Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  The satyrs, captains, troop-sergeants, squad-leaders and corporals, all with their trumpets sounding martial strains, madly dashed around the army, capering like goats with many a bound, fart, kick and prance, putting heart into their comrades for a valiant fight. All the figures in the mosaic were crying Euhoe!

  The Maenades were the ones to make the first incursion against the Indians with hideous yells and a terrifying din from their cymbals and bucklers. As depicted in that mosaic, the whole heavens resounded with it: therefore be not so moved to wonder by the art of Apelles, Aristides of Thebes and others who have painted peals of thunder, flashes of lightning, thunderbolts, winds, Words, manners and minds.

  In the following, the army of the Indians was portrayed as aware that Bacchus was laying waste to their land. To the fore were the elephants, with towers strapped on to them, and countless fighting men. But that entire army was routed, their elephants turning back and trampling over them because of the horrifying tumult of the Bacchides and the panic terror which had stripped them of their senses.

  There you would have seen Silenus fencing with his stave in the old style of swordsmanship and sharply spurring on that ass of his, which cavorted along after the elephants with its jaws agape as though it were braying a martial bray and sounding the attack, with a bravery equal to that with which it once awoke Lotis the Nymph at the height of the Bacchanalia, when Priapus, full of priapism, sought not to apprise her but to priapize her while she slept

  There you would have seen Pan skipping around the Maenades on his crooked legs, encouraging them to fight valiantly with his rustic pipes. There you would have next seen: a young Satyr leading in seventeen kings as captives; a Bacchante hauling along forty-two captains with her snakes; a little faun bearing twelve standards seized from the enemy; and that good fellow Bacchus riding securely in his chariot in the midst of the field, laughing, joking and downing drink for drink with all comers.

  Finally there was portrayed in that mosaic the trophy celebrating the victory and triumph of that good fellow Bacchus. His triumphal car was covered all over with ivy, culled and garnered on Mount Meros for its rarity, which raises the price of everything, particularly of this plant in India. (Later, Alexander the Great, during his Indian triumph, imitated him in that: his car was drawn by elephants yoked together. And subsequently Pompey the Great during his African Triumph in Rome, imitated him.) On his car rode our noble Bacchus, drinking from a two-handed jar (and in that Caius Marius imitated him after his victory over the Cimbri which he won near Aix-en-Provence).

  All in Bacchus’ army were crowned with ivy: their thyrses, bucklers and drums were covered in it. Why! the very ass of Silenus was caparisoned in it! Flanking the car were the captured Indian princes, bound in chains of gold. The whole company marched with a religious pomp, with joy and happiness beyond utterance, bearing an infinite number of trophies, models of captured towns and spoil from their enemies, all resounding in joyful paeans of victory or little rustic songs and dithyrambs.

  At the very end was painted the land of Egypt with the Nile and its crocodiles, long-tailed monkeys, ibises, apes, crested wrens, ichneumons, hippopotamuses and other indigenous creatures. And there was Bacchus, progressing through that land, drawn by two oxen, on one of which was written in letters of gold, Apis, and upon the other, Osiris, because, before the advent of Bacchus, neither bull nor cow had ever been seen in Egypt.

  How the Temple was illuminated by a wondrous lamp

  CHAPTER 40

  [The lamp shining in the Temple is a real lamp, not a living Lantern. The whole chapter is influenced by the Dream of Polifilo of Colonna, sometimes closely.]

  Before I embark upon a presentation of La Bouteille I shall describe for you the wonderful form of a lamp by means of which light was widely shed over the whole temple so abundantly that even though we were under the ground we could see there as we can see the sun shining clear and serenely upon the earth at noon. In the middle of the vault was fixed a ring of solid gold, as thick as a clenched fist; from it hung three some-what smaller chains most skilfully forged, forming a triangle, some two-and-a-half feet up in the air, enclosing a fine golden disc of such a size that the diameter exceeded two cubits plus half a span. In it were four buckles or rings, in each of which was firmly held a hollow ball, scooped out and open at the top like a little oil-lamp measuring about two spans all round. They were all of very precious stones: one of amethyst, another of Libyan ruby, a third of opal, and the fourth of flaming garnet-stone. Each was full of eau-de-vie, five-times distilled in a serpentine alembic: it was as inexhaustible as the oil which Callimachus once placed in Pallas’ golden lamp in the Acropolis at Athens, with a burning wick made partly of asbestos-flax (as formerly in the temple of Jupiter Ammon where that most studious of philosophers, Cleombrotus, saw it) and partly of Carpasian flax (both of which are renewed by fire rather than consumed by it).

