by Неизвестный
'Twas quite otherwise among the heathens, said Pantagruel, when they used to receive a maiden among the number of vestals; for Leo Antistius affirms that it was absolutely forbidden to admit a virgin into that order if she had any vice in her soul or defect in her body, though it were but the smallest spot on any part of it. I can hardly believe, continued Aedituus, that their dams on t'other side the water go nine months with them; for they cannot endure them nine years, nay, scarce seven sometimes, in the house, but by putting only a shirt over the other clothes of the young urchins, and lopping off I don't well know how many hairs from their crowns, mumbling certain apostrophized and expiatory words, they visibly, openly, and plainly, by a Pythagorical metempsychosis, without the least hurt, transmogrify them into such birds as you now see; much after the fashion of the Egyptian heathens, who used to constitute their isiacs by shaving them and making them put on certain linostoles, or surplices. However, I don't know, my good friends, but that these she-things, whether clerg-kites, monk-kites, and abbess-kites, instead of singing pleasant verses and charisteres, such as used to be sung to Oromasis by Zoroaster's institution, may be bellowing out such catarates and scythropys (cursed lamentable and wretched imprecations) as were usually offered to the Arimanian demon; being thus in devotion for their kind friends and relations that transformed them into birds, whether when they were maids, or thornbacks, in their prime, or at their last prayers.
But the greatest numbers of our birds came out of Want-o'-bread, which, though a barren country, where the days are of a most tedious lingering length, overstocks this whole island with the lower class of birds. For hither fly the asapheis that inhabit that land, either when they are in danger of passing their time scurvily for want of belly-timber, being unable, or, what's more likely, unwilling to take heart of grace and follow some honest lawful calling, or too proud-hearted and lazy to go to service in some sober family. The same is done by your frantic inamoradoes, who, when crossed in their wild desires, grow stark staring mad, and choose this life suggested to them by their despair, too cowardly to make them swing, like their brother Iphis of doleful memory. There is another sort, that is, your gaol-birds, who, having done some rogue's trick or other heinous villainy, and being sought up and down to be trussed up and made to ride the two or three-legged mare that groans for them, warily scour off and come here to save their bacon; because all these sorts of birds are here provided for, and grow in an instant as fat as hogs, though they came as lean as rakes; for having the benefit of the clergy, they are as safe as thieves in a mill within this sanctuary.
But, asked Pantagruel, do these birds never return to the world where they were hatched? Some do, answered Aedituus; formerly very few, very seldom, very late, and very unwillingly; however, since some certain eclipses, by the virtue of the celestial constellations, a great crowd of them fled back to the world. Nor do we fret or vex ourselves a jot about it; for those that stay wisely sing, The flower the better cheer; and all those that fly away, first cast off their feathers here among these nettles and briars.
Accordingly we found some thrown by there; and as we looked up and down, we chanced to light on what some people will hardly thank us for having discovered; and thereby hangs a tale.
Chapter 5.V. Of the dumb Knight-hawks of the Ringing Island.
These words were scarce out of his mouth when some five-and-twenty or thirty birds flew towards us; they were of a hue and feather like which we had not seen anything in the whole island. Their plumes were as changeable as the skin of the chameleon, and the flower of tripolion, or teucrion. They had all under the left wing a mark like two diameters dividing a circle into equal parts, or, if you had rather have it so, like a perpendicular line falling on a right line. The marks which each of them bore were much of the same shape, but of different colours; for some were white, others green, some red, others purple, and some blue. Who are those? asked Panurge; and how do you call them? They are mongrels, quoth Aedituus.
We call them knight-hawks, and they have a great number of rich commanderies (fat livings) in your world. Good your worship, said I, make them give us a song, an't please you, that we may know how they sing. They scorn your words, cried Aedituus; they are none of your singing-birds; but, to make amends, they feed as much as the best two of them all. Pray where are their hens? where are their females? said I. They have none, answered Aedituus. How comes it to pass then, asked Panurge, that they are thus bescabbed, bescurfed, all embroidered o'er the phiz with carbuncles, pushes, and pock-royals, some of which undermine the handles of their faces? This same fashionable and illustrious disease, quoth Aedituus, is common among that kind of birds, because they are pretty apt to be tossed on the salt deep.
