‘You,’ said Pantagruel, ‘have heard tell, and so had those who told it to you, but no such remedy has ever been seen or heard of. Hippocrates (in Book 5 of the Epidemics) writes of a case which occurred in his times: the patient died in a trice in spasms and convulsions.’
‘Moreover,’ said the Podestat, ‘all the foxes round here ran after those hens into his mouth and he could have died at any moment were it not for the advice of some silly old spell-monger who, at the hour of his paroxysm, advised him to skin the fox as an antidote and a neutralizer. He has since received better advice: as a remedy he has a clyster administered to him composed of a concoction of grains of wheat and millet (which bring the hens all running up) and goose-livers (which bring the foxes all running up). He also takes pills through the mouth compounded of greyhounds and terriers.
‘So much for our misfortune.’
‘Fear no more, good folk,’ said Pantagruel. ‘That great giant Bringuenarilles who swallows up windmills is dead. He died, choking and suffocated, while eating a dish of butter beside the mouth of an oven: he was following the orders of his physicians.’
How Pantagruel landed on the island of the Papefigues
CHAPTER 45
[The Papefigues care not a fig for the Pope. Faire la figue is to cock a snook (which the Papefigues, as sound Protestants, did to a picture of a pope). Behind the Papefigues lie the Vaudois of Provence, massacred in 1545, but regarded as loyal subjects by Rabelais’ great patron, Guillaume Du Bellay, the Seigneur de Langey.
The Briefve Déclaration explains the name of Thachor the mule as ‘a fig up the fundament: Hebrew’.
The ‘Gaillardets’ are merry ones, or were so once, before they were oppressed and dubbed Papefigues by their enemies.
The beginning of the tale of the peasant and the trainee devil. Rabelais calls the peasant a ploughman (laboureur,). He seems to have been rather a peasant-farmer.]
The following morning we encountered the island of the Papefigues, folk who once had been rich, free, and known as the Gaillardets, but now poor, unhappy and subject to the Papimanes. This is how it befell. On one annual festal day when the banners were out, the Burgomaster, syndics and the fat rabbis of those Gaillardets went to pass time watching the festival on the neighbouring island of Papimania. Now, on seeing the papal portrait (since it was a laudable custom to exhibit it to the people on high days marked by processions with banners) one of the Gaillardets cocked a fig at it, which in that land is a sign of manifest contempt and derision. To avenge it, a few days later the Papimanes all took up arms and without warning surprised, sacked and laid waste the entire island of the Gaillardets. Any male sporting a beard they put to the sword. The women and youths were spared on conditions similar to those which the Emperor Federigo Barbarossa imposed long ago on the Milanese. It was during his absence that the Milanese had rebelled against him and hounded the Empress his wife from the city, mounted to shame her on an ancient mule called Thacor, sitting astride and backwards (that is, with her bottom turned towards the mule’s head and her face towards its crupper).
On his return Federigo, having subjugated the rebels and locked them up, diligently traced and recovered Thacor, the famous mule. Then, in the midst of the great market-place at Milan, by his command, the hangman placed a fig in Thacor’s private parts, the captive citizens all being there to see it. Then, to the sound of the trumpet, he cried in the name of the emperor that whosoever amongst them wished to escape death should, in public, extract that fig with his teeth and replace it, all without using his hands. Whosoever refused would, on the instant, be hanged and throttled. Some of them felt such shame and horror at so abominable a penalty that they feared death less than that and so were hanged. In others the fear of death overpowered their sense of shame. When they displayed to the hangman the fig which they had pulled out with their bare teeth, they said, Ecco lo fico (‘Behold the Fig’).
The remnant of those wretched and desolate Gaillardets, saved and protected from death by a similar public disgrace, were turned into slaves and payers of tribute, and upon them was imposed the name of Papefigues, because they had cocked a fig at the papal portrait. From that time forth those wretched folk have never prospered: every year since then they have had hailstorms, tempests, plagues, famines and every sort of disaster, as an everlasting punishment for the sin of their forebears and kinsmen.
