第 七十 章 · How the Lord of Suckfist ple

Chapter 2.XII.

How the Lord of Suckfist pleaded before Pantagruel.

Then began the Lord Suckfist in manner as followeth. My lord, and you my

masters, if the iniquity of men were as easily seen in categorical judgment

as we can discern flies in a milkpot, the world’s four oxen had not been so

eaten up with rats, nor had so many ears upon the earth been nibbled away

so scurvily. For although all that my adversary hath spoken be of a very

soft and downy truth, in so much as concerns the letter and history of the

factum, yet nevertheless the crafty slights, cunning subtleties, sly

cozenages, and little troubling entanglements are hid under the rosepot,

the common cloak and cover of all fraudulent deceits.

Should I endure that, when I am eating my pottage equal with the best, and

that without either thinking or speaking any manner of ill, they rudely

come to vex, trouble, and perplex my brains with that antique proverb which

saith,

Who in his pottage-eating drinks will not,

When he is dead and buried, see one jot.

And, good lady, how many great captains have we seen in the day of battle,

when in open field the sacrament was distributed in luncheons of the

sanctified bread of the confraternity, the more honestly to nod their

heads, play on the lute, and crack with their tails, to make pretty little

platform leaps in keeping level by the ground? But now the world is

unshackled from the corners of the packs of Leicester. One flies out

lewdly and becomes debauched; another, likewise, five, four, and two, and

that at such random that, if the court take not some course therein, it

will make as bad a season in matter of gleaning this year as ever it made,

or it will make goblets. If any poor creature go to the stoves to

illuminate his muzzle with a cowsherd or to buy winter-boots, and that the

sergeants passing by, or those of the watch, happen to receive the

decoction of a clyster or the fecal matter of a close-stool upon their

rustling-wrangling-clutter-keeping masterships, should any because of that

make bold to clip the shillings and testers and fry the wooden dishes?

Sometimes, when we think one thing, God does another; and when the sun is

wholly set all beasts are in the shade. Let me never be believed again, if

I do not gallantly prove it by several people who have seen the light of

the day.

In the year thirty and six, buying a Dutch curtail, which was a middle-sized

horse, both high and short, of a wool good enough and dyed in grain, as the

goldsmiths assured me, although the notary put an &c. in it, I told really

that I was not a clerk of so much learning as to snatch at the moon with my

teeth; but, as for the butter-firkin where Vulcanian deeds and evidences

were sealed, the rumour was, and the report thereof went current, that

salt-beef will make one find the way to the wine without a candle, though it

were hid in the bottom of a collier’s sack, and that with his drawers on he

were mounted on a barbed horse furnished with a fronstal, and such arms,

thighs, and leg-pieces as are requisite for the well frying and broiling of

a swaggering sauciness. Here is a sheep’s head, and it is well they make a

proverb of this, that it is good to see black cows in burnt wood when one

attains to the enjoyment of his love. I had a consultation upon this point

with my masters the clerks, who for resolution concluded in frisesomorum

that there is nothing like to mowing in the summer, and sweeping clean away

in water, well garnished with paper, ink, pens, and penknives, of Lyons upon

the river of Rhone, dolopym dolopof, tarabin tarabas, tut, prut, pish; for,

incontinently after that armour begins to smell of garlic, the rust will go

near to eat the liver, not of him that wears it, and then do they nothing

else but withstand others’ courses, and wryneckedly set up their bristles

‘gainst one another, in lightly passing over their afternoon’s sleep, and

this is that which maketh salt so dear. My lords, believe not when the said

good woman had with birdlime caught the shoveler fowl, the better before a

sergeant’s witness to deliver the younger son’s portion to him, that the

sheep’s pluck or hog’s haslet did dodge and shrink back in the usurers’

