After this manner, it is my opinion that you should petrify this dog and this fox. The metamorphosis will not be incongruous; for they both bear the name of Peter. And because, according to the Limosin proverb, to make an oven's mouth there must be three stones, you may associate them with Master Peter du Coignet, whom you formerly petrified for the same cause. Then those three dead pieces shall be put in an equilateral trigone somewhere in the great temple at Paris—in the middle of the porch, if you will—there to perform the office of extinguishers, and with their noses put out the lighted candles, torches, tapers, and flambeaux; since, while they lived, they still lighted, ballock-like, the fire of faction, division, ballock sects, and wrangling among those idle bearded boys, the students. And this will be an everlasting monument to show that those puny self-conceited pedants, ballock-framers, were rather contemned than condemned by you. Dixi, I have said my say.

You deal too kindly by them, said Jupiter, for aught I see, Monsieur Priapus. You do not use to be so kind to everybody, let me tell you; for as they seek to eternize their names, it would be much better for them to be thus changed into hard stones than to return to earth and putrefaction. But now to other matters. Yonder behind us, towards the Tuscan sea and the neighbourhood of Mount Apennine, do you see what tragedies are stirred up by certain topping ecclesiastical bullies? This hot fit will last its time, like the Limosins' ovens, and then will be cooled, but not so fast.

We shall have sport enough with it; but I foresee one inconveniency; for methinks we have but little store of thunder ammunition since the time that you, my fellow gods, for your pastime lavished them away to bombard new Antioch, by my particular permission; as since, after your example, the stout champions who had undertaken to hold the fortress of Dindenarois against all comers fairly wasted their powder with shooting at sparrows, and then, not having wherewith to defend themselves in time of need, valiantly surrendered to the enemy, who were already packing up their awls, full of madness and despair, and thought on nothing but a shameful retreat. Take care this be remedied, son Vulcan; rouse up your drowsy Cyclopes, Asteropes, Brontes, Arges, Polyphemus, Steropes, Pyracmon, and so forth, set them at work, and make them drink as they ought.

Never spare liquor to such as are at hot work. Now let us despatch this bawling fellow below. You, Mercury, go see who it is, and know what he wants. Mercury looked out at heaven's trapdoor, through which, as I am told, they hear what is said here below. By the way, one might well enough mistake it for the scuttle of a ship; though Icaromenippus said it was like the mouth of a well. The light-heeled deity saw that it was honest Tom, who asked for his lost hatchet; and accordingly he made his report to the synod. Marry, said Jupiter, we are finely helped up, as if we had now nothing else to do here but to restore lost hatchets. Well, he must have it then for all this, for so 'tis written in the Book of Fate (do you hear?), as well as if it was worth the whole duchy of Milan. The truth is, the fellow's hatchet is as much to him as a kingdom to a king. Come, come, let no more words be scattered about it; let him have his hatchet again.

Now, let us make an end of the difference betwixt the Levites and mole-catchers of Landerousse. Whereabouts were we? Priapus was standing in the chimney-corner, and having heard what Mercury had reported, said in a most courteous and jovial manner: King Jupiter, while by your order and particular favour I was garden-keeper-general on earth, I observed that this word hatchet is equivocal to many things; for it signifies a certain instrument by the means of which men fell and cleave timber. It also signifies (at least I am sure it did formerly) a female soundly and frequently thumpthumpriggletickletwiddletobyed. Thus I perceived that every cock of the game used to call his doxy his hatchet; for with that same tool (this he said lugging out and exhibiting his nine-inch knocker) they so strongly and resolutely shove and drive in their helves, that the females remain free from a fear epidemical amongst their sex, viz., that from the bottom of the male's belly the instrument should dangle at his heel for want of such feminine props. And I remember, for I have a member, and a memory too, ay, and a fine memory, large enough to fill a butter-firkin; I remember, I say, that one day of tubilustre (horn-fair) at the festivals of goodman Vulcan in May, I heard Josquin Des Prez, Olkegan, Hobrecht, Agricola, Brumel, Camelin, Vigoris, De la Fage, Bruyer, Prioris, Seguin, De la Rue, Midy, Moulu, Mouton, Gascogne, Loyset, Compere, Penet, Fevin, Rousee, Richard Fort, Rousseau, Consilion, Constantio Festi, Jacquet Bercan, melodiously singing the following catch on a pleasant green:

Long John to bed went to his bride, And laid a mallet by his side: What means this mallet, John? saith she. Why! 'tis to wedge thee home, quoth he. Alas! cried she, the man's a fool: What need you use a wooden tool? When lusty John does to me come, He never shoves but with his bum.

Nine Olympiads, and an intercalary year after (I have a rare member, I would say memory; but I often make blunders in the symbolization and colligance of those two words), I heard Adrian Villart, Gombert, Janequin, Arcadet, Claudin, Certon, Manchicourt, Auxerre, Villiers, Sandrin, Sohier, Hesdin, Morales, Passereau, Maille, Maillart, Jacotin, Heurteur, Verdelot, Carpentras, L'Heritier, Cadeac, Doublet, Vermont, Bouteiller, Lupi, Pagnier, Millet, Du Moulin, Alaire, Maraut, Morpain, Gendre, and other merry lovers of music, in a private garden, under some fine shady trees, round about a bulwark of flagons, gammons, pasties, with several coated quails, and laced mutton, waggishly singing:

Since tools without their hafts are useless lumber, And hatchets without helves are of that number; That one may go in t'other, and may match it, I'll be the helve, and thou shalt be the hatchet.

Now would I know what kind of hatchet this bawling Tom wants? This threw all the venerable gods and goddesses into a fit of laughter, like any microcosm of flies; and even set limping Vulcan a-hopping and jumping smoothly three or four times for the sake of his dear. Come, come, said Jupiter to Mercury, run down immediately, and cast at the poor fellow's feet three hatchets: his own, another of gold, and a third of massy silver, all of one size; then having left it to his will to take his choice, if he take his own, and be satisfied with it, give him the other two; if he take another, chop his head off with his own; and henceforth serve me all those losers of hatchets after that manner. Having said this, Jupiter, with an awkward turn of his head, like a jackanapes swallowing of pills, made so dreadful a phiz that all the vast Olympus quaked again. Heaven's foot messenger, thanks to his low-crowned narrow-brimmed hat, his plume of feathers, heel-pieces, and running stick with pigeon wings, flings himself out at heaven's wicket, through the idle deserts of the air, and in a trice nimbly alights upon the earth, and throws at friend Tom's feet the three hatchets, saying unto him: Thou hast bawled long enough to be a-dry; thy prayers and request are granted by Jupiter: see which of these three is thy hatchet, and take it away with thee. Wellhung lifts up the golden hatchet, peeps upon it, and finds it very heavy; then staring on Mercury, cries, Codszouks, this is none of mine; I won't ha't: the same he did with the silver one, and said, 'Tis not this neither, you may e'en take them again. At last he takes up his own hatchet, examines the end of the helve, and finds his mark there; then, ravished with joy, like a fox that meets some straggling poultry, and sneering from the tip of the nose, he cried, By the mass, this is my hatchet, master god; if you will leave it me, I will sacrifice to you a very good and huge pot of milk brimful, covered with fine strawberries, next ides of May.

Honest fellow, said Mercury, I leave it thee; take it; and because thou hast wished and chosen moderately in point of hatchet, by Jupiter's command I give thee these two others; thou hast now wherewith to make thyself rich: be honest. Honest Tom gave Mercury a whole cartload of thanks, and revered the most great Jupiter. His old hatchet he fastens close to his leathern girdle, and girds it above his breech like Martin of Cambray; the two others, being more heavy, he lays on his shoulder. Thus he plods on, trudging over the fields, keeping a good countenance amongst his neighbours and fellow-parishioners, with one merry saying or other after Patelin's way. The next day, having put on a clean white jacket, he takes on his back the two precious hatchets and comes to Chinon, the famous city, noble city, ancient city, yea, the first city in the world, according to the judgment and assertion of the most learned Massorets. At Chinon he turned his silver hatchet into fine testons, crown-pieces, and other white cash; his golden hatchet into fine angels, curious ducats, substantial ridders, spankers, and rose-nobles; then with them purchases a good number of farms, barns, houses, out-houses, thatched houses, stables, meadows, orchards, fields, vineyards, woods, arable lands, pastures, ponds, mills, gardens, nurseries, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, hogs, asses, horses, hens, cocks, capons, chickens, geese, ganders, ducks, drakes, and a world of all other necessaries, and in a short time became the richest man in the country, nay, even richer than that limping scrape-good Maulevrier. His brother bumpkins, and the other yeomen and country-puts thereabouts, perceiving his good fortune, were not a little amazed, insomuch that their former pity of poor Tom was soon changed into an envy of his so great and unexpected rise; and as they could not for their souls devise how this came about, they made it their business to pry up and down, and lay their heads together, to inquire, seek, and inform themselves by what means, in what place, on what day, what hour, how, why, and wherefore, he had come by this great treasure.

