Chapter Chapter 41 · How the Monk made Gargantua

Chapter 1.XLI.

How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.

Supper being ended, they consulted of the business in hand, and concluded

that about midnight they should fall unawares upon the enemy, to know what

manner of watch and ward they kept, and that in the meanwhile they should

take a little rest the better to refresh themselves. But Gargantua could

not sleep by any means, on which side soever he turned himself. Whereupon

the monk said to him, I never sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or

prayers. Let us therefore begin, you and I, the seven penitential psalms,

to try whether you shall not quickly fall asleep. The conceit pleased

Gargantua very well, and, beginning the first of these psalms, as soon as

they came to the words Beati quorum they fell asleep, both the one and the

other. But the monk, for his being formerly accustomed to the hour of

claustral matins, failed not to awake a little before midnight, and, being

up himself, awaked all the rest, in singing aloud, and with a full clear

voice, the song:

Awake, O Reinian, ho, awake!

Awake, O Reinian, ho!

Get up, you no more sleep must take;

Get up, for we must go.

When they were all roused and up, he said, My masters, it is a usual

saying, that we begin matins with coughing and supper with drinking. Let

us now, in doing clean contrarily, begin our matins with drinking, and at

night before supper we shall cough as hard as we can. What, said

Gargantua, to drink so soon after sleep? This is not to live according to

the diet and prescript rule of the physicians, for you ought first to scour

and cleanse your stomach of all its superfluities and excrements. Oh, well

physicked, said the monk; a hundred devils leap into my body, if there be

not more old drunkards than old physicians! I have made this paction and

covenant with my appetite, that it always lieth down and goes to bed with

myself, for to that I every day give very good order; then the next morning

it also riseth with me and gets up when I am awake. Mind you your charges,

gentlemen, or tend your cures as much as you will. I will get me to my

drawer; in terms of falconry, my tiring. What drawer or tiring do you

mean? said Gargantua. My breviary, said the monk, for just as the

falconers, before they feed their hawks, do make them draw at a hen’s leg

to purge their brains of phlegm and sharpen them to a good appetite, so, by

taking this merry little breviary in the morning, I scour all my lungs and

am presently ready to drink.

After what manner, said Gargantua, do you say these fair hours and prayers

of yours? After the manner of Whipfield (Fessecamp, and corruptly Fecan.),

said the monk, by three psalms and three lessons, or nothing at all, he

that will. I never tie myself to hours, prayers, and sacraments; for they

are made for the man and not the man for them. Therefore is it that I make

my prayers in fashion of stirrup-leathers; I shorten or lengthen them when

I think good. Brevis oratio penetrat caelos et longa potatio evacuat

scyphos. Where is that written? By my faith, said Ponocrates, I cannot

tell, my pillicock, but thou art more worth than gold. Therein, said the

monk, I am like you; but, venite, apotemus. Then made they ready store of

carbonadoes, or rashers on the coals, and good fat soups, or brewis with

sippets; and the monk drank what he pleased. Some kept him company, and

the rest did forbear, for their stomachs were not as yet opened.

Afterwards every man began to arm and befit himself for the field. And they

armed the monk against his will; for he desired no other armour for back

and breast but his frock, nor any other weapon in his hand but the staff of

the cross. Yet at their pleasure was he completely armed cap-a-pie, and

mounted upon one of the best horses in the kingdom, with a good slashing

shable by his side, together with Gargantua, Ponocrates, Gymnast, Eudemon,

and five-and-twenty more of the most resolute and adventurous of

Grangousier’s house, all armed at proof with their lances in their hands,

mounted like St. George, and everyone of them having an arquebusier behind

him.