Gargantua and Pantagruel Part 16

We see some so happy in the fortune of this nuptial encounter, that their family s.h.i.+neth as it were with the radiant effulgency of an idea, model, or representation of the joys of paradise; and perceive others, again, to be so unluckily matched in the conjugal yoke, that those very basest of devils which tempt the hermits that inhabit the deserts of Thebais and Montserrat are not more miserable than they. It is therefore expedient, seeing you are resolved for once to take a trial of the state of marriage, that, with shut eyes, bowing your head, and kissing the ground, you put the business to a venture, and give it a fair hazard, in recommending the success of the residue to the disposure of Almighty G.o.d. It lieth not in my power to give you any other manner of a.s.surance, or otherwise to certify you of what shall ensue on this your undertaking. Nevertheless, if it please you, this you may do. Bring hither Virgil's poems, that after having opened the book, and with our fingers severed the leaves thereof three several times, we may, according to the number agreed upon betwixt ourselves, explore the future hap of your intended marriage. For frequently by a Homeric lottery have many hit upon their destinies; as is testified in the person of Socrates, who, whilst he was in prison, hearing the recitation of this verse of Homer, said of Achilles in the Ninth of the Iliads- Emati ke tritato Phthien eribolon ikoimen,

We, the third day, to fertile Pthia came- thereby foresaw that on the third subsequent day he was to die. Of the truth whereof he a.s.sured Aeschines; as Plato, in Critone, Cicero, in Primo, de Divinatione, Diogenes Laertius, and others, have to the full recorded in their works. The like is also witnessed by Opilius Macrinus, to whom, being desirous to know if he should be the Roman emperor, befell, by chance of lot, this sentence in the Eighth of the Iliads- O geron, e mala de se neoi teirousi machetai, Ze de bin lelutai, chalepon de se geras opazei.

Dotard, new warriors urge thee to be gone.

Thy life decays, and old age weighs thee down.

In fact, he, being then somewhat ancient, had hardly enjoyed the sovereignty of the empire for the s.p.a.ce of fourteen months, when by Heliogabalus, then both young and strong, he was dispossessed thereof, thrust out of all, and killed. Brutus doth also bear witness of another experiment of this nature, who willing, through this exploratory way by lot, to learn what the event and issue should be of the Pharsalian battle wherein he perished, he casually encountered on this verse, said of Patroclus in the Sixteenth of the Iliads- Alla me moir oloe, kai Letous ektanen uios.

Fate, and Latona's son have shot me dead.

And accordingly Apollo was the field-word in the dreadful day of that fight. Divers notable things of old have likewise been foretold and known by casting of Virgilian lots; yea, in matters of no less importance than the obtaining of the Roman empire, as it happened to Alexander Severus, who, trying his fortune at the said kind of lottery, did hit upon this verse written in the Sixth of the Aeneids- Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.

Know, Roman, that thy business is to reign.

He, within very few years thereafter, was effectually and in good earnest created and installed Roman emperor. A semblable story thereto is related of Adrian, who, being hugely perplexed within himself out of a longing humour to know in what account he was with the Emperor Trajan, and how large the measure of that affection was which he did bear unto him, had recourse, after the manner above specified, to the Maronian lottery, which by haphazard tendered him these lines out of the Sixth of the Aeneids- Quis procul ille autem, ramis insignis olivae Sacra ferens? Nosco crines incanaque menta Regis Romani.

But who is he, conspicuous from afar, With olive boughs, that doth his offerings bear?

By the white hair and beard I know him plain, The Roman king.

Shortly thereafter was he adopted by Trajan, and succeeded to him in the empire. Moreover, to the lot of the praiseworthy Emperor Claudius befell this line of Virgil, written in the Sixth of his Aeneids- Tertia dum Latio regnantem viderit aestas.

Whilst the third summer saw him reign, a king In Latium.

And in effect he did not reign above two years. To the said Claudian also, inquiring concerning his brother Quintilius, whom he proposed as a colleague with himself in the empire, happened the response following in the Sixth of the Aeneids- Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata.

Whom Fate let us see, And would no longer suffer him to be.

And it so fell out; for he was killed on the seventeenth day after he had attained unto the management of the imperial charge. The very same lot, also, with the like misluck, did betide the Emperor Gordian the younger. To Claudius Albinus, being very solicitous to understand somewhat of his future adventures, did occur this saying, which is written in the Sixth of the Aeneids- Hic rem Romanam magno turbante tumultu Sistet Eques, &c.

The Romans, boiling with tumultuous rage, This warrior shall the dangerous storm a.s.suage: With victories he the Carthaginian mauls, And with strong hand shall crush the rebel Gauls.

Likewise, when the Emperor D. Claudius, Aurelian's predecessor, did with great eagerness research after the fate to come of his posterity, his hap was to alight on this verse in the First of the Aeneids- Hic ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono.

No bounds are to be set, no limits here.

Which was fulfilled by the goodly genealogical row of his race. When Mr. Peter Amy did in like manner explore and make trial if he should escape the ambush of the hobgoblins who lay in wait all-to-bemaul him, he fell upon this verse in the Third of the Aeneids- Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum!

Oh, flee the b.l.o.o.d.y land, the wicked sh.o.r.e!

Which counsel he obeying, safe and sound forthwith avoided all these ambuscades.

Were it not to shun prolixity, I could enumerate a thousand such like adventures, which, conform to the dictate and verdict of the verse, have by that manner of lot-casting encounter befallen to the curious researchers of them. Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest you should be deluded, that I would upon this kind of fortune-flinging proof infer an uncontrollable and not to be gainsaid infallibility of truth.

Chapter 3.XI.-How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of dice to be unlawful.

