357. R's Book 3 is the first of his narratives in which he put aside his "comic mask" (Defaux), his anagrammatic pseudonym of
the fictive ancient Arab sage Master Alcofribas Nasier and signed it with his own name and real title as Doctor of Medicine,
to be sure, adding, in the first few editions only, the fictive title "Priest of the Isles of Hyeres" (CalloIer des Iles
Hieres) facetious because these islands (just off the French Riviera coast near Toulon), were a popular hideout for pirates
and brigands.

Since his debut in printed narrative some fourteen years before (Pantagruel 1532) as a learned humanist physician of modest
repute, R had come far, mainly in the company of such greats as the brothers Du Bellay; Guillaume, lord of Langey (1491-1543),
able commander, governor, statesman; Bishop Jean (1492-1560), soon to be archbishop and cardinal, skilled diplomat and pr-
late, later Cardinal Odet de Chastillon; much earlier a lesser but protec tive helper, Geoffroy d'Estissac, bishop of Maill-
ezais; and although Books and 2 sought, at least ostensibly, a more plebeian, less erudite public than such as these, their
enthusiastic readers included both R's kings (Francis I, then Henry II) and Francis's sister, the learned and high-minded
Margaret of Navarre (see n. 2 below).

Here and now, with apparent unease or even trepidation (shown in the story'of Ptolemy, son of Lagus, that he borrowed from
Lucan to use as that master had done) R undertakes a bold new venture, new in several ways: he abandons the story of the
giants, and with it that ready-made plot pattern and indeed any clear-cut story line whatever; completes the change, begun
earlier in the parts of 1-2 on education and crowned there in the\victorious wars, from the crude, rather oafish young
giant cubs he began with into the Pantagruel of the last few books, the Evangelicalist Christian philosopher-king (or
prince), rivaling Plato's in all but the rigors of his preparatory curriculum, and far merrier, sunnier, and more merciful.
R addresses his new nobler public explicitly from the first, and throughout the book by his erudition and concern with
serious moral problems--and unconcern for physical action and prowess; also by his change from a plebeian publisher such as
Claude Nourry or Francois Juste of Lyon to one who issued more serious fare, Christian Wechel of Paris; and finally in his
election of Roman print (such as we still use), then favored by humanists, over the lowly Gothic used for chapbooks and old
romances--and for R's own first two books. For R the seas he now set sail onto were uncharted.


3: "To THE SPIRIT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE"


358. Margaret of Navarre (1492-1549), born d'Angouleme, then by her first marriage d'Alencon, before becoming queen of Nav-
arre by her second (1527), to Henri d'Albret; older sister of King Francis I of France; called by some Margaret d'Angouleme
to distinguish her from another Margaret of Navarre, both her grandniece and her granddaughter-in-law (1553-1610), best
known as Margaret of Valois, sister of French King Henry III and (for a time) ill-matched wife of French Protestant leader
King Henry of Navarre, from 1589 to 1610 King Henry IV of France.

Margaret (Marguerite) of Navarre, learned and mystically religious, strongly favored Church Reform (to which for a time in
the 55205 she nearly won over King Francis) and protected as patron innovative writers and all vic tims of persecution--this
even in her desolate late years. Herself a versatile and prolific writer, she left many deeply-felt religious poems; several
fine plays (thMtre profane "secular drama") dealing squarely but tactfully with religious and moral issues; and her best-
known (and arguably best) work, the seventy-odd tales and discussions of these by ten stranded noble friends, modeled on
Boccaccio's Decameron but incomplete and posthumously pub lished, that we know as her Heptameron. The mystical streak so
marked in her later years helps explain R's invitation in his dedicatory dizain to her to return down to earth a bit for
a fresh taste of Pantagruel.


3: ROYAL PRIVILEGE (OF 1545)


359. Here we depart from our usual guides, our edition of reference (LI) and the other two French scholarly reader's edi-
tions (PL and G) that we generally also follow, for not one of these gives the original Royal Privilege (by Francis I,
for 6 years, dated Sept. 19, 1545; they give only the later, longer, ten-year one issued by Henry II (with R's benign
supporter Chastillon present), on August 6, 155o. Only M. A. Screech in-TL offers both docu ments; but with the original
one as a variant in a note, the other alone as the text. None of the English translations give either one. Although the
two are much alike, both are short, and seem to us important enough to be presented here, and as text, in order of their
appearance: first that of 1545 (Francis I), then that of isso (Henry II).

