الفصل الفصل 92 · The conclusion of this prese

Chapter 2.XXXIV.

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 passed 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 hell, ransacked the great black chamber, threw

Proserpina into the fire, broke five teeth to Lucifer, and the horn that

was in his arse; 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, God knows what cheer they make; Et Curios simulant, sed

Bacchanalia 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 pass the time

merrily as to hurt someone or other mischievously, to wit, in articling,

sole-articling, wry-neckifying, buttock-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 scraping 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.

BOOK III.

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 space,

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 illustrious 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 God, 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,

bestial, 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, assured 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 breasts, cleaned the

headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks,

gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons,

shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs. Others made

ready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls,

firebrands, balists, scorpions, and other such warlike engines expugnatory

and destructive to the Hellepolides. 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, cutlasses, badelairs, backswords, tucks, rapiers,

bayonets, arrow-heads, dags, daggers, mandousians, poniards, whinyards,

knives, skeans, shables, chipping knives, and raillons.

Every man exercised his weapon, every man scoured off the rust from his

natural hanger; nor was there a woman amongst them, though never so

reserved or old, who made not her harness to be well furbished; as you know

the Corinthian women of old were reputed very courageous combatants.

Diogenes seeing them all so warm at work, and himself not employed by the

magistrates in any business whatsoever, he did very seriously, for many

days together, without speaking one word, consider and contemplate the

countenance of his fellow-citizens.

Then on a sudden, as if he had been roused up and inspired by a martial

spirit, he girded his cloak scarfwise about his left arm, tucked up his

sleeves to the elbow, trussed himself like a clown gathering apples, and,

giving to one of his old acquaintance his wallet, books, and opistographs,

away went he out of town towards a little hill or promontory of Corinth

called (the) Cranie; and there on the strand, a pretty level place, did he

roll his jolly tub, which served him for a house to shelter him from the

injuries of the weather: there, I say, in a great vehemency of spirit, did

he turn it, veer it, wheel it, whirl it, frisk it, jumble it, shuffle it,

huddle it, tumble it, hurry it, jolt it, justle it, overthrow it, evert it,

invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it, bump it, batter it,

knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock it, shake it, toss it, throw

it, overthrow it, upside down, topsy-turvy, arsiturvy, tread it, trample

it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it,

resound it, stop it, shut it, unbung it, close it, unstopple it. And then

again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled

it, wayed it, darted it, hurled it, staggered it, reeled it, swinged it,

brangled it, tottered it, lifted it, heaved it, transformed it,

transfigured it, transposed it, transplaced it, reared it, raised it,

hoised it, washed it, dighted it, cleansed it, rinsed it, nailed it,

settled it, fastened it, shackled it, fettered it, levelled it, blocked it,

tugged it, tewed it, carried it, bedashed it, bewrayed it, parched it,

mounted it, broached it, nicked it, notched it, bespattered it, decked it,

adorned it, trimmed it, garnished it, gauged it, furnished it, bored it,

pierced it, trapped it, rumbled it, slid it down the hill, and precipitated

it from the very height of the Cranie; then from the foot to the top (like

another Sisyphus with his stone) bore it up again, and every way so banged

it and belaboured it that it was ten thousand to one he had not struck the

bottom of it out.

Which when one of his friends had seen, and asked him why he did so toil

his body, perplex his spirit, and torment his tub, the philosopher’s answer

was that, not being employed in any other charge by the Republic, he

thought it expedient to thunder and storm it so tempestuously upon his tub,

that amongst a people so fervently busy and earnest at work he alone might

not seem a loitering slug and lazy fellow. To the same purpose may I say

of myself,

Though I be rid from fear,

I am not void of care.

For, perceiving no account to be made of me towards the discharge of a

trust of any great concernment, and considering that through all the parts

of this most noble kingdom of France, both on this and on the other side of

the mountains, everyone is most diligently exercised and busied, some in

the fortifying of their own native country for its defence, others in the

repulsing of their enemies by an offensive war; and all this with a policy

so excellent and such admirable order, so manifestly profitable for the

future, whereby France shall have its frontiers most magnifically enlarged,

and the French assured of a long and well-grounded peace, that very little

withholds me from the opinion of good Heraclitus, which affirmeth war to be

the father of all good things; and therefore do I believe that war is in

Latin called bellum, not by antiphrasis, as some patchers of old rusty

Latin would have us to think, because in war there is little beauty to be

seen, but absolutely and simply; for that in war appeareth all that is good

and graceful, and that by the wars is purged out all manner of wickedness

and deformity. For proof whereof the wise and pacific Solomon could no

better represent the unspeakable perfection of the divine wisdom, than by

comparing it to the due disposure and ranking of an army in battle array,

well provided and ordered.

