Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  I came across the highway to Bourges and saw it stumble along at an abbot’s pace; I also saw it give way at the arrival of some carters who threatened to trample over it with their horses’ hooves and drive their carts across its belly (as Tullia made her chariot run over the belly of her father, Servius Tul-lius, the sixth king of the Romans). I similarly recognized the old Picardy-road from Péronne to Saint-Quentin: he looked personally quite presentable. I also recognized between the cliffs that good old road of La Ferrate, which clambers over the Grand-Ours. Looking at him from afar I was reminded of Saint Jerome in a painting, but with a bear not a lion, for he was all hoary with a long, white, ill-combed beard: you could rightly have said they were icicles. He wore a great many rough pine-wood rosaries and was as though propped up on his knees, neither standing nor entirely lying down; and he was beating his bosom with great rugged rocks. We were moved to simultaneous fear and pity.

  While we were looking at him, a Bachelor of Arts and giver of courses took us aside, showed us a very smooth road, completely white, which was lightly strewn with straw, and said:

  ‘From this time forth do not despise the opinion of Thales of Miletus, who said that water was the beginning of all things, nor the judgement of Homer affirming that all things have their births in the ocean: the road you see here was born of water and to water it will return. Two months ago boats travelled along here, now wagons do.’

  ‘Truly,’ said Pantagruel, ‘you make that road appear most pitiable! In our world we see over five hundred of such transfigurations every year.’

  Then, contemplating the gaits of those moving roads, he said that, according to his judgement, it was on this isle that Philolaus and Aristarchus had been led to affirm by philosophy – Seleucus reaching the same opinion – that it is the earth not the sky which truly rotates about its poles, despite the contrary appearing to us to be true. Similarly, when we are on the river Loire, it appears to us that the nearby trees are moving, yet they are not: it is we who are moving as the boat sails by.20

  On our way back to our ship we came across three highwaymen on the shore who were being racked on the wheel; they had been caught laying an ambush. And some great lout was also being roasted over a slow fire: he had so thumped the surface of the road that he had fractured one of its ribs. We were told that it was the road leading to the dikes and levees of the Nile in Egypt.21

  How we visited the Isle of Clogs; and of the Order of the Demisemiquaver Friars

  CHAPTER 26

  [In French this is the Order of the Frères Fredons. There are Friars Minor and Friars Minim. These Friars are even more minimal.

  Fortune, whose forehead is hare, is either grasped by the hair at the hack of her head as she sweeps by or grasped not at all.

  ‘Quint’ is Quintessence and also a Fifth, which allows of some sporting with musical terms.

  The reference to Pontanus echoes Gargantua, Chapter 18.]

  We then called at the Isle of Clogs, where they live on nothing but stewed haddock; we were well received, though, by the king of the Isle (Benius, the Third of that Name) and well entertained. After giving us drinks he took us to a new kind of monastery which had been devised, erected and built to his design for the Demisemiquavers – it was thus that he called his Friars, saying that on terra-firma there dwelt the Little Servants and Friends of the Gentle Lady, the boasting and beautiful Friars-Minor (the Semi-breves of papal bulls), the Friars-Minims (those smoky eaters of herrings) and the Minim-crochets. He could find no title even more diminishing than Demisemiquavers.

  By the Statutes and Bull-patent obtained from Dame Quint, who is in every good chord, they were all attired like a mob of incendiaries, except that, just as roof-tilers in Anjou have padded cushions on their knees, they had padded soles over their bellies. (Amongst them padders-up of guts enjoy a high reputation.) The codpieces on their breeches had the form of slippers; each man wore two of them, one sewn on in front and the other behind, asserting that certain terrifying mysteries were duly signified by that cod-piecely duplication.

  They wore shoes as round as basins in imitation of those who dwell amidst the Sea of Sand. In addition they wore their beards shaven off, and iron-shod shoes. And to prove that they are never troubled by Fortune he, Benius, had them shaven and shorn like pigs, from their crowns down to their omoplates along the posterior parts of their heads. Their frontal hair, from the parietal bones downwards, was allowed to grow freely. So they were like Anti-Fortunes and like folk who care nothing at all for the things of this world. Each one, even more defiant of many-faceted Fortune, bore a sharp razor – not as she does in her hand but attached to his belt like prayer-beads, – which they whetted twice a day and honed three times a night.

