Gargantua and Pantagruel

  How the Monk was feasted by Gargantua; and of the fair words he spoke over supper

  CHAPTER 37

  [Becomes Chapter 39.

  ‘Deposita cappa’ is a rubric meaning ‘the celebrant having divested himself of his cope’. (Rabelais was at the time of Gargantua legally a Benedictine monk who had also ‘tossed his frock to the nettles’ and was living irregularly.

  A Picardy proverb said, ‘Of all fish, the tench apart, take the back and leave the paunch.’

  One ‘monastic’ joke has become quite obscure because of changes in the pronunciation of French since the Renaissance. The opening words of Isaiah 11 are, ‘There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse’ – in the Latin Vulgate, ‘Germinavit radix Jesse.’ Since soif, ‘thirst’, was then pronounced sé, ‘Germinavit radix Jesse’ could be distorted by speakers of French to sound, with a metathesis, like Je r’nie ma vie: redis, j’ai sé, that is, I disavow my life: I repeat, I thirst. Such jests were condemned by Εrasmus but appreciated by Rabelais.

  Frère Jean’s statement in appalling Latin, that ‘magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes” struck a chord with Montaigne, who cites it in his Essays.

  Since the use of corks, bottles open with a pop: before, they opened with a crack as seals were broken.]

  When Gargantua was at table and the tidbits of the first course had been devoured, Grandgousier began to recount the source and occasion of the war waged between him and Picrochole. He had arrived at the point where he was telling how Frère Jean des Entommeures had triumphantly defended the close of the Abbey, praising the deed above the prowesses of Camillus, Scipio, Pompey, Caesar and Themistocles. At which Gargantua urged that he should be sent for at once, in order to confer with him over what was to be done. So, as they wished, their major-domo went off to fetch him and brought him joyfully back bearing the shaft of his cross and riding on Grandgousier’s mule.

  When he arrived he was greeted by dozens of hugs and embraces and How-do-you-do’s:

  ‘Hey there, Frère Jean, my friend!’

  ‘Frère Jean, great cousin of mine!’

  ‘Frère Jean, for the devil’s sake!’

  ‘Arms round necks, my friend!’

  ‘Come to my arms!’

  ‘Now then, old cock, Let me hug you till I skin you!’

  And Frère Jean was delighted: never was man so courteous or gracious.

  ‘Well now. Well now,’ said Gargantua. ‘Set a stool here at this end of the table, close by me.’

  ‘Since it pleases you, it pleases me,’ said the Monk. ‘Now, page-boy! Water!! Pour it out, boy, pour it out: it’ll cool down my liver. Give it to me to gargle with!’

  ‘Deposita cappa,’ said Gymnaste. ‘Let’s take off that cowl of yours.’

  ‘Ho, ho. By God,’ said the Monk. ‘There’s a paragraph in the statutes of our Order, good Sir, which wouldn’t like that at all.’

  ‘Oh, pooh!’ said Gymnaste, ‘pooh on your paragraph. That frock of yours is breaking both your shoulders: shrug it off.’

  ‘My friend,’ said the Monk, ‘let me keep it: by God, I drink the better for it! It makes my whole body happy. If I were to quit it, these young gentlemen, the pages here, would turn it into garters, as happened to me once at Coulaines. Besides, I would have no more appetite. But if I sit down to table in this habit of mine, by God I shall drink to you and to your horse as well – and enjoy it! God keep this our company from ill. I’ve already had my supper but I shall certainly still eat no less now. I have a paved stomach, as hollow as the butt of Saint Benedict, ever gaping wide like a lawyer’s pocket! Of all the fish, the tench apart, take… the wing of the partridge [– or the thigh of a nun: it’s a merry way for a fellow to die, isn’t it, bolt upright! Our prior has a weakness for the white of a capon.’

  ‘In that, at least,’ said Gymnaste,’ he is not a bit like a fox, for foxes never eat the white of any of the capons, hens and chickens which they kill.’

  ‘Why not?’ said the Monk.

  Gymnaste replied, ‘Because foxes have no cooks to cook ‘em: if they’re not properly cooked the meat stays red not white. Redness in meats is a sign of their being underdone, except for lobster and crayfish, which cooking turns cardinal-red.’