At last, hearing it was by losing his hatchet, Ha, ha! said they, was there no more to do but to lose a hatchet to make us rich? Mum for that; 'tis as easy as pissing a bed, and will cost but little. Are then at this time the revolutions of the heavens, the constellations of the firmament, and aspects of the planets such, that whosoever shall lose a hatchet shall immediately grow rich? Ha, ha, ha! by Jove, you shall e'en be lost, an't please you, my dear hatchet. With this they all fairly lost their hatchets out of hand. The devil of one that had a hatchet left; he was not his mother's son that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled or cleaved in that country through want of hatchets. Nay, the Aesopian apologue even saith that certain petty country gents of the lower class, who had sold Wellhung their little mill and little field to have wherewithal to make a figure at the next muster, having been told that his treasure was come to him by that only means, sold the only badge of their gentility, their swords, to purchase hatchets to go lose them, as the silly clodpates did, in hopes to gain store of chink by that loss.

You would have truly sworn they had been a parcel of your petty spiritual usurers, Rome-bound, selling their all, and borrowing of others, to buy store of mandates, a pennyworth of a new-made pope.

Now they cried out and brayed, and prayed and bawled, and lamented, and invoked Jupiter: My hatchet! my hatchet! Jupiter, my hatchet! on this side, My hatchet! on that side, My hatchet! Ho, ho, ho, ho, Jupiter, my hatchet! The air round about rung again with the cries and howlings of these rascally losers of hatchets.

Mercury was nimble in bringing them hatchets; to each offering that which he had lost, as also another of gold, and a third of silver.

Every he still was for that of gold, giving thanks in abundance to the great giver, Jupiter; but in the very nick of time that they bowed and stooped to take it from the ground, whip, in a trice, Mercury lopped off their heads, as Jupiter had commanded; and of heads thus cut off the number was just equal to that of the lost hatchets.

You see how it is now; you see how it goes with those who in the simplicity of their hearts wish and desire with moderation. Take warning by this, all you greedy, fresh-water sharks, who scorn to wish for anything under ten thousand pounds; and do not for the future run on impudently, as I have sometimes heard you wishing, Would to God I had now one hundred seventy-eight millions of gold! Oh! how I should tickle it off. The deuce on you, what more might a king, an emperor, or a pope wish for? For that reason, indeed, you see that after you have made such hopeful wishes, all the good that comes to you of it is the itch or the scab, and not a cross in your breeches to scare the devil that tempts you to make these wishes: no more than those two mumpers, wishers after the custom of Paris; one of whom only wished to have in good old gold as much as hath been spent, bought, and sold in Paris, since its first foundations were laid, to this hour; all of it valued at the price, sale, and rate of the dearest year in all that space of time. Do you think the fellow was bashful? Had he eaten sour plums unpeeled? Were his teeth on edge, I pray you? The other wished Our Lady's Church brimful of steel needles, from the floor to the top of the roof, and to have as many ducats as might be crammed into as many bags as might be sewed with each and everyone of those needles, till they were all either broke at the point or eye. This is to wish with a vengeance! What think you of it? What did they get by't, in your opinion? Why at night both my gentlemen had kibed heels, a tetter in the chin, a churchyard cough in the lungs, a catarrh in the throat, a swingeing boil at the rump, and the devil of one musty crust of a brown george the poor dogs had to scour their grinders with. Wish therefore for mediocrity, and it shall be given unto you, and over and above yet; that is to say, provided you bestir yourself manfully, and do your best in the meantime.

Ay, but say you, God might as soon have given me seventy-eight thousand as the thirteenth part of one half; for he is omnipotent, and a million of gold is no more to him than one farthing. Oh, ho! pray tell me who taught you to talk at this rate of the power and predestination of God, poor silly people? Peace, tush, st, st, st! fall down before his sacred face and own the nothingness of your nothing.

Upon this, O ye that labour under the affliction of the gout, I ground my hopes; firmly believing, that if so it pleases the divine goodness, you shall obtain health; since you wish and ask for nothing else, at least for the present. Well, stay yet a little longer with half an ounce of patience.

The Genoese do not use, like you, to be satisfied with wishing health alone, when after they have all the livelong morning been in a brown study, talked, pondered, ruminated, and resolved in the counting-houses of whom and how they may squeeze the ready, and who by their craft must be hooked in, wheedled, bubbled, sharped, overreached, and choused; they go to the exchange, and greet one another with a Sanita e guadagno, Messer! health and gain to you, sir! Health alone will not go down with the greedy curmudgeons; they over and above must wish for gain, with a pox to 'em; ay, and for the fine crowns, or scudi di Guadaigne; whence, heaven be praised! it happens many a time that the silly wishers and woulders are baulked, and get neither.

Now, my lads, as you hope for good health, cough once aloud with lungs of leather; take me off three swingeing bumpers; prick up your ears; and you shall hear me tell wonders of the noble and good Pantagruel.



THE FOURTH BOOK.

Chapter 4.I.

How Pantagruel went to sea to visit the oracle of Bacbuc, alias the Holy Bottle.

In the month of June, on Vesta's holiday, the very numerical day on which Brutus, conquering Spain, taught its strutting dons to truckle under him, and that niggardly miser Crassus was routed and knocked on the head by the Parthians, Pantagruel took his leave of the good Gargantua, his royal father. The old gentleman, according to the laudable custom of the primitive Christians, devoutly prayed for the happy voyage of his son and his whole company, and then they took shipping at the port of Thalassa. Pantagruel had with him Panurge, Friar John des Entomeures, alias of the Funnels, Epistemon, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, Carpalin, cum multis aliis, his ancient servants and domestics; also Xenomanes, the great traveller, who had crossed so many dangerous roads, dikes, ponds, seas, and so forth, and was come some time before, having been sent for by Panurge.

For certain good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, he had left with Gargantua, and marked out, in his great and universal hydrographical chart, the course which they were to steer to visit the Oracle of the Holy Bottle Bacbuc. The number of ships were such as I described in the third book, convoyed by a like number of triremes, men of war, galleons, and feluccas, well-rigged, caulked, and stored with a good quantity of Pantagruelion.

All the officers, droggermen, pilots, captains, mates, boatswains, midshipmen, quartermasters, and sailors, met in the Thalamege, Pantagruel's principal flag-ship, which had in her stern for her ensign a huge large bottle, half silver well polished, the other half gold enamelled with carnation; whereby it was easy to guess that white and red were the colours of the noble travellers, and that they went for the word of the Bottle.

On the stern of the second was a lantern like those of the ancients, industriously made with diaphanous stone, implying that they were to pass by Lanternland. The third ship had for her device a fine deep china ewer. The fourth, a double-handed jar of gold, much like an ancient urn. The fifth, a famous can made of sperm of emerald. The sixth, a monk's mumping bottle made of the four metals together. The seventh, an ebony funnel, all embossed and wrought with gold after the Tauchic manner. The eighth, an ivy goblet, very precious, inlaid with gold. The ninth, a cup of fine Obriz gold. The tenth, a tumbler of aromatic agoloch (you call it lignum aloes) edged with Cyprian gold, after the Azemine make. The eleventh, a golden vine-tub of mosaic work. The twelfth, a runlet of unpolished gold, covered with a small vine of large Indian pearl of Topiarian work. Insomuch that there was not a man, however in the dumps, musty, sour-looked, or melancholic he were, not even excepting that blubbering whiner Heraclitus, had he been there, but seeing this noble convoy of ships and their devices, must have been seized with present gladness of heart, and, smiling at the conceit, have said that the travellers were all honest topers, true pitcher-men, and have judged by a most sure prognostication that their voyage, both outward and homeward-bound, would be performed in mirth and perfect health.

In the Thalamege, where was the general meeting, Pantagruel made a short but sweet exhortation, wholly backed with authorities from Scripture upon navigation; which being ended, with an audible voice prayers were said in the presence and hearing of all the burghers of Thalassa, who had flocked to the mole to see them take shipping. After the prayers was melodiously sung a psalm of the holy King David, which begins, When Israel went out of Egypt; and that being ended, tables were placed upon deck, and a feast speedily served up. The Thalassians, who had also borne a chorus in the psalm, caused store of belly-timber to be brought out of their houses. All drank to them; they drank to all; which was the cause that none of the whole company gave up what they had eaten, nor were sea-sick, with a pain at the head and stomach; which inconveniency they could not so easily have prevented by drinking, for some time before, salt water, either alone or mixed with wine; using quinces, citron peel, juice of pomegranates, sourish sweetmeats, fasting a long time, covering their stomachs with paper, or following such other idle remedies as foolish physicians prescribe to those that go to sea.

Having often renewed their tipplings, each mother's son retired on board his own ship, and set sail all so fast with a merry gale at south-east; to which point of the compass the chief pilot, James Brayer by name, had shaped his course, and fixed all things accordingly. For seeing that the Oracle of the Holy Bottle lay near Cathay, in the Upper India, his advice, and that of Xenomanes also, was not to steer the course which the Portuguese use, while sailing through the torrid zone, and Cape Bona Speranza, at the south point of Africa, beyond the equinoctial line, and losing sight of the northern pole, their guide, they make a prodigious long voyage; but rather to keep as near the parallel of the said India as possible, and to tack to the westward of the said pole, so that winding under the north, they might find themselves in the latitude of the port of Olone, without coming nearer it for fear of being shut up in the frozen sea; whereas, following this canonical turn, by the said parallel, they must have that on the right to the eastward, which at their departure was on their left.

