Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete.

F >> Francois Rabelais >> Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete.


And put the case, that in the literal sense you meet with purposes merry
and solacious enough, and consequently very correspondent to their
inscriptions, yet must not you stop there as at the melody of the charming
syrens, but endeavour to interpret that in a sublimer sense which possibly
you intended to have spoken in the jollity of your heart. Did you ever
pick the lock of a cupboard to steal a bottle of wine out of it? Tell me
truly, and, if you did, call to mind the countenance which then you had.
Or, did you ever see a dog with a marrowbone in his mouth,--the beast of
all other, says Plato, lib. 2, de Republica, the most philosophical? If
you have seen him, you might have remarked with what devotion and
circumspectness he wards and watcheth it: with what care he keeps it: how
fervently he holds it: how prudently he gobbets it: with what affection
he breaks it: and with what diligence he sucks it. To what end all this?
What moveth him to take all these pains? What are the hopes of his labour?
What doth he expect to reap thereby? Nothing but a little marrow. True it
is, that this little is more savoury and delicious than the great
quantities of other sorts of meat, because the marrow (as Galen testifieth,
5. facult. nat. & 11. de usu partium) is a nourishment most perfectly
elaboured by nature.

In imitation of this dog, it becomes you to be wise, to smell, feel and
have in estimation these fair goodly books, stuffed with high conceptions,
which, though seemingly easy in the pursuit, are in the cope and encounter
somewhat difficult. And then, like him, you must, by a sedulous lecture,
and frequent meditation, break the bone, and suck out the marrow,--that is,
my allegorical sense, or the things I to myself propose to be signified by
these Pythagorical symbols, with assured hope, that in so doing you will at
last attain to be both well-advised and valiant by the reading of them:
for in the perusal of this treatise you shall find another kind of taste,
and a doctrine of a more profound and abstruse consideration, which will
disclose unto you the most glorious sacraments and dreadful mysteries, as
well in what concerneth your religion, as matters of the public state, and
life economical.

Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, whilst he was a-couching
his Iliads and Odysses, had any thought upon those allegories, which
Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Cornutus squeezed out of him,
and which Politian filched again from them? If you trust it, with neither
hand nor foot do you come near to my opinion, which judgeth them to have
been as little dreamed of by Homer, as the Gospel sacraments were by Ovid
in his Metamorphoses, though a certain gulligut friar (Frere Lubin
croquelardon.) and true bacon-picker would have undertaken to prove it, if
perhaps he had met with as very fools as himself, (and as the proverb says)
a lid worthy of such a kettle.

If you give no credit thereto, why do not you the same in these jovial new
chronicles of mine? Albeit when I did dictate them, I thought upon no more
than you, who possibly were drinking the whilst as I was. For in the
composing of this lordly book, I never lost nor bestowed any more, nor any
other time than what was appointed to serve me for taking of my bodily
refection, that is, whilst I was eating and drinking. And indeed that is
the fittest and most proper hour wherein to write these high matters and
deep sciences: as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologues,
and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, although a
certain sneaking jobernol alleged that his verses smelled more of the wine
than oil.

So saith a turlupin or a new start-up grub of my books, but a turd for him.
The fragrant odour of the wine, O how much more dainty, pleasant, laughing
(Riant, priant, friant.), celestial and delicious it is, than that smell of
oil! And I will glory as much when it is said of me, that I have spent
more on wine than oil, as did Demosthenes, when it was told him, that his
expense on oil was greater than on wine. I truly hold it for an honour and
praise to be called and reputed a Frolic Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow;
for under this name am I welcome in all choice companies of Pantagruelists.
It was upbraided to Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his
Orations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy
oil-vessel. For this cause interpret you all my deeds and sayings in the
perfectest sense; reverence the cheese-like brain that feeds you with these
fair billevezees and trifling jollities, and do what lies in you to keep me
always merry. Be frolic now, my lads, cheer up your hearts, and joyfully
read the rest, with all the ease of your body and profit of your reins.
But hearken, joltheads, you viedazes, or dickens take ye, remember to drink
a health to me for the like favour again, and I will pledge you instantly,
Tout ares-metys.



Rabelais to the Reader.

Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book,
Be not offended, whilst on it you look:
Denude yourselves of all depraved affection,
For it contains no badness, nor infection:
'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth
Of any value, but in point of mirth;
Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind
Consume, I could no apter subject find;
One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;
Because to laugh is proper to the man.



