‘I am aware that Claudius Galen strives to prove that its movements are accidental, not proper to it and autonomous, and that others of his faction strive to demonstrate that there is no sensory discrimination between odours in it, only diverse reactions proceeding from the diversity of the odorous substances, but if you studiously examine their words and arguments and weigh them on the Balance of Critolaus you will find that, in this matter and as in many others, they have spoken frivolously, out of an urge to correct their elders rather than from any seeking after truth.
‘I will not go further into that disputation: I shall merely say to you that those virtuous women merit no small praise who have lived chastely and blamelessly and who have had the power to bring that raging a animal to submit to reason. And I will end by adding that once that animal is satisfied – if ever it can be – by the nutriment that Nature has prepared for it in the male, then all its own peculiar movements have attained their object, all its appetites are slaked and all its frenzies calmed. But be not surprised if we men are in perpetual danger of being cuckolded, we who do not always have the wherewithal to pay up and satisfy it to its contentment.’
‘By the power of Other than a Spratling!’ said Panurge. ‘Don’t you know of any remedy whatsoever in your Art?’
‘Indeed I do,’ Rondibilis replied; ‘a very good one which I myself use; it was written down over eighteen hundred years ago by a famous authority. Listen.’
‘By God’s might,’ said Panurge, ‘you’re a fine man and I love you up to the blessèd brim. Eat a bit of this quince tart: quinces have the property of stopping up the orifices of the stomach on account of a certain jolly styptic quality in them; they also assist the first concoction. But what’s this! I’m speaking Latin before the clergy! Wait, and I will offer you a drink from this goblet worthy of Nestor. Would you like another draught of white hypocras? Have no fear of the squinzy: there is no squinant, ginger or grains of paradise in it, only some choice screened cinnamon and some choice fine sugar with good white wine of the local cru of La Devinière, from the vineyard with the sorb-apple tree in it and above that walnut-tree beloved by the crows.’
How Rondibilis, the physician, prescribes a remedy for cuckoldry
CHAPTER 33
[Dr Rondibilis is about to provide a remedy for Panurge, adapted ‘from a famous authority’. That authority is Aesop, whose relevant fable is known from Plutarch in two of his Consolations, one To Apollonius and the other To his wife. Rabelais substitutes ‘Cuckoldry’ for ‘Sadness’.
‘Saint Typhany’ is a popular perversion of the Epiphany. The jest is expunged in the final version and Saint Typhany replaced by the Epiphany, but the reference to the Fall in Genesis remains as a serious contribution to the debate from Hippothadée.]
‘At the time,’ said Rondibilis, ‘that Jupiter drew up the roster for his Olympian household and the kalendar of all the gods and goddesses, once he had ascribed a day to each of them and a season for their festivals, and once he had assigned them sites for their oracles and pilgrimages, and provided for their sacrifices…’
‘Did he not act as did Tinteville, the Bishop of Auxerre?’ asked Panurge. ‘That noble pontiff loved good wine as does every worthy man; he therefore had a particular thought and concern for that forebear of Bacchus, the shoots of the vine.
‘Now it befell that, over several years, he saw those vine-shoots distressingly spoiled by ground-frosts, mizzles, hoarfrosts, black-ice, freeze-ups, hailstorms and other disasters which arrived on the feast-days of Saints George, Mark, Vitalis, Eutropius and Philip, and of Holy-Cross day, the Ascension and so on, which occur when the Sun passes under the sign of Taurus. He therefore conceived the opinion that the saints aforesaid were frosting saints and hailstoning saints, spoilers of the vine-shoot. And so he desired to have their feast-days translated to between Christmas and Saint Typhany (as he called the mother of the Three Kings) granting them licence to hail and to freeze as much as they liked then – with all honour and reverence – since at that time the frost would in no way be harmful to the vine-shoots but clearly beneficial. He would transfer in their stead the feasts of Saint Christopher, Saint John-the-headless, Saint Magdalene, Saint Anne, Saint Dominic, Saint Laurence and even mid-August, to May, when, far from there being any risk of frost, no trade in the world is more in demand than that of the sellers of cold drinks [, purveyors of junkets, makers of leafy bowers] and coolers of wine.’