This proved a much shorter cut; for without shipwreck, danger, or loss of men, with uninterrupted good weather, except one day near the island of the Macreons, they performed in less than four months the voyage of Upper India, which the Portuguese, with a thousand inconveniences and innumerable dangers, can hardly complete in three years. And it is my opinion, with submission to better judgments, that this course was perhaps steered by those Indians who sailed to Germany, and were honourably received by the King of the Swedes, while Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul of the Gauls; as Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny after them tell us.



Chapter 4.II.

How Pantagruel bought many rarities in the island of Medamothy.

That day and the two following they neither discovered land nor anything new; for they had formerly sailed that way: but on the fourth they made an island called Medamothy, of a fine and delightful prospect, by reason of the vast number of lighthouses and high marble towers in its circuit, which is not less than that of Canada (sic). Pantagruel, inquiring who governed there, heard that it was King Philophanes, absent at that time upon account of the marriage of his brother Philotheamon with the infanta of the kingdom of Engys.

Hearing this, he went ashore in the harbour, and while every ship's crew watered, passed his time in viewing divers pictures, pieces of tapestry, animals, fishes, birds, and other exotic and foreign merchandises, which were along the walks of the mole and in the markets of the port. For it was the third day of the great and famous fair of the place, to which the chief merchants of Africa and Asia resorted. Out of these Friar John bought him two rare pictures; in one of which the face of a man that brings in an appeal was drawn to the life; and in the other a servant that wants a master, with every needful particular, action, countenance, look, gait, feature, and deportment, being an original by Master Charles Charmois, principal painter to King Megistus; and he paid for them in the court fashion, with conge and grimace. Panurge bought a large picture, copied and done from the needle-work formerly wrought by Philomela, showing to her sister Progne how her brother-in-law Tereus had by force handselled her copyhold, and then cut out her tongue that she might not (as women will) tell tales. I vow and swear by the handle of my paper lantern that it was a gallant, a mirific, nay, a most admirable piece. Nor do you think, I pray you, that in it was the picture of a man playing the beast with two backs with a female; this had been too silly and gross: no, no; it was another-guise thing, and much plainer. You may, if you please, see it at Theleme, on the left hand as you go into the high gallery. Epistemon bought another, wherein were painted to the life the ideas of Plato and the atoms of Epicurus. Rhizotome purchased another, wherein Echo was drawn to the life. Pantagruel caused to be bought, by Gymnast, the life and deeds of Achilles, in seventy-eight pieces of tapestry, four fathom long, and three fathom broad, all of Phrygian silk, embossed with gold and silver; the work beginning at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, continuing to the birth of Achilles; his youth, described by Statius Papinius; his warlike achievements, celebrated by Homer; his death and obsequies, written by Ovid and Quintus Calaber; and ending at the appearance of his ghost, and Polyxena's sacrifice, rehearsed by Euripides.

He also caused to be bought three fine young unicorns; one of them a male of a chestnut colour, and two grey dappled females; also a tarand, whom he bought of a Scythian of the Gelones' country.

A tarand is an animal as big as a bullock, having a head like a stag, or a little bigger, two stately horns with large branches, cloven feet, hair long like that of a furred Muscovite, I mean a bear, and a skin almost as hard as steel armour. The Scythian said that there are but few tarands to be found in Scythia, because it varieth its colour according to the diversity of the places where it grazes and abides, and represents the colour of the grass, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, meadows, rocks, and generally of all things near which it comes. It hath this common with the sea-pulp, or polypus, with the thoes, with the wolves of India, and with the chameleon, which is a kind of a lizard so wonderful that Democritus hath written a whole book of its figure and anatomy, as also of its virtue and propriety in magic. This I can affirm, that I have seen it change its colour, not only at the approach of things that have a colour, but by its own voluntary impulse, according to its fear or other affections; as, for example, upon a green carpet I have certainly seen it become green; but having remained there some time, it turned yellow, blue, tanned, and purple in course, in the same manner as you see a turkey-cock's comb change colour according to its passions. But what we find most surprising in this tarand is, that not only its face and skin, but also its hair could take whatever colour was about it. Near Panurge, with his kersey coat, its hair used to turn grey; near Pantagruel, with his scarlet mantle, its hair and skin grew red; near the pilot, dressed after the fashion of the Isiacs of Anubis in Egypt, its hair seemed all white, which two last colours the chameleons cannot borrow.

When the creature was free from any fear or affection, the colour of its hair was just such as you see that of the asses of Meung.



Chapter 4.III.

How Pantagruel received a letter from his father Gargantua, and of the strange way to have speedy news from far distant places.

While Pantagruel was taken up with the purchase of those foreign animals, the noise of ten guns and culverins, together with a loud and joyful cheer of all the fleet, was heard from the mole. Pantagruel looked towards the haven, and perceived that this was occasioned by the arrival of one of his father Gargantua's celoces, or advice-boats, named the Chelidonia; because on the stern of it was carved in Corinthian brass a sea-swallow, which is a fish as large as a dare-fish of Loire, all flesh, without scale, with cartilaginous wings (like a bat's) very long and broad, by the means of which I have seen them fly about three fathom above water, about a bow-shot. At Marseilles 'tis called lendole. And indeed that ship was as light as a swallow, so that it rather seemed to fly on the sea than to sail. Malicorne, Gargantua's esquire carver, was come in her, being sent expressly by his master to have an account of his son's health and circumstances, and to bring him credentials. When Malicorne had saluted Pantagruel, before the prince opened the letters, the first thing he said to him was, Have you here the Gozal, the heavenly messenger? Yes, sir, said he; here it is swaddled up in this basket. It was a grey pigeon, taken out of Gargantua's dove-house, whose young ones were just hatched when the advice-boat was going off.

If any ill fortune had befallen Pantagruel, he would have fastened some black ribbon to his feet; but because all things had succeeded happily hitherto, having caused it to be undressed, he tied to its feet a white ribbon, and without any further delay let it loose. The pigeon presently flew away, cutting the air with an incredible speed, as you know that there is no flight like a pigeon's, especially when it hath eggs or young ones, through the extreme care which nature hath fixed in it to relieve and be with its young; insomuch that in less than two hours it compassed in the air the long tract which the advice-boat, with all her diligence, with oars and sails, and a fair wind, could not go through in less than three days and three nights; and was seen as it went into the dove-house in its nest. Whereupon Gargantua, hearing that it had the white ribbon on, was joyful and secure of his son's welfare. This was the custom of the noble Gargantua and Pantagruel when they would have speedy news of something of great concern; as the event of some battle, either by sea or land; the surrendering or holding out of some strong place; the determination of some difference of moment; the safe or unhappy delivery of some queen or great lady; the death or recovery of their sick friends or allies, and so forth. They used to take the gozal, and had it carried from one to another by the post, to the places whence they desired to have news. The gozal, bearing either a black or white ribbon, according to the occurrences and accidents, used to remove their doubts at its return, making in the space of one hour more way through the air than thirty postboys could have done in one natural day. May not this be said to redeem and gain time with a vengeance, think you? For the like service, therefore, you may believe as a most true thing that in the dove-houses of their farms there were to be found all the year long store of pigeons hatching eggs or rearing their young. Which may be easily done in aviaries and voleries by the help of saltpetre and the sacred herb vervain.

The gozal being let fly, Pantagruel perused his father Gargantua's letter, the contents of which were as followeth:

My dearest Son,—The affection that naturally a father bears a beloved son is so much increased in me by reflecting on the particular gifts which by the divine goodness have been heaped on thee, that since thy departure it hath often banished all other thoughts out of my mind, leaving my heart wholly possessed with fear lest some misfortune has attended thy voyage; for thou knowest that fear was ever the attendant of true and sincere love. Now because, as Hesiod saith, A good beginning of anything is the half of it; or, Well begun's half done, according to the old saying; to free my mind from this anxiety I have expressly despatched Malicorne, that he may give me a true account of thy health at the beginning of thy voyage. For if it be good, and such as I wish it, I shall easily foresee the rest.

I have met with some diverting books, which the bearer will deliver thee; thou mayest read them when thou wantest to unbend and ease thy mind from thy better studies. He will also give thee at large the news at court. The peace of the Lord be with thee. Remember me to Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon, Xenomanes, Gymnast, and thy other principal domestics. Dated at our paternal seat, this 13th day of June.

Thy father and friend, Gargantua.



Chapter 4.IV.

How Pantagruel writ to his father Gargantua, and sent him several curiosities.

Pantagruel, having perused the letter, had a long conference with the esquire Malicorne; insomuch that Panurge, at last interrupting them, asked him, Pray, sir, when do you design to drink? When shall we drink? When shall the worshipful esquire drink? What a devil! have you not talked long enough to drink? It is a good motion, answered Pantagruel: go, get us something ready at the next inn; I think 'tis the Centaur. In the meantime he writ to Gargantua as followeth, to be sent by the aforesaid esquire:

Most gracious Father,—As our senses and animal faculties are more discomposed at the news of events unexpected, though desired (even to an immediate dissolution of the soul from the body), than if those accidents had been foreseen, so the coming of Malicorne hath much surprised and disordered me. For I had no hopes to see any of your servants, or to hear from you, before I had finished our voyage; and contented myself with the dear remembrance of your august majesty, deeply impressed in the hindmost ventricle of my brain, often representing you to my mind.

