Bab Bab 58 · A prophetical Riddle.

Chapter 1.LVIII.

A prophetical Riddle.

Poor mortals, who wait for a happy day,

Cheer up your hearts, and hear what I shall say:

If it be lawful firmly to believe

That the celestial bodies can us give

Wisdom to judge of things that are not yet;

Or if from heaven such wisdom we may get

As may with confidence make us discourse

Of years to come, their destiny and course;

I to my hearers give to understand

That this next winter, though it be at hand,

Yea and before, there shall appear a race

Of men who, loth to sit still in one place,

Shall boldly go before all people’s eyes,

Suborning men of divers qualities

To draw them unto covenants and sides,

In such a manner that, whate’er betides,

They’ll move you, if you give them ear, no doubt,

With both your friends and kindred to fall out.

They’ll make a vassal to gain-stand his lord,

And children their own parents; in a word,

All reverence shall then be banished,

No true respect to other shall be had.

They’ll say that every man should have his turn,

Both in his going forth and his return;

And hereupon there shall arise such woes,

Such jarrings, and confused to’s and fro’s,

That never were in history such coils

Set down as yet, such tumults and garboils.

Then shall you many gallant men see by

Valour stirr’d up, and youthful fervency,

Who, trusting too much in their hopeful time,

Live but a while, and perish in their prime.

Neither shall any, who this course shall run,

Leave off the race which he hath once begun,

Till they the heavens with noise by their contention

Have fill’d, and with their steps the earth’s dimension.

Then those shall have no less authority,

That have no faith, than those that will not lie;

For all shall be governed by a rude,

Base, ignorant, and foolish multitude;

The veriest lout of all shall be their judge,

O horrible and dangerous deluge!

Deluge I call it, and that for good reason,

For this shall be omitted in no season;

Nor shall the earth of this foul stir be free,

Till suddenly you in great store shall see

The waters issue out, with whose streams the

Most moderate of all shall moistened be,

And justly too; because they did not spare

The flocks of beasts that innocentest are,

But did their sinews and their bowels take,

Not to the gods a sacrifice to make,

But usually to serve themselves for sport:

And now consider, I do you exhort,

In such commotions so continual,

What rest can take the globe terrestrial?

Most happy then are they, that can it hold,

And use it carefully as precious gold,

By keeping it in gaol, whence it shall have

No help but him who being to it gave.

And to increase his mournful accident,

The sun, before it set in th’ occident,

Shall cease to dart upon it any light,

More than in an eclipse, or in the night,--

So that at once its favour shall be gone,

And liberty with it be left alone.

And yet, before it come to ruin thus,

Its quaking shall be as impetuous

As Aetna’s was when Titan’s sons lay under,

And yield, when lost, a fearful sound like thunder.

Inarime did not more quickly move,

When Typheus did the vast huge hills remove,

And for despite into the sea them threw.

Thus shall it then be lost by ways not few,

And changed suddenly, when those that have it

To other men that after come shall leave it.

Then shall it be high time to cease from this

So long, so great, so tedious exercise;

For the great waters told you now by me,

Will make each think where his retreat shall be;

And yet, before that they be clean disperst,

You may behold in th’ air, where nought was erst,

The burning heat of a great flame to rise,

Lick up the water, and the enterprise.

It resteth after those things to declare,

That those shall sit content who chosen are,

With all good things, and with celestial man (ne,)

And richly recompensed every man:

The others at the last all stripp’d shall be,

That after this great work all men may see,

How each shall have his due. This is their lot;

O he is worthy praise that shrinketh not!

No sooner was this enigmatical monument read over, but Gargantua, fetching

a very deep sigh, said unto those that stood by, It is not now only, I

perceive, that people called to the faith of the gospel, and convinced with

the certainty of evangelical truths, are persecuted. But happy is that man

that shall not be scandalized, but shall always continue to the end in

aiming at that mark which God by his dear Son hath set before us, without

being distracted or diverted by his carnal affections and depraved nature.

The monk then said, What do you think in your conscience is meant and

signified by this riddle? What? said Gargantua,--the progress and carrying

on of the divine truth. By St. Goderan, said the monk, that is not my

exposition. It is the style of the prophet Merlin. Make upon it as many

grave allegories and glosses as you will, and dote upon it you and the rest

of the world as long as you please; for my part, I can conceive no other

meaning in it but a description of a set at tennis in dark and obscure

terms. The suborners of men are the makers of matches, which are commonly

friends. After the two chases are made, he that was in the upper end of

the tennis-court goeth out, and the other cometh in. They believe the

first that saith the ball was over or under the line. The waters are the

heats that the players take till they sweat again. The cords of the

rackets are made of the guts of sheep or goats. The globe terrestrial is

the tennis-ball. After playing, when the game is done, they refresh

themselves before a clear fire, and change their shirts; and very willingly

they make all good cheer, but most merrily those that have gained. And so,

farewell!

