Gargantua and Pantagruel
Page 58
‘Upon my soul,’ replied Panurge, ‘I will do it. I feel that my guts have extended. They were all tight and constipated before. But just as we chose the very cream of wisdom for our advice, I would like this consultation to be presided over by one who is a fool to the sovereign degree.’
‘Triboullet,’ said Pantagruel, ‘seems to me to be an appropriate fool. Panurge replied: A proper and complete fool.’
PANTAGRUEL
PANURGE
A fated fool,
A major-scale fool,
a natural fool,
a B-sharp and B-flat fool,
a heavenly fool,
a terrestrial fool,
a jovial fool,
a joyful and frivolous fool,
a mercurial fool,
a pretty, frolicsome fool,
a lunatic fool,
a be-tasselled fool,
an erratic fool,
a be-pimpled fool,
an eccentric fool,
a cap-and-bells fool,
an ethereal, Juno-like fool,
a laughing, Venus-like fool,
an arctic fool,
a racked-off fool,
an heroic fool,
a first-pressing fool,
a genial fool,
a first-cuvée fool,
a predestined fool,
a fermented fool,
an august fool,
a silly-original fool,
a Caesarine fool,
a papal fool,
an imperial fool,
a consistorial fool,
a royal fool,
[a conclaval fool
a patriarchal fool,
a Bull-issuing fool,
an original fool,]
a synodical fool,
a loyal fool
an episcopal fool,
a ducal fool,
a doctoral fool,
a standard-bearer fool,
a monastical fool,
a lordly fool,
a fiscal fool,
a law-court fool,
an Extravagantes fool,
a principal fool,
a doctoral-bonneted fool,
a praetorian fool,
a simply-tonsured fool,
a whole fool,
a man-hole fool,
an elect fool,
a Distinction-in-folly fool,
a curial fool,
a table-mate fool,
a Roman eagle-bearing fool,
a first-class BA fool,
a triumphant fool,
a papal-train bearing fool,
a vulgar fool,
a supererogatory fool,
a domestic fool,
a subsidiary fool,
an exemplary fool,
an a latere, alterative fool,
a rare and foreign fool,
a poor little fool,
an aulic fool,
a passing fool,
a civil-law fool,
a newly fledged fool,
a people’s fool,
a free-falcon fool,
a family fool,
a nice fool,
a famous fool,
a spotty fool,
a favoured fool,
a pillaging fool,
a Latin fool,
a new-sprouted-tail fool,
an ordinary fool,
a wild-bird fool,
a redoubtable fool,
a doting fool,
a transcendental fool,
a back-stay fool,
a sovereign fool,
an inflated fool,
a special fool,
a super-cockalorum fool
a metaphysical fool,
a corollary fool,
an ecstatic fool,
a Levantine fool,
a categorical fool,
a sublime fool,
a logically assertable fool,
a crimson fool,
a decuman fool,
a well-dyed fool,
an official fool,
a burgess fool,
a perspective fool,
a feather-brush fool,
an algorismical fool,
a cageable fool,
an algebraical fool,
a modal fool,
a cabalistical fool,
a second-intentionary fool
a talmudistical fool,
an almanac-making fool
an amalgamated fool,
an heteroclite fool,
[a compendious fool
a Thomistical fool,
a papal-brief-holding fool,
a papal-brief-writing fool
an antonomastical fool,
a papal-bullish fool,
an allegorical fool,
a paper-mandatary fool
a tropological fool,
a cowled fool,
a pleonastic fool,
a titulary fool,
a capital fool,
a crouching fool,
a cerebral fool,
a rebarbative fool,
a cordial fool,
a well-mentulated fool,
an inward fool,
a weak-clawed fool,
an hepatic fool,
a well-balled fool,
an hypochondriacal fool,
a scribbling fool,
a flatulent fool,
a windbag of a fool,
a legitimate fool,
a culinary fool,
an azimuthal fool,
a timber-tree fool,
an almacantar fool,
a turnspit fool,
a proportionate fool,
a scullery fool,
an architraval fool,
a catarrhal fool,
a pedestal fool,
a spruce fool,
a paragon of a fool,
a twenty-four-carat fool
a celebrated fool,
a bizarre fool,
a jolly fool,
a cross-wise fool,
a solemn fool,
a martingaled fool,
a yearly fool,
a baton-bearing fool,
a festive fool,
a baubled fool,
a recreative fool,
a well-biased fool,
a village fool,
a high-tide-mark fool,
a pleasing fool,
a tripping-over fool,
a privileged fool,
a superannuated fool,
a rustic fool,
a boorish fool,
an ordinary fool,
a big-chested fool,
an all-hours fool,
a pompous fool,
a sonorous fool,
a splendidly arranged fool,
a resolute fool,
a foot-rooted fool,
an hieroglyphical fool,
a fustian-puzzle fool,
an authentic fool,
a boss’s fool,
a valued fool,
a riding-hood fool,
a precious fool,
a wide-sleeved fool,
a fantastical fool,
a Damascene fool,
a lymphatic fool,
a Persian-style fool,
a panic fool,
a baritone fool,
an alambical fool,
a fly-blown fool
an un-boring fool,
a gun-shot-proof fool.
