François Rabelais

“ I am, quoth Panurge, my dear gossip Epistemon, of a mind and resolution to marry, but am afraid of being a cuckold and to be unfortunate in my wedlock. For this cause have I made a vow to young St. Francis—who at Plessis-les-Tours is much reverenced of all women, earnestly cried unto by them, and with great devotion, for he was the first founder of the confraternity of good men, whom they naturally covet, affect, and long for—to wear spectacles in my cap, and to carry no codpiece in my breeches, until the present inquietude and perturbation of my spirits be fully settled. ”

“ By Saint Picot, answered Panurge, we never shall do any good that way, I see it already. And you see yourself how the world is vilely abused, as when with a foxtail one claps another's breech to cajole him. We give our souls to keep to the theologues, who for the greater part are heretics. Our bodies we commit to the physicians, who never themselves take any physic. And then we entrust our goods to the lawyers, who never go to law against one another. You speak like a courtier, quoth Pantagruel. ”

“ Come along, my Carpalin, and you, Friar John, my leather-dresser. Good morrow to you all, my good lords; I have dreamed too much to have so little. Let us go. Panurge had no sooner done speaking than Epistemon with a loud voice said these words: It is a very ordinary and common thing amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, and presage the misfortune, bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have the understanding, providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man's own mishap is very scarce and rare to be found anywhere. ”

“ If I be not mistaken, quoth Gargantua, I understand it very well. The answer is not unlike to that which was once made by a philosopher in ancient times, who being interrogated if he had a woman whom they named him to his wife? I have her, quoth he, but she hath not me,—possessing her, by her I am not possessed. Such another answer, quoth Pantagruel, was once made by a certain bouncing wench of Sparta, who being asked if at any time she had had to do with a man? No, quoth she, but sometimes men have had to do with me. ”

“ Such a world without lending will be no better than a dog-kennel, a place of contention and wrangling, more unruly and irregular than that of the rector of Paris; a devil of an hurlyburly, and more disordered confusion than that of the plagues of Douay. Men will not then salute one another; it will be but lost labour to expect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murder, for none will put to their helping hand. ”

“ Consider how the moon doth not borrow her light from Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, or any other of the planets, nor yet from any of those splendid stars which are set in the spangled firmament, but from her husband only, the bright sun, which she receiveth from him more or less, according to the manner of his aspect and variously bestowed eradiations. Just so should you be a pattern to your wife in virtue, goodly zeal, and true devotion, that by your radiance in darting on her the aspect of an exemplary goodness, she, in your imitation, may outshine the luminaries of all other women. ”

“ This so incensed Panurge that he forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him the dumb roister and given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respect and reverence which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained his choler and kept his fury within bounds and limits. Then said Pantagruel, If the bare signs now vex and trouble you, how much more grievously will you be perplexed and disquieted with the real things which by them are represented and signified! All truths agree and are consonant with one another. ”

“ No truly, friend, not I, quoth Hippothadee, there is no reason why I should be displeased therewith. But in this carnal strife and debate of yours have you obtained from God the gift and special grace of continency? In good faith, not, quoth Panurge. My counsel to you in that case, my friend, is that you marry, quoth Hippothadee; for you should rather choose to marry once than to burn still in fires of concupiscence. Then Panurge, with a jovial heart and a loud voice, cried out, That is spoke gallantly, without circumbilivaginating about and about, and never hitting it in its centred point. ”

“ Hearken, quoth Friar John, to the oracle of the bells of Varenes. What say they? I hear and understand them, quoth Panurge; their sound is, by my thirst, more uprightly fatidical than that of Jove's great kettles in Dodona. Hearken! Take thee a wife, take thee a wife, and marry, marry, marry; for if thou marry, thou shalt find good therein, herein, here in a wife thou shalt find good; so marry, marry. I will assure thee that I shall be married ”

“ Your counsel, quoth Panurge, under your correction and favour, seemeth unto me not unlike to the song of Gammer Yea-by-nay. It is full of sarcasms, mockeries, bitter taunts, nipping bobs, derisive quips, biting jerks, and contradictory iterations, the one part destroying the other. I know not, quoth Pantagruel, which of all my answers to lay hold on; for your proposals are so full of ifs and buts, that I can ground nothing on them, nor pitch upon any solid and positive determination satisfactory to what is demanded by them. Are not you assured within yourself of what you have a mind to? ”

