THE THIRD BOOK OF PANTAGRUEL
Introduction to The Third Book of Pantagruel
The Third Book is printed in humanist type, a change from Pantagruel and Gargantua, which both had ‘Gothick’ appearances.
The Third Book was first published in 1546 by Chrestien Wechel of Paris. The definitive text is that published by Michel Fezandat of Paris in 1552. The two texts, minor corrections apart, are all but identical. The first edition is translated here; the very few interpolations are placed within square brackets and changes of substance are given in the footnotes. Thus, to read the text of the first edition, ignore the interpolations inside square brackets and the variants listed in the notes. To read the definitive text of 1552, read everything.
The translation is based on my edition of the Tiers Livre for the Textes Littéraires Français (Geneva: Droz, 1974, with subsequent editions). I have also consulted the Pléiade edition of the works of Rabelais, edited by Mireille Huchon and the parallel text edition of Guy Demerson, which gives a modern French translation. (Publication details of both can be found in the Introduction to Pantagruel.)
The Third Book
of the
Heroic Deeds and Sayings
of the
noble Pantagruel,
composed
by Maître
Franç. Rabelais,
Doctor of Medicine
and
Caloyer of the Iles d’Hyères1
The aforesaid author begs the Kindly Readers
to reserve their laughter until the
seventy eighth book2
AT PARIS
By Chrestian Wechel, in the rue Saint-Jacques,
at the Ecu de Basle: and in the rue Saint-Jean-de-
Beauvais at the Cheval Volant.
M.D.XLVI
With the Privilège of the King
for six years
Contents
The King’s privilège
The Prologue of the Third Book
1 How Pantagruel shipped Utopians off to colonize Dipsody
2 How Panurge was made the Châtelain of Salmagundi in Dipsody, eating his corn when ’twas but grass
3 How Panurge makes a eulogy of debtors and borrowers
4 Panurge’s eulogy of lenders and debtors: continued
5 How Pantagruel loathes debtors and borrowers
6 Why newly married men were exempt from going to war
7 How Panurge had a flea in his ear and gave up sporting his magnificent codpiece
8 How the codpiece is the primary item of armour amongst fighting-men
9 How Panurge seeks advice from Pantagruel over whether he ought to marry
10 How Pantagruel admonishes Panurge that it is hard to give counsel about marriage; and of Homeric and Virgilian lots
11 How Pantagruel shows that the use of dice for lots is unlawful
12 How Pantagruel, with Virgilian lots, explores what marriage Panurge will have
13 How Pantagruel advises Panurge to foretell his good or bad fortune in marriage from dreams
14 Panurge’s dream and its interpretation
15 The Excuse of Panurge; and an exegesis of a monastical cabbala concerning salted beef
16 How Pantagruel counsels Panurge to consult the Sybil of Panzoust
17 How Panurge talks with the Sybil of Panzoust
18 How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely expound the Sibyl’s verse
19 How Pantagruel praises the counsel of mutes
20 How Nazdecabre replied to Panurge by signs
21 How Panurge takes counsel from an aged French poet called Raminagrobis
22 How Panurge pleads for the Order of the Friars Mendicant
23 How Panurge argues for a return to Raminagrobis
24 How Panurge takes counsel from Epistemon
25 How Panurge took counsel from Herr Trippa
26 How Panurge takes counsel from Frère Jean des Entommeures
27 How Frère Jean merrily advises Panurge
28 How Frère Jean gave support to Panurge in his doubts over cuckoldom
29 How Pantagruel brought together a theologian, a physician, a legist and a philosopher over the perplexity of Panurge
30 How Hippothadée the theologian gives advice to Panurge about the undertaking of a marriage
31 How Rondibilis, the physician, advises Panurge
32 How Rondibilis declares cuckoldry to be one of the adjuncts of matrimony
33 How Rondibilis, the physician, prescribes a remedy for cuckoldry
34 How women normally desire forbidden things
35 How Trouillogan the philosopher treats the difficulty of marriage
36 The continuation of the replies of Trouillogan the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian philosopher
37 How Pantagruel persuades Panurge to take advice from a fool
38 How Triboullet is blazoned by Pantagruel and by Panurge
39 How Pantagruel is present at the hearing of Bridoye, who decided lawsuits by the throw of the dice
40 How Bridoye expounds the reasons why he first examined the cases which he decided by dice
41 How Bridoye tells the story of an Appointer of lawsuits
42 How lawsuits are born and how they grow to perfection
