Chapter 5.XVII.

How we went forwards, and how Panurge had like to have been killed.

We put to sea that very moment, steering our course forwards, and gave Pantagruel a full account of our adventures, which so deeply struck him with compassion that he wrote some elegies on that subject to divert himself during the voyage. When we were safe in the port we took some refreshment, and took in fresh water and wood. The people of the place, who had the countenance of jolly fellows and boon companions, were all of them forward folks, bloated and puffed up with fat. And we saw some who slashed and pinked their skins to open a passage to the fat, that it might swell out at the slits and gashes which they made; neither more nor less than the shit-breech fellows in our country bepink and cut open their breeches that the taffety on the inside may stand out and be puffed up. They said that what they did was not out of pride or ostentation, but because otherwise their skins would not hold them without much pain. Having thus slashed their skin, they used to grow much bigger, like the young trees on whose barks the gardeners make incisions that they may grow the better.

Near the haven there was a tavern, which forwards seemed very fine and stately. We repaired thither, and found it filled with people of the forward nation, of all ages, sexes, and conditions; so that we thought some notable feast or other was getting ready, but we were told that all that throng were invited to the bursting of mine host, which caused all his friends and relations to hasten thither.

We did not understand that jargon, and therefore thought in that country by that bursting they meant some merry meeting or other, as we do in ours by betrothing, wedding, groaning, christening, churching (of women), shearing (of sheep), reaping (of corn, or harvest-home), and many other junketting bouts that end in -ing. But we soon heard that there was no such matter in hand.

The master of the house, you must know, had been a good fellow in his time, loved heartily to wind up his bottom, to bang the pitcher, and lick his dish. He used to be a very fair swallower of gravy soup, a notable accountant in matter of hours, and his whole life was one continual dinner, like mine host at Rouillac (in Perigord). But now, having farted out much fat for ten years together, according to the custom of the country, he was drawing towards his bursting hour; for neither the inner thin kell wherewith the entrails are covered, nor his skin that had been jagged and mangled so many years, were able to hold and enclose his guts any longer, or hinder them from forcing their way out. Pray, quoth Panurge, is there no remedy, no help for the poor man, good people? Why don't you swaddle him round with good tight girths, or secure his natural tub with a strong sorb-apple-tree hoop? Nay, why don't you iron-bind him, if needs be? This would keep the man from flying out and bursting. The word was not yet out of his mouth when we heard something give a loud report, as if a huge sturdy oak had been split in two. Then some of the neighbours told us that the bursting was over, and that the clap or crack which we heard was the last fart, and so there was an end of mine host.

This made me call to mind a saying of the venerable abbot of Castilliers, the very same who never cared to hump his chambermaids but when he was in pontificalibus. That pious person, being much dunned, teased, and importuned by his relations to resign his abbey in his old age, said and professed that he would not strip till he was ready to go to bed, and that the last fart which his reverend paternity was to utter should be the fart of an abbot.



Chapter 5.XVIII.

How our ships were stranded, and we were relieved by some people that were subject to Queen Whims (qui tenoient de la Quinte).

We weighed and set sail with a merry westerly gale. When about seven leagues off (twenty-two miles) some gusts or scuds of wind suddenly arose, and the wind veering and shifting from point to point, was, as they say, like an old woman's breech, at no certainty; so we first got our starboard tacks aboard, and hauled off our lee-sheets. Then the gusts increased, and by fits blowed all at once from several quarters, yet we neither settled nor braided up close our sails, but only let fly the sheets, not to go against the master of the ship's direction; and thus having let go amain, lest we should spend our topsails, or the ship's quick-side should lie in the water and she be overset, we lay by and run adrift; that is, in a landloper's phrase, we temporized it. For he assured us that, as these gusts and whirlwinds would not do us much good, so they could not do us much harm, considering their easiness and pleasant strife, as also the clearness of the sky and calmness of the current. So that we were to observe the philosopher's rule, bear and forbear; that is, trim, or go according to the time.

However, these whirlwinds and gusts lasted so long that we persuaded the master to let us go and lie at trie with our main course; that is, to haul the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the bowline set up, and the helm tied close aboard; so, after a stormy gale of wind, we broke through the whirlwind. But it was like falling into Scylla to avoid Charybdis (out of the frying-pan into the fire). For we had not sailed a league ere our ships were stranded upon some sands such as are the flats of St. Maixent.

All our company seemed mightily disturbed except Friar John, who was not a jot daunted, and with sweet sugar-plum words comforted now one and then another, giving them hopes of speedy assistance from above, and telling them that he had seen Castor at the main-yardarm. Oh! that I were but now ashore, cried Panurge, that is all I wish for myself at present, and that you who like the sea so well had each man of you two hundred thousand crowns. I would fairly let you set up shop on these sands, and would get a fat calf dressed and a hundred of faggots (i.e. bottles of wine) cooled for you against you come ashore. I freely consent never to mount a wife, so you but set me ashore and mount me on a horse, that I may go home. No matter for a servant, I will be contented to serve myself; I am never better treated than when I am without a man. Faith, old Plautus was in the right on't when he said the more servants the more crosses; for such they are, even supposing they could want what they all have but too much of, a tongue, that most busy, dangerous, and pernicious member of servants. Accordingly, 'twas for their sakes alone that the racks and tortures for confession were invented, though some foreign civilians in our time have drawn alogical and unreasonable consequences from it.

That very moment we spied a sail that made towards us. When it was close by us, we soon knew what was the lading of the ship and who was aboard of her. She was full freighted with drums. I was acquainted with many of the passengers that came in her, who were most of 'em of good families; among the rest Harry Cotiral, an old toast, who had got a swinging ass's touch-tripe (penis) fastened to his waist, as the good women's beads are to their girdle. In his left hand he held an old overgrown greasy foul cap, such as your scald-pated fellows wear, and in the right a huge cabbage-stump.

As soon as he saw me he was overjoyed, and bawled out to me, What cheer, ho? How dost like me now? Behold the true Algamana (this he said showing me the ass's tickle-gizzard). This doctor's cap is my true elixir; and this (continued he, shaking the cabbage-stump in his fist) is lunaria major, you old noddy. I have 'em, old boy, I have 'em; we'll make 'em when thou'rt come back. But pray, father, said I, whence come you? Whither are you bound? What's your lading? Have you smelt the salt deep? To these four questions he answered, From Queen Whims; for Touraine; alchemy; to the very bottom.

Whom have you got o' board? said I. Said he, Astrologers, fortune-tellers, alchemists, rhymers, poets, painters, projectors, mathematicians, watchmakers, sing-songs, musicianers, and the devil and all of others that are subject to Queen Whims (Motteux gives the following footnote:—'La Quinte, This means a fantastic Humour, Maggots, or a foolish Giddiness of Brains; and also, a fifth, or the Proportion of Five in music, &c.'). They have very fair legible patents to show for't, as anybody may see. Panurge had no sooner heard this but he was upon the high-rope, and began to rail at them like mad. What o' devil d'ye mean, cried he, to sit idly here like a pack of loitering sneaksbies, and see us stranded, while you may help us, and tow us off into the current? A plague o' your whims! you can make all things whatsoever, they say, so much as good weather and little children; yet won't make haste to fasten some hawsers and cables, and get us off. I was just coming to set you afloat, quoth Harry Cotiral; by Trismegistus, I'll clear you in a trice. With this he caused 7,532,810 huge drums to be unheaded on one side, and set that open side so that it faced the end of the streamers and pendants; and having fastened them to good tacklings and our ship's head to the stern of theirs, with cables fastened to the bits abaft the manger in the ship's loof, they towed us off ground at one pull so easily and pleasantly that you'd have wondered at it had you been there. For the dub-a-dub rattling of the drums, with the soft noise of the gravel which murmuring disputed us our way, and the merry cheers and huzzas of the sailors, made an harmony almost as good as that of the heavenly bodies when they roll and are whirled round their spheres, which rattling of the celestial wheels Plato said he heard some nights in his sleep.