  About two-and-a-half feet below that disc, the three chains were, as originally disposed, buckled on to the three handles which projected from a great round lamp of purest crystal. It was about two-and-a-half cubits in diameter. It was open at the top for about two spans, and into the middle of that aperture was set a crystalline vessel, similar in shape to a gourd or a chamber-pot; it reached down to the base of the great lamp and held just the right amount of the said eau-de-vie for the flame of the asbestos-flax to be in the very middle of the great lamp. By which means it seemed that its whole spherical body was ablaze and radiating flames, because the flame was in its centre, just at the mid-point.

  It was hard to look at it fixedly and constantly (just as you cannot look at the body of the sun) since the matter was so astonishingly translucent and the work so finely wrought and diaphanous that the various colours inherent in the precious stones of the little lamps set above were reflected in the greater lamp set below, so that the light of those four lamps spread flickering and shimmering all over the temple. And when that roving light struck against the polished surface of the marble which lined the inside of the Temple, there appeared all the colours of the rainbow, as when the bright sun strikes the rain-clouds.

  It was a wonderful creation, all the more so, it seemed to me, in that all round the substance of the crystal lamp the sculptor had incised an engraving of a spirited and merry battle between little naked putti mounted on little wooden horses, all with whirligigs for lances and shields skilfully composed of bunches of grapes intertwined with vine-branches; their boyish deeds and assaults were portrayed so ingeniously and with such art that Nature could not have done better. They did not seem to have been cut into the crystal but rather to stand out in full relief in the round, or at least as in grotesques, because of the play of that pleasingly variegated inside light shining forth through the carvings.

  How we were shown a phantastic fountain by the High-Priestess Bacbuc

  CHAPTER 41

  [A short chapter in the printed text but not in the manuscript. For the choice and arrangement of the various texts, including the following chapter, see Mireille Huchon in her Pléiade Rabelais, pp. 1673–4.]

  While we were in ecstasy, contemplating that wonder-working Temple and that remarkable lamp, the venerable High-Priestess Bacbuc, with a joyful and smiling face, appeared before us with her train. Seeing us attired as we had been instructed, she made no difficulty about bringing us right into the middle of the temple where, below the said lamp, the beautiful, phantastic fountain was to be found.

  How the waters of the Fountain tasted of whatever wine the drinkers fancied

  CHAPTER 42

  [Many items in this chapter derive eventually from Pliny. Over several details the manuscript gives different readings, some perhaps better ones. For example, where the printed editions refer to ‘Pluto in limbo’, the manuscript speaks of Daedalus, and also adds the Magi (of Classical antiquity) after the Chaldaeans.

  For Polycletus see an adage of Cognatus (Cousin), ‘The Norm of Polycletus’.

  The final paragraph p
icks up a scriptural quotation, last met in Gargantua, Chapter 5 apropos of true faith: ‘For with God nothing is ever impossible’ (cited from Luke 1:37 and echoing Genesis 8).

  The word ‘portri’ remains unexplained.

  From the last line on p. 1006 the text forms a separate chapter in the manuscript.]

  She next commanded us to be offered beakers, chalices and goblets of gold, silver, crystal and porcelain, and we were courteously invited to taste of the spring flowing from that fountain. We were delighted to do so, for, however doleful, it was a phantastic fountain, more costly, rare and miraculous in materials and workmanship than any dreamt up by Pluto in limbo. Its base-work was of the purest, limpidest alabaster, three spans high or a little more, forming on the outside a regular heptagon, complete with stylobates, arulets, wave-shaped mouldings and a surrounding of Doric undulations. At the centre of the space within each angle was sited a fluted pillar in the shape of an ivory or alabaster bobbin such as architects nowadays call portri. There were seven in all, one for each angle. From base to architrave they measured a little under seven spans, which is exactly and precisely the length of a diameter passing through the centre from the inner curve of the circumference.

