Gargantua and Pantagruel

by François Rabelais

  And so there were brought in lovely, fat, happy hams, lovely, fat, happy smoked ox-tongues, lovely, tasty salted meats, saveloys and botargos, lovely, tasty venison sausages and other such chimney-sweepers of the gullet. At her command we ate until we had to admit that our stomachs had been well and truly scoured clean by a thirst which had quite dreadfully plagued us.

  At which she said to us: ‘Once a learned and chivalrous Jewish captain was leading through the desert his people, who were extenuated by hunger; from the heavens he obtained manna, the taste of which appeared to their minds as that of viands they had once actually eaten. So too here: when drinking from this miracle-working liquor you will experience the taste of whatever wine you have in mind. Bring your mind to it, and drink!’39

  Which we did. Panurge then exclaimed, ‘This, by God, is wine from Beaune, better than any I have ever yet drunk, or else I shall give myself to ninety devils plus sixteen more. O! If only we could have a gullet three cubits in length so as to prolong the taste, as Philoxenus desired, or one like a crane’s, as Melanthius wished!’40

  ‘Faith of a lanterning man!’ exclaimed Frère Jean. ‘This is Grecian wine, bold and with a spring in its step. O! for God’s sake, dear Lady, tell me how you get it to be like this!’

  ‘To me,’ said Pantagruel, ‘they seem like wines from Mirevaux, for I had them in mind before I started to drink. There is only one thing wrong with this one: it is cold: colder than ice, I mean, colder than the waters at Nonacris and Dirce, or the fountain of Conthoporeia in Corinth, which froze the guts and the digestive systems of those who drank of it.’

  ‘Drink once, drink twice, drink thrice,’ said Bacbuc, ‘having a different wine in mind each time, and you will find the taste, the bouquet and the feel on your tongue of whatever wine you thought of. And from henceforth say that with God nothing is ever impossible.’

  ‘We never said it was,’ I replied; ‘God, we hold, is Almighty.’41

  How Bacbuc arrayed Panurge so as to receive the Word of La Bouteille

  CHAPTER 43

  [‘Wine of one ear’ is the best wine, perhaps so called because it makes the connoisseur bend his head in sign of approval. It appears in Chapter 4 of Gargantua.

  The description of the temple is partly inspired by Pliny’s account of the temple dedicated to Fortuna by Nero.]

  Those discussions and wine-bibbings once over, Bacbuc inquired:

  ‘Which of you is it that desires to have the Word of La Dive Bouteille?’

  ‘Me,’ said Panurge, ‘your most obedient little wine-funnel.’

  ‘Friend,’ she said, ‘I have only one instruction to give you: that is, when you come to the oracle take care not to listen for the Word, save with one ear.’

  ‘So,’ said Frère Jean, ‘it’s wine of one ear!’

  She then vested him in a long smock, placed a beautiful, white, Beguine’s bonnet on his head, swaddled him up in a felt filter-cloth for straining hypocras (at the bottom of which she placed three small broaches in place of a tassel), pulled two antique codpieces on to his hands as gloves, girded him with three bagpipes bound together, bathed his face thrice in the above fountain and finally cast a handful of flour in his face, stuck three cock’s-feathers on to the right of the hypocras-strainer, made him proceed nine times around the fountain, execute three fine little jumps and bump his bottom seven times on the floor; meanwhile she kept repeating Lord-knows-what spells in the Etruscan tongue and read at times from a manual of ritual which one of her hierophants bore open beside her.

  To sum up: I believe that never did Numa Pompilius, the second King of the Romans, nor Caerites of Tuscia, nor the holy Captain of the Jews ever institute as many ceremonies as then I saw, nor did the soothsayers of Memphis institute more for Apis in Egypt, nor the Euboeans for Rhamnusia in the city of Rhamnes; and neither did the Ancients perform so many religious rites for Jupiter Amnion or Feronia as there I looked upon.