But since you have made me happy beyond expectation by the perusal of your gracious letter, and the faith I have in your esquire hath revived my spirits by the news of your welfare, I am as it were compelled to do what formerly I did freely, that is, first to praise the blessed Redeemer, who by his divine goodness preserves you in this long enjoyment of perfect health; then to return you eternal thanks for the fervent affection which you have for me your most humble son and unprofitable servant.

Formerly a Roman, named Furnius, said to Augustus, who had received his father into favour, and pardoned him after he had sided with Antony, that by that action the emperor had reduced him to this extremity, that for want of power to be grateful, both while he lived and after it, he should be obliged to be taxed with ingratitude. So I may say, that the excess of your fatherly affection drives me into such a strait, that I shall be forced to live and die ungrateful; unless that crime be redressed by the sentence of the Stoics, who say that there are three parts in a benefit, the one of the giver, the other of the receiver, the third of the remunerator; and that the receiver rewards the giver when he freely receives the benefit and always remembers it; as, on the contrary, that man is most ungrateful who despises and forgets a benefit. Therefore, being overwhelmed with infinite favours, all proceeding from your extreme goodness, and on the other side wholly incapable of making the smallest return, I hope at least to free myself from the imputation of ingratitude, since they can never be blotted out of my mind; and my tongue shall never cease to own that to thank you as I ought transcends my capacity.

As for us, I have this assurance in the Lord's mercy and help, that the end of our voyage will be answerable to its beginning, and so it will be entirely performed in health and mirth. I will not fail to set down in a journal a full account of our navigation, that at our return you may have an exact relation of the whole.

I have found here a Scythian tarand, an animal strange and wonderful for the variations of colour on its skin and hair, according to the distinction of neighbouring things; it is as tractable and easily kept as a lamb. Be pleased to accept of it.

I also send you three young unicorns, which are the tamest of creatures.

I have conferred with the esquire, and taught him how they must be fed. These cannot graze on the ground by reason of the long horn on their forehead, but are forced to browse on fruit trees, or on proper racks, or to be fed by hand, with herbs, sheaves, apples, pears, barley, rye, and other fruits and roots, being placed before them.

I am amazed that ancient writers should report them to be so wild, furious, and dangerous, and never seen alive; far from it, you will find that they are the mildest things in the world, provided they are not maliciously offended. Likewise I send you the life and deeds of Achilles in curious tapestry; assuring you whatever rarities of animals, plants, birds, or precious stones, and others, I shall be able to find and purchase in our travels, shall be brought to you, God willing, whom I beseech, by his blessed grace, to preserve you.

From Medamothy, this 15th of June. Panurge, Friar John, Epistemon, Zenomanes, Gymnast, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, and Carpalin, having most humbly kissed your hand, return your salute a thousand times.

Your most dutiful son and servant, Pantagruel.

While Pantagruel was writing this letter, Malicorne was made welcome by all with a thousand goodly good-morrows and how-d'ye's; they clung about him so that I cannot tell you how much they made of him, how many humble services, how many from my love and to my love were sent with him. Pantagruel, having writ his letters, sat down at table with him, and afterwards presented him with a large chain of gold, weighing eight hundred crowns, between whose septenary links some large diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoise stones, and unions were alternately set in. To each of his bark's crew he ordered to be given five hundred crowns. To Gargantua, his father, he sent the tarand covered with a cloth of satin, brocaded with gold, and the tapestry containing the life and deeds of Achilles, with the three unicorns in friezed cloth of gold trappings; and so they left Medamothy—Malicorne to return to Gargantua, Pantagruel to proceed in his voyage, during which Epistemon read to him the books which the esquire had brought, and because he found them jovial and pleasant, I shall give you an account of them, if you earnestly desire it.



Chapter 4.V.

How Pantagruel met a ship with passengers returning from Lanternland.

On the fifth day we began already to wind by little and little about the pole; going still farther from the equinoctial line, we discovered a merchant-man to the windward of us. The joy for this was not small on both sides; we in hopes to hear news from sea, and those in the merchant-man from land. So we bore upon 'em, and coming up with them we hailed them; and finding them to be Frenchmen of Xaintonge, backed our sails and lay by to talk to them. Pantagruel heard that they came from Lanternland; which added to his joy, and that of the whole fleet. We inquired about the state of that country, and the way of living of the Lanterns; and were told that about the latter end of the following July was the time prefixed for the meeting of the general chapter of the Lanterns; and that if we arrived there at that time, as we might easily, we should see a handsome, honourable, and jolly company of Lanterns; and that great preparations were making, as if they intended to lanternize there to the purpose. We were told also that if we touched at the great kingdom of Gebarim, we should be honourably received and treated by the sovereign of that country, King Ohabe, who, as well as all his subjects, speaks Touraine French.

While we were listening to these news, Panurge fell out with one Dingdong, a drover or sheep-merchant of Taillebourg. The occasion of the fray was thus:

This same Dingdong, seeing Panurge without a codpiece, with his spectacles fastened to his cap, said to one of his comrades, Prithee, look, is there not a fine medal of a cuckold? Panurge, by reason of his spectacles, as you may well think, heard more plainly by half with his ears than usually; which caused him (hearing this) to say to the saucy dealer in mutton, in a kind of a pet:

How the devil should I be one of the hornified fraternity, since I am not yet a brother of the marriage-noose, as thou art; as I guess by thy ill-favoured phiz?

Yea, verily, quoth the grazier, I am married, and would not be otherwise for all the pairs of spectacles in Europe; nay, not for all the magnifying gimcracks in Africa; for I have got me the cleverest, prettiest, handsomest, properest, neatest, tightest, honestest, and soberest piece of woman's flesh for my wife that is in all the whole country of Xaintonge; I'll say that for her, and a fart for all the rest. I bring her home a fine eleven-inch-long branch of red coral for her Christmas-box. What hast thou to do with it? what's that to thee? who art thou? whence comest thou, O dark lantern of Antichrist? Answer, if thou art of God. I ask thee, by the way of question, said Panurge to him very seriously, if with the consent and countenance of all the elements, I had gingumbobbed, codpieced, and thumpthumpriggledtickledtwiddled thy so clever, so pretty, so handsome, so proper, so neat, so tight, so honest, and so sober female importance, insomuch that the stiff deity that has no forecast, Priapus (who dwells here at liberty, all subjection of fastened codpieces, or bolts, bars, and locks, abdicated), remained sticking in her natural Christmas-box in such a lamentable manner that it were never to come out, but eternally should stick there unless thou didst pull it out with thy teeth; what wouldst thou do? Wouldst thou everlastingly leave it there, or wouldst thou pluck it out with thy grinders? Answer me, O thou ram of Mahomet, since thou art one of the devil's gang. I would, replied the sheepmonger, take thee such a woundy cut on this spectacle-bearing lug of thine with my trusty bilbo as would smite thee dead as a herring. Thus, having taken pepper in the nose, he was lugging out his sword, but, alas!—cursed cows have short horns,—it stuck in the scabbard; as you know that at sea cold iron will easily take rust by reason of the excessive and nitrous moisture. Panurge, so smitten with terror that his heart sunk down to his midriff, scoured off to Pantagruel for help; but Friar John laid hand on his flashing scimitar that was new ground, and would certainly have despatched Dingdong to rights, had not the skipper and some of his passengers beseeched Pantagruel not to suffer such an outrage to be committed on board his ship. So the matter was made up, and Panurge and his antagonist shaked fists, and drank in course to one another in token of a perfect reconciliation.



Chapter 4.VI.

How, the fray being over, Panurge cheapened one of Dingdong's sheep.

This quarrel being hushed, Panurge tipped the wink upon Epistemon and Friar John, and taking them aside, Stand at some distance out of the way, said he, and take your share of the following scene of mirth. You shall have rare sport anon, if my cake be not dough, and my plot do but take. Then addressing himself to the drover, he took off to him a bumper of good lantern wine. The other pledged him briskly and courteously. This done, Panurge earnestly entreated him to sell him one of his sheep.

But the other answered him, Is it come to that, friend and neighbour? Would you put tricks upon travellers? Alas, how finely you love to play upon poor folk! Nay, you seem a rare chapman, that's the truth on't. Oh, what a mighty sheep-merchant you are! In good faith, you look liker one of the diving trade than a buyer of sheep. Adzookers, what a blessing it would be to have one's purse well lined with chink near your worship at a tripe-house when it begins to thaw! Humph, humph, did not we know you well, you might serve one a slippery trick! Pray do but see, good people, what a mighty conjuror the fellow would be reckoned. Patience, said Panurge; but waiving that, be so kind as to sell me one of your sheep. Come, how much? What do you mean, master of mine? answered the other. They are long-wool sheep; from these did Jason take his golden fleece. The gold of the house of Burgundy was drawn from them. Zwoons, man, they are oriental sheep, topping sheep, fatted sheep, sheep of quality. Be it so, said Panurge; but sell me one of them, I beseech you; and that for a cause, paying you ready money upon the nail, in good and lawful occidental current cash. Wilt say how much? Friend, neighbour, answered the seller of mutton, hark ye me a little, on the ear.

Panurge. On which side you please; I hear you.

Dingdong. You are going to Lanternland, they say.

Panurge. Yea, verily.

Dingdong. To see fashions?

Panurge. Even so.