On seeing the misery and the distress of the people, we would have preferred to go on no further, but to find some holy water and commend ourselves to God we went inside a little chapel hard by the port: it was in ruins, desolate and lacking its roof like Saint Peter’s temple in Rome. Having gone into the chapel and touched some holy water, we perceived a man inside the water-bowl, dressed in stoles and entirely covered by the water like a plunging drake, save for a bit of his nose to breathe through. Around him stood three priests, all shaven and shorn, reciting from their book of exorcisms and conjuring away devils.
Pantagruel found it all very odd; upon asking what game they were playing he was advised that, for the last three years, a plague so dreadful had raged in their island that over half the land was depopulated and the fields without owners. Once the plague had passed, that man now hidden in the water-bowl had been ploughing a wide and fertile field and sowing it with white-wheat at a day and time when a young little devil (who had not yet learnt to hail and thunder except against parsley and cabbages, and who could neither read nor write) had obtained leave from Lucifer to come to play and amuse himself on this island of the Papefigues (the devils often coming for recreation, being well acquainted with the men and women there).
Once arrived, the devil approached that ploughman and asked what he was doing. The poor man replied that he was sowing the field with white-wheat to help him get through the following year. ‘Well now,’ said the devil, ‘this field is not yours: it’s mine. It belongs to me. For from the day and time that you showed that you cared not a fig for the Pope all this land was adjudicated, consigned and relinquished to us. But sowing wheat is not my métier: I shall therefore allow you to use the land, but on condition that we share the yield.’
‘I agree to that,’ said the ploughman.
‘What I mean,’ said the devil, ‘is that we shall divide the yield into two parts. One will be the part which grows above the soil and the other the part covered by soil. The choice belongs to me since I am a devil descended from a noble and ancient family whilst you are a mere peasant. I choose the part which will be under the soil. You can have the part above. When will the harvest be?’
‘Mid-July,’ said the ploughman.
‘Well then,’ said the devil, ‘I shall be there without fail. As for the rest, get on with your duty. Swink, villein! Swink. I’m off to tempt the high-born nuns of Pettesec with the merry sin of lust. The Bigot-tails and begging Brethren as well. I’m more than sure of their desires: battle once joined, then comes the attack!’
How that little young devil was outwitted by the ploughman from Papefigue-land
CHAPTER 46
[A comically young and ignorant devil is shown up by an astute peasant, but the devil still remains to be defeated. Meanwhile he dolefully admits the key role of Saint Paul in the lives of today’s students. Saint Paul was particularly favoured by Evangelicals and Reformers.]
Come mid-July the devil turned up with a bevy of tiny little choir-devils. When he met the ploughman he said to him:
‘Well then, villein, what have you been up to since I left? Now we must do our share-out.’
‘That,’ said the ploughman, ‘is only right.’
Then the ploughman and his folk began cutting the wheat. The little devils likewise pulled up the stubble. The ploughman threshed his grain on the threshing-floor, winnowed it, bagged it up and took it off to sell at the market. The tiny devils did likewise and sat down in the market-place beside the ploughman to sell their stubble. The ploughman sold his wheat all right and with the money filled up an old boot which he wore tied to his belt.
The devils sold nothing; on the contrary: the peasants openly made fun of them in the market-place. Once the trading was over the devil said to the ploughman:
‘Villein, you’ve cheated me this time. You won’t do that next time!’
‘Monsieur Devil,’ said the ploughman, ‘how could I have cheated you? You had the first choice. The truth is you thought you were cheating me over the choice, hoping that nothing would come up from the soil as my share whilst you would find below ground all the grain that I’d sown, and use it to tempt the wretched, the hypocrites or the greedy, and by temptation cause them to tumble into your snares. The grain you can see in the soil is dead and corrupted. From its corruption has sprung the new grain which you saw me sell.
‘You chose the worst. That’s why you are cursed in the Gospel.’
‘Let’s change the subject,’ said the devil. ‘What can you sow in our field next year?’
