provision for the guts of these poor folks, who have nothing but their
life in this world ? Let him go thither who will, the devil take me
if I go ; for, if I should, the devil would not fail to snatch me up.
Cancro. Ho, the pox ! Get you hence, Friar John ! Art thou con-
tent that thirty thousand wainload of devils should get away with thee
at this same very instant ? If thou be, at my request do these three
things. First, give me thy purse ; for besides that thy money is
marked with crosses, and the cross is an enemy to charms, the same
may befall to thee which not long ago happened to John Dodin,
collector of the excise of Coudray, at the ford of Vede, when the
soldiers broke the planks. This moneyed fellow, meeting at the very
brink of the bank of the ford with Friar Adam Crankcod, a Fran-
ciscan observantin of Mirebeau, promised him a new frock, provided
that in the transporting of him over the water he would bear him
upon his neck and shoulders, after the manner of carrying dead goats j
for he was a lusty, strong-limbed, sturdy rogue. The condition
being agreed upon, Friar Crankcod trusseth himself up to his very
ballocks, and layeth upon his back, like a fair little Saint Christopher,
the load of the said supplicant Dodin, and so carried him gaily and



144 RABELAIS. [BOOK m.

with a good will, as JEnens bore his father Anchises through the
conflagration of Troy, singing in the meanwhile a pretty Ave Maris
Stella. When they were in the very deepest place of all the ford, a
little above the master-wheel of the water-mill, he asked if he had
any coin about him. Yes, quoth Dodin, a whole bagful ; and that
he needed not to mistrust his ability in the performance of the
promise which he had made unto him concerning a new frock.
How ! quoth Friar Crankcod, thou knowest well enough that by
the express rules, canons, and injunctions of our order we are forbidden
to carry on us any kind of money. Thou art truly unhappy, for
having made me in this point to commit a heinous trespass. Why
didst thou not leave thy purse with the miller ? Without fail thou
shalt presently receive thy reward for it ; and if ever hereafter I may
but lay hold upon thee within the limits of our chancel at Mirebeau,
thou shalt have the Miserere even to the Vitulos. With this, sud-
denly discharging himself of his burden, he throws me down your
Dodin headlong. Take example by this Dodin, my dear friend Friar
John, to the end that the devils may the better carry thee away at
thine own ease. Give me thy purse. Carry no manner of cross
upon thee. Therein lieth an evident and manifestly apparent danger.
For if you have any silver coined with a cross upon it, they will cast
thee down headlong upon some rocks, as the eagles use to do with
the tortoises for the breaking of their shells, as the bald pate of the
poet .^Eschylus can sufficiently bear witness. Such a fall would hurt
thee very sore, my sweet bully, and I would be sorry for it. Or
otherwise they will let thee fall and tumble down into the high
swollen waves of some capacious sea, I know not where j but, I
warrant thee, far enough hence, as Icarus fell, which from thy name
would afterwards get the denomination of the Funnelian Sea.

Secondly, be out of debt. For the devils carry a great liking to
those that arc out of debt. I have sore felt the experience thereof
in mine own particular j for now the lecherous varlets are always
wooing me, courting me, and making much of me, which they never
did when I was all to pieces. The soul of one in debt is insipid, dry,
and heretical altogether.

Thirdly, with the cowl and Domino de Grobis, return to Rami-
nagrobis ; and in case, being thus qualified, thirty thousand boatsful
of devils forthwith come not to carry thee quite away, I shall be