360. Francis I of the house of Angouleme (1494-1547), king of France from 1515, enjoyed war as a noble sport and won at
it in invading Italy until taken captive at Pavia in 1515 by Emperor Charles V's army, then impris oned by Charles for
a year and sick much of it. Also fond of arts and letters, he fostered their blooming in France, paying well to bring
in Italian artists and building many handsome châteaux and palaces. Detesting the Sorbonne, which had bitterly opposed
his 1515 Concordat with the pope giving the king much control. over French high clerical appointments (a source of funds
and power), and influenced by his peacefully Reformist sister Margaret of Navarre (see note z just above), for many
years he toler ated and protected peaceful Reform such as Evangelicalism; but provoca tions in October 1534 and January
1535 alienated him and left him alternat ing between toleration and harsh repression as determined advisers on ei ther
side drew him now one way now the other.

361. The justices and officers listed included many of the main supporters of the crown in the struggle with the nobil-
ity to try to unify and strengthen the nation.

362. A favorite charge of R's but ill-supported by such evidence as we have.

363. R's dedicatory epistle to Book 4, addressed to his greatest protector and supporter in his late years, Cardinal
Odet de Chastillon, and dated January 28, 1552, states that R had indeed at some point resolved to stop writing and pub-
lishing his story, so weary and heartsick was he at the venom and malice of his calumniators and other critics; but that
Chastillon's encour agement, moral support, and promise of protection gave him fresh heart and stomach to resume and
continue. Some such thing may well have happened, and the likeliest time was probably around 1543-1545.


3: ROYAL PRIVILEGE (OF 1550)


364. Note that R asked for a ten-year privilege but got one for six; his luck was to be better with Henry II and with
Chastillon. The repetition of the threat of penalties for disobedience is probably a mistake, but it is not ours; so
reads the text as reproduced in TL (p. 4, variant).

365. Henry II of France (1519-f559), son of Francis I, and his successor; like him, ,physically robust and vigorous but
also weak willed, easily swayed (Diane de Poitiers, mistress); long harshly intolerant in his Catholicism, influenced
by Francois de Guise and others but also at times by advisers favoring tolerance (Anne de Montmorency, Jean du Bellay,
et al); opposed Emperor Charles V, with modest success for European hegemony; married Catherine de Medici, died sudden-
ly (1559) in a jousting accident; like his fatherf greatly enjoyed R's stories.


3: PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR


366. R regularly calls his giant hero "le bon Pantagruel," which sounds better to me in French than the literal English,
which we have used here, but which, regrettably, has somehow acquired an aroma of priggish self-righteousness that ill
befits R. We have therefore rendered it at times by the inexact but homier "good old Pantagruel." We have used similar
freedom in rendering "le bon Gargantua."

367. Meaning metaphysically. Since Aristotle's Metaphysics directly follows his Physics and since Greek Meta with the
accusative means "after," this work was named his Metaphysics (ta meta ta physika), and the name stuck.

368. Nothing besides this text is known of this artillery piece, whose name suggests that its power and efficiency made
it popular with the soldiers who used it.

369. The long list that now follows (sixty-odd verbs in the imperfect active) conveys a sense of rolling, bustling,
knocking, and driving to and fro, up and down, in a frenzy of activity for activity's sake. Since their sequences
and groupings seem determined more by sound than by sense, we follow suit with little regard for the sense of each
verb but close heed to the clusters of similar sounds.

370. "Je pareillement, quay que sot's hors d'effroy, ne suis toutesfoys hors d'esmoy."

371. " . . . repetasseurs de vieilles ferrailles latines": a puzzling phrase, since it might be applied to R's great
hero Erasmus, who, however, was a confirmed pacifist, as shown by his Complaint of Peace (Querela pads).

372. "...feust-ce portant hotte, cachant crotte, ployant.rotte ou cassant motte": all among the humblest of activities,
which shows his goodwill to help if he can.

373. "ceste insigne fable et tragicque comedic": the later defined as a drama
that begins sadly or tragically but ends happily, as a comedy.

374. Allusion to Saint Mary the Egyptian, a popular subject for medieval and Renaissance artists. Reputedly rather
wanton until her conversion to Christianity, once later on, under high obligation to cross a stream but no swim mer
and not having money for the fare she allowed a boatman to have sex with her to pay him for taking her across.

375. Another puzzle, for we know of no epilogue by R to any book.

376. Normal body temperature was the first degree; the second degree was a very low fever.

377. A word-play suggesting idle time-wasting (by others, of course). Recalling Horace, Epistles 1.17.36, renewed by
Erasmus in his Adages 1.4.r.