purses, or that there could be anything better to preserve one from the

cannibals than to take a rope of onions, knit with three hundred turnips,

and a little of a calf’s chaldern of the best allay that the alchemists have

provided, (and) that they daub and do over with clay, as also calcinate and

burn to dust these pantoufles, muff in muff out, mouflin mouflard, with the

fine sauce of the juice of the rabble rout, whilst they hide themselves in

some petty mouldwarphole, saving always the little slices of bacon. Now, if

the dice will not favour you with any other throw but ambes-ace and the

chance of three at the great end, mark well the ace, then take me your dame,

settle her in a corner of the bed, and whisk me her up drilletrille, there,

there, toureloura la la; which when you have done, take a hearty draught of

the best, despicando grenovillibus, in despite of the frogs, whose fair

coarse bebuskined stockings shall be set apart for the little green geese or

mewed goslings, which, fattened in a coop, take delight to sport themselves

at the wagtail game, waiting for the beating of the metal and heating of the

wax by the slavering drivellers of consolation.

Very true it is, that the four oxen which are in debate, and whereof

mention was made, were somewhat short in memory. Nevertheless, to

understand the game aright, they feared neither the cormorant nor mallard

of Savoy, which put the good people of my country in great hope that their

children some time should become very skilful in algorism. Therefore is

it, that by a law rubric and special sentence thereof, that we cannot fail

to take the wolf if we make our hedges higher than the windmill, whereof

somewhat was spoken by the plaintiff. But the great devil did envy it, and

by that means put the High Dutches far behind, who played the devils in

swilling down and tippling at the good liquor, trink, mein herr, trink,

trink, by two of my table-men in the corner-point I have gained the lurch.

For it is not probable, nor is there any appearance of truth in this

saying, that at Paris upon a little bridge the hen is proportionable, and

were they as copped and high-crested as marsh whoops, if veritably they did

not sacrifice the printer’s pumpet-balls at Moreb, with a new edge set upon

them by text letters or those of a swift-writing hand, it is all one to me,

so that the headband of the book breed not moths or worms in it. And put

the case that, at the coupling together of the buckhounds, the little

puppies shall have waxed proud before the notary could have given an

account of the serving of his writ by the cabalistic art, it will

necessarily follow, under correction of the better judgment of the court,

that six acres of meadow ground of the greatest breadth will make three

butts of fine ink, without paying ready money; considering that, at the

funeral of King Charles, we might have had the fathom in open market for

one and two, that is, deuce ace. This I may affirm with a safe conscience,

upon my oath of wool.

And I see ordinarily in all good bagpipes, that, when they go to the

counterfeiting of the chirping of small birds, by swinging a broom three

times about a chimney, and putting his name upon record, they do nothing

but bend a crossbow backwards, and wind a horn, if perhaps it be too hot,

and that, by making it fast to a rope he was to draw, immediately after the

sight of the letters, the cows were restored to him. Such another sentence

after the homeliest manner was pronounced in the seventeenth year, because

of the bad government of Louzefougarouse, whereunto it may please the court

to have regard. I desire to be rightly understood; for truly, I say not

but that in all equity, and with an upright conscience, those may very well

be dispossessed who drink holy water as one would do a weaver’s shuttle,

whereof suppositories are made to those that will not resign, but on the

terms of ell and tell and giving of one thing for another. Tunc, my lords,

quid juris pro minoribus? For the common custom of the Salic law is such,

that the first incendiary or firebrand of sedition that flays the cow and

wipes his nose in a full concert of music without blowing in the cobbler’s

stitches, should in the time of the nightmare sublimate the penury of his

member by moss gathered when people are like to founder themselves at the

mess at midnight, to give the estrapade to these white wines of Anjou that

do the fear of the leg in lifting it by horsemen called the gambetta, and

that neck to neck after the fashion of Brittany, concluding as before with

costs, damages, and interests.

After that the Lord of Suckfist had ended, Pantagruel said to the Lord of

Kissbreech, My friend, have you a mind to make any reply to what is said?

No, my lord, answered Kissbreech; for I have spoke all I intended, and

nothing but the truth. Therefore, put an end for God’s sake to our

difference, for we are here at great charge.