Chapter 4.XLI.—How Pantagruel broke the Chitterlings at the knees.

The Chitterlings advanced so near that Pantagruel perceived that they stretched their arms and already began to charge their lances, which caused him to send Gymnast to know what they meant, and why they thus, without the least provocation, came to fall upon their old trusty friends, who had neither said nor done the least ill thing to them. Gymnast being advanced near their front, bowed very low, and said to them as loud as ever he could: We are friends, we are friends; all, all of us your friends, yours, and at your command; we are for Carnival, your old confederate. Some have since told me that he mistook, and said cavernal instead of carnival.

Whatever it was, the word was no sooner out of his mouth but a huge little squab Sausage, starting out of the front of their main body, would have griped him by the collar. By the helmet of Mars, said Gymnast, I will swallow thee; but thou shalt only come in in chips and slices; for, big as thou art, thou couldst never come in whole. This spoke, he lugs out his trusty sword, Kiss-mine-arse (so he called it) with both his fists, and cut the Sausage in twain. Bless me, how fat the foul thief was! it puts me in mind of the huge bull of Berne, that was slain at Marignan when the drunken Swiss were so mauled there. Believe me, it had little less than four inches’ lard on its paunch.

The Sausage’s job being done, a crowd of others flew upon Gymnast, and had most scurvily dragged him down when Pantagruel with his men came up to his relief. Then began the martial fray, higgledy-piggledy. Maul-chitterling did maul chitterlings; Cut-pudding did cut puddings; Pantagruel did break the Chitterlings at the knees; Friar John played at least in sight within his sow, viewing and observing all things; when the Pattipans that lay in ambuscade most furiously sallied out upon Pantagruel.

Friar John, who lay snug all this while, by that time perceiving the rout and hurlyburly, set open the doors of his sow and sallied out with his merry Greeks, some of them armed with iron spits, others with andirons, racks, fire-shovels, frying-pans, kettles, grid-irons, oven forks, tongs, dripping pans, brooms, iron pots, mortars, pestles, all in battle array, like so many housebreakers, hallooing and roaring out all together most frightfully, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan, Nabuzardan. Thus shouting and hooting they fought like dragons, and charged through the Pattipans and Sausages. The Chitterlings perceiving this fresh reinforcement, and that the others would be too hard for ‘em, betook themselves to their heels, scampering off with full speed, as if the devil had come for them. Friar John, with an iron crow, knocked them down as fast as hops; his men, too, were not sparing on their side. Oh, what a woeful sight it was! the field was all over strewed with heaps of dead or wounded Chitterlings; and history relates that had not heaven had a hand in it, the Chitterling tribe had been totally routed out of the world by the culinary champions. But there happened a wonderful thing, you may believe as little or as much of it as you please.

From the north flew towards us a huge, fat, thick, grizzly swine, with long and large wings, like those of a windmill; its plumes red crimson, like those of a phenicoptere (which in Languedoc they call flaman); its eyes were red, and flaming like a carbuncle; its ears green, like a Prasin emerald; its teeth like a topaz; its tail long and black, like jet; its feet white, diaphanous and transparent like a diamond, somewhat broad, and of the splay kind, like those of geese, and as Queen Dick’s used to be at Toulouse in the days of yore. About its neck it wore a gold collar, round which were some Ionian characters, whereof I could pick out but two words, US ATHENAN, hog-teaching Minerva.

The sky was clear before; but at that monster’s appearance it changed so mightily for the worse that we were all amazed at it. As soon as the Chitterlings perceived the flying hog, down they all threw their weapons and fell on their knees, lifting up their hands joined together, without speaking one word, in a posture of adoration. Friar John and his party kept on mincing, felling, braining, mangling, and spitting the Chitterlings like mad; but Pantagruel sounded a retreat, and all hostility ceased.

The monster having several times hovered backwards and forwards between the two armies, with a tail-shot voided above twenty-seven butts of mustard on the ground; then flew away through the air, crying all the while, Carnival, Carnival, Carnival.

Chapter 4.XLII.—How Pantagruel held a treaty with Niphleseth, Queen of the Chitterlings.

The monster being out of sight, and the two armies remaining silent, Pantagruel demanded a parley with the lady Niphleseth, Queen of the Chitterlings, who was in her chariot by the standards; and it was easily granted. The queen alighted, courteously received Pantagruel, and was glad to see him. Pantagruel complained to her of this breach of peace; but she civilly made her excuse, telling him that a false information had caused all this mischief; her spies having brought her word that Shrovetide, their mortal foe, was landed, and spent his time in examining the urine of physeters.

