hares.

Promptly Epistemon made, in the name of the nine Muses, nine fine old-style wooden spits; Eusthenes helped
skin, and Panurge set two battle saddles with the armor of the knights in such an arrangement that they
served as andirons, and made their prisoner the turnspit, and roasted their venison in the fire in which
the knights burned.

And afterward, great feasting with vinegar aplenty. The devil to anyone who held back. It was a triumph
just to see them guzzle.

Then said Pantagruel: "Would God each of you had two pairs or sparrowhawk's jingles on your chin and I had
on mine the great chimes of Rennes, Poitiers, Tours, and Cambrai, to see the aubade we would give by the
chomping of our chops."

"But," said Panurge, "we'd-be-tter think about our business a bit, and thereby we'll be able to give our
enemies their comeuppance."

"That's good advice," said Pantagruel.

Therefore he asked the prisoner: "My friend, tell us the truth, and don't lie to us about anything, if
you don't want to be skinned alive, for I'm the one who eats little children. Tell us in full the order,
number, and strength of the army."

To which the prisoner replied: "My Lord, know for the truth that in the army area three hundred giants,
all armed with freestone, wondrous big, however not quite as big as you, except for one who is their
leader and is named Werewolf, and he is wholly armed with Cyclopean anvils; a hundred and sixty-three
thousand foot soldiers, all armed with goblin skins,338 strong courageous men; eleven thousand four hun-
dred men-at-arms; three thousand six hundred double cannons and countless siege artillery; ninety-four
thousand pioneers; a hundred and fifty thousand whores, lovely as goddesses."

"That's for me," said Panurge . . .

"Some of whom are Amazons, Oilers from Lyons, others from Paris, Touraine, Anjou, Poitou, and Normandy,
Germany; of all lands and all tongues there are some."

"Yes," said Pantagruel, "but is the king there?"

"Yes, Sire," said the prisoner, "he is here in person, and we call him Anarche, king of the Dipsodes,
which amounts to saying the Thirsties, for you never saw people so parched or drinking more readily,
and his tent is under the guard of the giants.",

"Good enough," said Pantagruel, "Up, lads, are you ready to come at it with me?"

To which Panurge answered: "God confound any man who deserts you! I've already figured how I'll kill
them all dead as pigs for you, so not one will get his hamstring free of the devil; but I am a bit
worried about one thing."

"And what's that?" said Pantagruel.

"It's how," said Panurge, "I'll be able to get the time to impale the whores who are there during this
after-dinner time, so that not one will escape without my beating her drum in the usual manner."

"Ha, ha ha," said Pantagruel.

And Carpalim said: "To the devil of Biterne! By God, I'll stuff some of them!"

"And I," said Eusthenes, "how about me, who haven't got mine up since we moved out of Rouen, at least
so that the needle climbed up to ten or eleven o'clock, and that even though mine is hard and strong
as a hundred devils?"

"Indeed," said Panurge, "you shall have some of the plumpest and best rounded."

"How's this?" said Epistemon, "everyone's going to bestraddle and I'm to lead the donkey? Devil take
whoever does any such thing. We'll use the rights of war: Qui potest capere capiat [Catch as catch can]."

"No, no," said Panurge, "but tie your donkey to a hook and straddle like the rest."

And good old Pantagruel laughed at everything, then said to them: "You're counting without your host.
I'm much afraid that before night-fall, I'll see you in a state where you won't have much desire to
get a hard on, and where you'll be ridden down with great blows of pike and lance."

"Enough," said Epistemon, "I'll give them to you ready to roast or boil, to fricassee or put in a pas-
try. They are not in such great number as Xerxes had, for he had three hundred thousand fighters, if
you believe Herodotus and Trogus Pompeius, and nevertheless Themistocles undid them with a few. Don't
worry, for Heaven's sake!"

"Shit, shit, shit," said Panurge. "My codpiece alone will dust off the men, and Saint Ballhole [Sainct
Balletrou], who resides in it, will scour out all the women."

"Then up an' arem, lads," said Pantagruel; "let's get on the march."



CHAPTER 27


How Pantagruel set up a trophy
in memory of their exploits,
and Panurge another in memory of the hares.
How Pantagruel of his farts engendered the
little men, and of his fizzles the little women,
and how Panurge broke a big stick
over two glasses.


"BEFORE we leave here," said Pantagruel, "in memory of the exploits you performed just now, I want to
set up a trophy in this place."

So each and every one of them, in great delight and with little village songs, set up a great lance,
on which they hung: one little saddle, one horse's headpiece, bosses, stirrup, leathers, spurs, a coat
of mail, a suit of steel armor, a battle-axe, a broad-sword, a gauntlet, a mace, gussets, greaves, a
gorget, and so for all the apparatus required for a triumphal arch or a trophy.

Then in eternal remembrance, Pantagruel wrote the victory inscription as follows:

'Twas here the valor was made manifest
Of four stout heroes, resolute and bold,
Who in good sense, if not in armor dressed,
Like Scipios or Fabius of old,
Six hundred sixty knights did seize and hold,
And burned them up, as easily as straws.
The lesson, kings and pawns, I now unfold.
Wit conquers might; that's one of nature's laws.
To win the prize
Not in us lies.
Our Master still
High in the skies,
Hid from our eyes,
Moves to fulfill,
Not for the great or strong, His holy will,
But for his chosen, we must realize.
So wealth and honor shall his cup o'erfill
Whose prayer to God in faith and hope shall rise.

While Pantagruel was writing the aforesaid verses, Panurge set on a high stake the horns of the roebuck
and the skin and right forefoot of it; then the ears of three young hares, the saddle of a rabbit, the
jawbones of a hare, the wings of two bitterns, the feet of two ringdoves, a flagon of vinegar, a horn
where they put the salt, their wooden spit, a larding stick, a miserable caldron all full of holes, a
saucepan, an earthenware salt box, and a Beauvais goblet.

And in imitation of Pantagruel's verses and trophy, wrote what follows:

Here were the foes set on their ass to rest
Right merrily, by four good men and bold,
That we might feast Lord Bacchus with the best,
Meanwhile drinking like fish wine clear and cold,
Saddle and rump of hare, together rolled,
Soon were engulfed in feasters' hungry maws,
Followed by salt and vinegar, we're told,
And scorpions for corresponding cause.
When summer fries,
With burning skies,
To drink our fill,
For cool is wise,
In any size,
This fills the bill.
And eating hare can make you ill,
Sans vinegar to spice the prize.
Vinegar makes it what you will;
A lesson you must memorize.

