But those are secrets of the privy counsel of the Eternal King, who, by his free-will and good pleasure, governs all that is and all that is done; which secrets it is better not to speak of but to adore in silence, as it is said (in Tobit 12) ‘It is good to keep close the secret of the King’; and by David the Prophet (in Psalm 54) following the Chaldaean reading, ‘Silence waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion.’ And the reason he states (in Psalm 17), ‘For He made darkness his dwelling-place.’
And so, in all circumstances, it is incumbent on us to humble ourselves and beseech him (as we were taught by Jesus Christ our Lord) that there be done not what we wish or ask for but what pleases him and what he has established before ever the heavens were formed, provided that by all things and through all things his glorious name be hallowed.
Anything beyond that we confide to what is written in the eternal Ephemerides which it is not licit for any mortal man to treat or to know, as is affirmed (in Acts 1): ‘It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.’ And the punishment for such rashness is fixed (in Proverbs 25) by the wise Solomon: ‘He who is a searcher of Majesty shall be overwhelmed by the glory,’ etc.1
ALMANAC FOR 1535, CALCULATED FOR THE NOBLE CITY OF LYONS, AT A POLAR ELEVATION OF 45 DEGREES 15 MINUTES IN LATITUDE, AND 26 DEGREES IN LONGITUDE. BY MAÎTRE FRANÇOIS RABELAIS, DOCTOR OF MEDICINE AND PHYSICIAN TO THE GREAT HOSPITAL OF LYONS
[There is a Humanist leap between these two almanacs as there is between Pantagruel and Gargantua. Rabelais moves into the world of Erasmian theology with its respect for Plato. He cites or alludes to Ecclesiastes 1:8; Philippians 1:23; Psalms 16:15; Matthew 6:34 and 6:10, and Colossians 2:2–3. The adage of Socrates is in Erasmus’ collection (Adages, I, VI, LXIX), and the good teaching of Plato which is better stated in Matthew 6 is to be found in the Gorgias, 484 C–487. It was Platonizing Christians who, following certain versions of the Psalms, talked of the body in Platonic terms as the prison of the soul.
A standard scholastic proof of the truth of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is found for example in Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, IIa IIae V, articles 3, 4 and 5). Using the same Scriptural texts as Rabelais, it was based upon the conviction that Nature does nothing in vain. It took as its point of departure the famous opening words of the Metaphysics of Aristotle: ‘All humans naturally desire to know’. That is doubtless still true for Rabelais, but, he suggests, if you really want to face the problems of the coming year, Scripture – and Plato – refer you to faith, that is, confidence in God, and to Christian morality. The Lord’s prayer is the true guide. Rabelais had just edited the Aphorisms of Hippocrates in Greek and Latin; its opening words are ‘Life is short: the Art is long.’ (The ‘Art’ referred to, as often in Rabelais, is the art of medicine. His astrologico-astronomical data probably derive from the tables of Stoeffler, in which the conjunction of Saturn and Mars, which had occurred on 3 May 1534, was predicted to occur again in 1535 on 25 May. In fact it occurred some three days earlier.]
The disposition of this year, 1535
The philosophers of Antiquity who demonstrated the immortality of our souls had no greater argument to prove it and advance it than the admonition of an affection within us which Aristotle describes (in Book One of the Metaphysics) saying, ‘All humans naturally desire to know’: meaning that Nature has produced in Man an eagerness, appetite and yearning to know and to learn not merely things present but particularly things to come (because a knowledge of them is higher and more wonderful). But since we can never attain to perfect knowledge of such things in the course of this transitory life – for the understanding is never satisfied with knowing, ‘as the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing’ (Ecclesiastes 1) – and since Nature does nothing without a cause, nor gives an appetite or desire for anything which cannot be obtained at some time or other (if not, that appetite would be either ineffectual or depraved), it follows that there is another life after this one in which that desire will be slaked.
