Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  Whereupon he carefully cleaned first the neck and next the head in some good white wine, sprinkled some powdered aloes over them – he always carried some in one of his pokes – and smeared some ointment or other over them and adjusted them meticulously together, vein to vein, sinew to sinew, vertebra to vertebra (so as not to make him a ‘wry-neck’, for he had a mortal hatred of hypocrites). He then used a needle to put in two of three stitches to prevent the head from toppling off again and applied all round it a little of an unguent which he termed a resuscitative.107

  And suddenly Epistemon began to breathe, then to open his eyes, then to yawn, and then to sneeze; and then he let off a loud, homely fart, at which Panurge said, ‘Now he is certainly healed.’ He then offered him a glass of some dreadfully rough white wine to drink with some sugared toast.

  And so in that wise was Epistemon skilfully healed (except that his voice was hoarse for over three weeks, and he suffered from a dry cough, which nothing but ample drinking could cure).

  And then he began to talk.

  He said he had seen devils, chatted familiarly with Lucifer and had a jolly time in Hell and in the Elysian Fields. Before them all, he maintained that the devils made good companions.

  Where the damned were concerned, he said he bitterly regretted that Panurge had summoned him back to life so soon, ‘For,’ he said, ‘looking at them afforded me a singularly pleasurable pastime.’

  ‘How was that?’ asked Pantagruel.

  ‘They’re not treated as badly as you might expect,’ said Epistemon: it’s their situations which are altered in an outlandish fashion: for I saw:

  Alexander the Great eking out a wretched living by patching up old breeches.

  Xerxes was a mustard vendor;

  [Romulus, a salt-merchant;

  Numa made nails;

  Tarquin was a tar quean;

  Piso, a peasant;

  Sylla, a river-man;

  Cyrus, a cow-man;

  Themistocles, a glass-peddler;

  Epaminondas, a maker of looking-glasses;

  Brutus and Cassius, land-surveyors;

  Demosthenes, a vigneron;

  Cicero, a fire-raiser;

  Fabius, a stringer of rosary-beads;

  Artaxerxes, a rope-maker;

  Aeneas, a miller;

  Achilles, a dyer;

  Agamemnon, a licker-out of casseroles;

  Ulysses, a scyther;

  Nestor, a rag-and-bone man;]

  Darius, a cleaner of latrines;

  [Ancus Martius, a bit of a caulker;

  Camillus, a maker of galoshes;

  Marcellus, a shucker of beans:

  Drusus, an almond-crusher;]

  Scipio Africanus, a peddler of wine-lees in a wooden clog.

  [Hasdrubal, a fooler-about with lanterns;

  Hannibal, an egg-man;]

  Priam traded in rags and tatters.

  Lancelot of the Lake ran a knacker’s-yard.

  ‘All the Knights of the Round Table were poor drudges, straining at the oar to cross the Cocytus, Phlegethon, Styx, Acheron and Lethe whenever Sir Devils want to enjoy a boat-trip; they are rather like the boat-women of Lyons and [the gondoliers of] Venice, save that they get but a tap on the nose for every crossing and, towards night-fall, a hunk of stale bread.

  ‘The Douzepers108 of France are there, doing nothing at all as far as I could see, but they earn their keep by enduring thwacks, tweaks, bonks on the nose, and great blows from fists on their teeth.

  [Trajan was a catcher of frogs;

  Antoninus, a lackey;

  Commodus, an ornamentalist in jet;

  Pertinax, a sheller of walnuts;

  Lucullus, a meat-griller;

  Justinian, a seller of knick-knacks,

  Hector, a stir-sauce;

  Paris, a tattered beggar;

  Achilles, a baler-up of hay;

  Cambyses, a mule-driver;

  Artaxerxes, a skimmer of scum from off cooking-pots;]

  ‘Nero was a fiddler; Fierabras was his footman; but he plagued him in a thousand ways, serving him up coarse bread and spoilt wine while he himself ate and drank the best there are.