CHAP. xxin. J RABELAIS. 145

content to be at the charge of paying for the pint and faggot. Now,
if for the more security thou wouldst some associate to bear thee
company, let not me be the comrade thou searches! for ; think not to
get a fellow-traveller of me, nay, do not. I advise thee for the best.
Get you hence ; I will not go thither. The devil take me if I go.
Notwithstanding all the fright that you are in, quoth Friar John, I
would not care so much as might possibly be expected I should, if I
once had but my sword in my hand. Thou hast verily hit the nail
on the head, quoth Panurge, and speakest like a learned doctor,
subtle and well-skilled in the art of devilry. At the time when I
was a student in the University of Toulouse [Tolette], that same
reverend father in the devil, Picatrix, rector of the diabological
faculty, was wont to tell us that the devils did naturally fear the
bright glancing of swords as much as the splendour and light of the
sun. In confirmation of the verity whereof he related this story,
that Hercules, at his descent into hell to all the devils of those
regions, did not by half so much terrify them with his club and lion's
skin as afterwards ./Eneas did with his clear shining armour upon
him, and his sword in his hand well-furbished and unrusted, by the
aid, counsel, and assistance of the Sybilla Cumana. That was perhaps
the reason why the senior John Jacomo di Trivulcio, whilst he was
a-dying at Chartres, called for his cutlass, and died with a drawn
sword in his hand, laying about him alongst and athwart around the
bed and everywhere within his reach, like a stout, doughty, valorous
and knight-like cavalier ; by which resolute manner of fence he
scared away and put to flight all the devils that were then lying in
wait for his soul at the passage of his death. When the Massorets
and Cabalists are asked why it is that none of all the devils do at
any time enter into the terrestrial paradise ? their answer hath been,
is, and will be still, that there is a cherubin standing at the gate
thereof with a flame-like glistering sword in his hand. Although, to
speak in the true diabological sense or phrase of Toledo, I must
needs confess and acknowledge that veritably the devils cannot be
killed or die by the stroke of a sword, I do nevertheless avow and
maintain, according to the doctrine of the said diabology, that they
may suffer a solution of continuity (as if with thy shable thou shouldst
cut athwart the flame of a burning fire, or the gross opacous exhala-
tions of a thick and obscure smoke), and cry out like very devils at

VOL. II. L



146 RABELAIS. [BOOK in.

their sense and feeling of this dissolution, which in real deed I must
aver and affirm is devilishly painful, smarting, and dolorous.

When thou seest the impetuous shock of two armies, and vehe-
ment violence of the push in their horrid encounter with one another,
dost thou think, Ballockasso, that so horrible a noise as is heard there
proceedeth from the voice and shouts of men, the dashing and
jolting of harness, the clattering and clashing of armies, the hacking
and slashing of battle-axes, the justling and crashing of pikes, the
bustling and breaking of lances, the clamour and shrieks of the
wounded, the sound and din of drums, the clangour and shrillness
of trumpets, the neighing and rushing in of horses, with the fearful
claps and thundering of all sorts of guns, from the double cannon to
the pocket pistol inclusively ? I cannot goodly deny but that in these
various things which I have rehearsed there may be somewhat occa-
sionative of the huge yell and tintamarre of the two engaged bodies.
But the most fearful and tumultuous coil and stir, the terriblest and
most boisterous garboil and hurry, the chiefest rustling black santus.
of all, and most principal hurly burly springeth from the grievously
plangorous howling and lowing of devils, who pell-mell, in a hand-
over-head confusion, waiting for the poor souls of the maimed and
hurt soldiery, receive unawares some strokes with swords, and so by
those means suffer a solution of and division in the continuity of
their aerial and invisible substances ; as if some lackey, snatching at
the lard-slices stuck in a piece of roast meat on the spit, should get
from Mr. Greasyfist a good rap on the knuckles with a cudgel. They
cry out and shout like devils, even as Mars did when he was hurt by
Diomedes at the siege of Troy, who, as Homer testifieth of him, did
then raise his voice more horrifically loud and sonoriferously high
than ten thousand men together would have been able to do. What
maketh all this for our present purpose ? I have been speaking here
of well-furbished armour and bright shining swords. But so is it
not, Friar John, with thy weapon ; for by a long discontinuance of
work, cessation from labour, desisting from making it officiate, and
putting it into that practice wherein it had been formerly accustomed,
and, in a word, for want of occupation, it is, upon my faith, become
more rusty than the key-hole of an old powdering-tub. Therefore it
is expedient that you do one of these two things : either furbish
your weapon bravely, and as it ought to be, or otherwise have a care



CHAP, xxiv.] RABELAIS. 147

that, in the rusty case it is in, you do not presume to return to the
house of Raminagrobis. For my part, I vow I will not go thither.
The devil take me if I go.



CHAPTER XXIV.

How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon.