It would be sooner done, quoth Panurge, and more expeditely, if we should try the matter at the chance of three fair dice. Quoth Pantagruel, That sort of lottery is deceitful, abusive, illicitous, and exceedingly scandalous. Never trust in it. The accursed book of the Recreation of Dice was a great while ago excogitated in Achaia, near Bourre, by that ancient enemy of mankind, the infernal calumniator, who, before the statue or ma.s.sive image of the Bourraic Hercules, did of old, and doth in several places of the world as yet, make many simple souls to err and fall into his snares. You know how my father Gargantua hath forbidden it over all his kingdoms and dominions; how he hath caused burn the moulds and draughts thereof, and altogether suppressed, abolished, driven forth, and cast it out of the land, as a most dangerous plague and infection to any well-polished state or commonwealth. What I have told you of dice, I say the same of the play at c.o.c.kall. It is a lottery of the like guile and deceitfulness; and therefore do not for convincing of me allege in opposition to this my opinion, or bring in the example of the fortunate cast of Tiberius, within the fountain of Aponus, at the oracle of Gerion. These are the baited hooks by which the devil attracts and draweth unto him the foolish souls of silly people into eternal perdition.

Nevertheless, to satisfy your humour in some measure, I am content you throw three dice upon this table, that, according to the number of the blots which shall happen to be cast up, we may hit upon a verse of that page which in the setting open of the book you shall have pitched upon.

Have you any dice in your pocket? A whole bagful, answered Panurge. That is provision against the devil, as is expounded by Merlin Coccaius, Lib. 2. De Patria Diabolorum. The devil would be sure to take me napping, and very much at unawares, if he should find me without dice. With this, the three dice being taken out, produced, and thrown, they fell so pat upon the lower points that the cast was five, six, and five. These are, quoth Panurge, sixteen in all. Let us take the sixteenth line of the page. The number pleaseth me very well; I hope we shall have a prosperous and happy chance. May I be thrown amidst all the devils of h.e.l.l, even as a great bowl cast athwart at a set of ninepins, or cannon-ball shot among a battalion of foot, in case so many times I do not boult my future wife the first night of our marriage! Of that, forsooth, I make no doubt at all, quoth Pantagruel. You needed not to have rapped forth such a horrid imprecation, the sooner to procure credit for the performance of so small a business, seeing possibly the first bout will be amiss, and that you know is usually at tennis called fifteen. At the next justling turn you may readily amend that fault, and so complete your reckoning of sixteen. Is it so, quoth Panurge, that you understand the matter? And must my words be thus interpreted? Nay, believe me never yet was any solecism committed by that valiant champion who often hath for me in Belly-dale stood sentry at the hypogastrian cranny. Did you ever hitherto find me in the confraternity of the faulty? Never, I trow; never, nor ever shall, for ever and a day. I do the feat like a goodly friar or father confessor, without default. And therein am I willing to be judged by the players. He had no sooner spoke these words than the works of Virgil were brought in. But before the book was laid open, Panurge said to Pantagruel, My heart, like the furch of a hart in a rut, doth beat within my breast. Be pleased to feel and grope my pulse a little on this artery of my left arm. At its frequent rise and fall you would say that they swinge and belabour me after the manner of a probationer, posed and put to a peremptory trial in the examination of his sufficiency for the discharge of the learned duty of a graduate in some eminent degree in the college of the Sorbonists.

But would you not hold it expedient, before we proceed any further, that we should invocate Hercules and the Tenetian G.o.ddesses who in the chamber of lots are said to rule, sit in judgment, and bear a presidential sway? Neither him nor them, answered Pantagruel; only open up the leaves of the book with your fingers, and set your nails awork.

Chapter 3.XII.-How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurge shall have in his marriage.

Then at the opening of the book in the sixteenth row of the lines of the disclosed page did Panurge encounter upon this following verse: Nec Deus hunc mensa, Dea nec dignata cubili est.

The G.o.d him from his table banished, Nor would the G.o.ddess have him in her bed.

This response, quoth Pantagruel, maketh not very much for your benefit or advantage; for it plainly signifies and denoteth that your wife shall be a strumpet, and yourself by consequence a cuckold. The G.o.ddess, whom you shall not find propitious nor favourable unto you, is Minerva, a most redoubtable and dreadful virgin, a powerful and fulminating G.o.ddess, an enemy to cuckolds and effeminate youngsters, to cuckold-makers and adulterers. The G.o.d is Jupiter, a terrible and thunder-striking G.o.d from heaven. And withal it is to be remarked, that, conform to the doctrine of the ancient Etrurians, the manubes, for so did they call the darting hurls or slinging casts of the Vulcanian thunderbolts, did only appertain to her and to Jupiter her father capital. This was verified in the conflagration of the s.h.i.+ps of Ajax Oileus, nor doth this fulminating power belong to any other of the Olympic G.o.ds. Men, therefore, stand not in such fear of them. Moreover, I will tell you, and you may take it as extracted out of the profoundest mysteries of mythology, that, when the giants had enterprised the waging of a war against the power of the celestial orbs, the G.o.ds at first did laugh at those attempts, and scorned such despicable enemies, who were, in their conceit, not strong enough to cope in feats of warfare with their pages; but when they saw by the gigantine labour the high hill Pelion set on lofty Ossa, and that the mount Olympus was made shake to be erected on the top of both, then was it that Jupiter held a parliament, or general convention, wherein it was unanimously resolved upon and condescended to by all the G.o.ds, that they should worthily and valiantly stand to their defence. And because they had often seen battles lost by the c.u.mbersome lets and disturbing enc.u.mbrances of women confusedly huddled in amongst armies, it was at that time decreed and enacted that they should expel and drive out of heaven into Egypt and the confines of Nile that whole crew of G.o.ddesses, disguised in the shapes of weasels, polecats, bats, shrew-mice, ferrets, fulmarts, and other such like odd transformations; only Minerva was reserved to partic.i.p.ate with Jupiter in the horrific fulminating power, as being the G.o.ddess both of war and learning, of arts and arms, of counsel and despatch-a G.o.ddess armed from her birth, a G.o.ddess dreaded in heaven, in the air, by sea and land. By the belly of Saint Buff, quoth Panurge, should I be Vulcan, whom the poet blazons? Nay, I am neither a cripple, coiner of false money, nor smith, as he was. My wife possibly will be as comely and handsome as ever was his Venus, but not a wh.o.r.e like her, nor I a cuckold like him. The crook-legged slovenly slave made himself to be declared a cuckold by a definite sentence and judgment, in the open view of all the G.o.ds. For this cause ought you to interpret the afore-mentioned verse quite contrary to what you have said. This lot importeth that my wife will be honest, virtuous, chaste, loyal, and faithful; not armed, surly, wayward, cross, giddy, humorous, heady, hairbrained, or extracted out of the brains, as was the G.o.ddess Pallas; nor shall this fair jolly Jupiter be my co-rival. He shall never dip his bread in my broth, though we should sit together at one table.