  She drew him apart, thus arrayed, took him by the right hand and led him by a golden gate out of the temple into a round chapel constructed of transparent crystallized gypsum, through whose solid translucent stone the sunlight came streaming in without window or aperture through a steep fissure in the cliff, filling the main temple so easily and abundantly that the light seemed to spring from within, not to come from outside. The structure was no less wonderful than the sacred temple once in Ravenna or the temple on the Isle of Chemnis in Egypt. And it ought not to be passed over in silence that the round chapel was constructed with such symmetry that the diameter of the ground-plan was equal to the height of the vaulted roof.

  In the midst of it, heptagonal in shape, with leaf-work remarkably wrought, stood a fountain of fine alabaster, full of water as clear as any element in its simple state can ever be. In it, entirely encased in pure crystal, stood, half-immersed, La Dive Bouteille, oval in form, except that its mouth was rather more prominent than that shape would allow.

  How the High Priestess Bacbuc brought Panurge before the Bouteille

  CHAPTER 44

  [As befits this chapter, ithymbies are Bacchic dances, and an epilemia is a song for the wine-harvest. The Word of La Bouteille turns out to be ‘Trinch’, here spelt phonetically ‘Trinck’ (an order: ‘Drink!’ in German, a word normally associated with the excesses of Swiss mercenaries).

  The use of the saying to ‘fall between two stools, bum to the ground’ raises the first smile for quite some time.

  Cf. for this and the following chapter the adage of Cognatus (Gilbert Cousin), ‘Drunkenness and love produce secrets’, which cites Plato (Alcibiades), ‘Truth is the daughter of wine’.

  See also the works mentioned in the Introduction to Chapter 65 of the Fourth Book. They include the later emblems, ‘Vinum ingenii fomes’ (Wine, the kindling of the intellect); ‘Vinum acuit ingenium’ (Wine sharpens the intellect) and Mignault’s commentaries on two of the Emblems of Alciato, ‘Vino prudentiam augeri’ (By wine wisdom is increased) and ‘In Juventam’.]

  Bacbuc, the noble High Priestess, now ordered Panurge to bow low, kiss the rim of the Fountain, rise, then dance three ithymbies around it. That done, she bade him fall between two stools, bum to the ground. She then opened wide her Book of Ritual, blew down his ear and made him sing an epilemia as follows:

  Bottle clear!

  From thy lip

  Mysterious

  With one ear

  I seek a nip:

  Quite anxious.

  No delay! Reply, imperious.

  Pronounce Thou me the heart-felt Word.

  Soon, soon be thou by all men clearly heard,

  For this sore old mind of mine now surely knows

  That Truth lies still in thy fine liquor: ‘tis not absurd!

  The Truth of Wine thy rounded flanks richly enclose.

  Bacchus of old was victorious in Ind: now even his foes,

  Can find in Wine, of foul deceits, not one single sign.

  Lies are the evil things Bacchus’ wines all oppose.

  Old Noah for us once planted Truth with the vine.

  Say thou the Word: thou knowest all my design:

  Set me free of every gripe painfully obnoxious.

  Drops of thy rich, pure Wine here may I sip,

  White Wine or red, both good and mere.

  Bottle clear!

  From thy lip

  Mysterious

  With one ear

  I seek a nip:

  Quite anxious.

  No delay! Reply, imperious

  That song once sung, Bacbuc cast I-know-not-what substance into the Fountain; its waters at once began to seethe and boil as does the Great Cauldron of Bourgueil when there is a festival with banners. Panurge, in silence, hearkened with one ear. Bacbuc, on her knees, remained at his side when there then came forth from La Dive Bouteille a sound such as is made by bees when they are born from the flesh of a young ox duly slaughtered and dressed according to the art discovered by Aristaeus, or such as is made by a crossbow as the bolt is shot
, or by a sudden, heavy shower.

  Whereupon was heard this Word: Trinck.

  ‘Might of God!’ exclaimed Panurge. ‘She has split or – to tell no lie – cracked! Thus in our lands speak crystal bottles when they burst near the fire.’

  Bacbuc then rose and gently took Panurge by the arm, saying,

  ‘Friend: render thanks to the heavens. Reason tells you so to do: you have promptly received the Word of La Dive Bouteille: I mean the most joyful, holy and the surest Word that I have ever heard since I began my ministry here at her most-hallowed Oracle. Arise; let us go and consult that chapter in whose gloss that Word of beauty is explained.’