‘… Jupiter,’ said Rondibilis, ‘overlooked that poor old devil Cuckoldry, who was not then present: he was in Paris, pleading at the Palais de Justice in some beastly lawsuit on behalf of one of his tenants and vassals. I am not sure how many days afterwards, Cuckoldry heard of the shabby trick played on him and threw down his brief, having a new brief: not to be excluded from the rosters; so he appeared in person before the great Jupiter pleading his previous meritorious actions as well as the good and agreeable services that he had formerly rendered him, earnestly petitioning that he be not left without feast-day, sacrifice or worship.
‘Jupiter made excuses, pointing out that all his livings had been already distributed and that his roster was closed. He was so importuned by Signor Cuckoldry, however, that he did eventually include him in the kalendar and put him on the list: worship, sacrifice and a feast-day were ordained for him on Earth. But since there was not a single void or vacant slot in all the kalendar, his festival was arranged to run concurrently with that of the goddess Jealousy, his sway to be over married men, specifically over such as had beautiful wives, and his sacrifice to be suspicion, lack of trust, cantankerousness, the setting of traps, fault-finding and spying by husbands on their wives, with a strict instruction to every married man to revere, honour and celebrate his festival with double fervour and to offer him the aforesaid sacrifices under pain and threat that Signior Cuckoldry would never help, succour nor favour such as did not honour him as stated; he would take no account of them, never enter into their abodes, never haunt their company no matter what supplications they made unto him, but leave them, rather, to rot alone with their wives without a single rival, avoiding them for ever as heretical and sacrilegious, as is the custom of other gods towards such as do not duly worship them (as of Bacchus with wine-growers, Ceres with ploughmen, Pomona with fruit-growers, Neptune with seamen, Vulcan with blacksmiths; and so on).
‘To which was subjoined an opposite, infallible promise that those husbands who (as they say) took the day off for his festival, refrained from all business and let all their affairs go in order to spy on their wives, lock them in and mistreat them out of jealousy (as set out in the order of his sacrifices) would find him ever favouring, loving and frequenting them, living day and night in their dwellings so that they would never be deprived of his presence.
‘I have spoken.’
‘Ha! ha! ha!’ said Carpalim with a laugh; ‘there’s a remedy even more simply natural than Hans Carvel’s ring! The devil take me if I don’t believe in it! Such is the nature of women: just as lightning never burns or breaks anything but hard, solid, resistant substances and never strikes anything soft, hollow or yielding (burning the steel blade without harming the velvet scabbard, and destroying the bones in a body without touching the flesh which covers them) similarly women bend the contentiousness, ingenuity and contrariness of their minds towards nothing except what they know to be proscribed and forbidden to them.’
‘Certainly,’ said Hippothadée, ‘some of our doctors of theology say that the first woman in the world (whom the Hebrews call Eve) would hardly have been led into the temptation of eating the fruit of all knowledge if it had not been forbidden her. That it is so, reflect on how the crafty Tempter, in his very first words, reminded her of the prohibition against it, as though to imply, “It is forbidden thee: thou needs must eat it; thou wouldst not be a woman else.”’
[How women normally desire forbidden things
CHAPTER 34
[There was originally no chapter-break.
The speec
h which begins in the second paragraph is originally attributed to Pantagruel but later given to Ponocrates.
The tale of the nuns and the papal bird is retold after the late-medieval author Johannes Herold in his Sermon 90 and perhaps also from a violently antifeminist poet of the time, Gracien Dupont de Drusac.
In ‘52 the abbey of Fonshervault becomes the abbey of Coigneau-fond (Wedge-it-in-deep).
The play at the end again evokes the Farce de Maître Pathelin through one of its best-known lines: ‘Let us get back to our muttons’). Here Rabelais provides a similar farce, with physicians laughing at physicians, put on by students of medicine, all of whom are named and most of whom had become famous.
We learn that Panurge is a man of law: he alludes specifically to a law from the Digest entitled Concerning the Examination of the Belly.