  Each wore a round ball on his feet because Fortune is said to have one under hers. The back-flap of their cowls is not secured behind but in front, by which means they kept their faces concealed and could freely mock at Fortune and those whom Fortune favours, neither more nor less than maidens hiding behind their mask-uglies (which you call nose-mufflers and which men of yore call charity, because it covers a great multitude of sins).22

  They always kept the back of their heads uncovered as we do our faces, which explains why they can travel as they prefer with either belly or bum to the fore. Whenever they went bum-wards you would have reckoned that to be their natural way of walking, as much from their round shoes as from the codpiece which went before them, together with the shaven face, coarsely painted behind, with its two eyes and mouth such as may be seen on Indian coconuts. When they went belly-wards you would have taken them for folk playing at blind-man’s-buff. It was a fine sight to behold!

  Their way of life is as follows: when bright Lucifer begins to be visible from Earth, they, for charity’s sake, boot and spur into each other. Thus booted and spurred, they go to sleep (or at the very least they snore) keeping on their noses their goggles or at very worst their glasses.

  We found that way of doing things odd but they satisfied us with their reply: they protested that at the Last Judgement, whenever it came, human beings would be found resting and sleeping; so in order to appear as Fortune’s favourites, they keep themselves booted, spurred and ready to mount their steeds whenever the Trumpet shall sound.

  At the stroke of noon – and note that all their bells, both in tower and Refectory, were constructed according to the device of Pontanus, namely of fine padded down, whilst their tongues were of foxes’ tails – at the stroke, I say, of noon, they awoke, pulled off their boots, pissed (if they wished), defecated (if they wished) and (if they wished) sneezed. But all of them were constrained by statute copiously and amply to yawn.

  They had yawns for breakfast. It was for me a pleasant sight to see; for, having put their boots and spurs on the racks, they went down into the cloisters. There they meticulously washed their hands and their mouths and then sat down on a long bench picking their teeth until the Provost gave a signal by whistling through his palm. Whereupon each one opened his jaws as wide as he could and yawned, sometimes for a full half-hour, sometimes less, as the Prior judged proportionate to each day’s festival.

  After which, they took out a fine procession in which they carried two banners: on one was painted a beautiful portrait of Virtue; on the other, of Fortuna. A leading Demisemiquaver carried Fortuna’s banner followed by another carrying Virtue’s; he bore in his hand an aspergillum dipped in that fountain of Mercury’s which Ovid describes in his Fasti, continually lustrating the friar walking before him and carrying Fortuna.

  ‘That order,’ said Panurge, ‘runs counter to the judgement of Cicero and the Academics, according to which Virtue takes precedence over Fortune.’

  But they contended that they were acting rightly, since their intention was to fustigate Fortuna.

  During the procession they melodiously demisemiquavered some anthems between their teeth – I could not tell which, as I did not understand their lingo – but by listening attentively I eventually realized t
hat they were singing with their ears. O, what a delightful harmony, so well consonant with the ring of their bells! You will never find them discordant.

  Pantagruel made a wonderful and memorable remark about their procession; he said to us:

  ‘Did you see and notice the finesse of those Demisemiquavers? To make their procession they left by one door of the church and came in by another: they were too wily to go back through the one they’d just left by. Upon my honour they are fine folk, as fit to be gilded as a leaden dagger, not finely fined but finely fining, sifted through a fine mesh.’

  ‘Such finesse,’ said Frère Jean, ‘is distilled from occult philosophy, of which, by the devil, I understand nothing.’

  ‘It is,’ said Pantagruel, ‘all the more to be feared precisely because nobody understands it. For finesse understood, foreseen and unveiled, loses its name and essence: then we call it boorishness. I tell you on my honour that they know plenty of other tricks.’

  Once the procession was over, for a walk and some healthy exercise they resorted to their Refectory, sinking to their knees underneath their tables and each pressing his chest and belly against a lantern. When they had adopted that position, there entered a Great Clog holding a fork in his hand; he so prodded them with his fork that they started off their meal with cheese and ended it with lettuce and mustard (the custom of the Ancients as Martial testifies). Each was finally served with a platterful of mustard: in fact served with mustard once the meal is o’er!