We scorned to be behindhand with 'em in civility, and gratefully gave 'em store of our sausages and chitterlings, with which we filled their drums; and we were just a-hoisting two-and-sixty hogsheads of wine out of the hold, when two huge whirlpools with great fury made towards their ship, spouting more water than is in the river Vienne (Vigenne) from Chinon to Saumur; to make short, all their drums, all their sails, their concerns, and themselves were soused, and their very hose were watered by the collar.

Panurge was so overjoyed, seeing this, and laughed so heartily, that he was forced to hold his sides, and it set him into a fit of the colic for two hours and more. I had a mind, quoth he, to make the dogs drink, and those honest whirlpools, egad, have saved me that labour and that cost. There's sauce for them; ariston men udor. Water is good, saith a poet; let 'em Pindarize upon't. They never cared for fresh water but to wash their hands or their glasses. This good salt water will stand 'em in good stead for want of sal ammoniac and nitre in Geber's kitchen.

We could not hold any further discourse with 'em; for the former whirlwind hindered our ship from feeling the helm. The pilot advised us henceforwards to let her run adrift and follow the stream, not busying ourselves with anything, but making much of our carcasses. For our only way to arrive safe at the queendom of Whims was to trust to the whirlwind and be led by the current.



Chapter 5.XIX.

How we arrived at the queendom of Whims or Entelechy.

We did as he directed us for about twelve hours, and on the third day the sky seemed to us somewhat clearer, and we happily arrived at the port of Mateotechny, not far distant from Queen Whims, alias the Quintessence.

We met full butt on the quay a great number of guards and other military men that garrisoned the arsenal, and we were somewhat frighted at first because they made us all lay down our arms, and in a haughty manner asked us whence we came.

Cousin, quoth Panurge to him that asked the question, we are of Touraine, and come from France, being ambitious of paying our respects to the Lady Quintessence and visit this famous realm of Entelechy.

What do you say? cried they; do you call it Entelechy or Endelechy? Truly, truly, sweet cousins, quoth Panurge, we are a silly sort of grout-headed lobcocks, an't please you; be so kind as to forgive us if we chance to knock words out of joint. As for anything else, we are downright honest fellows and true hearts.

We have not asked you this question without a cause, said they; for a great number of others who have passed this way from your country of Touraine seemed as mere jolt-headed doddipolls as ever were scored o'er the coxcomb, yet spoke as correct as other folks. But there has been here from other countries a pack of I know not what overweening self-conceited prigs, as moody as so many mules and as stout as any Scotch lairds, and nothing would serve these, forsooth, but they must wilfully wrangle and stand out against us at their coming; and much they got by it after all. Troth, we e'en fitted them and clawed 'em off with a vengeance, for all they looked so big and so grum.

Pray tell me, does your time lie so heavy upon you in your world that you do not know how to bestow it better than in thus impudently talking, disputing, and writing of our sovereign lady? There was much need that your Tully, the consul, should go and leave the care of his commonwealth to busy himself idly about her; and after him your Diogenes Laertius, the biographer, and your Theodorus Gaza, the philosopher, and your Argiropilus, the emperor, and your Bessario, the cardinal, and your Politian, the pedant, and your Budaeus, the judge, and your Lascaris, the ambassador, and the devil and all of those you call lovers of wisdom; whose number, it seems, was not thought great enough already, but lately your Scaliger, Bigot, Chambrier, Francis Fleury, and I cannot tell how many such other junior sneaking fly-blows must take upon 'em to increase it.

A squinsy gripe the cod's-headed changelings at the swallow and eke at the cover-weasel; we shall make 'em—But the deuce take 'em! (They flatter the devil here, and smoothify his name, quoth Panurge, between his teeth.) You don't come here, continued the captain, to uphold 'em in their folly; you have no commission from 'em to this effect; well then, we will talk no more on't.

Aristotle, that first of men and peerless pattern of all philosophy, was our sovereign lady's godfather, and wisely and properly gave her the name of Entelechy. Her true name then is Entelechy, and may he be in tail beshit, and entail a shit-a-bed faculty and nothing else on his family, who dares call her by any other name; for whoever he is, he does her wrong, and is a very impudent person. You are heartily welcome, gentlemen. With this they colled and clipped us about the neck, which was no small comfort to us, I'll assure you.

Panurge then whispered me, Fellow-traveller, quoth he, hast thou not been somewhat afraid this bout? A little, said I. To tell you the truth of it, quoth he, never were the Ephraimites in a greater fear and quandary when the Gileadites killed and drowned them for saying sibboleth instead of shibboleth; and among friends, let me tell you that perhaps there is not a man in the whole country of Beauce but might easily have stopped my bunghole with a cartload of hay.

The captain afterwards took us to the queen's palace, leading us silently with great formality. Pantagruel would have said something to him, but the other, not being able to come up to his height, wished for a ladder or a very long pair of stilts; then said, Patience, if it were our sovereign lady's will, we would be as tall as you; well, we shall when she pleases.

In the first galleries we saw great numbers of sick persons, differently placed according to their maladies. The leprous were apart; those that were poisoned on one side; those that had got the plague on another; those that had the pox in the first rank, and the rest accordingly.



Chapter 5.XX.

How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song.

The captain showed us the queen, attended with her ladies and gentlemen, in the second gallery. She looked young, though she was at least eighteen hundred years old, and was handsome, slender, and as fine as a queen, that is, as hands could make her. He then said to us: It is not yet a fit time to speak to the queen; be you but mindful of her doings in the meanwhile.

You have kings in your world that fantastically pretend to cure some certain diseases, as, for example, scrofula or wens, swelled throats, nicknamed the king's evil, and quartan agues, only with a touch; now our queen cures all manner of diseases without so much as touching the sick, but barely with a song, according to the nature of the distemper. He then showed us a set of organs, and said that when it was touched by her those miraculous cures were performed. The organ was indeed the strangest that ever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula in the cod; the top and cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the pedas of turbith, and the clavier or keys of scammony.

While we were examining this wonderful new make of an organ, the leprous were brought in by her abstractors, spodizators, masticators, pregustics, tabachins, chachanins, neemanins, rabrebans, nercins, rozuins, nebidins, tearins, segamions, perarons, chasinins, sarins, soteins, aboth, enilins, archasdarpenins, mebins, chabourins, and other officers, for whom I want names; so she played 'em I don't know what sort of a tune or song, and they were all immediately cured.

Then those who were poisoned were had in, and she had no sooner given them a song but they began to find a use for their legs, and up they got. Then came on the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and they too were restored to their lost faculties and senses with the same remedy; which did so strangely amaze us (and not without reason, I think) that down we fell on our faces, remaining prostrate, like men ravished in ecstasy, and were not able to utter one word through the excess of our admiration, till she came, and having touched Pantagruel with a fine fragrant nosegay of white roses which she held in her hand, thus made us recover our senses and get up. Then she made us the following speech in byssin words, such as Parisatis desired should be spoken to her son Cyrus, or at least of crimson alamode:

The probity that scintillizes in the superfices of your persons informs my ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds. For, contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet reverences, it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither your affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation of liberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that in you are lodged a cornucopia and encyclopaedia, an unmeasurable profundity of knowledge in the most peregrine and sublime disciplines, so frequently the admiration, and so rarely the concomitants of the imperite vulgar. This gently compels me, who in preceding times indefatigably kept my private affections absolutely subjugated, to condescend to make my application to you in the trivial phrase of the plebeian world, and assure you that you are well, more than most heartily welcome.

I have no hand at making of speeches, quoth Panurge to me privately; prithee, man, make answer to her for us, if thou canst. This would not work with me, however; neither did Pantagruel return a word. So that Queen Whims, or Queen Quintessence (which you please), perceiving that we stood as mute as fishes, said: Your taciturnity speaks you not only disciples of Pythagoras, from whom the venerable antiquity of my progenitors in successive propagation was emaned and derives its original, but also discovers, that through the revolution of many retrograde moons, you have in Egypt pressed the extremities of your fingers with the hard tenants of your mouths, and scalptized your heads with frequent applications of your unguicules. In the school of Pythagoras, taciturnity was the symbol of abstracted and superlative knowledge, and the silence of the Egyptians was agnited as an expressive manner of divine adoration; this caused the pontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence, impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design is not to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious formality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to you my cogitations.

