‘Whoa, there, Maister! Aw! Zaint Marsault zuccour me! Ho, ho. In Gawd’s name. Lemme be! Don’ee touch me!’
Pantagruel said, ‘Now you’re talking naturally.’ And he let go of him, for that wretched man from Limoges was shitting all over his breeches (which were tailored in cod-tails, not stitched along the seam). At which Pantagruel said:
‘By Saint Alipentinus! What a stench there below. Reek of the civet-cat! The devil take the turnip-muncher: how he stinks.’
And thereupon he released him; but for the rest of his life he was so remorseful and parched that he often said, ‘Pantagruel has got me by the throat!’ After a few years he died the death of Roland, brought about by the vengeance of God, so demonstrating to us what the Philosopher and Aulus Gellius said: that we ought in our speech to follow the common usage, and also what Caesar said: that we should avoid silly words as ships’ captains avoid reefs at sea.17
[Explanations of some of the latinate words and phrases:
We transfrete the Sequana at times dilucidatory and crepusculine: We cross the Seine at dawn and twilight
we despumate the latinate verbocination: we skim off latinate wordiness
dїes: days
lupanars: brothels
inculcate our veretra: insert our penises
amicitial meretrices: loving whores
meritful taberns: money-earning taverns
spatulas of sheep perforaminated with the herb called petrosil: shoulders of mutton dressed with the herb called parsley
marsupiums: purses
demit our codexes: sell our books
oppignerate our vestments: pawn our clothes
tabellarles: messengers
missatical precative from our missaries: Mass-prayers from our missals
Horary: Book of Hours
nocturnal inquinations: sins (or stains) of the night.
discede one laterality of a tiny unguis: depart one tiny nail’s breadth.
ob: a penny
eleemosinating to egenes: giving alms to the needy
from ostiary to ostiary: from door to door
flagitious nebulon: injurious good-for-nothing
locupleting it with latinate superfluity: enriching with overflowing Latinity
The primeval origin of my atavics and avics was indigenous to the Lemovic regions: the ancient origin of my ancestors and forebears was native to the regions of Limoges.]
How Pantagruel came to Paris [and of the fine books in the Library of Saint Victor]
CHAPTER 7
[Another chapter aimed at present and past university men and a literate audience. Many of the titles in the library of Saint-Victor are in Latin; some parody real books; some are wider satirical comments on learned error or popular superstition or mawkishness. Some are seriously critical. Rabelais takes on opponents of Reuchlin and Erasmus. The Sorbonne comes in for sustained and increasing mockery. Many new titles were added in 1534 (and so figure in the definitive text of 1542).
In the original these book-titles are given in one continuous sentence; here they are set out as a list. Out of respect for French royal susceptibility, Rabelais replaces the Pépin of the first edition with Turelupinus. He expanded the list several times, mirroring new experiences in Rome and elsewhere. The reference to Gargantua’s stealing the bells of Notre-Dame is to the account in the anonymous Grands et inestimables Croniques. That tale, there simply told, will be soon retold by Rabelais in his next book, Gargantua.]
After completing his studies most satisfactorily at Orleans, Pantagruel decided to visit the great University of Paris. Before he went he was told of an enormously huge bell which had been left lying on the ground at St Aignan’s in Orleans for nigh on three hundred years.18 It was so heavy that no contrivance had been able to lift it up off the ground, even though they had applied every method advanced by Vitruvius (in On Architecture), L.-B. Alberti (in On Matters Architectural), by Euclid, Theon and Archimedes, as well as by Hero (in On Contrivances), since all proved useless.
So Pantagruel, acceding to the humble petitions of the citizens and inhabitants of that city, determined to carry that bell to its intended belfry. And indeed he came to the very place where it lay and lifted it up with his little finger as easily as you might lift a sparhawk’s tinkle-bell. But before bearing it to its belfry he determined to ring an aubade with it all over the town, clanging it as he bore it in his hand through all the streets.
At which everyone was delighted, but there arose one very great inconvenience: whilst he was carrying it thus and ringing it through the streets, all the excellent Orleans wines turned sour and were spoilt. Nobody noticed it till the following night when each one of them, having drunk some of that wine which had turned, was parched and could do nothing but cough up gob as white as [Maltese] cotton, saying: ‘We have caught the pantagruel! Our throats are all salty!’