She therefore entreated him to pardon them their offence, telling him that sir-reverence was sooner found in Chitterlings than gall; and offering, for herself and all her successors, to hold of him and his the whole island and country; to obey him in all his commands, be friends to his friends, and foes to his foes; and also to send every year, as an acknowledgment of their homage, a tribute of seventy-eight thousand royal Chitterlings, to serve him at his first course at table six months in the year; which was punctually performed. For the next day she sent the aforesaid quantity of royal Chitterlings to the good Gargantua, under the conduct of young Niphleseth, infanta of the island.

The good Gargantua made a present of them to the great King of Paris. But by change of air, and for want of mustard (the natural balsam and restorer of Chitterlings), most of them died. By the great king’s particular grant they were buried in heaps in a part of Paris to this day called La Rue pavee d’Andouilles, the street paved with Chitterlings. At the request of the ladies at his court young Niphleseth was preserved, honourably used, and since that married to heart’s content; and was the mother of many children, for which heaven be praised.

Pantagruel civilly thanked the queen, forgave all offences, refused the offer she had made of her country, and gave her a pretty little knife. After that he asked several nice questions concerning the apparition of that flying hog. She answered that it was the idea of Carnival, their tutelary god in time of war, first founder and original of all the Chitterling race; for which reason he resembled a hog, for Chitterlings drew their extraction from hogs.

Pantagruel asking to what purpose and curative indication he had voided so much mustard on the earth, the queen replied that mustard was their sanc-greal and celestial balsam, of which, laying but a little in the wounds of the fallen Chitterlings, in a very short time the wounded were healed and the dead restored to life. Pantagruel held no further discourse with the queen, but retired a-shipboard. The like did all the boon companions, with their implements of destruction and their huge sow.

Chapter 4.XLIII.—How Pantagruel went into the island of Ruach.

Two days after we arrived at the island of Ruach; and I swear to you, by the celestial hen and chickens, that I found the way of living of the people so strange and wonderful that I can’t, for the heart’s blood of me, half tell it you. They live on nothing but wind, eat nothing but wind, and drink nothing but wind. They have no other houses but weathercocks. They sow no other seeds but the three sorts of windflowers, rue, and herbs that may make one break wind to the purpose; these scour them off carefully. The common sort of people to feed themselves make use of feather, paper, or linen fans, according to their abilities. As for the rich, they live by the means of windmills.

When they would have some noble treat, the tables are spread under one or two windmills. There they feast as merry as beggars, and during the meal their whole talk is commonly of the goodness, excellency, salubrity, and rarity of winds; as you, jolly topers, in your cups philosophize and argue upon wines. The one praises the south-east, the other the south-west; this the west and by south, and this the east and by north; another the west, and another the east; and so of the rest. As for lovers and amorous sparks, no gale for them like a smock-gale. For the sick they use bellows as we use clysters among us.

Oh! said to me a little diminutive swollen bubble, that I had now but a bladderful of that same Languedoc wind which they call Cierce. The famous physician, Scurron, passing one day by this country, was telling us that it is so strong that it will make nothing of overturning a loaded waggon. Oh! what good would it not do my Oedipodic leg. The biggest are not the best; but, said Panurge, rather would I had here a large butt of that same good Languedoc wine that grows at Mirevaux, Canteperdrix, and Frontignan.

I saw a good likely sort of a man there, much resembling Ventrose, tearing and fuming in a grievous fret with a tall burly groom and a pimping little page of his, laying them on, like the devil, with a buskin. Not knowing the cause of his anger, at first I thought that all this was by the doctor’s advice, as being a thing very healthy to the master to be in a passion and to his man to be banged for it. But at last I heard him taxing his man with stealing from him, like a rogue as he was, the better half of a large leathern bag of an excellent southerly wind, which he had carefully laid up, like a hidden reserve, against the cold weather.

They neither exonerate, dung, piss, nor spit in that island; but, to make amends, they belch, fizzle, funk, and give tail-shots in abundance. They are troubled with all manner of distempers; and, indeed, all distempers are engendered and proceed from ventosities, as Hippocrates demonstrates, lib. De Flatibus. But the most epidemical among them is the wind-cholic. The remedies which they use are large clysters, whereby they void store of windiness. They all die of dropsies and tympanies, the men farting and the women fizzling; so that their soul takes her leave at the back-door.