Consider his exploits and gallant actions. He was the manifest ruffian, wencher, wh.o.r.emonger, and most infamous cuckold-maker that ever breathed. He did always lecher it like a boar, and no wonder, for he was fostered by a sow in the Isle of Candia, if Agathocles the Babylonian be not a liar, and more rammishly lascivious than a buck; whence it is that he is said by others to have been suckled and fed with the milk of the Amalthaean goat. By the virtue of Acheron, he justled, bulled, and lastauriated in one day the third part of the world, beasts and people, floods and mountains; that was Europa. For this grand subagitatory achievement the Ammonians caused draw, delineate, and paint him in the figure and shape of a ram ramming, and horned ram. But I know well enough how to s.h.i.+eld and preserve myself from that horned champion. He will not, trust me, have to deal in my person with a sottish, dunsical Amphitryon, nor with a silly witless Argus, for all his hundred spectacles, nor yet with the cowardly meac.o.c.k Acrisius, the simple goose-cap Lycus of Thebes, the doting blockhead Agenor, the phlegmatic pea-goose Aesop, rough-footed Lycaon, the luskish misshapen Corytus of Tuscany, nor with the large-backed and strong-reined Atlas. Let him alter, change, transform, and metamorphose himself into a hundred various shapes and figures, into a swan, a bull, a satyr, a shower of gold, or into a cuckoo, as he did when he unmaidened his sister Juno; into an eagle, ram, or dove, as when he was enamoured of the virgin Phthia, who then dwelt in the Aegean territory; into fire, a serpent, yea, even into a flea; into Epicurean and Democratical atoms, or, more Magistronostralistically, into those sly intentions of the mind, which in the schools are called second notions,-I'll catch him in the nick, and take him napping. And would you know what I would do unto him? Even that which to his father Coelum Saturn did-Seneca foretold it of me, and Lactantius hath confirmed it-what the G.o.ddess Rhea did to Athis. I would make him two stone lighter, rid him of his Cyprian cymbals, and cut so close and neatly by the breech, that there shall not remain thereof so much as one-, so cleanly would I shave him, and disable him for ever from being Pope, for Testiculos non habet. Hold there, said Pantagruel; ho, soft and fair, my lad! Enough of that,-cast up, turn over the leaves, and try your fortune for the second time. Then did he fall upon this ensuing verse: Membra quat.i.t, gelidusque coit formidine sanguis.

His joints and members quake, he becomes pale, And sudden fear doth his cold blood congeal.

This importeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will soundly bang your back and belly. Clean and quite contrary, answered Panurge; it is of me that he prognosticates, in saying that I will beat her like a tiger if she vex me. Sir Martin Wagstaff will perform that office, and in default of a cudgel, the devil gulp him, if I should not eat her up quick, as Candaul the Lydian king did his wife, whom he ravened and devoured.

You are very stout, says Pantagruel, and courageous; Hercules himself durst hardly adventure to scuffle with you in this your raging fury. Nor is it strange; for the Jan is worth two, and two in fight against Hercules are too too strong. Am I a Jan? quoth Panurge. No, no, answered Pantagruel. My mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack. Thereafter did he hit, at the third opening of the book, upon this verse: Foemineo praedae, et spoliorum ardebat amore.

After the spoil and pillage, as in fire, He burnt with a strong feminine desire.

This portendeth, quoth Pantagruel, that she will steal your goods, and rob you. Hence this, according to these three drawn lots, will be your future destiny, I clearly see it,-you will be a cuckold, you will be beaten, and you will be robbed. Nay, it is quite otherwise, quoth Panurge; for it is certain that this verse presageth that she will love me with a perfect liking. Nor did the satyr-writing poet lie in proof hereof, when he affirmed that a woman, burning with extreme affection, takes sometimes pleasure to steal from her sweetheart. And what, I pray you? A glove, a point, or some such trifling toy of no importance, to make him keep a gentle kind of stirring in the research and quest thereof. In like manner, these small scolding debates and petty brabbling contentions, which frequently we see spring up and for a certain s.p.a.ce boil very hot betwixt a couple of high-spirited lovers, are nothing else but recreative diversions for their refreshment, spurs to and incentives of a more fervent amity than ever. As, for example, we do sometimes see cutlers with hammers maul their finest whetstones, therewith to sharpen their iron tools the better. And therefore do I think that these three lots make much for my advantage; which, if not, I from their sentence totally appeal. There is no appellation, quoth Pantagruel, from the decrees of fate or destiny, of lot or chance; as is recorded by our ancient lawyers, witness Baldus, Lib. ult. Cap. de Leg. The reason hereof is, Fortune doth not acknowledge a superior, to whom an appeal may be made from her or any of her subst.i.tutes. And in this case the pupil cannot be restored to his right in full, as openly by the said author is alleged in L. Ait Praetor, paragr. ult. ff. de minor.

Chapter 3.XIII.-How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of his marriage by dreams.

