Gargantua and Pantagruel Part 44

Pan. What do you get out of 'em then? Fri. Blood.

Pan. How's their complexion then? Fri. Odd.

Pan. What do they mend it with? Fri. Paint.

Pan. Then what do they do? Fri. Fawn.

Pan. By the oath you have taken, tell me truly what time of the year do you do it least in? Fri. Now (August.).

Pan. What season do you do it best in? Fri. March.

Pan. How is your performance the rest of the year? Fri. Brisk.

Then quoth Panurge, sneering, Of all, and of all, commend me to Ball; this is the friar of the world for my money. You've heard how short, concise, and compendious he is in his answers. Nothing is to be got out of him but monosyllables. By jingo, I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.

d.a.m.n him, cried Friar John, that's as true as I am his uncle. The dog yelps at another gate's rate when he is among his b.i.t.c.hes; there he is polysyllable enough, my life for yours. You talk of making three bites of a cherry! G.o.d send fools more wit and us more money! May I be doomed to fast a whole day if I don't verily believe he would not make above two bites of a shoulder of mutton and one swoop of a whole pottle of wine. Zoons, do but see how down o' the mouth the cur looks! He's nothing but skin and bones; he has p.i.s.sed his tallow.

Truly, truly, quoth Epistemon, this rascally monastical vermin all over the world mind nothing but their gut, and are as ravenous as any kites, and then, forsooth, they tell us they've nothing but food and raiment in this world. 'Sdeath, what more have kings and princes?

Chapter 5.XXIX.-How Epistemon disliked the inst.i.tution of Lent.

Pray did you observe, continued Epistemon, how this d.a.m.ned ill-favoured Semiquaver mentioned March as the best month for caterwauling? True, said Pantagruel; yet Lent and March always go together, and the first was inst.i.tuted to macerate and bring down our pampered flesh, to weaken and subdue its l.u.s.ts, to curb and a.s.suage the venereal rage.

By this, said Epistemon, you may guess what kind of a pope it was who first enjoined it to be kept, since this filthy wooden-shoed Semiquaver owns that his spoon is never oftener nor deeper in the porringer of lechery than in Lent. Add to this the evident reasons given by all good and learned physicians, affirming that throughout the whole year no food is eaten that can prompt mankind to lascivious acts more than at that time.

As, for example, beans, peas, phasels, or long-peason, ciches, onions, nuts, oysters, herrings, salt-meats, garum (a kind of anchovy), and salads wholly made up of venereous herbs and fruits, as- Rocket, Parsley, Hop-buds, Nose-smart, Rampions, Figs, Taragon, Poppy, Rice, Cresses, Celery, Raisins, and others.

It would not a little surprise you, said Pantagruel, should a man tell you that the good pope who first ordered the keeping of Lent, perceiving that at that time o' year the natural heat (from the centre of the body, whither it was retired during the winter's cold) diffuses itself, as the sap does in trees, through the circ.u.mference of the members, did therefore in a manner prescribe that sort of diet to forward the propagation of mankind. What makes me think so, is that by the registers of christenings at Touars it appears that more children are born in October and November than in the other ten months of the year, and reckoning backwards 'twill be easily found that they were all made, conceived, and begotten in Lent.

I listen to you with both my ears, quoth Friar John, and that with no small pleasure, I'll a.s.sure you. But I must tell you that the vicar of Jambert ascribed this copious prolification of the women, not to that sort of food that we chiefly eat in Lent, but to the little licensed stooping mumpers, your little booted Lent-preachers, your little draggle-tailed father confessors, who during all that time of their reign d.a.m.n all husbands that run astray three fathom and a half below the very lowest pit of h.e.l.l. So the silly cod's-headed brothers of the noose dare not then stumble any more at the truckle-bed, to the no small discomfort of their maids, and are even forced, poor souls, to take up with their own bodily wives. Dixi; I have done.