Having spoken this, she only said to her officers, Tabachins, a panacea; and straight they desired us not to take it amiss if the queen did not invite us to dine with her; for she never ate anything at dinner but some categories, jecabots, emnins, dimions, abstractions, harborins, chelemins, second intentions, carradoths, antitheses, metempsychoses, transcendent prolepsies, and such other light food.

Then they took us into a little closet lined through with alarums, where we were treated God knows how. It is said that Jupiter writes whatever is transacted in the world on the dipthera or skin of the Amalthaean goat that suckled him in Crete, which pelt served him instead of a shield against the Titans, whence he was nicknamed Aegiochos. Now, as I hate to drink water, brother topers, I protest it would be impossible to make eighteen goatskins hold the description of all the good meat they brought before us, though it were written in characters as small as those in which were penned Homer's Iliads, which Tully tells us he saw enclosed in a nutshell.

For my part, had I one hundred mouths, as many tongues, a voice of iron, a heart of oak, and lungs of leather, together with the mellifluous abundance of Plato, yet I never could give you a full account of a third part of a second of the whole.

Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said to her tabachins, A panacea; just as Lucullus used to say, In Apollo, when he designed to give his friends a singular treat; though sometimes they took him at unawares, as, among the rest, Cicero and Hortensius sometimes used to do.



Chapter 5.XXI.

How the Queen passed her time after dinner.

When we had dined, a chachanin led us into the queen's hall, and there we saw how, after dinner, with the ladies and the princes of her court, she used to sift, searce, bolt, range, and pass away time with a fine large white and blue silk sieve. We also perceived how they revived ancient sports, diverting themselves together at—

1. Cordax. 6. Phrygia. 11. Monogas. 2. Emmelia. 7. Thracia. 12. Terminalia. 3. Sicinnia. 8. Calabrisme. 13. Floralia. 4. Jambics. 9. Molossia. 14. Pyrrhice. 5. Persica. 10. Cernophorum. 15. (Nicatism.) And a thousand other dances.

(Motteux has the following footnote:—'1. A sort of country-dance. 2. A still tragic dance. 3. Dancing and singing used at funerals. 4. Cutting sarcasms and lampoons. 5. The Persian dance. 6. Tunes, whose measure inspired men with a kind of divine fury. 7. The Thracian movement. 8. Smutty verses. 9. A measure to which the Molossi of Epirus danced a certain morrice. 10. A dance with bowls or pots in their hands. 11. A song where one sings alone. 12. Sports at the holidays of the god of bounds. 13. Dancing naked at Flora's holidays. 14. The Trojan dance in armour.')

Afterwards she gave orders that they should show us the apartments and curiosities in her palace. Accordingly we saw there such new, strange, and wonderful things, that I am still ravished in admiration every time I think of't. However, nothing surprised us more than what was done by the gentlemen of her household, abstractors, parazons, nebidins, spodizators, and others, who freely and without the least dissembling told us that the queen their mistress did all impossible things, and cured men of incurable diseases; and they, her officers, used to do the rest.

I saw there a young parazon cure many of the new consumption, I mean the pox, though they were never so peppered. Had it been the rankest Roan ague (Anglice, the Covent-garden gout), 'twas all one to him; touching only their dentiform vertebrae thrice with a piece of a wooden shoe, he made them as wholesome as so many sucking-pigs.

Another did thoroughly cure folks of dropsies, tympanies, ascites, and hyposarcides, striking them on the belly nine times with a Tenedian hatchet, without any solution of the continuum.

Another cured all manner of fevers and agues on the spot, only with hanging a fox-tail on the left side of the patient's girdle.

One removed the toothache only with washing thrice the root of the aching tooth with elder-vinegar, and letting it dry half-an-hour in the sun.

Another the gout, whether hot or cold, natural or accidental, by barely making the gouty person shut his mouth and open his eyes.

I saw another ease nine gentlemen of St. Francis's distemper ('A consumption in the pocket, or want of money; those of St. Francis's order must carry none about 'em.'—Motteux.) in a very short space of time, having clapped a rope about their necks, at the end of which hung a box with ten thousand gold crowns in't.

One with a wonderful engine threw the houses out at the windows, by which means they were purged of all pestilential air.

Another cured all the three kinds of hectics, the tabid, atrophes, and emaciated, without bathing, Tabian milk, dropax, alias depilatory, or other such medicaments, only turning the consumptive for three months into monks; and he assured me that if they did not grow fat and plump in a monastic way of living, they never would be fattened in this world, either by nature or by art.

I saw another surrounded with a crowd of two sorts of women. Some were young, quaint, clever, neat, pretty, juicy, tight, brisk, buxom, proper, kind-hearted, and as right as my leg, to any man's thinking. The rest were old, weather-beaten, over-ridden, toothless, blear-eyed, tough, wrinkled, shrivelled, tawny, mouldy, phthisicky, decrepit hags, beldams, and walking carcasses. We were told that his office was to cast anew those she-pieces of antiquity, and make them such as the pretty creatures whom we saw, who had been made young again that day, recovering at once the beauty, shape, size, and disposition which they enjoyed at sixteen; except their heels, that were now much shorter than in their former youth.

This made them yet more apt to fall backwards whenever any man happened to touch 'em, than they had been before. As for their counterparts, the old mother-scratch-tobies, they most devoutly waited for the blessed hour when the batch that was in the oven was to be drawn, that they might have their turns, and in a mighty haste they were pulling and hauling the man like mad, telling him that 'tis the most grievous and intolerable thing in nature for the tail to be on fire and the head to scare away those who should quench it.

The officer had his hands full, never wanting patients; neither did his place bring him in little, you may swear. Pantagruel asked him whether he could also make old men young again. He said he could not. But the way to make them new men was to get 'em to cohabit with a new-cast female; for this they caught that fifth kind of crinckams, which some call pellade, in Greek, ophiasis, that makes them cast off their old hair and skin, just as the serpents do, and thus their youth is renewed like the Arabian phoenix's. This is the true fountain of youth, for there the old and decrepit become young, active, and lusty.

Just so, as Euripides tells us, Iolaus was transmogrified; and thus Phaon, for whom kind-hearted Sappho run wild, grew young again, for Venus's use; so Tithon by Aurora's means; so Aeson by Medea, and Jason also, who, if you'll believe Pherecides and Simonides, was new-vamped and dyed by that witch; and so were the nurses of jolly Bacchus, and their husbands, as Aeschylus relates.



Chapter 5.XXII.

How Queen Whims' officers were employed; and how the said lady retained us among her abstractors.

I then saw a great number of the queen's officers, who made blackamoors white as fast as hops, just rubbing their bellies with the bottom of a pannier.

Others, with three couples of foxes in one yoke, ploughed a sandy shore, and did not lose their seed.

Others washed burnt tiles, and made them lose their colour.

Others extracted water out of pumice-stones, braying them a good while in a mortar, and changed their substance.

Others sheared asses, and thus got long fleece wool.

Others gathered barberries and figs off of thistles.

Others stroked he-goats by the dugs, and saved their milk in a sieve; and much they got by it.

(Others washed asses' heads without losing their soap.)

Others taught cows to dance, and did not lose their fiddling.

Others pitched nets to catch the wind, and took cock-lobsters in them.

I saw a spodizator, who very artificially got farts out of a dead ass, and sold 'em for fivepence an ell.

Another did putrefy beetles. O the dainty food!

Poor Panurge fairly cast up his accounts, and gave up his halfpenny (i.e. vomited), seeing an archasdarpenin who laid a huge plenty of chamber lye to putrefy in horsedung, mishmashed with abundance of Christian sir-reverence. Pugh, fie upon him, nasty dog! However, he told us that with this sacred distillation he watered kings and princes, and made their sweet lives a fathom or two the longer.

Others built churches to jump over the steeples.

Others set carts before the horses, and began to flay eels at the tail; neither did the eels cry before they were hurt, like those of Melun.

