Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  [Becomes Chapter 42.

  The Gregorian Decretals contain a rubric ‘On the Frigid and the Bewitched’; Cf. the Third Book, Chapter 14.

  Absalom with his long hair suffers a similar fate to the tonsured Frère Jean’s in II Samuel (II Kings) 18:9.]

  So off ride those noble champions on their adventures, fully determined to discover when to pursue an engagement and, come the day of the great and awesome battle, what they would have to defend themselves from.

  And the Monk put heart into them, saying, Tear not, lads, and doubt not. I shall surely guide you. God and Saint Benedict be with us. If I had as much strength as courage, Gosh, I’d pluck them for you like ducks. I dread nought but their ordnance. I do know a prayer, though, which protects the body from all firing-pieces; it was given me by the sub-sacristan of our Abbey. It won’t do me any good though: I don’t believe in it. Nevertheless the shaft of my cross will do a devilish good job.

  ‘By God, if I catch any of you lot ducking, the devil take me if I don’t make him a monk in my stead. I’ll truss him up in my frock: it contains a remedy for cowardice.

  ‘Have you heard the one about the greyhound of the Sieur de Meurles which was no good in the field? He tied a monkish frock about its neck, and, by the body of God, not one hare or fox got away from it. What’s more, it covered all the bitches of the land, yet before that it had been impotent (as in, On the Frigid and the Bewitched).’

  The Monk, fierily uttering such words, passed under a walnut-tree towards La Saulaie when he caught the visor of his helmet on a stump jutting out from a big branch. Despite that, he fiercely dug his spurs into his steed (which was sensitive to jabs) causing it to give a great bound forward, while he, trying to unhook his visor, let go of the bridle and hung on to the branch by his hands as his horse slipped out from under him. By such means was the Monk left dangling from the tree, yelling, ‘Help!’ and ‘Murder!’ and crying treason.

  Eudemon was the first to espy him and, calling to Gargantua, said, ‘Sire: come and see Absalom hanging!’

  Gargantua came up, contemplated the countenance of the Monk and the manner of his hanging, and said to Eudemon, ‘It’s ill done comparing him to Absalom: Absalom hung by his hair, whereas this bald-pated monk has hanged himself by his ears.’

  ‘Help me,’ said the Monk, ‘for the devil’s sake. Is this the time for yapping! You’re like those Decretaline preachers who hold that whoever finds his neighbour in mortal peril must, before helping him, under pain of a three-pronged excommunication, first admonish him to make his confession and put himself into a state of grace. If ever I find them fallen in the river and about to drown, instead of looking for them and lending them a hand I shall preach them a lovely long sermon On Contempt for this world, and On Fleeing things temporal; then once they’re dead stiff I’ll go and fish them out!’

  ‘Don’t budge, my dear one,’ said Gymnaste; ‘I am going for help, for you’re such a nice little monkling:

  A monkling in his abbey,

  For two eggs you can have ‘ee;

  But outside, for a cert, ‘e

  Might just be worth say thirty.

  I have seen over five hundred men hanged in my time but not one dangling with better grace. If I could do it as gracefully I’d hang that way all my life.’

  ‘Preached enough yet?’ said the Monk. ‘Help me for God’s sake, since you won’t do so for t’Other’s. By the habit which I wear, you’ll repent of all this tempore et loco prelibitis (in due time and place).’

  It was then that Gymnaste dismounted, climbed the tree, raised the Monk by the gussets with one hand and with the other freed the visor from the stump. He let the Monk fall to the ground and he followed after.

  As soon as he was down, the Monk stripped off all his armour and tossed one piece after another all over the field; then, taking up again the shaft of his cross, he remounted his horse which Eudemon had arrested in flight.

  And so on they went joyfully, taking the road to La Saulaie.

  How a patrol of Picrochole’s was encountered by Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Dashon and was then kept prisoner amongst the enemy

  CHAPTER 41

  [Becomes Chapter 43.

  Stoles are the scarves symbolic of Holy Orders: the enemy here use them as talismans. ‘Gregorian water’ is holy water, but Gregory’s name is crossed here by Rabelais with that of Fierre Gringoire, a popular French author.

