Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  Instead of botanizing they would visit the booths of chemists, herbalists and apothecaries, making a careful study of the fruit, leaves, [gums] grains and exotic unguents, and how they could be adulterated.

  He would go to watch jugglers, thimble-riggers and mountebanks, closely observing their gestures, ruses, sleight-of-hand and clever patter (especially those who came from Chauny in Picardy, for they are by nature great word-spinners and excellent fraudsters [of the green and gullible]).

  Returning for supper they would eat more frugally than on other days, especially the more dessicative and leaner foods so as to enable the intemperate dampness of the air (communicated to the body by inescapable adjacency) to be corrected, and so that they might not be troubled by having to forego their customary exercises.

  And thus was Gargantua tutored, sticking to that course day after day, drawing such advantages as you know that an intelligent youth [of his age] can from practices thus persisted in: at first it did seem a bit hard, but sticking to it seemed pleasant, easy and delightful, resembling the pastime of a monarch rather than the curriculum of a schoolboy.

  Nevertheless, to provide some relief from so stimulating a stretching of their minds, Ponocrates would choose one bright and serene day each month when they would leave town early in the morning, making for Gentilly, Boulogne or Montrouge or else for the bridge at Charenton, for Vanves or Saint-Cloud. There they would spend the whole day having the best fun they could possibly devise, joking, jesting, pledging drink for drink, playing, singing, dancing, larking about in a meadow, going after swallows’ nests, hunting the quail and catching frogs or crayfish.

  Yet whilst that day was spent without books or reading, it was not spent unprofitably, for in the beautiful meadows they would recite by heart some agreeable lines of Virgil’s Georgics, of Hesiod or Politian’s Rustic Life, compose a few pleasant Latin epigrams and then turn them into rondels and ballades in the French language.

  As they were feasting, they would separate wine from water through an ivy-wood goblet as instructed by Pliny and by Cato in On Matters Rustic: they would drown the wine in a basin full of water and then draw it off through a funnel, sending it from one glass to another. They also devised several little ‘automatic’ – that is, self-moving – contrivances.

  How a great dispute arose between the fouace-bakers of Lerné and Gargantua’s countrymen, whence came mighty wars

  CHAPTER 23

  [Becomes Chapter 25.

  A peasant quarrel: it will grow into dreams of world domination.

  The extra insults are all added in 1535, except for the second, which dates from 1542.

  ‘Fouaces’, still a local delicacy, are baked flat-cakes made from the finest flour.]

  Now at that time, (the beginning of autumn, the season of the vendanges) the local shepherds were guarding the vines and preventing the starlings from eating the grapes. At the same time the girdle-cake bakers of Lerné were just going over the great cross-roads leading ten or a dozen cart-loads of fouaces into the town. The said shepherds politely asked them to sell them some at the market-price, for note that it is a dish celestial to breakfast on fresh fouaces with grapes, especially the sauvignons, pineaux, muscadets or bicanes, and for those who are constipated, the foyrards which make them void turds as long as a stave: hence their nickname of ‘vendange-hopefuls’, since, hoping but to fart, folk thoroughly shit themselves.

  Those bakers were by no means disposed to accede to their request but, worse still, grossly insulted them, calling them superfluities, stubble-tooths, silly ginger-nuts, scoundrels, [shit-the-beds, good-for-nothings, sneaky smooth-files, do-nothings, tasty morsels, fat-guts, loud-mouths,] no-goods, clod-hoppers, rogues, scroungers, braggarts, pretty puffs, copy-cats, slackers, bad-’uns, twirps, boobies, scruff-’eads, smirkers, fat-’eads, teeth-clackers, cow-pat cowherds, shitty shepherds, and other such derogatory epithets, adding that it was not for the likes of them to aspire to eating such lovely fouaces: they should be content with gross chaff-loaves and cottage-bread.

  At such an outrage, one of the shepherds named Frogier, a decent fellow in his appearance and a worthy young man, quietly replied,

  ‘Since when have you grown your horns and become so cheeky! Garn, you used to be pleased to sell them to us: now you won’t. That’s not a good-neighbourly deed. We never treat you like that when you come over here buying our best wheat to make your fouaces and your buns! We’d have throw in some grapes as well, but, by the Mudder of God, you’ll be sorry for this. You’ll need to trade with us one day: then we’ll do the same to you. Remember that!’