  Jason and Pompey were tarrers of ships;109

  Valentin and Orson were attendants in the hot-baths of Hell, and scraped clean the face-masks of the women;

  Giglan and Gawain were wretched swineherds;

  Geoffroy Long-tooth was a match-seller;

  Godefroy de Billon, an engraver on wood;

  [Jason, a toller of bells;]

  Don Pedro of Castille, a pardoner;

  Morgan, a brewer of ale;

  Huon de Bordeaux, a cooper;

  Julius Caesar, a scullion;110

  Antiochus, a chimney-sweep;

  Romulus, a botcher-up of old boots;

  Octavian, a paper-scraper;

  Charlemagne was a stable-lad;111

  Pope Julius, a peddler of small pies [, but he no longer wore his big, buggerly beard];

  Jean de Paris dubbined boots;

  Arthur of Britain cleaned grease off headgear;

  Perceforest carried a hod: I am not sure whether he was a vignerons’ hodman;112

  [Pope Boniface VIII was a skimmer of kitchen-pots;]

  Nicholas (Pope) Tiers, sold tiers of paper;113

  Pope Alexander was a rat-catcher;

  Pope Sixtus, a greaser of syphilitic sores.’

  ‘What!’ said Pantagruel. ‘Are there syphilitics in that other world?’

  ‘Indeed there are,’ said Epistemon. ‘I never saw so many. Over a hundred million. For you should believe that those who don’t catch the pox in this world will do so in the next.’

  ‘Golly,’ said Panurge, ‘That lets me off then! I’ve been in it as deep as the hole of Gibraltar [filling up the bungs of Hercules]; and I’ve shaken down some of the ripest!’

  ‘Ogier of Denmark furbished ladies’ armour;

  King Pépin was a tiler;114

  Galien the Restorer, a mole-catcher;

  ‘The Four Sons of Aymon, drawers of teeth;

  [Pope Calixtus barbered women’s naughty cracks;

  Pope Urban was a sponger;]

  Melusine, a kitchen-maid;

  Matabrune, a washer-woman and bleacher;

  Cleopatra, a peddleress of onions;

  Helen, an agent for chambermaids;

  Semiramis, a comber of lice out of the hair of vagrants;

  Dido sold mushrooms;

  Penthesilea was a seller of watercress;

  [Lucretia, a hospital sister;

  Hortensia, a spinster,

  Livia, a rakeress of verdigris.]

  ‘In such ways, those who had been great lords in this world earned a poor, wretched, nasty living there below. Philosophers, on the contrary, and those who had been indigent in this world had their turn at being fat lords in that world beyond.

  ‘I saw Diogenes, in a large purple robe, a sceptre [in his right hand], parading magnificently about like a prelate and driving Alexander the Great to distraction for having failed properly to patch his breeches; he paid him for it with great thwacks from his stick.

  [‘I saw Epictetus, fashionably dressed in the French style, giggling beneath a bower with a bevy of young ladies, drinking, dancing and offering everyone a fine old time. Beside him lay a heap of gold coins – écus au Soleil – and these lines appeared above the trellis as his device:

  To dance, to prance around, to sport,

  Wine red and white to swig all day:

  Doing nothing since our time is short

  But count my écus au Soleil.

  ‘When he saw me he courteously invited me to join him in a drink, which I willingly did. And we swilled it theologically down. Meanwhile up came Cyrus to beg in the name of Mercury for a penny to buy an onion or two for his supper. “Nay,” said Epictetus, “nay! I never give pennies. Take this gold crown-piece, you good-for-nothing, and try to be a decent fellow.” Cyrus was delighted to stumble across such booty, but the other
beggarly monarchs down there, Alexander, Darius and that lot, stole it from him during the night.]

  ‘I saw Pathelin, [the bursar of Rhadamanthus,] who was haggling over some tiny pasties peddled by Pope Julius; he asked him:

  ‘“How much a dozen?”

  ‘“Three halfpence,” said the pope.

  ‘“What! Three whacks, rather! Hand them over, you lowest of the low, and go and get some more.”

  ‘The poor old pope went off snivelling, and when he appeared before the Master Pieman he told him they had taken away his pasties. The Pieman gave him such a hiding that his skin would have been no use for making bagpipes.

  ‘I saw Maître Jean Le Maire playing at being pope, making all those wretched kings and popes from this world kiss his feet; he was showing off, giving them his blessing and saying:

  ‘“Come and buy your pardons, you rogues, come and buy. They’re going cheap. I grant you absolution from all your pins; and by my dispensation you need never be other than worthless.”

  ‘And he summoned Caillette and Triboulet and said,

  ‘“Monsignori my cardinals, dispatch them their Bulls: and whack ‘em with a stake across the kidneys!”

  ‘Which straightway was done.

  ‘I saw Maître François Villon, who was asking Xerxes:

  ‘“How much for a pennyworth of mustard?”

