Bab Bab 66 · How Pantagruel, being at Par

Chapter 2.VIII.

How Pantagruel, being at Paris, received letters from his father Gargantua,

and the copy of them.

Pantagruel studied very hard, as you may well conceive, and profited

accordingly; for he had an excellent understanding and notable wit,

together with a capacity in memory equal to the measure of twelve oil

budgets or butts of olives. And, as he was there abiding one day, he

received a letter from his father in manner as followeth.

Most dear Son,--Amongst the gifts, graces, and prerogatives, with which the

sovereign plasmator God Almighty hath endowed and adorned human nature at

the beginning, that seems to me most singular and excellent by which we may

in a mortal state attain to a kind of immortality, and in the course of

this transitory life perpetuate our name and seed, which is done by a

progeny issued from us in the lawful bonds of matrimony. Whereby that in

some measure is restored unto us which was taken from us by the sin of our

first parents, to whom it was said that, because they had not obeyed the

commandment of God their Creator, they should die, and by death should be

brought to nought that so stately frame and plasmature wherein the man at

first had been created.

But by this means of seminal propagation there (“Which continueth” in the

old copy.) continueth in the children what was lost in the parents, and in

the grandchildren that which perished in their fathers, and so successively

until the day of the last judgment, when Jesus Christ shall have rendered

up to God the Father his kingdom in a peaceable condition, out of all

danger and contamination of sin; for then shall cease all generations and

corruptions, and the elements leave off their continual transmutations,

seeing the so much desired peace shall be attained unto and enjoyed, and

that all things shall be brought to their end and period. And, therefore,

not without just and reasonable cause do I give thanks to God my Saviour

and Preserver, for that he hath enabled me to see my bald old age

reflourish in thy youth; for when, at his good pleasure, who rules and

governs all things, my soul shall leave this mortal habitation, I shall not

account myself wholly to die, but to pass from one place unto another,

considering that, in and by that, I continue in my visible image living in

the world, visiting and conversing with people of honour, and other my good

friends, as I was wont to do. Which conversation of mine, although it was

not without sin, because we are all of us trespassers, and therefore ought

continually to beseech his divine majesty to blot our transgressions out of

his memory, yet was it, by the help and grace of God, without all manner of

reproach before men.

Wherefore, if those qualities of the mind but shine in thee wherewith I am

endowed, as in thee remaineth the perfect image of my body, thou wilt be

esteemed by all men to be the perfect guardian and treasure of the

immortality of our name. But, if otherwise, I shall truly take but small

pleasure to see it, considering that the lesser part of me, which is the

body, would abide in thee, and the best, to wit, that which is the soul,

and by which our name continues blessed amongst men, would be degenerate

and abastardized. This I do not speak out of any distrust that I have of

thy virtue, which I have heretofore already tried, but to encourage thee

yet more earnestly to proceed from good to better. And that which I now

write unto thee is not so much that thou shouldst live in this virtuous

course, as that thou shouldst rejoice in so living and having lived, and

cheer up thyself with the like resolution in time to come; to the

prosecution and accomplishment of which enterprise and generous undertaking

thou mayst easily remember how that I have spared nothing, but have so

helped thee, as if I had had no other treasure in this world but to see

thee once in my life completely well-bred and accomplished, as well in

virtue, honesty, and valour, as in all liberal knowledge and civility, and

so to leave thee after my death as a mirror representing the person of me

thy father, and if not so excellent, and such in deed as I do wish thee,

yet such in my desire.

But although my deceased father of happy memory, Grangousier, had bent his

best endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and political

knowledge, and that my labour and study was fully correspondent to, yea,

went beyond his desire, nevertheless, as thou mayest well understand, the

time then was not so proper and fit for learning as it is at present,

neither had I plenty of such good masters as thou hast had. For that time

was darksome, obscured with clouds of ignorance, and savouring a little of

the infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had, wherever they set

footing, destroyed all good literature, which in my age hath by the divine

goodness been restored unto its former light and dignity, and that with

such amendment and increase of the knowledge, that now hardly should I be

admitted unto the first form of the little grammar-schoolboys--I say, I,

who in my youthful days was, and that justly, reputed the most learned of

that age. Which I do not speak in vain boasting, although I might lawfully

do it in writing unto thee--in verification whereof thou hast the authority

of Marcus Tullius in his book of old age, and the sentence of Plutarch in

the book entitled How a man may praise himself without envy--but to give

thee an emulous encouragement to strive yet further.