43 How Pantagruel absolves Bridoye over judgements made by the lottery of dice
44 How Pantagruel tells a curious story of the perplexity of human judgements
45 How Panurge takes counsel from Triboullet
46 How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret what Triboullet said
47 How Pantagruel and Panurge decide on visiting the Dive Bouteille
48 How Gargantua establishes that it is never licit for children to marry without the knowledge and consent of their fathers and mothers
49 How Pantagruel prepared to put to sea, and of the plant called pantagruelion
50 How this celebrated pantagruelion must be dressed and put to use
51 Why this plant is called pantagruelion, and of its wonderful qualities
52 Of a certain species of pantagruelion which cannot be consumed by fire
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS to the Mind of the Queen of Navarre
[In ecstasy or rapture the mind (esprit,) is caught away from its body and soars upwards, even perhaps as Saint Paul’s did to the Third Heaven. It is seeking its homeland in Heaven, longing for intercourse with other souls and yearning for union with God. Marguerite was a platonizing, mystical, evangelical Christian, attracted by the mystical philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus (taken by many to be a contemporary of Moses): it is not surprising to see her hailed thus as an ecstatic mystic whose body here on earth strives to conform itself to the highest flights of its enraptured mind. Marguerite de Navarre was a great patron of other evangelicals, striving to protect them even from agencies approved by her brother, François I. She was the author of the Heptaméron, a playwright and a poet of real achievement. She also had a lively sense off fun and humour. To have her as patron marks Rabelais off for particular approval, but also (in the eyes of some academics in the Sorbonne) as a particular danger to their concept of orthodoxy.]
Abstracted Mind, enraptured, true ecstatic,
Who Heaven dost frequent whence thou derivest
(Leaving behind thine host and place domestic,
Harmonious body, which in concord striveth
To heed thine edicts: stranger, it arriveth
Bereft of senses, calm in Apathy)
Deignest thou not to make a lively sortie
From thine abode divine, perpetual,
This Third Book here with thine own eyes to see
Of the joyful deeds of good Pantagruel?
The King’s privilège
[Few French authors have ever received as fulsome a royal privilège. On the other hand Rabelais had petitioned for a privilège for ten years: he received one for six. A misprint of six for dix (ten) seems most unlikely in so vital a document. The royal privilège not only placed Rabelais under royal protection, it also d
isplayed royal approval of him as an author of the highest rank. But even a royal privilège did not guarantee an author from sometimes effective legal actions from which it was wise to free abroad, as Rabelais in fact did.
By calling the works of Rabelais ‘no less useful than delightful’, this privilège is again citing the highest praise accorded to a work of literature by Horace in his Ars Poetica: the works of Rabelais are ‘sweet’ and morally ‘useful’.]
François by the grace of God King of France, to the Provost of Paris, the Bailiff of Rouen, the Seneschals of Lyons, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Dauphiné and Poitou, and to all other Our Justices and Officials, or to their deputies, and to each of them severally as is due: greetings and affection.
On the part of Our beloved and loyal Maître François Rabelais, Doctor of Medicine of Our University of Montpellier, it has been expounded to Us that the aforesaid suppliant, having heretofore delivered to be printed several books, especially two volumes of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Pantagruel, no less useful than delightful, the printers have corrupted and perverted the aforesaid books in several places, to the great displeasure and detriment of the said supplicant, at which he has abstained from rendering public the continuation and sequel of the said Heroic Deeds and Saws; being however daily urged by studious and learned people of Our Kingdom and begged to use and to print the said sequels: he has supplicated Us to vouchsafe him a privilège so that no person be allowed to print them nor put any on sale, save only such as he shall have printed expressly by printers to whom he shall have handed his own true copies: and that for a period of ten consecutive years, beginning from the day and date of the printing of the said books.