End book 1

THE SECOND BOOK.

For the Reader.

The Reader here may be pleased to take notice that the copy of verses by

the title of ‘Rablophila’, premised to the first book of this translation,

being but a kind of mock poem, in imitation of somewhat lately published

(as to any indifferent observer will easily appear, by the false quantities

in the Latin, the abusive strain of the English, and extravagant

subscription to both), and as such, by a friend of the translator’s, at the

desire of some frolic gentlemen of his acquaintance, more for a trial of

skill than prejudicacy to any, composed in his jollity to please their

fancies, was only ordained to be prefixed to a dozen of books, and no more,

thereby to save the labour of transcribing so many as were requisite for

satisfying the curiosity of a company of just that number; and that,

therefore, the charging of the whole impression with it is merely to be

imputed to the negligence of the pressmen, who, receiving it about the

latter end of the night, were so eager before the next morning to afford

complete books, that, as they began, they went on, without animadverting

what was recommended to their discretion. This is hoped will suffice to

assure the ingenuous Reader that in no treatise of the translator’s,

whether original or translatitious, shall willingly be offered the meanest

rub to the reputation of any worthy gentleman, and that, however providence

dispose of him, no misfortune shall be able to induce his mind to any

complacency in the disparagement of another.

Again.

The Pentateuch of Rabelais mentioned in the title-page of the first book of

this translation being written originally in the French tongue (as it

comprehendeth some of its brusquest dialects), with so much ingeniosity and

wit, that more impressions have been sold thereof in that language than of

any other book that hath been set forth at any time within these fifteen

hundred years; so difficult nevertheless to be turned into any other speech

that many prime spirits in most of the nations of Europe, since the year

1573, which was fourscore years ago, after having attempted it, were

constrained with no small regret to give it over as a thing impossible to

be done, is now in its translation thus far advanced, and the remainder

faithfully undertaken with the same hand to be rendered into English by a

person of quality, who (though his lands be sequestered, his house

garrisoned, his other goods sold, and himself detained a prisoner of war at

London, for his having been at Worcester fight) hath, at the most earnest

entreaty of some of his especial friends well acquainted with his

inclination to the performance of conducible singularities, promised,

besides his version of these two already published, very speedily to offer

up unto this Isle of Britain the virginity of the translation of the other

three most admirable books of the aforesaid author; provided that by the

plurality of judicious and understanding men it be not declared he hath

already proceeded too far, or that the continuation of the rigour whereby

he is dispossessed of all his both real and personal estate, by pressing

too hard upon him, be not an impediment thereto, and to other more eminent

undertakings of his, as hath been oftentimes very fully mentioned by the

said translator in several original treatises of his own penning, lately by

him so numerously dispersed that there is scarce any, who being skilful in

the English idiom, or curious of any new ingenious invention, hath not

either read them or heard of them.

Mr. Hugh Salel to Rabelais.

If profit mixed with pleasure may suffice

T’ extol an author’s worth above the skies,

Thou certainly for both must praised be:

I know it; for thy judgment hath in the

Contexture of this book set down such high

Contentments, mingled with utility,

That (as I think) I see Democritus

Laughing at men as things ridiculous.

Insist in thy design; for, though we prove

Ungrate on earth, thy merit is above.

The Author’s Prologue.

Most illustrious and thrice valorous champions, gentlemen and others, who

willingly apply your minds to the entertainment of pretty conceits and

honest harmless knacks of wit; you have not long ago seen, read, and

understood the great and inestimable Chronicle of the huge and mighty giant

Gargantua, and, like upright faithfullists, have firmly believed all to be

true that is contained in them, and have very often passed your time with

them amongst honourable ladies and gentlewomen, telling them fair long

stories, when you were out of all other talk, for which you are worthy of

great praise and sempiternal memory. And I do heartily wish that every man

would lay aside his own business, meddle no more with his profession nor

trade, and throw all affairs concerning himself behind his back, to attend

this wholly, without distracting or troubling his mind with anything else,

until he have learned them without book; that if by chance the art of

printing should cease, or in case that in time to come all books should

perish, every man might truly teach them unto his children, and deliver

them over to his successors and survivors from hand to hand as a religious

cabal; for there is in it more profit than a rabble of great pocky

loggerheads are able to discern, who surely understand far less in these

little merriments than the fool Raclet did in the Institutions of

Justinian.