He then acquainted us with the occasion of their coming. This next to us, said he, looks so wistfully upon you to see whether he may not find among your company a stately gaudy kind of huge dreadful birds of prey, which yet are so untoward that they ne'er could be brought to the lure nor to perch on the glove. They tell us that there are such in your world, and that some of them have goodly garters below the knee with an inscription about them which condemns him (qui mal by pense) who shall think ill of it to be berayed and conskited. Others are said to wear the devil in a string before their paunches; and others a ram's skin. All that's true enough, good Master Aedituus, quoth Panurge; but we have not the honour to be acquainted with their knightships.
Come on, cried Aedituus in a merry mood, we have had chat enough o' conscience! let's e'en go drink. And eat, quoth Panurge. Eat, replied Aedituus, and drink bravely, old boy; twist like plough-jobbers and swill like tinkers. Pull away and save tide, for nothing is so dear and precious as time; therefore we will be sure to put it to a good use.
He would fain have carried us first to bathe in the bagnios of the cardin- hawks, which are goodly delicious places, and have us licked over with precious ointments by the alyptes, alias rubbers, as soon as we should come out of the bath. But Pantagruel told him that he could drink but too much without that. He then led us into a spacious delicate refectory, or fratery-room, and told us: Braguibus the hermit made you fast four days together; now, contrariwise, I'll make you eat and drink of the best four days through stitch before you budge from this place. But hark ye me, cried Panurge, may not we take a nap in the mean time? Ay, ay, answered Aedituus; that is as you shall think good; for he that sleeps, drinks. Good Lord! how we lived! what good bub! what dainty cheer! O what a honest cod was this same Aedituus!
Chapter 5.VI. How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island.
Pantagruel looked I don't know howish, and seemed not very well pleased with the four days' junketting which Aedituus enjoined us. Aedituus, who soon found it out, said to him, You know, sir, that seven days before winter, and seven days after, there is no storm at sea; for then the elements are still out of respect for the halcyons, or king-fishers, birds sacred to Thetis, which then lay their eggs and hatch their young near the shore. Now here the sea makes itself amends for this long calm; and whenever any foreigners come hither it grows boisterous and stormy for four days together. We can give no other reason for it but that it is a piece of its civility, that those who come among us may stay whether they will or no, and be copiously feasted all the while with the incomes of the ringing. Therefore pray don't think your time lost; for, willing, nilling, you'll be forced to stay, unless you are resolved to encounter Juno, Neptune, Doris, Aeolus, and his fluster-busters, and, in short, all the pack of ill-natured left-handed godlings and vejoves. Do but resolve to be cheery, and fall-to briskly.
After we had pretty well stayed our stomachs with some tight snatches, Friar John said to Aedituus, For aught I see, you have none but a parcel of birds and cages in this island of yours, and the devil a bit of one of them all that sets his hand to the plough, or tills the land whose fat he devours; their whole business is to be frolic, to chirp it, to whistle it, to warble it, tossing it, and roar it merrily night and day. Pray then, if I may be so bold, whence comes this p
lenty and overflowing of all dainty bits and good things which we see among you? From all the other world, returned Aedituus, if you except some part of the northern regions, who of late years have stirred up the jakes. Mum! they may chance ere long to rue the day they did so; their cows shall have porridge, and their dogs oats; there will be work made among them, that there will. Come, a fig for't, let's drink. But pray what countrymen are you? Touraine is our country, answered Panurge. Cod so, cried Aedituus, you were not then hatched of an ill bird, I will say that for you, since the blessed Touraine is your mother; for from thence there comes hither every year such a vast store of good things, that we were told by some folks of the place that happened to touch at this island, that your Duke of Touraine's income will not afford him to eat his bellyful of beans and bacon (a good dish spoiled between Moses and Pythagoras) because his predecessors have been more than liberal to these most holy birds of ours, that we might here munch it, twist it, cram it, gorge it, craw it, riot it, junket it, and tickle it off, stuffing our puddings with dainty pheasants, partridges, pullets with eggs, fat capons of Loudunois, and all sorts of venison and wild fowl. Come, box it about; tope on, my friends. Pray do you see yon jolly birds that are perched together, how fat, how plump, and in good case they look, with the income that Touraine yields us! And in faith they sing rarely for their good founders, that is the truth on't. You never saw any Arcadian birds mumble more fairly than they do over a dish when they see these two gilt batons, or when I ring for them those great bells that you see above their cages. Drink on, sirs, whip it away. Verily, friends, 'tis very fine drinking to-day, and so 'tis every day o' the week; then drink on, toss it about, here's to you with all my soul. You are most heartily welcome; never spare it, I pray you; fear not we should ever want good bub and belly-timber; for, look here, though the sky were of brass, and the earth of iron, we should not want wherewithal to stuff the gut, though they were to continue so seven or eight years longer than the famine in Egypt. Let us then, with brotherly love and charity, refresh ourselves here with the creature.
