Bab Bab 143 · Why it is called Pantagrueli

Chapter 3.LI.

Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof.

By such-like means of attaining to a denomination--the fabulous ways being

only from thence excepted, for the Lord forbid that we should make use of

any fables in this a so veritable history--is this herb called

Pantagruelion, for Pantagruel was the inventor thereof. I do not say of

the plant itself, but of a certain use which it serves for, exceeding

odious and hateful to thieves and robbers, unto whom it is more contrarious

and hurtful than the strangle-weed and chokefitch is to the flax, the

cats-tail to the brakes, the sheave-grass to the mowers of hay, the fitches

to the chickney-pease, the darnel to barley, the hatchet-fitch to the lentil

pulse, the antramium to the beans, tares to wheat, ivy to walls, the

water-lily to lecherous monks, the birchen rod to the scholars of the

college of Navarre in Paris, colewort to the vine-tree, garlic to the

loadstone, onions to the sight, fern-seed to women with child, willow-grain

to vicious nuns, the yew-tree shade to those that sleep under it, wolfsbane

to wolves and libbards, the smell of fig-tree to mad bulls, hemlock to

goslings, purslane to the teeth, or oil to trees. For we have seen many of

those rogues, by virtue and right application of this herb, finish their

lives short and long, after the manner of Phyllis, Queen of Thracia, of

Bonosus, Emperor of Rome, of Amata, King Latinus’s wife, of Iphis,

Autolycus, Lycambe, Arachne, Phaedra, Leda, Achius, King of Lydia, and many

thousands more, who were chiefly angry and vexed at this disaster therein,

that, without being otherwise sick or evil-disposed in their bodies, by a

touch only of the Pantagruelion they came on a sudden to have the passage

obstructed, and their pipes, through which were wont to bolt so many jolly

sayings and to enter so many luscious morsels, stopped, more cleverly than

ever could have done the squinancy.

Others have been heard most woefully to lament, at the very instant when

Atropos was about to cut the thread of their life, that Pantagruel held

them by the gorge. But, well-a-day, it was not Pantagruel; he never was an

executioner. It was the Pantagruelion, manufactured and fashioned into an

halter; and serving in the place and office of a cravat. In that, verily,

they solecized and spoke improperly, unless you would excuse them by a

trope, which alloweth us to posit the inventor in the place of the thing

invented, as when Ceres is taken for bread, and Bacchus put instead of

wine. I swear to you here, by the good and frolic words which are to issue

out of that wine-bottle which is a-cooling below in the copper vessel full

of fountain water, that the noble Pantagruel never snatched any man by the

throat, unless it was such a one as was altogether careless and neglective

of those obviating remedies which were preventive of the thirst to come.

It is also termed Pantagruelion by a similitude. For Pantagruel, at the

very first minute of his birth, was no less tall than this herb is long

whereof I speak unto you, his measure having been then taken the more easy

that he was born in the season of the great drought, when they were busiest

in the gathering of the said herb, to wit, at that time when Icarus’s dog,

with his fiery bawling and barking at the sun, maketh the whole world

Troglodytic, and enforceth people everywhere to hide themselves in dens and

subterranean caves. It is likewise called Pantagruelion because of the

notable and singular qualities, virtues, and properties thereof. For as

Pantagruel hath been the idea, pattern, prototype, and exemplary of all

jovial perfection and accomplishment--in the truth whereof I believe there

is none of you gentlemen drinkers that putteth any question--so in this

Pantagruelion have I found so much efficacy and energy, so much

completeness and excellency, so much exquisiteness and rarity, and so many

admirable effects and operations of a transcendent nature, that if the

worth and virtue thereof had been known when those trees, by the relation

of the prophet, made election of a wooden king to rule and govern over

them, it without all doubt would have carried away from all the rest the

plurality of votes and suffrages.