You may descant on the inst.i.tution of Lent as much as you please, cried Epistemon; so many men so many minds; but certainly all the physicians will be against its being suppressed, though I think that time is at hand. I know they will, and have heard 'em say were it not for Lent their art would soon fall into contempt, and they'd get nothing, for hardly anybody would be sick.

All distempers are sowed in lent; 'tis the true seminary and native bed of all diseases; nor does it only weaken and putrefy bodies, but it also makes souls mad and uneasy. For then the devils do their best, and drive a subtle trade, and the tribe of canting dissemblers come out of their holes. 'Tis then term-time with your cucullated pieces of formality that have one face to G.o.d and another to the devil; and a wretched clutter they make with their sessions, stations, pardons, syntereses, confessions, whippings, anathematizations, and much prayer with as little devotion. However, I'll not offer to infer from this that the Arimaspians are better than we are in that point; yet I speak to the purpose.

Well, quoth Panurge to the Semiquaver friar, who happened to be by, dear b.u.mbasting, shaking, trilling, quavering cod, what thinkest thou of this fellow? Is he a rank heretic? Fri. Much.

Pan. Ought he not to be singed? Fri. Well.

Pan. As soon as may be? Fri. Right.

Pan. Should not he be scalded first? Fri. No.

Pan. How then, should he be roasted? Fri. Quick.

Pan. Till at last he be? Fri. Dead.

Pan. What has he made you? Fri. Mad.

Pan. What d'ye take him to be? Fri. d.a.m.ned.

Pan. What place is he to go to? Fri. h.e.l.l.

Pan. But, first, how would you have 'em served here? Fri. Burnt.

Pan. Some have been served so? Fri. Store.

Pan. That were heretics? Fri. Less.

Pan. And the number of those that are to be warmed thus hereafter is? Fri. Great.

Pan. How many of 'em do you intend to save? Fri. None.

Pan. So you'd have them burned? Fri. All.

I wonder, said Epistemon to Panurge, what pleasure you can find in talking thus with this lousy tatterdemalion of a monk. I vow, did I not know you well, I might be ready to think you had no more wit in your head than he has in both his shoulders. Come, come, scatter no words, returned Panurge; everyone as they like, as the woman said when she kissed her cow. I wish I might carry him to Gargantua; when I'm married he might be my wife's fool. And make you one, cried Epistemon. Well said, quoth Friar John. Now, poor Panurge, take that along with thee, thou'rt e'en fitted; 'tis a plain case thou'lt never escape wearing the bull's feather; thy wife will be as common as the highway, that's certain.

Chapter 5.x.x.x.-How we came to the land of Satin.

Having pleased ourselves with observing that new order of Semiquaver Friars, we set sail, and in three days our skipper made the finest and most delightful island that ever was seen. He called it the island of Frieze, for all the ways were of frieze.

In that island is the land of Satin, so celebrated by our court pages. Its trees and herbage never lose their leaves or flowers, and are all damask and flowered velvet. As for the beasts and birds, they are all of tapestry work. There we saw many beasts, birds on trees, of the same colour, bigness, and shape of those in our country; with this difference, however, that these did eat nothing, and never sung or bit like ours; and we also saw there many sorts of creatures which we never had seen before.

Among the rest, several elephants in various postures; twelve of which were the six males and six females that were brought to Rome by their governor in the time of Germanicus, Tiberius's nephew. Some of them were learned elephants, some musicians, others philosophers, dancers, and showers of tricks; and all sat down at table in good order, silently eating and drinking like so many fathers in a fratery-room.

With their snouts or proboscises, some two cubits long, they draw up water for their own drinking, and take hold of palm leaves, plums, and all manner of edibles, using them offensively or defensively as we do our fists; with them tossing men high into the air in fight, and making them burst with laughing when they come to the ground.

