Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  Their whole life was ordered not by laws, rules and regulations but according to their volition and free-will.

  They got up when it seemed good to do so; they drank, ate, worked and slept when the desire came over them. No one woke them up; no one compelled them to drink, to eat nor to do anything else whatsoever.

  Gargantua had laid that down.

  There was but one clause in their Rule: Do what thou wilt, because people who are free, well bred, well taught and conversant with honourable company have by nature an instinct – a goad – which always pricks them towards virtuous acts and withdraws them from vice. They called it Honour. When such as they are oppressed and enslaved by base subordination and constraint, that noble disposition by which they were, with frankness, striving towards virtue, they deflect towards casting off and breaking down that yoke of bondage – for ‘We all engage in things forbidden, and yearn for things denied.’

  By such freedom they all vied laudably with each other to do what they saw to be pleasing to any one of them. So if any one man or woman said, ‘Let us drink,’ they all did so; if, ‘Let us have a game,’ they all did so; if, ‘Let us go into the fields for some sport,’ they all went.

  Whenever it was for hawking or hunting, the ladies, mounted on their beautiful familiar-horses and accompanied by their proud palfreys, each bore on her gloved hand a sparrow-hawk, a lannet or a merlin.

  The men bore the other types of bird.

  All had been educated so nobly that there was not a man or woman amongst them but could read and write, sing, play musical instruments and speak five or six languages in which they composed both prose and verse.

  Never were there seen knights like these: so stout-hearted, so gallant, so full of dexterity on horse and foot, so vigorous, more active, or more talented in the handling of every sort of weapon. Never were there seen ladies like these: so neat, so dainty, less froward, more accomplished with their hands, with the needle, or at every activity which is womanly, honourable and free.

  That is why, when the time arrived that any man in that Abbey should wish to leave: at the request of his parents or for some other reason), he took one of the ladies with him – the one who had accepted him as her suitor – and they wedded each other; and so well had they dwelt together in Thélème in loving-friendship that they continued all the more to do so in marriage, loving each other as much at the end of their lives as on the first day of their wedding.

  I must not forget to write down an enigma uncovered during the digging of the foundations of the Abbey; it was inscribed upon a huge plaque of bronze. It read as follows:

  An enigma uncovered amongst the foundations of the Abbey of the Thelemites

  CHAPTER 56

  [Becomes Chapter 58.

  The enigma artistically balances the ‘coq-à-l’âne’ in Chapter 2, but is not written in the same baffling style. Except for the first two lines (with their Sursum corda) and the last ten lines – here separated from the rest of the poem – the verse seems to have been lifted straight from the works the Court poet Mellin de Saint-Gelais, presumably with his consent. At one level the poem is an example of the (often easy to resolve) enigmatic verse enjoyed during the Renaissance: it describes a game of royal-tennis in Apocalyptic terms.

  The poem ends with the scriptural injunctions to ‘persevere unto the end’ despite persecution and not to be ‘offended’ (‘scandalized’) by the persecution of the Elect. Since 1532, real but limited persecution of evangelicals had become an urgent concern. After the second affaire des placards of January 1535, when Marot, Rabelais and others had to drop what they were doing and flee for their lives, matters became far worse. And then, suddenly, François I changed his policy and, while keeping in prison Noël Béda, the Syndic of the Sorbonne, invited the moderate Melanchthon to Paris to debate reforms. So Bishop Jean Du Bellay, the liberal patron of Rabelais, had been vindicated.

  Gargantua takes up the theme of the persecution of the Elect who return to the Gospel: Frère Jean dismisses the suggestion that any evangelical message is implied by the verse: for him it is all about a tennis-match: no more. But the dense scriptural quotations cannot of course be ignored.

  They are noted at the end of the chapter.]

  Ye who seek happiness, ye mortals all,

  Lift up your hearts and listen now withal.

  If we may truly hold, with full intent,

  That heavenly bodies in the firmament

  Have influenced human minds, which have foretold

  So many things the future then did hold,

  Or if Almighty God may help us know

  That which on us the future may bestow,

  Or Destiny from far-off time may send,

  News of all which is by free knowledge penned:

  I tell you now, if only you will hear,

  This coming winter – yes, the one that’s near –

  Then various kinds of men shall make an entry,

  Tired of peace and bored of leisured plenty,

  They’ll openly proceed, in day’s full light

  Good folk of every quality to incite

  To discord and to quarrelling. Indeed,

  Listen and believe them, then they do succeed!

  However things turn out, whate’er the cost,

  They wish to see our family concord lost,

  Friend against friend, each on a different side,

  And men and women too by kindred tied.

  Ah, moral horror! Even the brash son

  Will bend his arm and make his father run.

  Even the Great, from noblest forbears sprung,

  Shall by their subjects have their withers rung.

  The duty then of honoured preference

  Will be o’erthrown! ‘Twixt men no difference.

  For they shall say that each man in his turn

  Shall drive right high, and then to earth return.

  Men form in bands and argue at this point:

  Discord, and fights: the time so out of joint,

  That even History, full of wondrous things,

  Can find no parallel to such happenings.