  ‘For God’s sake let us go there!’ said Panurge. ‘I’m just as wise as I was years ago! Where’s that Book? Flip through it. Where’s that chapter? Let’s see that merry gloss.’

  How Bacbuc explains the Word of the Bottle

  CHAPTER 45

  [The Quart, the Fourth Book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard allows (again) a pun between fourth and quart, the liquid measure.

  In Ezekiel 3 the Lord gave the prophet a book to eat and digest.

  Hermes Trismegistus was the legendary source of ‘hermetic’ knowledge.

  Panomphaeus is an epithet of Jupiter, the ‘author of all the oracles’.

  As elsewhere, ‘Aesop’s beggar’s wallet’ is worn over the shoulder and has a pocket in front and another behind. The theme was developed at the end of Chapter 15 of the Third Book.

  There are implicit appeals to Chapters 7 and 10 of the Third Book and to the preliminary poem of Gargantua apropos of laughter as the property of man.]

  Bacbuc tossed something or other into the basin of the Fountain and the water at once stopped seething. She led Panurge into the centre of the Greater Temple, in which stood that life-giving Fountain. Then, drawing forth a silver book in the shape of a demijohn (or a Quart of the Sentences), she immersed it in the fountain and said unto him:

  ‘The philosophers, preachers and divines in your world feed you with fair words through your ears: here we really incorporate our precepts through the mouth. That is why I do not say unto you, “Read this chapter; look upon this gloss.” What I say is, “Taste this chapter: ingurgitate this beautiful gloss.” In days gone by an ancient prophet of the Jewish people did eat a book and became a clerk up to his teeth. You will now drink a book, and become a clerk up to your liver. Here. Open your mandibles.’

  Panurge opened wide his gullet; Bacbuc grasped the silver book, which we took for a real book since its shape was that of a Breviary but this Breviary was a genuine and natural flask, full of Falernian wine, all of which she made Panurge swallow.

  ‘Here,’ said Panurge, ‘is a noteworthy chapter and a most authentic gloss! Is that all that was meant by the Word of that trismegistical Bottle! A lot of good that is for me!’

  ‘Nothing more,’ Bacbuc replied, ‘for Trinck is a famous pan-omphaeic word, understood by all peoples. Its meaning for us is, Drink! In your world you state that sack is a noun common to all languages, rightly and justly accepted by all tongues:42 that is because all humans, being by nature indigent and all begging from one another, are born with a sack slung over their shoulders as in Aesop’s fable.

  ‘No king under the sun, however mighty, can do without other people: no person who is poor, however proud, can do without the rich, not even if he were Hippias the philosopher who fended entirely for himself. One can manage without a drink even less than without such a sack. So here we maintain that it is not laughing which is the property of man, but drinking.

  ‘I do not indeed mean drinking purely and simply – the beasts drink like that – I mean drinking wine, good and cool. Note well, my friends, that Juice of vine makes man divine: there is no argument clearer than that, no art of divination less fallacious.

  ‘Your Academics strongly support that when tracing the etymology of vin (wine) from the Greek oinos, which corresponds, they say, to the Latin vis (power).43

  ‘For wine has the power to flood the mind with all truth, all knowledge and philosophy. If you have noticed what is written in Ionic script over the door of the temple, then you may have understood that Truth lies hidden in wine. La Dive Bouteille sends you thither. Be ye yourselves the interpreters of your enterprise.’

  ‘It is not possible,’ said Pantagruel, ‘to put it better than this venerable Chief Priestess has done. I said as much to you the very first time you spoke to me about it.44

  ‘Trinck! therefore: that is what your mind tells you to do when it is enraptured by Bacchic enthusiasm.’

  ‘Then,’ said Panurge:

  ‘Trinck! and now see in Bacchus’ name,

  The backside, Bacchus! of my dame,

  Tamped with my bollocks to the brim

  And fully stuffed, all thanks to him.

  What now? By my humanity

  My heart yearns for paternity.

  My heart tells me, assuredly,

  That soon I shall well married be.