Now, seeing we cannot agree together in the manner of expounding or interpreting the sense of the Virgilian lots, let us bend our course another way, and try a new sort of divination. Of what kind? asked Panurge. Of a good ancient and authentic fas.h.i.+on, answered Pantagruel; it is by dreams. For in dreaming, such circ.u.mstances and conditions being thereto adhibited, as are clearly enough described by Hippocrates, in Lib. Peri ton enupnion, by Plato, Plotin, Iamblicus, Sinesius, Aristotle, Xenophon, Galen, Plutarch, Artemidorus, Daldia.n.u.s, Herophilus, Q. Calaber, Theocritus, Pliny, Athenaeus, and others, the soul doth oftentimes foresee what is to come. How true this is, you may conceive by a very vulgar and familiar example; as when you see that at such a time as suckling babes, well nourished, fed, and fostered with good milk, sleep soundly and profoundly, the nurses in the interim get leave to sport themselves, and are licentiated to recreate their fancies at what range to them shall seem most fitting and expedient, their presence, sedulity, and attendance on the cradle being, during all that s.p.a.ce, held unnecessary. Even just so, when our body is at rest, that the concoction is everywhere accomplished, and that, till it awake, it lacks for nothing, our soul delighteth to disport itself and is well pleased in that frolic to take a review of its native country, which is the heavens, where it receiveth a most notable partic.i.p.ation of its first beginning with an imbuement from its divine source, and in contemplation of that infinite and intellectual sphere, whereof the centre is everywhere, and the circ.u.mference in no place of the universal world, to wit, G.o.d, according to the doctrine of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom no new thing happeneth, whom nothing that is past escapeth, and unto whom all things are alike present, remarketh not only what is preterit and gone in the inferior course and agitation of sublunary matters, but withal taketh notice what is to come; then bringing a relation of those future events unto the body of the outward senses and exterior organs, it is divulged abroad unto the hearing of others. Whereupon the owner of that soul deserveth to be termed a vaticinator, or prophet. Nevertheless, the truth is, that the soul is seldom able to report those things in such sincerity as it hath seen them, by reason of the imperfection and frailty of the corporeal senses, which obstruct the effectuating of that office; even as the moon doth not communicate unto this earth of ours that light which she receiveth from the sun with so much splendour, heat, vigour, purity, and liveliness as it was given her. Hence it is requisite for the better reading, explaining, and unfolding of these somniatory vaticinations and predictions of that nature, that a dexterous, learned, skilful, wise, industrious, expert, rational, and peremptory expounder or interpreter be pitched upon, such a one as by the Greeks is called onirocrit, or oniropolist. For this cause Herac.l.i.tus was wont to say that nothing is by dreams revealed to us, that nothing is by dreams concealed from us, and that only we thereby have a mystical signification and secret evidence of things to come, either for our own prosperous or unlucky fortune, or for the favourable or disastrous success of another. The sacred Scriptures testify no less, and profane histories a.s.sure us of it, in both which are exposed to our view a thousand several kinds of strange adventures, which have befallen pat according to the nature of the dream, and that as well to the party dreamer as to others. The Atlantic people, and those that inhabit the (is)land of Thasos, one of the Cyclades, are of this grand commodity deprived; for in their countries none yet ever dreamed. Of this sort (were) Cleon of Daulia, Thrasymedes, and in our days the learned Frenchman Villanova.n.u.s, neither of all which knew what dreaming was.

Fail not therefore to-morrow, when the jolly and fair Aurora with her rosy fingers draweth aside the curtains of the night to drive away the sable shades of darkness, to bend your spirits wholly to the task of sleeping sound, and thereto apply yourself. In the meanwhile you must denude your mind of every human pa.s.sion or affection, such as are love and hatred, fear and hope, for as of old the great vaticinator, most famous and renowned prophet Proteus, was not able in his disguise or transformation into fire, water, a tiger, a dragon, and other such like uncouth shapes and visors, to presage anything that was to come till he was restored to his own first natural and kindly form; just so doth man; for, at his reception of the art of divination and faculty of prognosticating future things, that part in him which is the most divine, to wit, the Nous, or Mens, must be calm, peaceable, untroubled, quiet, still, hushed, and not embusied or distracted with foreign, soul-disturbing perturbations. I am content, quoth Panurge. But, I pray you, sir, must I this evening, ere I go to bed, eat much or little? I do not ask this without cause. For if I sup not well, large, round, and amply, my sleeping is not worth a forked turnip. All the night long I then but doze and rave, and in my slumbering fits talk idle nonsense, my thoughts being in a dull brown study, and as deep in their dumps as is my belly hollow.