Therefore, by reason of my weakness and inability, being reputed by my

compatriots unfit for the offensive part of warfare; and on the other side,

being no way employed in matter of the defensive, although it had been but

to carry burthens, fill ditches, or break clods, either whereof had been to

me indifferent, I held it not a little disgraceful to be only an idle

spectator of so many valorous, eloquent, and warlike persons, who in the

view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragi-comedy,

and not make some effort towards the performance of this, nothing at all

remains for me to be done [‘And not exert myself, and contribute thereto

this nothing, my all, which remained for me to do.’--Ozell.). In my

opinion, little honour is due to such as are mere lookers-on, liberal of

their eyes, and of their crowns, and hide their silver; scratching their

head with one finger like grumbling puppies, gaping at the flies like tithe

calves; clapping down their ears like Arcadian asses at the melody of

musicians, who with their very countenances in the depth of silence express

their consent to the prosopopoeia. Having made this choice and election,

it seemed to me that my exercise therein would be neither unprofitable nor

troublesome to any, whilst I should thus set a-going my Diogenical tub,

which is all that is left me safe from the shipwreck of my former

misfortunes.

At this dingle dangle wagging of my tub, what would you have me to do? By

the Virgin that tucks up her sleeve, I know not as yet. Stay a little,

till I suck up a draught of this bottle; it is my true and only Helicon; it

is my Caballine fountain; it is my sole enthusiasm. Drinking thus, I

meditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude. After that the epilogue is

made, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again. Ennius drinking wrote,

and writing drank. Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his Symposiacs merit any

faith, drank composing, and drinking composed. Homer never wrote fasting,

and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk. These passages I have

brought before you to the end you may not say that I lived without the

example of men well praised and better prized. It is good and fresh

enough, even as if you would say it is entering upon the second degree.

God, the good God Sabaoth, that is to say, the God of armies, be praised

for it eternally! If you after the same manner would take one great

draught, or two little ones, whilst you have your gown about you, I truly

find no kind of inconveniency in it, provided you send up to God for all

some small scantling of thanks.

Since then my luck or destiny is such as you have heard--for it is not for

everybody to go to Corinth--I am fully resolved to be so little idle and

unprofitable, that I will set myself to serve the one and the other sort of

people. Amongst the diggers, pioneers, and rampire-builders, I will do as

did Neptune and Apollo at Troy under Laomedon, or as did Renault of

Montauban in his latter days: I will serve the masons, I’ll set on the pot

to boil for the bricklayers; and, whilst the minced meat is making ready at

the sound of my small pipe, I’ll measure the muzzle of the musing dotards.

Thus did Amphion with the melody of his harp found, build, and finish the

great and renowned city of Thebes.

For the use of the warriors I am about to broach of new my barrel to give

them a taste (which by two former volumes of mine, if by the deceitfulness

and falsehood of printers they had not been jumbled, marred, and spoiled,

you would have very well relished), and draw unto them, of the growth of

our own trippery pastimes, a gallant third part of a gallon, and

consequently a jolly cheerful quart of Pantagruelic sentences, which you

may lawfully call, if you please, Diogenical: and shall have me, seeing I

cannot be their fellow-soldier, for their faithful butler, refreshing and

cheering, according to my little power, their return from the alarms of the

enemy; as also for an indefatigable extoller of their martial exploits and

glorious achievements. I shall not fail therein, par lapathium acutum de

dieu; if Mars fail not in Lent, which the cunning lecher, I warrant you,

will be loth to do.

I remember nevertheless to have read, that Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, one

day, amongst the many spoils and booties which by his victories he had

acquired, presenting to the Egyptians, in the open view of the people, a

Bactrian camel all black, and a party-coloured slave, in such sort as that

the one half of his body was black and the other white, not in partition of

breadth by the diaphragma, as was that woman consecrated to the Indian

Venus whom the Tyanean philosopher did see between the river Hydaspes and

Mount Caucasus, but in a perpendicular dimension of altitude; which were

things never before that seen in Egypt. He expected by the show of these

novelties to win the love of the people. But what happened thereupon? At

the production of the camel they were all affrighted, and offended at the

sight of the party-coloured man--some scoffed at him as a detestable

monster brought forth by the error of nature; in a word, of the hope which

he had to please these Egyptians, and by such means to increase the

affection which they naturally bore him, he was altogether frustrate and

disappointed; understanding fully by their deportments that they took more

pleasure and delight in things that were proper, handsome, and perfect,

than in misshapen, monstrous, and ridiculous creatures. Since which time

he had both the slave and the camel in such dislike, that very shortly

thereafter, either through negligence, or for want of ordinary sustenance,

they did exchange their life with death.