Woons, man, cried Panurge, what a rare time you have on't in this world! Psha, returned Aedituus, this is nothing to what we shall have in t'other; the Elysian fields will be the least that can fall to our lot. Come, in the meantime let us drink here; come, here's to thee, old fuddlecap.
Your first Siticines, said I, were superlatively wise in devising thus a means for you to compass whatever all men naturally covet so much, and so few, or, to speak more properly, none can enjoy together--I mean, a paradise in this life, and another in the next. Sure you were born wrapt in your mother's smickets! O happy creatures! O more than men! Would I had the luck to fare like you! (Motteux inserts Chapter XVI. after Chapter VI.)
Chapter 5.VII. How Panurge related to Master Aedituus the fable of the horse and the ass.
When we had crammed and crammed again, Aedituus took us into a chamber that was well furnished, hung with tapestry, and finely gilt. Thither he caused to be brought store of mirobolans, cashou, green ginger preserved, with plenty of hippocras, and delicious wine. With those antidotes, that were like a sweet Lethe, he invited us to forget the hardships of our voyage; and at the same time he sent plenty of provisions on board our ship that rid in the harbour. After this, we e'en jogged to bed for that night; but the devil a bit poor pilgarlic could sleep one wink--the everlasting jingle-jangle of the bells kept me awake whether I would or no.
About midnight Aedituus came to wake us that we might drink. He himself showed us the way, saying: You men of t'other world say that ignorance is the mother of all evil, and so far you are right; yet for all that you do not take the least care to get rid of it, but still plod on, and live in it, with it, and by it; for which a plaguy deal of mischief lights on you every day, and you are right enough served--you are perpetually ailing somewhat, making a moan, and never right. It is what I was ruminating upon just now. And, indeed, ignorance keeps you here fastened in bed, just as that bully-rock Mars was detained by Vulcan's art; for all the while you do not mind that you ought to spare some of your rest, and be as lavish as you can of the goods of this famous island. Come, come, you should have eaten three breakfasts already; and take this from me for a certain truth, that if you would consume the mouth-ammunition of this island, you must rise betimes; eat them, they multiply; spare them, they diminish.
For example, mow a field in due season, and the grass will grow thicker and better; don't mow it, and in a short time 'twill be floored with moss. Let's drink, and drink again, my friends; come, let's all carouse it. The leanest of our birds are now singing to us all; we'll drink to them, if you please. Let's take off one, two, three, nine bumpers. Non zelus, sed caritas.
When day, peeping in the east, made the sky turn from black to red like a boiling lobster, he waked us again to take a dish of monastical brewis. From that time we made but one meal, that only lasted the whole day; so that I cannot well tell how I may call it, whether dinner, supper, nunchion, or after-supper; only, to get a stomach, we took a turn or two in the island, to see and hear the blessed singing-birds.