HAVING left the town of Villomere, as they were upon their
return towards Pantagruel, Panurge, in addressing his discourse to
Epistemon, spoke thus : My most ancient friend and gossip, thou
seest the perplexity of my thoughts, and knowest many remedies for
the removal thereof ; art thou not able to help and succour me ?
Epistemon, thereupon taking the speech in hand, represented unto
Panurge how the open voice and common fame of the whole country
did run upon no other discourse but the derision and mockery of his-
new disguise ; wherefore his counsel unto him was that he would
in the first place be pleased to make use of a little hellebore for the
purging of his brain of that peccant humour which, through that
extravagant and fantastic mummery of his, had furnished the people
with a too just occasion of flouting and gibing, jeering and scoffing
him, and that next he would resume his ordinary fashion of accoutre-
ment, and go apparelled as he was wont to do. I am, quoth Panurge,
my dear gossip Epistemon, of a mind and resolution to marry, but
am afraid of being a cuckold and to be unfortunate in my wedlock.
For this cause hare I made a vow to young St. Francis who at
Plessis-les-Tours is much reverenced of all women, earnestly cried
unto by them, and with great devotion, for he was the first founder
of the confraternity of good men, whom they naturally covet, affect,
and long for to wear spectacles in my cap, and to carry no codpiece
in my breeches, until the present inquietude and perturbation of my
spirits be fully settled.

Truly, quoth Epistemon, that is a pretty jolly vow of thirteen
to a dozen. It is a shame to you, and I wonder much at it, that
you do not return unto yourself, and recall your senses from this.



148 RABELAIS. [BOOK m.

their wild swerving and straying abroad to that rest and stillness
which becomes a virtuous man. This whimsical conceit of yours
brings me to the remembrance of a solemn promise made by the
shag-haired Argives, who, having in their controversy against the
Lacedaemonians for the territory of Thyrea, lost the battle which
they hoped should have decided it for their advantage, vowed to
carry never any hair on their heads till preallably they had recovered
the loss of both their honour and lands. As likewise to the memory
of the vow of a pleasant Spaniard called Michael Doris, who vowed
to carry in his hat a piece of the shin of his leg till he should be
revenged of him who had struck it off. Yet do not I know which
of these two deserveth most to wear a green and yellow hood with a
hare's ears tied to it, either the aforesaid vainglorious champion, or
that Enguerrant, who having forgot the art and manner of writing
histories set down by the Samosatian philosopher, maketh a most
tediously long narrative and relation thereof. For, at the first reading
of such a profuse discourse, one would think it had been broached
for the introducing of a story of great importance and moment con-
cerning the waging of some formidable war, or the notable change
and mutation of potent states and kingdoms ; but, in conclusion, the
world laugheth at the capricious champion, at the Englishman who
had affronted him, as also at their scribbler Enguerrant, more drivel-
ling at the mouth than a mustard pot. The jest and scorn thereof
is not unlike to that of the mountain of Horace, which by the poet
was made to cry out and lament most enormously as a woman in the
pangs and labour of child-birth, at which deplorable and exorbitant
cries and lamentations the whole neighbourhood being assembled in
expectation to see some marvellous monstrous production, could at
last perceive no other but the paltry, ridiculous mouse.

Your mousing, quoth Panurge, will not make me leave my musing
why folks should be so frumpishly disposed, seeing I am certainly
persuaded that some flout who merit to be flouted at ; yet, as my
vow imports, so will I do. It is now a long time since, by Jupiter
Philos, 1 we did swear faith and amity to one another. Give me
your advice, billy, and tell me your opinion freely, Should I marry
or no ? Truly, quoth Epistemon, the case is hazardous, and the

1 A mistake of the translator's. M.



CHAP, xxiv.] RABELAIS. 149

danger so eminently apparent that I find myself too weak and

insufficient to give you a punctual and peremptory resolution therein ;

and if ever it was true that judgment is difficult in matters of the

medicinal art, what was said by Hippocrates of Lango, it is certainly

so in this case. True it is that in my brain there are some rolling

fancies, by means whereof somewhat may be pitched upon of a

seeming efficacy to the disentangling your mind of those dubious

apprehensions wherewith it is perplexed ; but they do not thoroughly

satisfy me. Some of the Platonic sect affirm that whosoever is able

to see his proper genius may know his own destiny. I understand

not their doctrine, nor do I think that you adhere to them ; there is

a palpable abuse. I have seen the experience of it in a very curious

gentleman of the country of Estangourre. This is one of the points.

