Chapter Chapter 63 · Of the acts of the noble Pan

Chapter 2.V.

Of the acts of the noble Pantagruel in his youthful age.

Thus grew Pantagruel from day to day, and to everyone’s eye waxed more and

more in all his dimensions, which made his father to rejoice by a natural

affection. Therefore caused he to be made for him, whilst he was yet

little, a pretty crossbow wherewith to shoot at small birds, which now they

call the great crossbow at Chantelle. Then he sent him to the school to

learn, and to spend his youth in virtue. In the prosecution of which

design he came first to Poictiers, where, as he studied and profited very

much, he saw that the scholars were oftentimes at leisure and knew not how

to bestow their time, which moved him to take such compassion on them, that

one day he took from a long ledge of rocks, called there Passelourdin, a

huge great stone, of about twelve fathom square and fourteen handfuls

thick, and with great ease set it upon four pillars in the midst of a

field, to no other end but that the said scholars, when they had nothing

else to do, might pass their time in getting up on that stone, and feast it

with store of gammons, pasties, and flagons, and carve their names upon it

with a knife, in token of which deed till this hour the stone is called the

lifted stone. And in remembrance hereof there is none entered into the

of taking any degree therein, till he have first drunk in the caballine

fountain of Croustelles, passed at Passelourdin, and got up upon the lifted

stone.

Afterwards, reading the delectable chronicles of his ancestors, he found

that Geoffrey of Lusignan, called Geoffrey with the great tooth,

grandfather to the cousin-in-law of the eldest sister of the aunt of the

son-in-law of the uncle of the good daughter of his stepmother, was

interred at Maillezais; therefore one day he took campos (which is a little

vacation from study to play a while), that he might give him a visit as

unto an honest man. And going from Poictiers with some of his companions,

they passed by the Guge (Leguge), visiting the noble Abbot Ardillon; then

by Lusignan, by Sansay, by Celles, by Coolonges, by Fontenay-le-Comte,

saluting the learned Tiraqueau, and from thence arrived at Maillezais,

where he went to see the sepulchre of the said Geoffrey with the great

tooth; which made him somewhat afraid, looking upon the picture, whose

lively draughts did set him forth in the representation of a man in an

extreme fury, drawing his great Malchus falchion half way out of his

scabbard. When the reason hereof was demanded, the canons of the said

place told him that there was no other cause of it but that Pictoribus

atque Poetis, &c., that is to say, that painters and poets have liberty to

paint and devise what they list after their own fancy. But he was not

satisfied with their answer, and said, He is not thus painted without a

cause, and I suspect that at his death there was some wrong done him,

whereof he requireth his kindred to take revenge. I will inquire further

into it, and then do what shall be reasonable. Then he returned not to

Poictiers, but would take a view of the other universities of France.

Therefore, going to Rochelle, he took shipping and arrived at Bordeaux,

where he found no great exercise, only now and then he would see some

mariners and lightermen a-wrestling on the quay or strand by the

river-side. From thence he came to Toulouse, where he learned to dance very

well, and to play with the two-handed sword, as the fashion of the scholars

of the said university is to bestir themselves in games whereof they may

have their hands full; but he stayed not long there when he saw that they

did cause burn their regents alive like red herring, saying, Now God forbid

that I should die this death! for I am by nature sufficiently dry already,

without heating myself any further.

He went then to Montpellier, where he met with the good wives of Mirevaux,

and good jovial company withal, and thought to have set himself to the

study of physic; but he considered that that calling was too troublesome

and melancholic, and that physicians did smell of glisters like old devils.

Therefore he resolved he would study the laws; but seeing that there were

but three scald- and one bald-pated legist in that place, he departed from

thence, and in his way made the bridge of Guard and the amphitheatre of

Nimes in less than three hours, which, nevertheless, seems to be a more

divine than human work. After that he came to Avignon, where he was not

above three days before he fell in love; for the women there take great

delight in playing at the close-buttock game, because it is papal ground.

Which his tutor and pedagogue Epistemon perceiving, he drew him out of that

place, and brought him to Valence in the Dauphiny, where he saw no great

matter of recreation, only that the lubbers of the town did beat the

scholars, which so incensed him with anger, that when, upon a certain very

fair Sunday, the people being at their public dancing in the streets, and

one of the scholars offering to put himself into the ring to partake of

that sport, the foresaid lubberly fellows would not permit him the

admittance into their society, he, taking the scholar’s part, so belaboured

them with blows, and laid such load upon them, that he drove them all

before him, even to the brink of the river Rhone, and would have there

drowned them, but that they did squat to the ground, and there lay close a

full half-league under the river. The hole is to be seen there yet.

After that he departed from thence, and in three strides and one leap came

to Angiers, where he found himself very well, and would have continued

there some space, but that the plague drove them away. So from thence he

came to Bourges, where he studied a good long time, and profited very much

in the faculty of the laws, and would sometimes say that the books of the

civil law were like unto a wonderfully precious, royal, and triumphant robe

of cloth of gold edged with dirt; for in the world are no goodlier books to

be seen, more ornate, nor more eloquent than the texts of the Pandects, but

the bordering of them, that is to say, the gloss of Accursius, is so

scurvy, vile, base, and unsavoury, that it is nothing but filthiness and

villainy.

Going from Bourges, he came to Orleans, where he found store of swaggering

scholars that made him great entertainment at his coming, and with whom he

learned to play at tennis so well that he was a master at that game. For

the students of the said place make a prime exercise of it; and sometimes

they carried him unto Cupid’s houses of commerce (in that city termed

islands, because of their being most ordinarily environed with other

houses, and not contiguous to any), there to recreate his person at the

sport of poussavant, which the wenches of London call the ferkers in and

in. As for breaking his head with over-much study, he had an especial care

not to do it in any case, for fear of spoiling his eyes. Which he the

rather observed, for that it was told him by one of his teachers, there

called regents, that the pain of the eyes was the most hurtful thing of any

to the sight. For this cause, when he one day was made a licentiate, or

graduate in law, one of the scholars of his acquaintance, who of learning

had not much more than his burden, though instead of that he could dance

very well and play at tennis, made the blazon and device of the licentiates

in the said university, saying,

So you have in your hand a racket,

A tennis-ball in your cod-placket,

A Pandect law in your cap’s tippet,

And that you have the skill to trip it

In a low dance, you will b’ allowed

The grant of the licentiate’s hood.