Then said Pantagruel: "Come, lads, there's too much thinking about food; one hardly sees it happen that
great banqueters perform fine feats of arms. There's no shade like that of banners, stream like that of
(sweating) horses, and clattering like that of armor."

At this Epistemon started smiling and said: "There's no shade like that of a kitchen, no steam like that
of pies, and clattering like that of cups."

To which Panurge responded: "There's no shade like that of bed curtains, no steam like that of tits, and
clattering like that of ballocks."

Then, on getting up, he let a fart, gave a jump and a whistle, and shouted loud and joyously: "Long live
Pantagruel!"

Seeing this, Pantagruel tried to do as much; but from the fart he let the earth trembled for nine leagues
around, and from this and the befouled air he begat more than fifty-three thousand little men, deformed
dwarfs, and with a fizzle he loosed he begat as many stooped little women, such as you see in many places,
who never grow unless, like cows' tails, downward, or like Limousin turnips, in a circle.

"How's this?" said Panurge, "are your farts this fruitful? By the Lord, here are fine gym-shoe men, and
fine fizzle women; we must get them to marry one another, and they'll engender horse flies.

Which Pantagruel did, and called them Pygmies, and set them to live in an island near there, where they
have multiplied greatly since; but the cranes continually make war on them, from whom they defend them-
selves courageously, for those little bits of men, whom in Scotland they call currycomb handles, are apt
to be choleric. The physical reason for this is that they have their heart near the shit.

At this same time Panurge took two glasses of the same size that were there, and filled them with all the
water they could hold, and put one on one stool and the other on another, separating them by a distance
of five feet; then took a javelin shaft about five and a half feet long and put it on top of the two glass-
es, so that the two ends of the shaft just touched the edges of the glasses. That done, he took a big
stake, and said to Pantagruel and the others:

"Gentlemen, watch and see how easily we shall gain victory over our enemies, for, even as I shall break
this shaft over the glasses without the glasses being in the least broken or cracked, indeed, what is
more, without a single drop of water spilling out, just so we shall break the heads of our Dipsodes with-
out one of us being wounded and without losing any of our property. But so you may not think there is any
enchantment, look, he said to Eusthenes, hit it as hard as you wish in the middle with this stake."

Which Eusthenes did, and the shaft broke cleanly into two pieces without a drop of water spilling from
the glasses.

Then he said: "I know lots of others; let's just go ahead with confidence."



CHAPTER 28


How Pantagruel won the victory
very strangely over the Dipsodes and giants.


AFTER. all this talk, Pantagruel called their prisoner and sent him back, saying: "Go on away to your
king and his camp, and tell him news of what you have seen, and to make up his mind to offer me a feast
around noon tomorrow; for as soon as my galleys have arrived, which will be tomorrow morning at the lat-
est, I'll prove to him by eighteen hundred thousand combatants and seven thousand giants, all bigger
than I am as you see me, that he acted madly and against reason to up and attack my country this way."

Wherein Pantagruel pretended to have an army at sea. But the prisoner replied that he surrendered as
his slave and was content never to return to his own people, but rather to fight with Pantagruel against
them, and asked him, in God's name, to permit it.

To which Pantagruel would not consent, but ordered him to leave shortly and go as he had said, and
gave him a box full of euphorbium and chameleon thistle grains stewed inrandy into a sort of compote,
ordering him to take it to his king and tell him that if he could eat one ounce of it without a drink,
he could resist him without fear:

Thereupon the prisoner, with clasped hands, implored him that at the time of his battle he should have
pity on him. Thereupon Pantagruel said to him:

"After you've announced everything to your king, put all your hope in God, and He will not forsake you;
for as for me, although I am strong, as you can see, and have an infinity of men in arms, nevertheless
I hope not in my strength or my diligence, but all my trust is in God, my protector, Who never forsakes
those who have put their hope and their thought in Him."

That done, the prisoner asked him to make a reasonable arrangement regarding his ransom. To which Pant-
agruel replied that his purpose was not to pillage or ransom human beings, but to enrich and reform them
in complete liberty:

"Go your way.,"said he, "in the peace of the living God, and never follow bad company, lest ill befall you."

The prisoner gone, Pantagruel said to his men: "Lads, I gave this prisoner to understand that we have an
army at sea, and withal that we would make an attack on them only tomorrow around noon, with the purpose
that they, fearing the great arrival of men, should keep busy tonight setting things in order and putting
up their ramparts; but meanwhile my intention is for us to charge upon them around the time of the first
sleep."

Let us leave Pantagruel and his followers and talk of King Anarche and his army. When the prisoner had
arrived, he betook himself before the king and told him how there had come a great giant, Pantagruel,
who had undone and cruelly roasted the six hundred and fifty-nine knights, and he alone had escaped to
bring the news; moreover, he had been charged by the said giant to tell him that he should prepare din-
ner for him the next day around noon, for he was planning to attack him at the said hour.

Then he gave him that box in which were the preserves. But the instant he had swallowed a spoonful,
his throat was so badly burned, and his palate so ulcerated, that his tongue peeled, and, no matter what
remedy they gave him, he could find no relief except to drink without letup; for as soon as he took the
goblet from his mouth, his tongue would burn. Therefore all they did was pour wine down his throat with
a funnel.

Seeing which, all his captains, pashas, and guards tasted the said drugs to see if they were so thirst-
provoking; but the same thing happened to them as to their king. And they all plied the pot so well that
the rumor went around the whole camp how the prisoner was back and the next day they were to sustain an
attack, and that the king and captains, together with the guardsmen, were already preparing for this,
and that by drinking the barrels dry. Therefore each and every man in the army began swilling, guzzling,
and tippling to match. In short, they drank so well and so much that they fell asleep like pigs, without
order, throughout the camp.

Now let's go back to good old Pantagruel and tell how he behaved in this affair.

Setting out from the location of the troth, he took the mast of their ship in his hand like a pilgrim's
staff, and put inside its scuttle two hundred and thirty-two puncheons of white Anjouwine, out of his
stock brought from Rouen, and attached to his belt the ship, chockfull of salt, as easily as the lansque-
nets carry their little basket and thus set out on his way with his comrades. When he was near the enemy's
camp, Panurge said to him:

"Lord, do you want to do something nice? Take this Anjou white wine out of the scuttle and let's have a
real drink here Breton-fashion."

With which Pantagruel readily went along, and they drank up so clean that" not one single drop remained
of the two hundred and thirty-seven puncheons, except one leather bottle from Tours, which Panurge fill-
ed for himself, for he called it his Vade mecum [Go with me], and a few wretched dregs for vinegar.