They have joints (in their legs), whatever some men, who doubtless never saw any but painted, may have written to the contrary. Between their teeth they have two huge horns; thus Juba called 'em, and Pausanias tells us they are not teeth, but horns; however, Philostratus will have 'em to be teeth, and not horns. 'Tis all one to me, provided you will be pleased to own them to be true ivory. These are some three or four cubits long, and are fixed in the upper jawbone, and consequently not in the lowermost. If you hearken to those who will tell you to the contrary, you will find yourself d.a.m.nably mistaken, for that's a lie with a latchet; though 'twere Aelian, that long-bow man, that told you so, never believe him, for he lies as fast as a dog can trot. 'Twas in this very island that Pliny, his brother tell-truth, had seen some elephants dance on the rope with bells, and whip over the tables, presto, begone, while people were at feasts, without so much as touching the toping topers or the topers toping.

I saw a rhinoceros there, just such a one as Harry Clerberg had formerly showed me. Methought it was not much unlike a certain boar which I had formerly seen at Limoges, except the sharp horn on its snout, that was about a cubit long; by the means of which that animal dares encounter with an elephant, that is sometimes killed with its point thrust into its belly, which is its most tender and defenceless part.

I saw there two and thirty unicorns. They are a curst sort of creatures, much resembling a fine horse, unless it be that their heads are like a stag's, their feet like an elephant's, their tails like a wild boar's, and out of each of their foreheads sprouts out a sharp black horn, some six or seven feet long; commonly it dangles down like a turkey-c.o.c.k's comb. When a unicorn has a mind to fight, or put it to any other use, what does it do but make it stand, and then 'tis as straight as an arrow.

I saw one of them, which was attended with a throng of other wild beasts, purify a fountain with its horn. With that Panurge told me that his prancer, alias his nimble-wimble, was like the unicorn, not altogether in length indeed, but in virtue and propriety; for as the unicorn purified pools and fountains from filth and venom, so that other animals came and drank securely there afterwards, in the like manner others might water their nags, and dabble after him without fear of shankers, carnosities, gonorrhoeas, buboes, crinkams, and such other plagues caught by those who venture to quench their amorous thirst in a common puddle; for with his nervous horn he removed all the infection that might be lurking in some blind cranny of the mephitic sweet-scented hole.

Well, quoth Friar John, when you are sped, that is, when you are married, we will make a trial of this on thy spouse, merely for charity sake, since you are pleased to give us so beneficial an instruction.

Ay, ay, returned Panurge, and then immediately I'll give you a pretty gentle aggregative pill of G.o.d, made up of two and twenty kind stabs with a dagger, after the Caesarian way. Catso, cried Friar John, I had rather take off a b.u.mper of good cool wine.

I saw there the golden fleece formerly conquered by Jason, and can a.s.sure you, on the word of an honest man, that those who have said it was not a fleece but a golden pippin, because melon signifies both an apple and a sheep, were utterly mistaken.

I saw also a chameleon, such as Aristotle describes it, and like that which had been formerly shown me by Charles Maris, a famous physician of the n.o.ble city of Lyons on the Rhone; and the said chameleon lived on air just as the other did.

I saw three hydras, like those I had formerly seen. They are a kind of serpent, with seven different heads.

I saw also fourteen phoenixes. I had read in many authors that there was but one in the whole world in every century; but, if I may presume to speak my mind, I declare that those who said this had never seen any, unless it were in the land of Tapestry; though 'twere vouched by Claudian or Lactantius Firmia.n.u.s.

I saw the skin of Apuleius's golden a.s.s.

I saw three hundred and nine pelicans.

Item, six thousand and sixteen Seleucid birds marching in battalia, and picking up straggling gra.s.shoppers in cornfields.

Item, some cynamologi, argatiles, caprimulgi, thynnunculs, onocrotals, or bitterns, with their wide swallows, stymphalides, harpies, panthers, dorca.s.ses, or bucks, cemades, cynocephalises, satyrs, cartasans, tarands, uri, monopses, or bonasi, neades, steras, marmosets, or monkeys, bugles, musimons, byturoses, ophyri, screech-owls, goblins, fairies, and griffins.

I saw Mid-Lent o' horseback, with Mid-August and Mid-March holding its stirrups.