Some time after, walking in the island, we met three hairbrained airy fellows, who seemed mightily puffed up, and went to take their pastime and view the plovers, who live on the same diet as themselves, and abound in the island. I observed that, as your true topers when they travel carry flasks, leathern bottles, and small runlets along with them, so each of them had at his girdle a pretty little pair of bellows. If they happened to want wind, by the help of those pretty bellows they immediately drew some, fresh and cool, by attraction and reciprocal expulsion; for, as you well know, wind essentially defined is nothing but fluctuating and agitated air.

A while after, we were commanded, in the king’s name, not to receive for three hours any man or woman of the country on board our ships; some having stolen from him a rousing fart, of the very individual wind which old goodman Aeolus the snorer gave Ulysses to conduct his ship whenever it should happen to be becalmed. Which fart the king kept religiously, like another sanc-greal, and performed a world of wonderful cures with it in many dangerous diseases, letting loose and distributing to the patient only as much of it as might frame a virginal fart; which is, if you must know, what our sanctimonials, alias nuns, in their dialect call ringing backwards.

Chapter 4.XLIV.—How small rain lays a high wind.

Pantagruel commended their government and way of living, and said to their hypenemian mayor: If you approve Epicurus’s opinion, placing the summum bonum in pleasure (I mean pleasure that’s easy and free from toil), I esteem you happy; for your food being wind, costs you little or nothing, since you need but blow. True, sir, returned the mayor; but, alas! nothing is perfect here below; for too often when we are at table, feeding on some good blessed wind of God as on celestial manna, merry as so many friars, down drops on a sudden some small rain, which lays our wind, and so robs us of it. Thus many a meal’s lost for want of meat.

Just so, quoth Panurge, Jenin Toss-pot of Quinquenais, evacuating some wine of his own burning on his wife’s posteriors, laid the ill-fumed wind that blowed out of their centre as out of some magisterial Aeolipile. Here is a kind of a whim on that subject which I made formerly:

We are also plagued yearly with a very great calamity, cried the mayor; for a giant called Wide-nostrils, who lives in the island of Tohu, comes hither every spring to purge, by the advice of his physicians, and swallows us, like so many pills, a great number of windmills, and of bellows also, at which his mouth waters exceedingly.

Now this is a sad mortification to us here, who are fain to fast over three or four whole Lents every year for this, besides certain petty Lents, ember weeks, and other orison and starving tides. And have you no remedy for this? asked Pantagruel. By the advice of our Mezarims, replied the mayor, about the time that he uses to give us a visit, we garrison our windmills with good store of cocks and hens. The first time that the greedy thief swallowed them, they had like to have done his business at once; for they crowed and cackled in his maw, and fluttered up and down athwart and along in his stomach, which threw the glutton into a lipothymy cardiac passion and dreadful and dangerous convulsions, as if some serpent, creeping in at his mouth, had been frisking in his stomach.

Here is a comparative as altogether incongruous and impertinent, cried Friar John, interrupting them; for I have formerly heard that if a serpent chance to get into a man’s stomach it will not do him the least hurt, but will immediately get out if you do but hang the patient by the heels and lay a panful of warm milk near his mouth. You were told this, said Pantagruel, and so were those who gave you this account; but none ever saw or read of such a cure. On the contrary, Hippocrates, in his fifth book of Epidem, writes that such a case happening in his time the patient presently died of a spasm and convulsion.

Besides the cocks and hens, said the mayor, continuing his story, all the foxes in the country whipped into Wide-nostril’s mouth, posting after the poultry; which made such a stir with Reynard at their heels, that he grievously fell into fits each minute of an hour.

At last, by the advice of a Baden enchanter, at the time of the paroxysm he used to flay a fox by way of antidote and counter-poison. Since that he took better advice, and eases himself with taking a clyster made with a decoction of wheat and barley corns, and of livers of goslings; to the first of which the poultry run, and the foxes to the latter. Besides, he swallows some of your badgers or fox-dogs by the way of pills and boluses. This is our misfortune.

Cease to fear, good people, cried Pantagruel; this huge Wide-nostrils, this same swallower of windmills, is no more, I will assure you; he died, being stifled and choked with a lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven, by the advice of his physicians.

Chapter 4.XLV.—How Pantagruel went ashore in the island of Pope-Figland.