When they had had good tugs at the jug, Panurge gave Pantagruel some devilish concoction of drugs to eat
composed of lithontripon [a stonebreaker], nephrocatharticon [a kidney purge], quince preserves with can-
tharides, and other diuretics: That done, Pantagruel said to Carpalim:

"Go inside the town, climbing up the wall like a rat, as you well know how to do, and tell them that at
this moment they are to make a sortie and charge upon the enemy as hard as they can; and, that once said,
come down taking a lighted torch with you, wherewith you shall set on fire all the tents and pavilions
in the camp. You are to shout as loud as you can with your great voice, and leave the said camp."

"Yes," said Carpalim, "but would it be a good thing for me to spike all their artillery?"

"No, no," said Pantagruel, "but set fire to their powder stores."

Obedient to this, Carpalim left immediately and did as had been decreed by Pantagruel, and all the com-
batants who were in the town made a sortie out of it. And, when he had set fire throughout the tents and
pavilions, he passed lightly over them without their feeling any hint of it, so deeply were they snoring
and sleeping. He came to the place where , the artillery was and set fire to their munitions (but that
was the danger). The fire caught so instantaneously that it almost burned poor Carpalim, and had it not
been for his wondrous rapidity, he was fricasseed like a pig; but he got away so vigorously that a bolt
shot from a crossbow does not fly faster.

When he was outside the trenches, he shouted so frightfully that it seemed that all the devils were un-
chained. At which sound the enemy awoke--but do you know in what shape?--as stupefied as at the first
sound of Matins, which in the Lucon region they call ball-rub [frotte couille].

Meanwhile, Pantagruel started scattering the salt he had in his boat, and, because they were sleeping with
their jaws open and gaping, he filled their entire throats with it, so much so that these poor devils were
coughing like foxes and shouting:

"Ah Pantagruel, you're really heating up our embers!"

Suddenly Pantagruel got the urge to piss, because of the drugs that Panurge had given him, and he pissed
in the middle of their camp, so well and copiously that he drowned them all; and there was a special flood
for ten leagues around. And the story relates that if his father's big mare had been there and had pissed
likewise, there would have been a greater flood than Deucalion's, for she never once pissed but that she
made a stream greater than are the Rhone and the Danube.

Seeing which those who had come out of the town said: "They've all died cruelly, see the blood flow."

But they were wrong about it, thinking, of Pantagruel's urine, that it was the enemy's blood; for they saw
it only by the firelight from the tents, and some slight bit of brightness from the moon.

The enemy, on waking up, seeing on the one--hand the fire in their camp, and on the other the urinary de-
luge and flood, didn't know what to say or do. Some said it was the end of the world and the Last Judg-
ment, which is to be consummated by fire; others, that the sea gods, Neptune, Proteus, Tritons, and others,
were persecuting them, and that in fact it was salt sea water.

O, who can relate how Pantagruel bore himself against the three hundred giants? O my muse, my Calliope,
my Thalia, inspire me at this moment, restore to me my spirits,jnere is the pons asinorum [ass's bridge]
of logic, here is the pitfall, here is the difficulty of succeeding in expressing the horrible battle that
was fought.

If I had my wish, might I now have a vial of the best wine ever drunk by those who will read this most
veracious history!



CHAPTER 29


How Pantagruel defeated the three hundred giants
armed with freestone and their captain Werewolf.


THE giants, seeing that their whole camp was drowned, carried off their king, Anarche, around their neck,
the best they could, out of the fort, as did Aeneas with his father Anchises at the time of the burning
of Troy [Aeneid 1.866 ff., 2.975 And when Panurge caught sight of them, he said to Pantagruel:

"Lord see there the giants have come out: beat on them with your mast, gallantly, with the old-style sword-
play, for now's the time when you must show yourself a man of mettle. And for our part we shall not fail
you. And I'll boldly kill a lot of them for you. For why not? David certainly killed Goliath easily. And
then that ,great lecher Eusthenes, who's as strong as four oxen, won't spare himself; Take courage, cut
right through them slash and thrust."

Then said Pantagruel: "For courage, I have over fifty francs' worth. But what of it! Hercules never dared
take on two against one."

"That," said Panurge, "is so much shit in my nose. Are you comparing yourself with Hercules? You, by God,
have more strength in your teeth and more sense in your ass than Hercules ever had in his entire body and
soul. A man is as good as he thinks he is."

As they were saying these words, here comes Werewolf with all his giants; and he, seeing Pantagruel all a-
lone, was overcome by rashness and arrogance in his hope of slaying the poor guy. So he said to his com-
panion giants:

"You lowland lechers, by Mahomet, if any one of you tries to fight against these two, I'll give him a
cruel death! I want you to let me fight alone; meanwhile you'll have your fun watching us."

Then all the giants drew back with their king nearby, where the flagons were, and with them Panurge and
his companions; he was making like someone with the pox, twisting his neck and wringing his hands; and in
a hoarse voice he said: "I swear to God, mates, we're not at war. Give us something to eat, while our mas-
ters fight it out."

To which the king and his men consented, and had them banquet with them. Meanwhile Panurge was busy tell-
ing the Turpin stories339 and exempla of Saint Nicholas; Mother Goose stories [le conte de la Ciguoingne].

So Werewolf came at Pantagruel with an all-steel mace weighing nine thousand seven hundred quintals [hun-
dred-weights] and two quarterns, all of Chalybean steel, on the end of which were thirteen diamond points,
the least of which was as big as the greatest bell of Notre-Dame de Paris; it may peradventure have been
short of this by a nail's breadth, or, lest I-misstate, by the back of one of those knives they call "ear-
cutters" [couppe aureille], but for a bit, neither front nor back--and it was enchanted, so that it could
never break, and whatever he touched it with immediately broke. So therefore, as he came near in all his
great pride, Pantagruel, raising his eyes to heaven, with all his heart commended himself to God, making
a vow as follows:

"Lord God, Who hast always been my Protector and Savior, Thou seest the distress I am now in. Nothing brings
me here but natural zeal; as Thou hast vouchsafed to humans to guard and defend themselves, their wives,
children, country, and family in a case where it would not be Thy affair, which is faith; for in such mat-
ters Thou wilt have no collaborator but that of Catholic confession and service of Thy Word, and Thou hast
forbidden us all other arms and defenses, for Thou art the Almighty, Who, in Thine own affair and where
Thy cause is involved, canst defend Thyself far more than can be supposed, Thou Who hast a thousand thou-
sands of hundreds of millions of legions of angels, the least of whom can slay all humans and turn heaven
and earth as he pleases, as clearly appeared long ago with Sennacherib's army_ [2 Kings 19.35]. So if Thou
art pleased at this point to come to my aid, I vow to Thee that throughout all lands, both in this country
of Utopia and others, where I have power and authority, I will have Thy Gospel preached pure, simple, and
entire, so that the abuses of a bunch of hypocrites [papelars] and false prophets, who, by human institu-
tions and depraved inventions, have envenomed the whole world, will be driven forth from around me."

