第 五十九 章 · Of the original and antiquit

Chapter 2.I.

Of the original and antiquity of the great Pantagruel.

It will not be an idle nor unprofitable thing, seeing we are at leisure, to

put you in mind of the fountain and original source whence is derived unto

us the good Pantagruel. For I see that all good historiographers have thus

handled their chronicles, not only the Arabians, Barbarians, and Latins,

but also the gentle Greeks, who were eternal drinkers. You must therefore

remark that at the beginning of the world--I speak of a long time; it is

above forty quarantains, or forty times forty nights, according to the

supputation of the ancient Druids--a little after that Abel was killed by

his brother Cain, the earth, imbrued with the blood of the just, was one

year so exceeding fertile in all those fruits which it usually produceth to

us, and especially in medlars, that ever since throughout all ages it hath

been called the year of the great medlars; for three of them did fill a

bushel. In it the kalends were found by the Grecian almanacks. There was

that year nothing of the month of March in the time of Lent, and the middle

of August was in May. In the month of October, as I take it, or at least

September, that I may not err, for I will carefully take heed of that, was

the week so famous in the annals, which they call the week of the three

Thursdays; for it had three of them by means of their irregular leap-years,

called Bissextiles, occasioned by the sun’s having tripped and stumbled a

little towards the left hand, like a debtor afraid of sergeants, coming

right upon him to arrest him: and the moon varied from her course above

five fathom, and there was manifestly seen the motion of trepidation in the

firmament of the fixed stars, called Aplanes, so that the middle Pleiade,

leaving her fellows, declined towards the equinoctial, and the star named

Spica left the constellation of the Virgin to withdraw herself towards the

Balance, known by the name of Libra, which are cases very terrible, and

matters so hard and difficult that astrologians cannot set their teeth in

them; and indeed their teeth had been pretty long if they could have

reached thither.

However, account you it for a truth that everybody then did most heartily

eat of these medlars, for they were fair to the eye and in taste delicious.

But even as Noah, that holy man, to whom we are so much beholding, bound,

and obliged, for that he planted to us the vine, from whence we have that

nectarian, delicious, precious, heavenly, joyful, and deific liquor which

they call the piot or tiplage, was deceived in the drinking of it, for he

was ignorant of the great virtue and power thereof; so likewise the men and

women of that time did delight much in the eating of that fair great fruit,

but divers and very different accidents did ensue thereupon; for there fell

upon them all in their bodies a most terrible swelling, but not upon all in

the same place, for some were swollen in the belly, and their belly

strouted out big like a great tun, of whom it is written, Ventrem

omnipotentem, who were all very honest men, and merry blades. And of this

race came St. Fatgulch and Shrove Tuesday (Pansart, Mardigras.). Others

did swell at the shoulders, who in that place were so crump and knobby that

they were therefore called Montifers, which is as much to say as

Hill-carriers, of whom you see some yet in the world, of divers sexes and

degrees. Of this race came Aesop, some of whose excellent words and deeds

you have in writing. Some other puffs did swell in length by the member

which they call the labourer of nature, in such sort that it grew

marvellous long, fat, great, lusty, stirring, and crest-risen, in the

antique fashion, so that they made use of it as of a girdle, winding it

five or six times about their waist: but if it happened the foresaid

member to be in good case, spooming with a full sail bunt fair before the

wind, then to have seen those strouting champions, you would have taken

them for men that had their lances settled on their rest to run at the ring

or tilting whintam (quintain). Of these, believe me, the race is utterly

lost and quite extinct, as the women say; for they do lament continually

that there are none extant now of those great, &c. You know the rest of

the song. Others did grow in matter of ballocks so enormously that three

of them would well fill a sack able to contain five quarters of wheat.

From them are descended the ballocks of Lorraine, which never dwell in

codpieces, but fall down to the bottom of the breeches. Others grew in the

legs, and to see them you would have said they had been cranes, or the

reddish-long-billed-storklike-scrank-legged sea-fowls called flamans, or

else men walking upon stilts or scatches. The little grammar-school boys,

known by the name of Grimos, called those leg-grown slangams Jambus, in

allusion to the French word jambe, which signifieth a leg. In others,

their nose did grow so, that it seemed to be the beak of a limbeck, in

every part thereof most variously diapered with the twinkling sparkles of

crimson blisters budding forth, and purpled with pimples all enamelled with

thickset wheals of a sanguine colour, bordered with gules; and such have

you seen the Canon or Prebend Panzoult, and Woodenfoot, the physician of

Angiers. Of which race there were few that looked the ptisane, but all of

them were perfect lovers of the pure Septembral juice. Naso and Ovid had

their extraction from thence, and all those of whom it is written, Ne

reminiscaris. Others grew in ears, which they had so big that out of one

would have been stuff enough got to make a doublet, a pair of breeches, and

a jacket, whilst with the other they might have covered themselves as with

a Spanish cloak: and they say that in Bourbonnois this race remaineth yet.