The Digest (also known as the Pandects) is the compilation of early Roman jurisprudence made by Tribonian for the Emperor Justinian. It was much cited in the Renaissance, though the integrity of Tribonian was often attacked by many legal scholars.]
‘Whenever,’ said Carpalim, ‘I played the ponce in Orleans I had no rhetorical flourish more efficacious and no argument more persuasive with the ladies for luring them into my nets and drawing them into the game of love than showing them spiritedly, openly and with curses how much their husbands were jealous of them. I didn’t invent it: it’s been written down and we have rules for it; reasons, examples and daily experiences of it. Once they have got that conviction into their noddles they will infallibly cuckold their husbands, even by God (no swearing!) if they have to do what Semiramis did, or Pasiphaë, Egesta or those women of the Islands of Mendes in Egypt slated by Herodotus and Strabo, and other such bitches in heat.’
‘Truly,’ said Ponocrates, ‘I have indeed heard tell that when Pope John XXII was calling one day at the abbey of Fonsher-vault, the Abbess and the discreet Mothers-in-council begged him to grant them an induit permitting them to confess each other, contending that women in convents had a few little intimate failings which are unbearably embarrassing to reveal to male confessors; they could tell them more freely and intimately to each other under seal of confession.
‘“There is nothing,” the Pope replied, “which I would not willingly grant you: but I do see one drawback. Namely that confession must be kept confidential; you women could hardly keep it secret.”
‘“Yes we could, very well,” they said; “better than men.”
‘So that very day the Pope entrusted a box to their keeping (in which he had caused a tiny linnet to be put). He gently begged them to shut the box away in some safe and secret place, promising them – Pope’s honour – that he would grant them the tenor of their request if they did keep it secret, nevertheless strictly forbidding them to open that box under any pretext whatsoever under pain of ecclesiastical censure and eternal excommunication.
‘That interdict was no sooner uttered than their minds were seething with a burning desire to see what was inside and longing for the Pope to leave by the gate so that they could get to work on it. The Holy Father, having given them his blessing, withdrew to his quarters. He hadn’t taken three steps outside the abbey when those good ladies ran and crowded round to open the forbidden box and see what was inside.
‘The next morning the Pope paid them a visit with the intention – they thought – of speedily granting them their induit; but before addressing the subject he ordered them to bring him the box. It was brought to him, but that tiny bird was no longer inside. Whereupon he proved to them that it would be too hard a thing for them to keep confessions confidential seeing that the box, so earnestly entrusted to them, they had kept secret for so short a time.’
‘Monsieur Notre Maître, you are most welcome. I have greatly enjoyed listening to you, and I praise God for it all. I haven’t seen you since you acted in Montpellier, together with our old friends Antoine Saporta, Guy Bouguier, Balthazar Noyer, Tolet, Jean Quentin, François Robinet, Jean Perdrier and François Rabelais, in The Moral Farce of the Man who Married a Dumb Wife.’
‘I was there!’ said Epistemon. ‘Her good husband wished she could talk. And talk she did, thanks to the Art of the physician and of the surgeon who severed a stricture under her tongue. Her speech once recovered, she talked and she talked, so much so that her husband went back to the physician for a remedy to make her shut up. The physician replied that his Art did indeed have appropriate remedies for enabling women to talk but none at all to make them shut up. The only remedy against a wife’s interminable prattle lay in deafness for the husband.
‘The poor fellow was made deaf by some magic spells or other. [His wife, realizing that he’d become deaf, that she was talking in vain and was never heard by him, went off her head.] The physician then asked for his honorarium, but the husband replied that he was deaf and couldn’t catch what he said.
[‘The physician scattered some powder or other over the man’s shoulder whose powers drove him mad. At which that mad husband and his raging wife joined forces and so beat up the physician and the surgeon that they left them half dead.]
‘I have never laughed more than I did at that pathelinage.’
‘Let us get back to our muttons,’ said Panurge. ‘Your words translated from Rigmarole into French mean that I should go ahead and get married and never worry about being cuckolded. You’ve followed the wrong suit there!
‘Monsieur Notre Maître, I believe that you will be otherwise engaged in your practice on my wedding-day and so unable to put in an appearance. I will excuse you:
Stercus et urina Medici sunt prandia prima:
Ex aliis paleas, ex istis collige grana.
