Book III.

Translated into English by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux

The text of the first Two Books of Rabelais has been reprinted from the first edition (1653) of Urquhart's translation. Footnotes initialled 'M.' are drawn from the Maitland Club edition (1838); other footnotes are by the translator. Urquhart's translation of Book III. appeared posthumously in 1693, with a new edition of Books I. and II., under Motteux's editorship. Motteux's rendering of Books IV. and V. followed in 1708. Occasionally (as the footnotes indicate) passages omitted by Motteux have been restored from the 1738 copy edited by Ozell.

CONTENTS

THE THIRD BOOK

Chapter 3.I.—How Pantagruel transported a colony of Utopians into Dipsody.

Chapter 3.II.—How Panurge was made Laird of Salmigondin in Dipsody, and did waste his revenue before it came in.

Chapter 3.III.—How Panurge praiseth the debtors and borrowers.

Chapter 3.IV.—Panurge continueth his discourse in the praise of borrowers and lenders.

Chapter 3.V.—How Pantagruel altogether abhorreth the debtors and borrowers.

Chapter 3.VI.—Why new married men were privileged from going to the wars.

Chapter 3.VII.—How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece.

Chapter 3.VIII.—Why the codpiece is held to be the chief piece of armour amongst warriors.

Chapter 3.IX.—How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel whether he should marry, yea, or no.

Chapter 3.X.—How Pantagruel representeth unto Panurge the difficulty of giving advice in the matter of marriage; and to that purpose mentioneth somewhat of the Homeric and Virgilian lotteries.

Chapter 3.XI.—How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one's fortune by the throwing of dice to be unlawful.

Chapter 3.XII.—How Pantagruel doth explore by the Virgilian lottery what fortune Panurge shall have in his marriage.

Chapter 3.XIII.—How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to try the future good or bad luck of his marriage by dreams.

Chapter 3.XIV.—Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof.

Chapter 3.XV.—Panurge's excuse and exposition of the monastic mystery concerning powdered beef.

Chapter 3.XVI.—How Pantagruel adviseth Panurge to consult with the Sibyl of Panzoust.

Chapter 3.XVII.—How Panurge spoke to the Sibyl of Panzoust.

Chapter 3.XVIII.—How Pantagruel and Panurge did diversely expound the verses of the Sibyl of Panzoust.

Chapter 3.XIX.—How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men.

Chapter 3.XX.—How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge.

Chapter 3.XXI.—How Panurge consulteth with an old French poet, named Raminagrobis.

Chapter 3.XXII.—How Panurge patrocinates and defendeth the Order of the Begging Friars.

Chapter 3.XXIII.—How Panurge maketh the motion of a return to Raminagrobis.

Chapter 3.XXIV.—How Panurge consulteth with Epistemon.

Chapter 3.XXV.—How Panurge consulteth with Herr Trippa.

Chapter 3.XXVI.—How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels.

Chapter 3.XXVII.—How Friar John merrily and sportingly counselleth Panurge.

Chapter 3.XXVIII.—How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matter of cuckoldry.

Chapter 3.XXIX.—How Pantagruel convocated together a theologian, physician, lawyer, and philosopher, for extricating Panurge out of the perplexity wherein he was.

Chapter 3.XXX.—How the theologue, Hippothadee, giveth counsel to Panurge in the matter and business of his nuptial enterprise.

Chapter 3.XXXI.—How the physician Rondibilis counselleth Panurge.

Chapter 3.XXXII.—How Rondibilis declareth cuckoldry to be naturally one of the appendances of marriage.

Chapter 3.XXXIII.—Rondibilis the physician's cure of cuckoldry.

Chapter 3.XXXIV.—How women ordinarily have the greatest longing after things prohibited.

Chapter 3.XXXV.—How the philosopher Trouillogan handleth the difficulty of marriage.

Chapter 3.XXXVI.—A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian philosopher Trouillogan.

Chapter 3.XXXVII.—How Pantagruel persuaded Panurge to take counsel of a fool.

Chapter 3.XXXVIII.—How Triboulet is set forth and blazed by Pantagruel and Panurge.

