It was impossible to stop them: as you know, the nature of sheep is always to follow their leader wherever it goes. [Moreover, Aristotle says (in On the Nature of Animals, Book 9) that it is the most silly and stupid creature in all the world.]
The merchant, quite distraught at seeing his sheep dying – drowning before his very eyes – strove with all his might to stop them and to hold them back. But it was in vain: they were all crowding together, leaping into the sea one after the other and drowning.
Finally he grabbed a big strong ram on the deck of the ship, intending to hold it back and consequently to save all the remainder, but that ram was so powerful that (in the same manner as the ram of one-eyed Polyphemus bore Ulysses and his companions out of the cavern) it dragged the merchant into the sea with it and drowned him.
The other shepherds and mutton-mongers followed suit, some grabbing sheep by their horns, others by their legs, others by their fleece. And all were likewise borne into the sea, where they miserably perished.
Panurge remained by the galley holding an oar in his hand, not to help those mutton-mongers, but to stop them from clambering back on to the ship and so saving themselves from going under; he was eloquently preaching to them as though he were some little Frère Olivier Maillart or a second Jean Bourgeois, expounding to them, with rhetorical commonplaces, the miseries of this world and the blessings and felicities of the life to come, insisting that the dead were happier than the quick in this vale of tears, and promising to erect a fair cenotaph for each of them, an honourable tomb on the highest peak of Mount Cenis: wishing them, nevertheless (in the event that they were not averse to living still amongst men and found it inappropriate to drown) good luck and an encounter with some whale or other which, following the example of Jonah, would, on the third day, cast them safe and sound upon some Tapestry-land. Once the ship was emptied of merchant and sheep, Panurge said, ‘Does not one single muttonish soul remain? [Where are the muttons of Thibault Aignelet, and those of Reginald Baa-lamb which sleep while all the others graze?]
‘Of that I know nothing, It’s an old ruse of war. What do you think, Frère Jean?’
‘You did very well,’ replied Frère Jean. ‘I found nothing to criticize except that it seems to me that, just as on the day of battle or assault in war, soldiers are promised double pay for that day because if they win the battle there is plenty to pay them with, and if they lose it, shameful would be to ask for it (as those lansquenets from Gruyère did after the battle of Cérisole) you ought to have postponed payment. The money would have stayed in your parse.’
‘Oh sing a shitty-shanty for my money!’ said Panurge. ‘God almighty, I’ve had more than fifty-thousand francs worth of amusement. Let’s draw away now: the wind is favourable.
‘Listen to this, Frère Jean: never did any man do good to me without being recompensed, or at very least thanked. I’m no ingrate. Never was. Never will be. But never did a man do me wrong without undergoing penance for it, in this world or the next. I’m not that daft!’
[‘You,’ said Frère Jean, ‘are damning yourself like an aged devil. It is written, Vengeance is mine, etc. Breviary stuff!’]
How Pantagruel arrived in the Isle of Ennasin, and of the curious kinships in that land
CHAPTER 9
[In ‘48 this was Chapter 4.
Ennasin means ‘lacking nostrils’. The noses like aces of clubs may be an echo of descriptions of the Eskimos.
Much of the humour in this chapter (such as it is, for it has not well withstood the passage of time) depends upon French and Latin plays on words and proverbial expressions, most lending themselves to quite obvious sexual innuendos: explanations of French and Latin words are added within brackets and the translation given some latitude when helpful.
In the first line Rabelais gives the Sou’-wester its Classical name of ‘Garbin’.]
Zephyr, helped a little by Garbin, was bearing us steadily along and we spent a day without sighting land. On the third day after dawn, at the hour when the flies come out, there appeared a triangular land, strongly resembling Sicily in shape and situation. It was called the Isle of Kinships. The men and women resemble denizens of Poitou with their red-stained faces, except that they all, man, woman and child, have noses shaped like an ace of clubs. For which reason the ancient name of the Isle was Ennasin. And as the local Podestat freely told us, they were all, as they boasted, of one kith and kin.