That done, he reached Paris with his companions. As he made his entry everyone came out to stare at him: as you well know, the people of Paris are daft by nature [, a semi-tone above and below natural pitch]. They stared at him with amazement, not without greatly dreading that he might bear off their Palais to some far-removed lands, just as his father had once borne off the bells of Notre-Dame to tie round the neck of his mare.
And after he had stayed there some time, thoroughly studying in all the seven liberal arts, he said that Paris was nice to live in but not to die in, since the down-and-outs in the Cimetière de Saint-Innocent warmed their bums at a fire of dead men’s bones.
And he found the library of Saint-Victor to be quite superb, above all for some of the books he came across there, [of which this is the catalogue, beginning with] The Handcart of Salvation;
The Codpiece of the Law;
The Slipper of the Decrees;
The Pomegranate of Vices;
The Testes of Theology;
The Preachers’ fox-tail duster, Composed by Pépin;
The Elephantine Bollocks of the Douzepers;
The Bishops’ Henbane;
Mammaltretus, On Baboons and Monkeys, with a commentary by Des Orbeaux;
A Decree of the University of Paris Touching the Soutient-gorgeousness of Ladies of Easy Virtue;
The Apparition of Saint Geltrude to a Nun of Poissy during her Child-birth;
On the Art of Discreetly Farting in Company, by Magister-Noster Ortuinus;
The Mus-tardy Pot of Penitence;
Cloth-Overboots, or, The Boots of Patience;
The Ant-hill of the Arts;
[On the use of Clear Soups, and On decently Tippling, by Silvester de Prierio, a Jacobite;
The Cozened about Court;]
The Cuntainer of Lawyers;
The ‘Packet’ of Matrimony;
The Crucible of Cuntemplation;
Niggles of the Law;
Goades to wine;
Cheese as a Spur;
Scrubbing Dons Clean;
Tartaretus: On how to Defecate;
[Roman Fanfares;]
Bricot: On Distinguishing between Sops;
Fundamental Floggings;
The Worn Shoe of Humility;
The Tripe-odd of Good Ruminations;
The Cauldron of Great-Souledness;
Confessors’ Cavils;
[Flickings for Clerics;
Three Books On How to Chew Bacon, by the Reverend Father Provincial of Drivell, Brother Lubin;
Pasquino, the Marble Doctor: On Eating Roe-deer with Prickly Artichokes in Papal-Lamb time, as Forbidden by the Church;
The Invention of the Holy Cross, for Six Characters Played by the Clerks of Finessing;]
The Eye-glasses of Romiseekers;
Major: On the Stuffing of Black-puddings;
The Bagpipes of Prelates;
Beda, On The Excellence of Tripe;
[The Laments of Advocates over the Reform of Their Sweeteners;
The Cat-Scrabblings of Attorneys;
Of Peas and Bacon, with a Commentary;
The Profit-roll
s of Indulgence;
Magister Pelf Rake-it-in, Doctor of Canon and Civil Law: How to Botch Up the Idiocies of the Glosses of Accursius. A Most Enlightening Repetition;
Examples of Generalship by the Franc-Archier de Bagnolet;
Captain Train-Band: On Matters Military, with Plans by Etienne Funk-it;
On the Practice and Utility of Skinning Horses and Mares, by the Author Magister Noster de Quirkus;
On the Rusticities of Priestlings;
Magister Noster Rostock-Assley: On the Serving of Mustard after Dining; Fourteen Books, with Postils by Magister Vaurillion;
The Stag-night Fines of Procurators;
A Most Subtle Question: Whether a Chimera Bombinating in the Void Can Swallow up Second Intentions: as Debated over Ten Weeks at the Council of Constance;]
The Munch-them-down-to-the-very-stubble of Advocates;
[The Daubings of Scotus; Cardinals’ Bat-wings;
Eleven Decades on the Taking-off of Spurs, by Magister Albericus de Rosate;
By the same author: Three Books on the Mensuration of Army Camps in the Hair;
On the Entry of Antonio de Leiva into Lands Frazzled like Brazil;
Marforio, a Bachelor lying in Rome: On Skinning and Smudging Cardinals’ Mules;