  Again, the expression ‘to land somebody with the monk’ is used literally.

  ‘To leave an enemy a bridge of silver’ is cited by Erasmus from King Alfonso of Aragon (Apophthegms, 8).]

  Picrochole, during the report of those who had escaped in the rout when Tri-ffart was de-triffarted, was seized by great wrath on hearing how the devils had attacked his men, and held an all-night council in which Rushin and Braggart declared that his power was such that he could defeat all the devils in Hell if they were to come against him: which he did not entirely believe, nor yet disbelieve. So, as a patrol to spy out the land, he despatched under the command of the Comte de Rushin, sixteen hundred knights, all mounted on light horses ready for skirmishes, all well sprinkled with holy water and each bearing for his ensign a stole worn as a scarf, prepared for all eventualities should they encounter any devils whom they would compel to vanish and melt away by the virtues of both their Gringorian water and their stoles.

  They galloped to the lands near the Lazar-house of La Vauguyon but found no one to parley with, so they returned by the high road; there, near Le Coudray, in the ‘pastoral tugury’ – or hut – they found the five pilgrims, whom they led away, trussed up and bound as though they were spies, notwithstanding their loud pleas, protestations and adjurations.

  Having ridden down toward Seuilly, they were heard by Gargantua, who said to his men: ‘Companions, here comes a crunch. They are more than ten times greater in number than we are. Shall we charge at them?’

  ‘What the devil else,’ said the Monk. ‘Do you reckon men by number not by gallantry and bravery?’ Then he yelled out: ‘Charge, you devils! Charge!’

  Now when the enemy heard those words they were convinced they were real devils and began to gallop off at full tilt, save for Dashon, who lowered his lance and violently struck the Monk right in the middle of his chest; but, coming up against his horrific frock, the steel point buckled back as though you were to strike a little wax-candle against an anvil.

  Whereupon the Monk whacked him with the shaft of his cross so hard on the posterior apophysis (between the neck and the shoulder-blades) that he stunned him, causing him to lose all his senses and all control of his movements so that he tumbled before his horse’s hoofs. Then, seeing his stole, the Monk said to Gargantua: ‘They’re only priests, the mere rudiment of a monk! I, by Saint John, am an accomplished monk: I shall swat them like flies.’

  Then he galloped flat out after them and caught up with the stragglers, thrashing them down like rye as he struck out right and left.

  Gymnaste at once asked Gargantua whether they ought to pursue them.

  To which Gargantua replied:

  ‘Most certainly not; for according to the true art of war you should never drive your enemy into a desperate situation, since such straits redouble his strength and increase his courage, which until then had been abject and weak: there is no better remedy for bringing deliverance to confused and exhausted men than their having no hope of escape. How many victories have been snatched by the vanquished from the grasp of victors who were not content with the reasonable but tried to massacre and utterly destroy all their foes, unwilling to spare even one to bring the news. Always leave gates and routes open to your enemies: indeed, make them a bridge of silver to escape over.

  True,’ said Gymnaste, ‘but they’ve been landed with the Monk.’

  ‘Landed with the Monk!’ said Gargantua. ‘Upon my honour, that will be to their harm. But to provide for all hazards, let us not yet withdraw. Let us wait quietly here, for I think I well
understand the tactics of the enemy: they are guided by chance not by counsel.’

  So while they waited under the walnut-tree, the Monk continued his pursuit, charging at all those whom he encountered and showing mercy to none until he came across a knight with one of the wretched pilgrims slung across his crupper. Then, as the Monk was about to weigh into that knight, the pilgrim cried out,

  ‘Ha! My Lord Prior! My friend! My Lord Prior, save me, I beg you!’

  All the foes, on hearing those words, looked behind them and saw that it was the Monk who was alone causing the commotion; so they loaded him with blows as one loads an ass with sticks, yet so tough was his hide that he felt hardly anything,34 especially when the blows fell on his frock.

  Then they assigned him to two archers and, turning their horses about, saw nobody before them. At which they surmised that Gargantua had fled with his band. They therefore galloped towards the walnut-grove as fast as they could so as to encounter them, leaving the Monk alone with two archers on guard.

