Kabanata Kabanata 74 · Of the qualities and conditi

Chapter 2.XVI.

Of the qualities and conditions of Panurge.

Panurge was of a middle stature, not too high nor too low, and had somewhat

an aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor. He was at that time

five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leaden

dagger--for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher--he was a very

gallant and proper man of his person, only that he was a little lecherous,

and naturally subject to a kind of disease which at that time they called

lack of money--it is an incomparable grief, yet, notwithstanding, he had

three score and three tricks to come by it at his need, of which the most

honourable and most ordinary was in manner of thieving, secret purloining

and filching, for he was a wicked lewd rogue, a cozener, drinker, roister,

rover, and a very dissolute and debauched fellow, if there were any in

Paris; otherwise, and in all matters else, the best and most virtuous man

in the world; and he was still contriving some plot, and devising mischief

against the sergeants and the watch.

At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and roaring

boys, made them in the evening drink like Templars, afterwards led them

till they came under St. Genevieve, or about the college of Navarre, and,

at the hour that the watch was coming up that way--which he knew by putting

his sword upon the pavement, and his ear by it, and, when he heard his

sword shake, it was an infallible sign that the watch was near at that

instant--then he and his companions took a tumbrel or dung-cart, and gave

it the brangle, hurling it with all their force down the hill, and so

overthrew all the poor watchmen like pigs, and then ran away upon the other

side; for in less than two days he knew all the streets, lanes, and

turnings in Paris as well as his Deus det.

At another time he made in some fair place, where the said watch was to

pass, a train of gunpowder, and, at the very instant that they went along,

set fire to it, and then made himself sport to see what good grace they had

in running away, thinking that St. Anthony’s fire had caught them by the

legs. As for the poor masters of arts, he did persecute them above all

others. When he encountered with any of them upon the street, he would not

never fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bit

of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on little

foxtails or hares’-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank. One

day that they were appointed all to meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne),

he made a Borbonesa tart, or filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of

garlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, of dogs’ turds very warm, which he

steeped, tempered, and liquefied in the corrupt matter of pocky boils and

pestiferous botches; and, very early in the morning therewith anointed all

the pavement, in such sort that the devil could not have endured it, which

made all these good people there to lay up their gorges, and vomit what was

upon their stomachs before all the world, as if they had flayed the fox;

and ten or twelve of them died of the plague, fourteen became lepers,

eighteen grew lousy, and about seven and twenty had the pox, but he did not

care a button for it. He commonly carried a whip under his gown, wherewith

he whipped without remission the pages whom he found carrying wine to their

masters, to make them mend their pace. In his coat he had above six and

twenty little fobs and pockets always full; one with some lead-water, and a

little knife as sharp as a glover’s needle, wherewith he used to cut

purses; another with some kind of bitter stuff, which he threw into the

eyes of those he met; another with clotburrs, penned with little geese’ or

capon’s feathers, which he cast upon the gowns and caps of honest people,

and often made them fair horns, which they wore about all the city,

sometimes all their life. Very often, also, upon the women’s French hoods

would he stick in the hind part somewhat made in the shape of a man’s

member. In another, he had a great many little horns full of fleas and

lice, which he borrowed from the beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them

with small canes or quills to write with into the necks of the daintiest

gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church, for he never

seated himself above in the choir, but always sat in the body of the church

amongst the women, both at mass, at vespers, and at sermon. In another, he

used to have good store of hooks and buckles, wherewith he would couple men

and women together that sat in company close to one another, but especially

those that wore gowns of crimson taffeties, that, when they were about to

go away, they might rend all their gowns. In another, he had a squib

furnished with tinder, matches, stones to strike fire, and all other

tackling necessary for it. In another, two or three burning glasses,

wherewith he made both men and women sometimes mad, and in the church put

them quite out of countenance; for he said that there was but an

antistrophe, or little more difference than of a literal inversion, between

a woman folle a la messe and molle a la fesse, that is, foolish at the mass

and of a pliant buttock.