Not to sup, answered Pantagruel, were best for you, considering the state of your complexion and healthy const.i.tution of your body. A certain very ancient prophet, named Amphiaraus, wished such as had a mind by dreams to be imbued with any oracle, for four-and-twenty hours to taste no victuals, and to abstain from wine three days together. Yet shall not you be put to such a sharp, hard, rigorous, and extreme sparing diet. I am truly right apt to believe that a man whose stomach is replete with various cheer, and in a manner surfeited with drinking, is hardly able to conceive aright of spiritual things; yet am not I of the opinion of those who, after long and pertinacious fastings, think by such means to enter more profoundly into the speculation of celestial mysteries. You may very well remember how my father Gargantua (whom here for honour sake I name) hath often told us that the writings of abstinent, abstemious, and long-fasting hermits were every whit as saltless, dry, jejune, and insipid as were their bodies when they did compose them. It is a most difficult thing for the spirits to be in a good plight, serene and lively, when there is nothing in the body but a kind of voidness and inanity; seeing the philosophers with the physicians jointly affirm that the spirits which are styled animal spring from, and have their constant practice in and through the arterial blood, refined and purified to the life within the admirable net which, wonderfully framed, lieth under the ventricles and tunnels of the brain. He gave us also the example of the philosopher who, when he thought most seriously to have withdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from the rustling clutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the better to improve his theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was, notwithstanding his uttermost endeavours to free himself from all untoward noises, surrounded and environed about so with the barking of curs, bawling of mastiffs, bleating of sheep, prating of parrots, tattling of jackdaws, grunting of swine, girning of boars, yelping of foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping of mice, squeaking of weasels, croaking of frogs, crowing of c.o.c.ks, cackling of hens, calling of partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of swallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckoos, b.u.mbling of bees, rammage of hawks, chirming of linnets, croaking of ravens, screeching of owls, whicking of pigs, gus.h.i.+ng of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of cushat-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of sparrows, crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabbits, cricking of ferrets, humming of wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings, clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes, warbling of nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys, coniating of storks, frantling of peac.o.c.ks, clattering of magpies, murmuring of stock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats, guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkeys, pioling of pelicans, quacking of ducks, yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying of elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was much more troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair of Fontenay or Niort. Just so is it with those who are tormented with the grievous pangs of hunger. The stomach begins to gnaw, and bark, as it were, the eyes to look dim, and the veins, by greedily sucking some refection to themselves from the proper substance of all the members of a fleshy consistence, violently pull down and draw back that vagrant, roaming spirit, careless and neglecting of his nurse and natural host, which is the body; as when a hawk upon the fist, willing to take her flight by a soaring aloft in the open s.p.a.cious air, is on a sudden drawn back by a leash tied to her feet.

To this purpose also did he allege unto us the authority of Homer, the father of all philosophy, who said that the Grecians did not put an end to their mournful mood for the death of Patroclus, the most intimate friend of Achilles, till hunger in a rage declared herself, and their bellies protested to furnish no more tears unto their grief. For from bodies emptied and macerated by long fasting there could not be such supply of moisture and brackish drops as might be proper on that occasion.

Mediocrity at all times is commendable; nor in this case are you to abandon it. You may take a little supper, but thereat must you not eat of a hare, nor of any other flesh. You are likewise to abstain from beans, from the preak, by some called the polyp, as also from coleworts, cabbage, and all other such like windy victuals, which may endanger the troubling of your brains and the dimming or casting a kind of mist over your animal spirits. For, as a looking-gla.s.s cannot exhibit the semblance or representation of the object set before it, and exposed to have its image to the life expressed, if that the polished sleekedness thereof be darkened by gross breathings, dampish vapours, and foggy, thick, infectious exhalations, even so the fancy cannot well receive the impression of the likeness of those things which divination doth afford by dreams, if any way the body be annoyed or troubled with the fumish steam of meat which it had taken in a while before; because betwixt these two there still hath been a mutual sympathy and fellow-feeling of an indissolubly knit affection. You shall eat good Eusebian and Bergamot pears, one apple of the short-shank pippin kind, a parcel of the little plums of Tours, and some few cherries of the growth of my orchard. Nor shall you need to fear that thereupon will ensue doubtful dreams, fallacious, uncertain, and not to be trusted to, as by some peripatetic philosophers hath been related; for that, say they, men do more copiously in the season of harvest feed on fruitages than at any other time. The same is mystically taught us by the ancient prophets and poets, who allege that all vain and deceitful dreams lie hid and in covert under the leaves which are spread on the ground-by reason that the leaves fall from the trees in the autumnal quarter. For the natural fervour which, abounding in ripe, fresh, recent fruits, cometh by the quickness of its ebullition to be with ease evaporated into the animal parts of the dreaming person-the experiment is obvious in most-is a pretty while before it be expired, dissolved, and evanished. As for your drink, you are to have it of the fair, pure water of my fountain.

The condition, quoth Panurge, is very hard. Nevertheless, cost what price it will, or whatsoever come of it, I heartily condescend thereto; protesting that I shall to-morrow break my fast betimes after my somniatory exercitations. Furthermore, I recommend myself to Homer's two gates, to Morpheus, to Iselon, to Phantasus, and unto Phobetor. If they in this my great need succour me and grant me that a.s.sistance which is fitting, I will in honour of them all erect a jolly, genteel altar, composed of the softest down. If I were now in Laconia, in the temple of Juno, betwixt Oetile and Thalamis, she suddenly would disentangle my perplexity, resolve me of my doubts, and cheer me up with fair and jovial dreams in a deep sleep.

Then did he say thus unto Pantagruel: Sir, were it not expedient for my purpose to put a branch or two of curious laurel betwixt the quilt and bolster of my bed, under the pillow on which my head must lean? There is no need at all of that, quoth Pantagruel; for, besides that it is a thing very superst.i.tious, the cheat thereof hath been at large discovered unto us in the writings of Serapion, Ascalonites, Antiphon, Philochorus, Artemon, and Fulgentius Planciades. I could say as much to you of the left shoulder of a crocodile, as also of a chameleon, without prejudice be it spoken to the credit which is due to the opinion of old Democritus; and likewise of the stone of the Bactrians, called Eumetrides, and of the Ammonian horn; for so by the Aethiopians is termed a certain precious stone, coloured like gold, and in the fas.h.i.+on, shape, form, and proportion of a ram's horn, as the horn of Jupiter Ammon is reported to have been: they over and above a.s.suredly affirming that the dreams of those who carry it about them are no less veritable and infallible than the truth of the divine oracles. Nor is this much unlike to what Homer and Virgil wrote of these two gates of sleep, to which you have been pleased to recommend the management of what you have in hand. The one is of ivory, which letteth in confused, doubtful, and uncertain dreams; for through ivory, how small and slender soever it be, we can see nothing, the density, opacity, and close compactedness of its material parts hindering the penetration of the visual rays and the reception of the specieses of such things as are visible. The other is of horn, at which an entry is made to sure and certain dreams, even as through horn, by reason of the diaphanous splendour and bright transparency thereof, the species of all objects of the sight distinctly pa.s.s, and so without confusion appear, that they are clearly seen. Your meaning is, and you would thereby infer, quoth Friar John, that the dreams of all horned cuckolds, of which number Panurge, by the help of G.o.d and his future wife, is without controversy to be one, are always true and infallible.

