The fight was
obstinate
and sharp.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
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.
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.
