by Неизвестный
Chapter 4.XXXIII. How Pantagruel discovered a monstrous physeter, or whirlpool, near the Wild Island.
About sunset, coming near the Wild Island, Pantagruel spied afar off a huge monstrous physeter (a sort of whale, which some call a whirlpool), that came right upon us, neighing, snorting, raised above the waves higher than our main-tops, and spouting water all the way into the air before itself, like a large river falling from a mountain. Pantagruel showed it to the pilot and to Xenomanes.
By the pilot's advice the trumpets of the Thalamege were sounded to warn all the fleet to stand close and look to themselves. This alarm being given, all the ships, galleons, frigates, brigantines, according to their naval discipline, placed themselves in the order and figure of an (Greek) (upsilon), the letter of Pythagoras, as cranes do in their flight, and like an acute angle, in whose cone and basis the Thalamege placed herself ready to fight smartly. Friar John with the grenadiers got on the forecastle.
Poor Panurge began to cry and howl worse than ever. Babille-babou, said he, shrugging up his shoulders, quivering all over with fear, there will be the devil upon dun. This is a worse business than that t'other day. Let us fly, let us fly; old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan, described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job. It will swallow us all, ships and men, shag, rag, and bobtail, like a dose of pills. Alas! it will make no more of us, and we shall hold no more room in its hellish jaws, than a sugarplum in an ass's throat. Look, look, 'tis upon us; let us wheel off, whip it away, and get ashore. I believe 'tis the very individual sea-monster that was formerly designed to devour Andromeda; we are all undone. Oh! for some valiant Perseus here now to kill the dog.
I'll do its business presently, said Pantagruel; fear nothing. Ods-belly, said Panurge, remove the cause of my fear then. When the devil would you have a man be afraid but when there is so much cause? If your destiny be such as Friar John was saying a while ago, replied Pantagruel, you ought to be afraid of Pyroeis, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon, the sun's coach-horses, that breathe fire at the nostrils; and not of physeters, that spout nothing but water at the snout and mouth. Their water will not endanger your life; and that element will rather save and preserve than hurt or endanger you.
Ay, ay, trust to that, and hang me, quoth Panurge; yours is a very pretty fancy. Ods-fish! did I not give you a sufficient account of the elements' transmutation, and the blunders that are made of roast for boiled, and boiled for roast? Alas! here 'tis; I'll go hide myself below. We are dead men, every mother's son of us. I see upon our main-top that merciless hag Atropos, with her scissors new ground, ready to cut our threads all at one snip. Oh! how dreadful and abominable thou art; thou hast drowned a good many beside us, who never made their brags of it. Did it but spout good, brisk, dainty, delicious white wine, instead of this damned bitter salt water, one might better bear with it, and there would be some cause to be patient; like that English lord, who being doomed to die, and had leave to choose what kind of death he would, chose to be drowned in a butt of malmsey. Here it is. Oh, oh! devil! Sathanas! Leviathan! I cannot abide to look upon thee, thou art so abominably ugly. Go to the bar, go take the pettifoggers.
Chapter 4.XXXIV. How the monstrous physeter was slain by Pantagruel.
The physeter, coming between the ships and the galleons, threw water by whole tuns upon them, as if it had been the cataracts of the Nile in Ethiopia. On the other side, arrows, darts, gleaves, javelins, spears, harping-irons, and partizans, flew upon it like hail. Friar John did not spare himself in it. Panurge was half dead for fear. The artillery roared and thundered like mad, and seemed to gall it in good earnest, but did but little good; for the great iron and brass cannon-shot entering its skin seemed to melt like tiles in the sun.