  Whereupon, Marquet, the Grand Verger of the Guild of Fouace-bakers, said to him,

  ‘You’m quite a bantam-cock this morning. You ate too much millet lass night! Come over ‘ere then! Come over ‘ere! I’ll give ‘ee a bit of my fouace!’

  Frogier, in all innocence, came over, pulling an elevenpenny-piece from his belt and believing that Marquet would take some of his fouaces out of his sack for him, but Marquet lashed him so hard across the legs with his whip that weals appeared. He then tried to run away, but Frogier cried murder and robbery as loud as he could, and threw at him a big cudgel which he carried under his arm: it caught his skull on the coronal suture, to the right-hand side of the superior maxillary division of the fifth cerebral nerve, with the result that Marquet tumbled off his mare, looking more dead than alive.

  Meanwhile the peasant-farmers thereabouts who were knocking down walnuts came charging up with their long poles and thrashed those fouace-bakers as though threshing green rye. The other shepherds and shepherdesses, on hearing Frogier’s yell, came up with their slings and catapults and chased after them, so densely showering them with stones that it seemed like hail. Finally they caught up with them and helped themselves to some four or five dozen fouaces. Yet they paid the going rate, adding a hundred walnuts and three basketfuls of ripe white grapes.

  That done, the fouace-bakers, having helped Marquet back into his saddle – he had a nasty wound – abandoned the road to Parilly and made their way back to Lerné, uttering loud and violent threats against the cowherds, shepherds and peasant-farmers of Seuilly and Cinais.

  Afterwards the shepherds and shepherdesses had a fine old time eating fouaces with fine old grapes, having fun together to the sound of the fine old rustic bagpipe and laughing at those fine old pompous fouace-men who had met such a rebuff for having crossed themselves with the wrong hand on getting up that morning.

  And from fat ‘dog-grapes’ there was made such a dainty hot-compress for Frogier’s legs that he soon got better.

  How the inhabitants of Lerné, by order of Picrochole their king, made a surprise attack on Gargantua’s shepherds

  CHAPTER 24

  [Becomes Chapter 26.

  In ‘42, the name of the character here called Grippeminaud (‘Grippenny’) was changed to Trepelu (‘Tattered’). In ‘42 he reappears in Chapter 46.

  Picrochole is a choleric: his name means bitter bile. His complexion makes him impulsive and erratic. Toucquedillon means a boaster. Racqedenare is a Scrape-penny, and Engoulevant, a windbag.]

  Back at Lerné, the fouace-bakers, at once, before eating or drinking, proceeded to their local Capitol and there, before their king, Picrochole, the Third of that Name, set forth their grievances, pointing to their broken panniers, their lacerated garments, their plundered fouaces and, above all, to the appallingly injured Marquet, alleging that all that had been done by the shepherds and tenant-farmers of Grandgousier near the great cross-roads beyond Seuilly.

  Picrochole at once flew into an insane rage and, without further asking himself about the why or the wherefore, had Ban and Arrière-ban proclaimed throughout his kingdom: every man, under pain of hanging, must forgather in the main square before the Castle at the hour of noon.

  The better to reinforce his enterprise, he had the drum beaten through the town. He himself, while his dinner was being prepared, went to ready his artillery, to raise his st
andard and oriflamme, and to load up a large quantity of supplies both for armaments and bellies.

  Over dinner he commissioned his officers: by his edict the Seigneur de Grippeminaud was placed in the vanguard, which comprised sixteen thousand men armed with harquebuses and twenty-five thousand soldiers of fortune. The ordnance was entrusted to Toucquedillon, the Grand Equerry; in which were counted nine hundred and fourteen great bronze guns: cannons, cannon-royals, basilisks, serpentines, culverins, bombards, falcons, passe-volants, falconets and other field-pieces. The rearguard was allotted to le Duc de Racqedenare. The king and the princes of the realm took their places in the centre.

