Kabanata Kabanata 104 · How Pantagruel doth explore

Chapter 3.XII.

How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurge

shall have in his marriage.

Then at the opening of the book in the sixteenth row of the lines of the

disclosed page did Panurge encounter upon this following verse:

Nec Deus hunc mensa, Dea nec dignata cubili est.

The god him from his table banished,

Nor would the goddess have him in her bed.

This response, quoth Pantagruel, maketh not very much for your benefit or

advantage; for it plainly signifies and denoteth that your wife shall be a

strumpet, and yourself by consequence a cuckold. The goddess, whom you

shall not find propitious nor favourable unto you, is Minerva, a most

redoubtable and dreadful virgin, a powerful and fulminating goddess, an

enemy to cuckolds and effeminate youngsters, to cuckold-makers and

adulterers. The god is Jupiter, a terrible and thunder-striking god from

heaven. And withal it is to be remarked, that, conform to the doctrine of

the ancient Etrurians, the manubes, for so did they call the darting hurls

or slinging casts of the Vulcanian thunderbolts, did only appertain to her

and to Jupiter her father capital. This was verified in the conflagration

of the ships of Ajax Oileus, nor doth this fulminating power belong to any

other of the Olympic gods. Men, therefore, stand not in such fear of them.

Moreover, I will tell you, and you may take it as extracted out of the

profoundest mysteries of mythology, that, when the giants had enterprised

the waging of a war against the power of the celestial orbs, the gods at

first did laugh at those attempts, and scorned such despicable enemies, who

were, in their conceit, not strong enough to cope in feats of warfare with

their pages; but when they saw by the gigantine labour the high hill Pelion

set on lofty Ossa, and that the mount Olympus was made shake to be erected

on the top of both, then was it that Jupiter held a parliament, or general

convention, wherein it was unanimously resolved upon and condescended to by

all the gods, that they should worthily and valiantly stand to their

defence. And because they had often seen battles lost by the cumbersome

lets and disturbing encumbrances of women confusedly huddled in amongst

armies, it was at that time decreed and enacted that they should expel and

drive out of heaven into Egypt and the confines of Nile that whole crew of

goddesses, disguised in the shapes of weasels, polecats, bats, shrew-mice,

ferrets, fulmarts, and other such like odd transformations; only Minerva

was reserved to participate with Jupiter in the horrific fulminating power,

as being the goddess both of war and learning, of arts and arms, of counsel

and despatch--a goddess armed from her birth, a goddess dreaded in heaven,

in the air, by sea and land. By the belly of Saint Buff, quoth Panurge,

should I be Vulcan, whom the poet blazons? Nay, I am neither a cripple,

coiner of false money, nor smith, as he was. My wife possibly will be as

comely and handsome as ever was his Venus, but not a whore like her, nor I

a cuckold like him. The crook-legged slovenly slave made himself to be

declared a cuckold by a definite sentence and judgment, in the open view of

all the gods. For this cause ought you to interpret the afore-mentioned

verse quite contrary to what you have said. This lot importeth that my

wife will be honest, virtuous, chaste, loyal, and faithful; not armed,

surly, wayward, cross, giddy, humorous, heady, hairbrained, or extracted

out of the brains, as was the goddess Pallas; nor shall this fair jolly

Jupiter be my co-rival. He shall never dip his bread in my broth, though

we should sit together at one table.

Consider his exploits and gallant actions. He was the manifest ruffian,

wencher, whoremonger, and most infamous cuckold-maker that ever breathed.

He did always lecher it like a boar, and no wonder, for he was fostered by

a sow in the Isle of Candia, if Agathocles the Babylonian be not a liar,

and more rammishly lascivious than a buck; whence it is that he is said by

others to have been suckled and fed with the milk of the Amalthaean goat.