Then was heard a voice from heaven, saying: Hoc fac et vinces, that is to say: "Thus do, and thou shalt
conquer."340

Then, when Pantagruel saw that Werewolf was approaching with jaws wide open, came against him boldly and
cried out all he could: "Death to you, villain! Death to you!" to give him a scare, as the Lacedaemonians taught
men to do, by his horrible cry. Then from his boat that he was wearing at his belt he threw at him eighteen
barrels and one minot of salt, with which he filled his throat and gullet, and his nose, and his eyes.

Irritated at this, Werewolf launched a blow with his mace against him, trying to knock out his brains. But
Pantagruel was smart, with a fast eye and feet: thus he took a step back with his left foot; but he didn't
manage well enough to keep the blow from falling on the boat, which shattered into four thousand and eighty-
six pieces and spilled out the rest of the salt on the ground.

Seeing this, Pantagruel gallantly reached out his arms and, in line with the art of the battle-axe, smashed
him full force with the big end of his mast above the nipple, and, drawing it back to the left, gave him a
slash between the neck and shoulders; then, putting his right foot forward, poked him a violent thrust in
the balls with the top point of his mast, at which the scuttle broke and poured out three or four puncheons
of leftover wine. Wherefore Werewolf thought he had cut open his bladder, and that the wine was his urine
coming out.

Not content with this, Pantagruel tried to hit him again with a glancing blow; but Werewolf; taking one step
forward, raised his mace and tried to bring it down on Pantagruel with all his might; and indeed hit so hard
with it that if God had not succored the good Pantagrucl, he would have split him in two from the top of
his had down to the depth of his spleen; but the blow went by on the right because of Pantagruel's swift
agility, and his mace plunged into the ground more than seventy-three feet through a great mass of rock
from which he struck out fire in a volume of over nine thousand and six tuns.

When Pantagruel saw that he was busied tugging at his mace, which was sticking fast in the earth amid the
rock, he runs up on him and tries to beat in his head decisively; but by bad fortune his mast just touched
Werewolfs mace, which (as we said before) was enchanted; and by that means his mast shattered three fingers
breadth from the handle, which left him more stunned than a bell founder,341 and he cried out;

"Hey, Panurge, where are you?"

Hearing which, Panurge said to the king and the giants; "By God! they'll hurt themselves if someone doesn't
separate them." But the giants were as cheerful as if they were wedding guests.

Then Carpalim tried to get up and help his master; but one giant said to him: "By Golfarim, nephew of Mahomet,
if you budge from here, I'll put you down in the bottom of my hose, as we do with a suppository! Anyway, I'm
constipated in my belly and can hardly cagar [shit], unless by dint of grinding my teeth."

Then Pantagruel, thus deprived of a stick, picked up the tip of his mast again, striking out at random right
and left on the giant; but he was doing him no more harm than you would by snapping your finger on a black-
smith's anvil.

Meanwhile Werewolf kept tugging his mace out of the ground, and had it already out and was making ready to
smite Pantagruel with it, who was quick in his moves and was sidestepping all his blows, until once seeing
Werewolf threatening him, saying "Villain, now I'm going to chop you into mincemeat, never again will you make
poor folks thirsty!"

Pantagruel gave him such a hard kick in the belly that he threw him on his back with his legs in the air, and
he up and dragged him around that way flay-ass further than a bowshot.

And Werewolf kept hollering, spitting up blood from his throat: "Mahom! Mahom! Mahom!"

At this cry the giants got up to help him. But Panurge told them: "Gentlemen, don't go there, if you'll listen
to me; for our master is insane, striking out in all directions and not looking. You'd come out of it badly."

But the giants took no heed, seeing that Pantagruel had no stick.

When he saw them coming, Pantagruel took Werewolf by both feet and raised his body in the air like a pike; and
with this armed with anvils, hit out among these freestone-armed giants, beat them down as a mason strikes off
chips of stone, and no one made a stand before him whom he did not knock to the ground. Whereby, at the shat-
tering of these stony suits of armor, such a horrible tumult was caused that there came back to my mind when
the great Butter Tower that used to be at Saint-Etienne in Bourges, melted in the sun. Meanwhile Panurge, and
with him Carpalim and Eusthenes, were slitting the throats of those who were struck to the ground.

You may rest assured that not one of them escaped; and Pantagruel, to see him, looked like a reaper who with
his scythe (that was Werewolf) was cutting down the grasses in a meadow (those were the giants) but in this
flailing Werewolf lost his head. That was when Pantagruel knocked down with it, one whose name was Gobblechit-
terling,342 who was heavily armed [arms; I hault appareill; that was with freestone, one splinter of which cut
all the way through Epistemon's throat; for otherwise the rest of them were lightly armed, that is to say with
tufa for some, for others slate.

Finally, seeing that they were all dead, he threw Werewolfs body as hard as he could against the city, and it
fell on the belly in the main square of the said city, and in its fall killed a burned tomcat, a soaked tabby-
cat, a field duck, and a bridled gosling.



CHAPTER 30


How Epistimon had his chop headed off,343
was cleverly cured by Panurge,
and how they got some news
of the devils and the damned.


THIS gigantic destruction completed, Pantagruel withdrew to the area of the flagons, and called Panurge and
the others, who came back to him safe and sound, except Epistemon, who did not show up at all, at which Pan-
tagruel was so woeful that he wanted to kill himself. But Panurge said to him:

"Come now, My Lord, wait a bit, and we'll look for him among the dad, and see the truth of the whole matter."

So then as they were looking, they found him stiff, stone dead, and his head between his arms, all bloody.
Then Eusthenes exclaimed:

"Ah! wicked death, you have snatched from us the most perfect of men!"

At which cry Pantagruel stood up, in the greatest grief ever seen in the world, and said to Panurge:

"Ah, my friend, the omen of your two glasses and javelin shaft was only too deceiving!"

But Panurge said: "Don't shed one tear, lads, for he's still all warm, and I'll cure him for you as healthy
as he ever was."