Dingdong. And be merry?

Panurge. And be merry.

Dingdong. Your name is, as I take it, Robin Mutton?

Panurge. As you please for that, sweet sir.

Dingdong. Nay, without offence.

Panurge. So I would have it.

Dingdong. You are, as I take it, the king's jester; aren't you?

Panurge. Ay, ay, anything.

Dingdong. Give me your hand—humph, humph, you go to see fashions, you are the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton! Do you see this same ram? His name, too, is Robin. Here, Robin, Robin, Robin! Baea, baea, baea. Hath he not a rare voice?

Panurge. Ay, marry has he, a very fine and harmonious voice.

Dingdong. Well, this bargain shall be made between you and me, friend and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you a peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he shall outdo you, and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner as when you shall be hanged and suspended.

Patience, said Panurge; but you would do much for me and your whole posterity if you would chaffer with me for him, or some other of his inferiors. I beg it of you; good your worship, be so kind. Hark ye, friend of mine, answered the other; with the fleece of these your fine Rouen cloth is to be made; your Leominster superfine wool is mine arse to it; mere flock in comparison. Of their skins the best cordovan will be made, which shall be sold for Turkey and Montelimart, or for Spanish leather at least. Of the guts shall be made fiddle and harp strings that will sell as dear as if they came from Munican or Aquileia. What do you think on't, hah? If you please, sell me one of them, said Panurge, and I will be yours for ever. Look, here's ready cash. What's the price? This he said exhibiting his purse stuffed with new Henricuses.



Chapter 4.VII.

Which if you read you'll find how Panurge bargained with Dingdong.

Neighbour, my friend, answered Dingdong, they are meat for none but kings and princes; their flesh is so delicate, so savoury, and so dainty that one would swear it melted in the mouth. I bring them out of a country where the very hogs, God be with us, live on nothing but myrobolans. The sows in the styes when they lie-in (saving the honour of this good company) are fed only with orange-flowers. But, said Panurge, drive a bargain with me for one of them, and I will pay you for't like a king, upon the honest word of a true Trojan; come, come, what do you ask? Not so fast, Robin, answered the trader; these sheep are lineally descended from the very family of the ram that wafted Phryxus and Helle over the sea since called the Hellespont. A pox on't, said Panurge, you are clericus vel addiscens! Ita is a cabbage, and vere a leek, answered the merchant. But, rr, rrr, rrrr, rrrrr, hoh Robin, rr, rrrrrrr, you don't understand that gibberish, do you? Now I think on't, over all the fields where they piss, corn grows as fast as if the Lord had pissed there; they need neither be tilled nor dunged. Besides, man, your chemists extract the best saltpetre in the world out of their urine. Nay, with their very dung (with reverence be it spoken) the doctors in our country make pills that cure seventy-eight kinds of diseases, the least of which is the evil of St. Eutropius of Xaintes, from which, good Lord, deliver us! Now what do you think on't, neighbour, my friend? The truth is, they cost me money, that they do. Cost what they will, cried Panurge, trade with me for one of them, paying you well. Our friend, quoth the quacklike sheepman, do but mind the wonders of nature that are found in those animals, even in a member which one would think were of no use. Take me but these horns, and bray them a little with an iron pestle, or with an andiron, which you please, it is all one to me; then bury them wherever you will, provided it be where the sun may shine, and water them frequently; in a few months I'll engage you will have the best asparagus in the world, not even excepting those of Ravenna. Now, come and tell me whether the horns of your other knights of the bull's feather have such a virtue and wonderful propriety?

Patience, said Panurge. I don't know whether you be a scholar or no, pursued Dingdong; I have seen a world of scholars, I say great scholars, that were cuckolds, I'll assure you. But hark you me, if you were a scholar, you should know that in the most inferior members of those animals, which are the feet, there is a bone, which is the heel, the astragalus, if you will have it so, wherewith, and with that of no other creature breathing, except the Indian ass and the dorcades of Libya, they used in old times to play at the royal game of dice, whereat Augustus the emperor won above fifty thousand crowns one evening. Now such cuckolds as you will be hanged ere you get half so much at it. Patience, said Panurge; but let us despatch. And when, my friend and neighbour, continued the canting sheepseller, shall I have duly praised the inward members, the shoulders, the legs, the knuckles, the neck, the breast, the liver, the spleen, the tripes, the kidneys, the bladder, wherewith they make footballs; the ribs, which serve in Pigmyland to make little crossbows to pelt the cranes with cherry-stones; the head, which with a little brimstone serves to make a miraculous decoction to loosen and ease the belly of costive dogs? A turd on't, said the skipper to his preaching passenger, what a fiddle-faddle have we here? There is too long a lecture by half: sell him if thou wilt; if thou won't, don't let the man lose more time. I hate a gibble-gabble and a rimble-ramble talk. I am for a man of brevity. I will, for your sake, replied the holder-forth; but then he shall give me three livres, French money, for each pick and choose. It is a woundy price, cried Panurge; in our country I could have five, nay six, for the money; see that you do not overreach me, master. You are not the first man whom I have known to have fallen, even sometimes to the endangering, if not breaking, of his own neck, for endeavouring to rise all at once. A murrain seize thee for a blockheaded booby, cried the angry seller of sheep; by the worthy vow of Our Lady of Charroux, the worst in this flock is four times better than those which the Coraxians in Tuditania, a country of Spain, used to sell for a gold talent each; and how much dost thou think, thou Hibernian fool, that a talent of gold was worth? Sweet sir, you fall into a passion, I see, returned Panurge; well, hold, here is your money. Panurge, having paid his money, chose him out of all the flock a fine topping ram; and as he was hauling it along, crying out and bleating, all the rest, hearing and bleating in concert, stared to see whither their brother-ram should be carried. In the meanwhile the drover was saying to his shepherds: Ah! how well the knave could choose him out a ram; the whoreson has skill in cattle. On my honest word, I reserved that very piece of flesh for the Lord of Cancale, well knowing his disposition; for the good man is naturally overjoyed when he holds a good-sized handsome shoulder of mutton, instead of a left-handed racket, in one hand, with a good sharp carver in the other. God wot, how he belabours himself then.



Chapter 4.VIII.

How Panurge caused Dingdong and his sheep to be drowned in the sea.

On a sudden, you would wonder how the thing was so soon done—for my part I cannot tell you, for I had not leisure to mind it—our friend Panurge, without any further tittle-tattle, throws you his ram overboard into the middle of the sea, bleating and making a sad noise. Upon this all the other sheep in the ship, crying and bleating in the same tone, made all the haste they could to leap nimbly into the sea, one after another; and great was the throng who should leap in first after their leader. It was impossible to hinder them; for you know that it is the nature of sheep always to follow the first wheresoever it goes; which makes Aristotle, lib. 9. De. Hist. Animal., mark them for the most silly and foolish animals in the world. Dingdong, at his wits' end, and stark staring mad, as a man who saw his sheep destroy and drown themselves before his face, strove to hinder and keep them back with might and main; but all in vain: they all one after t'other frisked and jumped into the sea, and were lost. At last he laid hold on a huge sturdy one by the fleece, upon the deck of the ship, hoping to keep it back, and so save that and the rest; but the ram was so strong that it proved too hard for him, and carried its master into the herring pond in spite of his teeth—where it is supposed he drank somewhat more than his fill, so that he was drowned—in the same manner as one-eyed Polyphemus' sheep carried out of the den Ulysses and his companions. The like happened to the shepherds and all their gang, some laying hold on their beloved tup, this by the horns, t'other by the legs, a third by the rump, and others by the fleece; till in fine they were all of them forced to sea, and drowned like so many rats. Panurge, on the gunnel of the ship, with an oar in his hand, not to help them you may swear, but to keep them from swimming to the ship and saving themselves from drowning, preached and canted to them all the while like any little Friar (Oliver) Maillard, or another Friar John Burgess; laying before them rhetorical commonplaces concerning the miseries of this life and the blessings and felicity of the next; assuring them that the dead were much happier than the living in this vale of misery, and promised to erect a stately cenotaph and honorary tomb to every one of them on the highest summit of Mount Cenis at his return from Lanternland; wishing them, nevertheless, in case they were not yet disposed to shake hands with this life, and did not like their salt liquor, they might have the good luck to meet with some kind whale which might set them ashore safe and sound on some blessed land of Gotham, after a famous example.

The ship being cleared of Dingdong and his tups: Is there ever another sheepish soul left lurking on board? cried Panurge. Where are those of Toby Lamb and Robin Ram that sleep while the rest are a-feeding? Faith, I can't tell myself. This was an old coaster's trick. What think'st of it, Friar John, hah? Rarely performed, answered Friar John; only methinks that as formerly in war, on the day of battle, a double pay was commonly promised the soldiers for that day; for if they overcame, there was enough to pay them; and if they lost, it would have been shameful for them to demand it, as the cowardly foresters did after the battle of Cerizoles; likewise, my friend, you ought not to have paid your man, and the money had been saved. A fart for the money, said Panurge; have I not had above fifty thousand pounds' worth of sport? Come now, let's be gone; the wind is fair. Hark you me, my friend John; never did man do me a good turn, but I returned, or at least acknowledged it; no, I scorn to be ungrateful; I never was, nor ever will be. Never did man do me an ill one without rueing the day that he did it, either in this world or the next. I am not yet so much a fool neither. Thou damn'st thyself like any old devil, quoth Friar John; it is written, Mihi vindictam, &c. Matter of breviary, mark ye me (Motteux adds unnecessarily (by way of explanation), 'that's holy stuff.').