Chapter 1.I.

Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua.

I must refer you to the great chronicle of Pantagruel for the knowledge of
that genealogy and antiquity of race by which Gargantua is come unto us.
In it you may understand more at large how the giants were born in this
world, and how from them by a direct line issued Gargantua, the father of
Pantagruel: and do not take it ill, if for this time I pass by it,
although the subject be such, that the oftener it were remembered, the more
it would please your worshipful Seniorias; according to which you have the
authority of Plato in Philebo and Gorgias; and of Flaccus, who says that
there are some kinds of purposes (such as these are without doubt), which,
the frequentlier they be repeated, still prove the more delectable.

Would to God everyone had as certain knowledge of his genealogy since the
time of the ark of Noah until this age. I think many are at this day
emperors, kings, dukes, princes, and popes on the earth, whose extraction
is from some porters and pardon-pedlars; as, on the contrary, many are now
poor wandering beggars, wretched and miserable, who are descended of the
blood and lineage of great kings and emperors, occasioned, as I conceive
it, by the transport and revolution of kingdoms and empires, from the
Assyrians to the Medes, from the Medes to the Persians, from the Persians
to the Macedonians, from the Macedonians to the Romans, from the Romans to
the Greeks, from the Greeks to the French.

And to give you some hint concerning myself, who speaks unto you, I cannot
think but I am come of the race of some rich king or prince in former
times; for never yet saw you any man that had a greater desire to be a
king, and to be rich, than I have, and that only that I may make good
cheer, do nothing, nor care for anything, and plentifully enrich my
friends, and all honest and learned men. But herein do I comfort myself,
that in the other world I shall be so, yea and greater too than at this
present I dare wish. As for you, with the same or a better conceit
consolate yourselves in your distresses, and drink fresh if you can come by
it.

To return to our wethers, I say that by the sovereign gift of heaven, the
antiquity and genealogy of Gargantua hath been reserved for our use more
full and perfect than any other except that of the Messias, whereof I mean
not to speak; for it belongs not unto my purpose, and the devils, that is
to say, the false accusers and dissembled gospellers, will therein oppose
me. This genealogy was found by John Andrew in a meadow, which he had near
the pole-arch, under the olive-tree, as you go to Narsay: where, as he was
making cast up some ditches, the diggers with their mattocks struck against
a great brazen tomb, and unmeasurably long, for they could never find the
end thereof, by reason that it entered too far within the sluices of
Vienne. Opening this tomb in a certain place thereof, sealed on the top
with the mark of a goblet, about which was written in Etrurian letters Hic
Bibitur, they found nine flagons set in such order as they use to rank
their kyles in Gascony, of which that which was placed in the middle had
under it a big, fat, great, grey, pretty, small, mouldy, little pamphlet,
smelling stronger, but no better than roses. In that book the said
genealogy was found written all at length, in a chancery hand, not in
paper, not in parchment, nor in wax, but in the bark of an elm-tree, yet so
worn with the long tract of time, that hardly could three letters together
be there perfectly discerned.

I (though unworthy) was sent for thither, and with much help of those
spectacles, whereby the art of reading dim writings, and letters that do
not clearly appear to the sight, is practised, as Aristotle teacheth it,
did translate the book as you may see in your Pantagruelizing, that is to
say, in drinking stiffly to your own heart's desire, and reading the
dreadful and horrific acts of Pantagruel. At the end of the book there was
a little treatise entitled the Antidoted Fanfreluches, or a Galimatia of
extravagant conceits. The rats and moths, or (that I may not lie) other
wicked beasts, had nibbled off the beginning: the rest I have hereto
subjoined, for the reverence I bear to antiquity.



Chapter 1.II.

The Antidoted Fanfreluches: or, a Galimatia of extravagant Conceits found
in an ancient Monument.

No sooner did the Cymbrians' overcomer
Pass through the air to shun the dew of summer,
But at his coming straight great tubs were fill'd,
With pure fresh butter down in showers distill'd:
Wherewith when water'd was his grandam, Hey,
Aloud he cried, Fish it, sir, I pray y';
Because his beard is almost all beray'd;
Or, that he would hold to 'm a scale, he pray'd.

To lick his slipper, some told was much better,
Than to gain pardons, and the merit greater.
In th' interim a crafty chuff approaches,
From the depth issued, where they fish for roaches;
Who said, Good sirs, some of them let us save,
The eel is here, and in this hollow cave
You'll find, if that our looks on it demur,
A great waste in the bottom of his fur.