‘You fellows from the other world consider it wonderful that, from a single Roman family – that is, the Fabii – on one single day – the thirteenth of February – through one single gate – the Carmentalia subsequently surnamed the Calamitous [formerly sited at the foot of the Capitol, between the Tarpeian Rock and the Tiber] – against certain foes of the Romans – the Etruscan Veientes – there once issued three hundred and six warriors, all kinsmen [, together with five thousand fighting-men, all vassals of theirs; every man of whom was slain near the river Cremera, which flows out of lake Bagano]. From our land here there could issue forth in their need three hundred thousand men, all kinsfolk, all of the same family.’
Their kith-and-kinship is of a most curious fashioning, for whilst they are all related to each other and closely knit, no one there is the father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, godfather or godmother of anyone else – save, it is true, for one noseless old man who, as I saw, called a little girl of three or four Father, whilst the little maid called him Daughter.
The kith-and-kinship amongst them was such that one man called a woman My Flatfish, and she called him My Porpoise. ‘Those two,’ said Frère Jean, ‘must reek of the tides when they rub their haunches together.’
One called out with a smile to an elegant maiden, ‘Good day, My Estrille’ (‘My Currycomb’). And she greeted him back, ‘Good morrow my Fauveau’ (‘My Dun Stallion’). – ‘O-hol’ exclaimed Panurge, ‘o-oh! o-oh! Come and see a Currycomb, a scythe and a veal-calf: estrille + faux + veau amounts to étrille-fauveau, doesn’t it? This vain stallion with its black stripe must often get a good currying!’20
Another greeted his sweeting by saying, ‘God be with you, my Bench.’ She replied, ‘And also with you, my Lawsuit! – ‘By Saintrinian,’ said Gymnaste, ‘that Lawsuit must frequently get laid on that Bench!’
[One called another girl Mon Ver (‘My worm’) and she called him her Coquin (her ‘scamp’. – ‘There,’ said Eusthenes, ‘is a good case of ver-coquin’ (sheep’s stagger-worm).
Another greeted a maiden from a family allied to his with ‘Good-day, my Axe-head.’ And she replied, ‘Good-day my Helve’ (‘my Manche’). – ‘Gosh,’ exclaimed Carpalim, ‘that axe-head’s well helved. And how well that manche fits its axe-head! But may it not mean that mancia (handful of cash) that Roman courtesans ask for? Or perhaps a Grey-Friar with his long sleeves (manches)?’
Pressing ahead, I saw another, a bumpkin who greeted a family friend and called her ‘My Mattress’. She called him her Coverlet. And indeed he did look coverletly lumpish.
One called another maid ‘My Crumb’, and she called him ‘My Crust’. One called another his Shovel and she called him her Poker. One called another girl his Pumps, and she called him her Slip-ons. [One called another his Bootie, and she called him her Socks.] Another called another his Mittens, and she called him her Gloves.
One called another his Crackling: she called him her Bacon. And their relationship was as close as rind to rasher. In similar relationships, one called his maiden his Omelette and she called him her Egg. And they were as closely allied as an egg to an omelette.
So too another called his girl My Twig. And she called him her Faggot. (I could never work out what their relationship, kith or blood-links were in comparison with our own common usage, save that they said she played twig to his faggot.)
Another greeted his by saying, ‘Greetings, My Shell.’ She replied, ‘Same to you, my Oyster.’ (‘That,’ said Carpalim, ‘really does amount to an oys
ter-in-its-shell!’)
Another similarly greeted his girl, saying, ‘Live well, my Pod;’ she replied, ‘A long life to you, my Pea.’ (‘That,’ said Gymnaste, ‘is a pea in a pod.’)
[Another ugly great tramp, perched high atop his wooden clogs, upon meeting a plump, fat, stumpy young wench, said to her, ‘Good-day my Top, my Spinning-top, my Humming-top.’ And she aggressively replied, ‘Look out for yourself, my Whip.’ (‘Blood of Saint Grey,’ said Xenomanes. ‘Is that whip up to servicing that top?’)
A doctoral don, neatly brushed and combed, after having chatted a while with an aristocratic young lady, took leave of her, saying, ‘I am deeply grateful, Good Face.’ – ‘But,’ she said, ‘deeper thanks to you, Bad Hand.’ – (‘It is not an insignificant matter,’ said Pantagruel, ‘to put on a good face when dealt a bad hand.’)