  ‘“One penny,” said Xerxes.

  ‘To which Villon retorted:

  ‘“Die of the quartan fever, you rogue! Five pennyworth of it is at most worth a farthing. You’re overpricing your foodstuffs!”

  ‘Then he piddled in his bucket, as mustard-hawkers do in Paris.

  [‘I saw the Franc-archer de Bagnolet: he was an inquisitor into heretics. He came across Perceforest pissing against a wall on which was a painting of Saint Anthony’s fire. He pronounced him a heretic and would have had him burnt alive had it not been for Morgante, who, as a welcoming gift plus other petty fees, gave him nine barrels of beer.]’

  ‘Well now,’ said Pantagruel, ‘keep those fine yarns for another time; only do tell us what they do with usurers.’

  ‘I saw them,’ said Epistemon, ‘all engaged in looking in the gutters for rusty pins and old nails just as you can see the penniless doing in our world. Yet a hundredweight of such ironmongery is not worth a hunk of bread. And there is not much demand for it. Hence those wretched lack-alls may go for three weeks or more without eating a slice of bread or even a crumb, toiling away day and night and waiting for the coming fair. Yet so accursed are they and dehumanized that they remember nothing about that toil and misery provided that they can earn a wretched penny by the end of each year.’

  ‘Now,’ said Pantagruel, ‘let’s have a spot of good cheer! Drink, I beg you, for the drinking is fine [all this month].’

  So they brought forth loads of flagons and enjoyed good cheer out of the victuals in the camp; but that wretched King Anarch could not be merry. So Panurge said:

  ‘What trade shall we apprentice this kingly Sire to, so that he may already be a master of his art when he passes over and goes to all the devils?’

  ‘That is truly a very good idea of yours,’ said Pantagruel. ‘Do what you like with him. I give him to you.’

  ‘I am most grateful,’ said Panurge. ‘That present is not to be refused; and coming from you I love it.’

  How Pantagruel entered into the city of the Amaurots; and how Panurge married off King Anarch and made him a crier of green sauce

  CHAPTER 21

  [Becomes Chapter 30.

  Rabelais was amused by the New Testament practice of counting only the adult males of a multitude, simply adding ‘besides women and little children’. He uses the device several times.

  The jest on ‘perverse’ exploits the heraldic term for heraldic blue, pers or perse, and for heraldic green, ver.

  The fate of the enemy captains in Gargantua will be more in conformity to humanist ideals: they are made to work the printing presses.]

  After that prodigious victory Pantagruel despatched Carpalim to the city of the Amaurots to declare and proclaim how King Anarch had been taken and all their foes vanquished.

  Upon hearing such tidings all the townsfolk poured out before him in good order. With holy joy and [great] triumphal pomp they escorted him into their city, throughout which superb bonfires were lit and round tables set up in the streets superbly furnished with an abundance of food and drink. It was a revival of the Age of Saturn, so great was the good cheer.

  But once the whole Senate was assembled, Pantagruel said:

  ‘Gentlemen: one must strike while the iron is hot. Before relaxing any further I want us to go on and take by assault the entire kingdom of the Dipsodes. Therefore let all who would accompany me be ready tomorrow after drinks, for I shall then set off on the march. Not that I need more men to help me conquer it, for I virtually hold it already, but I can see that this city is so packed with inhabitants that they have no room to turn round in the streets. I shall therefore lead them into Dipsodia as colonists and give them the whole country which is (as many of you know who have already been there) more beautiful, salubrious, fertile and pleasant then any other in the world. Each one of you who would like to come should, as I said, be ready.’

  That decree and proclamation spread throughout the city and the next morning, in the square in front of the Palais, there gathered a multitude to the number of eighteen hundred and fifty [-six] thousand [and eleven], besides women and little children. And thus they began to march straight for Dipsodia, in such good order that they were like unto the Children of Israel when they came out of Egypt to cross the Red Sea. But before following up that enterprise, I should tell you how Panurge treated his prisoner, King Anarch.

  He recalled to mind what Epistemon had told about how the monarchs and rich folk of this world are treated in the Elysian Fields and how they earned their living by doing jobs dirty and vile. And so one day he decked him out in a pretty little linen doublet, laciniated like the pennant of an Albanian estradiot, with matelots’ breeches but with no shoes, ‘for,’ he said, ‘shoes were bad for his sight’.