The next morning we arrived at the island of Pope-figs; formerly a rich and free people, called the Gaillardets, but now, alas! miserably poor, and under the yoke of the Papimen. The occasion of it was this:

On a certain yearly high holiday, the burgomaster, syndics, and topping rabbies of the Gaillardets chanced to go into the neighbouring island Papimany to see the festival and pass away the time. Now one of them having espied the pope’s picture (with the sight of which, according to a laudable custom, the people were blessed on high-offering holidays), made mouths at it, and cried, A fig for it! as a sign of manifest contempt and derision. To be revenged of this affront, the Papimen, some days after, without giving the others the least warning, took arms, and surprised, destroyed, and ruined the whole island of the Gaillardets; putting the men to the sword, and sparing none but the women and children, and those too only on condition to do what the inhabitants of Milan were condemned to by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

These had rebelled against him in his absence, and ignominiously turned the empress out of the city, mounting her a-horseback on a mule called Thacor, with her breech foremost towards the old jaded mule’s head, and her face turned towards the crupper. Now Frederick being returned, mastered them, and caused so careful a search to be made that he found out and got the famous mule Thacor. Then the hangman by his order clapped a fig into the mule’s jimcrack, in the presence of the enslaved cits that were brought into the middle of the great market-place, and proclaimed in the emperor’s name, with trumpets, that whosoever of them would save his own life should publicly pull the fig out with his teeth, and after that put it in again in the very individual cranny whence he had draw’d it without using his hands, and that whoever refused to do this should presently swing for it and die in his shoes. Some sturdy fools, standing upon their punctilio, chose honourably to be hanged rather than submit to so shameful and abominable a disgrace; and others, less nice in point of ceremony, took heart of grace, and even resolved to have at the fig, and a fig for’t, rather than make a worse figure with a hempen collar, and die in the air at so short warning. Accordingly, when they had neatly picked out the fig with their teeth from old Thacor’s snatch-blatch, they plainly showed it the headsman, saying, Ecco lo fico, Behold the fig!

By the same ignominy the rest of these poor distressed Gaillardets saved their bacon, becoming tributaries and slaves, and the name of Pope-figs was given them, because they said, A fig for the pope’s image. Since this, the poor wretches never prospered, but every year the devil was at their doors, and they were plagued with hail, storms, famine, and all manner of woes, as an everlasting punishment for the sin of their ancestors and relations. Perceiving the misery and calamity of that generation, we did not care to go further up into the country, contenting ourselves with going into a little chapel near the haven to take some holy water. It was dilapidated and ruined, wanting also a cover—like Saint Peter at Rome. When we were in, as we dipped our fingers in the sanctified cistern, we spied in the middle of that holy pickle a fellow muffled up with stoles, all under water, like a diving duck, except the tip of his snout to draw his breath. About him stood three priests, true shavelings, clean shorn and polled, who were muttering strange words to the devils out of a conjuring book.

Pantagruel was not a little amazed at this, and inquiring what kind of sport these were at, was told that for three years last past the plague had so dreadfully raged in the island that the better half of it had been utterly depopulated, and the lands lay fallow and unoccupied. Now, the mortality being over, this same fellow who had crept into the holy tub, having a large piece of ground, chanced to be sowing it with white winter wheat at the very minute of an hour that a kind of a silly sucking devil, who could not yet write or read, or hail and thunder, unless it were on parsley or coleworts, and got leave of his master Lucifer to go into this island of Pope-figs, where the devils were very familiar with the men and women, and often went to take their pastime.

This same devil being got thither, directed his discourse to the husbandman, and asked him what he was doing. The poor man told him that he was sowing the ground with corn to help him to subsist the next year. Ay, but the ground is none of thine, Mr. Plough-jobber, cried the devil, but mine; for since the time that you mocked the pope all this land has been proscribed, adjudged, and abandoned to us. However, to sow corn is not my province; therefore I will give thee leave to sow the field, that is to say, provided we share the profit. I will, replied the farmer. I mean, said the devil, that of what the land shall bear, two lots shall be made, one of what shall grow above ground, the other of what shall be covered with earth. The right of choosing belongs to me; for I am a devil of noble and ancient race; thou art a base clown. I therefore choose what shall lie under ground, take thou what shall be above. When dost thou reckon to reap, hah? About the middle of July, quoth the farmer. Well, said the devil, I’ll not fail thee then; in the meantime, slave as thou oughtest. Work, clown, work. I am going to tempt to the pleasing sin of whoring the nuns of Dryfart, the sham saints of the cowl, and the gluttonish crew. I am more than sure of these. They need but meet, and the job is done; true fire and tinder, touch and take; down falls nun, and up gets friar.