Chapter 3.XIV.-Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof.

At seven o'clock of the next following morning Panurge did not fail to present himself before Pantagruel, in whose chamber were at that time Epistemon, Friar John of the Funnels, Ponocrates, Eudemon, Carpalin, and others, to whom, at the entry of Panurge, Pantagruel said, Lo! here cometh our dreamer. That word, quoth Epistemon, in ancient times cost very much, and was dearly sold to the children of Jacob. Then said Panurge, I have been plunged into my dumps so deeply, as if I had been lodged with Gaffer Noddy-cap. Dreamed indeed I have, and that right l.u.s.tily; but I could take along with me no more thereof that I did goodly understand save only that I in my vision had a pretty, fair, young, gallant, handsome woman, who no less lovingly and kindly treated and entertained me, hugged, cherished, c.o.c.kered, dandled, and made much of me, as if I had been another neat dilly-darling minion, like Adonis. Never was man more glad than I was then; my joy at that time was incomparable. She flattered me, tickled me, stroked me, groped me, frizzled me, curled me, kissed me, embraced me, laid her hands about my neck, and now and then made jestingly pretty little horns above my forehead. I told her in the like disport, as I did play the fool with her, that she should rather place and fix them in a little below mine eyes, that I might see the better what I should stick at with them; for, being so situated, Momus then would find no fault therewith, as he did once with the position of the horns of bulls. The wanton, toying girl, notwithstanding any remonstrance of mine to the contrary, did always drive and thrust them further in; yet thereby, which to me seemed wonderful, she did not do me any hurt at all. A little after, though I know not how, I thought I was transformed into a tabor, and she into a chough.

My sleeping there being interrupted, I awaked in a start, angry, displeased, perplexed, chafing, and very wroth. There have you a large platterful of dreams, make thereupon good cheer, and, if you please, spare not to interpret them according to the understanding which you may have in them. Come, Carpalin, let us to breakfast. To my sense and meaning, quoth Pantagruel, if I have skill or knowledge in the art of divination by dreams, your wife will not really, and to the outward appearance of the world, plant or set horns, and stick them fast in your forehead, after a visible manner, as satyrs use to wear and carry them; but she will be so far from preserving herself loyal in the discharge and observance of a conjugal duty, that, on the contrary, she will violate her plighted faith, break her marriage-oath, infringe all matrimonial ties, prost.i.tute her body to the dalliance of other men, and so make you a cuckold. This point is clearly and manifestly explained and expounded by Artemidorus just as I have related it. Nor will there be any metamorphosis or trans.m.u.tation made of you into a drum or tabor, but you will surely be as soundly beaten as ever was tabor at a merry wedding. Nor yet will she be changed into a chough, but will steal from you, chiefly in the night, as is the nature of that thievish bird. Hereby may you perceive your dreams to be in every jot conform and agreeable to the Virgilian lots. A cuckold you will be, beaten and robbed. Then cried out Father John with a loud voice, He tells the truth; upon my conscience, thou wilt be a cuckold-an honest one, I warrant thee. O the brave horns that will be borne by thee! Ha, ha, ha! Our good Master de Cornibus. G.o.d save thee, and s.h.i.+eld thee! Wilt thou be pleased to preach but two words of a sermon to us, and I will go through the parish church to gather up alms for the poor.

You are, quoth Panurge, very far mistaken in your interpretation; for the matter is quite contrary to your sense thereof. My dream presageth that I shall by marriage be stored with plenty of all manner of goods-the hornifying of me showing that I will possess a cornucopia, that Amalthaean horn which is called the horn of abundance, whereof the fruition did still portend the wealth of the enjoyer. You possibly will say that they are rather like to be satyr's horns; for you of these did make some mention. Amen, Amen, Fiat, fiatur, ad differentiam papae. Thus shall I have my touch-her-home still ready. My staff of love, sempiternally in a good case, will, satyr-like, be never toiled out-a thing which all men wish for, and send up their prayers to that purpose, but such a thing as nevertheless is granted but to a few. Hence doth it follow by a consequence as clear as the sunbeams that I will never be in the danger of being made a cuckold, for the defect hereof is Causa sine qua non; yea, the sole cause, as many think, of making husbands cuckolds. What makes poor scoundrel rogues to beg, I pray you? Is it not because they have not enough at home wherewith to fill their bellies and their pokes? What is it makes the wolves to leave the woods? Is it not the want of flesh meat? What maketh women wh.o.r.es? You understand me well enough. And herein may I very well submit my opinion to the judgment of learned lawyers, presidents, counsellors, advocates, procurers, attorneys, and other glossers and commentators on the venerable rubric, De frigidis et maleficiatis. You are, in truth, sir, as it seems to me (excuse my boldness if I have transgressed), in a most palpable and absurd error to attribute my horns to cuckoldry. Diana wears them on her head after the manner of a crescent. Is she a cucquean for that? How the devil can she be cuckolded who never yet was married? Speak somewhat more correctly, I beseech you, lest she, being offended, furnish you with a pair of horns shapen by the pattern of those which she made for Actaeon. The goodly Bacchus also carries horns, -Pan, Jupiter Ammon, with a great many others. Are they all cuckolds? If Jove be a cuckold, Juno is a wh.o.r.e. This follows by the figure metalepsis: as to call a child, in the presence of his father and mother, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, or wh.o.r.e's son, is tacitly and underboard no less than if he had said openly the father is a cuckold and his wife a punk. Let our discourse come nearer to the purpose. The horns that my wife did make me are horns of abundance, planted and grafted in my head for the increase and shooting up of all good things. This will I affirm for truth, upon my word, and p.a.w.n my faith and credit both upon it. As for the rest, I will be no less joyful, frolic, glad, cheerful, merry, jolly, and gamesome, than a well-bended tabor in the hands of a good drummer at a nuptial feast, still making a noise, still rolling, still buzzing and cracking. Believe me, sir, in that consisteth none of my least good fortunes. And my wife will be jocund, feat, compt, neat, quaint, dainty, trim, tricked up, brisk, smirk, and smug, even as a pretty little Cornish chough. Who will not believe this, let h.e.l.l or the gallows be the burden of his Christmas carol.