  ‘Corpus Bayard!’ said the Monk; ‘the hospitaller in our Abbey must have his head very underdone: his eyes are as red as an alder-wood bowl.]

  ‘This leveret’s thigh is good for the gout. Talking of wood: how is it that a damsel’s thighs are always cool?’

  ‘That problem,’ said Gargantua, ‘is not in Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias nor Plutarch.’

  ‘There are three considerations,’ said the Monk, ‘which keep that place naturally cool:

  – primo, because water runs right along it;

  – secundo, because it lies in the shade, all dark and murky: the sun never shines upon it; and

  – thirdly, because it is continually fanned by wafts from the wind-hole, the chemise and the codpiece too.

  ‘Come on then, Page! On with the drinking: crack, crack, crack. How good is the Lord who vouchsafes us this plonk. Honest to God! if I had lived in the time of Jesus Christ I’d have seen that those Jews never grabbed him in the Garden of Mount Olivet. May the devil fail me if ever I failed to slit the hamstrings of Monsignori the Apostles who ran away, so cravenly deserting their good Master – after eating a good Supper! – in his hour of need!

  ‘I hate worse than poison a man who runs off when daggers are to be drawn. Bah! If only I were King of France for four score or a hundred years! By God, I’d have whipped the tails off those curs who ran away at Pavia. A quartan fever take ‘em! Why didn’t they die there rather than desert their good king in his hour of need? To die bravely fighting is better and more honourable – isn’t it? – than to live by fleeing like villeins! We shan’t get many geese to eat this year. Ha! My friend, pass me the pork. The Divil! We’ve run out of new wine! Germinavit radix Jesse.

  ‘This wine’s not at all bad. What wine were you drinking in Paris? Devil me, if I didn’t at one time keep open house there myself for over six months: anyone could come. Do you know Frère Claude of Saint-Denis? What a good chap he is! What bug’s bitten him though? He’s been doing nothing but study since goodness knows when. Me, I never study. None of us ever has in our abbey. Fear of the mumps! Our late abbot used to say that a learned monk is a monstrosity. By God, my lord and friend, magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes (them biggest clerks ain’t the most wisest). A lot of hares about this year: never seen so many. Haven’t been able to get my hands on a hawk, male or female, anywhere in this world. The Sieur de La Bellonnière did promise me a falcon but he wrote to me recently to say it had grown short of breath. Partridges will be nibbling at our very ears this year. No fun for me in netting birds: makes me catch a cold. I’m never easy except when chasing and dashing about. It’s true that I lose a few strands of my frock when leaping over hedges and bushes. Got my hands on a nice little greyhound: I’ll go to the devil if it ever lets a hare escape. A lackey was taking it on a lead to the Sieur de Maulevrier. I, well, relieved him of it. Did I do wrong?’

  ‘No. Not at all, Frère Jean. Not at all,’ said Gymnaste. ‘On behalf of all the devils: not at all!’

  ‘And so,’ said Frère Jean, ‘here’s to those devils, while they last. Besides, what, by God’s might, would that old hop-along do with a greyhound? God’s body! He’s happier when presented with a couple of good beeves.’

  ‘Swearing, Frère Jean!’ said Ponocrates. ‘How come?’

  ‘Simply to enrich my language,’ said Frère Jean. ‘Flowers of Ciceronian rhetoric!’

  Why everyone avoids monks: and why some men have noses which are bigger than others

  CHAPTER 38

  [Becomes Chapter 40.

  Virgil is cited from the Georgics, 4, 168. Rabelais leaves it untranslated.

  That the wind named Caecias attracts the clouds is the subject of an Erasmian adage
, I, V, LXII, ‘Attracting ills to oneself just as Caecias attracts clouds’.

  The comparison of monkish drones to monkeys is inspired by Plutarch’s attack against flatterers in How One Can Discern the Flatterer from the Friend. (Rabelais restricts to monks attacks made by many Reformers and evangelicals against priests and monks in general.)

  The end of the chapter is deeply theological, citing Romans 8:26 to declare monastic intercessions to be irrelevant: ‘The Spirit himself maketh intercessions for us with groanings which cannot he uttered’. On the other hand Frère Jean reduces with his jesting the awe attached to the predestinationalist rigour of Romans 9:23, in which God is likened to a divine Potter who makes out of clay such vessels as he wishes, which have no grounds for complaint.