Chapter 4.XLVI.—How a junior devil was fooled by a husbandman of Pope-Figland.

In the middle of July the devil came to the place aforesaid with all his crew at his heels, a whole choir of the younger fry of hell; and having met the farmer, said to him, Well, clodpate, how hast thou done since I went? Thou and I must share the concern. Ay, master devil, quoth the clown; it is but reason we should. Then he and his men began to cut and reap the corn; and, on the other side, the devil’s imps fell to work, grubbing up and pulling out the stubble by the root.

The countryman had his corn thrashed, winnowed it, put in into sacks, and went with it to market. The same did the devil’s servants, and sat them down there by the man to sell their straw. The countryman sold off his corn at a good rate, and with the money filled an old kind of a demi-buskin which was fastened to his girdle. But the devil a sou the devils took; far from taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by the country louts.

Market being over, quoth the devil to the farmer, Well, clown, thou hast choused me once, it is thy fault; chouse me twice, ‘twill be mine. Nay, good sir devil, replied the farmer; how can I be said to have choused you, since it was your worship that chose first? The truth is, that by this trick you thought to cheat me, hoping that nothing would spring out of the earth for my share, and that you should find whole underground the corn which I had sowed, and with it tempt the poor and needy, the close hypocrite, or the covetous griper; thus making them fall into your snares. But troth, you must e’en go to school yet; you are no conjurer, for aught I see; for the corn that was sow’d is dead and rotten, its corruption having caused the generation of that which you saw me sell. So you chose the worst, and therefore are cursed in the gospel. Well, talk no more of it, quoth the devil; what canst thou sow our field with for next year? If a man would make the best of it, answered the ploughman, ‘twere fit he sow it with radish. Now, cried the devil, thou talkest like an honest fellow, bumpkin. Well, sow me good store of radish, I’ll see and keep them safe from storms, and will not hail a bit on them. But hark ye me, this time I bespeak for my share what shall be above ground; what’s under shall be thine. Drudge on, looby, drudge on. I am going to tempt heretics; their souls are dainty victuals when broiled in rashers and well powdered. My Lord Lucifer has the griping in the guts; they’ll make a dainty warm dish for his honour’s maw.

When the season of radishes was come, our devil failed not to meet in the field, with a train of rascally underlings, all waiting devils, and finding there the farmer and his men, he began to cut and gather the leaves of the radishes. After him the farmer with his spade dug up the radishes, and clapped them up into pouches. This done, the devil, the farmer, and their gangs, hied them to market, and there the farmer presently made good money of his radishes; but the poor devil took nothing; nay, what was worse, he was made a common laughing-stock by the gaping hoidens. I see thou hast played me a scurvy trick, thou villainous fellow, cried the angry devil; at last I am fully resolved even to make an end of the business betwixt thee and myself about the ground, and these shall be the terms: we will clapperclaw each other, and whoever of us two shall first cry Hold, shall quit his share of the field, which shall wholly belong to the conqueror. I fix the time for this trial of skill on this day seven-night; assure thyself that I’ll claw thee off like a devil. I was going to tempt your fornicators, bailiffs, perplexers of causes, scriveners, forgers of deeds, two-handed counsellors, prevaricating solicitors, and other such vermin; but they were so civil as to send me word by an interpreter that they are all mine already. Besides, our master Lucifer is so cloyed with their souls that he often sends them back to the smutty scullions and slovenly devils of his kitchen, and they scarce go down with them, unless now and then, when they are high-seasoned.

Some say there is no breakfast like a student’s, no dinner like a lawyer’s, no afternoon’s nunchion like a vine-dresser’s, no supper like a tradesman’s, no second supper like a serving-wench’s, and none of these meals equal to a frockified hobgoblin’s. All this is true enough. Accordingly, at my Lord Lucifer’s first course, hobgoblins, alias imps in cowls, are a standing dish. He willingly used to breakfast on students; but, alas! I do not know by what ill luck they have of late years joined the Holy Bible to their studies; so the devil a one we can get down among us; and I verily believe that unless the hypocrites of the tribe of Levi help us in it, taking from the enlightened book-mongers their St. Paul, either by threats, revilings, force, violence, fire, and faggot, we shall not be able to hook in any more of them to nibble at below. He dines commonly on counsellors, mischief-mongers, multipliers of lawsuits, such as wrest and pervert right and law and grind and fleece the poor; he never fears to want any of these. But who can endure to be wedded to a dish?