An apprentice woodman said to a young maiden as he passed by, ‘Oh, oh, oh! How long it is since I last saw you, my Bag!’ – ‘I am pleased,’ she said, ‘to see you, my Pipe.’ (‘Couple them together,’ said Panurge, ‘and blow down their bums and you’ll have bagpipes.’)]
Another called his girl his Sow. She called him her Hay. And it occurred to me that that sow would love to sport in that hay.
I saw a little hunch-backed gallant fairly near to us who greeted a family friend saying, ‘God be with you, my Hole;’ and she greeted him back, saying, ‘May God guard my Peg.’ (Frère Jean said, ‘She, I think, is all hole, and he’s likewise all peg. Now to find out whether it’s a round peg filling a round hole!’)
Another greeted his lady with, ‘God be with you, my Moulting.’ She replied, ‘Good-day to you, my Gosling.’ (‘I believe,’ said Ponocrates, ‘that that gosling is frequently moulting.’)
A merry chap chatting with a pretty young thing said, ‘Now remember that, Quiet Fart.’ – And she replied, That I will, my Big Ditto.’ – ‘Would you really say they were relatives?’ asked Pantagruel of the Podestat. ‘I think they must be enemies, for he called her a fart. In our part of the world you can offer no greater insult to a woman than to address her thus.’
‘Good folk from that other world,’ replied the Podestat, ‘you have few folk more closely related than that big fart and that little one. For in an instant they both slipped invisibly out of the same hole.’
‘So the Gallant Nor’easter had lanterned his mother,’ said Panurge. ‘What mother do you mean?’ asked the Potestat. ‘Such relationships belong to your world. They have no fathers or mothers. That’s a matter for outlandish folk, for clodhoppers.’
That good fellow Pantagruel saw it all and quietly took it all in but at those words he nearly lost control.
So, having carefully studied the site of the island and the customs of the Ennasian people, we went into a tavern for a little refreshment. They were celebrating a wedding there in the local fashion and having no end of a time. In our presence they merrily married together a Pear – a very buxom woman so it seemed to us, though those who squeezed her found her a bit soft – and a young Cheese with reddish down on his cheeks. I had previously heard rumours of such things, and several similar marriages have been celebrated elsewhere. They still say in my back-of-the-woods that Pear and Cheese match well together!
In another room I saw that they were marrying an old Boot to a supple young Buskin; Pantagruel was told that the young Buskin was taking the old Boot to wife because she was a good bargain, in a good state and so delightfully ample that she could even serve as an angler’s waders.
In another – lower – room I saw a young Dancing-Shoe marry an elderly Slipper. And we were told that it was not for any beauty or elegance she had but out of covetousness and greed for the gold coins with which she was stuffed.
How Pantagruel landed on the Island of Cheli over which ruled the saintly King Panigon
CHAPTER 10
[Was originally Chapter 5.
This island is a kind of Land of Cockaigne. Panigon derives his name from the Italian figure Panicone, a great eater. Cheli is Hebrew for peace.]
The Garbin was blowing on our poop when, leaving behind those nasty Kinshippers each with a nose like an ace of clubs, we reached the high seas. Towards sundown we touched at the island of Cheli: a spacious, fertile, rich and well-populated island over which reigned the saintly King Panigon, who, accompanied by his sons and the princes of his Court, had processed towards the harbour so as to welcome Pantagruel and escort him to his castle. The Queen made her appearance above the tower gate accompanied by her daughter and the ladies of the Court. It was Panigon’s wish that she and all her suite should kiss Pantagruel and his men: such was the courteous custom of that country.
Which was done, except in the case of Frère Jean, who had stood back and drawn apart with the officials of the King.
Panigon pressed Pantagruel to stay on for that day and the next.
Pantagruel grounded his refusal on the calmness of the weather and on the favourable wind, which is more often desired by seafarers than acquired: it must be exploited whenever it comes, for it does not always come when you want it to.
After such an appeal Panigon gave us his congee, but not before each man had downed some twenty-five to thirty drinks.
Pantagruel, on returning to the harbour and not seeing Frère Jean, asked where he was and why he was not with the rest of the company. Panurge had no idea how to excuse Frère Jean and was just expressing a desire to return to the castle to summon him when up he came running, full of joy and gaily shouted, ‘Long live the noble Panigon! By the death of a Wooden Ox, he keeps an excellent kitchen! I’ve just come from there. They ladle it out! I was hoping to pad out the belly of my frock to the profit of my monastical and liturgical Use.’