I tell you that because I see you keen, attentive and desirous to learn from me, here and now, the state and disposition of this year 1535. And you would judge it a miraculous advantage if the truth about it were foretold to you with certainty. But if you want fully to satisfy that fervent desire it behoves you to wish (as when Saint Paul, in Philippians 1, said: ‘I yearn to be loosed asunder and to be with Christ’) that your souls be released out of the darksome prison of your earthly bodies and joined to Jesus the Christ. Then shall cease all human passions, affections and imperfections; for in the enjoyment of him we shall have the plenitude of the Good, all knowledge and perfection: as (in Psalm 16) King David sang of old: ‘I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear.’
To foretell it in any other way would be lightness in me, as it would be simple-mindedness in you to believe it. Since the creation of Adam there has never yet been born anyone who has treated or transmitted anything in which we should acquiesce or remain with assurance. Certain scholars have indeed committed to writing some observations passed on from hand to hand. And that is what I have always asserted, not wanting any conclusions about the future to be drawn from my prognostications but to have it understood that those who had reduced Man’s long experience of the heavenly bodies to an Art have decreed as I myself have written.
And what can that amount to? Less than nothing, certainly: for in the first of his Aphorisms, Hippocrates says ‘Life is short: the Art is long’: that the life of Man is too brief, the mind too weak and the understanding too distracted to grasp things so remote from us. It is what Socrates said in his common adage, ‘Things above us are nothing to do with us.’ It remains therefore that following the counsel of Plato in the Gorgias or – better still the teachings of the Gospel (Matthew 6) – we refrain from any curious inquiry into the governance and unchanging decree of Almighty God, who has created and ordered things according to His holy pleasure, praying and beseeching that His holy will ever be fully done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
To expound for you summarily what I have been able to extract about this year from Greek, Arabic and Latin authorities in the Art: we shall start to feel this year last year’s unfortunate conjunction of Saturn and Mars which will occur again next year on the twenty-fifth of May; with the result that, this year, we shall have merely the machinations, plottings, foundations and seeds of calamities to follow. If things do prosper, that will exceed the promises of the heavenly bodies; and if we do have peace, that will not be from lack of inclination to undertake a war but from lack of occasion.
That is what they say.
What I say for my part is that if Christian kings, princes and commonwealths hold the holy word of God in reverence and govern themselves and their subjects accordingly, we shall never have seen in our time a year more healthy for bodies, more peaceful for minds, more fertile in good things; and we shall see the face of the heavens, the raiment of the Earth and the conduct of the people more joyful, gay, pleasing and favourable than for any time during the last fifty years.
The Sunday Letter will be C; the Golden Number, 16; the Roman Indiction, 8; the Solar Cycle, 4.2
GARGANTUA
Introduction to Gargantua
The text as translated is that of the first known edition, probably dating from early in 1535. The original text of Gargantua, like that of Pantagruel, has a directness, freshness and boldness which later editions do not quite have. The title-page is missing from the only known copy.
The present text includes variants from the second edition, which is dated 1535, and from the definitive text of 1542, which incorporates the earlier variants. The variants are shown in two main ways: 1) interpolations are shown in the text and are enclosed within square brackets; 2) eliminations and modifications are given in the notes. Thus, to read the text of the first edition, ignore the interpolations inside square brackets and the variants listed in the notes. To read the definitive text of 1542, read everything.
/>
The editions cited in the notes are as follows:
the first edition (Lyons: François Juste, undated (1535?));
the second edition (Lyons: François Juste, 1535): given here as ’35;
the definitive edition (Lyons, François Juste, 1542): given here as ‘42
Variants are dated by giving the first edition in which the original text appears.
The text used as the basis for the translation is that of my edition with Ruth Calder in the Textes Littéraires Français (Geneva: Droz, 1970, with later reprints).