Wherefore, We, all things considered and desirous that good literature be encouraged in Our Kingdom for the use and erudition of Our subjects, have given to the said Suppliant privilège, leave, licence and permission to have printed and put on sale by such reputable printers as he shall decide his said books and sequential works of the Heroic Deeds of Pantagruel beginning with the Third Volume, together with power and authority to correct and revise the two volumes previously written by him, and to make and cause to be made a new printing and sale; establishing prohibition and interdicts from Us, on pain of defined and great punishments, confiscation of any books by them imprinted and an arbitrary fine, to all printers and others whom it shall concern: that they are not to print nor put on sale the above-mentioned books without the will and consent of the said suppliant within the period of six consecutive years, beginning on the day and date of the printing of the said books, on pain of the confiscation of the said printed books and on arbitrary fine.
To achieve which, to each of you severally as appropriate We have given and now give plenary powers, commission and authority; and order and command all Our Justices, Officials and Subjects to allow the said supplicant peacefully to use and enjoy Our present leave, privilège and commission, and in so doing you are to be obeyed, for it is Our pleasure so to have done. Given in Paris this nineteenth day of September, in the Year of Grace One thousand five hundred and forty-five, being of Our reign the XXXIst. Thus signed: on behalf of the Privy Council, Delaunay. And sealed with the simple seal of yellow wax.
The Prologue of the Third Book
[From the outset, Rabelais is deeply indebted to Lucian. By quotation, exposition and practice, Rabelais acknowledges above all his fundamental and enduring debt in the Third Book to Lucian’s treatise, To One Who Said to Him, ‘You are a Prometheus with Words’. It is that treatise which guides and justifies his potentially ‘monstrous’ marriage of dialogue and comedy.
In ‘52 the title is more explicit: Prologue of the Author Maître François Rabelais for the Third Book of the heroic deeds and sayings of good Pantagruel.
The first paragraph makes allusions to Ecclesiasticus 11:7 (for the light of the sun) and to the blind man who (in Mark 10:51, Luke 18:35, and Matthew 20:30) was restored to sight by Jesus of Nazareth, whose full deity Rabelais quietly underlines by giving him the title of ‘Almighty’.
‘Piot’ means wine (originally in the jargon of the fraternity of Parisian beggars).
Many thought that the French were descended from the Phrygian Francus, son of Hector. The Persian ‘Otacusts’ (eavesdroppers, spies) were already linked with the legend of Midas’ long ears by Erasmus in his Adages (I, III, LVII; cf. also I, II, II, ‘The many ears and eyes of kings’).
Several other adages of Erasmus and their explanations are exploited in this Prologue, including:
I, IV, I, ‘Not everyone may call in at Corinth’, and IV, III, LXVIII, ‘To corinthianize’ (the women of Corinth being supposed to be of particularly easy virtue).
III, V, XXXVI, ‘War is the father of all’.
IV, I, I, ‘War is sweet to those who have not experienced it’, in which we are reminded that Solomon means Peaceful in Hebrew. (Solomon is thought to have likened divine Wisdom to an army set in battle array in The Song of Songs, 6:4.)
I, VIII, XXXIV, ‘To scratch one’s head with a single finger’ (taken to be an idle, effeminate gesture on the part of a man worried about his hair).
IV, III, LVIII, ‘He is no dithyrambic who drinks water’ (A vital saying for those who love and respect wine.)
I, IX, XXX, ‘His treasures will be lumps of coal’.
The verbs employed for the trundling by Diogenes of his earthenware barrel are chosen as much for their sound as for their meaning and are translated with that in mind. In this Prologue Rabelais places his Third Book in the context of the energetic steps taken, under the direction of Cardinal Jean Du Bellay, his patron, to defend Paris from the threats of the Imperial armies.
An attenuated oath playing on lapathium acutum (the Latin name for the plant which in English is called patience-dock,) is an indirect way of referring to Christ’s passion. As patience in English no longer readily evokes the Passion of Christ, patience-dock is transposed here to ‘passion-flower’. There are two references to the marriage at Cana, one through the term ‘Ruler of the Feast’.]