  Then we shall see how many a good man,

  Answering the goad as only young men can,

  Clinging a while to life but wrapped in gloom,

  Will ever strive, only to die in bloom.

  There is no man who, once he sets his hand

  Unto this task, following his heart’s command,

  Who has not filled the air with raucous cries.

  Running about and yelling to the skies.

  Then shall all men have like authority.

  Men of no faith, and men of Verity;

  Men then accept the judgements, always crude,

  Of ignorance and the so vain multitude.

  The dud amongst them then the judge shall be:

  And then a dire and dreadful flood you’ll see!

  Flood do I say, and say it with right reason,

  For all this strife will not be out of season

  Nor shall the world be freed of it at last

  Until there pour forth waters, rising fast:

  Waters abrupt, drenching the moderate

  Who fighting hard, quit the court too late:

  And rightly so, for then their heart and mind

  Ne’er to this combat pardon had assigned

  Nor spared the beasts – the innocent beasts – whose guts

  Not sacrificed to gods with priestly cuts

  But put to daily uses by mere Man

  Who with their innards strives as hard he can.

  May this be settled? I leave it all to you.

  Think about it. Can discord struggle through?

  Within discord may quiet reign in robe?

  Can rest e’er touch the stuff of our round Globe.

  Those most enthralled with it most happy are:

  They try not lose nor spoil it from afar:

  They strive and strive in many a different way

  To make it slavi
sh, and a prisoner stay:

  Yet, to its maker, spoilt, return at last

  Poor and undone it needs work on his last.

  But – for the worst part of its accident –

  The Sun, before it shines in Occident

  Will let the darkness circle it around,

  Deep as eclipse or veiled nights daily round;

  So, at one blow, ‘twill lose its liberty,

  Favours from Heaven and the Sun’s clarity.

  But, at the least, abandoned shall it be

  And, well before, its downfall shall we see,

  Such that Mount Aetna like shock had not known

  When by that son of Titan she was thrown,

  Nor yet more sudden, though it does resemble

  The motion which Inarime made tremble

  When Typhoeus to such a range did fly

  That mountains toppled to the sea from high.

  And soon it shall to all appear so battered

  That changed ’twill be for fresh ones, unbespattered;

  That even they who held it in their sway

  Will let newcomers with it have their way.

  Then nears the time – time ever good and wise –

  To put an end to that long exercise.

  Nevertheless before away all go

  There will be felt in clean air all aglow,

  The violent heat of a great searing flame

  Which ends the floods, and also ends men’s game.

  More is to come: then such as then travail

  And whom, though heavy laden, pains avail,

  Shall, by Our Lord’s own will refreshed and blest,

  Come unto Him and find eternal rest.

  Then shall we all with certain knowledge see

  The good and fruit brought forth from patience’ tree:

  To whom, before, most suffering did grieve

  Shall be allotted most, shall most receive.

  Such was the promise. How must we revere

  Him who unto the End does persevere.

  The reading of this muniment fully completed, Gargantua sighed deeply and said to those about him: ‘It is not only nowadays that those are persecuted who are led back to belief in the Gospel: but blessed is he who is not scandalized and who ever aims at the target, the mark, which God has set before us through his dear Child, without being distracted or diverted by his carnal affections.’

  The Monk said: ‘What do you think to be intended by this enigma? What do you understand it to mean?’

  ‘Why,’ said Gargantua, ‘the course and upholding of divine Truth.’

  ‘By Saint Goderan,’ said the Monk, ‘I think it is the description of a tennis-match and that the “round globe” is the ball; the “guts” and the “innards” of the “innocent beasts” are the rackets; and the folk who are het up and wrangling are the players. The end means that, after such travails, they go off for a meal! And be of good cheer!’38

  [Note on the last ten lines of the poem and the ensuing comments.

  The poem of Mellin de Saint-Gelais concludes with the conflagration at the End of the world (II Peter 3:18). Then follows Rabelais’ own evangelical Dixain in his new, densely scriptural style, mostly echoing texts concerned with persecution and perseverance unto the End. The main ones are: ‘Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden and I shall refresh you’ (Matthew 11:28); ‘… and hear forth fruit in patience’ (the parable of the Sower, where patience means suffering).

  Gargantua’s comments reinforce those scriptural teachings: ‘Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized in me’ (to be ‘scandalized’ – or Offended’ in the Authorized (King james) Version – is to lose one’s faith through fear of persecution) (Matthew 11:6; Luke 7:23). ‘To sin’ in the Greek of the New Testament is hamartanô, to miss the target, to miss the mark. Good Christians who are not ‘offended’, that is, not ‘scandalized’, aim so as not to miss their target, who is the Son of God (here called ‘Child’ as in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke).

  That target ‘is set before us’. The term used by Rabelais is préfix, a word with a clear predestinationalist import. The final ‘42 version by Rabelais of the last ten lines of verse is more emphatically predestinationalist:

  More is to come: those great events once passed,

  God’s own Elect, with joys refreshed at last

  With all good things and heavenly manna blest

  And honoured recompense with all that’s best

  Enriched shall be. The others at the End

  Each stripped quite bare. Which to all doth portend

  That, travails ceased, at that point all await

  And firmly find their own predestined fate.