Others out of nothing made great things, and made great things return to nothing.

Others cut fire into steaks with a knife, and drew water with a fish-net.

Others made chalk of cheese, and honey of a dog's t—d.

We saw a knot of others, about a baker's dozen in number, tippling under an arbour. They toped out of jolly bottomless cups four sorts of cool, sparkling, pure, delicious, vine-tree sirup, which went down like mother's milk; and healths and bumpers flew about like lightning. We were told that these true philosophers were fairly multiplying the stars by drinking till the seven were fourteen, as brawny Hercules did with Atlas.

Others made a virtue of necessity, and the best of a bad market, which seemed to me a very good piece of work.

Others made alchemy (i.e. sir-reverence) with their teeth, and clapping their hind retort to the recipient, made scurvy faces, and then squeezed.

Others, in a large grass plot, exactly measured how far the fleas could go at a hop, a step, and jump; and told us that this was exceedingly useful for the ruling of kingdoms, the conduct of armies, and the administration of commonwealths; and that Socrates, who first got philosophy out of heaven, and from idling and trifling made it profitable and of moment, used to spend half his philosophizing time in measuring the leaps of fleas, as Aristophanes the quintessential affirms.

I saw two gibroins by themselves keeping watch on the top of a tower, and we were told they guarded the moon from the wolves.

In a blind corner I met four more very hot at it, and ready to go to loggerheads. I asked what was the cause of the stir and ado, the mighty coil and pother they made. And I heard that for four livelong days those overwise roisters had been at it ding-dong, disputing on three high, more than metaphysical propositions, promising themselves mountains of gold by solving them. The first was concerning a he-ass's shadow; the second, of the smoke of a lantern; and the third of goat's hair, whether it were wool or no. We heard that they did not think it a bit strange that two contradictions in mode, form, figure, and time should be true; though I will warrant the sophists of Paris had rather be unchristened than own so much.

While we were admiring all those men's wonderful doings, the evening star already twinkling, the queen (God bless her!) appeared, attended with her court, and again amazed and dazzled us. She perceived it, and said to us:

What occasions the aberrations of human cogitations through the perplexing labyrinths and abysses of admiration, is not the source of the effects, which sagacious mortals visibly experience to be the consequential result of natural causes. 'Tis the novelty of the experiment which makes impressions on their conceptive, cogitative faculties; that do not previse the facility of the operation adequately, with a subact and sedate intellection, associated with diligent and congruous study. Consequently let all manner of perturbation abdicate the ventricles of your brains, if anyone has invaded them while they were contemplating what is transacted by my domestic ministers. Be spectators and auditors of every particular phenomenon and every individual proposition within the extent of my mansion; satiate yourselves with all that can fall here under the consideration of your visual or auscultating powers, and thus emancipate yourselves from the servitude of crassous ignorance. And that you may be induced to apprehend how sincerely I desire this in consideration of the studious cupidity that so demonstratively emicates at your external organs, from this present particle of time I retain you as my abstractors. Geber, my principal Tabachin, shall register and initiate you at your departing.

We humbly thanked her queenship without saying a word, accepting of the noble office she conferred on us.



Chapter 5.XXIII.

How the Queen was served at dinner, and of her way of eating.

Queen Whims after this said to her gentlemen: The orifice of the ventricle, that ordinary embassador for the alimentation of all members, whether superior or inferior, importunes us to restore, by the apposition of idoneous sustenance, what was dissipated by the internal calidity's action on the radical humidity. Therefore spodizators, gesinins, memains, and parazons, be not culpable of dilatory protractions in the apposition of every re-roborating species, but rather let them pullulate and superabound on the tables. As for you, nobilissim praegustators, and my gentilissim masticators, your frequently experimented industry, internected with perdiligent sedulity and sedulous perdiligence, continually adjuvates you to perficiate all things in so expeditious a manner that there is no necessity of exciting in you a cupidity to consummate them. Therefore I can only suggest to you still to operate as you are assuefacted indefatigably to operate.

Having made this fine speech, she retired for a while with part of her women, and we were told that 'twas to bathe, as the ancients did more commonly than we use nowadays to wash our hands before we eat. The tables were soon placed, the cloth spread, and then the queen sat down. She ate nothing but celestial ambrosia, and drank nothing but divine nectar. As for the lords and ladies that were there, they, as well as we, fared on as rare, costly, and dainty dishes as ever Apicius wot or dreamed of in his life.

When we were as round as hoops, and as full as eggs, with stuffing the gut, an olla podrida ('Some call it an Olio. Rabelais Pot-pourry.'—Motteux.) was set before us to force hunger to come to terms with us, in case it had not granted us a truce; and such a huge vast thing it was that the plate which Pythius Althius gave King Darius would hardly have covered it. The olla consisted of several sorts of pottages, salads, fricassees, saugrenees, cabirotadoes, roast and boiled meat, carbonadoes, swingeing pieces of powdered beef, good old hams, dainty somates, cakes, tarts, a world of curds after the Moorish way, fresh cheese, jellies, and fruit of all sorts. All this seemed to me good and dainty; however, the sight of it made me sigh; for alas! I could not taste a bit on't, so full I had filled my puddings before, and a bellyful is a bellyful you know. Yet I must tell you what I saw that seemed to me odd enough o' conscience; 'twas some pasties in paste; and what should those pasties in paste be, d'ye think, but pasties in pots? At the bottom I perceived store of dice, cards, tarots ('Great cards on which many different things are figured.' —Motteux.), luettes ('Pieces of ivory to play withal.'—Motteux.), chessmen, and chequers, besides full bowls of gold crowns, for those who had a mind to have a game or two and try their chance. Under this I saw a jolly company of mules in stately trappings, with velvet footcloths, and a troop of ambling nags, some for men and some for women; besides I don't know how many litters all lined with velvet, and some coaches of Ferrara make; all this for those who had a mind to take the air.

This did not seem strange to me; but if anything did 'twas certainly the queen's way of eating, and truly 'twas very new, and very odd; for she chewed nothing, the good lady; not but that she had good sound teeth, and her meat required to be masticated, but such was her highness's custom. When her praegustators had tasted the meat, her masticators took it and chewed it most nobly; for their dainty chops and gullets were lined through with crimson satin, with little welts and gold purls, and their teeth were of delicate white ivory. Thus, when they had chewed the meat ready for her highness's maw, they poured it down her throat through a funnel of fine gold, and so on to her craw. For that reason they told us she never visited a close-stool but by proxy.



Chapter 5.XXIV.

How there was a ball in the manner of a tournament, at which Queen Whims was present.

After supper there was a ball in the form of a tilt or a tournament, not only worth seeing, but also never to be forgotten. First, the floor of the hall was covered with a large piece of velveted white and yellow chequered tapestry, each chequer exactly square, and three full spans in breadth.

Then thirty-two young persons came into the hall; sixteen of them arrayed in cloth of gold, and of these eight were young nymphs such as the ancients described Diana's attendants; the other eight were a king, a queen, two wardens of the castle, two knights, and two archers. Those of the other band were clad in cloth of silver.

They posted themselves on the tapestry in the following manner: the kings on the last line on the fourth square; so that the golden king was on a white square, and the silvered king on a yellow square, and each queen by her king; the golden queen on a yellow square, and the silvered queen on a white one: and on each side stood the archers to guide their kings and queens; by the archers the knights, and the wardens by them. In the next row before 'em stood the eight nymphs; and between the two bands of nymphs four rows of squares stood empty.

Each band had its musicians, eight on each side, dressed in its livery; the one with orange-coloured damask, the other with white; and all played on different instruments most melodiously and harmoniously, still varying in time and measure as the figure of the dance required. This seemed to me an admirable thing, considering the numerous diversity of steps, back-steps, bounds, rebounds, jerks, paces, leaps, skips, turns, coupes, hops, leadings, risings, meetings, flights, ambuscadoes, moves, and removes.