‘To make a good yield for the prudent husbandman,’ said the ploughman, ‘one should sow turnips.’
‘Well then,’ said the devil, ‘you’re a decent villein. Sow plenty of turnips. I shall protect them from storms, and no hail shall fall upon them. But get this clear: for my share I retain whatever shall be above the soil: you can have what’s underneath.
‘Swink, villein, swink. I’m off to tempt heretics: their souls are very tasty when grilled over charcoal. Monsieur Lucifer has got the colic: they’re tidbits while they’re still warm!’
When the time came to gather the crop, the devil was there with a bevy of lackey-devils. Having come across the ploughman and his folk, the devil began to cut the turnip-tops and gather them in. After him came the ploughman, who dug deep, pulled out the great turnips and bagged them up.
And so, off they go together to market. The ploughman easily sold his turnips. The devil sold nothing. Worse: people publicly made fun of him.
‘I can see, villein,’ he said, ‘that you have cheated me. I intend to finish once and for all with this field shared between us. These are my terms: we will claw one another, and whoever is the first to give in shall surrender his share of the field, which will go entirely to the victor. We’ll adjourn for a week. Away you go, villein. I shall give you a devil of a clawing-over. I was on my way to tempt those pillaging Chiquanous, falsifiers of lawsuits, counterfeiting notaries and prevaricating lawyers, but I’ve learnt through an interpreter that they’re mine already. Anyway, Lucifer is fed up with their souls: he usually sends them down to the devils washing-up in the kitchen, except when dredged with a seasoning. You have a saying,
No breakfast like a student’s.
No dinner like a lawyer’s.
No nibble like a grape-harvester’s.
No supper like a merchant’s.
No late-night collation like a chambermaid’s.
And no meal in the world like a cowled Hobgoblin’s.
It is true that, as an entrée, Monsieur Lucifer regales himself on cowled Hobgoblins. He used to breakfast on students but, through I know not what disaster, for some time now, they have (alas) annexed the Bible to their studies; for which reason we can’t get even one of them to go to the devil. And I believe that if the black-beetles do not succour us by wrenching their Saint Pauls from their hands with menaces, assaults, beatings-up and burnings, we shall never again nibble another down yonder. Lucifer normally dines on lawyers who pervert justice and rob the poor – no lack of them! – but you get tired of always eating the same old fodder. He once said during a full chapter-meeting that he would love to eat the soul of just one single black-beetle who had forgotten to beg something for himself during his sermon; he promised double pay and a first-rate job to any devil who should bring him one back hot off the toasting-fork. Each of us set off in quest of one, but to no avail. All of them counsel high-born ladies to give to their convents.
‘As for nibbles, he has kept off them ever since he suffered a bad colic arising from the ignominious mistreatment meted out in Northern Lands to his suppliers: the victuallers, carbon-grillers and pork butchers. He dines very well on usurers, apothecaries, forgers, debasers of the coinage and adulterators of merchandise. And from time to time, when he’s in a good mood, he makes a late-night collation of chambermaids who drink some of their master’s good wine and then top up the barrel with smelly water.
‘Swink, Swain! Swink!
‘I’m off to Trebizond to tempt students to leave their fathers and mothers, reject the established polity, exempt themselves from the edicts of their king and live in subterranean licence, despising everyone, jeering at everyone and, behind the fair and merry mask of poetic integrity, to all become noble, cowled Hobgoblins.’60
How the devil was deceived by an old woman of the land of the Papefigues
CHAPTER 47
[The triumph of a knowing peasant woman. Elsewhere the devil is a real person and a real source of evil for Rabelais, but devils as they appear in contes, mystery-plays and farces are often stupid and can be outwitted by shrewd peasants.
The Persian women shamed their men-folk who were fleeing the battle by baring their vaginas and inviting the cowards to hide away in them. It is related by Plutarch. It reappears, for example, in Tira-queaus Laws of Marriage. It was also known from an apophthegm of Erasmus (VI, Varie mixta, 93).]