  Gargantua heard the pounding and neighing of their horses and said to his men, ‘Companions: I can hear the racket raised by our enemies and I can already espy some of those who are coming against us. Let us close here up tight and hold the road in good order. By such means we shall prepare a reception for them, to their ruin and our honour.’

  How the Monk rid himself of his guards, and how Picrochole’s patrol were defeated

  CHAPTER 42

  [Becomes Chapter 44.

  Medical ‘comedy of cruelty’ at Rabelais’ best.

  Rabelais drew the matter of his Virgilian simile from an adage of Erasmus taken literally: II, VIII, LIV, ‘Roused by a gad-fly’. (Juno drove Io the cow into a frenzy by plaguing her with a horsefly.)

  The sudden, empty terror known as ‘panic terror’ is also the subject of an adage of Erasmus (III, VII, III, ‘Panic events’).]

  The Monk, seeing them make off in disorder, conjectured that they were on their way to attack Gargantua and his men, and it made him wondrously depressed that he could not help them. He then became aware of the comportment of the two archers of his guard, who would have much preferred to chase after their troops and seize some plunder: they kept looking along the valley where the others were making their way down. He moreover syllogized, saying: ‘These folk here are very badly trained in the ways of war, since they have never put me on my word nor removed my sword.’

  Immediately afterwards he drew forth that sword and struck the archer who was holding him on his right, entirely severing the sphagitid arteries in the neck – his jugular veins – together with the uvula down to the two thyroid glands; then, withdrawing his sword, he prised the spinal marrow half-open between the second and third vertebrae: at which the archer dropped down dead.

  Then the Monk, tugging his horse to the left, fell upon the other archer who, seeing his comrade dead and the Monk with an advantage over him, loudly bawled,

  ‘Ah! My Lord Prior, I give in. My Lord Prior, my dear friend, my Lord Prior!’

  And the Monk similarly bawled,

  ‘My Lord Posterior, my friend! My Lord Posterior, you shall get it on your posteriors!’

  ‘Ah!’ cried the archer, ‘My Lord Prior, my dearest Lord Prior, may God make you an abbot.’

  ‘An habit! By the one I wear,’ said the Monk, ‘here I shall make you a cardinal. Ransoming men of Religion! From my own hand now you shall get a red hat.’

  And the archer cried,

  ‘My Lord Prior, my Lord Prior; my Lord the Abbot-to-be; my Lord Cardinal; my Lord of All: ah! ah! heh! heh! No!! My Lord Prior, my nice little Lord Prior! I give in!’

  ‘And you I give to all the devils,’ said the Monk.

  Whereupon he sliced through his head at one blow, cutting his cranium above the petrous bone, removing both the bones of the sinciput as well as the sagittal suture, together with the greater part of the coronal bone; by so doing he sliced through both meninges and opened up deeply the two posterior ventricle-cavities of the brain: and so his cranium remained hanging down over his shoulders at the back from the membranes of the pericranium in the form of a doctoral bonnet, black above, red within.

  And thus did he fall to the ground quite dead.

  That done, the Monk gave his horse the spur and followed the route adopted by his enemies, who had encountered Gargantua and his comrades on the highway but were so reduced in number (by the huge slaughter wrought there by Gargantua with his great tree and by Gymnaste, Ponocrates, Eudemon and the others) that they were beginning to retreat in good earnest, all terrified, with their minds and their senses thrown into confusion, as though they had seen before their eyes the very species and form of Death.

  And – as you may see a donkey, when it is stung about the arse by a wasp or a Junonian gad-fly, dashing hither and thither, following nor path nor way, casting its load to the ground, yet no one knowing what is provoking it since no one sees anything goading it – thus fled those men, bereft of their senses, knowing not why they fled but solely pursued by a panic terror conceived in their minds.