I was also at a loss when I strove to comprehend how the dancers could so suddenly know what every different note meant; for they no sooner heard this or that sound but they placed themselves in the place which was denoted by the music, though their motions were all different. For the nymphs that stood in the first file, as if they designed to begin the fight, marched straight forwards to their enemies from square to square, unless it were the first step, at which they were free to move over two steps at once. They alone never fall back (which is not very natural to other nymphs), and if any of them is so lucky as to advance to the opposite king's row, she is immediately crowned queen of her king, and after that moves with the same state and in the same manner as the queen; but till that happens they never strike their enemies but forwards, and obliquely in a diagonal line. However, they make it not their chief business to take their foes; for, if they did, they would leave their queen exposed to the adverse parties, who then might take her.

The kings move and take their enemies on all sides square-ways, and only step from a white square into a yellow one, and vice versa, except at their first step the rank should want other officers than the wardens; for then they can set 'em in their place, and retire by him.

The queens take a greater liberty than any of the rest; for they move backwards and forwards all manner of ways, in a straight line as far as they please, provided the place be not filled with one of her own party, and diagonally also, keeping to the colour on which she stands.

The archers move backwards or forwards, far and near, never changing the colour on which they stand. The knights move and take in a lineal manner, stepping over one square, though a friend or foe stand upon it, posting themselves on the second square to the right or left, from one colour to another, which is very unwelcome to the adverse party, and ought to be carefully observed, for they take at unawares.

The wardens move and take to the right or left, before or behind them, like the kings, and can advance as far as they find places empty; which liberty the kings take not.

The law which both sides observe is, at the end of the fight, to besiege and enclose the king of either party, so that he may not be able to move; and being reduced to that extremity, the battle is over, and he loses the day.

Now, to avoid this, there is none of either sex of each party but is willing to sacrifice his or her life, and they begin to take one another on all sides in time, as soon as the music strikes up. When anyone takes a prisoner, he makes his honours, and striking him gently in the hand, puts him out of the field and combat, and encamps where he stood.

If one of the kings chance to stand where he might be taken, it is not lawful for any of his adversaries that had discovered him to lay hold on him; far from it, they are strictly enjoined humbly to pay him their respects, and give him notice, saying, God preserve you, sir! that his officers may relieve and cover him, or he may remove, if unhappily he could not be relieved. However, he is not to be taken, but greeted with a Good-morrow, the others bending the knee; and thus the tournament uses to end.



Chapter 5.XXV.

How the thirty-two persons at the ball fought.

The two companies having taken their stations, the music struck up, and with a martial sound, which had something of horrid in it, like a point of war, roused and alarmed both parties, who now began to shiver, and then soon were warmed with warlike rage; and having got in readiness to fight desperately, impatient of delay stood waiting for the charge.

Then the music of the silvered band ceased playing, and the instruments of the golden side alone were heard, which denoted that the golden party attacked. Accordingly, a new movement was played for the onset, and we saw the nymph who stood before the queen turn to the left towards her king, as it were to ask leave to fight; and thus saluting her company at the same time, she moved two squares forwards, and saluted the adverse party.

Now the music of the golden brigade ceased playing, and their antagonists began again. I ought to have told you that the nymph who began by saluting her company, had by that formality also given them to understand that they were to fall on. She was saluted by them in the same manner, with a full turn to the left, except the queen, who went aside towards her king to the right; and the same manner of salutation was observed on both sides during the whole ball.

The silvered nymph that stood before her queen likewise moved as soon as the music of her party sounded a charge; her salutations, and those of her side, were to the right, and her queen's to the left. She moved in the second square forwards, and saluted her antagonists, facing the first golden nymph; so that there was not any distance between them, and you would have thought they two had been going to fight; but they only strike sideways.

Their comrades, whether silvered or golden, followed 'em in an intercalary figure, and seemed to skirmish a while, till the golden nymph who had first entered the lists, striking a silvered nymph in the hand on the right, put her out of the field, and set herself in her place. But soon the music playing a new measure, she was struck by a silvered archer, who after that was obliged himself to retire. A silvered knight then sallied out, and the golden queen posted herself before her king.

Then the silvered king, dreading the golden queen's fury, removed to the right, to the place where his warden stood, which seemed to him strong and well guarded.

The two knights on the left, whether golden or silvered, marched up, and on either side took up many nymphs who could not retreat; principally the golden knight, who made this his whole business; but the silvered knight had greater designs, dissembling all along, and even sometimes not taking a nymph when he could have done it, still moving on till he was come up to the main body of the enemies in such a manner that he saluted their king with a God save you, sir!

The whole golden brigade quaked for fear and anger, those words giving notice of their king's danger; not but that they could soon relieve him, but because their king being thus saluted they were to lose their warden on the right wing without any hopes of a recovery. Then the golden king retired to the left, and the silvered knight took the golden warden, which was a mighty loss to that party. However, they resolved to be revenged, and surrounded the knight that he might not escape. He tried to get off, behaving himself with a great deal of gallantry, and his friends did what they could to save him; but at last he fell into the golden queen's hands, and was carried off.

Her forces, not yet satisfied, having lost one of her best men, with more fury than conduct moved about, and did much mischief among their enemies. The silvered party warily dissembled, watching their opportunity to be even with them, and presented one of their nymphs to the golden queen, having laid an ambuscado; so that the nymph being taken, a golden archer had like to have seized the silvered queen. Then the golden knight undertakes to take the silvered king and queen, and says, Good-morrow! Then the silvered archer salutes them, and was taken by a golden nymph, and she herself by a silvered one.

The fight was obstinate and sharp. The wardens left their posts, and advanced to relieve their friends. The battle was doubtful, and victory hovered over both armies. Now the silvered host charge and break through their enemy's ranks as far as the golden king's tent, and now they are beaten back. The golden queen distinguishes herself from the rest by her mighty achievements still more than by her garb and dignity; for at once she takes an archer, and, going sideways, seizes a silvered warden. Which thing the silvered queen perceiving, she came forwards, and, rushing on with equal bravery, takes the last golden warden and some nymphs. The two queens fought a long while hand to hand; now striving to take each other by surprise, then to save themselves, and sometimes to guard their kings. Finally, the golden queen took the silvered queen; but presently after she herself was taken by the silvered archer.

Then the silvered king had only three nymphs, an archer, and a warden left, and the golden only three nymphs and the right knight, which made them fight more slowly and warily than before. The two kings seemed to mourn for the loss of their loving queens, and only studied and endeavoured to get new ones out of all their nymphs to be raised to that dignity, and thus be married to them. This made them excite those brave nymphs to strive to reach the farthest rank, where stood the king of the contrary party, promising them certainly to have them crowned if they could do this. The golden nymphs were beforehand with the others, and out of their number was created a queen, who was dressed in royal robes, and had a crown set on her head. You need not doubt the silvered nymphs made also what haste they could to be queens. One of them was within a step of the coronation place, but there the golden knight lay ready to intercept her, so that she could go no further.

The new golden queen, resolved to show herself valiant and worthy of her advancement to the crown, achieved great feats of arms. But in the meantime the silvered knight takes the golden warden who guarded the camp; and thus there was a new silvered queen, who, like the other, strove to excel in heroic deeds at the beginning of her reign. Thus the fight grew hotter than before. A thousand stratagems, charges, rallyings, retreats, and attacks were tried on both sides; till at last the silvered queen, having by stealth advanced as far as the golden king's tent, cried, God save you, sir! Now none but his new queen could relieve him; so she bravely came and exposed herself to the utmost extremity to deliver him out of it. Then the silvered warden with his queen reduced the golden king to such a stress that, to save himself, he was forced to lose his queen; but the golden king took him at last. However, the rest of the golden party were soon taken; and that king being left alone, the silvered party made him a low bow, crying, Good morrow, sir! which denoted that the silvered king had got the day.

This being heard, the music of both parties loudly proclaimed the victory. And thus the first battle ended to the unspeakable joy of all the spectators.

After this the two brigades took their former stations, and began to tilt a second time, much as they had done before, only the music played somewhat faster than at the first battle, and the motions were altogether different. I saw the golden queen sally out one of the first, with an archer and a knight, as it were angry at the former defeat, and she had like to have fallen upon the silvered king in his tent among his officers; but having been baulked in her attempt, she skirmished briskly, and overthrew so many silvered nymphs and officers that it was a most amazing sight. You would have sworn she had been another Penthesilea; for she behaved herself with as much bravery as that Amazonian queen did at Troy.

