Gargantua and Pantagruel Part 45

Chapter 5.x.x.xII.-How we came in sight of Lantern-land.

Having been but scurvily entertained in the land of Satin, we went o' board, and having set sail, in four days came near the coast of Lantern-land. We then saw certain little hovering fires on the sea.

For my part, I did not take them to be lanterns, but rather thought they were fishes which lolled their flaming tongues on the surface of the sea, or lampyrides, which some call cicindelas, or glowworms, shining there as ripe barley does o' nights in my country.

But the skipper satisfied us that they were the lanterns of the watch, or, more properly, lighthouses, set up in many places round the precinct of the place to discover the land, and for the safe piloting in of some outlandish lanterns, which, like good Franciscan and Jacobin friars, were coming to make their personal appearance at the provincial chapter.

However, some of us were somewhat suspicious that these fires were the forerunners of some storm, but the skipper a.s.sured us again they were not.

Chapter 5.x.x.xIII.-How we landed at the port of the Lychn.o.bii, and came to Lantern-land.

Soon after we arrived at the port of Lantern-land, where Pantagruel discovered on a high tower the lantern of Roch.e.l.le, that stood us in good stead, for it cast a great light. We also saw the lantern of Pharos, that of Nauplion, and that of Acropolis at Athens, sacred to Pallas.

Near the port there's a little hamlet inhabited by the Lychn.o.bii, that live by lanterns, as the gulligutted friars in our country live by nuns; they are studious people, and as honest men as ever s.h.i.t in a trumpet. Demosthenes had formerly lanternized there.

We were conducted from that place to the palace by three obeliscolichnys ('A kind of beacons.'-Motteux.), military guards of the port, with high-crowned hats, whom we acquainted with the cause of our voyage, and our design, which was to desire the queen of the country to grant us a lantern to light and conduct us during our voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle.

They promised to a.s.sist us in this, and added that we could never have come in a better time, for then the lanterns held their provincial chapter.

When we came to the royal palace we had audience of her highness the Queen of Lantern-land, being introduced by two lanterns of honour, that of Aristophanes and that of Cleanthes (Motteux adds here-'Mistresses of the ceremonies.'). Panurge in a few words acquainted her with the causes of our voyage, and she received us with great demonstrations of friendship, desiring us to come to her at supper-time that we might more easily make choice of one to be our guide; which pleased us extremely. We did not fail to observe intensely everything we could see, as the garbs, motions, and deportment of the queen's subjects, princ.i.p.ally the manner after which she was served.

The bright queen was dressed in virgin crystal of Tutia wrought damaskwise, and beset with large diamonds.

The lanterns of the royal blood were clad partly with b.a.s.t.a.r.d-diamonds, partly with diaphanous stones; the rest with horn, paper, and oiled cloth.

The cresset-lights took place according to the antiquity and l.u.s.tre of their families.

An earthen dark-lantern, shaped like a pot, notwithstanding this took place of some of the first quality; at which I wondered much, till I was told it was that of Epictetus, for which three thousand drachmas had been formerly refused.

Martial's polymix lantern (Motteux gives a footnote:-'A lamp with many wicks, or a branch'd candlestick with many springs coming out of it, that supply all the branches with oil.') made a very good figure there. I took particular notice of its dress, and more yet of the lychnosimity formerly consecrated by Canopa, the daughter of Tisias.

I saw the lantern pensile formerly taken out of the temple of Apollo Palatinus at Thebes, and afterwards by Alexander the Great (carried to the town of Cymos). (The words in brackets have been omitted by Motteux.) I saw another that distinguished itself from the rest by a bushy tuft of crimson silk on its head. I was told 'twas that of Bartolus, the lantern of the civilians.

Two others were very remarkable for glister-pouches that dangled at their waist. We were told that one was the greater light and the other the lesser light of the apothecaries.