An Apologia by the Same, Against Such as Affirm that the Mule on the Foot of the Pope Drinks Only When It Will;
A Prognostication beginning Silvius’ Balls, established by Magister-Noster Songe-Creux;
Bishop Boudarinus: Nine Enneads on Profits to be Milked from Indulgences, with a Papal Privilege for Precisely Three Years;
The Mincings of Maidens;
The Tired Tails of Widows;
Monastic Whoopings;
The Mumblings of Celestine Padres;
The Toll Charged by the Mendicants;
The Chattering Teeth of the Beggarmen;
The Theologians’ Cat-door;
Putting Things into the Mouths of Masters of Arts;
The Scullery-boys of Ockam, Simply Tonsured;
Magister Noster Fripesauce: On Finely Sifting the Canonical Hours (in Forty Books);
Anon: The Arse-over-tipery of the Confraternities;
The Gut-cavities of the Mendicants;
Spanish Pongs, Super-refined by Fray Inigo;
Wormwood for Wretches;
The Far-niente of Matters Italian by Magister Bruslefer;
Raymund Lull, Fooling about with Elements;
A Quimnall of Hypocrisy, by Magister Jacobus Hochstrat, Measurer of Heretics;
Hotbollockius: On the Drinking-shops of Both the Aspirant Magistri Nostri and of the Graduated Magistri Nos-tri, in Eight Most Humourful Books;
Bum-volleys of Papal Bullists, Copyists, Scribes, Abbreviators, Referendaries and Dataries compiled by Regis;
A Perpetual Almanac for Suffers from the Gout and the Pox;
Ways of Sweeping Flues, by Johannes Eck;
Thread for Shopkeepers;
The Comforts of the Monastic Life;
The Heated-up Leftovers of Bigots;
The Fairy-tales of the Grey Friars;
The Beggardliness of the Pennywise;
Of the Snares of the Episcopal Chancellors,
Stuffings for Treasurers;
The Sophists’ Badinagium;
Discussion of Messers and Vexers: Anti, Peri, Kata, Meta, Ana, Para, Moo and Amphi;
A Liming Dictionary for Rhymesters;
Alchemists’ Bellows;
Jiggery-Pokery of beggars bagged by Fr Seratis;
The Shackles of the Religious Life;
The Viol of the Clangers;
The Elbow-rest of Old Age;
The Nosebag of Nobility;
Ape-chattering with a Rosary;
The Manacles of Devotion;
The Boiling-pot of the Four Weeks of Embertide;
The Mortar-boards of Town Life;
The Hermits’ Fly-brush;
The Face-mask of Penance-doers;
The Backgammon of Belly-bumping Friars;
Dullardus: On the Life and Honour of Young Gallants;
Lupoldus: Moralizing Exegeses of the Academic Hoods of Denizens of the Sorbonne;
Travellers’ Trifles;
The Remedies of Bishops in potationibus infidelium;
Fuss and Bother of the Doctors of Theology of Cologne against Reuchlin; Pompom for Ladies;
Martingale Breeches with Back-flaps for Turd-droppers;
The Quick-turns of Tennis-Court Boys, by Friar Ballfoot;
The Thick-soled Boots of Noble-Heart;
The Mummery of Will o’-the-Wisp and Robin Good-fellows;
Gerson: On the Deposability of a Pope by the Church;
The Sledge of the Ennobled and of Graduates;
Johannes Richbrothius: On the Terrifications of Excommunications (lacks the Preface);
The Skill of Invoking Devils, Both Male and Female, by Magister Guingolfus;
The Hodge-podge of Friars Perpetually Praying;
The Morris-dance of Heretics;
The Crutches of Cajetanus;
Dribble-Snoutius: On the Cherubic Doctor’s Treatise On the Origin of Hypocritical Velvet-paws and Neck-Twisters; Seven Books;
Sixty-nine Fat-stock Breviaries;
The Fat-gut, Midnight Gaude Maria of the Five Orders of Mendicants;
The Hide of the Turlupins, Extracted from the Wild Boot
Infiltrated into the Summa Angelica;]
The Doter over Casuistries of Conscience;
[The Gorbellies of Presidents;
The Abbots’ Ass-pizzles;
Sutor, Against Some Person Who Called Him a Wretch: and that Wretches Are Not Condemned by the Church;
The Close-stools of the Physicians;
The Astrologers’ Chimney-sweep;
Fields of Enemas, by S. C.;]
The Apothecaries’ Draw-farts;
The Surgeon’s Kiss-me-arse;
[Justinian: On the Suppression of Bigots;
An Antidotary for the Soul;]
Merlin Coccaius: On the Homeland of the Devils.