PANTAGRUEL: ‘If it was reasonable in ancient Rome to call the Feast of Fools the Quirinales, in France we could rightly institute the Triboulletinalcs!’
PANURGE: ‘If fools were all saddled with cruppers, his rump would be raw by now.’
PANTAGRUEL: ‘If he were that god Fatuellus whom we spoke of – the husband of the Blessèd Fatua – his father would be Bonadies and his Great Mother, Bonadea’
PANURGE: ‘Despite his bandy legs, if all the fools did amble he’d be two lengths ahead already. Let’s go to him without delay; we shall get a lovely answer from him. I’m counti
ng on it.’
‘I want to be present when Bridoye is heard,’ said Pantagruel. ‘I shall go off to Myrelingues, which is across the river Loire, meanwhile sending Carpalim to bring Triboullet here from Blois.’
Carpalim was then despatched.
Pantagruel, accompanied by members of his household, including amongst others Panurge, Ponocrates, Frère Jean, Gymnaste and Rhizotome, set off on the road for Myrelingues.
How Pantagruel is present at the hearing of Bridoye, who decided lawsuits by the throw of the dice
CHAPTER 39
[Was originally Chapter 37.
In ’52 the original ‘Bicentumviral Court’ becomes the ‘Centumviral Court’ (probably a double allusion to the Centumviral Court mentioned frequently by Cicero, and to the Parlement de Paris, recently expanded beyond a hundred members).
The comedy of the following chapters presupposes a certain knowledge of the Law. All the legal references are given by Rabelais in Latin and in the standard legal form of abbreviated incipits to laws, paragraphs, etc. They have become incomprehensible and even unpronounceable to most readers. (Here the references have been translated and sufficiently expanded to make them at least pronounceable.) Contemporary legal authors piled up dozens or even hundreds of such references per folio page. Bridoye’s references are brocards, that is, elementary principles, maxims and legal commonplaces, most of which appear as such in current booklets as the Flores Legum (Flowers of the Laws) or the Brocardica Juris (Legal Brocards). Others were available in the Lexicon of Alberico de Rosate. One or two, which touch upon matters sexual, notoriously aroused laughter amongst students in their lecture-halls. For Bridoye even his Gospel maxims are known through his brocards.
Trinquamelle is all but an anagram of Tiraquellus, the Latin name of Rabelais’ legal friend.
In the original there are no paragraphs or indentations. They have been supplied. For many the best way to enjoy these chapters is to treat the indented matter simply or mainly as part of the obsessive, monomaniac, legal muttering of Bridoye.]
At the stipulated time next day, Pantagruel arrived at Myrelingues. The President, Senators and Counsellors invited him to join them and to witness their hearing of the grounds and reasons which Bridoye would allege to explain why he had pronounced a particular judgement contrary to Toucheronde, the legal Assessor, which seemed not at all equitable to the Bicentumviral Court.
Pantagruel was delighted to join them.
He saw Bridoye seated in the well of the court, merely offering as his sole reasons or excuses that he had grown old and could no longer see as well as he used to, alluding to several of the afflictions and tribulations which old age brings with it,
as noted by Archidiaconus: Decreta: distinctio 86, canon, ‘So Great’).21
Because of which he had not been able to read the number of spots on his dice as clearly as he had done in the past and hence, just as Isaac when he was old and his eyes were dim mistook Jacob for Esau, he, when deciding the lawsuit in question must have mistaken a four for a five, particularly insisting that he was then using his small dice, and that by the provision of the Law natural imperfections cannot be arraigned as a crime,
(as clearly transpires in: Pandects: ‘Of Things Military’; the Law, ‘He Who Has but One’; Pandects: ‘On the Regulations of the Law’; the Law, ‘Almost’; Pandects: ‘Of the Edicts of the Aediles’, throughout; Pandects: ‘Of Boundaries Displaced’; the Law, ‘Saint Adrian’; resolved by Ludovicus Romanus on the Law, ‘If it Be True That’; Pandects: ‘Of the Dissolution of Marriages’).22
Anyone who would act otherwise would not be laying an accusation against Man but against Nature,
(as is evident from the Law, ‘The Greatest Defects’, Codex, § ‘Of Children Passed Over’).23
‘What dice, my friend, do you mean?’ asked Trinquamelle, the High President of the Court.