Chapter 3.XXXIX.—How Pantagruel was present at the trial of Judge Bridlegoose, who decided causes and controversies in law by the chance and fortune of the dice.

Chapter 3.XL.—How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions which he decided by the chance of the dice.

Chapter 3.XLI.—How Bridlegoose relateth the history of the reconcilers of parties at variance in matters of law.

Chapter 3.XLII.—How suits at law are bred at first, and how they come afterwards to their perfect growth.

Chapter 3.XLIII.—How Pantagruel excuseth Bridlegoose in the matter of sentencing actions at law by the chance of the dice.

Chapter 3.XLIV.—How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human judgment.

Chapter 3.XLV.—How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.

Chapter 3.XLVI.—How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.

Chapter 3.XLVII.—How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of the holy bottle.

Chapter 3.XLVIII.—How Gargantua showeth that the children ought not to marry without the special knowledge and advice of their fathers and mothers.

Chapter 3.XLIX.—How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and of the herb named Pantagruelion.

Chapter 3.L.—How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought.

Chapter 3.LI.—Why it is called Pantagruelion, and of the admirable virtues thereof.

Chapter 3.LII.—How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire is not able to consume it.

List of Illustrations

He Did Cry Like a Cow—frontispiece

Titlepage

Rabelais Dissecting Society—portrait2

Francois Rabelais—portrait

Panurge Seeks the Advice of Pantagruel—3-08-240

Found the Old Woman Sitting Alone—3-17-225

The Chamber is Already Full of Devils—3-23-294

Rondibilus the Physician—3-30-322

Altercation Waxed Hot in Words—3-37-346

Bridlegoose—3-39-352

Relateth the History of The Reconcilers—3-41-356

Sucking Very Much at the Purses of The Pleading Parties—3-42-360

Serving in the Place of a Cravat—3-51-386

THE THIRD BOOK

Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre.

The Author's Prologue.

Good people, most illustrious drinkers, and you, thrice precious gouty gentlemen, did you ever see Diogenes, and cynic philosopher? If you have seen him, you then had your eyes in your head, or I am very much out of my understanding and logical sense. It is a gallant thing to see the clearness of (wine, gold,) the sun. I'll be judged by the blind born so renowned in the sacred Scriptures, who, having at his choice to ask whatever he would from him who is Almighty, and whose word in an instant is effectually performed, asked nothing else but that he might see. Item, you are not young, which is a competent quality for you to philosophate more than physically in wine, not in vain, and henceforwards to be of the Bacchic Council; to the end that, opining there, you may give your opinion faithfully of the substance, colour, excellent odour, eminency, propriety, faculty, virtue, and effectual dignity of the said blessed and desired liquor.

If you have not seen him, as I am easily induced to believe that you have not, at least you have heard some talk of him. For through the air, and the whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report and fame, even until this present time, remained very memorable and renowned. Then all of you are derived from the Phrygian blood, if I be not deceived. If you have not so many crowns as Midas had, yet have you something, I know not what, of him, which the Persians of old esteemed more of in all their otacusts, and which was more desired by the Emperor Antonine, and gave occasion thereafter to the Basilico at Rohan to be surnamed Goodly Ears. If you have not heard of him, I will presently tell you a story to make your wine relish. Drink then,—so, to the purpose. Hearken now whilst I give you notice, to the end that you may not, like infidels, be by your simplicity abused, that in his time he was a rare philosopher and the cheerfullest of a thousand. If he had some imperfection, so have you, so have we; for there is nothing, but God, that is perfect. Yet so it was,

that by Alexander the Great, although he had Aristotle for his instructor and domestic, was he held in such estimation, that he wished, if he had not been Alexander, to have been Diogenes the Sinopian.

When Philip, King of Macedon, enterprised the siege and ruin of Corinth, the Corinthians having received certain intelligence by their spies that he with a numerous army in battle-rank was coming against them, were all of them, not without cause, most terribly afraid; and therefore were not neglective of their duty in doing their best endeavours to put themselves in a fit posture to resist his hostile approach and defend their own city.

