Kabanata Kabanata 69 · How the Lords of Kissbreech

Chapter 2.XI.

How the Lords of Kissbreech and Suckfist did plead before Pantagruel

without an attorney.

Then began Kissbreech in manner as followeth. My lord, it is true that a

good woman of my house carried eggs to the market to sell. Be covered,

Kissbreech, said Pantagruel. Thanks to you, my lord, said the Lord

Kissbreech; but to the purpose. There passed betwixt the two tropics the

sum of threepence towards the zenith and a halfpenny, forasmuch as the

Riphaean mountains had been that year oppressed with a great sterility of

counterfeit gudgeons and shows without substance, by means of the babbling

tattle and fond fibs seditiously raised between the gibblegabblers and

Accursian gibberish-mongers for the rebellion of the Switzers, who had

assembled themselves to the full number of the bumbees and myrmidons to go

a-handsel-getting on the first day of the new year, at that very time when

they give brewis to the oxen and deliver the key of the coals to the

country-girls for serving in of the oats to the dogs. All the night long

they did nothing else, keeping their hands still upon the pot, but

despatch, both on foot and horseback, leaden-sealed writs or letters, to

wit, papal commissions commonly called bulls, to stop the boats; for the

tailors and seamsters would have made of the stolen shreds and clippings a

goodly sagbut to cover the face of the ocean, which then was great with

child of a potful of cabbage, according to the opinion of the

hay-bundle-makers. But the physicians said that by the urine they

could discern no manifest sign of the bustard’s pace, nor how to eat

double-tongued mattocks with mustard, unless the lords and gentlemen of the

court should be pleased to give by B.mol express command to the pox not to

run about any longer in gleaning up of coppersmiths and tinkers; for the

jobbernolls had already a pretty good beginning in their dance of the

British jig called the estrindore, to a perfect diapason, with one foot in

the fire, and their head in the middle, as goodman Ragot was wont to say.

Ha, my masters, God moderates all things, and disposeth of them at his

pleasure, so that against unlucky fortune a carter broke his frisking whip,

which was all the wind-instrument he had. This was done at his return from

the little paltry town, even then when Master Antitus of Cressplots was

licentiated, and had passed his degrees in all dullery and blockishness,

according to this sentence of the canonists, Beati Dunces, quoniam ipsi

stumblaverunt. But that which makes Lent to be so high, by St. Fiacre of

Bry, is for nothing else but that the Pentecost never comes but to my cost;

yet, on afore there, ho! a little rain stills a great wind, and we must

think so, seeing that the sergeant hath propounded the matter so far above

my reach, that the clerks and secondaries could not with the benefit

thereof lick their fingers, feathered with ganders, so orbicularly as they

were wont in other things to do. And we do manifestly see that everyone

acknowledgeth himself to be in the error wherewith another hath been

charged, reserving only those cases whereby we are obliged to take an

ocular inspection in a perspective glass of these things towards the place

in the chimney where hangeth the sign of the wine of forty girths, which

have been always accounted very necessary for the number of twenty pannels

and pack-saddles of the bankrupt protectionaries of five years’ respite.

Howsoever, at least, he that would not let fly the fowl before the

cheesecakes ought in law to have discovered his reason why not, for the

memory is often lost with a wayward shoeing. Well, God keep Theobald

Mitain from all danger! Then said Pantagruel, Hold there! Ho, my friend,

soft and fair, speak at leisure and soberly without putting yourself in

choler. I understand the case,--go on. Now then, my lord, said

Kissbreech, the foresaid good woman saying her gaudez and audi nos, could

not cover herself with a treacherous backblow, ascending by the wounds and

passions of the privileges of the universities, unless by the virtue of a

warming-pan she had angelically fomented every part of her body in covering

them with a hedge of garden-beds; then giving in a swift unavoidable thirst

(thrust) very near to the place where they sell the old rags whereof the

painters of Flanders make great use when they are about neatly to clap on

shoes on grasshoppers, locusts, cigals, and such like fly-fowls, so strange

to us that I am wonderfully astonished why the world doth not lay, seeing

it is so good to hatch.