‘So my friend,’ said Pantagruel, ‘still haunting kitchens then!’
‘Body of Chick!’ replied Frère Jean, ‘I know the customs and ceremonials of kitchens better than all that squitty-shittying about with women: Magny, magna, squitty-shitty. bow twice, do it again; arms round their necks then touch their guts: I kiss the hands of Vuestra Merced, of Vostra Majestà; Be you welcome, tiddly-pom.21
‘Bren – that’s shit in Rouen – all that mucking and piddling about! I don’t say, mind you, that in my rough old way I would never stir up the dregs if some lady permitted me to slip in my nomination: but all that squittery of bowing and scraping bores me more than a double-fasting devil – I meant a devilish double-fast – on the subject of which Saint Benedick never lied.
[‘You’re talking about kissing young ladies. By the holy and worthy frock that I bear, from that I forebear, fearing that there might happen to me what happened to the Seigneur de Guyecharais.’
‘What was that!’ asked Pantagruel. ‘I know him. One of my best friends.’
‘He,’ said Frère Jean, ‘was invited to a splendid and sumptuous feast given by one of his kinsmen who lived near by. To it were also invited all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood and all the ladies, both dames and demoiselles. While waiting for him to arrive, those ladies took the assembled pages, making them up and decking them out as attractive and fashionable young ladies. When Guyecharais came in, those feminized pages came to greet him. With great courtesy and courtly bows he kissed them all in turn. In the end the ladies (who were in the gallery, lying in wait for him) burst out laughing and signalled to their pages to take off their finery.
‘On seeing which that good lord, out of embarrassment and irritation, would not condescend to kiss the real dames and demoiselles, asserting that, since they had disguised those pages for him, they themselves, by Gosh! must be their lackeys even more cleverly made up.]
‘Mighty God! – pardon my swearing! – why don’t we rather transport our human frailties to some fair and godly kitchen, there to contemplate the dance of the spits, the harmony of the racks, the aspect of the rashers, the temperament of the soups,22 the preparations for dessert and the order of the wine-service? Blessed are they that are undefiled in the way.23 That’s Breviary stuff.’
CHAPTER 11]
[There is no chapter-break here in ‘48.
The monk from Amiens has an appropriate name, Lardon (Rasher).
Rabelais is indebted to Erasmus for the anecdote about Antigonus. See his Apophthegms, IV, Antigonus King of Macedonia, 17.]
‘Spoken like a monk born!’ said Epistemon. ‘I mean a monking monk, not a monkèd monk. You do in fact remind me of what I heard and saw some twenty years ago in Florence. We formed a goodly fellowship of studious folk, lovers of travel and keen on visiting the learned men of Italy, the antiquities and the curiosities. We were duly admiring the site and beauty of Florence, the structure of the Duomo, the splendour of the churches and the magnificent palaces, and were outdoing each other to see who could most properly extol them with condign praises, when a monk from Amiens called Bernard Lardon said to us, all irritated as though we had ganged-up against him,
‘I don’t know what the devil you find to praise so much here! I’ve gazed at it all as much as you have and am no more blind than you are. But what of it? There are fine houses, that’s all. But (God and our good patron saint my lord Saint Bernard be with us!) I’ve yet to find one single roast-meatery in all this town. [And I have diligently looked, hunted about and – yes, I tell you – searched as though I were a spy keen to list and count how many roasting roasteries we could find on the right and on the left, and on which side.]
‘Why, in Amiens, covering four times less ground than we did when looking at things here [– well, three times less –] I could show you more than fourteen roasteries [which are ancient and fragrant]. I don’t know what pleasure you took over by the Belfry while gazing at those lions and africans (the name, I think, you gave to what the people here call tigers), as likewise at the porcupines and ostriches on the palace of Signor Filippo Strozzi.24 By my faith, me boys, I would prefer one good, fat gosling on a spit. All that porphyry and marble is beautiful. I’ve nothing to say against them, but those flans of Amiens called darioles, are [to my taste] better.
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