  Such is the Accord. O how must we revere

  Him who unto the End doth persevere.

  The key word ‘refreshed’ and the call to persevere’ are linked with terms frequently in the mouths of the Reformers: the ‘Elect’, the ‘Covenant’ (accord) and the ‘Last Judgement’, but they are all at home with a cleric such as Rabelais who had developed a predilection for Saint Paul.

  The expanded ‘42 version of Frère jean’s dismissive remarks is given in the footnote.]

  ALMANAC FOR 1536

  Introduction to Almanac for 1536

  A manuscript copy of this part of an Almanac for 1536 was discovered by Professor Pierre Aquilon, written by Brinctius Clinckart on the blank space after the Erratula of an edition of Macrobius’ Somnium Ciceronis (Dream of Scipio, Cologne, 1526). The gaps represented here by [… ] are, I think, gaps not in Rabelais, but left by Brinctius Clinckart, who intended to fill them in later.

  The Latin phrases of the original are kept here, with the translation given in square brackets. The Latin titles of books are translated.

  MAÎTRE FRANÇOYS RABBELAIS, DOCTOR OF MEDICINE AND PHYSICIAN IN THE GREAT HOSPITAL OF LYONS IN HIS ALMANAC FOR 1536

  [Rabelais retains his title of ‘Physician in the Great Hospital of Lyons’. He walked out of that post, without warning (30 February 1535), fearing persecution. Either he composed this Almanac for 1536 before that date, or else he clung to his title even though he had abandoned his post.

  1536 was a leap year, and so a year worrying to many at all levels of society. In Latin the intercalated day of a leap year is called a bisectum, a ‘double sixth’. The leap year itself is called bisextilis (again with the meaning of double-sixth).

  The main target of Rabelais is Giovanni Michele Savonarola, who was well known for his works on hot springs. I have used his Practica Canonica of Lyons, 1560. Having shown, just as Rabelais does, that leap years are a human invention, corresponding to nothing in the heavens, Savonarola adds that, following Aristotle’s Ethics, Book 2, we should not dismiss popular opinions out of hand. He is alluding to the Nicomachaean Ethics, 1, 8, 7, where Aristotle writes that it is probable that popular beliefs based on experience are at least partly correct.

  The authors towards the end are identified in the notes; one only of their editions is mentioned: in some cases there were many more.]

  Judgement on the Leap Year

  I will expound to you (said the aforesaid Maître Françoys) within the capacity of this booklet what a leap year is and, once it is all understood, you will know that it is nothing in Nature nor in the heavens but simply a name imposed by the pleasure of men. Whether it be or not, there will be no change in Nature and no variation whatsoever, and Savonarola the physician made a great error when he asserted that thermal springs and hot baths are dangerous in a leap year. Know therefore that a year cannot be exactly defined by a certain number of days and hours, as Hyppo[crates] says in the third book of his Prognostics, and Pliny, Book 18, Chapter 25. However, as in several other things which cannot accept a precise setting of limits by human industry, the Ancients aimed to be as close as possible and divided the year into days and hours: that is, they decreed how many days and hours passed in our sundials during all the time that the sun makes one full revolution along its ecliptical lin
e: for that is what we call a year. Romulus, the first king of the Romans, simply put 360 days, which he divided into ten months, beginning with the month named Mars after his father. And since a great number of days were left over after that division, they would, after some time, intercalate a month which the Romans called mercidinum [?], inter calarem [inserted], embolimum [intercalary] and macedonium [Macedonian?], as Plutarch says and Macrobius.1

  Numa, who succeeded him, seeing the great deviation in their almanacs and calendars caused by those remaining days, made the year to be 365 days and 6 hours; he added two months, January and February, and severally distributed the days between each month, ordaining that the six remaining hours should be gathered together every four years, and from them he would make one artificial day, which would be added to February inter Terminalia et Regifugium qui est 6 kalendas martii [between the Terminalia and the Regifugium which is the VI Kalends of March] that those two days would occur over one letter of the calendar.2 And that is what we call the bisectum, [the double-sixth], because we count twice the VI Kalendas martii, and the year itself in which that addition of a day is made we call bisextilis. That will satisfy you for the present, for I know that the skilled in the Art have divided the year into 364 days, 5 hours, 44 minutes and 16 seconds, and that Julius Caesar corrected the Roman calendar by that calculation, and that several complain of the variation which has since been incurred.3 If you want to know more, read Saint Aug[ustine], Book 18, Against Faustus, Galen [us], Book 10, On Method, and Book 3 of the Prognostics, Ptolemy in his Isagoge for Megan the Astronomer, Pliny, Book […], Chapter […], Solinus, Book […], Chapter […],4 Bede, On Times,5 Censorinus, The Day of Birth,6 Macrobius in Saturnalia, Book […], chapter […], Alphonso […],7 Abraham […],8 Avenzre, On the Reasons for the Tables, […],9 Cusanus, On Correcting the Calendar and others. On these matters see commentaries on the Compotus, and glosses on the same.10 The end.

  1536, 2nd of May, I, Brictius Clinckart.