“ Take, quoth Friar John, Hans Carvel's ring upon thy finger, who was the King of Melinda's chief jeweller. Besides that this Hans Carvel had the reputation of being very skilful and expert in the lapidary's profession, he was a studious, learned, and ingenious man, a scientific person, full of knowledge, a great philosopher, of a sound judgment, of a prime wit, good sense, clear spirited, an honest creature, courteous, charitable, a giver of alms, and of a jovial humour, a boon companion, and a merry blade, if ever there was any in the world. ”

“ I love cuckolds with my heart, for they seem unto me to be of a right honest conversation, and I truly do very willingly frequent their company; but should I die for it, I would not be one of their number. That is a point for me of a too sore prickling point. Then do not marry, quoth Pantagruel, for without all controversy this sentence of Seneca is infallibly true, What thou to others shalt have done, others will do the like to thee. Do you, quoth Panurge, aver that without all exception? Yes, truly, quoth Pantagruel, without all exception. ”

“ By the belly of Saint Buff, quoth Panurge, should I be Vulcan, whom the poet blazons? Nay, I am neither a cripple, coiner of false money, nor smith, as he was. My wife possibly will be as comely and handsome as ever was his Venus, but not a whore like her, nor I a cuckold like him. The crook-legged slovenly slave made himself to be declared a cuckold by a definite sentence and judgment, in the open view of all the gods. ”

“ If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is no more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage. Triboulet girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, ate some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge very wistly and heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seen ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drink heartily, and by good long draughts. ”

“ The wise man saith, Where there is no woman—I mean the mother of a family and wife in the union of a lawful wedlock—the crazy and diseased are in danger of being ill used and of having much brabbling and strife about them; as by clear experience hath been made apparent in the persons of popes, legates, cardinals, bishops, abbots, priors, priests, and monks; but there, assure yourself, you shall not find me. Marry then, in the name of God, answered Pantagruel. ”

“ For if the Utopians were before their transplantation thither dutiful and faithful subjects, the Dipsodes, after some few days conversing with them, were every whit as, if not more, loyal than they; and that by virtue of I know not what natural fervency incident to all human creatures at the beginning of any labour wherein they take delight: solemnly attesting the heavens and supreme intelligences of their being only sorry that no sooner unto their knowledge had arrived the great renown of the good Pantagruel. ”

“ To acquire creditors is not at the disposure of each man's arbitrament. You nevertheless would deprive me of this sublime felicity. You ask me when I will be out of debt. Well, to go yet further on, and possibly worse in your conceit, may Saint Bablin, the good saint, snatch me, if I have not all my lifetime held debt to be as a union or conjunction of the heavens with the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of mankind is kept together; yea, of such virtue and efficacy that, I say, the whole progeny of Adam would very suddenly perish without it. ”

“ Whether wouldst thou be jealous without cause, or be a cuckold and know nothing of it? Neither the one nor the other, quoth Panurge, would I choose to be. But if I get an inkling of the matter, I will provide well enough, or there shall not be one stick of wood within five hundred leagues about me whereof to make a cudgel. In good faith, Friar John, I speak now seriously unto thee, I think it will be my best not to marry. Hearken to what the bells do tell me, now that we are nearer to them! Do not marry, marry not, not, not, not, not; marry, marry not, not, not, not, not. ”

“ Then will among the race of mankind peace, love, benevolence, fidelity, tranquillity, rest, banquets, feastings, joy, gladness, gold, silver, single money, chains, rings, with other ware and chaffer of that nature be found to trot from hand to hand. No suits at law, no wars, no strife, debate, nor wrangling; none will be there a usurer, none will be there a pinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch, or churlish hard-hearted refuser. Good God! Will not this be the golden age in the reign of Saturn? ”

“ By the thirst of my thropple, friend, when snow is on the mountains, I say the head and the chin, there is not then any considerable heat to be expected in the valleys and low countries of the codpiece. By the kibes of thy heels, quoth Panurge, thou dost not understand the topics. When snow is on the tops of the hills, lightning, thunder, tempest, whirlwinds, storms, hurricanes, and all the devils of hell rage in the valleys. ”

