Part 14 (1/2)
At last I was willing to return, and, pa.s.sing by his beard, I cast myself upon his shoulders, and from thence slid down to the ground, and fell before him. As soon as I was perceived by him, he asked me, Whence comest thou, Alcofribas? I answered him, Out of your mouth, my lord. And how long hast thou been there? said he. Since the time, said I, that you went against the Almirods. That is about six months ago, said he. And wherewith didst thou live? What didst thou drink? I answered, My lord, of the same that you did, and of the daintiest morsels that pa.s.sed through your throat I took toll. Yea but, said he, where didst thou s.h.i.+te? In your throat, my lord, said I. Ha, ha! thou art a merry fellow, said he. We have with the help of G.o.d conquered all the land of the Dipsodes; I will give thee the Chastelleine, or Lairds.h.i.+p of Salmigondin. Gramercy, my lord, said I, you gratify me beyond all that I have deserved of you.
Chapter 2.x.x.xIII.-How Pantagruel became sick, and the manner how he was recovered.
A while after this the good Pantagruel fell sick, and had such an obstruction in his stomach that he could neither eat nor drink; and, because mischief seldom comes alone, a hot p.i.s.s seized on him, which tormented him more than you would believe. His physicians nevertheless helped him very well, and with store of lenitives and diuretic drugs made him p.i.s.s away his pain. His urine was so hot that since that time it is not yet cold, and you have of it in divers places of France, according to the course that it took, and they are called the hot baths, as- At Coderets.
At Limous.
At Dast.
At Ballervie (Balleruc).
At Neric.
At Bourbonansie, and elsewhere in Italy.
At Mongros.
At Appone.
At Sancto Petro de Padua.
At St. Helen.
At Casa Nuova.
At St. Bartholomew, in the county of Boulogne.
At the Porrette, and a thousand other places.
And I wonder much at a rabble of foolish philosophers and physicians, who spend their time in disputing whence the heat of the said waters cometh, whether it be by reason of borax, or sulphur, or alum, or saltpetre, that is within the mine. For they do nothing but dote, and better were it for them to rub their a.r.s.e against a thistle than to waste away their time thus in disputing of that whereof they know not the original; for the resolution is easy, neither need we to inquire any further than that the said baths came by a hot p.i.s.s of the good Pantagruel.
Now to tell you after what manner he was cured of his princ.i.p.al disease. I let pa.s.s how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred pound weight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen cartloads of ca.s.sia, an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight of rhubarb, besides other confuse jumblings of sundry drugs. You must understand that by the advice of the physicians it was ordained that what did offend his stomach should be taken away; and therefore they made seventeen great b.a.l.l.s of copper, each whereof was bigger than that which is to be seen on the top of St. Peter's needle at Rome, and in such sort that they did open in the midst and shut with a spring. Into one of them entered one of his men carrying a lantern and a torch lighted, and so Pantagruel swallowed him down like a little pill. Into seven others went seven country-fellows, having every one of them a shovel on his neck. Into nine others entered nine wood-carriers, having each of them a basket hung at his neck, and so were they swallowed down like pills. When they were in his stomach, every one undid his spring, and came out of their cabins. The first whereof was he that carried the lantern, and so they fell more than half a league into a most horrible gulf, more stinking and infectious than ever was Mephitis, or the marshes of the Camerina, or the abominably unsavoury lake of Sorbona, whereof Strabo maketh mention. And had it not been that they had very well antidoted their stomach, heart, and wine-pot, which is called the noddle, they had been altogether suffocated and choked with these detestable vapours. O what a perfume! O what an evaporation wherewith to bewray the masks or m.u.f.flers of young mangy queans. After that, with groping and smelling they came near to the faecal matter and the corrupted humours. Finally, they found a montjoy or heap of ordure and filth. Then fell the pioneers to work to dig it up, and the rest with their shovels filled the baskets; and when all was cleansed every one retired himself into his ball.
This done, Pantagruel enforcing himself to vomit, very easily brought them out, and they made no more show in his mouth than a fart in yours. But, when they came merrily out of their pills, I thought upon the Grecians coming out of the Trojan horse. By this means was he healed and brought unto his former state and convalescence; and of these brazen pills, or rather copper b.a.l.l.s, you have one at Orleans, upon the steeple of the Holy Cross Church.
Chapter 2.x.x.xIV.-The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author.
Now, my masters, you have heard a beginning of the horrific history of my lord and master Pantagruel. Here will I make an end of the first book. My head aches a little, and I perceive that the registers of my brain are somewhat jumbled and disordered with this Septembral juice. You shall have the rest of the history at Frankfort mart next coming, and there shall you see how Panurge was married and made a cuckold within a month after his wedding; how Pantagruel found out the philosopher's stone, the manner how he found it, and the way how to use it; how he pa.s.sed over the Caspian mountains, and how he sailed through the Atlantic sea, defeated the Cannibals, and conquered the isles of Pearls; how he married the daughter of the King of India, called Presthan; how he fought against the devil and burnt up five chambers of h.e.l.l, ransacked the great black chamber, threw Proserpina into the fire, broke five teeth to Lucifer, and the horn that was in his a.r.s.e; how he visited the regions of the moon to know whether indeed the moon were not entire and whole, or if the women had three quarters of it in their heads, and a thousand other little merriments all veritable. These are brave things truly. Good night, gentlemen. Perdonate mi, and think not so much upon my faults that you forget your own.