When 'twas supper-time, the queen's highness first sat down, and then the lady lanterns, according to their rank and dignity. For the first course they were all served with large Christmas candles, except the queen, who was served with a hugeous, thick, stiff, flaming taper of white wax, somewhat red towards the tip; and the royal family, as also the provincial lantern of Mirebalais, who were served with nutlights; and the provincial of Lower Poitou, with an armed candle.

After that, G.o.d wot, what a glorious light they gave with their wicks! I do not say all, for you must except a parcel of junior lanterns, under the government of a high and mighty one. These did not cast a light like the rest, but seemed to me dimmer than any long-snuff farthing candle whose tallow has been half melted away in a hothouse.

After supper we withdrew to take some rest, and the next day the queen made us choose one of the most ill.u.s.trious lanterns to guide us; after which we took our leave.

Chapter 5.x.x.xIV.-How we arrived at the Oracle of the Bottle.

Our glorious lantern lighting and directing us to heart's content, we at last arrived at the desired island where was the Oracle of the Bottle. As soon as friend Panurge landed, he nimbly cut a caper with one leg for joy, and cried to Pantagruel, Now we are where we have wished ourselves long ago. This is the place we've been seeking with such toil and labour. He then made a compliment to our lantern, who desired us to be of good cheer, and not be daunted or dismayed whatever we might chance to see.

To come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle we were to go through a large vineyard, in which were all sorts of vines, as the Falernian, Malvoisian, the Muscadine, those of Taige, Beaune, Mirevaux, Orleans, Picardent, Arbois, Coussi, Anjou, Grave, Corsica, Vierron, Nerac, and others. This vineyard was formerly planted by the good Bacchus, with so great a blessing that it yields leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year round, like the orange trees at Suraine.

Our magnificent lantern ordered every one of us to eat three grapes, to put some vine-leaves in his shoes, and take a vine-branch in his left hand.

At the end of the close we went under an arch built after the manner of those of the ancients. The trophies of a toper were curiously carved on it.

First, on one side was to be seen a long train of flagons, leathern bottles, flasks, cans, gla.s.s bottles, barrels, nipperkins, pint pots, quart pots, pottles, gallons, and old-fashioned semaises (swingeing wooden pots, such as those out of which the Germans fill their gla.s.ses); these hung on a shady arbour.

On another side was store of garlic, onions, shallots, hams, botargos, caviare, biscuits, neat's tongues, old cheese, and such like comfits, very artificially interwoven, and packed together with vine-stocks.

On another were a hundred sorts of drinking gla.s.ses, cups, cisterns, ewers, false cups, tumblers, bowls, mazers, mugs, jugs, goblets, talboys, and such other Bacchic artillery.

On the frontispiece of the triumphal arch, under the zooph.o.r.e, was the following couplet: You who presume to move this way, Get a good lantern, lest you stray.

We took special care of that, cried Pantagruel when he had read them; for there is not a better or a more divine lantern than ours in all Lantern-land.

This arch ended at a fine large round alley covered over with the interlaid branches of vines, loaded and adorned with cl.u.s.ters of five hundred different colours, and of as many various shapes, not natural, but due to the skill of agriculture; some were golden, others bluish, tawny, azure, white, black, green, purple, streaked with many colours, long, round, triangular, cod-like, hairy, great-headed, and gra.s.sy. That pleasant alley ended at three old ivy-trees, verdant, and all loaden with rings. Our enlightened lantern directed us to make ourselves hats with some of their leaves, and cover our heads wholly with them, which was immediately done.

Jupiter's priestess, said Pantagruel, in former days would not like us have walked under this arbour. There was a mystical reason, answered our most perspicuous lantern, that would have hindered her; for had she gone under it, the wine, or the grapes of which 'tis made, that's the same thing, had been over her head, and then she would have seemed overtopped and mastered by wine. Which implies that priests, and all persons who devote themselves to the contemplation of divine things, ought to keep their minds sedate and calm, and avoid whatever might disturb and discompose their tranquillity, which nothing is more apt to do than drunkenness.

