บทที่ บทที่ 112 · How Goatsnose by signs maket

Chapter 3.XX.

How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge.

Goatsnose being sent for, came the day thereafter to Pantagruel’s court; at

his arrival to which Panurge gave him a fat calf, the half of a hog, two

puncheons of wine, one load of corn, and thirty francs of small money;

then, having brought him before Pantagruel, in presence of the gentlemen of

the bed-chamber he made this sign unto him. He yawned a long time, and in

yawning made without his mouth with the thumb of his right hand the figure

of the Greek letter Tau by frequent reiterations. Afterwards he lifted up

his eyes to heavenwards, then turned them in his head like a she-goat in

the painful fit of an absolute birth, in doing whereof he did cough and

sigh exceeding heavily. This done, after that he had made demonstration of

the want of his codpiece, he from under his shirt took his placket-racket

in a full grip, making it therewithal clack very melodiously betwixt his

thighs; then, no sooner had he with his body stooped a little forwards, and

bowed his left knee, but that immediately thereupon holding both his arms

on his breast, in a loose faint-like posture, the one over the other, he

paused awhile. Goatsnose looked wistly upon him, and having heedfully

enough viewed him all over, he lifted up into the air his left hand, the

whole fingers whereof he retained fistwise close together, except the thumb

and the forefinger, whose nails he softly joined and coupled to one

another. I understand, quoth Pantagruel, what he meaneth by that sign. It

denotes marriage, and withal the number thirty, according to the profession

of the Pythagoreans. You will be married. Thanks to you, quoth Panurge,

in turning himself towards Goatsnose, my little sewer, pretty master’s

mate, dainty bailie, curious sergeant-marshal, and jolly catchpole-leader.

Then did he lift higher up than before his said left hand, stretching out

all the five fingers thereof, and severing them as wide from one another as

he possibly could get done. Here, says Pantagruel, doth he more amply and

fully insinuate unto us, by the token which he showeth forth of the quinary

number, that you shall be married. Yea, that you shall not only be

affianced, betrothed, wedded, and married, but that you shall furthermore

cohabit and live jollily and merrily with your wife; for Pythagoras called

five the nuptial number, which, together with marriage, signifieth the

consummation of matrimony, because it is composed of a ternary, the first

of the odd, and binary, the first of the even numbers, as of a male and

female knit and united together. In very deed it was the fashion of old in

the city of Rome at marriage festivals to light five wax tapers; nor was it

permitted to kindle any more at the magnific nuptials of the most potent

and wealthy, nor yet any fewer at the penurious weddings of the poorest and

most abject of the world. Moreover, in times past, the heathen or paynims

implored the assistance of five deities, or of one helpful, at least, in

five several good offices to those that were to be married. Of this sort

were the nuptial Jove, Juno, president of the feast, the fair Venus, Pitho,

the goddess of eloquence and persuasion, and Diana, whose aid and succour

was required to the labour of child-bearing. Then shouted Panurge, O the

gentle Goatsnose, I will give him a farm near Cinais, and a windmill hard

by Mirebalais! Hereupon the dumb fellow sneezeth with an impetuous

vehemency and huge concussion of the spirits of the whole body, withdrawing

himself in so doing with a jerking turn towards the left hand. By the body

of a fox new slain, quoth Pantagruel, what is that? This maketh nothing

for your advantage; for he betokeneth thereby that your marriage will be

inauspicious and unfortunate. This sneezing, according to the doctrine of

Terpsion, is the Socratic demon. If done towards the right side, it

imports and portendeth that boldly and with all assurance one may go

whither he will and do what he listeth, according to what deliberation he

shall be pleased to have thereupon taken; his entries in the beginning,

progress in his proceedings, and success in the events and issues will be

all lucky, good, and happy. The quite contrary thereto is thereby implied

and presaged if it be done towards the left. You, quoth Panurge, do take

always the matter at the worst, and continually, like another Davus,

casteth in new disturbances and obstructions; nor ever yet did I know this

old paltry Terpsion worthy of citation but in points only of cosenage and

imposture. Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, Cicero hath written I know not

what to the same purpose in his Second Book of Divination.

Panurge then, turning himself towards Goatsnose, made this sign unto him.

He inverted his eyelids upwards, wrenched his jaws from the right to the

left side, and drew forth his tongue half out of his mouth. This done, he

posited his left hand wholly open, the mid-finger wholly excepted, which

was perpendicularly placed upon the palm thereof, and set it just in the

room where his codpiece had been. Then did he keep his right hand

altogether shut up in a fist, save only the thumb, which he straight turned

backwards directly under the right armpit, and settled it afterwards on

that most eminent part of the buttocks which the Arabs call the Al-Katim.