  The final ‘monastic’ jest takes the incipit of Psalm 122 (113), ‘Ad te levavi’ (‘Unto Thee I lift up’), and applies it to the erect penis (which many believed to be proportionate in size to a man’s nose). But, coarse though he is, the Monk is an acred parable: his virtues are the active Christian virtues: ‘He toils, he travails, he defends the oppressed; he comforts the afflicted; he succours the needy.’

  Puns between paix (peace) and pets (farts) are rarely translatable but can be suggested.]

  ‘By my faith as a Christian,’ said Eudemon, ‘I am amazed when I reflect on the worthiness of this monk, for he cheers us all up. How is it, then, that men banish monks from all good gatherings, calling them chattering trouble-feasts, just as the bees banish the drones from about their hives? As Virgil said, “Ignavum fucos pecus a presipibus arcent”; “They drive the drones, a slothful herd, far from their dwellings.”’

  To which Gargantua replied:

  ‘There is nothing more true than that frock and cowl attract people’s odium, insults and curses exactly as the wind called Caecias attracts the clouds. The decisive reason is that they eat the shit of the world (the sins, that is) and as chew-shits they are chucked back into their jakes (that is, their convents and monasteries) isolated from polite company as privies are in houses. But if you can grasp why a family’s pet monkey is always mocked and teased you will grasp why monks are rejected by everybody, both young and old. The monkey does not guard the house like a dog, does not draw the plough like the ox, does not give us milk and wool like the sheep, and bears no burden like the horse. All it does is to shit over everything and spoil it. That is why everyone jeers at it and cudgels it. So too a monk – I mean the lazy ones – never ploughs like the peasant, never guards the land like the soldier, never cures the sick like the physician, never expounds sound doctrine like the good evangelical preacher and tutor, never transports goods and commodities vital to the kingdom like the merchant. That is why everyone rails against monks and loathes them.’

  ‘True,’ said Grandgousier, ‘but they do pray God for us.’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Gargantua. ‘The truth is that they disturb the whole neighbourhood by clanging their bells…’

  ‘True enough!’ said the Monk. ‘Well-rung Masses, mattins and vespers are already half-said!’

  ‘… They mumble through a great store of legends and psalms which they have never understood; they count quantities of beads interlarded with long Ave Marias, without thought or understanding. That I call mockery of God, not orisons. But God help ‘em if they pray for us and not for fear of losing their wheaten loaves and thick bread-and-dripping. All true Christians, of all estates, in all places, and at all times, pray to God, and “the Spirit prayeth and maketh intercession for them,” and God grants them his grace. Now such is our good Frère Jean. That is why everyone wants his company. He’s no bigot; he’s not tattered-and-torn; he’s decent, joyful and resolute. He toils, he travails, he defends the oppressed; he comforts the afflicted; he succours the needy. And he guards the close of the Abbey.’

  ‘I do much more!’ said the Monk. ‘For while galloping through our mattins and anniversaries in the choir I make strings for cross-bows, polish up darts and arrows, and construct nets and traps for catching coneys. I’m never idle. But come on! Something to drink, now, something to drink! Bring out the dessert. Ah! chestnuts from the forest of Estrocs. With some good new wine you’ll all be farting peace-makers.

  ‘Nobody here has got going yet: me, I drink in every trough, like the proctor’s horse.’

  Gymnaste said to him, ‘Frère Jean: do wipe that dew-drop off your nose.’

  ‘Ha! ha!’ said the Monk. ‘Could I be in peril of drowning, seeing that I’m up to the nose in water? No, no. Why? Because!

  It can well get out but never get in:

  I’m protected by wine and a waterproof skin!

  O my good friend: if a man had winter waders of such a hide he could confidently fish for oysters: they would never let in water.’

  ‘Why is it,’ said Gargantua, ‘that Frère Jean has such a handsome nose?’

  ‘Because,’ replied Grandgousier, ‘God so wished it; according to his holy will he has fashioned us in a particular form and to a particular end as a potter fashions his vessels.’

  ‘Because,’ said Ponocrates, ‘he was one of the first to arrive when noses were for sale. He chose one of the biggest and best.’