Chapter 4.IX.

How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Ennasin, and of the strange ways of being akin in that country.

We had still the wind at south-south-west, and had been a whole day without making land. On the third day, at the flies' uprising (which, you know, is some two or three hours after the sun's), we got sight of a triangular island, very much like Sicily for its form and situation. It was called the Island of Alliances.

The people there are much like your carrot-pated Poitevins, save only that all of them, men, women, and children, have their noses shaped like an ace of clubs. For that reason the ancient name of the country was Ennasin. They were all akin, as the mayor of the place told us; at least they boasted so.

You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing that, out of the family of the Fabii at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th of February, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since named Scelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, between the Tarpeian rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of Etruria three hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each other, with five thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals, who were all slain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of Beccano. Now from this same country of Ennasin, in case of need, above three hundred thousand, all relations and of one family, might march out. Their degrees of consanguinity and alliance are very strange; for being thus akin and allied to one another, we found that none was either father or mother, brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, son-in-law or daughter-in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other; unless, truly, a tall flat-nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a little shitten-arsed girl of three or four years old, father, and the child called him daughter.

Their distinction of degrees of kindred was thus: a man used to call a woman, my lean bit; the woman called him, my porpoise. Those, said Friar John, must needs stink damnably of fish when they have rubbed their bacon one with the other. One, smiling on a young buxom baggage, said, Good morrow, dear currycomb. She, to return him his civility, said, The like to you, my steed. Ha! ha! ha! said Panurge, that is pretty well, in faith; for indeed it stands her in good stead to currycomb this steed. Another greeted his buttock with a Farewell, my case. She replied, Adieu, trial. By St. Winifred's placket, cried Gymnast, this case has been often tried. Another asked a she-friend of his, How is it, hatchet? She answered him, At your service, dear helve. Odds belly, saith Carpalin, this helve and this hatchet are well matched. As we went on, I saw one who, calling his she-relation, styled her my crumb, and she called him, my crust.

Quoth one to a brisk, plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear tap. So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she. One called a wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal: one named his, my slipper; and she, my foot: another, my boot; she, my shasoon.

In the same degree of kindred, one called his, my butter; she called him, my eggs; and they were akin just like a dish of buttered eggs. I heard one call his, my tripe, and she him, my faggot. Now I could not, for the heart's blood of me, pick out or discover what parentage, alliance, affinity, or consanguinity was between them, with reference to our custom; only they told us that she was faggot's tripe. (Tripe de fagot means the smallest sticks in a faggot.) Another, complimenting his convenient, said, Yours, my shell; she replied, I was yours before, sweet oyster. I reckon, said Carpalin, she hath gutted his oyster. Another long-shanked ugly rogue, mounted on a pair of high-heeled wooden slippers, meeting a strapping, fusty, squabbed dowdy, says he to her, How is't my top? She was short upon him, and arrogantly replied, Never the better for you, my whip. By St. Antony's hog, said Xenomanes, I believe so; for how can this whip be sufficient to lash this top?

A college professor, well provided with cod, and powdered and prinked up, having a while discoursed with a great lady, taking his leave with these words, Thank you, sweetmeat; she cried, There needs no thanks, sour-sauce. Saith Pantagruel, This is not altogether incongruous, for sweet meat must have sour sauce. A wooden loggerhead said to a young wench, It is long since I saw you, bag; All the better, cried she, pipe. Set them together, said Panurge, then blow in their arses, it will be a bagpipe. We saw, after that, a diminutive humpbacked gallant, pretty near us, taking leave of a she-relation of his, thus: Fare thee well, friend hole; she reparteed, Save thee, friend peg. Quoth Friar John, What could they say more, were he all peg and she all hole? But now would I give something to know if every cranny of the hole can be stopped up with that same peg.

A bawdy bachelor, talking with an old trout, was saying, Remember, rusty gun. I will not fail, said she, scourer. Do you reckon these two to be akin? said Pantagruel to the mayor. I rather take them to be foes. In our country a woman would take this as a mortal affront. Good people of t'other world, replied the mayor, you have few such and so near relations as this gun and scourer are to one another; for they both come out of one shop. What, was the shop their mother? quoth Panurge. What mother, said the mayor, does the man mean? That must be some of your world's affinity; we have here neither father nor mother. Your little paltry fellows that live on t'other side the water, poor rogues, booted with wisps of hay, may indeed have such; but we scorn it. The good Pantagruel stood gazing and listening; but at those words he had like to have lost all patience. (Here Motteux adds an aside—'os kai nun o Ermeneutes. P.M.').

Having very exactly viewed the situation of the island and the way of living of the Enassed nation, we went to take a cup of the creature at a tavern, where there happened to be a wedding after the manner of the country. Bating that shocking custom, there was special good cheer.

While we were there, a pleasant match was struck up betwixt a female called Pear (a tight thing, as we thought, but by some, who knew better things, said to be quaggy and flabby), and a young soft male, called Cheese, somewhat sandy. (Many such matches have been, and they were formerly much commended.) In our country we say, Il ne fut onques tel mariage, qu'est de la poire et du fromage; there is no match like that made between the pear and the cheese; and in many other places good store of such bargains have been driven. Besides, when the women are at their last prayers, it is to this day a noted saying, that after cheese comes nothing.

In another room I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young pliable buskin. Pantagruel was told that young buskin took old boot to have and to hold because she was of special leather, in good case, and waxed, seared, liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had been for the fisherman that went to bed with his boots on. In another room below, I saw a young brogue taking a young slipper for better for worse; which, they told us, was neither for the sake of her piety, parts, or person, but for the fourth comprehensive p, portion; the spankers, spur-royals, rose-nobles, and other coriander seed with which she was quilted all over.



Chapter 4.X.

How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Chely, where he saw King St. Panigon.

We sailed right before the wind, which we had at west, leaving those odd alliancers with their ace-of-clubs snouts, and having taken height by the sun, stood in for Chely, a large, fruitful, wealthy, and well-peopled island. King St. Panigon, first of the name, reigned there, and, attended by the princes his sons and the nobles of his court, came as far as the port to receive Pantagruel, and conducted him to his palace; near the gate of which the queen, attended by the princesses her daughters and the court ladies, received us. Panigon directed her and all her retinue to salute Pantagruel and his men with a kiss; for such was the civil custom of the country; and they were all fairly bussed accordingly, except Friar John, who stepped aside and sneaked off among the king's officers. Panigon used all the entreaties imaginable to persuade Pantagruel to tarry there that day and the next; but he would needs be gone, and excused himself upon the opportunity of wind and weather, which, being oftener desired than enjoyed, ought not to be neglected when it comes. Panigon, having heard these reasons, let us go, but first made us take off some five-and-twenty or thirty bumpers each.

Pantagruel, returning to the port, missed Friar John, and asked why he was not with the rest of the company. Panurge could not tell how to excuse him, and would have gone back to the palace to call him, when Friar John overtook them, and merrily cried, Long live the noble Panigon! As I love my belly, he minds good eating, and keeps a noble house and a dainty kitchen. I have been there, boys. Everything goes about by dozens. I was in good hopes to have stuffed my puddings there like a monk. What! always in a kitchen, friend? said Pantagruel. By the belly of St. Cramcapon, quoth the friar, I understand the customs and ceremonies which are used there much better than all the formal stuff, antique postures, and nonsensical fiddle-faddle that must be used with those women, magni magna, shittencumshita, cringes, grimaces, scrapes, bows, and congees; double honours this way, triple salutes that way, the embrace, the grasp, the squeeze, the hug, the leer, the smack, baso las manos de vostra merce, de vostra maesta. You are most tarabin, tarabas, Stront; that's downright Dutch. Why all this ado? I don't say but a man might be for a bit by the bye and away, to be doing as well as his neighbours; but this little nasty cringing and courtesying made me as mad as any March devil. You talk of kissing ladies; by the worthy and sacred frock I wear, I seldom venture upon it, lest I be served as was the Lord of Guyercharois. What was it? said Pantagruel; I know him. He is one of the best friends I have.

He was invited to a sumptuous feast, said Friar John, by a relation and neighbour of his, together with all the gentlemen and ladies in the neighbourhood. Now some of the latter expecting his coming, dressed the pages in women's clothes, and finified them like any babies; then ordered them to meet my lord at his coming near the drawbridge. So the complimenting monsieur came, and there kissed the petticoated lads with great formality. At last the ladies, who minded passages in the gallery, burst out with laughing, and made signs to the pages to take off their dress; which the good lord having observed, the devil a bit he durst make up to the true ladies to kiss them, but said, that since they had disguised the pages, by his great grandfather's helmet, these were certainly the very footmen and grooms still more cunningly disguised. Odds fish, da jurandi, why do not we rather remove our humanities into some good warm kitchen of God, that noble laboratory, and there admire the turning of the spits, the harmonious rattling of the jacks and fenders, criticise on the position of the lard, the temperature of the pottages, the preparation for the dessert, and the order of the wine service? Beati immaculati in via. Matter of breviary, my masters.