  And thus summarily equipped, before they set out they despatched three hundred light horse led by Captain Engoulevent to reconnoitre the land and find out whether any ambushes had been laid in the country, but, having diligently searched, they found all the land about them to be in peace and quiet, without musters of any kind.

  Upon hearing which, Picrochole ordered that each man should march behind his banner, rapidly.

  And so, without order or restraint, they started their campaign all jumbled up together, wasting and smashing everything in their way, sparing neither poor nor rich nor any building, sacred or profane. They made off with oxen, cows, bulls, calves, heifers, ewes, sheep, goats and rams as well as with hens, capons, pullets, goslings, ganders, geese, pigs, sows and piglets. They bashed down the walnuts, stripped the vines, tore away the vine-stocks and shook all the fruit from the trees. It was an unparalleled havoc they were wreaking.

  And they found no one whatever to resist them; all threw themselves at their mercy and begged to be treated with greater humanity, bearing in mind that they had long been good and loving neighbours and had never committed any violence or outrage against them to be so suddenly mistreated; and that God would soon punish them. To such reproaches they made no reply except that they would ‘learn ‘em to eat fouaces!’

  How a monk of Seuilly saved the close of his abbey from being sacked by the enemy

  CHAPTER 25

  [Becomes Chapter 27.

  Enter Frère Jean (a Benedictine monk, as Rabelais had been for a while). In Gargantua Frère Jean is normally called simply ‘the Monk’. His surname, d’Entommeures (‘Mincemeat’), suggests that he makes mincemeat of his enemies. He is one of the greatest comic figures of all time. He is also an acted parable preaching active virtue over merely verbal piety: see Chapter 38. After Gargantua he does not come into prominence again until the storm-at-sea in the Fourth Book, where he plays the same role and reference is made back to his defence of the abbey close.

  The plague kills evangelical preachers and medical men but not the devilish marauders. Why? Because the plague is not sent by God but by devils. (See Chapter 43.)

  Until ‘42 the timorous monks were clearly chanting ’Impetum inimicorum ne timueritis’ (‘Fear not the assaults of the enemies’). Then their chants become all but incomprehensible: ‘Ini, nim, pe, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, tum, ne, tum, ne, num, num, ini, i, mi, i, mi, co, o, ne, no, o, o, ne, no, ne, no, no, no, rum, ne, num, num’. Such repetitions even more evidently constitute battologia, that ‘vain repetition’ condemned just before the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. Rabelais was reinforced in his beliefs here by an adage of Erasmus (II, I, XCII, ‘Battologia, Laconism’).

  Before ‘42 Rabelais had discovered the Cratylus of Plato, which influenced his attitude to language above all in the Fourth Book but also (as here) in some of his additions and changes elsewhere.

  ‘Da mihi potum’ (‘Give me a drink’) is a monastic joke, sometimes found written by the tired scribe at the end of a manuscript. It probably echoes Matthew 10:42 (Vulgate).

  The war is fought over the countryside Rabelais knew as a boy around his home at La Devinière.]

  So they roamed thus about, thieving and pillaging until they came to Seuilly, where they robbed the men and the women and plundered whatever they could: nothing was too hot nor too heavy. Now although the plague was in most of the houses, they entered them everywhere and plundered everything inside, yet not one of them ever suffered any ill effects; which is a matter of great wonder, since the curates, vicars, preachers, physicians and apothecaries who went to visit, bandage, treat, exhort and admonish the sick all died of the infection whilst those pillaging and murdering devils suffered no harm.

  How does that come about, Gentlemen?

  Think about it, I pray you.

  Having thus pillaged the town they proceeded to the abbey with a terrifying uproar, but they found it bolted and barred; the main body of the army therefore marched on further towards the ford at Vède, save for six troops of foot soldiers and two hundred lancers who stayed behind and breached the walls of the abbey-close in order to despoil the entire vineyard.

  Those poor devils of monks knew not which of their saints to invoke; but at all events they did toll the bell summoning to the Chapter such as vote in the Chapter. There it was decreed that they would take out a nice procession, reinforced by nice sermons and litanies against the snares of our enemies as well as by nice responses for peace.

