Chapter Chapter 113 · How Panurge consulteth with

Chapter 3.XXI.

How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named Raminagrobis.

I never thought, said Pantagruel, to have encountered with any man so

headstrong in his apprehensions, or in his opinions so wilful, as I have

found you to be and see you are. Nevertheless, the better to clear and

extricate your doubts, let us try all courses, and leave no stone unturned

nor wind unsailed by. Take good heed to what I am to say unto you. The

swans, which are fowls consecrated to Apollo, never chant but in the hour

of their approaching death, especially in the Meander flood, which is a

river that runneth along some of the territories of Phrygia. This I say,

because Aelianus and Alexander Myndius write that they had seen several

swans in other places die, but never heard any of them sing or chant before

their death. However, it passeth for current that the imminent death of a

swan is presaged by his foregoing song, and that no swan dieth until

preallably he have sung.

After the same manner, poets, who are under the protection of Apollo, when

they are drawing near their latter end do ordinarily become prophets, and

by the inspiration of that god sing sweetly in vaticinating things which

are to come. It hath been likewise told me frequently, that old decrepit

men upon the brinks of Charon’s banks do usher their decease with a

disclosure all at ease, to those that are desirous of such informations, of

the determinate and assured truth of future accidents and contingencies. I

remember also that Aristophanes, in a certain comedy of his, calleth the

old folks Sibyls, Eith o geron Zibullia. For as when, being upon a pier by

the shore, we see afar off mariners, seafaring men, and other travellers

alongst the curled waves of azure Thetis within their ships, we then

consider them in silence only, and seldom proceed any further than to wish

them a happy and prosperous arrival; but when they do approach near to the

haven, and come to wet their keels within their harbour, then both with

words and gestures we salute them, and heartily congratulate their access

safe to the port wherein we are ourselves. Just so the angels, heroes, and

good demons, according to the doctrine of the Platonics, when they see

mortals drawing near unto the harbour of the grave, as the most sure and

calmest port of any, full of repose, ease, rest, tranquillity, free from

the troubles and solicitudes of this tumultuous and tempestuous world; then

is it that they with alacrity hail and salute them, cherish and comfort

them, and, speaking to them lovingly, begin even then to bless them with

illuminations, and to communicate unto them the abstrusest mysteries of

divination. I will not offer here to confound your memory by quoting

antique examples of Isaac, of Jacob, of Patroclus towards Hector, of Hector

towards Achilles, of Polymnestor towards Agamemnon, of Hecuba, of the

Rhodian renowned by Posidonius, of Calanus the Indian towards Alexander the

Great, of Orodes towards Mezentius, and of many others. It shall suffice

for the present that I commemorate unto you the learned and valiant knight

and cavalier William of Bellay, late Lord of Langey, who died on the Hill

of Tarara, the 10th of January, in the climacteric year of his age, and of

our supputation 1543, according to the Roman account. The last three or

four hours of his life he did employ in the serious utterance of a very

pithy discourse, whilst with a clear judgment and spirit void of all

trouble he did foretell several important things, whereof a great deal is

come to pass, and the rest we wait for. Howbeit, his prophecies did at

that time seem unto us somewhat strange, absurd, and unlikely, because

there did not then appear any sign of efficacy enough to engage our faith

to the belief of what he did prognosticate. We have here, near to the town

of Villomere, a man that is both old and a poet, to wit, Raminagrobis, who

to his second wife espoused my Lady Broadsow, on whom he begot the fair

Basoche. It hath been told me he is a-dying, and so near unto his latter

end that he is almost upon the very last moment, point, and article thereof.

Repair thither as fast as you can, and be ready to give an attentive ear to

what he shall chant unto you. It may be that you shall obtain from him what

you desire, and that Apollo will be pleased by his means to clear your

scruples. I am content, quoth Panurge. Let us go thither, Epistemon, and

that both instantly and in all haste, lest otherwise his death prevent our

coming. Wilt thou come along with us, Friar John? Yes, that I will, quoth

Friar John, right heartily to do thee a courtesy, my billy-ballocks; for I

love thee with the best of my milt and liver.

Thereupon, incontinently, without any further lingering, to the way they

all three went, and quickly thereafter--for they made good speed--arriving

at the poetical habitation, they found the jolly old man, albeit in the

agony of his departure from this world, looking cheerfully, with an open

countenance, splendid aspect, and behaviour full of alacrity. After that

Panurge had very civilly saluted him, he in a free gift did present him

with a gold ring, which he even then put upon the medical finger of his

left hand, in the collet or bezel whereof was enchased an Oriental

sapphire, very fair and large. Then, in imitation of Socrates, did he make

an oblation unto him of a fair white cock, which was no sooner set upon the

tester of his bed, than that, with a high raised head and crest, lustily

shaking his feather-coat, he crowed stentoriphonically loud. This done,

Panurge very courteously required of him that he would vouchsafe to favour

him with the grant and report of his sense and judgment touching the future

destiny of his intended marriage. For answer hereto, when the honest old

man had forthwith commanded pen, paper, and ink to be brought unto him, and

that he was at the same call conveniently served with all the three, he

wrote these following verses:

Take, or not take her,

Off, or on:

Handy-dandy is your lot.

When her name you write, you blot.

‘Tis undone, when all is done,

Ended e’er it was begun:

Hardly gallop, if you trot,

Set not forward when you run,

Nor be single, though alone,

Take, or not take her.

Before you eat, begin to fast;

For what shall be was never past.

Say, unsay, gainsay, save your breath:

Then wish at once her life and death.

Take, or not take her.

These lines he gave out of his own hands unto them, saying unto them, Go,

my lads, in peace! the great God of the highest heavens be your guardian

and preserver! and do not offer any more to trouble or disquiet me with

this or any other business whatsoever. I have this same very day, which is

the last both of May and of me, with a greal deal of labour, toil, and

difficulty, chased out of my house a rabble of filthy, unclean, and

plaguily pestilentious rake-hells, black beasts, dusk, dun, white,

ash-coloured, speckled, and a foul vermin of other hues, whose obtrusive

importunity would not permit me to die at my own ease; for by fraudulent

and deceitful pricklings, ravenous, harpy-like graspings, waspish

stingings, and such-like unwelcome approaches, forged in the shop of I know

not what kind of insatiabilities, they went about to withdraw and call me

out of those sweet thoughts wherein I was already beginning to repose

myself and acquiesce in the contemplation and vision, yea, almost in the

very touch and taste of the happiness and felicity which the good God hath

prepared for his faithful saints and elect in the other life and state of

immortality. Turn out of their courses and eschew them, step forth of

their ways and do not resemble them; meanwhile, let me be no more troubled

by you, but leave me now in silence, I beseech you.