Contents
To the Readers
The Prologue of the Author
1 On the Lineage and ancient origins of Gargantua
2 The Antidoted Bubbles discovered within a monument from Antiquity
3 How Gargantua was carried for eleven months in his mother’s womb
4 How Gargamelle, when carrying Gargantua, took to eating [a great profusion of] tripe
5 How Gargantua was born in a manner most strange
6 How his name was imposed on Gargantua, and how he slurped down the wine
7 How Gargantua was dressed
8 Gargantua’s colours and livery
9 What the colours white and blue do signify
10 Gargantua’s childhood
11 Gargantua’s hobby-horses
12 How Grandgousier recognized the miraculous intelligence of Gargantua from his invention of a bum-wiper
13 How Gargantua was introduced to Latin literature by a Theologian
14 How Gargantua was placed under other pedagogues
15 How Gargantua was sent to Paris, and of the enormous mare which bore him, and how she overcame the gad-flies of Beauce
16 How Gargantua paid the Parisians for his welcome, and how he took the great bells from the church of Notre-Dame
17 How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to recover the great bells from Gargantua
18 The Harangue of Magister Janotus de Bragmardo delivered before Gargantua for the return of the bells
19 How the Theologian bore away his cloth and how he brought an action against the Sorbonnists
20 The Study and Way of Life of Gargantua according to the teachings of the Sorbonagres, his preceptors
21 How Gargantua was given his basic education by Ponocrates with such discipline that he never lost an hour of his time
22 How Gargantua spent his time when it was rainy
23 How a great dispute arose between the fouace-bakers of Lerné and Gargantua’s countrymen, whence came mighty wars
24 How the inhabitants of Lerné, by order of Picrochole their king, made a surprise attack on Gargantua’s shepherds
25 How a monk of Seuilly saved the close of his abbey from being sacked by the enemy
26 How Picrochole stormed La Roche-Clermault, and of the caution and reluctance of Grandgousier about going to war
27 The purport of the letter which Grandgousier wrote to Gargantua
28 How Ulrich Gallet was despatched to Picrochole
29 The harangue delivered by Gallet before Picrochole
30 How Grandgousier, to purchase peace, made good the fouaces
31 How some of Picrochole’s governors put him in the ultimate danger by their impetuous counsel
32 How Gargantua quit the city of Paris to come to the help of his country; and how Gymnaste encountered his foes
33 How Gymnaste nimbly slew captain Tri-ffart and other of Picrochole’s men
34 How Gargantua slighted the castle near the ford at Vède: and how they crossed that ford
35 How Gargantua combed cannon-balls out of his hair
36 How Gargantua ate six pilgrims in his lettuce
37 How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua; and of the fair words he spoke over supper
38 Why everyone avoids monks: and why some men have noses which are bigger than others
39 How the Monk sent Gargantua to sleep; and of his Book of Hours and his Breviary
40 How the Monk put heart into his comrades, and how he dangled from a tree
41 How a patrol of Picrochole’s was encountered by Gargantua, and how the Monk slew Captain Dashon and was then kept prisoner amongst the enemy
42 How the Monk rid himself of his guards, and how Picrochole’s patrol were defeated
43 How the Monk brought the pilgrims back; and the fair words which Grandgousier spoke to them
44 How Grandgousier humanely treated Braggart, his prisoner
45 How Grandgousier summoned his legions; and how Braggart killed Hastyveal and was himself killed by order of Picrochole
46 How Gargantua assailed Picrochole within La Roche-Clermault and defeated his army
47 How Picrochole was surprised by ill luck as he fled, and what Gargantua did after the battle
48 Gargantua’s address to the vanquished
49 How the victorious Gargantuists were rewarded after the battle
50 How Gargantua caused the Abbey of Thélème to be built for the Monk
51 How the Abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed
52 The Inscription set above the main Gate of Thélème
53 What the dwelling of the Thelemites was like
54 How the monks and nuns of Thélème were dressed
55 On the Rule of the Thelemites: and how they lived
56 An enigma uncovered amongst the foundations of the Abbey of the Thelemites
To the Readers
[To be ‘scandalized’ (from the Greek skandalizô) is to lose one’s faith through adversity or persecution. It used to be translated as to he ‘offended’, but that sense is now all but lost. The full force of ‘to scandalize’ appears at the very end of Gargantua – in the last ten lines of verse and the following prose.]
Dear readers: hereon cast your eyes;
All sterile passions lay aside.