  Now those columns were so disposed that when we were looking from behind one of them in order to see the others opposite, we discovered that, regardless of the size of its shaft at that point, the pyramidal cone formed by our line of vision terminated in the said centre where it met the two columns facing it to form an equilateral triangle, two sides of which divided the column (which we wished to measure) into three equal parts, and, touching the outsides of two parallel columns at the division of the third section (which served as their base, their fundamental line, designedly projected towards the overall centre and, divided equally into two) gave, by just division, the distance of the seven columns opposite in a straight line which originates in the obtuse angle at the top. (You realize that in every figure which contains an uneven number of angles, one of its angles is always equidistant from another two.)

  By that it was shown to us, without words, that seven semi-diameters equal – in geometric proportion, amplitude and distance – slightly less than the circumference of the circular figure from which they were abstracted, that is to say rather more than three whole diameters plus a little more than one-and-a-half eighths, or else a little less than one-and-a-half sevenths, according to the Ancient teachings of Euclid, Aristotle, Archimedes and others.35

  The first column – the one which offered itself to our gaze at the entrance to the temple – was of sky-blue sapphire;

  the second, of hyacinth, naturally reproducing (with the letters A and J in various places) the colour of that flower into which was changed the angry blood of Ajax;

  the third, of that diamond called anachite, as shimmering and dazzling as lightning;

  the fourth, of balas ruby, male, and bordering on the amethyst in such a way that its sheen and sparkle eventually seem purple and violet as does the amethyst;

  the fifth, of emerald, five hundred times more splendid than ever was that of Serapis within the Egyptian labyrinth, and more gleaming and glowing than those once fixed, to serve as eyes, on to the marble lion hard by the tomb of King Hermias;

  the sixth, of agate, more gaily twinkling in its distinctive streaks and veins than ever was that agate held so dear by Pyrrhus, the King of Epirus;

  the seventh, of moonstone, as transparent and white as beryl and with the splendour of honey from Mount Hymettus; within it there appeared the moon, in form and motion as she is in the heavens, full, silent, waxing, waning.

  All those are stones attributed to the seven planets of the heavens by the Chaldaeans of old.

  To make it all more understandable to grosser understandings: on the first – of sapphire – there was raised above the capital, in a perpendicular line passing through the centre, a statue of Saturn wielding his scythe; it was made of very costly purified lead, with, at its feet, a crane of gold, skilfully enamelled in the colours naturally appropriate to that bird of Saturn’s;

  on the second – of hyacinth – there was Jupiter cast in the pewter called jovetanum, leftwards looking, with a life-like, enamelled, golden eagle upon his bosom;

  on the third, was Phoebus in refined gold, holding a white cockerel in his hand;

  on the fourth, was Mars, in Corinthian marble, with a lion at his feet;

  on the fifth, was Venus, in copper like that used by Ariston-ides to make the statue of Athamas, expressing in its blushing whiteness the reproach he felt when gazing at his son Learchus lying dead at his feet from a fall;

  on the sixth, Mercury, in quicksilver, malleable and set solid;36

  on the seventh, Luna, in silver, with a greyhound at her feet.

  Now these statues were a little above one third of the height of the columns beneath them; they were presented with such ingenuity following the projections of the mathematicians that the Canon of Polycletus37 (in the establishing of which Polycletus was said to have instructed art by means of art) would scarcely have been admitted there as a yardstick.

  The bases of the columns, the capitals, the architraves, the friezes and the cornices were in the Phrygian style, decorated with massive gold, purer and finer than that washed down by the river Lez near Montpellier, the Ganges in India, the Po in Italy, the Hebrus in Thrace, the Tagus in Spain or the Pactolus in Lydia. The small arches spanning the columns were each of the same stone as their columns as far as the next one in order, that is, the sapphire arch leading to hyacinth; the hyacinth, to the diamond, and so on in order.