I remark, quoth Pantagruel, the last point or particle which you did speak of, and, having seriously conferred it with the first, find that at the beginning you were delighted with the sweetness of your dream; but in the end and final closure of it you startingly awaked, and on a sudden were forthwith vexed in choler and annoyed. Yea, quoth Panurge, the reason of that was because I had fasted too long. Flatter not yourself, quoth Pantagruel; all will go to ruin. Know for a certain truth, that every sleep that endeth with a starting, and leaves the person irksome, grieved, and fretting, doth either signify a present evil, or otherwise presageth and portendeth a future imminent mishap. To signify an evil, that is to say, to show some sickness hardly curable, a kind of pestilentious or malignant boil, botch, or sore, lying and lurking hid, occult, and latent within the very centre of the body, which many times doth by the means of sleep, whose nature is to reinforce and strengthen the faculty and virtue of concoction, being according to the theorems of physic to declare itself, and moves toward the outward superficies. At this sad stirring is the sleeper's rest and ease disturbed and broken, whereof the first feeling and stinging smart admonisheth that he must patiently endure great pain and trouble, and thereunto provide some remedy; as when we say proverbially, to incense hornets, to move a stinking puddle, and to awake a sleeping lion, instead of these more usual expressions, and of a more familiar and plain meaning, to provoke angry persons, to make a thing the worse by meddling with it, and to irritate a testy choleric man when he is at quiet. On the other part, to presage or foretell an evil, especially in what concerneth the exploits of the soul in matter of somnial divinations, is as much to say as that it giveth us to understand that some dismal fortune or mischance is destinated and prepared for us, which shortly will not fail to come to pa.s.s. A clear and evident example hereof is to be found in the dream and dreadful awaking of Hecuba, as likewise in that of Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, neither of which was (no) sooner finished, saith Ennius, but that incontinently thereafter they awaked in a start, and were affrighted horribly. Thereupon these accidents ensued: Hecuba had her husband Priamus, together with her children, slain before her eyes, and saw then the destruction of her country; and Eurydice died speedily thereafter in a most miserable manner. Aeneas, dreaming that he spoke to Hector a little after his decease, did on a sudden in a great start awake, and was afraid. Now hereupon did follow this event: Troy that same night was spoiled, sacked, and burnt. At another time the same Aeneas dreaming that he saw his familiar geniuses and penates, in a ghastly fright and astonishment awaked, of which terror and amazement the issue was, that the very next day subsequent, by a most horrible tempest on the sea, he was like to have perished and been cast away. Moreover, Turnus being prompted, instigated, and stirred up by the fantastic vision of an infernal fury to enter into a b.l.o.o.d.y war against Aeneas, awaked in a start much troubled and disquieted in spirit; in sequel whereof, after many notable and famous routs, defeats, and discomfitures in open field, he came at last to be killed in a single combat by the said Aeneas. A thousand other instances I could afford, if it were needful, of this matter. Whilst I relate these stories of Aeneas, remark the saying of Fabius Pictor, who faithfully averred that nothing had at any time befallen unto, was done, or enterprised by him, whereof he preallably had not notice, and beforehand foreseen it to the full, by sure predictions altogether founded on the oracles of somnial divination. To this there is no want of pregnant reasons, no more than of examples. For if repose and rest in sleeping be a special gift and favour of the G.o.ds, as is maintained by the philosophers, and by the poet attested in these lines, Then sleep, that heavenly gift, came to refresh Of human labourers the wearied flesh; such a gift or benefit can never finish or terminate in wrath and indignation without portending some unlucky fate and most disastrous fortune to ensue. Otherwise it were a molestation, and not an ease; a scourge, and not a gift; at least, (not) proceeding from the G.o.ds above, but from the infernal devils our enemies, according to the common vulgar saying.

Suppose the lord, father, or master of a family, sitting at a very sumptuous dinner, furnished with all manner of good cheer, and having at his entry to the table his appet.i.te sharp set upon his victuals, whereof there was great plenty, should be seen rise in a start, and on a sudden fling out of his chair, abandoning his meat, frighted, appalled, and in a horrid terror, who should not know the cause hereof would wonder, and be astonished exceedingly. But what? he heard his male servants cry, Fire, fire, fire, fire! his serving-maids and women yell, Stop thief, stop thief! and all his children shout as loud as ever they could, Murder, O murder, murder! Then was it not high time for him to leave his banqueting, for application of a remedy in haste, and to give speedy order for succouring of his distressed household? Truly I remember that the Cabalists and Ma.s.sorets, interpreters of the sacred Scriptures, in treating how with verity one might judge of evangelical apparitions (because oftentimes the angel of Satan is disguised and transfigured into an angel of light), said that the difference of these two mainly did consist in this: the favourable and comforting angel useth in his appearing unto man at first to terrify and hugely affright him, but in the end he bringeth consolation, leaveth the person who hath seen him joyful, well-pleased, fully content, and satisfied; on the other side, the angel of perdition, that wicked, devilish, and malignant spirit, at his appearance unto any person in the beginning cheereth up the heart of his beholder, but at last forsakes him, and leaves him troubled, angry, and perplexed.

Chapter 3.XV.-Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery concerning powdered beef.