Some from the fields brought into the fortified places their movables, bestial, corn, wine, fruit, victuals, and other necessary provision.

Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses, bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticed barbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol. Everyone did watch and ward, and not one was exempted from carrying the basket. Some polished corslets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned the headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs. Others made ready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls, firebrands, balists, scorpions, and other such warlike engines expugnatory and destructive to the Hellepolides. They sharpened and prepared spears,

staves, pikes, brown bills, halberds, long hooks, lances, zagayes, quarterstaves, eelspears, partisans, troutstaves, clubs, battle-axes, maces, darts, dartlets, glaives, javelins, javelots, and truncheons. They set edges upon scimitars, cutlasses, badelairs, backswords, tucks, rapiers, bayonets, arrow-heads, dags, daggers, mandousians, poniards, whinyards, knives, skeans, shables, chipping knives, and raillons.

Every man exercised his weapon, every man scoured off the rust from his natural hanger; nor was there a woman amongst them, though never so reserved or old, who made not her harness to be well furbished; as you know the Corinthian women of old were reputed very courageous combatants.

Diogenes seeing them all so warm at work, and himself not employed by the magistrates in any business whatsoever, he did very seriously, for many days together, without speaking one word, consider and contemplate the countenance of his fellow-citizens.

Then on a sudden, as if he had been roused up and inspired by a martial spirit, he girded his cloak scarfwise about his left arm, tucked up his sleeves to the elbow, trussed himself like a clown gathering apples, and, giving to one of his old acquaintance his wallet, books, and opistographs, away went he out of town towards a little hill or promontory of Corinth called (the) Cranie; and there on the strand, a pretty level place, did he roll his jolly tub, which served him for a house to shelter him from the injuries of the weather: there, I say, in a great vehemency of spirit, did he turn it, veer it, wheel it, whirl it, frisk it, jumble it, shuffle it, huddle it, tumble it, hurry it, jolt it, justle it, overthrow it, evert it, invert it, subvert it, overturn it, beat it, thwack it, bump it, batter it, knock it, thrust it, push it, jerk it, shock it, shake it, toss it, throw it, overthrow it, upside down, topsy-turvy, arsiturvy, tread it, trample it, stamp it, tap it, ting it, ring it, tingle it, towl it, sound it,

resound it, stop it, shut it, unbung it, close it, unstopple it. And then again in a mighty bustle he bandied it, slubbered it, hacked it, whittled it, wayed it, darted it, hurled it, staggered it, reeled it, swinged it, brangled it, tottered it, lifted it, heaved it, transformed it, transfigured it, transposed it, transplaced it, reared it, raised it, hoised it, washed it, dighted it, cleansed it, rinsed it, nailed it, settled it, fastened it, shackled it, fettered it, levelled it, blocked it, tugged it, tewed it, carried it, bedashed it, bewrayed it, parched it, mounted it, broached it, nicked it, notched it, bespattered it, decked it, adorned it, trimmed it, garnished it, gauged it, furnished it, bored it, pierced it, trapped it, rumbled it, slid it down the hill, and precipitated it from the very height of the Cranie; then from the foot to the top (like another Sisyphus with his stone) bore it up again, and every way so banged it and belaboured it that it was ten thousand to one he had not struck the bottom of it out.

Which when one of his friends had seen, and asked him why he did so toil his body, perplex his spirit, and torment his tub, the philosopher's answer was that, not being employed in any other charge by the Republic, he thought it expedient to thunder and storm it so tempestuously upon his tub, that amongst a people so fervently busy and earnest at work he alone might not seem a loitering slug and lazy fellow. To the same purpose may I say of myself,

Though I be rid from fear, I am not void of care.