  Their regimen was as follows. They eat:

  – on Sundays: black-puddings, chidlings, sausages, veal stewed in lard, hazlets, hogs’ hazlets, quails, not including the first course of cheese nor the after-dinner mustard.

  – on Mondays: rich peas-with-bacon, with copious footnotes and interlined glosses;

  – on Tuesdays a great quantity of holy bread, fouaces, cakes, buns and biscuits;

  – on Wednesdays: ‘rustic fare’ (that is, finest sheep’s heads, calves’ heads and badgers’ heads, which all abound in that countryside);

  – on Thursdays: seven kinds of soups, always with mustard served between them;

  – on Fridays: nothing save sorb-apples, which as far as I could judge from their colour, were not even very ripe.

  – on Saturdays: they gnawed at bones (not that they were poor or needy, since each one of them enjoyed the benefice of a very good belly).

  For their drink they had some local wine or other which they called ‘an Antidote to Fortuna’.

  Whenever they wanted to eat or drink they pulled down the flaps of their cowls in front of them to serve as bibs; once dinner was over they thoroughly praised God entirely in demisemi-quavers; the rest of the day they spent on works of charity whilst awaiting the Last Judgement;

  – on Sundays, they boxed each other’s ears;

  – on Mondays, they tweaked each other’s noses;

  – on Tuesdays, they clawed at each other;

  – on Wednesdays they wiped snot from each other’s conks;

  – on Thursdays, they wormed ticks from each other’s noses;

  – on Fridays, they gave each other a tickle;

  – on Saturdays, they lashed each other with whips.

  That was their regular regime when residing in their convents. Should they go out by order of the claustral Prior they were rigorously forbidden, under horrifying penalties, ever to touch or eat fish when travelling by river or sea, or meat of any kind when on terra-firma: that was so as to make it evident to all that, whilst being moved by the sight, they were not moved by privilege or concupiscence, remaining as unshakable as the Marpesian Rock.

  All this they performed with appropriate and relevant anthems, always chanting with their ears as already said. As the sun sank down into the sea, they booted and spurred one another as before and settled down to sleep with their glasses on their noses. At midnight: enter the Clog.

  Everyone got up and whetted and honed his razor. Once the procession was finished, they placed the tables over themselves and began to feed as before.

  Frère Jean des Entommeures, on seeing the rejoicing of those Demisemiquaver-Friars and upon learning of the Table of Contents of their Statutes, lost his calm and loudly exclaimed:

  ‘O! what a rat in that Table! I’m striking it out, and then, by God, out I go too.23

  ‘O! If only Priapus were here as he rightly was for the midnight rites of Canidia, we might see him deeply farting, and demisemiquavering as he counter-farted.24 Now I know that we are indeed in an antichthonian – an antipodean – land. In Germany they are unfrocking monks and pulling down monasteries: here, on the contrary, they’re setting them up, out of kilter and against the grain.

  How Panurge, when questioning a Demisemiquaver Friar, received from him no reply save in monosyllables

  CHAPTER 27

  [Some slight liberties are taken here in the translation to keep the replies monosyllabic, since such humour as there is lies in the monosyllables. Erasmus had made this kind of jest current in his Colloquy Echo, though here there are no echoes as there were in the Third Book.]

  Panurge had done nothing since our arrival except deeply contemplate the sour faces of those royal Demisemiquavers; but then he tugged one of them by the sleeve – he was as lean as a soused devil – and asked him:

  ‘Brother Demiseque, Demiseque, Hum-tee-tum Quaver, where do you keep the girl then?’

  The Demisemiquaver Friar replied, ‘Down’.

  PAN. Got many here? – FR. Few.

  PAN. How many are there? – FR. Score.

  PAN. How many would you like to have? – FR. More.

  PAN. Where do you hide them? – FR. There.

  PAN. They’re not all of the same age, I suppose, but how do they hold themselves? – FR. Straight.

  PAN. And their complexion? – FR. Fair.

  PAN. And their hair? – FR. Blonde.

  PAN. And their eyes: how are they? – FR. Black.

  PAN. And their titties? – FR. Round.

  PAN. Their faces? – FR. Fine.

  PAN. Their eyebrows? – FR. Soft.

  PAN. Their attractions? – FR. Ripe.