To read this chapter when he did begin,
Nothing but a calf's horns were found therein;
I feel, quoth he, the mitre which doth hold
My head so chill, it makes my brains take cold.
Being with the perfume of a turnip warm'd,
To stay by chimney hearths himself he arm'd,
Provided that a new thill-horse they made
Of every person of a hair-brain'd head.

They talked of the bunghole of Saint Knowles,
Of Gilbathar and thousand other holes,
If they might be reduced t' a scarry stuff,
Such as might not be subject to the cough:
Since ev'ry man unseemly did it find,
To see them gaping thus at ev'ry wind:
For, if perhaps they handsomely were closed,
For pledges they to men might be exposed.

In this arrest by Hercules the raven
Was flayed at her (his) return from Lybia haven.
Why am not I, said Minos, there invited?
Unless it be myself, not one's omitted:
And then it is their mind, I do no more
Of frogs and oysters send them any store:
In case they spare my life and prove but civil,
I give their sale of distaffs to the devil.

To quell him comes Q.B., who limping frets
At the safe pass of tricksy crackarets:
The boulter, the grand Cyclops' cousin, those
Did massacre, whilst each one wiped his nose:
Few ingles in this fallow ground are bred,
But on a tanner's mill are winnowed.
Run thither all of you, th' alarms sound clear,
You shall have more than you had the last year.

Short while thereafter was the bird of Jove
Resolved to speak, though dismal it should prove;
Yet was afraid, when he saw them in ire,
They should o'erthrow quite flat down dead th' empire.
He rather choosed the fire from heaven to steal,
To boats where were red herrings put to sale;
Than to be calm 'gainst those, who strive to brave us,
And to the Massorets' fond words enslave us.

All this at last concluded gallantly,
In spite of Ate and her hern-like thigh,
Who, sitting, saw Penthesilea ta'en,
In her old age, for a cress-selling quean.
Each one cried out, Thou filthy collier toad,
Doth it become thee to be found abroad?
Thou hast the Roman standard filch'd away,
Which they in rags of parchment did display.

Juno was born, who, under the rainbow,
Was a-bird-catching with her duck below:
When her with such a grievous trick they plied
That she had almost been bethwacked by it.
The bargain was, that, of that throatful, she
Should of Proserpina have two eggs free;
And if that she thereafter should be found,
She to a hawthorn hill should be fast bound.

Seven months thereafter, lacking twenty-two,
He, that of old did Carthage town undo,
Did bravely midst them all himself advance,
Requiring of them his inheritance;
Although they justly made up the division,
According to the shoe-welt-law's decision,
By distributing store of brews and beef
To these poor fellows that did pen the brief.

But th' year will come, sign of a Turkish bow,
Five spindles yarn'd, and three pot-bottoms too,
Wherein of a discourteous king the dock
Shall pepper'd be under an hermit's frock.
Ah! that for one she hypocrite you must
Permit so many acres to be lost!
Cease, cease, this vizard may become another,
Withdraw yourselves unto the serpent's brother.

'Tis in times past, that he who is shall reign
With his good friends in peace now and again.
No rash nor heady prince shall then rule crave,
Each good will its arbitrement shall have;
And the joy, promised of old as doom
To the heaven's guests, shall in its beacon come.
Then shall the breeding mares, that benumb'd were,
Like royal palfreys ride triumphant there.

And this continue shall from time to time,
Till Mars be fetter'd for an unknown crime;
Then shall one come, who others will surpass,
Delightful, pleasing, matchless, full of grace.
Cheer up your hearts, approach to this repast,
All trusty friends of mine; for he's deceased,
Who would not for a world return again,
So highly shall time past be cried up then.

He who was made of wax shall lodge each member
Close by the hinges of a block of timber.
We then no more shall Master, master, whoot,
The swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out;
Could one seize on the dagger which he bears,
Heads would be free from tingling in the ears,
To baffle the whole storehouse of abuses.
The thus farewell Apollo and the Muses.



Chapter 1.III.

How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly.