"So saying he took the head, and kept it warm in his codpiece, to keep it out of the wind. Eusthenes and Car-
palim carried the body to the spot where they had feasted, not in the hope that he would ever get well, but
so that Pantagruel should see it. However, Panurge kept comforting them, saying:

"If I don't make him well, I want to lose my head (which is a madman's wager)--leave of these tears and help
me."

Thereupon he cleaned off the neck, and then the head, very nicely with good white wine, and sprinkled on it
some quack dungpowder [pouldrc de cliamerdisl that he always carried in one of his pockets; after that he
anointed them with I know not what ointment; and he fitted them together precisely, vein to vein, sinew to
sinew, vertebra to vertebra, so that he should not be wrynecked (for such people he hated unto death). That
done, he took fifteen or sixteen stitches around it with a needle, so that it should not fall off again,
and then spread around it a little of an unguent that he called resuscitative.

Suddenly Epistemon began to breath, then to open his eyes, then yawn, then sneeze, then let a big household
fart. At which Panurge said: "Now he is certainly cured."

And he gave him a glass of strong crude white wine to drink, with a piece of sugared toast.

In this way Epistemon was cleverly cured, except that he was hoarse for over three weeks, and had a dry
cough, which he never could remedy except by dint of drinking.

And then and there he began to speak, saying that he had seen the devils, and had had a familiar chat with
Lucifer, and had a grand old time in hell and around the Elysian Fields, and he warranted, before us all,
that the devils were good company.

As regards the damned, he said he was very sorry that Panurge had called him back to life so soon: "For,"
said he, "I was having a wonderful time seeing them."

"How so?" said Pantagruel.

"They don't treat them," said Epistemon, "as badly as you'd think; but their status is changed in an extra-
ordinary way, for I saw Alexander the Great mending old breeches and earning his poor living that way.

Xerxes was hawking mustard,
Romulus was a salt vendor,
Numa, a nailsmith,
Tarquin a tacquin [penny-pincher),
Piso, a peasant,
Sulla, a ferryman,
Cyrus was a cowherd,
Themistocles a glazier,
Epaminondas, a maker of mirrors,
Brutus and Cassius, surveyors,
Demosthenes, a vine-dresser,
Cicero, a fire-kindler,
Fabius, a rosary-stringer,
Artaxerxes, a ropcmaker,
Aeneas, a miller,
Achilles, a scurvy wretch,
Agamemnon, a pot-licker,
Ulysses, a reaper,
Nestor, an ironmonger,
Darius, a privy-cleaner,
Ancus Martius, a calker,
Camillus, an errand boy,
Marcellus, a bean sheller,
Drusus, a blowhard,
Scipio Africanus was hawking lye in a clog,
Hasdrubal was a lantern maker,344
Hannibal, a poulterer,
Priam was selling old rags,

Lancelot of the Lake was a skinner of dead horses. All the Knights of the Round Table were poor day-laborers,
tugging on the oar to cross the rivers Cocytus, Phlcgcthon, Styx, Acheron, and Lethe when milords the devils
want to have some fun on the water, just like the boat-women of Lyon and the gondoliers of Venice; but for
each crossing they get nothing but a flick on the nose, and, toward evening, some scrap of moldy bread.

Trajan was a frog fisher,
Antoninus, a lackey,
Commodus, a worker in jet,
Pertinax, a walnut slider,
Lucullus, a roaster,
Justinian, a bauble maker,
Hector was a scullion,
Paris was a ragged wretch,
Achilles, a hay baler,345
Cambyses, a muleteer,
Artaxerxes, a pot scourer,

Nero was a fiddler, and Fierabras his valet; but he did Nero a thousand dirty tricks, and made him eat coarse
bread and turned wine, while he ate and drank of the best.
Julius Caesar and Pompey worked at tarring ships,
Julius Caesar and Pompey worked at tarring ships,
Valentin and Orson stoked the stoves of hell and were mask scrapers,
Giglan and Gawain were poor swineherds,
Geoffroy Sabertooth was a match vendor,
Godfrey of Bouillon, a wood engraver,
Jason was a bell ringer,
Don Pietro of Castille, a relic peddler,
Morgante, a beer brewer,
Huon of Bordeaux was a barrel hooper,
Pyrrhus, a scullery knave,
Antiochus was a chimney sweep,
Romulus was a cobbler of gym shoes,
Octavian, a paper scraper,
Nerva was a stable boy,
Pope Julius, a hawker of little pot-pies, but he no longer wore his buggerish beard,
Jean de Paris was a boot greaser,
Arthur of Britain cleaned grease off caps,
Perceforest, a firewood hauler,
Pope Boniface the Eighth was a pot skimmer,
Pope Nicholas the Third was a papermaker,
Pope Alexander was a rat catcher,
Pope Sinus, an anointer of poxies.

"How's that?" said Pantagruel, "are there poxies down there?"

"Yes, indeed," said Epistemon, "I never saw so many. For, take my word, those who haven't had the pox in this
world have it in the other."

"By Gar," said Panurge, "then I'm quit of it; for I've been into it all the way down the Hole of Gibraltar,
and filled the Pillars of Hercules, and brought down some of the ripest!"

Ogier the Dane was an armor furbisher,
King Tigranes was a roofer,
Galen Restored, a mole catcher,
The Four Sons of Aymon, tooth pullers,
Pope Calixtus was a cunt barber,
Pope Urban, a lard snatcher,
Melusine was a scullery maid,
Matabrune, a washerwoman,
Cleopatra, an onion peddler,
Helen, a placer of chambermaids,
Semiramis, a lice killer for vagabonds,
Dido was selling mushrooms,
Penthesilea peddled cress,
Lucrece was a nurse,
Hortensia, a flax spinner,
Livia, a scraper of verdigris.

In this way, those who had been great lords in this world earned their poor wretched slovenly living down there.
On the contrary, the philosophers and those who had been indigent iirthis world, down yonder were great lords
in their turn.

"I saw Diogenes strutting about in his finery, with a great purple robe and a scepter in his right hand, and he
was driving Alexander the Great crazy whenever he hadn't mended his breeches well, and paying him with great
whacks of his stick. I saw Epictetus dressed gallantly French style, under a lovely arbor, with ladies galore,
making merry, dancing, in any case living it up, and near him sun-crowns aplenty. And above the trellis were
written these words for his motto:

To hop, to skip, to dance and play,
To drink the good wine red and white,
And to do nothing else all day
But count your sun-crowns with delight.