  ‘Gee up, there!’ said Frère jean. ‘According to true monastic philosophy it’s because my nurse had soft tits. When I sucked, my nose sank in as in butter, and it expanded and rose like dough in the bowl. But hey, nonny, nonny: from the shape of his nose you can judge a man’s I lift up unto Thee. I never eat preserved fruit. Page! On with the tippling. And toasted croutons!’

  How the Monk sent Gargantua to sleep; and of his Book of Hours and his Breviary

  CHAPTER 39

  [Becomes Chapter 41.

  The ‘Seven Psalms’ are the penitential Psalms, placed together in the liturgy, with indulgences for those who recite them. The second (32) begins ‘Beati quorum’, ‘Blessed are they’. Frère Jean and Gargantua cannot keep awake beyond that!

  Two more examples of monastic humour: Frère Jean adapts to his liturgical duties Christ’s assertion that the Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27); the ‘Venite adoremus’ – ‘O come let us adore Him’ – of Psalm 95 (94):8 becomes ‘Venite apotemus’ – ‘O come, let us a-pour Him’ or, literally, ‘O Come, let us drink.’]

  Once supper was over they discussed current matters and it was decided that they would set out on patrol around midnight in order to find out what watch and care the enemy were observing. Until then they would rest a while so as to be fresher. But Gargantua could not drop off to sleep in any position. The Monk then said to him: ‘I never sleep at my ease except at sermon or when saying my prayers. Let you and me, I beg you, begin the Seven Psalms to see whether you quickly drop off.’

  The scheme delighted Gargantua and so, beginning with the first Psalm, they had just reached the Beati quorum when they both dropped right off. But the Monk was so used to the time of his mattins in the cloisters that he did not fail to wake up before midnight. Once awake he awoke all the others by full-throatily singing the song,

  O, Regnault! Awake, now, wake!

  Ho Regnault, awake!

  When they were all stirring he said,

  ‘Gentlemen: they say that mattins start with a cough and suppers with a drink. Let’s do it the other way round, beginning our mattins with a drink and then, when supper arrives this evening, we can out-cough each other.’

  Gargantua replied:

  ‘Drinking so soon after sleeping is not a medically sound way to live. We must first scour our stomachs of superfluities and excrements.’

  ‘A fine medication that is!’ said the Monk. May a hundred devils jump on my body if there aren’t more old drunkards than old physicians. [I’ve made a pact with my appetite: it always lies down when I do, and I pay due attention to it during the day; then when I get up so does it.] Throw up your purges as much as you like, but I am going after my tiring.’

  ‘What tiring do you mean?’ said Gargantua.

  ‘My
Breviary,’ said the Monk. ‘For, just as falconers make their birds tear at a tiring – a chicken-leg – before they are fed, so as to purge their heads of phlegm and whip up their appetites, so do I take my jolly little Breviary every morning and purge all my lungs: then there I am, ready to drink.’

  ‘When reciting those fine Hours of yours,’ said Gargantua, ‘which Use do you follow?’

  ‘The Use of Fécamp,’ said the Monk: ‘three lessons and three Psalms, or none at all if you prefer. Never shall I be a slave to my Hours: the Hours are made for man, not man for the Hours. That’s why I treat mine like stirrups, shortening or lengthening them as I please:

  Brevis oratio penetrat coelos:

  Longa potatio evacuat scyphos,

  (A short orison to Heaven goes up:

  A long potation doth empty the cup.)

  Now, where is that written?’

  ‘Faith, I’ve no idea,’ said Ponocrates. ‘But you’re really too good, my fine little bollock’!

  ‘I’m like you in that,’ said the Monk. ‘But O come, let us α-pour Him.’

  Then were prepared plent) of charcoal steaks and glorious slices of bread-and-dripping, and the Monk drank as he would. Some kept him company: others refrained. After which each man started to don his armour and accoutrements. They armed the Monk too, against his will, for he wanted no gear save his frock over his stomach and the shaft of his cross in his fist. However, he was armed from top to toe to please them and with stout broad-sword at his side was set on a royal-Neapolitan charger.

  And with him rode Gargantua, Ponocrates, Gymnaste, Eudemon, and five-and-twenty of the most valiant men of Grandgousier’s household, all duly armed, all lance in hand, all mounted like Saint Georges: each with a soldier seated on the crupper and bearing a harquebus.

  How the Monk put heart into his comrades, and how he dangled from a tree

  CHAPTER 40