For, perceiving no account to be made of me towards the discharge of a trust of any great concernment, and considering that through all the parts of this most noble kingdom of France, both on this and on the other side of the mountains, everyone is most diligently exercised and busied, some in the fortifying of their own native country for its defence, others in the repulsing of their enemies by an offensive war; and all this with a policy so excellent and such admirable order, so manifestly profitable for the future, whereby France shall have its frontiers most magnifically enlarged, and the French assured of a long and well-grounded peace, that very little withholds me from the opinion of good Heraclitus, which affirmeth war to be the father of all good things; and therefore do I believe that war is in Latin called bellum, not by antiphrasis, as some patchers of old rusty Latin would have us to think, because in war there is little beauty to be seen, but absolutely and simply; for that in war appeareth all that is good

and graceful, and that by the wars is purged out all manner of wickedness and deformity. For proof whereof the wise and pacific Solomon could no better represent the unspeakable perfection of the divine wisdom, than by comparing it to the due disposure and ranking of an army in battle array, well provided and ordered.

Therefore, by reason of my weakness and inability, being reputed by my compatriots unfit for the offensive part of warfare; and on the other side, being no way employed in matter of the defensive, although it had been but to carry burthens, fill ditches, or break clods, either whereof had been to me indifferent, I held it not a little disgraceful to be only an idle spectator of so many valorous, eloquent, and warlike persons, who in the view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragi-comedy, and not make some effort towards the performance of this, nothing at all remains for me to be done ('And not exert myself, and contribute thereto this nothing, my all, which remained for me to do.'—Ozell.). In my opinion, little honour is due to such as are mere lookers-on, liberal of their eyes, and of their crowns, and hide their silver; scratching their head with one finger like grumbling puppies, gaping at the flies like tithe calves; clapping down their ears like Arcadian asses at the melody of musicians, who with their very countenances in the depth of silence express

their consent to the prosopopoeia. Having made this choice and election, it seemed to me that my exercise therein would be neither unprofitable nor troublesome to any, whilst I should thus set a-going my Diogenical tub, which is all that is left me safe from the shipwreck of my former misfortunes.

At this dingle dangle wagging of my tub, what would you have me to do? By the Virgin that tucks up her sleeve, I know not as yet. Stay a little, till I suck up a draught of this bottle; it is my true and only Helicon; it is my Caballine fountain; it is my sole enthusiasm. Drinking thus, I meditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude. After that the epilogue is made, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again. Ennius drinking wrote, and writing drank. Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his Symposiacs merit any faith, drank composing, and drinking composed. Homer never wrote fasting, and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk. These passages I have brought before you to the end you may not say that I lived without the example of men well praised and better prized. It is good and fresh enough, even as if you would say it is entering upon the second degree. God, the good God Sabaoth, that is to say, the God of armies, be praised for it eternally! If you after the same manner would take one great draught, or two little ones, whilst you have your gown about you, I truly

find no kind of inconveniency in it, provided you send up to God for all some small scantling of thanks.

Since then my luck or destiny is such as you have heard—for it is not for everybody to go to Corinth—I am fully resolved to be so little idle and unprofitable, that I will set myself to serve the one and the other sort of people. Amongst the diggers, pioneers, and rampire-builders, I will do as did Neptune and Apollo at Troy under Laomedon, or as did Renault of Montauban in his latter days: I will serve the masons, I'll set on the pot to boil for the bricklayers; and, whilst the minced meat is making ready at the sound of my small pipe, I'll measure the muzzle of the musing dotards. Thus did Amphion with the melody of his harp found, build, and finish the great and renowned city of Thebes.

For the use of the warriors I am about to broach of new my barrel to give them a taste (which by two former volumes of mine, if by the deceitfulness and falsehood of printers they had not been jumbled, marred, and spoiled, you would have very well relished), and draw unto them, of the growth of our own trippery pastimes, a gallant third part of a gallon, and consequently a jolly cheerful quart of Pantagruelic sentences, which you may lawfully call, if you please, Diogenical: and shall have me, seeing I cannot be their fellow-soldier, for their faithful butler, refreshing and cheering, according to my little power, their return from the alarms of the enemy; as also for an indefatigable extoller of their martial exploits and glorious achievements. I shall not fail therein, par lapathium acutum de dieu; if Mars fail not in Lent, which the cunning lecher, I warrant you, will be loth to do.