“ Nor will there be any metamorphosis or transmutation made of you into a drum or tabor, but you will surely be as soundly beaten as ever was tabor at a merry wedding. Nor yet will she be changed into a chough, but will steal from you, chiefly in the night, as is the nature of that thievish bird. Hereby may you perceive your dreams to be in every jot conform and agreeable to the Virgilian lots. A cuckold you will be, beaten and robbed. Then cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells the truth; upon my conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold—an honest one, I warrant thee. ”

“ Doubt not but there lurketh under it some hid property and occult virtue known to very few in the world. I did not take it on before this morning, and, nevertheless, am already in a rage of lust, mad after a wife, and vehemently hot upon untying the codpiece-point; I itch, I tingle, I wriggle, and long exceedingly to be married, that, without the danger of cudgel-blows, I may labour my female copes-mate with the hard push of a bull-horned devil. O the provident and thrifty husband that I then will be! ”

“ The gnawings of my stomach in this rage of hunger are so tearing, that they make it bark like a mastiff. Let us throw some bread and beef into his throat to pacify him, as once the sibyl did to Cerberus. Thou likest best monastical brewis, the prime, the flower of the pot. I am for the solid, principal verb that comes after —the good brown loaf, always accompanied with a round slice of the nine-lecture-powdered labourer. I know thy meaning, answered Friar John; this metaphor is extracted out of the claustral kettle. The labourer is the ox that hath wrought and done the labour ”

“ The stomach begins to gnaw, and bark, as it were, the eyes to look dim, and the veins, by greedily sucking some refection to themselves from the proper substance of all the members of a fleshy consistence, violently pull down and draw back that vagrant, roaming spirit, careless and neglecting of his nurse and natural host, which is the body; as when a hawk upon the fist, willing to take her flight by a soaring aloft in the open spacious air, is on a sudden drawn back by a leash tied to her feet. ”

“ What meaneth this restless wagging of her slouchy chaps? What can be the signification of the uneven shrugging of her hulchy shoulders? To what end doth she quaver with her lips, like a monkey in the dismembering of a lobster? My ears through horror glow; ah! how they tingle! I think I hear the shrieking of Proserpina; the devils are breaking loose to be all here. O the foul, ugly, and deformed beasts! Let us run away! By the hook of God, I am like to die for fear! I do not love the devils ”

“ On the contrary, be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world, wherein everyone lendeth and everyone oweth, all are debtors and all creditors. O how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby result from the regular motions of the heavens! Methinks I hear it every whit as well as ever Plato did. What sympathy will there be amongst the elements! O how delectable then unto nature will be our own works and productions! Whilst Ceres appeareth laden with corn, Bacchus with wines, Flora with flowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear air, wholesome and pleasant. ”

“ I understand thee well enough, said Friar John; but time makes all things plain. The most durable marble or porphyry is subject to old age and decay. Though for the present thou possibly be not weary of the exercise, yet is it like I will hear thee confess a few years hence that thy cods hang dangling downwards for want of a better truss. I see thee waxing a little hoar-headed already. Thy beard, by the distinction of grey, white, tawny, and black, hath to my thinking the resemblance of a map of the terrestrial globe or geographical chart. ”

“ I will not speak to thee either of house or cottage, nor of church or market, but only tell thee, that once at the representation of the Passion, which was acted at Saint Maxents, I had no sooner entered within the pit of the theatre, but that forthwith, by the virtue and occult property of it, on a sudden all that were there, both players and spectators, did fall into such an exorbitant temptation of lust, that there was not angel, man, devil, nor deviless upon the place who would not then have bricollitched it with all their heart and soul. ”

“ Who knows but that these hungry mad devils may in the haste of their rage and fury of their impatience take a qui for a quo, and instead of Raminagrobis snatch up poor Panurge frank and free? Though formerly, when I was deep in debt, they always failed. Get you hence! I will not go thither. Before God, the very bare apprehension thereof is like to kill me. To be in a place where there are greedy, famished, and hunger-starved devils; amongst factious devils—amidst trading and trafficking devils—O the Lord preserve me! ”

“ The more betimes they rose, by the said cabal, the sooner was the beef-pot put on; the longer that the beef was on the fire, the better it was boiled; the more it boiled, it was the tenderer; the tenderer that it was, the less it troubled the teeth, delighted more the palate, less charged the stomach, and nourished our good religious men the more substantially; which is the only end and prime intention of the first founders, as appears by this, that they eat not to live, but live to eat, and in this world have nothing but their life. Let us go, Panurge. ”