In another, he had a good deal of needles and thread, wherewith he did a

thousand little devilish pranks. One time, at the entry of the palace unto

the great hall, where a certain grey friar or cordelier was to say mass to

the counsellors, he did help to apparel him and put on his vestments, but

in the accoutring of him he sewed on his alb, surplice, or stole, to his

gown and shirt, and then withdrew himself when the said lords of the court

or counsellors came to hear the said mass; but when it came to the Ite,

missa est, that the poor frater would have laid by his stole or surplice,

as the fashion then was, he plucked off withal both his frock and shirt,

which were well sewed together, and thereby stripping himself up to the

very shoulders showed his bel vedere to all the world, together with his

Don Cypriano, which was no small one, as you may imagine. And the friar

still kept haling, but so much the more did he discover himself and lay

open his back parts, till one of the lords of the court said, How now!

what’s the matter? Will this fair father make us here an offering of his

tail to kiss it? Nay, St. Anthony’s fire kiss it for us! From thenceforth

it was ordained that the poor fathers should never disrobe themselves any

more before the world, but in their vestry-room, or sextry, as they call

it; especially in the presence of women, lest it should tempt them to the

sin of longing and disordinate desire. The people then asked why it was

the friars had so long and large genitories? The said Panurge resolved the

problem very neatly, saying, That which makes asses to have such great ears

is that their dams did put no biggins on their heads, as Alliaco mentioneth

in his Suppositions. By the like reason, that which makes the genitories

or generation-tools of those so fair fraters so long is, for that they wear

no bottomed breeches, and therefore their jolly member, having no

impediment, hangeth dangling at liberty as far as it can reach, with a

wiggle-waggle down to their knees, as women carry their paternoster beads.

and the cause wherefore they have it so correspondently great is, that in

this constant wig-wagging the humours of the body descend into the said

member. For, according to the Legists, agitation and continual motion is

cause of attraction.

Item, he had another pocket full of itching powder, called stone-alum,

whereof he would cast some into the backs of those women whom he judged to

be most beautiful and stately, which did so ticklishly gall them, that some

would strip themselves in the open view of the world, and others dance like

a cock upon hot embers, or a drumstick on a tabor. Others, again, ran

about the streets, and he would run after them. To such as were in the

stripping vein he would very civilly come to offer his attendance, and

cover them with his cloak, like a courteous and very gracious man.

Item, in another he had a little leather bottle full of old oil, wherewith,

when he saw any man or woman in a rich new handsome suit, he would grease,

smutch, and spoil all the best parts of it under colour and pretence of

touching them, saying, This is good cloth; this is good satin; good

taffeties! Madam, God give you all that your noble heart desireth! You

have a new suit, pretty sir;--and you a new gown, sweet mistress;--God give

you joy of it, and maintain you in all prosperity! And with this would lay

his hand upon their shoulder, at which touch such a villainous spot was

left behind, so enormously engraven to perpetuity in the very soul, body,

and reputation, that the devil himself could never have taken it away.

Then, upon his departing, he would say, Madam, take heed you do not fall,

for there is a filthy great hole before you, whereinto if you put your

foot, you will quite spoil yourself.

Another he had all full of euphorbium, very finely pulverized. In that

powder did he lay a fair handkerchief curiously wrought, which he had

stolen from a pretty seamstress of the palace, in taking away a louse from

off her bosom which he had put there himself, and, when he came into the

company of some good ladies, he would trifle them into a discourse of some

fine workmanship of bone-lace, then immediately put his hand into their

bosom, asking them, And this work, is it of Flanders, or of Hainault? and

then drew out his handkerchief, and said, Hold, hold, look what work here

is, it is of Foutignan or of Fontarabia, and shaking it hard at their nose,

made them sneeze for four hours without ceasing. In the meanwhile he would

fart like a horse, and the women would laugh and say, How now, do you fart,

Panurge? No, no, madam, said he, I do but tune my tail to the plain song

of the music which you make with your nose. In another he had a picklock,

a pelican, a crampiron, a crook, and some other iron tools, wherewith there

was no door nor coffer which he would not pick open. He had another full

of little cups, wherewith he played very artificially, for he had his

fingers made to his hand, like those of Minerva or Arachne, and had

heretofore cried treacle. And when he changed a teston, cardecu, or any

other piece of money, the changer had been more subtle than a fox if

Panurge had not at every time made five or six sols (that is, some six or

seven pence,) vanish away invisibly, openly, and manifestly, without making

any hurt or lesion, whereof the changer should have felt nothing but the

wind.