  When the Monk saw that they had no thought but to flee on foot, he dismounted and climbed on to a large rock overhanging the road and struck down the fugitives with his sword, making great sweeps with his arm, neither sparing nor considering himself. So many did he slay and cast to the ground that his sword snapped in twain. Whereupon he reflected that there had been killing and slaughter enough and that the remainder ought to escape to spread the news. And so he grabbed a battle-axe from one of the men lying there dead, rushed at once back to his rock and spent his time watching the enemy as they fled and stumbled about amongst the dead bodies; he simply made them drop their pikes, swords, lances and harquebuses. And as for those who were transporting the bound-up pilgrims, he made them walk and hand over their horses to the said pilgrims, keeping them by him at the edge of the forest, with Braggart who was retained as his prisoner.

  How the Monk brought the pilgrims back; and the fair words which Grandgousier spoke to them

  CHAPTER 43

  [Becomes Chapter 45.

  Strong criticism of pilgrimages in a jolly setting: the plague is not sent by God nor the Just and the Saints: it is ever the work of the devil. Attributions of powers over particular diseases to particular saints are often based upon similarities of their names and those of the maladies. This chapter answers the question about the plague raised at the beginning of Chapter 25.

  Perhaps the harshest of the scriptural expressions hurled at a religious enemy in Rabelais’ time was ‘false prophet’, which carried with it the condemnation of Jesus himself (as in Matthew 7:15; 24:11) and of all four Evangelists.

  Saint Paul allegedly condemns pilgrimages when he urges Christian men to look after ‘the household of faith’, taken to mean their families (I Timothy 5:8, and Galatians 6:10).

  It is the king himself, not a cleric of any kind, who decides to drive off the ‘black-beetles’ – those hypocrites who are classed with the ‘false prophets’ who can deceive the very Elect (as in Matthew 24:24). In so doing he is exercising the right of the Christian Magistrate to suppress blasphemy.

  It is also in Matthew (10:28) that we are told not to fear ‘them who kill the body’ but them who are able ‘to destroy both soul and body’.

  Plato’s praise of the philosopher king was well known from an adage of Erasmus (I, III, I, ‘Either a fool or a king should be born.’).]

  That skirmish once over, Gargantua withdrew with his men except for the Monk and, as dawn broke, called on Grandgousier, who was in bed praying God for their security and victory. On seeing them safe and sound, Grandgousier embraced them with true affection and asked for news of the Monk. Gargantua replied that, without any doubt, the foe had been landed with the Monk.

  ‘They’re in for a bad time then,’ said Grandgousier.

  And that had already been proven true. Hence the saying (still current), To land somebody with the Monk.

  He then commanded that an ex
cellent breakfast be prepared to refresh them. They called Gargantua when everything was ready, but he was so upset when the Monk never appeared that he would neither drink nor eat.

  All of a sudden, the Monk appears and yells from the backyard gate, ‘Cool wine, Gymnaste, my friend, cool wine!’

  Gymnaste went out and saw that it was Frère Jean bringing in five pilgrims and Braggart prisoner.

  Gargantua then came out to meet him; they all gave the Monk the warmest possible welcome and brought him before Grandgousier, who questioned him about his whole adventure. The Monk told him the lot: how the enemy had taken him, how he had rid himself of the archers, about the slaughter he had wrought on his way, and how he had rescued the pilgrims and brought in Captain Braggart. They then all began to feast happily together.

  Meanwhile Grandgousier inquired of the pilgrims where they hailed from, where they were coming from and where they were going to. On behalf of them all Weary-legs spoke:

  ‘Sire: I hail from Saint Genou in Berry; this one hails from Paluau; this one, from Onzay; this one, from Argy, and this one here, from Villebrenin. We’ve been to Saint Sebastian’s near Nantes, and are making our way home by easy stages.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Grandgousier, ‘but what did you go to Saint-Sebastian’s for?’

  ‘We went there,’ said Weary-legs, ‘to make him our supplications against the plague.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Grandgousier, ‘you reckon then, do you, poor fellows, that the plague comes from Saint Sebastian?’

  ‘Yes, certainly,’ replied Weary-legs. ‘So our preachers tell us.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Grandgousier, ‘Do those false prophets spread such abuses? Do they defame in that fashion the Just and the Saints of God, making them like devils who do nothing but evil amongst mankind – as Homer told that the plague was spread amongst the Grecian army by Apollo, and as poets feign a great mass of bogeys and maleficent godlings?