Pantagruel then, considering the weight and exigency of the matter, stretched out his arms and showed what he could do. You tell us, and it is recorded, that Commudus, the Roman emperor, could shoot with a bow so dexterously that at a good distance he would let fly an arrow through a child's fingers and never touch them. You also tell us of an Indian archer, who lived when Alexander the Great conquered India, and was so skilful in drawing the bow, that at a considerable distance he would shoot his arrows through a ring, though they were three cubits long, and their iron so large and weighty that with them he used to pierce steel cutlasses, thick shields, steel breastplates, and generally what he did hit, how firm, resisting, hard, and strong soever it were. You also tell us wonders of the industry of the ancient Franks, who were preferred to all others in point of archery; and when they hunted either black or dun beasts, used to rub the head of their arrows with hellebore, because the flesh of the venison struck with such an arrow was more tender, dainty, wholesome, and delicious--paring off, nevertheless, the part that was touched round about. You also talk of the Parthians, who used to shoot backwards more dexterously than other nations forwards; and also celebrate the skill of the Scythians in that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, an ambassador that made him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, without speaking one word; and being asked what those presents meant, and if he had commission to say anything, answered that he had not; which puzzled and gravelled Darius very much, till Gobrias, one of the seven captains that had killed the magi, explained it, saying to Darius: By these gifts and offerings the Scythians silently tell you that except the Persians like birds fly up to heaven, or like mice hide themselves near the centre of the earth, or like frogs dive to the very bottom of ponds and lakes, they shall be destroyed by the power and arrows of the Scythians.
The noble Pantagruel was, without comparison, more admirable yet in the art of shooting and darting; for with his dreadful piles and darts, nearly resembling the huge beams that support the bridges of Nantes, Saumur, Bergerac, and at Paris the millers' and the changers' bridges, in length, size, weight, and iron-work, he at a mile's distance would open an oyster and never touch the edges; he would snuff a candle without putting it out; would shoot a magpie in the eye; take off a boot's under-sole, or a riding- hood's lining, without soiling them a bit; turn over every leaf of Friar John's breviary, one after another, and not tear one.
With such darts, of which there was good store in the ship, at the first blow he ran the physeter in at the forehead so furiously that he pierced both its jaws and tongue; so that from that time to this it no more opened its guttural trapdoor, nor drew and spouted water. At the second blow he put out its right eye, and at the third its left; and we had all the pleasure to see the physeter bearing those three horns in its forehead, somewhat leaning forwards in an equilateral triangle.
Meanwhile it turned about to and fro, staggering and straying like one stunned, blinded, and taking his leave of the world. Pantagruel, not satisfied with this, let fly another dart, which took the monster under the tail likewise sloping; then with three other on the chine, in a perpendicular line, divided its flank from the tail to the snout at an equal distance. Then he larded it with fifty on one side, and after that, to make even work, he darted as many on its other side; so that the body of the physeter seemed like the hulk of a galleon with three masts, joined by a competent dimension of its beams, as if they had been the ribs and chain- wales of the keel; which was a pleasant sight. The physeter then giving up the ghost, turned itself upon its back, as all dead fishes do; and being thus overturned, with the beams and darts upside down in the sea, it seemed a scolopendra or centipede, as that serpent is described by the ancient sage Nicander.
Chapter 4.XXXV. How Pantagruel went on shore in the Wild Island, the ancient abode of the Chitterlings.
The boat's crew of the ship Lantern towed the physeter ashore on the neighbouring shore, which happened to be the Wild Island, to make an anatomical dissection of its body and save the fat of its kidneys, which, they said, was very useful and necessary for the cure of a certain distemper, which they called want of money. As for Pantagruel, he took no manner of notice of the monster; for he had seen many such, nay, bigger, in the Gallic ocean. Yet
he condescended to land in the Wild Island, to dry and refresh some of his men (whom the physeter had wetted and bedaubed), at a small desert seaport towards the south, seated near a fine pleasant grove, out of which flowed a delicious brook of fresh, clear, and purling water. Here they pitched their tents and set up their kitchens; nor did they spare fuel.
Everyone having shifted as they thought fit, Friar John rang the bell, and the cloth was immediately laid, and supper brought in. Pantagruel eating cheerfully with his men, much about the second course perceived certain little sly Chitterlings clambering up a high tree near the pantry, as still as so many mice. Which made him ask Xenomanes what kind of creatures these were, taking them for squirrels, weasels, martins, or ermines. They are Chitterlings, replied Xenomanes. This is the Wild Island of which I spoke to you this morning; there hath been an irreconcilable war this long time between them and Shrovetide, their malicious and ancient enemy. I believe that the noise of the guns which we fired at the physeter hath alarmed them, and made them fear their enemy was come with his forces to surprise them, or lay the island waste, as he hath often attempted to do; though he still came off but bluely, by reason of the care and vigilance of the Chitterlings, who (as Dido said to Aeneas's companions that would have landed at Carthage without her leave or knowledge) were forced to watch and stand upon their guard, considering the malice of their enemy and the neighbourhood of his territories.