The Lord save those who see, and do not hear! quoth Panurge. I see you well enough, but know not what it is that you have said. The hunger-starved belly wanteth ears. For lack of victuals, before G.o.d, I roar, bray, yell, and fume as in a furious madness. I have performed too hard a task to-day, an extraordinary work indeed. He shall be craftier, and do far greater wonders than ever did Mr. Mush, who shall be able any more this year to bring me on the stage of preparation for a dreaming verdict. Fie! not to sup at all, that is the devil. Pox take that fas.h.i.+on! Come, Friar John, let us go break our fast; for, if I hit on such a round refection in the morning as will serve thoroughly to fill the mill-hopper and hogs-hide of my stomach, and furnish it with meat and drink sufficient, then at a pinch, as in the case of some extreme necessity which presseth, I could make a s.h.i.+ft that day to forbear dining. But not to sup! A plague rot that base custom, which is an error offensive to Nature! That lady made the day for exercise, to travel, work, wait on and labour in each his negotiation and employment; and that we may with the more fervency and ardour prosecute our business, she sets before us a clear burning candle, to wit, the sun's resplendency; and at night, when she begins to take the light from us, she thereby tacitly implies no less than if she would have spoken thus unto us: My lads and la.s.ses, all of you are good and honest folks, you have wrought well to-day, toiled and turmoiled enough,-the night approacheth,-therefore cast off these moiling cares of yours, desist from all your swinking painful labours, and set your minds how to refresh your bodies in the renewing of their vigour with good bread, choice wine, and store of wholesome meats; then may you take some sport and recreation, and after that lie down and rest yourselves, that you may strongly, nimbly, l.u.s.tily, and with the more alacrity to-morrow attend on your affairs as formerly.

Falconers, in like manner, when they have fed their hawks, will not suffer them to fly on a full gorge, but let them on a perch abide a little, that they may rouse, bait, tower, and soar the better. That good pope who was the first inst.i.tutor of fasting understood this well enough; for he ordained that our fast should reach but to the hour of noon; all the remainder of that day was at our disposure, freely to eat and feed at any time thereof. In ancient times there were but few that dined, as you would say, some church men, monks and canons; for they have little other occupation. Each day is a festival unto them, who diligently heed the claustral proverb, De missa ad mensam. They do not use to linger and defer their sitting down and placing of themselves at table, only so long as they have a mind in waiting for the coming of the abbot; so they fell to without ceremony, terms, or conditions; and everybody supped, unless it were some vain, conceited, dreaming dotard. Hence was a supper called coena, which showeth that it is common to all sorts of people. Thou knowest it well, Friar John. Come, let us go, my dear friend, in the name of all the devils of the infernal regions, let us go. The gnawings of my stomach in this rage of hunger are so tearing, that they make it bark like a mastiff. Let us throw some bread and beef into his throat to pacify him, as once the sibyl did to Cerberus. Thou likest best monastical brewis, the prime, the flower of the pot. I am for the solid, princ.i.p.al verb that comes after -the good brown loaf, always accompanied with a round slice of the nine-lecture-powdered labourer. I know thy meaning, answered Friar John; this metaphor is extracted out of the claustral kettle. The labourer is the ox that hath wrought and done the labour; after the fas.h.i.+on of nine lectures, that is to say, most exquisitely well and thoroughly boiled. These holy religious fathers, by a certain cabalistic inst.i.tution of the ancients, not written, but carefully by tradition conveyed from hand to hand, rising betimes to go to morning prayers, were wont to flourish that their matutinal devotion with some certain notable preambles before their entry into the church, viz., they dunged in the dungeries, p.i.s.sed in the p.i.s.series, spit in the spitteries, melodiously coughed in the cougheries, and doted in their dotaries, that to the divine service they might not bring anything that was unclean or foul. These things thus done, they very zealously made their repair to the Holy Chapel, for so was in their canting language termed the convent kitchen, where they with no small earnestness had care that the beef-pot should be put on the crook for the breakfast of the religious brothers of our Lord and Saviour; and the fire they would kindle under the pot themselves. Now, the matins consisting of nine lessons, (it) it was so inc.u.mbent on them, that must have risen the rather for the more expedite despatching of them all. The sooner that they rose, the sharper was their appet.i.te and the barkings of their stomachs, and the gnawings increased in the like proportion, and consequently made these G.o.dly men thrice more a-hungered and athirst than when their matins were hemmed over only with three lessons. The more betimes they rose, by the said cabal, the sooner was the beef-pot put on; the longer that the beef was on the fire, the better it was boiled; the more it boiled, it was the tenderer; the tenderer that it was, the less it troubled the teeth, delighted more the palate, less charged the stomach, and nourished our good religious men the more substantially; which is the only end and prime intention of the first founders, as appears by this, that they eat not to live, but live to eat, and in this world have nothing but their life. Let us go, Panurge.

Now have I understood thee, quoth Panurge, my plushcod friar, my caballine and claustral ballock. I freely quit the costs, interest, and charges, seeing you have so egregiously commented upon the most especial chapter of the culinary and monastic cabal. Come along, my Carpalin, and you, Friar John, my leather-dresser. Good morrow to you all, my good lords; I have dreamed too much to have so little. Let us go. Panurge had no sooner done speaking than Epistemon with a loud voice said these words: It is a very ordinary and common thing amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, and presage the misfortune, bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have the understanding, providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man's own mishap is very scarce and rare to be found anywhere. This is exceeding judiciously and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who there affirmeth that every man in the world carrieth about his neck a wallet, in the fore-bag whereof were contained the faults and mischances of others always exposed to his view and knowledge; and in the other scrip thereof, which hangs behind, are kept the bearer's proper transgressions and inauspicious adventures, at no time seen by him, nor thought upon, unless he be a person that hath a favourable aspect from the heavens.

Chapter 3.XVI.-How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibyl of Panzoust.