[Good people,] most shining drinkers and you most be-carbuncled sufferers from the pox, have you ever seen Diogenes the Cynic philosopher? If you have, either you had never lost your sight or else I have truly quitted my intelligence and logical sense. A fine thing it is to see the sparkle of wine and golden crowns – I mean, of the sun! – I appeal to the man born blind, made so famous by the Holy Scriptures: he was given the option of choosing anything he liked by the command of him who is Almighty and whose word is in a flash put into effect. All he asked for was his sight.
Now you too are not young; which is a necessary quality for metaphysically philosophizing in vine (not in vain) and for attending from henceforth the council of Bacchus, there not to lop and dine but to opine about the matter, colour, bouquet, excellence, eminence, [peculiarities, powers, virtues,] effects and dignity of piot, our hallowed and beloved wine.
But if (as I am easily brought to believe) you have never seen Diogenes, you must at least have heard of him, for his name and renown have indeed remained memorable to the present day, being praised to the skies in every clime.
And (unless I deceive myself) you are all of Phrygian extraction, and even though you do not have as many golden coins as Midas had, you do have something of his which the Persians used to appreciate in their otacusts and which the Emperor Antoninus also desired: that which gave its nickname to the ‘serpentine’ cannon of Rohan: Big Ears. But if you have never heard of him I want to tell you here and now a tale so that we can start on the wine (drink up, then!) and on the words (listen, then!) informing you (so that you should not be tricked into disbelief by your simplicity) that Diogenes was in his day a philosopher in a thousand, excellent and full of fun. If he did have a few blemishes, so do you and so do we. Nought is perfect save God alone. Nevertheless, although Alexander the Great had Aristotle as his private tutor, it is Diogenes the Sinopian whom he held in such high regard that if he could not have been Alexander he would have wanted t
o be Diogenes.
When Philip, King of Macedonia, undertook to besiege Corinth and reduce it to rubble, the Corinthians, warned by their spies that he was marching against them with a mighty army and vast array, were all rightly alarmed, overlooking nothing, all taking up their posts and doing their duty to resist his hostile advance and defend their city. Some brought everything movable out of the fields and into the fortresses, with their cattle, grain, wine, fruit, victuals and all necessary provisions.
Others repaired the walls, erected bastions, squared off outworks, dug trenches, excavated countermines, reinforced gabions, prepared emplacements, cleared clutter from the casemates, refixed bars on to advanced parapets, built high platforms for cannons, repaired the outer slopes of ditches, plastered the courtines between the bastions, built advanced pill-boxes, banked up earth parapets, keyed stones into barbicans, lined the chutes for molten lead, renewed cables on [Saracen-style] portcullises (or ‘cataracts’), stationed sentinels and sent out patrols.
Everyone was on the alert; everyone was carrying his hod. Some were burnishing breastplates, cleaning corselets and polishing the metal bands and head-armour of their horses, and their own plated jackets, light armour, helmets, [beavers, iron skull-caps, gisarmes,] headpieces, morions, coats of mail, [jaze-rants, wrist-guards, tasses,] gussets, limb-armour, breast-plates, joint-armour, hauberks, body-shields, bucklers, foot-armour, leg-plates, ankle-plates and spurs. Others were readying their bows, slings, crossbows, lead-shot, catapults, [fire-arrows,] fire-grenades, fire-pots, fire-wheels and fire-darts, ballistas, stone-hurling scorpions and other weapons for repelling and destroying siege-towers.
They sharpened spears, pikes, falchions, halberds, hooked spears, [sickles,] lances, zagayes, pitchforks, partisans, bladed maces, battle-axes, darts, javelins, light javelins, long stakes and leisters. They whetted swords, scimitars, broadblades, badlars, [scythes,] short-swords, rapiers, poniards, hangers, spiral-ferruled daggers, pricks, tucks, knives, blades, cutting-edges and dirks. Every man was exercising his prick: every man derusting his dagger. No woman was there, however old or matronly, who did not manage to furbish up her fanion, since you are aware that, of old, the ladies of Corinth would put up a good fight!
Gargantua and Pantagruel Page 41