He said t’other day, at a full chapter, that he had a great mind to eat the soul of one of the fraternity of the cowl that had forgot to speak for himself in his sermon, and he promised double pay and a large pension to anyone that should bring him such a titbit piping hot. We all went a-hunting after such a rarity, but came home without the prey; for they all admonish the good women to remember their convent. As for afternoon nunchions, he has left them off since he was so woefully griped with the colic; his fosterers, sutlers, charcoal-men, and boiling cooks having been sadly mauled and peppered off in the northern countries.

His high devilship sups very well on tradesmen, usurers, apothecaries, cheats, coiners, and adulterers of wares. Now and then, when he is on the merry pin, his second supper is of serving-wenches who, after they have by stealth soaked their faces with their master’s good liquor, fill up the vessel with it at second hand, or with other stinking water.

Well, drudge on, boor, drudge on; I am going to tempt the students of Trebisonde to leave father and mother, forego for ever the established and common rule of living, disclaim and free themselves from obeying their lawful sovereign’s edicts, live in absolute liberty, proudly despise everyone, laugh at all mankind, and taking the fine jovial little cap of poetic licence, become so many pretty hobgoblins.

Chapter 4.XLVII.—How the devil was deceived by an old woman of Pope-Figland.

The country lob trudged home very much concerned and thoughtful, you may swear; insomuch that his good woman, seeing him thus look moping, weened that something had been stolen from him at market; but when she had heard the cause of his affliction and seen his budget well lined with coin, she bade him be of good cheer, assuring him that he would be never the worse for the scratching bout in question; wishing him only to leave her to manage that business, and not trouble his head about it; for she had already contrived how to bring him off cleverly. Let the worst come to the worst, said the husbandman, it will be but a scratch; for I’ll yield at the first stroke, and quit the field. Quit a fart, replied the wife; he shall have none of the field. Rely upon me, and be quiet; let me alone to deal with him. You say he is a pimping little devil, that is enough; I will soon make him give up the field, I will warrant you. Indeed, had he been a great devil, it had been somewhat.

The day that we landed in the island happened to be that which the devil had fixed for the combat. Now the countryman having, like a good Catholic, very fairly confessed himself, and received betimes in the morning, by the advice of the vicar had hid himself, all but the snout, in the holy-water pot, in the posture in which we found him; and just as they were telling us this story, news came that the old woman had fooled the devil and gained the field. You may not be sorry, perhaps, to hear how this happened.

The devil, you must know, came to the poor man’s door, and rapping there, cried, So ho! ho, the house! ho, clodpate! where art thou? Come out with a vengeance; come out with a wannion; come out and be damned; now for clawing. Then briskly and resolutely entering the house, and not finding the countryman there, he spied his wife lying on the ground, piteously weeping and howling. What is the matter? asked the devil. Where is he? what does he? Oh! that I knew where he is, replied threescore and five; the wicked rogue, the butcherly dog, the murderer! He has spoiled me; I am undone; I die of what he has done me. How, cried the devil, what is it? I’ll tickle him off for you by-and-by. Alas! cried the old dissembler, he told me, the butcher, the tyrant, the tearer of devils told me that he had made a match to scratch with you this day, and to try his claws he did but just touch me with his little finger here betwixt the legs, and has spoiled me for ever. Oh! I am a dead woman; I shall never be myself again; do but see! Nay, and besides, he talked of going to the smith’s to have his pounces sharpened and pointed. Alas! you are undone, Mr. Devil; good sir, scamper quickly, I am sure he won’t stay; save yourself, I beseech you. While she said this she uncovered herself up to the chin, after the manner in which the Persian women met their children who fled from the fight, and plainly showed her what do ye call them. The frightened devil, seeing the enormous solution of the continuity in all its dimensions, blessed himself, and cried out, Mahon, Demiourgon, Megaera, Alecto, Persephone! ‘slife, catch me here when he comes! I am gone! ‘sdeath, what a gash! I resign him the field.

Having heard the catastrophe of the story, we retired a-shipboard, not being willing to stay there any longer. Pantagruel gave to the poor’s box of the fabric of the church eighteen thousand good royals, in commiseration of the poverty of the people and the calamity of the place.

Chapter 4.XLVIII.—How Pantagruel went ashore at the island of Papimany.