You also, continued our lantern, could not come into the Holy Bottle's presence, after you have gone through this arch, did not that n.o.ble priestess Bacbuc first see your shoes full of vine-leaves; which action is diametrically opposite to the other, and signifies that you despise wine, and having mastered it, as it were, tread it under foot.

I am no scholar, quoth Friar John, for which I'm heartily sorry, yet I find by my breviary that in the Revelation a woman was seen with the moon under her feet, which was a most wonderful sight. Now, as Bigot explained it to me, this was to signify that she was not of the nature of other women; for they have all the moon at their heads, and consequently their brains are always troubled with a lunacy. This makes me willing to believe what you said, dear Madam Lantern.

Chapter 5.x.x.xV.-How we went underground to come to the Temple of the Holy Bottle, and how Chinon is the oldest city in the world.

We went underground through a plastered vault, on which was coa.r.s.ely painted a dance of women and satyrs waiting on old Silenus, who was grinning o' horseback on his a.s.s. This made me say to Pantagruel, that this entry put me in mind of the painted cellar in the oldest city in the world, where such paintings are to be seen, and in as cool a place.

Which is the oldest city in the world? asked Pantagruel. 'Tis Chinon, sir, or Cainon in Touraine, said I. I know, returned Pantagruel, where Chinon lies, and the painted cellar also, having myself drunk there many a gla.s.s of cool wine; neither do I doubt but that Chinon is an ancient town -witness its blazon. I own 'tis said twice or thrice: Chinon, Little town, Great renown, On old stone Long has stood; There's the Vienne, if you look down; If you look up, there's the wood.

But how, continued he, can you make it out that 'tis the oldest city in the world? Where did you find this written? I have found it in the sacred writ, said I, that Cain was the first that built a town; we may then reasonably conjecture that from his name he gave it that of Cainon. Thus, after his example, most other founders of towns have given them their names: Athena, that's Minerva in Greek, to Athens; Alexander to Alexandria; Constantine to Constantinople; Pompey to Pompeiopolis in Cilicia; Adrian to Adrianople; Canaan, to the Canaanites; Saba, to the Sabaeans; a.s.sur, to the a.s.syrians; and so Ptolemais, Caesarea, Tiberias, and Herodium in Judaea got their names.

While we were thus talking, there came to us the great flask whom our lantern called the philosopher, her holiness the Bottle's governor. He was attended with a troop of the temple-guards, all French bottles in wicker armour; and seeing us with our javelins wrapped with ivy, with our ill.u.s.trious lantern, whom he knew, he desired us to come in with all manner of safety, and ordered we should be immediately conducted to the Princess Bacbuc, the Bottle's lady of honour, and priestess of all the mysteries; which was done.

Chapter 5.x.x.xVI.-How we went down the tetradic steps, and of Panurge's fear.