(Excrement and urine are primary food for physicians:
Glean straw from those, but grain from these.)’
‘You’ve got that wrong,’ said Rondibilis; the second line should be:
Nobis sunt signa, vobis sunt prandia digna.
(Are symptoms for medics: for legists, the food you deserve.)’
‘And if my wife were poorly…’
‘I would want to examine her urine,’ said Rondibilis, ‘feel her pulse and then, before proceeding further, observe the condition of her lower belly and umbilical regions (as recommended by Hippocrates, Aphorisms, 2, 35).’
‘No, no,’ said Panurge, ‘that is not relevant. It is for us legists to do that: we have the legal rubric, Concerning the Examination of the Belly. I’d be making up a barbary clyster for her. Don’t neglect your more pressing appointments elsewhere. I’ll send some potted pork round to your place and you shall still be our friend.’
Panurge then drew close and, without a word, slipped four rose-nobles into his hand.
Rondibilis gripped them firmly, then said with a start as though affronted:
‘Hay! hay! hay! There was no need for that, Monsieur. Many thanks all the same. Nothing from bad folk do I ever accept: nothing from good folk do I ever reject. I am always yours to command.’
‘For a fee,’ said Panurge.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Rondibilis.’
How Trouillogan the philosopher treats the difficulty of marriage
CHAPTER 35
[Was originally Chapter 34. The ‘52 numbering is adopted from now on for convenience of reference.
A key chapter for the philosophy of the Third Book.
Gargantua, last heard of as translated to the Land of the Faeries (Pantagruel, Chapter 15) is present here, unexplained, as the wise and courteous king and (later) the ideal father.
The name of Trouillogan remains to be satisfactorily explained. He is a comic sceptic and leads to a chapter first dominated by farce and then by an authoritative harmonizing of expert opinion. Rabelais is following legal practice in mutters perplex: ‘after consulting the experts, harmonize their opinions’. The harmonizing is presented as the last word of wisdom by Pantagruel.
Erasmus is very present: in the, adage I, II, XXVIII, ‘To pass on the torch’; much more fundamentally in the authoritati
ve moral adage (already misused by Panurge for his Praise of Debts in Chapter 2), IV, VI, LXXXI, ‘No one is born for himself alone’; in the woman cited by Gargantua and the Spartan maidservant cited by Pantagruel (who are both drawn from the Apophthegms (III, Aristippus, 31 and II, Lacaenarum, 32). After the smiles Erasmus like Rabelais gives an entirely serious moral meaning to the anecdotes.
Wisdom is to be found in the Golden Mean, to which even Saint Paul is seen as pointing the way.]
Once those words were spoken Pantagruel said to Trouillogan the philosopher: ‘Our liege-loyal friend: from hand to hand to you the torch is passed. It is now up to you to give your reply: Should Panurge marry or not?’
‘Both,’ replied Trouillogan.
‘What did you say!’ asked Panurge.
‘What you heard,’ said Trouillogan.
‘What did I hear?’ asked Panurge.
‘What I said,’ replied Trouillogan.
‘[Ah-ah! So that’s where we’ve got to!] No trumps,’ said Panurge. ‘I pass. [Now then:] Should I marry or no?’
‘Neither,’ replied Trouillogan.
‘The devil take me if I’m not going raving mad!’ said Panurge; ‘and may he also take me if I know what you mean! Hang on. To hear you more clearly I’ll put my glasses to my left ear.’
At that very moment Pantagruel glimpsed near the doorway of the hall Gargantua’s little dog (which he called Kyne, for such was the name of the dog of Toby).18 At which he said to everyone present, ‘Our king cannot be far from here. Let us rise to our feet.’
Those words were hardly uttered before Gargantua came into the banqueting hall. Each man rose to make his bow.
Gargantua, having courteously greeted the whole assembly, said, ‘Leave neither your places nor your discussions. Bring a chair for me at this end of the table. Allow me to drink to you all. You are all most welcome here. Now tell me: where had you got to?’
Gargantua and Pantagruel Page 56