Having left the desolate island of the Pope-figs, we sailed for the space of a day very fairly and merrily, and made the blessed island of Papimany. As soon as we had dropt anchor in the road, before we had well moored our ship with ground-tackle, four persons in different garbs rowed towards us in a skiff. One of them was dressed like a monk in his frock, draggle-tailed, and booted; the other like a falconer, with a lure, and a long-winged hawk on his fist; the third like a solicitor, with a large bag, full of informations, subpoenas, breviates, bills, writs, cases, and other implements of pettifogging; the fourth looked like one of your vine-barbers about Ocleans, with a jaunty pair of canvas trousers, a dosser, and a pruning knife at his girdle.

As soon as the boat had clapped them on board, they all with one voice asked, Have you seen him, good passengers, have you seen him? Who? asked Pantagruel. You know who, answered they. Who is it? asked Friar John. 'Sblood and ‘ounds, I’ll thrash him thick and threefold. This he said thinking that they inquired after some robber, murderer, or church-breaker. Oh, wonderful! cried the four; do not you foreign people know the one? Sirs, replied Epistemon, we do not understand those terms; but if you will be pleased to let us know who you mean, we will tell you the truth of the matter without any more ado. We mean, said they, he that is. Did you ever see him? He that is, returned Pantagruel, according to our theological doctrine, is God, who said to Moses, I am that I am. We never saw him, nor can he be beheld by mortal eyes. We mean nothing less than that supreme God who rules in heaven, replied they; we mean the god on earth. Did you ever see him? Upon my honour, replied Carpalin, they mean the pope. Ay, ay, answered Panurge; yea, verily, gentlemen, I have seen three of them, whose sight has not much bettered me. How! cried they, our sacred decretals inform us that there never is more than one living. I mean successively, one after the other, returned Panurge; otherwise I never saw more than one at a time.

O thrice and four times happy people! cried they; you are welcome, and more than double welcome! They then kneeled down before us and would have kissed our feet, but we would not suffer it, telling them that should the pope come thither in his own person, ‘tis all they could do to him. No, certainly, answered they, for we have already resolved upon the matter. We would kiss his bare arse without boggling at it, and eke his two pounders; for he has a pair of them, the holy father, that he has; we find it so by our fine decretals, otherwise he could not be pope. So that, according to our subtle decretaline philosophy, this is a necessary consequence: he is pope; therefore he has genitories, and should genitories no more be found in the world, the world could no more have a pope.

While they were talking thus, Pantagruel inquired of one of the coxswain’s crew who those persons were. He answered that they were the four estates of the island, and added that we should be made as welcome as princes, since we had seen the pope. Panurge having been acquainted with this by Pantagruel, said to him in his ear, I swear and vow, sir, ‘tis even so; he that has patience may compass anything. Seeing the pope had done us no good; now, in the devil’s name, ‘twill do us a great deal. We then went ashore, and the whole country, men, women, and children, came to meet us as in a solemn procession. Our four estates cried out to them with a loud voice, They have seen him! they have seen him! they have seen him! That proclamation being made, all the mob kneeled before us, lifting up their hands towards heaven, and crying, O happy men! O most happy! and this acclamation lasted above a quarter of an hour.

Then came the Busby (!) of the place, with all his pedagogues, ushers, and schoolboys, whom he magisterially flogged, as they used to whip children in our country formerly when some criminal was hanged, that they might remember it. This displeased Pantagruel, who said to them, Gentlemen, if you do not leave off whipping these poor children, I am gone. The people were amazed, hearing his stentorian voice; and I saw a little hump with long fingers say to the hypodidascal, What, in the name of wonder! do all those that see the pope grow as tall as yon huge fellow that threatens us? Ah! how I shall think time long till I have seen him too, that I may grow and look as big. In short, the acclamations were so great that Homenas (so they called their bishop) hastened thither on an unbridled mule with green trappings, attended by his apposts (as they said) and his supposts, or officers bearing crosses, banners, standards, canopies, torches, holy-water pots, &c. He too wanted to kiss our feet (as the good Christian Valfinier did to Pope Clement), saying that one of their hypothetes, that’s one of the scavengers, scourers, and commentators of their holy decretals, had written that, in the same manner as the Messiah, so long and so much expected by the Jews, at last appeared among them; so, on some happy day of God, the pope would come into that island; and that, while they waited for that blessed time, if any who had seen him at Rome or elsewhere chanced to come among them, they should be sure to make much of them, feast them plentifully, and treat them with a great deal of reverence. However, we civilly desired to be excused.