Some of which are already in print, and the others are even now in the presses of this noble city of Tübingen.
How Pantagruel received in Paris a letter from his father Gargantua, and what it contained
CHAPTER 8
[A sudden change of tone: Genesis together with Aristotelian physics (which is based on the twin concepts of generation and corruption) meet the New Testament. Generation and corruption will cease at the end of Time when ‘Jesus Christ shall have delivered up his peaceful Kingdom to God, even the Father’ (I Corinthians 15:34).
The good human father, having produced a son who naturally mirrors his body, so educates him as to mirror his soul as well, thus reflecting his whole persona (his unique individuality as a particular body plus a particular soul).
The letter ends evangelically, calling amongst many other things upon Christ’s summary of the Law (‘Love God, and thy neighbour as thyself’) and on the Wisdom of Solomon 1:4, (associated with a common Latin adage punning on science and conscience).
The synergistic nature of the theology is quietly emphasized (citing of St Paul’s injunction in II Corinthians 3:1:‘Receive not the grace of God in vain’). Human beings must ‘work together’ with grace. True faith is never divorced from good works. It must in scholastic terms be ‘informed by charity’.
The whole chapter savours of the renewed enthusiasm for Ancient learning. From the earlier times theologians such as Tertullian called God the ‘Plasmator’, the ‘Moulder’, the ‘Fashioner’: like a potter he made Man of clay.
Rabelais had performed at least one public dissection.]
Pantagruel studied very hard – as I am sure you well realize – and likewise profited since he had a double-cuffed understanding and a memory as capacious as that of a dozen leathern bottles and tubs of olive oil. And while he was staying there, he received a letter from his father framed in the following terms:
Dearest son:
/>
Amongst the gifts, graces and privileges with which Almighty God our sovereign Plasmator endowed human nature in the beginning, that one seems to me to be surpassing and unique by which it can, in this mortal state, acquire a species of immortality, and in the course of this transitory life pass on our name and our seed; which is achieved through lineal descendants issuing from us in lawful wedlock. Thus there is to some extent restored to us what was taken from us through the sin of our first parents, to whom it was told that, since they had not been obedient to the commandment of God the Creator, they would die, and by death that so-magnificent clay in which Man had been moulded would be reduced to nought. But by means of such propagation of our seed, what was lost to the parents remains in their children and what perished in the children remains in the grandchildren, successively, until the hour of the Last Judgement, when Jesus Christ shall have delivered up his peaceful Kingdom to God the Father,19 free from all domination and stain of sin; then shall cease all generation and corruption, and the elements will be without their constant transformations, seeing that yearned-for peace shall be consummated [and perfected] and all things brought to their End and period.
So now, not without just and equitable cause, I render thanks to God my Protector for having given me strength to see my hoary old age blossom anew in your youthfulness: for when at the behest of Him who governs and directs all things my soul shall quit this human habitation, I shall not consider that I have totally died but to have transmigrated rather from one place to another, since in you and through you I shall remain in this world in my visible likeness, living, seeing and frequenting honourable persons and my friends as I used to do; that frequentation was not, I confess, without sin (for we all have sinned and ceaselessly beg God to wipe away our sins) but, with the help of God’s grace, beyond reproach. Therefore, as the likeness of my body will dwell in you, should the ways of my soul not similarly shine forth from within you, nobody would consider you the ward and treasurer of the immortality of our name; and so the joy that I would experience as I saw all this would be small, noting that my lesser part, the body, would remain, whereas the soul, my better part, through which our name may continue as a blessing among men, would be debased and bastardized.
I do not say that out of any mistrust I may have of your virtue, which has already been tested before me, but the more strongly to encourage you to advance from good to better.
Gargantua and Pantagruel Page 8