Chapter 4.XI.

Why monks love to be in kitchens.

This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put me in mind of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we viewed the situation and beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their due; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry, scandalized, and out of all patience, told us, I don't know what the devil you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part I have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think my eyesight is as clear as another body's, and what can one see after all? There are fine houses, indeed and that's all. But the cage does not feed the birds. God and Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town. Now at Amiens, in four, nay, five times less ground than we have trod in our contemplations, I could have shown you above fourteen streets of roasting cooks, most ancient, savoury, and aromatic. I cannot imagine what kind of pleasure you can have taken in gazing on the lions and Africans (so methinks you call their tigers) near the belfry, or in ogling the porcupines and estridges in the Lord Philip Strozzi's palace. Faith and truth I had rather see a good fat goose at the spit. This porphyry, those marbles are fine; I say nothing to the contrary; but our cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in my mind. These ancient statues are well made; I am willing to believe it; but, by St. Ferreol of Abbeville, we have young wenches in our country which please me better a thousand times.

What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found in kitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there? Is there not, said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in the kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monks there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings? Or is it a natural induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself leads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they will or no? He would speak of forms following matter, as Averroes calls them, answered Epistemon. Right, said Friar John.

I will not offer to solve this problem, said Pantagruel; for it is somewhat ticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off scurvily; but I will tell you what I have heard.

Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming into one of the tents, where his cooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet Antagoras frying a conger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked him, Pray, Mr. Poet, was Homer frying congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon? Antagoras readily answered: But do you think, sir, that when Agamemnon did them he made it his business to know if any in his camp were frying congers? The king thought it an indecency that a poet should be thus a-frying in a kitchen; and the poet let the king know that it was a more indecent thing for a king to be found in such a place. I'll clap another story upon the neck of this, quoth Panurge, and will tell you what Breton Villandry answered one day to the Duke of Guise.

They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis against Charles the Fifth, Breton, armed cap-a-pie to the teeth, and mounted like St. George, yet sneaked off, and played least in sight during the engagement. Blood and oons, answered Breton, I was there, and can prove it easily; nay, even where you, my lord, dared not have been. The duke began to resent this as too rash and saucy; but Breton easily appeased him, and set them all a-laughing. Egad, my lord, quoth he, I kept out of harm's way; I was all the while with your page Jack, skulking in a certain place where you had not dared hide your head as I did. Thus discoursing, they got to their ships, and left the island of Chely.



Chapter 4.XII.

How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange way of living among the Catchpoles.

Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through Pettifogging, a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly tell what to make on't. There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles, rogues that will hang their father for a groat. They neither invited us to eat or drink; but, with a multiplied train of scrapes and cringes, said they were all at our service for the Legem pone.

One of our droggermen related to Pantagruel their strange way of living, diametrically opposed to that of our modern Romans; for at Rome a world of folks get an honest livelihood by poisoning, drubbing, lambasting, stabbing, and murthering; but the catchpoles earn theirs by being thrashed; so that if they were long without a tight lambasting, the poor dogs with their wives and children would be starved. This is just, quoth Panurge, like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towards the equinoctial circle unless they are soundly flogged. By St. Patrick's slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting me right, throw me off the saddle, in the devil's name.

The way is this, said the interpreter. When a monk, levite, close-fisted usurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he sends to him one of those catchpoles or apparitors, who nabs, or at least cites him, serves a writ or warrant upon him, thumps, abuses, and affronts him impudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious instructions; insomuch, that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his brains, and is not more stupid than a gyrin frog, he will find himself obliged either to apply a faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal's jobbernowl, give him the gentle lash, or make him cut a caper out at the window, by way of correction. This done, Catchpole is rich for four months at least, as if bastinadoes were his real harvest; for the monk, levite, usurer, or lawyer will reward him roundly; and my gentleman must pay him such swingeing damages that his acres must bleed for it, and he be in danger of miserably rotting within a stone doublet, as if he had struck the king.

Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this used by the Lord of Basche. What is it? said Pantagruel. The Lord of Basche, said Panurge, was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his return from the long war in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of the French, bravely defended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the Second, was every day cited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit and for the sport and fancy of the fat prior of St. Louant.

One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for he loved to be sometimes among them) he sent for one Loire, his baker, and his spouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was also his butler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them before his gentlemen and other servants: You all see how I am daily plagued with these rascally catchpoles. Truly, if you do not lend me your helping hand, I am finally resolved to leave the country, and go fight for the sultan, or the devil, rather than be thus eternally teased. Therefore, to be rid of their damned visits, hereafter, when any of them come here, be ready, you baker and your wife, to make your personal appearance in my great hall, in your wedding clothes, as if you were going to be affianced. Here, take these ducats, which I give you to keep you in a fitting garb. As for you, Sir Oudart, be sure you make your personal appearance there in your fine surplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wed them. Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipe and tabor. The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; then all of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one another the remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow with your fist, bidding the party struck remember the nuptials by that token. This will but make you have the better stomach to your supper; but when you come to the catchpole's turn, thrash him thrice and threefold, as you would a sheaf of green corn; do not spare him; maul him, drub him, lambast him, swinge him off, I pray you. Here, take these steel gauntlets, covered with kid. Head, back, belly, and sides, give him blows innumerable; he that gives him most shall be my best friend. Fear not to be called to an account about it; I will stand by you; for the blows must seem to be given in jest, as it is customary among us at all weddings.

Ay, but how shall we know the catchpole? said the man of God. All sorts of people daily resort to this castle. I have taken care of that, replied the lord. When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade, with a large broad silver ring on his thumb, comes to the door, he is certainly a catchpole; the porter having civilly let him in, shall ring the bell; then be all ready, and come into the hall, to act the tragi-comedy whose plot I have now laid for you.

That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old fat ruddy catchpole. Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men will do, the porter soon found him out, by his large greasy spatterdashes, his jaded hollow-flanked mare, his bagful of writs and informations dangling at his girdle, but, above all, by the large silver hoop on his left thumb.

The porter was civil to him, admitted him in kindly, and rung the bell briskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on their best clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall, keeping their gravities like a new-made judge. The dominie put on his surplice and stole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole, had him in there, and made him suck his face a good while, while the gauntlets were drawing on all hands; and then told him, You are come just in pudding-time; my lord is in his right cue. We shall feast like kings anon; here is to be swingeing doings; we have a wedding in the house; here, drink and cheer up; pull away.

While these two were at it hand-to-fist, Basche, seeing all his people in the hall in their proper equipage, sends for the vicar. Oudart comes with the holy-water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into the hall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then served Basche with a writ. Basche gave him grimace for grimace, slipped an angel into his mutton-fist, and prayed him to assist at the contract and ceremony; which he did. When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began to fly about among the assistants; but when it came to the catchpole's turn, they all laid on him so unmercifully with their gauntlets that they at last settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one of his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, his omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces; and all this in jest, and no harm done. God wot how the levite belaboured him, hiding within the long sleeve of his canonical shirt his huge steel gauntlet lined with ermine; for he was a strong-built ball, and an old dog at fisticuffs. The catchpole, all of a bloody tiger-like stripe, with much ado crawled home to L'Isle Bouchart, well pleased and edified, however, with Basche's kind reception; and, with the help of the good surgeons of the place, lived as long as you would have him. From that time to this, not a word of the business; the memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rung with joy at his funeral.



Chapter 4.XIII.

How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche commended his servants.

The catchpole being packed off on blind Sorrel—so he called his one-eyed mare—Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his servants, into the arbour of his garden; had wine brought, attended with good store of pasties, hams, fruit, and other table-ammunition, for a nunchion; drank with them joyfully, and then told them this story:

Master Francis Villon in his old age retired to St. Maxent in Poitou, under the patronage of a good honest abbot of the place. There to make sport for the mob, he undertook to get the Passion acted, after the way, and in the dialect of the country. The parts being distributed, the play having been rehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and aldermen that the mystery might be ready after Niort fair, and that there only wanted properties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the parts; so the mayor and his brethren took care to get them.

Villon, to dress an old clownish father greybeard, who was to represent God the father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole. Tickletoby refused him, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously forbidden to give or lend anything to players. Villon replied that the statute reached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games, and that he asked no more than what he had seen allowed at Brussels and other places. Tickletoby notwithstanding peremptorily bid him provide himself elsewhere if he would, and not to hope for anything out of his monastical wardrobe. Villon gave an account of this to the players, as of a most abominable action; adding, that God would shortly revenge himself, and make an example of Tickletoby.

The Saturday following he had notice given him that Tickletoby, upon the filly of the convent—so they call a young mare that was never leaped yet —was gone a-mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be back about two in the afternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his devils of the Passion through the town. They were all rigged with wolves', calves', and rams' skins, laced and trimmed with sheep's heads, bull's feathers, and large kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles, whereat hanged dangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells, which made a horrid din. Some held in their claws black sticks full of squibs and crackers; others had long lighted pieces of wood, upon which, at the corner of every street, they flung whole handfuls of rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire and smoke. Having thus led them about, to the great diversion of the mob and the dreadful fear of little children, he finally carried them to an entertainment at a summer-house without the gate that leads to St. Ligarius.