378. These sentences pantagruilicques are of course R's Books 3 and 4, which were both (4 to be sure, in a short in-
complete version of 1548) soon to appear, and in rather swift succession.

379. " . . . me auront . . . pour Architriclin loyal," as in the wedding feast at Cana (John 2. I-I I).

380. Pronounced "la passion acuton": this suggests first the agony of Jesus Christ, then (from the cu, which sounds
like cut or "ass"), a pain in the ass.

381. Mars in French means both "Mars" and "March": so this might mean the plausible "unless in Lent" (as it often does).

382. " . . . pour Venus advieigne Barbet le chien": in knucklebones the best shot is called "Venus," the worst one
"the dogs."

383. " . . . la couppe guorgee": one of R's favorite equivoques (word-plays) rather like spoonerisms in English. See
Epistemon's couppe test& "chop headed off" in 2.30.

384. " . . . lifrelofres": a deformation (comic) of "philosopher, philosophers"; but also a name suggesting "boozer"
applied to German and Swiss mercenaries; thus R will force no one to drink willynilly, as do the German Lutherans and
the Swiss Calvinists.

385. Some legends assigned Pandora a box, others a bottle.

386. Danaids (daughters of King Danaus) were punished in death by having to keep refilling with water a vessel full
of holes.

387. These giants, who were symbols of impiety, were the judges, devouring gold (money), the more obvious bribes that
they demanded (see 5.11-15).

388. Here spelled "au cul passions" so as to mean "passions" in the ass or the tail; but the sound is that of French
occupations, which the context leads us to expect-one more reminder of the oral style R loves and employs and how new
in his day silent reading, usually alone, still was.

389. "Je renonce ma part de Papimanie": R heralds here an episode of Book 4 (4.48) but already scoffs at that mania.


3.1: How PANTAGRUEL TRANSPORTED A COLONY OF UTOPIANS INTO DIPSODY.


390. An allusion to Machiavelli and his many admirers and emulators. R disagrees.

391. The remark by Hesiod comes not from his Theogony but from his Works and Days, chapter 5, and is found also in
Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris Ia.

392. Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, A.D. 212-275, emperor from 270), a great Roman emperor, consolidated the
then shaky Roman Empire and regained Britain, Gaul, Spain, Egypt, and much of the Near East.

393. R quotes Virgil only ifi a French translation (presumably his own) as the following couplet:

11, qui estoit victeur, par le vouloir
Des gens vaincuz faisoit ses loix valoir.

394. " . . . Flamens habitans en Saxe, embeurent les meurs et contradictions des Saxons."


3.2: HOW PANURGE WAS MADE LORD OF SALMAGUNDI IN DIPSODY.


395. The royal was a medieval gold coin. Cotgrave sets its value at "about 68 solz" (sous). E. C. rates it at this
time at about 13-14 gold francs.

396. A seraph was a Turkish gold coin worth about a French crown (Cotgrave).

397. The French dilapida means "squandered," but literally "tore it down stone by stone," which explains R's play
on Panurge's not spending the money on building for hospitals, schools, or the like.

398. " . et mangeant son bled en herbe": proverbial for counterproductive wild spending.

399. " . par li bon Dieu et ii bons horns!" This is an old mild oath in Old French forms and an archaism dear to R.

400. The following couplet translates a statement in Latin from a tragedy of Seneca (Thyestes v. 619).

401. Commutative justice sets limits on unearned profits or increments.

402. Distributive justice, as the name suggests, is recompensing each man ac-cording to his merits, his deserts.

403. The French original, "jouant des haulx boys," was a popular gag in a period when many nobles, lacking ways to
earn a living, were forced by relentless inflation to sell off some of their lands or timber.

404. Thestylis, in Virgil's Eclogue 2. IO, is a peasant girl who prepares the meal for the harvesters.

405. "It is consumed" or "It is accomplished," in John 19.3o: for John these are Christ's last words as he was dy-
ing on the cross. Reportedly Thomas Aquinas spoke the words once when, dining with Saint Louis (Louis IX of France),
his mind on a sermon, he absentmindedly ate a lamprey meant for the king, then found the phrase apt and spoke it.


3.3: How PANURGE PRAISES DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.


406. Caesar (Gallic Wars 6.13) is the authority here on the Gauls. Dis or Pluto, god of the underworld, was held
to be extremely rich with treasures under-ground. But possibly also either Caesar or R here confuses Plutus with
Pluto.

407. Another pun: la manche, "the sleeve," is also la mancia, Italian for "tip"; but to call it a sleeve and pair
it with arm makes a neater claim.