‘Why, the dice of judgement, the alea judiciorum,
(of which mention is made by Legal Doctors on Decreta, 26, question ii, “Of Lots”; by the Law, “Nor the Purchase”, Pandects: “On the Contracting of Purchases”, and Bartolus on the same);
the dice which you, my Lords, normally use in this your Sovereign Court, as do all other judges when deciding their cases following what has been noted by Dominus Henricus Ferrandatus,
and noted in the gloss on the final chapter, “Of Sortileges”, and the Law, “Since Both”; Pandects: “On the Judgements”;
where the doctors note that lots are very good, proper, useful and necessary for the voiding of law suits and dissention. That has been even more clearly stated
by Baldus, Bartholus and Alexander in the Codex, “Generalities Concerning Legates”; the Law, “If Two Persons”’.24
‘But what procedures do you follow, my friend?’ asked Trinquamelle.
‘I shall answer that briefly,’ said Bridoye,
following the teachings of the Law, “More Abundant”, paragraph, “In Refutatories”; Codex: “On Summonses”; and what is stated by the Glossator, Law I, Pandects: “That for fear”: namely: “Moderns delight in brevity”.
‘I act just as you do, my Lords, in accordance with normal legal procedure, to which our laws command as always to defer:
as in the note of the Extravagantes; “Of Customs”, the chapter, “From a letter”, and, therein, Innocent IV.
‘So having viewed, reviewed, read, reread, dug into and leafed through the complaints, summonses, depositions, commissions, informations, preliminary appearances, productions of documents, allegations, declarations of intent, rebuttals, requests, inquests, counter-rebuttals, replies to the counter-rebuttals; replies to the replies to the counter-rebuttals, written depositions, objections, [complaints,] exornatories, depositions, confrontations, direct encounters, libels, letters of attestation, appeals; letters – patent, productory, disqualificatory and anticipatory –, elicitings, missives, remissives, conclusions, claims to throw out the case, reconciliations, appeals to another jurisdiction, avowals, final notifications and other such sweetmeats and spices from defendant and plaintiff alike – as the good judge must do,
according to what has been noted by Speculator, “On the Ordinary’s”, paragraph 3, and by the title “On the Duty of Every Judge”, final paragraph, and “On the Presentation of Rescripts”, paragraph 1,
I place at one end of the table in my Chambers the bundles of the Defendant and throw the dice for him first, just as you do my Lords,
and as is noted in the Law, “The Most Favourable”; Pandects: “On the Rules of Law”; and in the chapter, “When the legalities of the litigants are obscure, the defendant must be favoured above the plaintiff”.
Which done, I place the bundles of the Plaintiff – just as you do, my Lords – at the other end of the table, face to face, for
“Opposites placed opposite shine forth more clearly”, as is noted in Law 1, paragraph, “We see”; Pandects, “To Those who are Subject to Their Own Jurisdiction or to That of Others”; and in the Law, “Of Remunerations”, 1, “Things Intermixed”; Pandects, “On Remunerations and Honorariums”,
similarly, and without delay, I cast the dice.’
‘But my friend,’ asked Trinquamelle, ‘how do you set about penetrating the legal obscurities alleged by the parties whose pleas are before you?’
‘Just as you do, my Lords,’ replied Bridoye. ‘That is to say, when there is a goodly pile of bundles on either side. Then I use my small dice, as you do too, my Lords,
in accordance with the Law, “Always in Stipulations”; Pandects: “On the Rules of Law”; and the vital law which scans as verse,
Semper in obscuris quod minimum est sequimur
(Ever in matters obscure we follow whatever is smallest), which is canonized by the Codex, “In Matters Obscure”, same title, Book VI.
‘I possess other dice – big, beautiful and resonant ones – which I use, just as you do, my Lords, when the matter is more fluid, that is to say, when there are fewer bundles.’
‘Once you have done that, my friend, how do you reach your judgement?’ asked Trinquamelle.
‘As you do too, my Lords,’ replied Bridoye. ‘I pronounce judgement in favour of him on whom first falls the lot delivered by the hazard of the judicial, tribunian and praetorian dice. And thus do our laws recommend,
Pandects: “Whoever is First in a Pledge”; the Law, “Stronger”; the Law, “Creditor”; Codex, “Of Consuls”, Law 1, and “Of the Rules of Law”, in Canon vi: “Prior in Time: Stronger in Law”.’
How Bridoye expounds the reasons why he first examined the cases which he decided by dice
CHAPTER 40
[Was originally Chapter 38.
Bridoye continues to show gentle and engaging madness, citing his legal brocards at length for the most obvious of matters whilst defending his using dice as a practice common amongst his fellow judges.]
‘I see, yes… But,’ asked Trinquamelle, ‘since you reach your judgements, my friend, by chance, by the casting of dice, why do you not avoid delay by appealing to chance the very day and hour that the opposing parties appear before you? What use to you are those writs and other procedural documents contained in those bundles?’