  PAN. Their looks? – FR. Frank.

  PAN. Their feet, how are they? – FR. Splay.

  PAN. Their heels? – FR. Neat.

  PAN. The nether parts: what about them? – FR. Nice.

  PAN. And their arms? – FR. Long.

  PAN. What do they wear on their hands? – FR. Gloves.

  PAN. And what of the rings on their fingers? – FR. Gold.

  PAN. What do you use for their clothes? – FR. Cloth.

  PAN. What cloth do you dress them in? – FR. New.

  PAN. What colour is it? – FR. Green.

  PAN. Their headgear. What of that? – FR. Blue.

  PAN. Their stockings? – FR. Brown.

  PAN. All the aforementioned clothes, how do they look? – FR. Smart.

  PAN. What are their shoes made of? – FR. Hide.

  PAN. How are they usually? – FR. Foul.

  PAN. How do they walk about with them in public? – FR. Quick.

  PAN. Let’s get round to the kitchen – I mean the girls’ kitchen – let’s pick through everything in detail without undue haste. What is there in their kitchen? – FR. Fire.

  PAN. What keeps it going? – FR. Wood.

  PAN. What’s that wood like? – FR. Dry.

  PAN. From which trees? – FR. Yew.

  PAN. And the kindling and faggots? – FR. Thorn.

  PAN. What wood do you burn in your rooms? – FR. Pine.

  PAN. And from what other trees? – FR. Limes.

  PAN. And those maidens aforesaid – I’ll go fifty-fifty with you! – how do you nourish them? – FR. Well.

  PAN. What do they eat? – FR. Bread.

  PAN. What kind? – FR. Brown.

  PAN. And what else? – FR. Meat.

  PAN. How cooked? – FR. Roast.

  PAN. Do they eat any soups? – FR. None.

  PAN. And pastr
ies? – FR. Lots.

  PAN. I’ll join in! Do they never eat fish? – FR. Yes.

  PAN. Hmm. And what else? – FR. Eggs.

  PAN. How do they like them? – FR. Boiled.

  PAN. But now I ask, how boiled? – FR. Hard.

  PAN. Is that their entire meal? – FR. NO.

  PAN. Well then, what else do they have? – FR. Beef.

  PAN. Anything else? – FR. Pork.

  PAN. And what else? – FR. Goose.

  PAN. And the male gander? – FR. Male.

  PAN. Also? – FR. Cock.

  PAN. And what do they put in their sauce? – FR. Salt.

  PAN. And for the fastidious drinkers amongst them? – FR. Must.

  PAN. And to finish up with? – FR. Rice.

  PAN. What else? – FR. Milk.

  PAN. What else? – FR. Peas.

  PAN. What sort of peas do you mean? – FR. Green.

  PAN. What do you put with them? – FR. Pork.

  PAN. What sorts of fruit? – FR. Ripe.

  PAN. Served how? – FR. Raw.

  PAN. Then? – FR. Nuts.

  PAN. And how do they like their drinks? – FR. Neat.

  PAN. What do they drink? – FR. Wine.

  PAN. What sort? – FR. White.

  PAN. In Winter? – FR. Sound.

  PAN. In Spring? – FR. Dry.

  PAN. In Summer – FR. Cool.

  PAN. In Autumn and at the vendanges? – FR. Sweet.

  ‘By my quim of a frock,’ exclaimed Frère Jean, ‘how fat those demisemiquavering bitches must be and how well they must trot to it, seeing they’re fed such good and such copious fodder.’

  ‘Allow me to finish’ (said Panurge).

  PAN. When do they go to bed? – FR. Night.

  PAN. And when do they get up? – FR. Day.

  PAN. Here is the nicest little male Demisemiquaver that I have put through its courses this year. Would to God by the Blessed Saint Demisemiquaver and the venerable Virgin Saint Demisemiquaver that he were the Principal President of the Paris Parlement. Gosh almighty, my friend, how he would expedite his cases! What an abbreviator of lawsuits he would be, what a drainer of quarrels, what a sorter-through of bundles, what a riffler through of papers, what a taker-down of details! Now let us get round to the other viands and talk leisurely and exhaustively of our aforesaid Sisters of Charity. What are their thingummies like? – FR. Big.