408. " . . . en ronfle veue": showing my hand, from a different game, amounts to being "behind the eight-ball"
from a wild form of pool. Cotgrave calls this game "hand-ruffe."

409. " ... je le maintiens jusques an feu exclusivement": the heroic claim bursts in the final word, a favorite
formula for R.

410. In Works and Days 5.289: a popular allegory in the Renaissance.

411. Licence, Licentiate: French academic higher degree qualifying the holder to teach.

412. This figure, of man as a microcosm (of the cosmos), is a Renaissance topos.

413. On the revolt of the members against the stomach.

414. Implying that by paying his debts he would be tossing his money to all the devils.


3.4: CONTINUATION OF PANURGE'S SPEECH IN PRAISE OF CREDITORS AND DEBTORS.


415. Brittany was noted for its extreme piety and its many bishoprics and saints. A great favorite was Saint Ives
or Yves (1253-1303), Breton born, patron of lawyers; festival May 1.

416. From the Farce of Master Pathelin vs. 172-173:

Et si prestoit
Ses denrees a qui en vouloit.

417. "Sang est le siege de Fame": so said Empedocles, Lucretius, and Virgil, among others.

418. "La bouteille du fiel en soubstraict la cholere superflue." The bile was then considered the cause of irasci-
bility. Nothing is drawn off by the bile duct.

419. The verb devoir means "to owe," the noun "duty." R links his brilliant paradox in Panurge's praise of debt
to the main theme of Book 3 - marriage.


3.5: How PANTAGRUEL DETESTS DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.


420. Apollonius, according to his Life by Philostratus 4.4-1o. Philostratus reports that when the plague threaten-
ed Ephesus, and the Ephesians asked for help, Apollonius had them stone a ragged old beggar to death. When they
then removed the stones, they found underneath not the dead beggar, but a huge mad dog the size of a lion that had
disguised itself beneath the rags. This story suggests that this dog was the plague.

421. So says Plutarch, according to Erasmus Adages 2.7.98: "Felix qui nihil debet."

422. Laws, as quoted by Plutarch De vitanda usura (On avoiding usury) 1.827d.

423. This request was reported by Bonaventure Des Periers (ca. 1500-1544) in story 34 of his Nouvelles recreations
et joyeux devis. It was almost proverbial by 1546.

424. This is the closest Panragruel seems to come to losing patience with Panurge.


3.6: WHY NEWLYWEDS WERE EXEMPT FROM GOING TO WAR.


425. This is the French original of this quatrain:

Patenostres et oraisons
Sont pour ceulx-1a qui les retiennent.
Un fiffre allans en fenaisons
Est plus fort que deux qui en viennent.

426. Panurge's respect for Galen's great learning springs from his own lack of it.


3.7: How PANURGE HAD A FLEA IN HIS EAR.


427. Presumably to keep this mark of serious purpose always ready at hand.

428. "Chascun abonde en son sees" (Romans 14.5). The abonde is a subjunctive that needed no que in R's day. NEB:
"On such a point everyone should have reached a conviction in his own mind." Reformists often cited this verse to
distinguish dissent from heresy; and R plays safe by his Erasmian stress on its soundness in extraneous, irrele-
vant matters.

429. Apparently another pun on bureau, though why apropos here is not clear to me. See the Glossary.

430. "0 le grand mesnaiger que je seray": as the text shows, in one respect at least.

431. Lengthening certain esses would change "ss" (sous) into "fr (francs), so that he would be wrongly charged
many times too much.


3.8: How THE CODPIECE IS THE FIRST PIECE OF HARNESS AMONG WARRIORS.


432. "Par la dive Dye guenet": euphemistic oath, recalling "Ventre Sainct Quenet" (1.5) but also suggesting "Holy
Mother of God!" or the like.

433. In Nancy, on the first Sunday in Lent, persons were chosen out of a merry society of pranksters to be named
Valentins and Valentines and to serve as kings and queens for a day or two. The identity of Viardiere is unknown.

434. " ... le genre humain aboly par le deluge po&ique." Not the (true) flood in the Bible, from which God saved
Noah (Genesis 6). R's is Ovid's story in his Metamorphoses 1.348 ff., when human wickedness led Zeus to plan to
kill them all by a flood. Prometheus warned Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, who built a boat and escaped onto
Mount Parnassus. Obeying an oracle, they threw stones on the ground, which grew into men and women.

435. A title already listed in the Library of Saint Victor (above, 2.7).

436. Lord de Merville is unknown.

437. I.e., the male genitals; cf., the book title The Marriage Packet, also in the Library of Saint-Victor (a-
bove, 2.7).

Book 3