There is yet another not much better. If there were any authority

now in the oracles of Jupiter Ammon ; of Apollo in Lebadia, Delphos,

Delos, Cyrra, Patara, Tegyres, Preneste, Lycia, Colophon, or in the

Castalian Fountain ; near Antiochia in Syria, between the Bran-

chidians ; of Bacchus in Dodona ; of Mercury in Phares, near Patras ;

of Apis in Egypt ; of Serapis in Canope ; of Faunus in Menalia, and

Albunea near Tivoli ; of Tiresias in Orchomenus ; of Mopsus in

Cilicia ; of Orpheus in Lesbos, and of Trophonius in Leucadia ; I

would in that case advise you, and possibly not, to go thither for

their judgment concerning the design and enterprise you have in

hand. But you know that they are all of them become as dumb as

so many fishes since the advent of that Saviour King whose coming

to this world hath made all oracles and prophecies to cease ; as the

approach of the sun's radiant beams expelleth goblins, bugbears,

hobthrushes, broams, screech-owl-mates, night-walking spirits, and

tenebrions. These now are gone ; but although they were as yet

in continuance and in the same power, rule, and request that formerly

they were, yet would not I counsel you to be too credulous in

putting any trust in their responses. Too many folks have been

deceived thereby. It stands furthermore upon record how Agrippina

did charge the fair Lollia with the crime of having interrogated the

oracle of Apollo Clarius, to understand if she should be at any time

married to the Emperor Claudius ; for which cause she was first

banished, and thereafter put to a shameful and ignominious death.

But, saith Panurge, let us do better. The Ogygian Islands are



ISO RABELAIS. [BOOK in.

not far distant from the haven of Sammalo. Let us, after that we
shall have spoken to our king, make a voyage thither. In one of
these four isles, to wit, that which hath its primest aspect towards
the sun setting, it is reported, and I have read in good antique and
authentic authors, that there reside many soothsayers, fortune-tellers,
vaticinators, prophets, and diviners of things to come ; that Saturn
inhabiteth that place, bound with fair chains of gold and within the
concavity of a golden rock, being nourished with divine ambrosia and
nectar, which are daily in great store and abundance transmitted to
him from the heavens, by I do not well know what kind of fowls,
it may be that they are the same ravens which in the deserts are said
to have fed St. Paul, the first hermit, he very clearly foretelleth
unto everyone who is desirous to be certified of the condition of his
lot what his destiny will be, and what future chance the Fates have
ordained for him ; for the Parcae, or Weird Sisters, do not twist,
spin, or draw out a thread, nor yet doth Jupiter perpend, project, or
deliberate anything which the good old celestial father knoweth not
to the full, even whilst he is asleep. This will be a very summary
abbreviation of our labour, if we but hearken unto him a little upon
the serious debate and canvassing of this my perplexity. That is,
answered Epistemon, a gullery too evident, a plain abuse and fib too
fabulous. I will not go, not I ; I will not go.



CHAPTER XXV.

How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa.

NEVERTHELESS, quoth Epistemon, continuing his discourse, I
will tell you what you may do, if you believe me, before we return
to our king. Hard by here, in the Brown-wheat [Bouchart] Island,
dwelleth Herr Trippa. You know how by the arts of astrology,
geomancy, chiromancy, metopomancy, and others of a like stuff and
nature, he foretelleth all things to come ; let us talk a little, and
confer with him about your business. Of that, answered Panurge, I
know nothing ; but of this much concerning him I am assured, that



CHAP, xxv.] RABELAIS. 151

one day, and that not long since, whilst he was prating to the great
king of celestial, sublime, and transcendent things, the lacqueys and
footboys of the court, upon the upper steps of stairs between two
doors, jumbled, one after another, as often as they listed, his wife,
who is passable fair, and a pretty snug hussy. Thus he who seemed
very clearly to see all heavenly and terrestrial things without
spectacles, who discoursed boldly of adventures past, with great
confidence opened up present cases and accidents, and stoutly pro-
fessed the presaging of all future events and contingencies, was not
able, with all the skill and cunning that he had, to perceive the
bumbasting of his wife, whom he reputed to be very chaste, and
hath not till this hour got notice of anything to the contrary. Yet
let us go to him, seeing you will have it so j for surely we can never
learn too much. They on the very next ensuing day came to Herr
Trippa's lodging. Panurge, by way of donative, presented him with
a long gown lined all through with wolf-skins, with a short sword
mounted with a gilded hilt and covered with a velvet scabbard, and
with fifty good single angels ; then in a familiar and friendly way did
he ask of him his opinion touching the affair. At the very first Herr
Trippa, looking on him very wistly in the face, said unto him : Thou
hast the metoposcopy and physiognomy of a cuckold, I say, of a
notorious and infamous cuckold. With this, casting an eye upon
Panurge's right hand in all the parts thereof, he said, This rugged
draught which I see here, just under the mount of Jove, was never
yet but in the hand of a cuckold. Afterwards, he with a white lead
pen swiftly and hastily drew a certain number of diverse kinds of
points, which by rules of geomancy he coupled and joined together;
then said : Truth itself is not truer than that it is certain thou wilt
be a cuckold a little after thy marriage. That being done, he asked
of Panurge the horoscope of his nativity, which was no sooner by
Panurge tendered unto him, than that, erecting a figure, he very
promptly and speedily formed and fashioned a complete fabric of the
houses of heaven in all their parts, whereof when he had considered
the situation and the aspects in their triplicities, he fetched a deep
sigh, and said : I have clearly enough already discovered unto you
the fate of your cuckoldry, which is unavoidable, you cannot escape
it. And here have I got of new a further assurance thereof, so that
I may now hardily pronounce and affirm, without any scruple or