Now is it that the minds of men are qualified with all manner of

discipline, and the old sciences revived which for many ages were extinct.

Now it is that the learned languages are to their pristine purity restored,

viz., Greek, without which a man may be ashamed to account himself a

scholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaean, and Latin. Printing likewise is now in

use, so elegant and so correct that better cannot be imagined, although it

was found out but in my time by divine inspiration, as by a diabolical

suggestion on the other side was the invention of ordnance. All the world

is full of knowing men, of most learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries;

and it appears to me as a truth, that neither in Plato’s time, nor

Cicero’s, nor Papinian’s, there was ever such conveniency for studying as

we see at this day there is. Nor must any adventure henceforward to come

in public, or present himself in company, that hath not been pretty well

polished in the shop of Minerva. I see robbers, hangmen, freebooters,

tapsters, ostlers, and such like, of the very rubbish of the people, more

learned now than the doctors and preachers were in my time.

What shall I say? The very women and children have aspired to this praise

and celestial manner of good learning. Yet so it is that, in the age I am

now of, I have been constrained to learn the Greek tongue--which I

contemned not like Cato, but had not the leisure in my younger years to

attend the study of it--and take much delight in the reading of Plutarch’s

Morals, the pleasant Dialogues of Plato, the Monuments of Pausanias, and

the Antiquities of Athenaeus, in waiting on the hour wherein God my Creator

shall call me and command me to depart from this earth and transitory

pilgrimage. Wherefore, my son, I admonish thee to employ thy youth to

profit as well as thou canst, both in thy studies and in virtue. Thou art

at Paris, where the laudable examples of many brave men may stir up thy

mind to gallant actions, and hast likewise for thy tutor and pedagogue the

learned Epistemon, who by his lively and vocal documents may instruct thee

in the arts and sciences.

I intend, and will have it so, that thou learn the languages perfectly;

first of all the Greek, as Quintilian will have it; secondly, the Latin;

and then the Hebrew, for the Holy Scripture sake; and then the Chaldee and

Arabic likewise, and that thou frame thy style in Greek in imitation of

Plato, and for the Latin after Cicero. Let there be no history which thou

shalt not have ready in thy memory; unto the prosecuting of which design,

books of cosmography will be very conducible and help thee much. Of the

liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave thee some taste

when thou wert yet little, and not above five or six years old. Proceed

further in them, and learn the remainder if thou canst. As for astronomy,

study all the rules thereof. Let pass, nevertheless, the divining and

judicial astrology, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plain

abuses and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would have thee to

know the texts by heart, and then to confer them with philosophy.

Now, in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would have thee

to study that exactly, and that so there be no sea, river, nor fountain, of

which thou dost not know the fishes; all the fowls of the air; all the

several kinds of shrubs and trees, whether in forests or orchards; all the

sorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground; all the various

metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth; together with all the

diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and south

parts of the world. Let nothing of all these be hidden from thee. Then

fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and

Latin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and by

frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the other world,

called the microcosm, which is man. And at some hours of the day apply thy

mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first in Greek, the New

Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament in

Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of

knowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man,

thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learn

chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby to

defend my house and our friends, and to succour and protect them at all

their needs against the invasion and assaults of evildoers.

Furthermore, I will that very shortly thou try how much thou hast profited,

which thou canst not better do than by maintaining publicly theses and

conclusions in all arts against all persons whatsoever, and by haunting the

company of learned men, both at Paris and otherwhere. But because, as the

wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and that

knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, it behoveth thee

to serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to cast all thy thoughts and all

thy hope, and by faith formed in charity to cleave unto him, so that thou

mayst never be separated from him by thy sins. Suspect the abuses of the

world. Set not thy heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory, but the

Word of the Lord endureth for ever. Be serviceable to all thy neighbours,

and love them as thyself. Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversation

of those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the

graces which God hath bestowed upon thee. And, when thou shalt see that

thou hast attained to all the knowledge that is to be acquired in that

part, return unto me, that I may see thee and give thee my blessing before

I die. My son, the peace and grace of our Lord be with thee. Amen.

Thy father Gargantua.

From Utopia the 17th day of the month of March.

These letters being received and read, Pantagruel plucked up his heart,

took a fresh courage to him, and was inflamed with a desire to profit in

his studies more than ever, so that if you had seen him, how he took pains,

and how he advanced in learning, you would have said that the vivacity of

his spirit amidst the books was like a great fire amongst dry wood, so

active it was, vigorous and indefatigable.