Grangousier was a good fellow in his time, and notable jester; he loved to
drink neat, as much as any man that then was in the world, and would
willingly eat salt meat. To this intent he was ordinarily well furnished
with gammons of bacon, both of Westphalia, Mayence and Bayonne, with store
of dried neat's tongues, plenty of links, chitterlings and puddings in
their season; together with salt beef and mustard, a good deal of hard roes
of powdered mullet called botargos, great provision of sausages, not of
Bolonia (for he feared the Lombard Boccone), but of Bigorre, Longaulnay,
Brene, and Rouargue. In the vigour of his age he married Gargamelle,
daughter to the King of the Parpaillons, a jolly pug, and well-mouthed
wench. These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully
rubbing and frotting their bacon 'gainst one another, in so far, that at
last she became great with child of a fair son, and went with him unto the
eleventh month; for so long, yea longer, may a woman carry her great belly,
especially when it is some masterpiece of nature, and a person
predestinated to the performance, in his due time, of great exploits. As
Homer says, that the child, which Neptune begot upon the nymph, was born a
whole year after the conception, that is, in the twelfth month. For, as
Aulus Gellius saith, lib. 3, this long time was suitable to the majesty of
Neptune, that in it the child might receive his perfect form. For the like
reason Jupiter made the night, wherein he lay with Alcmena, last
forty-eight hours, a shorter time not being sufficient for the forging of
Hercules, who cleansed the world of the monsters and tyrants wherewith it
was suppressed. My masters, the ancient Pantagruelists, have confirmed
that which I say, and withal declared it to be not only possible, but also
maintained the lawful birth and legitimation of the infant born of a woman
in the eleventh month after the decease of her husband. Hypocrates, lib.
de alimento. Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 5. Plautus, in his Cistelleria.
Marcus Varro, in his satire inscribed The Testament, alleging to this
purpose the authority of Aristotle. Censorinus, lib. de die natali.
Arist. lib. 7, cap. 3 & 4, de natura animalium. Gellius, lib. 3, cap. 16.
Servius, in his exposition upon this verse of Virgil's eclogues, Matri
longa decem, &c., and a thousand other fools, whose number hath been
increased by the lawyers ff. de suis, et legit l. intestato. paragrapho.
fin. and in Auth. de restitut. et ea quae parit in xi mense. Moreover upon
these grounds they have foisted in their Robidilardic, or Lapiturolive law.
Gallus ff. de lib. et posth. l. sept. ff. de stat. hom., and some other
laws, which at this time I dare not name. By means whereof the honest
widows may without danger play at the close buttock game with might and
main, and as hard as they can, for the space of the first two months after
the decease of their husbands. I pray you, my good lusty springal lads, if
you find any of these females, that are worth the pains of untying the
codpiece-point, get up, ride upon them, and bring them to me; for, if they
happen within the third month to conceive, the child should be heir to the
deceased, if, before he died, he had no other children, and the mother
shall pass for an honest woman.

When she is known to have conceived, thrust forward boldly, spare her not,
whatever betide you, seeing the paunch is full. As Julia, the daughter of
the Emperor Octavian, never prostituted herself to her belly-bumpers, but
when she found herself with child, after the manner of ships, that receive
not their steersman till they have their ballast and lading. And if any
blame them for this their rataconniculation, and reiterated lechery upon
their pregnancy and big-belliedness, seeing beasts, in the like exigent of
their fulness, will never suffer the male-masculant to encroach them, their
answer will be, that those are beasts, but they are women, very well
skilled in the pretty vales and small fees of the pleasant trade and
mysteries of superfetation: as Populia heretofore answered, according to
the relation of Macrobius, lib. 2. Saturnal. If the devil will not have
them to bag, he must wring hard the spigot, and stop the bung-hole.



Chapter 1.IV.

How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of tripes.

The occasion and manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and delivered of
her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut
fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped
her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at
dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros.
Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls, or in the fresh
guimo meadows. Guimo meadows are those that for their fruitfulness may be
mowed twice a year. Of those fat beeves they had killed three hundred
sixty-seven thousand and fourteen, to be salted at Shrovetide, that in the
entering of the spring they might have plenty of powdered beef, wherewith
to season their mouths at the beginning of their meals, and to taste their
wine the better.