We went down one marble step under ground, where there was a resting, or, as our workmen call it, a landing-place; then, turning to the left, we went down two other steps, where there was another resting-place; after that we came to three other steps, turning about, and met a third; and the like at four steps which we met afterwards. There quoth Panurge, Is it here? How many steps have you told? asked our magnificent lantern. One, two, three, four, answered Pantagruel. How much is that? asked she. Ten, returned he. Multiply that, said she, according to the same Pythagorical tetrad. That is, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, cried Pantagruel. How much is the whole? said she. One hundred, answered Pantagruel. Add, continued she, the first cube-that's eight. At the end of that fatal number you'll find the temple gate; and pray observe, this is the true psychogony of Plato, so celebrated by the Academics, yet so little understood; one moiety of which consists of the unity of the two first numbers full of two square and two cubic numbers. We then went down those numerical stairs, all under ground, and I can a.s.sure you, in the first place, that our legs stood us in good stead; for had it not been for 'em, we had rolled just like so many hogsheads into a vault. Secondly, our radiant lantern gave us just so much light as is in St. Patrick's hole in Ireland, or Trophonius's pit in Boeotia; which caused Panurge to say to her, after we had got down some seventy-eight steps: Dear madam, with a sorrowful, aching heart, I most humbly beseech your lanternship to lead us back. May I be led to h.e.l.l if I be not half dead with fear; my heart is sunk down into my hose; I am afraid I shall make b.u.t.tered eggs in my breeches. I freely consent never to marry. You have given yourself too much trouble on my account. The Lord shall reward you in his great rewarder; neither will I be ungrateful when I come out of this cave of Troglodytes. Let's go back, I pray you. I'm very much afraid this is Taenarus, the low way to h.e.l.l, and methinks I already hear Cerberus bark. Hark! I hear the cur, or my ears tingle. I have no manner of kindness for the dog, for there never is a greater toothache than when dogs bite us by the shins. And if this be only Trophonius's pit, the lemures, hobthrushes, and goblins will certainly swallow us alive, just as they devoured formerly one of Demetrius's halberdiers for want of bridles. Art thou here, Friar John? Prithee, dear, dear cod, stay by me; I'm almost dead with fear. Hast thou got thy bilbo? Alas! poor pilgarlic's defenceless. I'm a naked man, thou knowest; let's go back. Zoons, fear nothing, cried Friar John; I'm by thee, and have thee fast by the collar; eighteen devils shan't get thee out of my clutches, though I were unarmed. Never did a man yet want weapons who had a good arm with as stout a heart. Heaven would sooner send down a shower of them; even as in Provence, in the fields of La Crau, near Mariannes, there rained stones (they are there to this day) to help Hercules, who otherwise wanted wherewithal to fight Neptune's two b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. But whither are we bound? Are we a-going to the little children's limbo? By Pluto, they'll bepaw and conskite us all. Or are we going to h.e.l.l for orders? By cob's body, I'll hamper, bethwack, and belabour all the devils, now I have some vine-leaves in my shoes. Thou shalt see me lay about me like mad, old boy. Which way? where the devil are they? I fear nothing but their d.a.m.ned horns; but cuckoldy Panurge's bull-feather will altogether secure me from 'em. Lo! in a prophetic spirit I already see him, like another Actaeon, horned, h.o.r.n.y, hornified. Prithee, quoth Panurge, take heed thyself, dear frater, lest, till monks have leave to marry, thou weddest something thou dostn't like, as some cat-o'-nine-tails or the quartan ague; if thou dost, may I never come safe and sound out of this hypogeum, this subterranean cave, if I don't tup and ram that disease merely for the sake of making thee a cornuted, corniferous property; otherwise I fancy the quartan ague is but an indifferent bedfellow. I remember Gripe-men-all threatened to wed thee to some such thing; for which thou calledest him heretic.

Here our splendid lantern interrupted them, letting us know this was the place where we were to have a taste of the creature, and be silent; bidding us not despair of having the word of the Bottle before we went back, since we had lined our shoes with vine-leaves.

Come on then, cried Panurge, let's charge through and through all the devils of h.e.l.l; we can but perish, and that's soon done. However, I thought to have reserved my life for some mighty battle. Move, move, move forwards; I am as stout as Hercules, my breeches are full of courage; my heart trembles a little, I own, but that's only an effect of the coldness and dampness of this vault; 'tis neither fear nor ague. Come on, move on, p.i.s.s, pish, push on. My name's William Dreadnought.

Chapter 5.x.x.xVII.-How the temple gates in a wonderful manner opened of themselves.

After we were got down the steps, we came to a portal of fine jasper, of Doric order, on whose front we read this sentence in the finest gold, EN OINO ALETHEIA-that is, In wine truth. The gates were of Corinthian-like bra.s.s, ma.s.sy, wrought with little vine-branches, finely embossed and engraven, and were equally joined and closed together in their mortise without padlock, key-chain, or tie whatsoever. Where they joined, there hanged an Indian loadstone as big as an Egyptian bean, set in gold, having two points, hexagonal, in a right line; and on each side, towards the wall, hung a handful of scordium (garlic germander).