Here the Lord of Suckfist would have interrupted him and spoken somewhat,

whereupon Pantagruel said unto him, St! by St. Anthony’s belly, doth it

become thee to speak without command? I sweat here with the extremity of

labour and exceeding toil I take to understand the proceeding of your

mutual difference, and yet thou comest to trouble and disquiet me. Peace,

in the devil’s name, peace. Thou shalt be permitted to speak thy bellyful

when this man hath done, and no sooner. Go on, said he to Kissbreech;

speak calmly, and do not overheat yourself with too much haste.

I perceiving, then, said Kissbreech, that the Pragmatical Sanction did make

no mention of it, and that the holy Pope to everyone gave liberty to fart

at his own ease, if that the blankets had no streaks wherein the liars were

to be crossed with a ruffian-like crew, and, the rainbow being newly

sharpened at Milan to bring forth larks, gave his full consent that the

good woman should tread down the heel of the hip-gut pangs, by virtue of a

solemn protestation put in by the little testiculated or codsted fishes,

which, to tell the truth, were at that time very necessary for

understanding the syntax and construction of old boots. Therefore John

Calf, her cousin gervais once removed with a log from the woodstack, very

seriously advised her not to put herself into the hazard of quagswagging in

the lee, to be scoured with a buck of linen clothes till first she had

kindled the paper. This counsel she laid hold on, because he desired her

to take nothing and throw out, for Non de ponte vadit, qui cum sapientia

cadit. Matters thus standing, seeing the masters of the chamber of

accompts or members of that committee did not fully agree amongst

themselves in casting up the number of the Almany whistles, whereof were

framed those spectacles for princes which have been lately printed at

Antwerp, I must needs think that it makes a bad return of the writ, and

that the adverse party is not to be believed, in sacer verbo dotis. For

that, having a great desire to obey the pleasure of the king, I armed

myself from toe to top with belly furniture, of the soles of good

venison-pasties, to go see how my grape-gatherers and vintagers had pinked

and cut full of small holes their high-coped caps, to lecher it the better,

and play at in and in. And indeed the time was very dangerous in coming

from the fair, in so far that many trained bowmen were cast at the muster

and quite rejected, although the chimney-tops were high enough, according to

the proportion of the windgalls in the legs of horses, or of the malanders,

which in the esteem of expert farriers is no better disease, or else the

story of Ronypatifam or Lamibaudichon, interpreted by some to be the tale of

a tub or of a roasted horse, savours of apocrypha, and is not an authentic

history. And by this means there was that year great abundance, throughout

all the country of Artois, of tawny buzzing beetles, to the no small profit

of the gentlemen-great-stick-faggot-carriers, when they did eat without

disdaining the cocklicranes, till their belly was like to crack with it

again. As for my own part, such is my Christian charity towards my

neighbours, that I could wish from my heart everyone had as good a voice; it

would make us play the better at the tennis and the balloon. And truly, my

lord, to express the real truth without dissimulation, I cannot but say that

those petty subtle devices which are found out in the etymologizing of

pattens would descend more easily into the river of Seine, to serve for ever

at the millers’ bridge upon the said water, as it was heretofore decreed by

the king of the Canarians, according to the sentence or judgment given

thereupon, which is to be seen in the registry and records within the

clerk’s office of this house.

And, therefore, my lord, I do most humbly require, that by your lordship

there may be said and declared upon the case what is reasonable, with

costs, damages, and interests. Then said Pantagruel, My friend, is this

all you have to say? Kissbreech answered, Yes, my lord, for I have told

all the tu autem, and have not varied at all upon mine honour in so much as

one single word. You then, said Pantagruel, my Lord of Suckfist, say what

you will, and be brief, without omitting, nevertheless, anything that may

serve to the purpose.