As they came near to the place, he espied Tickletoby afar off, coming home from mumping, and told them in macaronic verse:

Hic est de patria, natus, de gente belistra, Qui solet antiqua bribas portare bisacco. (Motteux reads:

'Hic est mumpator natus de gente Cucowli, Qui solet antiquo Scrappas portare bisacco.')

A plague on his friarship, said the devils then; the lousy beggar would not lend a poor cope to the fatherly father; let us fright him. Well said, cried Villon; but let us hide ourselves till he comes by, and then charge him home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks. Tickletoby being come to the place, they all rushed on a sudden into the road to meet him, and in a frightful manner threw fire from all sides upon him and his filly foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so many real devils, Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hou hho, hho, hhoi. Friar Stephen, don't we play the devils rarely? The filly was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, to squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it, to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to curvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw down Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with might and main. Now his straps and stirrups were of cord; and on the right side his sandals were so entangled and twisted that he could not for the heart's blood of him get out his foot. Thus he was dragged about by the filly through the road, scratching his bare breech all the way; she still multiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge and ditch, insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so that his cockle brains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross. Then his arms fell to pieces, one this way and the other that way; and even so were his legs served at the same time. Then she made a bloody havoc with his puddings; and being got to the convent, brought back only his right foot and twisted sandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the rest.

Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to his devils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely; I dare engage you'll top your parts. I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay, Montmorillon, Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, by gad, even those of Poictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you.

Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee that hereafter you will act rarely this tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfully hampered, bethwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole. From this day I double your wages. As for you, my dear, said he to his lady, make your gratifications as you please; you are my treasurer, you know. For my part, first and foremost, I drink to you all. Come on, box it about; it is good and cool. In the second place, you, Mr. Steward, take this silver basin; I give it you freely. Then you, my gentlemen of the horse, take these two silver-gilt cups, and let not the pages be horsewhipped these three months. My dear, let them have my best white plumes of feathers, with the gold buckles to them. Sir Oudart, this silver flagon falls to your share; this other I give to the cooks. To the valets de chambre I give this silver basket; to the grooms, this silver-gilt boat; to the porter, these two plates; to the hostlers, these ten porringers. Trudon, take you these silver spoons and this sugar-box. You, footman, take this large salt. Serve me well, and I will remember you. For, on the word of a gentleman, I had rather bear in war one hundred blows on my helmet in the service of my country than be once cited by these knavish catchpoles merely to humour this same gorbellied prior.



Chapter 4.XIV.

A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche's house.

Four days after another young, long-shanked, raw-boned catchpole coming to serve Basche with a writ at the fat prior's request, was no sooner at the gate but the porter smelt him out and rung the bell; at whose second pull all the family understood the mystery. Loire was kneading his dough; his wife was sifting meal; Oudart was toping in his office; the gentlemen were playing at tennis; the Lord Basche at in-and-out with my lady; the waiting-men and gentle-women at push-pin; the officers at lanterloo, and the pages at hot-cockles, giving one another smart bangs. They were all immediately informed that a catchpole was housed.

Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife their nuptial badges; Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad; all made haste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets. Basche went into the outward yard; there the catchpole meeting him fell on his marrow-bones, begged of him not to take it ill if he served him with a writ at the suit of the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know that he was a public person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to the abbatial mitre, ready to do as much for him, nay, for the least of his servants, whensoever he would employ and use him.

Nay, truly, said the lord, you shall not serve your writ till you have tasted some of my good Quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a wedding which we are to have this very minute. Let him drink and refresh himself, added he, turning towards the levitical butler, and then bring him into the hall. After which, Catchpole, well stuffed and moistened, came with Oudart to the place where all the actors in the farce stood ready to begin. The sight of their game set them a-laughing, and the messenger of mischief grinned also for company's sake. Then the mysterious words were muttered to and by the couple, their hands joined, the bride bussed, and all besprinkled with holy water. While they were bringing wine and kickshaws, thumps began to trot about by dozens. The catchpole gave the levite several blows. Oudart, who had his gauntlet hid under his canonical shirt, draws it on like a mitten, and then, with his clenched fist, souse he fell on the catchpole and mauled him like a devil; the junior gauntlets dropped on him likewise like so many battering rams. Remember the wedding by this, by that, by these blows, said they. In short, they stroked him so to the purpose that he pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and was bruised, thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck, breast, arms, and so forth. Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnival time play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole's microcosm. At last down he fell.

They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of his doublet a fine yellow and green favour, and got him upon his snotty beast, and God knows how he got to L'Isle Bouchart; where I cannot truly tell you whether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by his spouse and the able doctors of the country; for the thing never came to my ears.

The next day they had a third part to the same tune, because it did not appear by the lean catchpole's bag that he had served his writ. So the fat prior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums for his garde du corps, to summon my lord. The porter ringing the bell, the whole family was overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue. Basche was at dinner with his lady and the gentlemen; so he sent for the catchpole, made him sit by him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat till their bellies cracked with their breeches unbuttoned. The fruit being served, the catchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited Basche. Basche kindly asked him for a copy of the warrant, which the other had got ready; he then takes witness and a copy of the summons. To the catchpole and his bums he ordered four ducats for civility money. In the meantime all were withdrawn for the farce. So Trudon gave the alarm with his tabor. Basche desired the catchpole to stay and see one of his servants married, and witness the contract of marriage, paying him his fee. The catchpole slapdash was ready, took out his inkhorn, got paper immediately, and his bums by him.

Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with the gentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements. Oudart, in pontificalibus, takes them both by their hands, asketh them their will, giveth them the matrimonial blessing, and was very liberal of holy water. The contract written, signed, and registered, on one side was brought wine and comfits; on the other, white and orange-tawny-coloured favours were distributed; on another, gauntlets privately handed about.



Chapter 4.XV.

How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.

The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of Breton wine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean? You do not give one another the memento of the wedding. By St. Joseph's wooden shoe, all good customs are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is scampered; and the nest, but the birds are flown. There are no true friends nowadays. You see how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling on account of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, is come to nothing. The world is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Now come on; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this. This he said, striking Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite. Then the tabor beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty; insomuch that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine places. One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other his upper jaw-bone or mandibule dislocated so that it hid half his chin, with a denudation of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory, and canine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were carefully hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of the company. So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpole and his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell, complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincornifistibulated his nether shoulder-blade. Nevertheless, he scorned to be thought a flincher, and made shift to tope to him on the square.

The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by signs begged his pardon; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom made his moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with his shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was grown quite esperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no small loss of mistress bride.

But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with his kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were not satisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, and morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my poor eyes, but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed are commonly beaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but drummers are well entertained and never beaten. Now let Beelzebub e'en take the drum, to make his devilship a nightcap. Brother, said the lame catchpole, never fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine, large, old patent, which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum, and for Madame St. Ann's sake I pray thee forgive us. By Our Lady of Riviere, the blessed dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn. One of the equerries, who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limping Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the pouting jaw, and told him: What, Mr. Manhound, was it not enough thus to have morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our upper members with your botched mittens, but you must also apply such morderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurintimpaniments on our shinbones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled shoes. Do you call this children's play? By the mass, 'tis no jest. The bum, wringing his hands, seemed to beg his pardon, muttering with his tongue, Mon, mon, mon, vrelon, von, von, like a dumb man. The bride crying laughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not satisfied with drubbing her without choice or distinction of members, but had also rudely roused and toused her, pulled off her topping, and not having the fear of her husband before his eyes, treacherously trepignemanpenillorifrizonoufresterfumbled tumbled and squeezed her lower parts. The devil go with it, said Basche; there was much need indeed that this same Master King (this was the catchpole's name) should thus break my wife's back; however, I forgive him now; these are little nuptial caresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me like an angel, and drubbed me like a devil. He had something in him of Friar Thumpwell. Come, for all this, I must drink to him, and to you likewise, his trusty esquires. But, said his lady, why hath he been so very liberal of his manual kindness to me, without the least provocation? I assure you, I by no means like it; but this I dare say for him, that he hath the hardest knuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders. The steward held his left arm in a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain. I think it was the devil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials; shame on ill luck; I must needs be meddling with a pox, and now see what I have got by the bargain, both my arms are wretchedly engoulevezinemassed and bruised. Do you call this a wedding? By St. Bridget's tooth, I had rather be at that of a Tom T—d-man. This is, o' my word, even just such another feast as was that of the Lapithae, described by the philosopher of Samosata. One of the bums had lost his tongue. The other two, tho' they had more need to complain, made their excuse as well as they could, protesting that they had no ill design in this dumbfounding; begging that, for goodness sake, they would forgive them; and so, tho' they could hardly budge a foot, or wag along, away they crawled. About a mile from Basche's seat, the catchpole found himself somewhat out of sorts. The bums got to L'Isle Bouchart, publicly saying that since they were born they had never seen an honester gentleman than the Lord of Basche, or civiller people than his, and that they had never been at the like wedding (which I verily believe); but that it was their own faults if they had been tickled off, and tossed about from post to pillar, since themselves had began the beating. So they lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after this. But from that time to this it was held for a certain truth that Basche's money was more pestilential, mortal, and pernicious to the catchpoles and bums than were formerly the aurum Tholosanum and the Sejan horse to those that possessed them. Ever since this he lived quietly, and Basche's wedding grew into a common proverb.