Suddenly thereafter he made this interchange: he held his right hand after

the manner of the left, and posited it on the place wherein his codpiece

sometime was, and retaining his left hand in the form and fashion of the

right, he placed it upon his Al-Katim. This altering of hands did he

reiterate nine several times; at the last whereof he reseated his eyelids

into their own first natural position. Then doing the like also with his

jaws and tongue, he did cast a squinting look upon Goatsnose, diddering and

shivering his chaps, as apes use to do nowadays, and rabbits, whilst,

almost starved with hunger, they are eating oats in the sheaf.

Then was it that Goatsnose, lifting up into the air his right hand wholly

open and displayed, put the thumb thereof, even close unto its first

articulation, between the two third joints of the middle and ring fingers,

pressing about the said thumb thereof very hard with them both, and, whilst

the remanent joints were contracted and shrunk in towards the wrist, he

stretched forth with as much straightness as he could the fore and little

fingers. That hand thus framed and disposed of he laid and posited upon

Panurge’s navel, moving withal continually the aforesaid thumb, and bearing

up, supporting, or under-propping that hand upon the above-specified fore

and little fingers, as upon two legs. Thereafter did he make in this

posture his hand by little and little, and by degrees and pauses,

successively to mount from athwart the belly to the stomach, from whence he

made it to ascend to the breast, even upwards to Panurge’s neck, still

gaining ground, till, having reached his chin, he had put within the

concave of his mouth his afore-mentioned thumb; then fiercely brandishing

the whole hand, which he made to rub and grate against his nose, he heaved

it further up, and made the fashion as if with the thumb thereof he would

have put out his eyes. With this Panurge grew a little angry, and went

about to withdraw and rid himself from this ruggedly untoward dumb devil.

But Goatsnose in the meantime, prosecuting the intended purpose of his

prognosticatory response, touched very rudely, with the above-mentioned

shaking thumb, now his eyes, then his forehead, and after that the borders

and corners of his cap. At last Panurge cried out, saying, Before God,

master fool, if you do not let me alone, or that you will presume to vex me

any more, you shall receive from the best hand I have a mask wherewith to

cover your rascally scroundrel face, you paltry shitten varlet. Then said

Friar John, He is deaf, and doth not understand what thou sayest unto him.

Bulliballock, make sign to him of a hail of fisticuffs upon the muzzle.

What the devil, quoth Panurge, means this busy restless fellow? What is it

that this polypragmonetic ardelion to all the fiends of hell doth aim at?

He hath almost thrust out mine eyes, as if he had been to poach them in a

skillet with butter and eggs. By God, da jurandi, I will feast you with

flirts and raps on the snout, interlarded with a double row of bobs and

finger-fillipings! Then did he leave him in giving him by way of salvo a

volley of farts for his farewell. Goatsnose, perceiving Panurge thus to

slip away from him, got before him, and, by mere strength enforcing him to

stand, made this sign unto him. He let fall his right arm toward his knee

on the same side as low as he could, and, raising all the fingers of that

hand into a close fist, passed his dexter thumb betwixt the foremost and

mid fingers thereto belonging. Then scrubbing and swingeing a little with

his left hand alongst and upon the uppermost in the very bough of the elbow

of the said dexter arm, the whole cubit thereof, by leisure, fair and

softly, at these thumpatory warnings, did raise and elevate itself even to

the elbow, and above it; on a sudden did he then let it fall down as low as

before, and after that, at certain intervals and such spaces of time,

raising and abasing it, he made a show thereof to Panurge. This so

incensed Panurge that he forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him the

dumb roister and given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respect

and reverence which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained his

choler and kept his fury within bounds and limits. Then said Pantagruel,

If the bare signs now vex and trouble you, how much more grievously will

you be perplexed and disquieted with the real things which by them are

represented and signified! All truths agree and are consonant with one

another. This dumb fellow prophesieth and foretelleth that you will be

married, cuckolded, beaten, and robbed. As for the marriage, quoth

Panurge, I yield thereto, and acknowledge the verity of that point of his

prediction; as for the rest, I utterly abjure and deny it: and believe,

sir, I beseech you, if it may please you so to do, that in the matter of

wives and horses never any man was predestinated to a better fortune than

I.