I have known great and mighty lords, and of those not a few, who, going

a-deer-hunting, or a-hawking after wild ducks, when the chase had not

encountered with the blinks that were cast in her way to retard her course,

or that the hawk did but plain and smoothly fly without moving her wings,

perceiving the prey by force of flight to have gained bounds of her, have

been much chafed and vexed, as you understand well enough; but the comfort

unto which they had refuge, and that they might not take cold, was to

relate the inestimable deeds of the said Gargantua. There are others in

the world--these are no flimflam stories, nor tales of a tub--who, being

much troubled with the toothache, after they had spent their goods upon

physicians without receiving at all any ease of their pain, have found no

more ready remedy than to put the said Chronicles betwixt two pieces of

linen cloth made somewhat hot, and so apply them to the place that

smarteth, sinapizing them with a little powder of projection, otherwise

called doribus.

But what shall I say of those poor men that are plagued with the pox and

the gout? O how often have we seen them, even immediately after they were

anointed and thoroughly greased, till their faces did glister like the

keyhole of a powdering tub, their teeth dance like the jacks of a pair of

little organs or virginals when they are played upon, and that they foamed

from their very throats like a boar which the mongrel mastiff-hounds have

driven in and overthrown amongst the toils,--what did they then? All their

consolation was to have some page of the said jolly book read unto them.

And we have seen those who have given themselves to a hundred puncheons of

old devils, in case that they did not feel a manifest ease and assuagement

of pain at the hearing of the said book read, even when they were kept in a

purgatory of torment; no more nor less than women in travail use to find

their sorrow abated when the life of St. Margaret is read unto them. Is

this nothing? Find me a book in any language, in any faculty or science

whatsoever, that hath such virtues, properties, and prerogatives, and I

will be content to pay you a quart of tripes. No, my masters, no; it is

peerless, incomparable, and not to be matched; and this am I resolved for

ever to maintain even unto the fire exclusive. And those that will

pertinaciously hold the contrary opinion, let them be accounted abusers,

predestinators, impostors, and seducers of the people. It is very true

that there are found in some gallant and stately books, worthy of high

estimation, certain occult and hid properties; in the number of which are

reckoned Whippot, Orlando Furioso, Robert the Devil, Fierabras, William

without Fear, Huon of Bordeaux, Monteville, and Matabrune: but they are not

comparable to that which we speak of, and the world hath well known by

infallible experience the great emolument and utility which it hath

received by this Gargantuine Chronicle, for the printers have sold more of

them in two months’ time than there will be bought of Bibles in nine years.

I therefore, your humble slave, being very willing to increase your solace

and recreation yet a little more, do offer you for a present another book

of the same stamp, only that it is a little more reasonable and worthy of

credit than the other was. For think not, unless you wilfully will err

against your knowledge, that I speak of it as the Jews do of the Law. I

was not born under such a planet, neither did it ever befall me to lie, or

affirm a thing for true that was not. I speak of it like a lusty frolic

onocrotary (Onocratal is a bird not much unlike a swan, which sings like an

ass’s braying.), I should say crotenotary (Crotenotaire or notaire crotte,

croquenotaire or notaire croque are but allusions in derision of

protonotaire, which signifieth a pregnotary.) of the martyrized lovers, and

croquenotary of love. Quod vidimus, testamur. It is of the horrible and

dreadful feats and prowesses of Pantagruel, whose menial servant I have

been ever since I was a page, till this hour that by his leave I am

permitted to visit my cow-country, and to know if any of my kindred there

be alive.

And therefore, to make an end of this Prologue, even as I give myself to a

hundred panniersful of fair devils, body and soul, tripes and guts, in case

that I lie so much as one single word in this whole history; after the like

manner, St. Anthony’s fire burn you, Mahoom’s disease whirl you, the

squinance with a stitch in your side and the wolf in your stomach truss

you, the bloody flux seize upon you, the cursed sharp inflammations of

wild-fire, as slender and thin as cow’s hair strengthened with quicksilver,

enter into your fundament, and, like those of Sodom and Gomorrah, may you

fall into sulphur, fire, and bottomless pits, in case you do not firmly

believe all that I shall relate unto you in this present Chronicle.

THE SECOND BOOK.