No offence here to scandalize;
Nothing corrupting lurks inside.
Little perfection here may hide
Save laughter: little else you’ll find.
No other theme comes to my mind
Seeing such gloom your joy doth ban.
My pen’s to laughs not tears assigned.
Laughter’s the property of Man.
LIVE JOYFULLY.1
The Prologue of the Author
[This prologue is a homage to Erasmus. The adage (and long essay) entitled ‘The Silent of Alcibiades’ (Adages, III, III, I) throws great light on to the works of many Renaissance thinkers. It was externally that Socrates was like Silenus: hidden within his ugly exterior was wisdom, divine and inspired. Rabelais applies the comparison to his new book. It is printed in Gothic, not humanist, type and written in French, not Latin, yet it contains great truths concerning religion, statecraft and domestic life. Nevertheless we are warned not to read into Rabelais detailed allegorical nonsense of the kind which did indeed lead some to find all the Christian sacraments in a pagan poet such as Ovid!
To Scripture was attributed four senses, the literal, metaphorical, tropological and anagogical. Naturally the ‘higher’ ones were most open to abuse and fantasy. Amusing in this context, and perhaps followed by Rabelais, is letter number I. 28 in G. F. Stokes’s translation of the Letters of Obscure Men. Amongst the other Erasmian adages that Rabelais exploits are:
I, I, II: ‘Pythagorean Symbols’ (Pythagoras’ injunctions may seem laughable, ‘yet if you draw out the allegory you will see that they are but precepts for proper living’. Rabelais, like Erasmus, kept up a respect for Pythagoras.)
I, X, LXXII: ‘A lid worthy of its pot’;
I, VIII, XV: ‘By hands and by feet’;
IV, III, LVIII: ‘He who drinks water is no dithyrambic’;
I, VII, LXXI: ‘It smells of the oil-lamp’.
Not in Erasmus but in Charles de Bouelles one finds two other adages important for the understanding of this Prologue: namely, ‘To break the bone’ and ‘To extract the marrow’. When reading Gargantua, we should act like wise dogs with a good flair.]
/>
Most shining of drinkers, and you, most be-carbuncled of syphilitics – for my writings are addressed solely to you – Alcibiades, praising in a dialogue of Plato’s called The Banquet his teacher Socrates (beyond dispute the prince of philosophers), says amongst other things that he resembled Sileni.
Formerly Silent were little boxes such as we can now see in the booths of the apothecaries, decorated all over with frivolous merry figures such as harpies, satyrs, geese with bridles, hares with horns, ducks with saddles, flying goats, stags pulling carts and other such paintings arbitrarily devised to make everyone laugh. (Such was Silenus, the Master of good old Bacchus!) But inside were kept rare drugs such as balsam, ambergris, grains of paradise, musk, civet, powdered jewels and other costly ingredients.
Such, he said, was Socrates, since on seeing him from the outside and judging from his external appearance you wouldn’t have rated him above an onion skin, so ugly was he in body and so ridiculous in bearing, with his turned-up nose, his bull-like glower and his face like a fool’s; simple in manners, rustic in dress, poor in fortune, unlucky over women, unsuited to any office of state, ever laughing, ever matching drink for drink with all comers, ever joking, ever hiding his God-sent wisdom: but, upon opening that ‘box’, you would have found within a medicine celestial and beyond all price: superhuman understanding, miraculous virtue, indomitable courage, unparalleled moderation, assured contentment, perfect confidence and an unbelievable contempt for all those things for which human beings wake, run, toil, sail and battle.
Now, in your opinion, what is the drift of this prelude, this apprentice-piece? Well, you, my good disciples – as well as some other leisured chumps – when reading no further than the titles of certain books of our devising (such as Gargantua, Pantagruel, On the Merits of Codpieces, On Pease-pudding and Bacon, with a Latin Commentary and so on), too readily conclude that nothing is treated inside save jests, idiocies and amusing fictions, seeing that their exterior epigraphs (their titles, that is) are normally greeted, without further inquiry, by scoffing and derision.