Shall I yet say more? If Oxylus, the son of Orius, had begotten this plant

upon his sister Hamadryas, he had taken more delight in the value and

perfection of it alone than in all his eight children, so highly renowned

by our ablest mythologians that they have sedulously recommended their

names to the never-failing tuition of an eternal remembrance. The eldest

child was a daughter, whose name was Vine; the next born was a boy, and his

name was Fig-tree; the third was called Walnut-tree; the fourth Oak; the

fifth Sorbapple-tree; the sixth Ash; the seventh Poplar, and the last had

the name of Elm, who was the greatest surgeon in his time. I shall forbear

to tell you how the juice or sap thereof, being poured and distilled within

the ears, killeth every kind of vermin that by any manner of putrefaction

cometh to be bred and engendered there, and destroyeth also any whatsoever

other animal that shall have entered in thereat. If, likewise, you put a

little of the said juice within a pail or bucket full of water, you shall

see the water instantly turn and grow thick therewith as if it were

milk-curds, whereof the virtue is so great that the water thus curded is a

present remedy for horses subject to the colic, and such as strike at their

own flanks. The root thereof well boiled mollifieth the joints, softeneth

the hardness of shrunk-in sinews, is every way comfortable to the nerves,

and good against all cramps and convulsions, as likewise all cold and

knotty gouts. If you would speedily heal a burning, whether occasioned by

water or fire, apply thereto a little raw Pantagruelion, that is to say,

take it so as it cometh out of the ground, without bestowing any other

preparation or composition upon it; but have a special care to change it

for some fresher in lieu thereof as soon as you shall find it waxing dry

upon the sore.

Without this herb kitchens would be detested, the tables of dining-rooms

abhorred, although there were great plenty and variety of most dainty and

sumptuous dishes of meat set down upon them, and the choicest beds also,

how richly soever adorned with gold, silver, amber, ivory, porphyry, and

the mixture of most precious metals, would without it yield no delight or

pleasure to the reposers in them. Without it millers could neither carry

wheat, nor any other kind of corn to the mill, nor would they be able to

bring back from thence flour, or any other sort of meal whatsoever.

Without it, how could the papers and writs of lawyers’ clients be brought

to the bar? Seldom is the mortar, lime, or plaster brought to the

workhouse without it. Without it, how should the water be got out of a

draw-well? In what case would tabellions, notaries, copists, makers of

counterpanes, writers, clerks, secretaries, scriveners, and such-like

persons be without it? Were it not for it, what would become of the

toll-rates and rent-rolls? Would not the noble art of printing perish

without it? Whereof could the chassis or paper-windows be made? How should

the bells be rung? The altars of Isis are adorned therewith, the

Pastophorian priests are therewith clad and accoutred, and whole human

nature covered and wrapped therein at its first position and production in

and into this world. All the lanific trees of Seres, the bumbast and cotton

bushes in the territories near the Persian Sea and Gulf of Bengala, the

Arabian swans, together with the plants of Malta, do not all the them

clothe, attire, and apparel so many persons as this one herb alone.

Soldiers are nowadays much better sheltered under it than they were in

former times, when they lay in tents covered with skins. It overshadows the

theatres and amphitheatres from the heat of a scorching sun. It begirdeth

and encompasseth forests, chases, parks, copses, and groves, for the

pleasure of hunters. It descendeth into the salt and fresh of both sea and

river-waters for the profit of fishers. By it are boots of all sizes,

buskins, gamashes, brodkins, gambadoes, shoes, pumps, slippers, and every

cobbled ware wrought and made steadable for the use of man. By it the butt

and rover-bows are strung, the crossbows bended, and the slings made fixed.

And, as if it were an herb every whit as holy as the vervain, and reverenced

by ghosts, spirits, hobgoblins, fiends, and phantoms, the bodies of deceased

men are never buried without it.

I will proceed yet further. By the means of this fine herb the invisible

substances are visibly stopped, arrested, taken, detained, and

prisoner-like committed to their receptive gaols. Heavy and ponderous

weights are by it heaved, lifted up, turned, veered, drawn, carried, and

every way moved quickly, nimbly, and easily, to the great profit and

emolument of humankind. When I perpend with myself these and such-like

marvellous effects of this wonderful herb, it seemeth strange unto me how

the invention of so useful a practice did escape through so many by-past

ages the knowledge of the ancient philosophers, considering the inestimable

utility which from thence proceeded, and the immense labour which without it

they did undergo in their pristine elucubrations. By virtue thereof,

through the retention of some aerial gusts, are the huge rambarges, mighty

galleons, the large floats, the Chiliander, the Myriander ships launched

from their stations and set a-going at the pleasure and arbitrament of their

rulers, conders, and steersmen. By the help thereof those remote nations

whom nature seemed so unwilling to have discovered to us, and so desirous to

have kept them still in abscondito and hidden from us, that the ways through

which their countries were to be reached unto were not only totally unknown,

but judged also to be altogether impermeable and inaccessible, are now

arrived to us, and we to them.