If you say to me, Master, it would seem that you were not very wise in writing to us these flimflam stories and pleasant fooleries; I answer you, that you are not much wiser to spend your time in reading them. Nevertheless, if you read them to make yourselves merry, as in manner of pastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon than a great rabble of squint-minded fellows, dissembling and counterfeit saints, demure lookers, hypocrites, pretended zealots, tough friars, buskin-monks, and other such sects of men, who disguise themselves like masquers to deceive the world. For, whilst they give the common people to understand that they are busied about nothing but contemplation and devotion in fastings and maceration of their sensuality-and that only to sustain and aliment the small frailty of their humanity-it is so far otherwise that, on the contrary, G.o.d knows what cheer they make; Et Curios simulant, sed Baccha.n.a.lia vivunt. You may read it in great letters in the colouring of their red snouts, and gulching bellies as big as a tun, unless it be when they perfume themselves with sulphur. As for their study, it is wholly taken up in reading of Pantagruelian books, not so much to pa.s.s the time merrily as to hurt someone or other mischievously, to wit, in articling, sole-articling, wry-neckifying, b.u.t.tock-stirring, ballocking, and diabliculating, that is, calumniating. Wherein they are like unto the poor rogues of a village that are busy in stirring up and sc.r.a.ping in the ordure and filth of little children, in the season of cherries and guinds, and that only to find the kernels, that they may sell them to the druggists to make thereof pomander oil. Fly from these men, abhor and hate them as much as I do, and upon my faith you will find yourselves the better for it. And if you desire to be good Pantagruelists, that is to say, to live in peace, joy, health, making yourselves always merry, never trust those men that always peep out at one hole.
End of Book II.
THE THIRD BOOK
Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre.
Abstracted soul, ravished with ecstasies, Gone back, and now familiar in the skies, Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite, Which to obey thee always took delight,- Obsequious, ready,-now from motion free, Senseless, and as it were in apathy, Wouldst thou not issue forth for a short s.p.a.ce, From that divine, eternal, heavenly place, To see the third part, in this earthy cell, Of the brave acts of good Pantagruel?
The Author's Prologue.
Good people, most ill.u.s.trious drinkers, and you, thrice precious gouty gentlemen, did you ever see Diogenes, and cynic philosopher? If you have seen him, you then had your eyes in your head, or I am very much out of my understanding and logical sense. It is a gallant thing to see the clearness of (wine, gold,) the sun. I'll be judged by the blind born so renowned in the sacred Scriptures, who, having at his choice to ask whatever he would from him who is Almighty, and whose word in an instant is effectually performed, asked nothing else but that he might see. Item, you are not young, which is a competent quality for you to philosophate more than physically in wine, not in vain, and henceforwards to be of the Bacchic Council; to the end that, opining there, you may give your opinion faithfully of the substance, colour, excellent odour, eminency, propriety, faculty, virtue, and effectual dignity of the said blessed and desired liquor.
If you have not seen him, as I am easily induced to believe that you have not, at least you have heard some talk of him. For through the air, and the whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report and fame, even until this present time, remained very memorable and renowned. Then all of you are derived from the Phrygian blood, if I be not deceived. If you have not so many crowns as Midas had, yet have you something, I know not what, of him, which the Persians of old esteemed more of in all their otacusts, and which was more desired by the Emperor Antonine, and gave occasion thereafter to the Basilico at Rohan to be surnamed Goodly Ears. If you have not heard of him, I will presently tell you a story to make your wine relish. Drink then,-so, to the purpose. Hearken now whilst I give you notice, to the end that you may not, like infidels, be by your simplicity abused, that in his time he was a rare philosopher and the cheerfullest of a thousand. If he had some imperfection, so have you, so have we; for there is nothing, but G.o.d, that is perfect. Yet so it was, that by Alexander the Great, although he had Aristotle for his instructor and domestic, was he held in such estimation, that he wished, if he had not been Alexander, to have been Diogenes the Sinopian.
When Philip, King of Macedon, enterprised the siege and ruin of Corinth, the Corinthians having received certain intelligence by their spies that he with a numerous army in battle-rank was coming against them, were all of them, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and therefore were not neglective of their duty in doing their best endeavours to put themselves in a fit posture to resist his hostile approach and defend their own city.
Some from the fields brought into the fortified places their movables, b.e.s.t.i.a.l, corn, wine, fruit, victuals, and other necessary provision.
Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses, bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticed barbacans, a.s.sured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol. Everyone did watch and ward, and not one was exempted from carrying the basket. Some polished corslets, varnished backs and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, cleaned the headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, bra.s.sars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, s.h.i.+elds, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs. Others made ready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-b.a.l.l.s, firebrands, balists, scorpions, and other such warlike engines expugnatory and destructive to the h.e.l.lepolides. They sharpened and prepared spears, staves, pikes, brown bills, halberds, long hooks, lances, zagayes, quarterstaves, eelspears, partisans, troutstaves, clubs, battle-axes, maces, darts, dartlets, glaives, javelins, javelots, and truncheons. They set edges upon scimitars, cutla.s.ses, badelairs, backswords, tucks, rapiers, bayonets, arrow-heads, dags, daggers, mandousians, poniards, whinyards, knives, skeans, shables, chipping knives, and raillons.