There our n.o.ble lantern desired us not to take it amiss that she went no farther with us, leaving us wholly to the conduct of the priestess Bacbuc; for she herself was not allowed to go in, for certain causes rather to be concealed than revealed to mortals. However, she advised us to be resolute and secure, and to trust to her for the return. She then pulled the loadstone that hung at the folding of the gates, and threw it into a silver box fixed for that purpose; which done, from the threshold of each gate she drew a twine of crimson silk about nine feet long, by which the scordium hung, and having fastened it to two gold buckles that hung at the sides, she withdrew.

Immediately the gates flew open without being touched; not with a creaking or loud harsh noise like that made by heavy brazen gates, but with a soft pleasing murmur that resounded through the arches of the temple.

Pantagruel soon knew the cause of it, having discovered a small cylinder or roller that joined the gates over the threshold, and, turning like them towards the wall on a hard well-polished ophites stone, with rubbing and rolling caused that harmonious murmur.

I wondered how the gates thus opened of themselves to the right and left, and after we were all got in, I cast my eye between the gates and the wall to endeavour to know how this happened; for one would have thought our kind lantern had put between the gates the herb aethiopis, which they say opens some things that are shut. But I perceived that the parts of the gates that joined on the inside were covered with steel, and just where the said gates touched when they were opened I saw two square Indian loadstones of a bluish hue, well polished, and half a span broad, mortised in the temple wall. Now, by the hidden and admirable power of the loadstones, the steel plates were put into motion, and consequently the gates were slowly drawn; however, not always, but when the said loadstone on the outside was removed, after which the steel was freed from its power, the two bunches of scordium being at the same time put at some distance, because it deadens the magnes and robs it of its attractive virtue.

On the loadstone that was placed on the right side the following iambic verse was curiously engraven in ancient Roman characters: Duc.u.n.t volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

Fate leads the willing, and th' unwilling draws.

The following sentence was neatly cut in the loadstone that was on the left: ALL THINGS TEND TO THEIR END.

Chapter 5.x.x.xVIII.-Of the Temple's admirable pavement.

When I had read those inscriptions, I admired the beauty of the temple, and particularly the disposition of its pavement, with which no work that is now, or has been under the cope of heaven, can justly be compared; not that of the Temple of Fortune at Praeneste in Sylla's time, or the pavement of the Greeks, called asarotum, laid by Sosistratus at Pergamus. For this here was wholly in compartments of precious stones, all in their natural colours: one of red jasper, most charmingly spotted; another of ophites; a third of porphyry; a fourth of lycophthalmy, a stone of four different colours, powdered with sparks of gold as small as atoms; a fifth of agate, streaked here and there with small milk-coloured waves; a sixth of costly chalcedony or onyx-stone; and another of green jasper, with certain red and yellowish veins. And all these were disposed in a diagonal line.

At the portico some small stones were inlaid and evenly joined on the floor, all in their native colours, to embellish the design of the figures; and they were ordered in such a manner that you would have thought some vine-leaves and branches had been carelessly strewed on the pavement; for in some places they were thick, and thin in others. That inlaying was very wonderful everywhere. Here were seen, as it were in the shade, some snails crawling on the grapes; there, little lizards running on the branches. On this side were grapes that seemed yet greenish; on another, some cl.u.s.ters that seemed full ripe, so like the true that they could as easily have deceived starlings and other birds as those which Zeuxis drew.

Nay, we ourselves were deceived; for where the artist seemed to have strewed the vine-branches thickest, we could not forbear walking with great strides lest we should entangle our feet, just as people go over an unequal stony place.

I then cast my eyes on the roof and walls of the temple, that were all pargetted with porphyry and mosaic work, which from the left side at the coming in most admirably represented the battle in which the good Bacchus overthrew the Indians; as followeth.

Chapter 5.x.x.xIX.-How we saw Bacchus's army drawn up in battalia in mosaic work.