Pray, dear friend, said Pantagruel, if you find that by some honest means we may bring this war to an end, and reconcile them together, give notice of it; I will use my endeavours in it with all my heart, and spare nothing on my side to moderate and accommodate the points in dispute between both parties.
That's impossible at this time, answered Xenomanes. About four years ago, passing incognito by this country, I endeavoured to make a peace, or at least a long truce among them; and I had certainly brought them to be good friends and neighbours if both one and the other parties would have yielded to one single article. Shrovetide would not include in the treaty of peace the wild puddings nor the highland sausages, their ancient gossips and confederates. The Chitterlings demanded that the fort of Cacques might be under their government, as is the Castle of Sullouoir, and that a parcel of I don't know what stinking villains, murderers, robbers, that held it then, should be expelled. But they could not agree in this, and the terms that were offered seemed too hard to either party. So the treaty broke off, and nothing was done. Nevertheless, they became less severe, and gentler enemies than they were before; but since the denunciation of the national Council of Chesil, whereby they were roughly handled, hampered, and cited; whereby also Shrovetide was declared filthy, beshitten, and berayed, in case he made any league or agreement with them; they are grown wonderfully inveterate, incensed, and obstinate against one another, and there is no way to remedy it. You might sooner reconcile cats and rats, or hounds and hares together.
Chapter 4.XXXVI. How the wild Chitterlings laid an ambuscado for Pantagruel.
While Xenomanes was saying this, Friar John spied twenty or thirty young slender-shaped Chitterlings posting as fast as they could towards their town, citadel, castle, and fort of Chimney, and said to Pantagruel, I smell a rat; there will be here the devil upon two sticks, or I am much out. These worshipful Chitterlings may chance to mistake you for Shrovetide, though you are not a bit like him. Let us once in our lives leave our junketing for a while, and put ourselves in a posture to give 'em a bellyful of fighting, if they would be at that sport. There can be no false Latin in this, said Xenomanes; Chitterlings are still Chitterlings, always double-hearted and treacherous.
Pantagruel then arose from table to visit and scour the thicket, and returned presently; having discovered, on the left, an ambuscade of squab Chitterlings; and on the right, about half a league from thence, a large body of huge giant-like armed Chitterlings ranged in battalia along a little hill, and marching furiously towards us at the sound of bagpipes, sheep's paunches, and bladders, the merry fifes and drums, trumpets, and clarions, hoping to catch us as Moss caught his mare. By the conjecture of seventy-eight standards which we told, we guessed their number to be two and forty thousand, at a modest computation.
Their order, proud gait, and resolute looks made us judge that they were none of your raw, paltry links, but old warlike Chitterlings and Sausages. From the foremost ranks to the colours they were all armed cap-a-pie with small arms, as we reckoned them at a distance, yet very sharp and case- hardened. Their right and left wings were lined with a great number of forest puddings, heavy pattipans, and horse sausages, all of them tall and proper islanders, banditti, and wild.
Pantagruel was very much daunted, and not without cause; though Epistemon told him that it might be the use and custom of the Chitterlingonians to welcome and receive thus in arms their foreign friends, as the noble kings of France are received and saluted at their first coming into the chief cities of the kingdom after their advancement to the crown. Perhaps, said he, it may be the usual guard of the queen of the place, who, having notice given her by the junior Chitterlings of the forlorn hope whom you saw on the tree, of the arrival of your fine and pompous fleet, hath judged that it was without doubt some rich and potent prince, and is come to visit you in person.