  Soon married! In my own abode

  My wife, ne’er needing other goad,

  Will hasten on to Venus’ play.

  Lord knows what words we then shall say!

  I swear that I shall be her plough,

  And with my plough-share her endow.

  Ploughings galore! For I’m well fed.

  I am the perfect ploughman, wed.

  Io! Io! Of husbands best,

  To the wedding with a zest!

  Triple-wedded I shall go.

  Ιο. Io. Now Frère Jean know

  That true and clear by oath I swear

  Infallibility lieth there:

  That Oracle is true and fated.’

  How Panurge and the others rhyme by poetic frenzy

  CHAPTER 46

  [Poetic furor is a Classical notion, all the rage with the Pléiade poets in mid- and late sixteenth-century France rather than with the generation of Rabelais. One may compare and contrast what Rabelais wrote of the spirit-raising powers of wine in the Fourth Book apropos of the wingèd Bacchus, by whom the minds of human beings are raised up high, their bodies made manifestly agile, and what in them was earthy is assuaged. Similarly, compare and contrast what Rabelais wrote on the basis of The Obsolescence of Oracles apropos of the death of Pan in the Fourth Book, Chapters 26 to 28.]

  ‘Are you mad or under a spell?’ said Frère Jean. ‘Look! He’s foaming at the mouth! Hark at him rhymstering! What the devil has he been eating? He’s rolling the eyes in his head like a goat in the throes. Will he be off on his own? Will he go farther off to mute? Will he chew some dog-wort to loosen up his nelly? Or will he, monkish fashion, stick his fist elbow-deep down his throat so as to scour out his abdomen? Will he take a hair of the dog that bit him?’

  Pantagruel rebuked Frère Jean, and said to him:

  ‘Poets’ frenzy true and unabated

  Ecliptic, Bacchus sent and minds are sated

  And then inspired it to intone its song.

  His mind enrapt,

  By frenzy tapped,

  The potion lapped,

  Prophetic mime,

  From cry to cry,

  From low to high,

  Far and near by,

  Makes mind to climb,

  Enrapt, to rhyme,

  King in his time,

  Of laugh not sigh.

  And since he has a mind fantastic

  ’Twould be an action dubbed with foulest slime

  To mock a Drinker rendered so sublime.’

  ‘What?’ said Frère Jean, ‘are you rhyming too! We’re all in for a peppering! Would to God that Gargantua could see us in this state. By God, I don’t know what to do: whether or not to rhyme away like you. I don’t understand such things anyway, yet we’re all deep in rhymstery. By Saint John, I’ll do like the others: I shall rhyme away. I can feel it. Wait. And if I fail to spin a rhyme of Crimson cloth, forgive me:

  O Father divine

  Who turned water to wine,45

  Make my bum a ligh
t

  For my neighbour’s sight.’

  Panurge took over and said:

  ‘Ne’er did Pythian Tripod shed

  Truer Oracles from its head;

  Replies more certain or more sure

  Did never from that fountain pour.

  It was transported through the sky

  Hither from places at Delphi.

  If Plutarch of this wine had drunk

  He never would so low have sunk

  To wonder whether he should say

  That oracles have had their day.

  They ceased from making a reply:

  Not hard to know the reason why:

  Delphi’s fane has had to flee.

  It now is here. Look up and see

  Who gave reply to those who ask.

  For Athenaeus ‘twas a flask,

  A Bottle, indeed, round and clear,

  Full of the good wine ‘of one ear’.

  Of wine, I say, of verity.

  There is not more sincerity

  In any art of divination

  Than the bosom-deep insinuation

  Of the good Word drawn from that flasklet

  Now Frère Jean, since I now do ask it,

  While we are here I counsel you

  To seek to yourself a Word so true

  From our Flask trismegistical

  To learn if anything at all

  Can stop you finding now a mate.

  Hold fast. All wobbling abate.

  Play not the fool maid in her bower!

  Just sprinkle here a little flour.’

  In poetic rapture Frère Jean replied:

  ‘Well! By Benedick’s great Boot

  By both his gaiters great to boot

  A man who truly knows me well

  Would swear an oath that he can tell