الفصل الفصل 7 · After what manner Gargantua

Chapter 1.VII.

After what manner Gargantua had his name given him, and how he tippled,

bibbed, and curried the can.

The good man Grangousier, drinking and making merry with the rest, heard

the horrible noise which his son had made as he entered into the light of

this world, when he cried out, Some drink, some drink, some drink;

whereupon he said in French, Que grand tu as et souple le gousier! that is

to say, How great and nimble a throat thou hast. Which the company

hearing, said that verily the child ought to be called Gargantua; because

it was the first word that after his birth his father had spoke, in

imitation, and at the example of the ancient Hebrews; whereunto he

condescended, and his mother was very well pleased therewith. In the

meanwhile, to quiet the child, they gave him to drink a tirelaregot, that

is, till his throat was like to crack with it; then was he carried to the

font, and there baptized, according to the manner of good Christians.

Immediately thereafter were appointed for him seventeen thousand, nine

hundred, and thirteen cows of the towns of Pautille and Brehemond, to

furnish him with milk in ordinary, for it was impossible to find a nurse

sufficient for him in all the country, considering the great quantity of

milk that was requisite for his nourishment; although there were not

wanting some doctors of the opinion of Scotus, who affirmed that his own

mother gave him suck, and that she could draw out of her breasts one

thousand, four hundred, two pipes, and nine pails of milk at every time.

Which indeed is not probable, and this point hath been found duggishly

scandalous and offensive to tender ears, for that it savoured a little of

heresy. Thus was he handled for one year and ten months; after which time,

by the advice of physicians, they began to carry him, and then was made for

him a fine little cart drawn with oxen, of the invention of Jan Denio,

wherein they led him hither and thither with great joy; and he was worth

the seeing, for he was a fine boy, had a burly physiognomy, and almost ten

chins. He cried very little, but beshit himself every hour: for, to speak

truly of him, he was wonderfully phlegmatic in his posteriors, both by

reason of his natural complexion and the accidental disposition which had

befallen him by his too much quaffing of the Septembral juice. Yet without

a cause did not he sup one drop; for if he happened to be vexed, angry,

displeased, or sorry, if he did fret, if he did weep, if he did cry, and

what grievous quarter soever he kept, in bringing him some drink, he would

be instantly pacified, reseated in his own temper, in a good humour again,

and as still and quiet as ever. One of his governesses told me (swearing

by her fig), how he was so accustomed to this kind of way, that, at the

sound of pints and flagons, he would on a sudden fall into an ecstasy, as

if he had then tasted of the joys of paradise; so that they, upon

consideration of this, his divine complexion, would every morning, to cheer

him up, play with a knife upon the glasses, on the bottles with their

stopples, and on the pottle-pots with their lids and covers, at the sound

whereof he became gay, did leap for joy, would loll and rock himself in the

cradle, then nod with his head, monochordizing with his fingers, and

barytonizing with his tail.