Pantagruel, little trusting to this, called a council, to have their advice at large in this doubtful case. He briefly showed them how this way of reception with arms had often, under colour of compliment and friendship, been fatal. Thus, said he, the Emperor Antonius Caracalla at one time destroyed the citizens of Alexandria, and at another time cut off the attendants of Artabanus, King of Persia, under colour of marrying his daughter, which, by the way, did not pass unpunished, for a while after this cost him his life.
Thus Jacob's children destroyed the Sichemites, to revenge the rape of their sister Dinah. By such another hypocritical trick Gallienus, the Roman emperor, put to death the military men in Constantinople. Thus, under colour of friendship, Antonius enticed Artavasdes, King of Armenia; then, having caused him to be bound in heavy chains and shackled, at last put him to death.
We find a thousand such instances in history; and King Charles VI. is justly commended for his prudence to this day, in that, coming back victorious over the Ghenters and other Flemings to his good city of Paris, and when he came to Bourget, a league from thence, hearing that the citizens with their mallets--whence they got the name of Maillotins--were marched out of town in battalia, twenty thousand strong, he would not go into the town till they had laid down their arms and retired to their respective homes; though they protested to him that they had taken arms with no other design than to receive him with the greater demonstration of honour and respect.
Chapter 4.XXXVII. How Pantagruel sent for Colonel Maul-chitterling and Colonel Cut-pudding; with a discourse well worth your hearing about the names of places and persons.
The resolution of the council was that, let things be how they would, it behoved the Pantagruelists to stand upon their guard. Therefore Carpalin and Gymnast were ordered by Pantagruel to go for the soldiers that were on board the Cup galley, under the command of Colonel Maul-chitterling, and those on board the Vine-tub frigate, under the command of Colonel Cut- pudding the younger. I will ease Gymnast of that trouble, said Panurge, who wanted to be upon the run; you may have occasion for him here. By this worthy frock of mine, quoth Friar John, thou hast a mind to slip thy neck out of the collar and absent thyself from the fight, thou white-livered son of a dunghill! Upon my virginity thou wilt never come back. Well, there can be no great loss in thee; for thou wouldst do nothing here but howl, bray, weep, and dishearten the good soldiers. I will certainly come back, said Panurge, Friar John, my ghostly father, and speedily too; do but take care that these plaguy Chitterlings do not board our ships. All the while you will be a-fighting I will pray heartily for your victory, after the example of the valiant captain and guide of the people of Israel, Moses. Having said this, he wheeled off.
Then said Epistemon to P
antagruel: The denomination of these two colonels of yours, Maul-chitterling and Cut-pudding, promiseth us assurance, success, and victory, if those Chitterlings should chance to set upon us. You take it rightly, said Pantagruel, and it pleaseth me to see you foresee and prognosticate our victory by the names of our colonels.
This way of foretelling by names is not new; it was in old times celebrated and religiously observed by the Pythagoreans. Several great princes and emperors have formerly made good use of it. Octavianus Augustus, second emperor of the Romans, meeting on a day a country fellow named Eutychus-- that is, fortunate--driving an ass named Nicon--that is, in Greek, Victorian--moved by the signification of the ass's and ass-driver's names, remained assured of all prosperity and victory.
The Emperor Vespasian being once all alone at prayers in the temple of Serapis, at the sight and unexpected coming of a certain servant of his named Basilides--that is, royal--whom he had left sick a great way behind, took hopes and assurance of obtaining the empire of the Romans. Regilian was chosen emperor by the soldiers for no other reason but the signification of his name. See the Cratylus of the divine Plato. (By my thirst, I will read it, said Rhizotome; I hear you so often quote it.) See how the Pythagoreans, by reason of the names and numbers, conclude that Patroclus was to fall by the hand of Hector; Hector by Achilles; Achilles by Paris; Paris by Philoctetes. I am quite lost in my understanding when I reflect upon the admirable invention of Pythagoras, who by the number, either even or odd, of the syllables of every name, would tell you of what side a man was lame, hulch-backed, blind, gouty, troubled with the palsy, pleurisy, or any other distemper incident to humankind; allotting even numbers to the left (Motteux reads--'even numbers to the Right, and odd ones to the Left.'), and odd ones to the right side of the body.