On his way back home the ploughman was brooding and sad. When his wife saw him she thought he must have been done down in the market, but after she had heard the reason for his melancholy and seen his purse full of silver, she gently comforted him, assuring him that no harm at all would come to him from his scratch-up: all he had to do was to pose and repose on her: she had already thought how to produce a good outcome. ‘If it comes to the worst I shall only get a scratching,’ said the ploughman, ‘for I shall give in at the first clawing and yield him the field.’
‘No, no, no!’ said the old woman. ‘Pose and repose on me. Let me do it my way. You did say that he was a little-boy of a devil? I’ll soon make him give in and yield us the field. If it had been a grown-up devil we would have had something to think about.’
The day we landed on the island was the day they were due to meet. Early that morning the ploughman had made a very full confession and taken communion like a good Catholic, and then, on the advice of his curé, had plunged into the water-bowl to hide himself. In which state we had found him.
At the very instant we were told this tale, we received news that the old woman had diddled the devil and won the field.
And this is how: the devil came to the ploughman’s door, rang the bell and yelled, ‘Hey! Villein! Villein! Look: what lovely claws!’ He then went into the house, sure of himself and fully resolved; but finding that the ploughman was not there, he noticed the ploughman’s wife lying on the ground, sobbing and wailing.
‘What’s going on?’ asked the devil. ‘Where is he? What’s he up to?’
‘Ha!’ said the old woman, ‘where is he? He’s a bad man, a hangman, a savage. He’s given me such a wound. I’m done for. I’m dying from the harm he’s done me.’
‘Eh?’ said the devil. ‘What’s wrong? I’ll soon trounce him for you.’
‘Oh,’ said the old woman. ‘He told me – that hangman, that bully, that clawer of devils! – that he had an appointment to claw it out with you this very day. So to try out his nails he just flicked me here between my legs with his little finger. He’s totally done for me. I’m finished. I shall never get better. Have a look! And he’s just gone to the blacksmith’s to have his claws pointed up and sharpened. Monsieur le Diable: you’ve had it, my friend. Save yourself. Nothing can stop him. Get away, I beseech you.’
She then bared herself up to her chin (adopting the position of those Persian women who exhibited themselves to their sons as they fled from the battle) and showed him her what-d’you-call. The devil, upon seeing that monstrous solution of continuity in all its dimensions, exclaimed, ‘Mahoun! Demiourgon! Megaera! Alecto! Persephone! He’s not getting hold of me! I’m running away double
quick! Selah! I quit the field.’
Having heard the catastrophe – the end – of the story, we withdrew to our ship and delayed there no longer.
Pantagruel put eighteen thousand golden royals into the box for the fabric fund out of consideration for the poverty of the people and the wretchedness of the place.
How Pantagruel landed on the Island of the Papimanes
CHAPTER 48
[This and the following six chapters constitute the high point of Royalist-Gallican propaganda, especially enjoyed no doubt by Cardinal Odet de Châtillon and Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. The Papimanes make an idol of the Pope, who for them is a god who rivals the true God. (The Fourth Book is concerned with the worship of false gods.) There were indeed papalist lawyers who did assert that the powers of the Pope were such that he was quasi deus in terris, ‘as though God on earth’. Anti-papalists seized on that formula to ‘prove’ that papists are truly idolatrous.
The false god of the Papimanes is supported by false Scriptures: the Decretals, many of the most pro-papalist of which were already known to be forgeries. False Decretals were seen as the buttress of papal power. As such they were rejected by reformers and many others. Decretals are known by the name of their collection, such as the Extravagantes. Decrees are by contrast the concern of Councils.
God declares ‘I am that I am’ (in Latin and French, ‘I am he who is’) in Exodus 3:14. The insistence on the demonstrable masculinity of the popes is connected with the legend of Pope Joan. Many were convinced that, since the election of a woman as Pope Joan, all newly elected popes were required to sit upon a special seat so contrived as to allow their testicles to be felt from below.
‘Hypophète’ is explained in the Brief Declaration as one who tells of the past as distinct from a prophet who tells of the future.]
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