152 RABELAIS. [BOOK m.

hesitation at all, that thou wilt be a cuckold ; that, furthermore, thou
wilt be beaten by thine own wife, and that she will purloin, filch,
and steal of thy goods from thee ; for I find the seventh house, in all
its aspects, of a malignant influence, and every one of the planets
threatening thee with disgrace, according as they stand seated towards
one another, in relation to the horned signs of Aries, Taurus, and
Capricorn. In the fourth house I find Jupiter in a decadence, as
also in a tetragonal aspect to Saturn, associated with Mercury. Thou
wilt be soundly peppered, my gpod, honest fellow, I warrant thee.
I will be r answered Panurge. A plague rot thee, thou old fool and
doting sot, how graceless and unpleasant thou art ! When all
cuckolds shall be at a general rendezvous, thou shouldst be their
standard-bearer. But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these
two fingers ? This Panurge said, putting the forefinger of his left
hand betwixt the fore and mid finger of the right, which he thrust
out towards Herr Trippa, holding them open after the manner of
two horns, and shutting into his fist his thumb with the other fingers.
Then, in turning to Epistemon, he said : Lo here the true Olus of
Martial, who addicted and devoted himself wholly to the observing
the miseries, crosses, and calamities of others, whilst his own wife, in
the interim, did keep an open bawdy-house. This varlet is poorer
than ever was Irus, and yet he is proud, vaunting, arrogant, self-
conceited, overweening, and more insupportable than seventeen devils;
in one word, Ilra>xaAda)r, which term of old was applied to the
like beggarly strutting coxcombs. Come, let us leave this madpash
bedlam, this hairbrained fop, and give him leave to rave and dose his
bellyful with his private and intimately acquainted devils, who, if
they were not the very worst of all infernal fiends, would never have
deigned to serve such a knavish barking cur as this is. He hath not
learnt the first precept of philosophy, which is, Know thyself; for
whilst he braggeth and boasteth that he can discern the least mote in
the eye of another, he is not able to see the huge block that puts out
the sight of both his eyes. This is such another Polypragmon as is
by Plutarch described. He is of the nature of the Lamian witches,
who in foreign places, in the houses of strangers, in public, and
amongst the common people, had a sharper and more piercing
inspection into their affairs than any lynx, but at home in their own
proper dwelling-mansions were blinder than moldwarps, and saw



CHAP, xxv.] RABELAIS. 153

nothing at all. For their custom was, at their return from abroad,
when they were by themselves in private, to take their eyes out of
their head, from whence they were as easily removable as a pair of
spectacles from their nose, and to lay them up into a wooden slipper
which for that purpose did hang behind the door of their lodging.

Panurge had no sooner done speaking, when Herr Trippa took
into his hand a tamarisk branch. In this, quoth Epistemon, he doth
very well, right, and like an artist, for Nicander calleth it the divina-
tory tree. Have you a mind, quoth Herr Trippa, to have the truth
of the matter yet more fully and amply disclosed unto you by pyro-
mancy, by aeromancy, whereof Aristophanes in his Clouds maketh
great estimation, by hydromancy, by lecanomancy, of old in prime
request amongst the Assyrians, and thoroughly tried by Hermolaus
Barbaras. Come hither, and I will show thee in this platterful of
fair fountain-water thy future wife lechering and sercroupierizing it
with two swaggering ruffians, one after another. Yea, but have a
special care, quoth Panurge, when thou comest to put thy nose
within mine arse, that thou forget not to pull off thy spectacles.
Herr Trippa, going on in his discourse, said, By catoptromancy,
likewise held in such account by the Emperor Didius Julianus, that