"Then, when he saw me, he courteously invited me to dine with him, which I gladly did, and we toped theologi-
cally. Meanwhile Cyrus came by to ask him for a denier, in honor of Mercury, to buy a few onions for his sup-
per. 'No, nothing doing,' said Epictetus, 'I don't give deniers. Here, you rascal, here's a crown piece; now
be a good man.' Cyrus was very pleased to have come across such booty; but the other knavish kings who are
down there, like Alexander, Dariva, and others, stole it at night.

"I saw Pathelin, treasurer for Rhadamanthus, bargaining for some little pot pies that Pope Julius was hawking,
and he asked him

"'How much a dozen?'

"'Three half-sous,' said the pope.

"'Huh,' said Pathelin, 'three cracks with the stave! Give me some, you rogue. Give me some, and go get some
more.'

"The poor pope went away in tears. When he came before his pastrycook master, he told him someone had taken
his pot pies; whereupon the pastry-cook gave him a whipping, so well that his skin wouldn't have been any
use to make bagpipes.

"I saw Master Jean Lemaire impersonating the pope, and he had all those poor kings and popes of this world
kiss his feet; and putting on the dog [faisant du grobis], he gave them his blessing, saying:

"'Get your pardons, scoundrels, get them, they're cheap. I absolve you de pain et de souppe [of bread and
dips],346 and dispense you from ever being good for anything.'

"And he called Caillette and Triboulet, and said: 'My Lord Cardinals, dispatch their bulls: to each one a bang
on the loins with a pike.' Which was done immediately.

"I saw Master Francois Villon, who asked Xerxes: 'How much mustard is a denree [a denier's worth]?'

"'One denier,' said Xerxes. To which the said Villon said: 'A quartan fever to you, you rogue. A half-sous's
measure is worth only a copper denier, and here you go overcharging us for victuals.'347 Thereupon he pissed in
his spill-pail, as do the mustard peddlers in Paris.

"I saw the. Franc-Archer de Bagnolet, who was an inquisitor of heretics. He came upon Perceforest pissing a-
gainst a wall on which was painted Saint Anthony's Fire.348 He declared him a heretic, and would have had him
burned alive had it not been for Morgante, who, for his initiation and other small fees, gave him nine barrels
of beer."

Then said Pantagruel: "Save us all these fine stories for another time; only; tell us how the userers are
treated here."

"I saw them," said Epistemon, "all busy searching for rusty needles and old nails amid the gutters in the
streets, as you see the beggars doing in this world; but a hundred-weight of this old iron junk is worth
only a bit of bread; and at that the market for it is bad. So the poor wretches sometimes go more than three
weeks without eating a piece or a crumb, and work day and night waiting for the coming fair; but this labor
and misery they don't remember, so active and so accursed are they, provided that at the year's end they earn
some miserable denier."

"Now," said Pantagruel, "let's have a bit of refreshment, and let's drink, lads, for the drinking is good
all this month."

Then they unsheathed their flagons in piles, and had a great feast on the camp provisions; but poor King
Anarche couldn't cheer up, at which Panurge said:

"What trade shall we pick out for Milord the King here, so he may already be expert in the craft when he's
off yonder to all the devils?"

"Really," said Pantagruel, "that's a good idea of yours. So do what you please; I give him to you."

"Many thanks," said Panurge. "I can't say no to that present, and I like it from you."



CHAPTER 31


How Pantagruel entered the city of the Amaurots and
how Panurge married off King Anarche and
made him a hawker of green sauce.


AFTER that wondrous victory, Pantagruel sent Carpalim into the city of the Amaurots to tell and announce how
King Anarche was captured and all their enemies defeated. This news heard, there came out before him all
the inhabitants of the city, in good order, and in great triumphal pomp, with divine gladness, and led him
into the city; and fine bonfires were lit for joy all over the city, and fair round tables, garnished with
victuals aplenty, were set up around the streets. It was a renewal of the golden age of Saturn, such a good
time was had by all.

But Pantagruel, to all the senate assembled, said: "Gentlemen, while the iron is hot one must strike; like-
wise, before we relax any further, I want us to go and take by storm the entire kingdom of the Dipsodes.

"Therefore let those who want to come with me be ready for tomorrow after a drink, for then I shall set out
on the march. Not that I need more men to help me conquer it, for I might as well hold it already; but I see
that this city is so full of inhabitants that they can't get around in the streets.

"So I'll take them as a colony into Dipsody, and give them the whole country, which is beautiful, healthy,
and fruitful and pleasant above all the countries in the world, as many of you know who have gone there
in other days. Let each and every one of you who wants to come there be ready as I have said."

This plan and deliberation was divulged through the city, and the next day, in the square in front of the
palace, there were people in the number of eighteen hundred and fifty-six thousand and eleven, not counting
the women and little children. Thus they began to march straight into Dipsody, in such good order that they
looked like the children of Israel when they left Egypt [Exodus 14] to cross the Red Sea.

But before continuing this undertaking, I want to tell you how Panurge treated his prisoner Anarche. He
remembered what Epistemon had told him, how the kings and the rich of this world were treated around
the Elysian Fields, and how they then earned their living at vile and filthy jobs.

Therefore one day he dressed up his said king in a fine little linen doublet, all slashed like an Albanian's
cap, and nice sailor's breeches, without shoes (for, he said, they would spoil his vision), and a little blue
cap with one big capon's feather--I'm wrong, I think he had two--and a handsome blue and green belt, saying
that this livery suited him well, seeing that he had been perverse.349 In this state he brought him before
Pantagruel and said to him:

"Do you recognize this clown?"

"No, indeed," said Pantagruel.

"It's Milord the pluperfect king,350 I want to make a good man of him. These devils the kings are nothing but
dumb calves; they know nothing and they're good for nothing, except to do harm to their poor subjects,
and trouble the whole world by making war, for their wicked and detestable pleasure. I want to set him to a
trade, and make him a hawker of green sauce. So now start shouting: 'Don't you need some green sauce?' "

And the poor devil shouted.

"That's too soft," said Panurge; and he took him by the ear and said: "Sing louder, in the key of G. So, you
poor devil! You have a strong throat, you've never been so lucky as not to be king any more."

And Pantagruel enjoyed it all. For I make bold to say that he was the best nice little chap there ever was
from here to the end of a stick. So Anarche was a good green-sauce hawker.

Two days later, Panurge married him off to an old whore, and himself gave the wedding feastwith fine sheep's
heads, good slices of roast pork with mustard, and other good roast meat with garlic--of which he sent five
loads to Pantagruel, all of which he ate, he found them so appetizing; and to drink, fine small wine and good
sorb apple wine; and for them to dance to, he hired a blind man who sounded the tune on his fiddle.