I saw some mankind wolves, centaurs, tigers, leopards, hyenas, camelopardals, and orixes, or huge wild goats with sharp horns.

I saw a remora, a little fish called echineis by the Greeks, and near it a tall ship that did not get ahead an inch, though she was in the offing with top and top-gallants spread before the wind. I am somewhat inclined to believe that 'twas the very numerical ship in which Periander the tyrant happened to be when it was stopped by such a little fish in spite of wind and tide. It was in this land of Satin, and in no other, that Mutia.n.u.s had seen one of them.

Friar John told us that in the days of yore two sorts of fishes used to abound in our courts of judicature, and rotted the bodies and tormented the souls of those who were at law, whether n.o.ble or of mean descent, high or low, rich or poor: the first were your April fish or mackerel (pimps, panders, and bawds); the others your beneficial remoras, that is, the eternity of lawsuits, the needless lets that keep 'em undecided.

I saw some sphynges, some raphes, some ounces, and some cepphi, whose fore-feet are like hands and their hind-feet like man's.

Also some crocutas and some eali as big as sea-horses, with elephants' tails, boars' jaws and tusks, and horns as pliant as an a.s.s's ears.

The crocutas, most fleet animals, as big as our a.s.ses of Mirebalais, have necks, tails, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s like a lion's, legs like a stag's, have mouths up to the ears, and but two teeth, one above and one below; they speak with human voices, but when they do they say nothing.

Some people say that none e'er saw an eyrie, or nest of sakers; if you'll believe me, I saw no less than eleven, and I'm sure I reckoned right.

I saw some left-handed halberds, which were the first that I had ever seen.

I saw some manticores, a most strange sort of creatures, which have the body of a lion, red hair, a face and ears like a man's, three rows of teeth which close together as if you joined your hands with your fingers between each other; they have a sting in their tails like a scorpion's, and a very melodious voice.

I saw some catablepases, a sort of serpents, whose bodies are small, but their heads large, without any proportion, so that they've much ado to lift them up; and their eyes are so infectious that whoever sees 'em dies upon the spot, as if he had seen a basilisk.

I saw some beasts with two backs, and those seemed to me the merriest creatures in the world. They were most nimble at wriggling the b.u.t.tocks, and more diligent in tail-wagging than any water-wagtails, perpetually jogging and shaking their double rumps.

I saw there some milched crawfish, creatures that I never had heard of before in my life. These moved in very good order, and 'twould have done your heart good to have seen 'em.

Chapter 5.x.x.xI.-How in the land of Satin we saw Hearsay, who kept a school of vouching.

We went a little higher up into the country of Tapestry, and saw the Mediterranean Sea open to the right and left down to the very bottom; just as the Red Sea very fairly left its bed at the Arabian Gulf to make a lane for the Jews when they left Egypt.

There I found Triton winding his silver sh.e.l.l instead of a horn, and also Glaucus, Proteus, Nereus, and a thousand other G.o.dlings and sea monsters.

I also saw an infinite number of fish of all kinds, dancing, flying, vaulting, fighting, eating, breathing, billing, shoving, milting, sp.a.w.ning, hunting, fishing, skirmishing, lying in ambuscado, making truces, cheapening, bargaining, swearing, and sporting.

In a blind corner we saw Aristotle holding a lantern in the posture in which the hermit uses to be drawn near St. Christopher, watching, prying, thinking, and setting everything down.

Behind him stood a pack of other philosophers, like so many b.u.ms by a head-bailiff, as Appian, Heliodorus, Athenaeus, Porphyrius, Pancrates, Arcadian, Numenius, Possidonius, Ovidius, Oppia.n.u.s, Olympius, Seleucus, Leonides, Agathocles, Theophrastus, Damostratus, Mutia.n.u.s, Nymphodorus, Aelian, and five hundred other such plodding dons, who were full of business, yet had little to do; like Chrysippus or Aristarchus of Soli, who for eight-and-fifty years together did nothing in the world but examine the state and concerns of bees.