At night Panurge said to Aedituus: Give me leave, sweet sir, to tell you a merry story of something that happened some three and twenty moons ago in the country of Chastelleraud.
One day in April, a certain gentleman's groom, Roger by name, was walking his master's horses in some fallow ground. There 'twas his good fortune to find a pretty shepherdess feeding her bleating sheep and harmless lambkins on the brow of a neighbouring mountain, in the shade of an adjacent grove; near her, some frisking kids tripped it over a green carpet of nature's own spreading, and, to complete the landscape, there stood an ass. Roger, who was a wag, had a dish of chat with her, and after some ifs, ands, and buts, hems and heighs on her side, got her in the mind to get up behind him, to go and see his stable, and there take a bit by the bye in a civil way. While they were holding a parley, the horse, directing his discourse to the ass (for all brute beasts spoke that year in divers places), whispered these words in his ear: Poor ass, how I pity thee! thou slavest like any hack, I read it on thy crupper. Thou dost well, however, since God has created thee to serve mankind; thou art a very honest ass, but not to be better rubbed down, currycombed, trapped, and fed than thou art, seems to me indeed to be too hard a lot. Alas! thou art all rough-coated, in ill plight, jaded, foundered, crestfallen, and drooping, like a mooting duck, and feedest here on nothing but coarse grass, or briars and thistles. Therefore do but pace it along with me, and thou shalt see how we noble steeds, made by nature for war, are treated. Come, thou'lt lose nothing by coming; I'll get thee a taste of my fare. I' troth, sir, I can but love you and thank you, returned the ass; I'll wait on you, good Mr. Steed. Methinks, gaffer ass, you might as well have said Sir Grandpaw Steed. O! cry mercy, good Sir Grandpaw, returned the ass; we country clowns are somewhat gross, and apt to knock words out of joint. However, an't please you, I will come after your worship at some distance, lest for taking this run my side should chance to be firked and curried with a vengeance, as it is but too often, the more is my sorrow.
The shepherdess being got behind Roger, the ass followed, fully resolved to bait like a prince with Roger's steed; but when they got to the stable, the groom, who spied the grave animal, ordered one of his underlings to welcome him with a pitchfork and currycomb him with a cudgel. The ass, who heard this, recommended himself mentally to the god Neptune, and was packing off, thinking and syllogizing within himself thus: Had not I been an ass, I had not come here among great lords, when I must needs be sensible that I was only made for the use of the small vulgar. Aesop had given me a fair warning of this in one of his fables. Well, I must e'en scamper or take what follows. With this he fell a-trotting, and wincing, and yerking, and calcitrating, alias kicking, and farting, and funking, and curvetting, and bounding, and springing, and galloping full drive, as if the devil had come for him in propria persona.
The shepherdess, who saw her ass scour off, told Roger that it was her cattle, and
desired he might be kindly used, or else she would not stir her foot over the threshold. Friend Roger no sooner knew this but he ordered him to be fetched in, and that my master's horses should rather chop straw for a week together than my mistress's beast should want his bellyful of corn.
The most difficult point was to get him back; for in vain the youngsters complimented and coaxed him to come. I dare not, said the ass; I am bashful. And the more they strove by fair means to bring him with them, the more the stubborn thing was untoward, and flew out at the heels; insomuch that they might have been there to this hour, had not his mistress advised them to toss oats in a sieve or in a blanket, and call him; which was done, and made him wheel about and say, Oats, with a witness! oats shall go to pot. Adveniat; oats will do, there's evidence in the case; but none of the rubbing down, none of the firking. Thus melodiously singing (for, as you know, that Arcadian bird's note is very harmonious) he came to the young gentleman of the horse, alias black garb, who brought him to the stable.
When he was there, they placed him next to the great horse his friend, rubbed him down, currycombed him, laid clean straw under him up to the chin, and there he lay at rack and manger, the first stuffed with sweet hay, the latter with oats; which when the horse's valet-dear-chambre sifted, he clapped down his lugs, to tell them by signs that he could eat it but too well without sifting, and that he did not deserve so great an honour.