After dinner, he brought them to the palace, and showed them to Pantagruel, and said to him, pointing to the
bride:

"She's not likely to fart."

"Why not?" said Pantagruel.

"Because," said Panurge, "she's well split open."

"What's the point?" said Pantagruel.

"Don't you see," said Panurge, "that the chestnuts you roast by the fire, if they are whole, they fart like
mad? and to keep them from farting, you split them open. And so this new bride is well split open at the b ot-
tom, so she won't fart."

Pantagruel gave them a little lodging next to the low street, and a stone mortar to beat their sauce on. And
in that state they set up their little household, and he was as nice as a green-sauce hawker as ever was seen
in Utopia; but I've been told since that his wife beats him like plaster, and the poor idiot doesn't dare de-
fend himself, he's so stupid.



CHAPTER 32


How Pantagruel with his tongue
covered a whole army,
and what the author saw inside his mouth.


Now as Pantagruel with all his band entered upon the lands of the Dipsodes, everyone was delighted at this,
and immediately surrendered to him, and, of their own free will, brought him the keys to all the cities he
went to, except for the Almyrodes, who tried to hold out against him, and made reply to his heralds that
they would not surrender unless for good reason.

"What," said Pantagruel, "do they ask for better ones than hand on pot and glass in fist? Come on, I want
them put to the sack."

So then they all fell into marching order, as if intending to give the attack. But on the way, passing
over a great open field, they were caught in a heavy rain shower. At which they began to shiver and huddle
close to one another. fir'antagruel seeing this, he had them told by the captains that it was nothing and
that he could see well above the clouds that it would be only a little dew, but at all events that they
should fall into ranks and he intended to cover them. Then they lined up in good order and well closed up,
and Pantagruel put his tongue out only a half way, and with it covered them as a hen does her chickens-.

Meanwhile I, who am telling you these stories so truly, had hidden myself under a burdock leaf, which was
no less wide than the Bridge of Monstrible; but when I saw them thus well covered, I went over to them
to take shelter, which I could not do, there were so many of them: as the saying goes, at the end of the
ell the cloth runs out. So I climbed up above as best I could, and I walked a good two leagues on his tongue
until I entered his mouth.

But, O ye gods and goddesses, what did I see there? Jupiter confound me with his three-forked thunder if
I lie. I was walking along there as you do in Saint-Sophia in Constantinople and I saw great rock forma-
tions, like the mountains of the Danes, I think that were his teeth, and great plains, great forests, big
strong cities no less large than Lyon or Poitiers. The first person I found was a chap who was planting
cabbages. At which, in amazement, I asked him:

"My friend, what are you doing here?"

"I'm planting cabbages," said he.

"And how and what for?" said I.

"Ah, sir," said he, "not everyone can have balls as heavy as a mortar, and we can't all be rich. I earn my
living that way, and I take them to sell in the market in the city that is behind here."

"Jesus," said I, "then there's a new world here?"

"To be sure," said he, "it's hardly new; but they do indeed say that outside of here there's a new earth
where they have both sun and moon, and all sorts of fine carryings-on; but this one is older."

"All right, my friend," said I, "but what's the name of that city where you take your cabbages to sell?"

"It's name," said he, "is Aspharagos [Gullettown], and they are Christians, good people, and will give you
a great time."

In short, I decided to go there. Now on my road I came upon a fellow setting snares for pigeons, and I asked
him: "My friend, where do these pigeons come to you from?"

"Sire," said he, "they come from another world."

Then it occurred to me that when Pantagruel yawned, pigeons in whole flocks flew into his throat, thinking
it was a dovecote.

Then I went into the city, and found it beautiful, quite strong and in nice air; but on the way in, the gate-
keepers asked me for my health certificate, at which I was most astonished, and asked them:

"Gentlemen, is there danger of plague here?"

"Oh, my Lord!" said they, "people near here are dying so fast that the tumbrel keeps running through the streets."

"Dear God!" said I, "and where?"

At which he told me that it was at Larynx and Pharynx, which are two large cities such as Rouen and Nantes,
rich and doing good business, and the cause of the plague was a foul stinking exhalation that had issued
from the gulfs not long ago, from which over twenty-two hundred and sixty thousand and sixty persons have
died in a week. Then I thought and calculated, and decided it was a stinking breath that had come from Pant-
agruel's stomach when he ate all that garlic sauce, as we have said above.

Leaving there, I passed between the rock formations, which were his teeth, and managed to climb up on one,
and there found the loveliest places in all the world, fine big tennis courts, nice galleries, fair meadows,
vines galore, and an infinity of country villas in the Italian style, amid fields full of delights, and there
I stayed a good four months, and never had it so good as then and there.

Then I came down by the back teethto get to the lips; but on my way was robbed by brigands while going through
a big forest, which is near the region of the ears.

Then I found a little hamlet on the way down, I've forgotten its name, where I had an even better time than
ever, and earned a little bit of money to live on. Do you know how? By sleeping; for they hire people by the
day to sleep, and they earn five or six sous a day; but those who snore really hard earn a good seven sous
and a half And I was telling the senators how I had been robbed in the valley, and they told me that in all
truth the people on the other side were evildoers and brigands by nature, from which I learned that just as
we have the countries on this side and on the far side of the mountains [the Alps], so have they on this side
and on the far side of the teeth; but it's much nicer on this side and the air is better.

At that point I began to think that it is very true what they say, that half the world doesn't know how the
other half lives seeing that no one had yet written about that country, in which there are over twenty-five
inhabited kingdoms, not counting the deserts and one great arm of the sea; but I have composed a book about
it entitled History of the Gorgias,351 for thus I have named them because they live in the throat [la gorge]
of my master Pantagruel.

Finally I wanted to get back, and, passing through his beard, I threw myself down on his shoulders, and from
there slid down to the ground and fell in front of him.

When he noticed me, he asked me: "Where are you coming from, Alcofribas?"

I answered him: "From your throat, sir."

"And how long have you been there?" said he.

"Since you set out," said I, "against the Almyrodes."

"That," said he, "is over six months ago. And what did you live on? What did you drink?"

I answered: "Lord, the same as you, and of the choicest morsels that passed down your throat I took my toll."

"All right," said he, "but where did you shit?"

"In your throat, my Lord," said I.

"Ha ha! you're a jolly good fellow," said he. "We have, with the help of God, conquered the whole country of
the Dipsodes; I give you the castleship of Salmagundi."