But this havoc did not last long; for the silvered party, exasperated by their loss, resolved to perish or stop her progress; and having posted an archer in ambuscado on a distant angle, together with a knight-errant, her highness fell into their hands and was carried out of the field. The rest were soon routed after the taking of their queen, who, without doubt, from that time resolved to be more wary and keep near her king, without venturing so far amidst her enemies unless with more force to defend her. Thus the silvered brigade once more got the victory.

This did not dishearten or deject the golden party; far from it. They soon appeared again in the field to face their enemies; and being posted as before, both the armies seemed more resolute and cheerful than ever. Now the martial concert began, and the music was above a hemiole the quicker, according to the warlike Phrygian mode, such as was invented by Marsyas.

Then our combatants began to wheel about, and charge with such a swiftness that in an instant they made four moves, besides the usual salutations. So that they were continually in action, flying, hovering, jumping, vaulting, curvetting, with petauristical turns and motions, and often intermingled.

Seeing them then turn about on one foot after they had made their honours, we compared them to your tops or gigs, such as boys use to whip about, making them turn round so swiftly that they sleep, as they call it, and motion cannot be perceived, but resembles rest, its contrary; so that if you make a point or mark on some part of one of those gigs, 'twill be perceived not as a point, but a continual line, in a most divine manner, as Cusanus has wisely observed.

While they were thus warmly engaged, we heard continually the claps and episemapsies which those of the two bands reiterated at the taking of their enemies; and this, joined to the variety of their motions and music, would have forced smiles out of the most severe Cato, the never-laughing Crassus, the Athenian man-hater, Timon; nay, even whining Heraclitus, though he abhorred laughing, the action that is most peculiar to man. For who could have forborne? seeing those young warriors, with their nymphs and queens, so briskly and gracefully advance, retire, jump, leap, skip, spring, fly, vault, caper, move to the right, to the left, every way still in time, so swiftly, and yet so dexterously, that they never touched one another but methodically.

As the number of the combatants lessened, the pleasure of the spectators increased; for the stratagems and motions of the remaining forces were more singular. I shall only add that this pleasing entertainment charmed us to such a degree that our minds were ravished with admiration and delight, and the martial harmony moved our souls so powerfully that we easily believed what is said of Ismenias's having excited Alexander to rise from table and run to his arms, with such a warlike melody. At last the golden king remained master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, Queen Whims vanished, so that we saw her no more from that day to this.

Then Geber's michelots conducted us, and we were set down among her abstractors, as her queenship had commanded. After that we returned to the port of Mateotechny, and thence straight aboard our ships; for the wind was fair, and had we not hoisted out of hand, we could hardly have got off in three quarters of a moon in the wane.



Chapter 5.XXVI.

How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and down.

We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days made the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing. The ways there are animals; so true is Aristotle's saying, that all self-moving things are animals. Now the ways walk there. Ergo, they are then animals. Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those of the planets; others are highways, crossways, and byways. I perceived that the travellers and inhabitants of that country asked, Whither does this way go? Whither does that way go? Some answered, Between Midy and Fevrolles, to the parish church, to the city, to the river, and so forth. Being thus in their right way, they used to reach their journey's end without any further trouble, just like those who go by water from Lyons to Avignon or Arles.

Now, as you know that nothing is perfect here below, we heard there was a sort of people whom they called highwaymen, waybeaters, and makers of inroads in roads; and that the poor ways were sadly afraid of them, and shunned them as you do robbers. For these used to waylay them, as people lay trains for wolves, and set gins for woodcocks. I saw one who was taken up with a lord chief justice's warrant for having unjustly, and in spite of Pallas, taken the schoolway, which is the longest. Another boasted that he had fairly taken his shortest, and that doing so he first compassed his design. Thus, Carpalin, meeting once Epistemon looking upon a wall with his fiddle-diddle, or live urinal, in his hand, to make a little maid's water, cried that he did not wonder now how the other came to be still the first at Pantagruel's levee, since he held his shortest and least used.

I found Bourges highway among these. It went with the deliberation of an abbot, but was made to scamper at the approach of some waggoners, who threatened to have it trampled under their horses' feet, and make their waggons run over it, as Tullia's chariot did over her father's body.

I also espied there the old way between Peronne and St. Quentin, which seemed to me a very good, honest, plain way, as smooth as a carpet, and as good as ever was trod upon by shoe of leather.

Among the rocks I knew again the good old way to La Ferrare, mounted on a huge bear. This at a distance would have put me in mind of St. Jerome's picture, had but the bear been a lion; for the poor way was all mortified, and wore a long hoary beard uncombed and entangled, which looked like the picture of winter, or at least like a white-frosted bush.

On that way were store of beads or rosaries, coarsely made of wild pine-tree; and it seemed kneeling, not standing, nor lying flat; but its sides and middle were beaten with huge stones, insomuch that it proved to us at once an object of fear and pity.

While we were examining it, a runner, bachelor of the place, took us aside, and showing us a white smooth way, somewhat filled with straw, said, Henceforth, gentlemen, do not reject the opinion of Thales the Milesian, who said that water is the beginning of all things, nor that of Homer, who tells us that all things derive their original from the ocean; for this same way which you see here had its beginning from water, and is to return whence she came before two months come to an end; now carts are driven here where boats used to be rowed.

Truly, said Pantagruel, you tell us no news; we see five hundred such changes, and more, every year, in our world. Then reflecting on the different manner of going of those moving ways, he told us he believed that Philolaus and Aristarchus had philosophized in this island, and that Seleucus (Motteux reads—'that some, indeed, were of opinion.'), indeed, was of opinion the earth turns round about its poles, and not the heavens, whatever we may think to the contrary; as, when we are on the river Loire, we think the trees and the shore moves, though this is only an effect of our boat's motion.

As we went back to our ships, we saw three waylayers, who, having been taken in ambuscado, were going to be broken on the wheel; and a huge fornicator was burned with a lingering fire for beating a way and breaking one of its sides; we were told it was the way of the banks of the Nile in Egypt.



Chapter 5.XXVII.

How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of Semiquaver Friars.

Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothing but ling-broth. However, we were very kindly received and entertained by Benius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had made us drink, took us with him to show us a spick-and-span new monastery which he had contrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he called the religious men whom he had there. For he said that on t'other side the water lived friars who styled themselves her sweet ladyship's most humble servants. Item, the goodly Friar-minors, who are semibreves of bulls; the smoked-herring tribe of Minim Friars; then the Crotchet Friars. So that these diminutives could be no more than Semiquavers. By the statutes, bulls, and patents of Queen Whims, they were all dressed like so many house-burners, except that, as in Anjou your bricklayers use to quilt their knees when they tile houses, so these holy friars had usually quilted bellies, and thick quilted paunches were among them in much repute. Their codpieces were cut slipper-fashion, and every monk among them wore two—one sewed before and another behind —reporting that some certain dreadful mysteries were duly represented by this duplicity of codpieces.

They wore shoes as round as basins, in imitation of those who inhabit the sandy sea. Their chins were close-shaved, and their feet iron-shod; and to show they did not value fortune, Benius made them shave and poll the hind part of their polls as bare as a bird's arse, from the crown to the shoulder-blades; but they had leave to let their hair grow before, from the two triangular bones in the upper part of the skull.

Thus did they not value fortune a button, and cared no more for the goods of this world than you or I do for hanging. And to show how much they defied that blind jilt, all of them wore, not in their hands like her, but at their waist, instead of beads, sharp razors, which they used to new-grind twice a day and set thrice a night.

Each of them had a round ball on their feet, because Fortune is said to have one under hers.

The flap of their cowls hanged forward, and not backwards, like those of others. Thus none could see their noses, and they laughed without fear both at fortune and the fortunate; neither more nor less than our ladies laugh at barefaced trulls when they have those mufflers on which they call masks, and which were formerly much more properly called charity, because they cover a multitude of sins.