  He added a little pers bonnet with one big capon’s plume – no, I’m wrong there: I believe there were two – and a lovely belt both pers and ver, saying that such a livery became him as he was so per-ver-se. And he paraded him thus arrayed before Pantagruel and said:

  ‘Do you know who this fellow is?’

  ‘Indeed I do not,’ said Pantagruel.

  ‘It is my Lord the thrice-baked king! I intend to make a decent fellow of him. These devilish kings over here are like calves: they know nothing and are good at nothing except maltreating their wretched subjects and bringing havoc to everyone through wars fought for their iniquitous and loathsome pleasure. I want to settle him in a trade, making him a crier of green-sauce.

  ‘So begin your cry: “Anyone want green-sauce?”’

  And the poor devil did so.

  But Panurge said, ‘Too low!’ and he tweaked him by the ear, saying, ‘Sing it higher: Do re mi fa sol. That’s right, you devil. You have a good throat. You’ve never been so happy at not being king!’

  And Pantagruel took pleasure in it all; for I venture to say that he was the nicest man there ever was between here and the end of my stick.115 And thus did Anarch become a good crier of green-sauce. Two days later Panurge married him off to an old strumpet from Lantern-land. He himself threw a wedding-party for them with lovely heads of mutton, lovely rashers of bacon dressed with mustard, lovely spit-roasted pork with garlic (of which he sent five pannier-loads to Pantagruel, who found them all so tasty that he ate the lot) and to drink, some very lovely perry and some very lovely sorb-apple cider.

  And to get them dancing he hired a blind fiddler, who gave them the tune on his hurdy-gurdy.

  Once they had dined, Panurge took the couple to the palace and showed them off to Pantagruel; then, pointing to the bride, he said to him:

  ‘There’s no risk of her going pop w
ith a fart!’

  ‘And why not?’ said Pantagruel.

  ‘Because she’s well nicked,’ said Panurge.

  ‘And what on earth does that saying mean?’ said Pantagruel.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed,’ said Panurge, ‘that chestnuts roasting in the fire pop like mad if they’re whole? To stop them from popping you give them a nick. Well, this [newly wed] bride has been well nicked down below. So she’ll never go pop.’

  Pantagruel set them up in a little lodge close to the lower road and gave them a stone mortar in which to pestle up their sauce. And in such wise they established their modest household, and he became as courteous a crier of green-sauce as ever was seen in all Utopia.

  But I have since been told that his wife pounds him like plaster, and the poor chump is such a ninny that he never dares defend himself.

  How Pantagruel covered an entire army with his tongue; and what the author saw within his mouth

  CHAPTER 22

  [Becomes Chapter 32.

  The story is inspired by Lucian’s True History as well as by travellers’ accounts of new worlds.

  Giants in most stories, and not only in Rabelais, vary immensely in size from tale to tale. The Almyrodes are the ‘Salty ones’.

  In the peasant’s speech ‘Sire’ is later replaced by ‘Cyre’, since ‘Sire’ was widely thought to derive from the Greek kurios, not, as it does, from the Latin senior. Spelled Cyre it could carry flattering echoes of Cyrus the Great – ‘Cyre’ in French.]

  And so, as Pantagruel and his entire band marched into the land of the Dipsodes, all the people [were happy and immediately] surrendered to him; of their own free-will they brought him the keys to every town he went to – save for the Almyrodes, who wished to hold out against him and who made answer to his heralds that they would never surrender except after good assurances.

  ‘What?’ said Pantagruel, ‘are they asking for better ones than hand on jug and glass in hand! Come on, then: go and sack them for me.’

  And so, as men determined to take them by assault, they all fell in, in good order. But marching en route through open country they were surprised by a downpour of rain, at which they started to shiver and huddle up together. When Pantagruel saw it he told them through their captains that it really was nothing, and that he could tell from seeing well above the clouds that there would be only a little shower: they should anyway get back into their ranks as he wanted to cover them. So they fell in again in good and close order, and Pantagruel poked out his tongue – only half-way – covering his men as a hen does her chicks. Meanwhile I who am telling you these tales so-true was hiding under a leaf of burdock which was certainly no less wide than the arch of the bridge at Mantrible; but when I saw them so well protected I went over to them to find shelter. But I could not do so: there were so many of them, and, as the saying goes, ‘at the end of the roll there is no more cloth’. I therefore clambered up as well as I could and journeyed for a good two leagues over his tongue until I entered his mouth.