This example putteth me in a suspense between hope and fear, misdoubting

that, for the contentment which I aim at, I will but reap what shall be

most distasteful to me: my cake will be dough, and for my Venus I shall

have but some deformed puppy: instead of serving them, I shall but vex

them, and offend them whom I purpose to exhilarate; resembling in this

dubious adventure Euclion’s cook, so renowned by Plautus in his Pot, and by

Ausonius in his Griphon, and by divers others; which cook, for having by

his scraping discovered a treasure, had his hide well curried. Put the

case I get no anger by it, though formerly such things fell out, and the

like may occur again. Yet, by Hercules! it will not. So I perceive in

them all one and the same specifical form, and the like individual

properties, which our ancestors called Pantagruelism; by virtue whereof

they will bear with anything that floweth from a good, free, and loyal

heart. I have seen them ordinarily take goodwill in part of payment, and

remain satisfied therewith when one was not able to do better. Having

despatched this point, I return to my barrel.

Up, my lads, to this wine, spare it not! Drink, boys, and trowl it off at

full bowls! If you do not think it good, let it alone. I am not like

those officious and importunate sots, who by force, outrage, and violence,

constrain an easy good-natured fellow to whiffle, quaff, carouse, and what

is worse. All honest tipplers, all honest gouty men, all such as are

a-dry, coming to this little barrel of mine, need not drink thereof if it

please them not; but if they have a mind to it, and that the wine prove

agreeable to the tastes of their worshipful worships, let them drink,

frankly, freely, and boldly, without paying anything, and welcome. This is

my decree, my statute and ordinance.

And let none fear there shall be any want of wine, as at the marriage of

Cana in Galilee; for how much soever you shall draw forth at the faucet, so

much shall I tun in at the bung. Thus shall the barrel remain

inexhaustible; it hath a lively spring and perpetual current. Such was the

beverage contained within the cup of Tantalus, which was figuratively

represented amongst the Brachman sages. Such was in Iberia the mountain of

salt so highly written of by Cato. Such was the branch of gold consecrated

to the subterranean goddess, which Virgil treats of so sublimely. It is a

true cornucopia of merriment and raillery. If at any time it seem to you

to be emptied to the very lees, yet shall it not for all that be drawn

wholly dry. Good hope remains there at the bottom, as in Pandora’s bottle;

and not despair, as in the puncheon of the Danaids. Remark well what I

have said, and what manner of people they be whom I do invite; for, to the

end that none be deceived, I, in imitation of Lucilius, who did protest

that he wrote only to his own Tarentines and Consentines, have not pierced

this vessel for any else but you honest men, who are drinkers of the first

edition, and gouty blades of the highest degree. The great dorophages,

bribe-mongers, have on their hands occupation enough, and enough on the

hooks for their venison. There may they follow their prey; here is no

garbage for them. You pettifoggers, garblers, and masters of chicanery,

speak not to me, I beseech you, in the name of, and for the reverence you

bear to the four hips that engendered you and to the quickening peg which

at that time conjoined them. As for hypocrites, much less; although they

were all of them unsound in body, pockified, scurvy, furnished with

unquenchable thirst and insatiable eating. (And wherefore?) Because

indeed they are not of good but of evil, and of that evil from which we

daily pray to God to deliver us. And albeit we see them sometimes

counterfeit devotion, yet never did old ape make pretty moppet. Hence,

mastiffs; dogs in a doublet, get you behind; aloof, villains, out of my

sunshine; curs, to the devil! Do you jog hither, wagging your tails, to

pant at my wine, and bepiss my barrel? Look, here is the cudgel which

Diogenes, in his last will, ordained to be set by him after his death, for

beating away, crushing the reins, and breaking the backs of these bustuary

hobgoblins and Cerberian hellhounds. Pack you hence, therefore, you

hypocrites, to your sheep-dogs; get you gone, you dissemblers, to the

devil! Hay! What, are you there yet? I renounce my part of Papimanie, if

I snatch you, Grr, Grrr, Grrrrrr. Avaunt, avaunt! Will you not be gone?

May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, never

piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise warmed than by the bastinado.

THE THIRD BOOK.