The hind part of their faces were always uncovered, as are our faces, which made them either go with their belly or the arse foremost, which they pleased. When their hind face went forwards, you would have sworn this had been their natural gait, as well on account of their round shoes as of the double codpiece, and their face behind, which was as bare as the back of my hand, and coarsely daubed over with two eyes and a mouth, such as you see on some Indian nuts. Now, if they offered to waddle along with their bellies forwards, you would have thought they were then playing at blindman's buff. May I never be hanged if 'twas not a comical sight.

Their way of living was thus: about owl-light they charitably began to boot and spur one another. This being done, the least thing they did was to sleep and snore; and thus sleeping, they had barnacles on the handles of their faces, or spectacles at most.

You may swear we did not a little wonder at this odd fancy; but they satisfied us presently, telling us that the day of judgment is to take mankind napping; therefore, to show they did not refuse to make their personal appearance as fortune's darlings use to do, they were always thus booted and spurred, ready to mount whenever the trumpet should sound.

At noon, as soon as the clock struck, they used to awake. You must know that their clock-bell, church-bells, and refectory-bells were all made according to the pontial device, that is, quilted with the finest down, and their clappers of fox-tails.

Having then made shift to get up at noon, they pulled off their boots, and those that wanted to speak with a maid, alias piss, pissed; those that wanted to scumber, scumbered; and those that wanted to sneeze, sneezed. But all, whether they would or no (poor gentlemen!), were obliged largely and plentifully to yawn; and this was their first breakfast (O rigorous statute!). Methought 'twas very comical to observe their transactions; for, having laid their boots and spurs on a rack, they went into the cloisters. There they curiously washed their hands and mouths; then sat them down on a long bench, and picked their teeth till the provost gave the signal, whistling through his fingers; then every he stretched out his jaws as much as he could, and they gaped and yawned for about half-an-hour, sometimes more, sometimes less, according as the prior judged the breakfast to be suitable to the day.

After that they went in procession, two banners being carried before them, in one of which was the picture of Virtue, and that of Fortune in the other. The last went before, carried by a semi-quavering friar, at whose heels was another, with the shadow or image of Virtue in one hand and an holy-water sprinkle in the other—I mean of that holy mercurial water which Ovid describes in his Fasti. And as the preceding Semiquaver rang a handbell, this shaked the sprinkle with his fist. With that says Pantagruel, This order contradicts the rule which Tully and the academics prescribed, that Virtue ought to go before, and Fortune follow. But they told us they did as they ought, seeing their design was to breech, lash, and bethwack Fortune.

During the processions they trilled and quavered most melodiously betwixt their teeth I do not know what antiphones, or chantings, by turns. For my part, 'twas all Hebrew-Greek to me, the devil a word I could pick out on't; at last, pricking up my ears, and intensely listening, I perceived they only sang with the tip of theirs. Oh, what a rare harmony it was! How well 'twas tuned to the sound of their bells! You'll never find these to jar, that you won't. Pantagruel made a notable observation upon the processions; for says he, Have you seen and observed the policy of these Semiquavers? To make an end of their procession they went out at one of their church doors and came in at the other; they took a deal of care not to come in at the place whereat they went out. On my honour, these are a subtle sort of people, quoth Panurge; they have as much wit as three folks, two fools and a madman; they are as wise as the calf that ran nine miles to suck a bull, and when he came there 'twas a steer. This subtlety and wisdom of theirs, cried Friar John, is borrowed from the occult philosophy. May I be gutted like an oyster if I can tell what to make on't. Then the more 'tis to be feared, said Pantagruel; for subtlety suspected, subtlety foreseen, subtlety found out, loses the essence and very name of subtlety, and only gains that of blockishness. They are not such fools as you take them to be; they have more tricks than are good, I doubt.

After the procession they went sluggingly into the fratery-room, by the way of walk and healthful exercise, and there kneeled under the tables, leaning their breasts on lanterns. While they were in that posture, in came a huge Sandal, with a pitchfork in his hand, who used to baste, rib-roast, swaddle, and swinge them well-favouredly, as they said, and in truth treated them after a fashion. They began their meal as you end yours, with cheese, and ended it with mustard and lettuce, as Martial tells us the ancients did. Afterwards a platterful of mustard was brought before every one of them, and thus they made good the proverb, After meat comes mustard.

Their diet was this:

O' Sundays they stuffed their puddings with puddings, chitterlings, links, Bologna sausages, forced-meats, liverings, hogs' haslets, young quails, and teals. You must also always add cheese for the first course, and mustard for the last.

O' Mondays they were crammed with peas and pork, cum commento, and interlineary glosses.

O' Tuesdays they used to twist store of holy-bread, cakes, buns, puffs, lenten loaves, jumbles, and biscuits.

O' Wednesdays my gentlemen had fine sheep's heads, calves' heads, and brocks' heads, of which there's no want in that country.

O' Thursdays they guzzled down seven sorts of porridge, not forgetting mustard.

O' Fridays they munched nothing but services or sorb-apples; neither were these full ripe, as I guessed by their complexion.

O' Saturdays they gnawed bones; not that they were poor or needy, for every mother's son of them had a very good fat belly-benefice.

As for their drink, 'twas an antifortunal; thus they called I don't know what sort of a liquor of the place.

When they wanted to eat or drink, they turned down the back-points or flaps of their cowls forwards below their chins, and that served 'em instead of gorgets or slabbering-bibs.

When they had well dined, they prayed rarely all in quavers and shakes; and the rest of the day, expecting the day of judgment, they were taken up with acts of charity, and particularly—

O' Sundays, rubbers at cuffs.

O' Mondays, lending each other flirts and fillips on the nose.

O' Tuesdays, clapperclawing one another.

O' Wednesdays, sniting and fly-flapping.

O' Thursdays, worming and pumping.

O' Fridays, tickling.

O' Saturdays, jerking and firking one another.

Such was their diet when they resided in the convent, and if the prior of the monk-house sent any of them abroad, then they were strictly enjoined neither to touch nor eat any manner of fish as long as they were on sea or rivers, and to abstain from all manner of flesh whenever they were at land, that everyone might be convinced that, while they enjoyed the object, they denied themselves the power, and even the desire, and were no more moved with it than the Marpesian rock.

All this was done with proper antiphones, still sung and chanted by ear, as we have already observed.

When the sun went to bed, they fairly booted and spurred each other as before, and having clapped on their barnacles e'en jogged to bed too. At midnight the Sandal came to them, and up they got, and having well whetted and set their razors, and been a-processioning, they clapped the tables over themselves, and like wire-drawers under their work fell to it as aforesaid.

Friar John des Entoumeures, having shrewdly observed these jolly Semiquaver Friars, and had a full account of their statutes, lost all patience, and cried out aloud: Bounce tail, and God ha' mercy guts; if every fool should wear a bauble, fuel would be dear. A plague rot it, we must know how many farts go to an ounce. Would Priapus were here, as he used to be at the nocturnal festivals in Crete, that I might see him play backwards, and wriggle and shake to the purpose. Ay, ay, this is the world, and t'other is the country; may I never piss if this be not an antichthonian land, and our very antipodes. In Germany they pull down monasteries and unfrockify the monks; here they go quite kam, and act clean contrary to others, setting new ones up, against the hair.



Chapter 5.XXVIII.

How Panurge asked a Semiquaver Friar many questions, and was only answered in monosyllables.

Panurge, who had since been wholly taken up with staring at these royal Semiquavers, at last pulled one of them by the sleeve, who was as lean as a rake, and asked him,—

Hearkee me, Friar Quaver, Semiquaver, Demisemiquavering quaver, where is the punk?

The Friar, pointing downwards, answered, There.

Pan. Pray, have you many? Fri. Few.

Pan. How many scores have you? Fri. One.

Pan. How many would you have? Fri. Five.

Pan. Where do you hide 'em? Fri. Here.

Pan. I suppose they are not all of one age; but, pray, how is their shape? Fri. Straight.

Pan. Their complexion? Fri. Clear.

Pan. Their hair? Fri. Fair.

Pan. Their eyes? Fri. Black.