Chapter 4.XLIX.—How Homenas, Bishop of Papimany, showed us the Uranopet decretals.

Homenas then said to us: ‘Tis enjoined us by our holy decretals to visit churches first and taverns after. Therefore, not to decline that fine institution, let us go to church; we will afterwards go and feast ourselves. Man of God, quoth Friar John, do you go before, we’ll follow you. You spoke in the matter properly, and like a good Christian; ‘tis long since we saw any such. For my part, this rejoices my mind very much, and I verily believe that I shall have the better stomach after it. Well, 'tis a happy thing to meet with good men! Being come near the gate of the church, we spied a huge thick book, gilt, and covered all over with precious stones, as rubies, emeralds, (diamonds,) and pearls, more, or at least as valuable as those which Augustus consecrated to Jupiter Capitolinus. This book hanged in the air, being fastened with two thick chains of gold to the zoophore of the porch. We looked on it and admired it. As for Pantagruel, he handled it and dandled it and turned it as he pleased, for he could reach it without straining; and he protested that whenever he touched it, he was seized with a pleasant tickling at his fingers’ end, new life and activity in his arms, and a violent temptation in his mind to beat one or two sergeants, or such officers, provided they were not of the shaveling kind. Homenas then said to us, The law was formerly given to the Jews by Moses, written by God himself. At Delphos, before the portal of Apollo’s temple, this sentence, GNOTHI SEAUTON, was found written with a divine hand. And some time after it, EI was also seen, and as divinely written and transmitted from heaven. Cybele’s image was brought out of heaven, into a field called Pessinunt, in Phrygia; so was that of Diana to Tauris, if you will believe Euripides; the oriflamme, or holy standard, was transmitted out of heaven to the noble and most Christian kings of France, to fight against the unbelievers. In the reign of Numa Pompilius, second King of the Romans, the famous copper buckler called Ancile was seen to descend from heaven. At Acropolis, near Athens, Minerva’s statue formerly fell from the empyreal heaven. In like manner the sacred decretals which you see were written with the hand of an angel of the cherubim kind. You outlandish people will hardly believe this, I fear. Little enough, of conscience, said Panurge. And then, continued Homenas, they were miraculously transmitted to us here from the very heaven of heavens; in the same manner as the river Nile is called Diipetes by Homer, the father of all philosophy—the holy decretals always excepted. Now, because you have seen the pope, their evangelist and everlasting protector, we will give you leave to see and kiss them on the inside, if you think meet. But then you must fast three days before, and canonically confess; nicely and strictly mustering up and inventorizing your sins, great and small, so thick that one single circumstance of them may not escape you; as our holy decretals, which you see, direct. This will take up some time. Man of God, answered Panurge, we have seen and descried decrees, and eke decretals enough o’ conscience; some on paper, other on parchment, fine and gay like any painted paper lantern, some on vellum, some in manuscript, and others in print; so you need not take half these pains to show us these. We’ll take the goodwill for the deed, and thank you as much as if we had. Ay, marry, said Homenas, but you never saw these that are angelically written. Those in your country are only transcripts from ours; as we find it written by one of our old decretaline scholiasts. For me, do not spare me; I do not value the labour, so I may serve you. Do but tell me whether you will be confessed and fast only three short little days of God? As for shriving, answered Panurge, there can be no great harm in’t; but this same fasting, master of mine, will hardly down with us at this time, for we have so very much overfasted ourselves at sea that the spiders have spun their cobwebs over our grinders. Do but look on this good Friar John des Entomeures (Homenas then courteously demi-clipped him about the neck), some moss is growing in his throat for want of bestirring and exercising his chaps. He speaks the truth, vouched Friar John; I have so much fasted that I’m almost grown hump-shouldered. Come, then, let’s go into the church, said Homenas; and pray forgive us if for the present we do not sing you a fine high mass. The hour of midday is past, and after it our sacred decretals forbid us to sing mass, I mean your high and lawful mass. But I’ll say a low and dry one for you. I had rather have one moistened with some good Anjou wine, cried Panurge; fall to, fall to your low mass, and despatch. Ods-bodikins, quoth Friar John, it frets me to the guts that I must have an empty stomach at this time of day; for, had I eaten a good breakfast and fed like a monk, if he should chance to sing us the Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, I had then brought thither bread and wine for the traits passes (those that are gone before). Well, patience; pull away, and save tide; short and sweet, I pray you, and this for a cause.