Bab Bab 107 · Panurge’s excuse and exposit

Chapter 3.XV.

Panurge’s excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery concerning powdered

beef.

The Lord save those who see, and do not hear! quoth Panurge. I see you

well enough, but know not what it is that you have said. The

hunger-starved belly wanteth ears. For lack of victuals, before God, I

roar, bray, yell, and fume as in a furious madness. I have performed too

hard a task to-day, an extraordinary work indeed. He shall be craftier, and

do far greater wonders than ever did Mr. Mush, who shall be able any more

this year to bring me on the stage of preparation for a dreaming verdict.

Fie! not to sup at all, that is the devil. Pox take that fashion! Come,

Friar John, let us go break our fast; for, if I hit on such a round

refection in the morning as will serve thoroughly to fill the mill-hopper

and hogs-hide of my stomach, and furnish it with meat and drink sufficient,

then at a pinch, as in the case of some extreme necessity which presseth, I

could make a shift that day to forbear dining. But not to sup! A plague

rot that base custom, which is an error offensive to Nature! That lady made

the day for exercise, to travel, work, wait on and labour in each his

negotiation and employment; and that we may with the more fervency and

ardour prosecute our business, she sets before us a clear burning candle, to

wit, the sun’s resplendency; and at night, when she begins to take the light

from us, she thereby tacitly implies no less than if she would have spoken

thus unto us: My lads and lasses, all of you are good and honest folks, you

have wrought well to-day, toiled and turmoiled enough,--the night

approacheth,--therefore cast off these moiling cares of yours, desist from

all your swinking painful labours, and set your minds how to refresh your

bodies in the renewing of their vigour with good bread, choice wine, and

store of wholesome meats; then may you take some sport and recreation, and

after that lie down and rest yourselves, that you may strongly, nimbly,

lustily, and with the more alacrity to-morrow attend on your affairs as

formerly.

Falconers, in like manner, when they have fed their hawks, will not suffer

them to fly on a full gorge, but let them on a perch abide a little, that

they may rouse, bait, tower, and soar the better. That good pope who was

the first institutor of fasting understood this well enough; for he

ordained that our fast should reach but to the hour of noon; all the

remainder of that day was at our disposure, freely to eat and feed at any

time thereof. In ancient times there were but few that dined, as you would

say, some church men, monks and canons; for they have little other

occupation. Each day is a festival unto them, who diligently heed the

claustral proverb, De missa ad mensam. They do not use to linger and defer

their sitting down and placing of themselves at table, only so long as they

have a mind in waiting for the coming of the abbot; so they fell to without

ceremony, terms, or conditions; and everybody supped, unless it were some

vain, conceited, dreaming dotard. Hence was a supper called coena, which

showeth that it is common to all sorts of people. Thou knowest it well,

Friar John. Come, let us go, my dear friend, in the name of all the devils

of the infernal regions, let us go. The gnawings of my stomach in this

rage of hunger are so tearing, that they make it bark like a mastiff. Let

us throw some bread and beef into his throat to pacify him, as once the

sibyl did to Cerberus. Thou likest best monastical brewis, the prime, the

flower of the pot. I am for the solid, principal verb that comes after

--the good brown loaf, always accompanied with a round slice of the

nine-lecture-powdered labourer. I know thy meaning, answered Friar John;

this metaphor is extracted out of the claustral kettle. The labourer is the

ox that hath wrought and done the labour; after the fashion of nine

lectures, that is to say, most exquisitely well and thoroughly boiled.

These holy religious fathers, by a certain cabalistic institution of the

ancients, not written, but carefully by tradition conveyed from hand to

hand, rising betimes to go to morning prayers, were wont to flourish that

their matutinal devotion with some certain notable preambles before their

entry into the church, viz., they dunged in the dungeries, pissed in the

pisseries, spit in the spitteries, melodiously coughed in the cougheries,

and doted in their dotaries, that to the divine service they might not bring

anything that was unclean or foul. These things thus done, they very

zealously made their repair to the Holy Chapel, for so was in their canting

language termed the convent kitchen, where they with no small earnestness

had care that the beef-pot should be put on the crook for the breakfast of

the religious brothers of our Lord and Saviour; and the fire they would

kindle under the pot themselves. Now, the matins consisting of nine

lessons, (it) it was so incumbent on them, that must have risen the rather

for the more expedite despatching of them all. The sooner that they rose,

the sharper was their appetite and the barkings of their stomachs, and the

gnawings increased in the like proportion, and consequently made these godly

men thrice more a-hungered and athirst than when their matins were hemmed

over only with three lessons. The more betimes they rose, by the said

cabal, the sooner was the beef-pot put on; the longer that the beef was on

the fire, the better it was boiled; the more it boiled, it was the tenderer;

the tenderer that it was, the less it troubled the teeth, delighted more the

palate, less charged the stomach, and nourished our good religious men the

more substantially; which is the only end and prime intention of the first

founders, as appears by this, that they eat not to live, but live to eat,

and in this world have nothing but their life. Let us go, Panurge.

Now have I understood thee, quoth Panurge, my plushcod friar, my caballine

and claustral ballock. I freely quit the costs, interest, and charges,

seeing you have so egregiously commented upon the most especial chapter of

the culinary and monastic cabal. Come along, my Carpalin, and you, Friar

John, my leather-dresser. Good morrow to you all, my good lords; I have

dreamed too much to have so little. Let us go. Panurge had no sooner done

speaking than Epistemon with a loud voice said these words: It is a very

ordinary and common thing amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, and

presage the misfortune, bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have the

understanding, providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man’s own mishap

is very scarce and rare to be found anywhere. This is exceeding

judiciously and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who there

affirmeth that every man in the world carrieth about his neck a wallet, in

the fore-bag whereof were contained the faults and mischances of others

always exposed to his view and knowledge; and in the other scrip thereof,

which hangs behind, are kept the bearer’s proper transgressions and

inauspicious adventures, at no time seen by him, nor thought upon, unless

he be a person that hath a favourable aspect from the heavens.