Pan. Their features? Fri. Good.

Pan. Their brows? Fri. Small.

Pan. Their graces? Fri. Ripe.

Pan. Their looks? Fri. Free.

Pan. Their feet? Fri. Flat.

Pan. Their heels? Fri. Short.

Pan. Their lower parts? Fri. Rare.

Pan. And their arms? Fri. Long.

Pan. What do they wear on their hands? Fri. Gloves.

Pan. What sort of rings on their fingers? Fri. Gold.

Pan. What rigging do you keep 'em in? Fri. Cloth.

Pan. What sort of cloth is it? Fri. New.

Pan. What colour? Fri. Sky.

Pan. What kind of cloth is it? Fri. Fine.

Pan. What caps do they wear? Fri. Blue.

Pan. What's the colour of their stockings? Fri. Red.

Pan. What wear they on their feet? Fri. Pumps.

Pan. How do they use to be? Fri. Foul.

Pan. How do they use to walk? Fri. Fast.

Pan. Now let us talk of the kitchen, I mean that of the harlots, and without going hand over head let's a little examine things by particulars. What is in their kitchens? Fri. Fire.

Pan. What fuel feeds it? Fri. Wood.

Pan. What sort of wood is't? Fri. Dry.

Pan. And of what kind of trees? Fri. Yews.

Pan. What are the faggots and brushes of? Fri. Holm.

Pan. What wood d'ye burn in your chambers? Fri. Pine.

Pan. And of what other trees? Fri. Lime.

Pan. Hearkee me; as for the buttocks, I'll go your halves. Pray, how do you feed 'em? Fri. Well.

Pan. First, what do they eat? Fri. Bread.

Pan. Of what complexion? Fri. White.

Pan. And what else? Fri. Meat.

Pan. How do they love it dressed? Fri. Roast.

Pan. What sort of porridge? Fri. None.

Pan. Are they for pies and tarts? Fri. Much.

Pan. Then I'm their man. Will fish go down with them? Fri. Well.

Pan. And what else? Fri. Eggs.

Pan. How do they like 'em? Fri. Boiled.

Pan. How must they be done? Fri. Hard.

Pan. Is this all they have? Fri. No.

Pan. What have they besides, then? Fri. Beef.

Pan. And what else? Fri. Pork.

Pan. And what more? Fri. Geese.

Pan. What then? Fri. Ducks.

Pan. And what besides? Fri. Cocks.

Pan. What do they season their meat with? Fri. Salt.

Pan. What sauce are they most dainty for? Fri. Must.

Pan. What's their last course? Fri. Rice.

Pan. And what else? Fri. Milk.

Pan. What besides? Fri. Peas.

Pan. What sort? Fri. Green.

Pan. What do they boil with 'em? Fri. Pork.

Pan. What fruit do they eat? Fri. Good.

Pan. How? Fri. Raw.

Pan. What do they end with? Fri. Nuts.

Pan. How do they drink? Fri. Neat.

Pan. What liquor? Fri. Wine.

Pan. What sort? Fri. White.

Pan. In winter? Fri. Strong.

Pan. In the spring. Fri. Brisk.

Pan. In summer? Fri. Cool.

Pan. In autumn? Fri. New.

Buttock of a monk! cried Friar John; how plump these plaguy trulls, these arch Semiquavering strumpets, must be! That damned cattle are so high fed that they must needs be high-mettled, and ready to wince and give two ups for one go-down when anyone offers to ride them below the crupper.

Prithee, Friar John, quoth Panurge, hold thy prating tongue; stay till I have done.

Till what time do the doxies sit up? Fri. Night.

Pan. When do they get up? Fri. Late.

Pan. May I ride on a horse that was foaled of an acorn, if this be not as honest a cod as ever the ground went upon, and as grave as an old gate-post into the bargain. Would to the blessed St. Semiquaver, and the blessed worthy virgin St. Semiquavera, he were lord chief president (justice) of Paris! Ods-bodikins, how he'd despatch! With what expedition would he bring disputes to an upshot! What an abbreviator and clawer off of lawsuits, reconciler of differences, examiner and fumbler of bags, peruser of bills, scribbler of rough drafts, and engrosser of deeds would he not make! Well, friar, spare your breath to cool your porridge. Come, let's now talk with deliberation, fairly and softly, as lawyers go to heaven. Let's know how you victual the venereal camp. How is the snatchblatch? Fri. Rough.

Pan. How is the gateway? Fri. Free.

Pan. And how is it within? Fri. Deep.

Pan. I mean, what weather is it there? Fri. Hot.

Pan. What shadows the brooks? Fri. Groves.

Pan. Of what's the colour of the twigs? Fri. Red.

Pan. And that of the old? Fri. Grey.

Pan. How are you when you shake? Fri. Brisk.

Pan. How is their motion? Fri. Quick.

Pan. Would you have them vault or wriggle more? Fri. Less.

Pan. What kind of tools are yours? Fri. Big.

Pan. And in their helves? Fri. Round.

Pan. Of what colour is the tip? Fri. Red.

Pan. When they've even used, how are they? Fri. Shrunk.

Pan. How much weighs each bag of tools? Fri. Pounds.

Pan. How hang your pouches? Fri. Tight.

Pan. How are they when you've done? Fri. Lank.

Pan. Now, by the oath you have taken, tell me, when you have a mind to cohabit, how you throw 'em? Fri. Down.

Pan. And what do they say then? Fri. Fie.

Pan. However, like maids, they say nay, and take it; and speak the less, but think the more, minding the work in hand; do they not? Fri. True.

Pan. Do they get you bairns? Fri. None.

Pan. How do you pig together? Fri. Bare.

Pan. Remember you're upon your oath, and tell me justly and bona fide how many times a day you monk it? Fri. Six.

Pan. How many bouts a-nights? Fri. Ten.

Catso, quoth Friar John, the poor fornicating brother is bashful, and sticks at sixteen, as if that were his stint. Right, quoth Panurge, but couldst thou keep pace with him, Friar John, my dainty cod? May the devil's dam suck my teat if he does not look as if he had got a blow over the nose with a Naples cowl-staff.

Pan. Pray, Friar Shakewell, does your whole fraternity quaver and shake at that rate? Fri. All.

Pan. Who of them is the best cock o' the game? Fri. I.

Pan. Do you never commit dry-bobs or flashes in the pan? Fri. None.

Pan. I blush like any black dog, and could be as testy as an old cook when I think on all this; it passes my understanding. But, pray, when you have been pumped dry one day, what have you got the next? Fri. More.

Pan. By Priapus, they have the Indian herb of which Theophrastus spoke, or I'm much out. But, hearkee me, thou man of brevity, should some impediment, honestly or otherwise, impair your talents and cause your benevolence to lessen, how would it fare with you, then? Fri. Ill.

Pan. What would the wenches do? Fri. Rail.

Pan. What if you skipped, and let 'em fast a whole day? Fri. Worse.

Pan. What do you give 'em then? Fri. Thwacks.

Pan. What do they say to this? Fri. Bawl.

Pan. And what else? Fri. Curse.

Pan. How do you correct 'em? Fri. Hard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Chapter 5.XXIX.

How Epistemon disliked the institution of Lent.

Pray did you observe, continued Epistemon, how this damned ill-favoured Semiquaver mentioned March as the best month for caterwauling? True, said Pantagruel; yet Lent and March always go together, and the first was instituted to macerate and bring down our pampered flesh, to weaken and subdue its lusts, to curb and assuage the venereal rage.

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

As, for example, beans, peas, phasels, or long-peason, ciches, onions, nuts, oysters, herrings, salt-meats, garum (a kind of anchovy), and salads wholly made up of venereous herbs and fruits, as—

Rocket, Parsley, Hop-buds, Nose-smart, Rampions, Figs, Taragon, Poppy, Rice, Cresses, Celery, Raisins, and others.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pan. What d'ye take him to be? Fri. Damned.

Pan. What place is he to go to? Fri. Hell.

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

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

Pan. That were heretics? Fri. Less.

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

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

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

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



Chapter 5.XXX.

How we came to the land of Satin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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