I spied Peter Gilles among these, with a urinal in his hand, narrowly watching the water of those goodly fishes.

When we had long beheld everything in this land of Satin, Pantagruel said, I have sufficiently fed my eyes, but my belly is empty all this while, and chimes to let me know 'tis time to go to dinner. Let's take care of the body lest the soul abdicate it; and to this effect let's taste some of these anacampserotes ('An herb, the touching of which is said to reconcile lovers.'-Motteux.) that hang over our heads. Psha, cried one, they are mere trash, stark naught, o' my word; they're good for nothing.

I then went to pluck some mirobolans off of a piece of tapestry whereon they hung, but the devil a bit I could chew or swallow 'em; and had you had them betwixt your teeth you would have sworn they had been thrown silk; there was no manner of savour in 'em.

One might be apt to think Heliogabalus had taken a hint from thence, to feast those whom he had caused to fast a long time, promising them a sumptuous, plentiful, and imperial feast after it; for all the treat used to amount to no more than several sorts of meat in wax, marble, earthenware, painted and figured tablecloths.

While we were looking up and down to find some more substantial food, we heard a loud various noise, like that of paper-mills (or women bucking of linen); so with all speed we went to the place whence the noise came, where we found a diminutive, monstrous, misshapen old fellow, called Hearsay. His mouth was slit up to his ears, and in it were seven tongues, each of them cleft into seven parts. However, he chattered, tattled, and prated with all the seven at once, of different matters, and in divers languages.

He had as many ears all over his head and the rest of his body as Argus formerly had eyes, and was as blind as a beetle, and had the palsy in his legs.

About him stood an innumerable number of men and women, gaping, listening, and hearing very intensely. Among 'em I observed some who strutted like crows in a gutter, and princ.i.p.ally a very handsome bodied man in the face, who held then a map of the world, and with little aphorisms compendiously explained everything to 'em; so that those men of happy memories grew learned in a trice, and would most fluently talk with you of a world of prodigious things, the hundredth part of which would take up a man's whole life to be fully known.

Among the rest they descanted with great prolixity on the pyramids and hieroglyphics of Egypt, of the Nile, of Babylon, of the Troglodytes, the Hymantopodes, or crump-footed nation, the Blemiae, people that wear their heads in the middle of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the Pigmies, the Cannibals, the Hyperborei and their mountains, the Egypanes with their goat's feet, and the devil and all of others; every individual word of it by hearsay.

I am much mistaken if I did not see among them Herodotus, Pliny, Solinus, Berosus, Philostratus, Pomponius Mela, Strabo, and G.o.d knows how many other antiquaries.

Then Albert, the great Jacobin friar, Peter Tesmoin, alias Witness, Pope Pius the Second, Volaterra.n.u.s, Paulus Jovius the valiant, Jemmy Cartier, Chaton the Armenian, Marco Polo the Venetian, Ludovico Romano, Pedro Aliares, and forty cartloads of other modern historians, lurking behind a piece of tapestry, where they were at it ding-dong, privately scribbling the Lord knows what, and making rare work of it; and all by hearsay.

Behind another piece of tapestry (on which Naboth and Susanna's accusers were fairly represented), I saw close by Hearsay, good store of men of the country of Perce and Maine, notable students, and young enough.

I asked what sort of study they applied themselves to; and was told that from their youth they learned to be evidences, affidavit-men, and vouchers, and were instructed in the art of swearing; in which they soon became such proficients, that when they left that country, and went back into their own, they set up for themselves and very honestly lived by their trade of evidencing, positively giving their testimony of all things whatsoever to those who feed them most roundly to do a job of journey-work for them; and all this by hearsay.

You may think what you will of it; but I can a.s.sure you they gave some of us corners of their cakes, and we merrily helped to empty their hogsheads. Then, in a friendly manner, they advised us to be as sparing of truth as possibly we could if ever we had a mind to get court preferment.