"Many thanks, Sir," said I. "You do much more good for me than I have deserved of you."



CHAPTER 33


How Pantagruel was sick,
and the way in which he got well.


A short time after, the good Pantagruel fell ill and was so griped in the stomach that he could not eat; and
because one trouble never comes alone, he got a case of hot piss that gave him more torment than you would
think; but his doctors helped him, and very effectively, with lenitive and diuretic drugs aplenty, made him
piss away his trouble.

His urine was so hot that since that time it has still not cooled, and you have some in France in various
places, according as it took its flow, and they call it hot baths such as


At Cauterets,352
At Limoux,
At Dax,
At Balaruc,
At Neris,
At Bourgon-Lancy and elsewhere.
In Italy,
At Monte Grotto,
At Abano,
At Sancto Petro de Padua [San Pietro Montagnone, near Abano],
At Saint Helen [Santa Elena Battaglia, near Monte Grotto],
At Casa Nova,
At Sancto Bartholomeo, in the county of Bologna,
At La Porretta,
And a thousand other places.

And I am greatly astounded at a heap of crazy philosophers and doctors, Who waste time arguing whence comes
the heat of the said waters, or whether it is because of the borax or the sulfur, or the alum, or the salt-
peter that is inside the mine; for they do nothing but prattle, and it would be more worth their while to
go rub their ass with a thistle than waste their time that way arguing about something they don't know the
origin of: for the solution is easy, and there's no need to inquire further: that these baths are hot because
they came out through a hot piss of the good Pantagruel.

Now, to tell you how he was cured of his main trouble, I leave aside here how, for a light laxative, he took:

Four hundredweight of scammony from Colophon,
Six score and eighteen cartfulls of cassia,
Eleven thousand nine hundred pounds of rhubarb,
Not counting the other ingredients.

You must understand that, on the advice of the doctors, it was then decreed that they would remove what was
giving him the trouble in his stomach. For this they made seventeen great copper globes, bigger than the
one in Rome at Virgil's needle, so made that they could open them at the middle and close them with a spring.

Into one entered one of his men bearing a lantern, and a lighted torch, and thus Pantagruel swallowed it
like a little pill.

Into five others there entered three peasants, each having a shovel hanging from his neck.

Into seven others entered seven firewood haulers each one having a basket around his neck, and thus they were
swallowed like pills.

When they were inside the stomach [Quand furent en l'estomach], each one released his spring and they came
out of their cabins, and first the man bearing the lantern, and thus they fell over half a league into a horrible
gulf, more stinking putrid than Mephitis,353 or the marsh of Camarina, or the foul lake Sorbonne, which Strabo
writes about, and, had it not been that they had very well antidoted their heart, their stomach, and their
wine-pot (which they call the noggin), they would have been suffocated and snuffed out by these abomi-
nable vapors. O what perfume, O what fundament, to befoul the dainty masks of lively young lasses!

Afterward, groping and smelling their way, they approached the fecal matter and the corrupted humors; fin-
ally they found a great heap of ordure. Then the pioneers beat on it to break it up, and the others, with
their shovels, filled the baskets with it; and when all was well cleaned out, each one got back into his
globe. That done, Pantagruel makes an effort to throw up, and there they came joyously out of their pills
--it reminded me of when the Greeks came out of the Trojan horses--and by this means he was cured and
restored to his earlier health.

And of those brass pills you have one at Orleans on the steeple of the Eglise de Sainte-Croix.



CHAPTER 34


The conclusion of the present book,
and the author's excuse.


Now, Gentlemen, you have heard a beginning of the horrific history of my lord and master Pantagruel. Here I
shall make an end to this first book; my head aches a bit and I clearly sense that the registers of my brain
are rather a bit muddled by this September broth.354

You shall have the rest of the story at these Frankfurt Fairs coming up soon, and there you shall see: how
Panurge got married, and was cuckolded right from the first month of his marriage; and how Pantagruel found
the philosopher's stone, and the way to find it and use it; and how he crossed the Caspian Mountains; how he
sailed over the Atlantic Ocean, and defeated the cannibals, conquered the Perlas Islands; how he married the
daughter of the king of India named Prester John; how he fought against the devils and set fire to five chambers
of hell, ana-sacked the great black chamber, and cast Proserpina into the fire, and broke four of Lucifer's teeth
and a horn on his ass; and how he visited the regions of the moon to see if in truth the moon was not whole,
but women had three quarters of it in their head; and myriad other little jollities, all true: Those are fine carry-
ings-on.

Good night to you, Gentlemen. Pardonnante my, and don't dwell so much on my faults as on your own.355 If
you say to me: "Master, it would seem to me that it was no great wisdom on your part to write us these idiocies
and comical tomfooleries," I reply to you that you are not much wiser to waste your time in reading them.

At all events, if you read them as a merry pastime even as I wrote them to pass the time, you and I are more
deserving of pardon than a big bunch of Sarabaites, bigots, snails, hypocrites, fakers, bellybumpers, monks in
buskins, and other such sects of people, who have disguised themselves like masters to deceive people.

For, giving the common populace to understand that they are occupied only in contemplation and devotion, fasts
and mortifying their sensuality, if not really to sustain and nourish the puny fragility of their human nature,
on the contrary they live it up, God knows how well.

Et Curios simulant, sed bacchanalia vivunt.

[And ape a saintly style,
Carousing all the while.]
[Juvenal, Satires 2.3]

You can read it in big lettering and illumination on their red snouts and barrel-sized guts, except when they
perfume themselves with sulfur.

As regards their study, it is entirely consecrated to the reading of the Pantagruelic books, not so much to pass
the time joyously as to harm someone wickedly, to wit by articulating, monorticulating, torticulating, buttock-
wagging, ballock-shaking, and diaboliculating that is to say calumniating. Doing which, they are like those
village scavengers who dig up and spread around little children's shit, in the season, for all kinds of cherries,
so as to find the pits and sell these to the druggists, who make pomander oil out of them.

These shun, abhor, and hate as much as I do, and you will be well off for it, upon my word, and, if you want to
be good Pantagruelists (that is to say to live in peace, joy, and health, always having a good time), never trust
people who look out through a hole.356

　　　　　　　　　　End of the Chronicles of Pantagruel, King of the Dipsodes,
　　　　　　　　　　　　Restored to Their Natural State, with His Rightful
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Exploits, Composed by the Late Master
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Alcofribas, Abstractor of
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Quintessence.

　　　　　　　Richest Passages

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