Others grew in length of body, and of those came the Giants, and of them

Pantagruel.

And the first was Chalbroth,

Who begat Sarabroth,

Who begat Faribroth,

Who begat Hurtali, that was a brave eater of pottage, and reigned

in the time of the flood;

Who begat Nembroth,

Who begat Atlas, that with his shoulders kept the sky from falling;

Who begat Goliah,

Who begat Erix, that invented the hocus pocus plays of legerdemain;

Who begat Titius,

Who begat Eryon,

Who begat Polyphemus,

Who begat Cacus,

Who begat Etion, the first man that ever had the pox, for not drinking

fresh in summer, as Bartachin witnesseth;

Who begat Enceladus,

Who begat Ceus,

Who begat Tiphaeus,

Who begat Alaeus,

Who begat Othus,

Who begat Aegeon,

Who begat Briareus, that had a hundred hands;

Who begat Porphyrio,

Who begat Adamastor,

Who begat Anteus,

Who begat Agatho,

Who begat Porus, against whom fought Alexander the Great;

Who begat Aranthas,

Who begat Gabbara, that was the first inventor of the drinking of

healths;

Who begat Goliah of Secondille,

Who begat Offot, that was terribly well nosed for drinking at the

barrel-head;

Who begat Artachaeus,

Who begat Oromedon,

Who begat Gemmagog, the first inventor of Poulan shoes, which are

open on the foot and tied over the instep with a lachet;

Who begat Sisyphus,

Who begat the Titans, of whom Hercules was born;

Who begat Enay, the most skilful man that ever was in matter of

taking the little worms (called cirons) out of the hands;

Who begat Fierabras, that was vanquished by Oliver, peer of France

and Roland’s comrade;

Who begat Morgan, the first in the world that played at dice with

spectacles;

Who begat Fracassus, of whom Merlin Coccaius hath written, and of

him was born Ferragus,

Who begat Hapmouche, the first that ever invented the drying of

neat’s tongues in the chimney; for, before that, people salted

them as they do now gammons of bacon;

Who begat Bolivorax,

Who begat Longis,

Who begat Gayoffo, whose ballocks were of poplar, and his pr... of

the service or sorb-apple-tree;

Who begat Maschefain,

Who begat Bruslefer,

Who begat Angoulevent,

Who begat Galehaut, the inventor of flagons;

Who begat Mirelangaut,

Who begat Gallaffre,

Who begat Falourdin,

Who begat Roboast,

Who begat Sortibrant of Conimbres,

Who begat Brushant of Mommiere,

Who begat Bruyer that was overcome by Ogier the Dane, peer of

France;

Who begat Mabrun,

Who begat Foutasnon,

Who begat Haquelebac,

Who begat Vitdegrain,

Who begat Grangousier,

Who begat Gargantua,

Who begat the noble Pantagruel, my master.

I know that, reading this passage, you will make a doubt within yourselves,

and that grounded upon very good reason, which is this--how it is possible

that this relation can be true, seeing at the time of the flood all the

world was destroyed, except Noah and seven persons more with him in the

ark, into whose number Hurtali is not admitted. Doubtless the demand is

well made and very apparent, but the answer shall satisfy you, or my wit is

not rightly caulked. And because I was not at that time to tell you

anything of my own fancy, I will bring unto you the authority of the

Massorets, good honest fellows, true ballockeering blades and exact

Hebraical bagpipers, who affirm that verily the said Hurtali was not within

the ark of Noah, neither could he get in, for he was too big, but he sat

astride upon it, with one leg on the one side and another on the other, as

little children use to do upon their wooden horses; or as the great bull of

Berne, which was killed at Marinian, did ride for his hackney the great

murdering piece called the canon-pevier, a pretty beast of a fair and

pleasant amble without all question.

In that posture, he, after God, saved the said ark from danger, for with

his legs he gave it the brangle that was needful, and with his foot turned

it whither he pleased, as a ship answereth her rudder. Those that were

within sent him up victuals in abundance by a chimney, as people very

thankfully acknowledging the good that he did them. And sometimes they did

talk together as Icaromenippus did to Jupiter, according to the report of

Lucian. Have you understood all this well? Drink then one good draught

without water, for if you believe it not,--no truly do I not, quoth she.