They had abundance of tripes, as you have heard, and they were so
delicious, that everyone licked his fingers. But the mischief was this,
that, for all men could do, there was no possibility to keep them long in
that relish; for in a very short while they would have stunk, which had
been an undecent thing. It was therefore concluded, that they should be
all of them gulched up, without losing anything. To this effect they
invited all the burghers of Sainais, of Suille, of the Roche-Clermaud, of
Vaugaudry, without omitting the Coudray, Monpensier, the Gue de Vede, and
other their neighbours, all stiff drinkers, brave fellows, and good players
at the kyles. The good man Grangousier took great pleasure in their
company, and commanded there should be no want nor pinching for anything.
Nevertheless he bade his wife eat sparingly, because she was near her time,
and that these tripes were no very commendable meat. They would fain, said
he, be at the chewing of ordure, that would eat the case wherein it was.
Notwithstanding these admonitions, she did eat sixteen quarters, two
bushels, three pecks and a pipkin full. O the fair fecality wherewith she
swelled, by the ingrediency of such shitten stuff!

After dinner they all went out in a hurl to the grove of the willows,
where, on the green grass, to the sound of the merry flutes and pleasant
bagpipes, they danced so gallantly, that it was a sweet and heavenly sport
to see them so frolic.



Chapter 1.V.

The Discourse of the Drinkers.

Then did they fall upon the chat of victuals and some belly furniture to be
snatched at in the very same place. Which purpose was no sooner mentioned,
but forthwith began flagons to go, gammons to trot, goblets to fly, great
bowls to ting, glasses to ring. Draw, reach, fill, mix, give it me without
water. So, my friend, so, whip me off this glass neatly, bring me hither
some claret, a full weeping glass till it run over. A cessation and truce
with thirst. Ha, thou false fever, wilt thou not be gone? By my figgins,
godmother, I cannot as yet enter in the humour of being merry, nor drink so
currently as I would. You have catched a cold, gammer? Yea, forsooth,
sir. By the belly of Sanct Buff, let us talk of our drink: I never drink
but at my hours, like the Pope's mule. And I never drink but in my
breviary, like a fair father guardian. Which was first, thirst or
drinking? Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would have drunk
without being athirst? Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatio
praesupponit habitum. I am learned, you see: Foecundi calices quem non
fecere disertum? We poor innocents drink but too much without thirst. Not
I truly, who am a sinner, for I never drink without thirst, either present
or future. To prevent it, as you know, I drink for the thirst to come. I
drink eternally. This is to me an eternity of drinking, and drinking of
eternity. Let us sing, let us drink, and tune up our roundelays. Where is
my funnel? What, it seems I do not drink but by an attorney? Do you wet
yourselves to dry, or do you dry to wet you? Pish, I understand not the
rhetoric (theoric, I should say), but I help myself somewhat by the
practice. Baste! enough! I sup, I wet, I humect, I moisten my gullet, I
drink, and all for fear of dying. Drink always and you shall never die.
If I drink not, I am a-ground, dry, gravelled and spent. I am stark dead
without drink, and my soul ready to fly into some marsh amongst frogs; the
soul never dwells in a dry place, drouth kills it. O you butlers, creators
of new forms, make me of no drinker a drinker, a perennity and
everlastingness of sprinkling and bedewing me through these my parched and
sinewy bowels. He drinks in vain that feels not the pleasure of it. This
entereth into my veins,--the pissing tools and urinal vessels shall have
nothing of it. I would willingly wash the tripes of the calf which I
apparelled this morning. I have pretty well now ballasted my stomach and
stuffed my paunch. If the papers of my bonds and bills could drink as well
as I do, my creditors would not want for wine when they come to see me, or
when they are to make any formal exhibition of their rights to what of me
they can demand. This hand of yours spoils your nose. O how many other
such will enter here before this go out! What, drink so shallow? It is
enough to break both girds and petrel. This is called a cup of
dissimulation, or flagonal hypocrisy.

What difference is there between a bottle and a flagon. Great difference;
for the bottle is stopped and shut up with a stopple, but the flagon with a
vice (La bouteille est fermee a bouchon, et le flaccon a vis.). Bravely
and well played upon the words! Our fathers drank lustily, and emptied
their cans. Well cacked, well sung! Come, let us drink: will you send
nothing to the river? Here is one going to wash the tripes. I drink no
more than a sponge. I drink like a Templar knight. And I, tanquam
sponsus. And I, sicut terra sine aqua. Give me a synonymon for a gammon
of bacon. It is the compulsory of drinkers: it is a pulley. By a
pulley-rope wine is let down into a cellar, and by a gammon into the
stomach. Hey! now, boys, hither, some drink, some drink. There is no
trouble in it. Respice personam, pone pro duos, bus non est in usu. If I
could get up as well as I can swallow down, I had been long ere now very
high in the air.