  There was at that time in that abbey a cloistered monk called Frère Jean des Entommeures, young, gallant, lively, lusty, adroit, bold, daring, resolute, tall, slim, loud-mouthed, endowed with an ample nose, a galloper through of mattins, an unbridler of masses [and a polisher-off of vigils]: in short, a true monk if ever there was one since the [monking] world first monked-about [with monkery; and for the rest a cleric up to his teeth where breviary-stuff is concerned].

  Upon hearing the din made by the enemy throughout the close of their vineyard, he sallied forth to see what they were up to. Realizing that they were harvesting the grapes on which the entire year’s drinking was based, he returned to the quire of the church where the other monks were assembled, as dazed as bell-founders. On seeing them chanting ‘Im, im, im, pe, e, e, e, e, e, tum, um, in, ni, i, mi, co, o, o, o, o, o, rum, um’, he said, ‘What a good little shitty-dog shanty! God Almighty! Why don’t you chant

  Grape-baskets farewell: our vintage is o’er?

  The devil take me if they are not inside our close, so thoroughly lopping off fruit and branch that, by the Body of God, there will be nothing but gleanings for four years to come. By the guts of Saint James, what shall we poor devils be drinking in the meantime? Lord God, Give me a drink.’

  At which the claustral prior said:

  ‘What is that hintoxicated fellow here going to do! Let him be led off to the prison. Troubling Divine Service!’

  ‘The Wine Service!’ said the Monk. ‘Let’s see that it be not troubled! You too, my Lord Prior, love to drink of the best. So do all good men and true. Never hath noble man loathed good wine. [That’s a monastical apophthegm!] But those responses you are chanting here are, by God, out of season. Why are our services short during the harvesting of grain and grape yet so long during Advent and winter? The late Frère Macé Pelosse of blessèd memory (a true zealot for our Order or the devil take me) told me – I remember it well – that the reason is so that we may press and ferment our wine in that season and then quaff it in winter. Harken to me, Gentlemen: He who loves wine, by God’s body let him follow me! For bluntly, may Saint Anthony’s fire burn me if any of those taste the wine who never succoured the vine. Guts of God! It’s church property! Ah! No, no! The devil! Saint Thomas of England was willing enough to die for it. If I died here wouldn’t I be a saint too?

  ‘But I’m not going to die: I’ll make others do that!’

  So saying, he cast off his great habit and grabbed the shaft of the Cross; it was from the heart of a cornel-tree, as long as a lance, rounded for the fist and scattered with a few fleurs-de-lys all but effaced. He sallied forth in a handsome cassock, his frock thrown over like a scarf, and with the shaft of his Cross he lashed out so violently at the enemy who without order, standard, trumpet or drum were harvesting the grapes in the close (for those who bore banner or standard had left them alongside the wa
lls, while the drummers had knocked in one side of their drums so as to fill them with grapes, and the trumpeters were burdened by grape-laden vine-branches: all had broken ranks) he fell so suddenly on them without crying Cave, that he knocked them over like porkers, slashing this way and that as one fenced of old.

  In some cases he battered their brains out; in others, he fractured their arms and legs; in others, he dislocated the vertebrae of the neck; and in others, he ruptured the kidneys, bashed in their noses, blacked their eyes, smashed their mandibles, knocked their teeth clown their throats, stove in their shoulder-blades, gangrened their legs, dislocated their thighs and splintered their fore-arms.

  If any one sought to hide amongst the thickest vines, he bashed in his back-bone and walloped him like a dog.

  If any one sought safety in flight, he shattered his head along the lamdoidal suture.

  If any one clambered into a tree and thought he was safe up there he impaled him through the fundament.

  If one of his old acquaintances cried, ‘Ha! Frère Jean, my friend, Frère Jean, I surrender!’

  ‘You have to,’ he would say; ‘and surrender your soul to the devils too!’ And he would swiftly give him a few bonks.

  If any person was so overcome with temerity as to wish to face up to him, he showed him the strength of his muscles, for he would skewer his chest through the heart and the middle septum.

  In other cases he would strike them below the rib-cage, upsetting their tummies. And they would suddenly die.

  In other cases he would run them so fiercely through the navel that he made their innards pour out.

  In others, he would pierce the arse-gut between their bollocks.

  It was, believe me, the most dreadful spectacle man ever saw.