الفصل الفصل 24 · How Gargantua spent his time

Chapter 1.XXIV.

How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather.

If it happened that the weather were anything cloudy, foul, and rainy, all

the forenoon was employed, as before specified, according to custom, with

this difference only, that they had a good clear fire lighted to correct

the distempers of the air. But after dinner, instead of their wonted

exercitations, they did abide within, and, by way of apotherapy (that is, a

making the body healthful by exercise), did recreate themselves in bottling

up of hay, in cleaving and sawing of wood, and in threshing sheaves of corn

at the barn. Then they studied the art of painting or carving; or brought

into use the antique play of tables, as Leonicus hath written of it, and as

our good friend Lascaris playeth at it. In playing they examined the

passages of ancient authors wherein the said play is mentioned or any

metaphor drawn from it. They went likewise to see the drawing of metals,

or the casting of great ordnance; how the lapidaries did work; as also the

goldsmiths and cutters of precious stones. Nor did they omit to visit the

alchemists, money-coiners, upholsterers, weavers, velvet-workers,

watchmakers, looking-glass framers, printers, organists, and other such

kind of artificers, and, everywhere giving them somewhat to drink, did

learn and consider the industry and invention of the trades. They went

also to hear the public lectures, the solemn commencements, the

repetitions, the acclamations, the pleadings of the gentle lawyers, and

sermons of evangelical preachers. He went through the halls and places

appointed for fencing, and there played against the masters themselves at

all weapons, and showed them by experience that he knew as much in it as,

yea, more than, they. And, instead of herborizing, they visited the shops

of druggists, herbalists, and apothecaries, and diligently considered the

fruits, roots, leaves, gums, seeds, the grease and ointments of some

foreign parts, as also how they did adulterate them. He went to see the

jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered their

cunning, their shifts, their somersaults and smooth tongue, especially of

those of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great praters, and brave

givers of fibs, in matter of green apes.

At their return they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times,

and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate

moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive,

might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive any

prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily exercise. Thus was Gargantua

governed, and kept on in this course of education, from day to day

profiting, as you may understand such a young man of his age may, of a

pregnant judgment, with good discipline well continued. Which, although at

the beginning it seemed difficult, became a little after so sweet, so easy,

and so delightful, that it seemed rather the recreation of a king than the

study of a scholar. Nevertheless Ponocrates, to divert him from this

vehement intension of the spirits, thought fit, once in a month, upon some

fair and clear day, to go out of the city betimes in the morning, either

towards Gentilly, or Boulogne, or to Montrouge, or Charanton bridge, or to

Vanves, or St. Clou, and there spend all the day long in making the

greatest cheer that could be devised, sporting, making merry, drinking

healths, playing, singing, dancing, tumbling in some fair meadow,

unnestling of sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crabs.

But although that day was passed without books or lecture, yet was it not

spent without profit; for in the said meadows they usually repeated certain

pleasant verses of Virgil’s agriculture, of Hesiod and of Politian’s

husbandry, would set a-broach some witty Latin epigrams, then immediately

turned them into roundelays and songs for dancing in the French language.

In their feasting they would sometimes separate the water from the wine

that was therewith mixed, as Cato teacheth, De re rustica, and Pliny with

an ivy cup would wash the wine in a basinful of water, then take it out

again with a funnel as pure as ever. They made the water go from one glass

to another, and contrived a thousand little automatory engines, that is to

say, moving of themselves.