  Above the arches and the capitals of the columns, on the inside, a cupola had been constructed to cover the fountain; it began as a hexagon behind the sites of the planets and gradually developed and ended in a sphere; it was of crystal so refined, so diaphanous and so perfectly and evenly polished all over (without veins, cloudy patches, streaks or stripes) that never did Xenocrates see anything to compare with it.

  Within its vaulting there were artistically engraved, in order, with exquisite figures and symbols: the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the twelve months of the year with their attributes; the two solstices, the two equinoxes, the ecliptic together with some of the more noteworthy fixed stars around the Antarctic Pole and elsewhere: all done so artistically that I thought it was the work of King Necepsus or of Petosiris, the ancient mathematician.

  At the uppermost point of the cupola, exactly over the middle of the fountain, there were three rare, smooth, pear-shaped pearls, each fashioned into the exact form of a tear-drop. They were joined so as to form a fleur-de-lys which was bigger with its setting than the palm of your hand. From its calyx there emerged a carbuncle as big as an ostrich-egg, cut to form a heptagon, seven being a number much loved by Nature. It was so stupendous and wonderful that we all but lost our sight when we raised our eyes to contemplate it, for neither lightning nor the flaming sun are more coruscating or more brilliant than it then seemed to us. So much so that good judges would readily conclude that there would be more riches and wonders in the fountain and the lamps described than are contained in Asia, Africa and Europe combined. It would have darkened the pantarbe38 of Iarchas, a magician of India, as easily as the clear sun darkens the stars at noon.

  Now let Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, boast about the twin pearls dangling from her ears, one of which, valued at ten million sesterces, she dissolved into liquid by the virtue of vinegar in the presence of Anthony the Triumvir.

  Let Pompeia Platulina go strutting about in her dress, completely covered in alternate rows of pearls and emeralds, which drew the admiration of all the people in the City of Rome (which was styled the ditch and trading-post of the champion thieves of the entire world).

  The outflowing water gushed from that fountain through three pipes and channels made of fine pearls and sited at the apexes of three equilateral angles at the tip of the fountain as described above. Those channels projected in the shape of a double helix.


  We had contemplated them and were turning our gaze elsewhere when Bacbuc commanded us to listen to the waters pouring out. Whereupon we heard a sound wondrously harmonious yet deadened and fractured as though coming from underground and from afar; it seemed all the more delectable for that, more than if it had been heard easily and close at hand, so that, just as our minds had been delighted by our contemplating what has been described above through the windows of our eyes, the same delight awaited our ears upon hearing that harmony.

  Wherefore Bacbuc said to us:

  ‘Those philosophers of yours deny that motion is produced by the power of forms. Hearken now and behold the contrary: it is entirely via the form of that twin spiral which you can see, together with that five-fold fleuron which vibrates with each internal impulse – as in the case of the vena cava where it enters the right ventricle of the heart – that the waters of this holy fountain filter out, producing a harmony such that it rises to the surface of the sea in your world.’

  She then commanded a drink to be served to us.

  Now to tell you plainly, we are not of the calibre of a bunch of calves which, like sparrows, will only feed if you tap their tails and similarly, never eat nor drink unless you lambast them with a crow-bar. We never decline when anyone courteously invites us to drink.

  Bacbuc then questioned us, asking us what we thought of it.

  We replied that the waters from the fountain felt good and fresh, more limpid and silvery than those of the Argirodines in Aetolia, of the Peneus in Thessaly, of the Axius in Mygdonia or indeed of the Cydnus in Cilicia: when Alexander of Macedonia saw it to be so fair, so clear and so cool in the heart of summer, he atoned for his pleasure in bathing in it with the evil he foresaw arising from that transient pleasure.

  ‘Ah!’ said Bacbuc, ‘that is what comes from neither analysing nor understanding the motions made by our muscular tongue when the drink flows over it to descend to the stomach. Travellers! Do you have gullets so daubed, paved and enamelled (as did in ancient days Pithylus, who was surnamed Tenthes) that you did not recognize the savour of the bouquet of this deifying liquor? Bring hither,’ she said to her maidens, ‘those crud-removers of mine – you know which – so as to scrape, clean and cleanse their palates.’