By the virtue of Acheron, he justled, bulled, and lastauriated in one day

the third part of the world, beasts and people, floods and mountains; that

was Europa. For this grand subagitatory achievement the Ammonians caused

draw, delineate, and paint him in the figure and shape of a ram ramming,

and horned ram. But I know well enough how to shield and preserve myself

from that horned champion. He will not, trust me, have to deal in my

person with a sottish, dunsical Amphitryon, nor with a silly witless Argus,

for all his hundred spectacles, nor yet with the cowardly meacock Acrisius,

the simple goose-cap Lycus of Thebes, the doting blockhead Agenor, the

phlegmatic pea-goose Aesop, rough-footed Lycaon, the luskish misshapen

Corytus of Tuscany, nor with the large-backed and strong-reined Atlas. Let

him alter, change, transform, and metamorphose himself into a hundred

various shapes and figures, into a swan, a bull, a satyr, a shower of gold,

or into a cuckoo, as he did when he unmaidened his sister Juno; into an

eagle, ram, or dove, as when he was enamoured of the virgin Phthia, who

then dwelt in the Aegean territory; into fire, a serpent, yea, even into a

flea; into Epicurean and Democratical atoms, or, more

Magistronostralistically, into those sly intentions of the mind, which in

the schools are called second notions,--I’ll catch him in the nick, and

take him napping. And would you know what I would do unto him? Even that

which to his father Coelum Saturn did--Seneca foretold it of me, and

Lactantius hath confirmed it--what the goddess Rhea did to Athis. I would

make him two stone lighter, rid him of his Cyprian cymbals, and cut so

close and neatly by the breech, that there shall not remain thereof so much

as one--, so cleanly would I shave him, and disable him for ever from being

Pope, for Testiculos non habet. Hold there, said Pantagruel; ho, soft and

fair, my lad! Enough of that,--cast up, turn over the leaves, and try your

fortune for the second time. Then did he fall upon this ensuing verse:

Membra quatit, gelidusque coit formidine sanguis.

His joints and members quake, he becomes pale,

And sudden fear doth his cold blood congeal.

This importeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will soundly bang your back and

belly. Clean and quite contrary, answered Panurge; it is of me that he

prognosticates, in saying that I will beat her like a tiger if she vex me.

Sir Martin Wagstaff will perform that office, and in default of a cudgel,

the devil gulp him, if I should not eat her up quick, as Candaul the Lydian

king did his wife, whom he ravened and devoured.

You are very stout, says Pantagruel, and courageous; Hercules himself durst

hardly adventure to scuffle with you in this your raging fury. Nor is it

strange; for the Jan is worth two, and two in fight against Hercules are

too too strong. Am I a Jan? quoth Panurge. No, no, answered Pantagruel.

My mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack. Thereafter did he

hit, at the third opening of the book, upon this verse:

Foemineo praedae, et spoliorum ardebat amore.

After the spoil and pillage, as in fire,

He burnt with a strong feminine desire.

This portendeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will steal your goods, and rob

you. Hence this, according to these three drawn lots, will be your future

destiny, I clearly see it,--you will be a cuckold, you will be beaten, and

you will be robbed. Nay, it is quite otherwise, quoth Panurge; for it is

certain that this verse presageth that she will love me with a perfect

liking. Nor did the satyr-writing poet lie in proof hereof, when he

affirmed that a woman, burning with extreme affection, takes sometimes

pleasure to steal from her sweetheart. And what, I pray you? A glove, a

point, or some such trifling toy of no importance, to make him keep a

gentle kind of stirring in the research and quest thereof. In like manner,

these small scolding debates and petty brabbling contentions, which

frequently we see spring up and for a certain space boil very hot betwixt a

couple of high-spirited lovers, are nothing else but recreative diversions

for their refreshment, spurs to and incentives of a more fervent amity than

ever. As, for example, we do sometimes see cutlers with hammers maul their

finest whetstones, therewith to sharpen their iron tools the better. And

therefore do I think that these three lots make much for my advantage;

which, if not, I from their sentence totally appeal. There is no

appellation, quoth Pantagruel, from the decrees of fate or destiny, of lot

or chance; as is recorded by our ancient lawyers, witness Baldus, Lib. ult.

Cap. de Leg. The reason hereof is, Fortune doth not acknowledge a

superior, to whom an appeal may be made from her or any of her substitutes.

And in this case the pupil cannot be restored to his right in full, as

openly by the said author is alleged in L. Ait Praetor, paragr. ult. ff. de

minor.