Those voyages outreached flights of birds and far surpassed the scope of

feathered fowls, how swift soever they had been on the wing, and

notwithstanding that advantage which they have of us in swimming through

the air. Taproban hath seen the heaths of Lapland, and both the Javas and

Riphaean mountains; wide distant Phebol shall see Theleme, and the

Islanders drink of the flood Euphrates. By it the chill-mouthed Boreas

hath surveyed the parched mansions of the torrid Auster, and Eurus visited

the regions which Zephyrus hath under his command; yea, in such sort have

interviews been made by the assistance of this sacred herb, that, maugre

longitudes and latitudes, and all the variations of the zones, the

Periaecian people, and Antoecian, Amphiscian, Heteroscian, and Periscian

had oft rendered and received mutual visits to and from other, upon all the

climates. These strange exploits bred such astonishment to the celestial

intelligences, to all the marine and terrestrial gods, that they were on a

sudden all afraid. From which amazement, when they saw how, by means of

this blest Pantagruelion, the Arctic people looked upon the Antarctic,

scoured the Atlantic Ocean, passed the tropics, pushed through the torrid

zone, measured all the zodiac, sported under the equinoctial, having both

poles level with their horizon, they judged it high time to call a council

for their own safety and preservation.

The Olympic gods, being all and each of them affrighted at the sight of

such achievements, said: Pantagruel hath shapen work enough for us, and

put us more to a plunge and nearer our wits’ end by this sole herb of his

than did of old the Aloidae by overturning mountains. He very speedily is

to be married, and shall have many children by his wife. It lies not in

our power to oppose this destiny; for it hath passed through the hands and

spindles of the Fatal Sisters, necessity’s inexorable daughters. Who knows

but by his sons may be found out an herb of such another virtue and

prodigious energy, as that by the aid thereof, in using it aright according

to their father’s skill, they may contrive a way for humankind to pierce

into the high aerian clouds, get up unto the springhead of the hail, take

an inspection of the snowy sources, and shut and open as they please the

sluices from whence proceed the floodgates of the rain; then, prosecuting

their aethereal voyage, they may step in unto the lightning workhouse and

shop, where all the thunderbolts are forged, where, seizing on the magazine

of heaven and storehouse of our warlike fire-munition, they may discharge a

bouncing peal or two of thundering ordnance for joy of their arrival to

these new supernal places, and, charging those tonitrual guns afresh, turn

the whole force of that artillery against ourselves wherein we most

confided. Then is it like they will set forward to invade the territories

of the Moon, whence, passing through both Mercury and Venus, the Sun will

serve them for a torch, to show the way from Mars to Jupiter and Saturn.

We shall not then be able to resist the impetuosity of their intrusion, nor

put a stoppage to their entering in at all, whatever regions, domiciles, or

mansions of the spangled firmament they shall have any mind to see, to stay

in, to travel through for their recreation. All the celestial signs

together, with the constellations of the fixed stars, will jointly be at

their devotion then. Some will take up their lodging at the Ram, some at

the Bull, and others at the Twins; some at the Crab, some at the Lion Inn,

and others at the sign of the Virgin; some at the Balance, others at the

Scorpion, and others will be quartered at the Archer; some will be

harboured at the Goat, some at the Water-pourer’s sign, some at the Fishes;

some will lie at the Crown, some at the Harp, some at the Golden Eagle and

the Dolphin; some at the Flying Horse, some at the Ship, some at the great,

some at the little Bear; and so throughout the glistening hostelries of the

whole twinkling asteristic welkin. There will be sojourners come from the

earth, who, longing after the taste of the sweet cream, of their own

skimming off, from the best milk of all the dairy of the Galaxy, will set

themselves at table down with us, drink of our nectar and ambrosia, and

take to their own beds at night for wives and concubines our fairest

goddesses, the only means whereby they can be deified. A junto hereupon

being convocated, the better to consult upon the manner of obviating a so

dreadful danger, Jove, sitting in his presidential throne, asked the votes

of all the other gods, which, after a profound deliberation amongst

themselves on all contingencies, they freely gave at last, and then

resolved unanimously to withstand the shocks of all whatsoever sublunary

assaults.