Chapter 4.XI.—Why monks love to be in kitchens.
This, said Epistemon, is spoke like a true monk; I mean like a right monking monk, not a bemonked monastical monkling. Truly you put me in mind of some passages that happened at Florence, some twenty years ago, in a company of studious travellers, fond of visiting the learned, and seeing the antiquities of Italy, among whom I was. As we viewed the situation and beauty of Florence, the structure of the dome, the magnificence of the churches and palaces, we strove to outdo one another in giving them their due; when a certain monk of Amiens, Bernard Lardon by name, quite angry, scandalized, and out of all patience, told us, I don’t know what the devil you can find in this same town, that is so much cried up; for my part I have looked and pored and stared as well as the best of you; I think my eyesight is as clear as another body’s, and what can one see after all? There are fine houses, indeed and that’s all. But the cage does not feed the birds. God and Monsieur St. Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town. Now at Amiens, in four, nay, five times less ground than we have trod in our contemplations, I could have shown you above fourteen streets of roasting cooks, most ancient, savoury, and aromatic. I cannot imagine what kind of pleasure you can have taken in gazing on the lions and Africans (so methinks you call their tigers) near the belfry, or in ogling the porcupines and estridges in the Lord Philip Strozzi’s palace. Faith and truth I had rather see a good fat goose at the spit. This porphyry, those marbles are fine; I say nothing to the contrary; but our cheesecakes at Amiens are far better in my mind. These ancient statues are well made; I am willing to believe it; but, by St. Ferreol of Abbeville, we have young wenches in our country which please me better a thousand times.
What is the reason, asked Friar John, that monks are always to be found in kitchens, and kings, emperors, and popes are never there? Is there not, said Rhizotome, some latent virtue and specific propriety hid in the kettles and pans, which, as the loadstone attracts iron, draws the monks there, and cannot attract emperors, popes, or kings? Or is it a natural induction and inclination, fixed in the frocks and cowls, which of itself leads and forceth those good religious men into kitchens, whether they will or no? He would speak of forms following matter, as Averroes calls them, answered Epistemon. Right, said Friar John.
I will not offer to solve this problem, said Pantagruel; for it is somewhat ticklish, and you can hardly handle it without coming off scurvily; but I will tell you what I have heard.
Antigonus, King of Macedon, one day coming into one of the tents, where his cooks used to dress his meat, and finding there poet Antagoras frying a conger, and holding the pan himself, merrily asked him, Pray, Mr. Poet, was Homer frying congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon? Antagoras readily answered: But do you think, sir, that when Agamemnon did them he made it his business to know if any in his camp were frying congers? The king thought it an indecency that a poet should be thus a-frying in a kitchen; and the poet let the king know that it was a more indecent thing for a king to be found in such a place. I’ll clap another story upon the neck of this, quoth Panurge, and will tell you what Breton Villandry answered one day to the Duke of Guise.
They were saying that at a certain battle of King Francis against Charles the Fifth, Breton, armed cap-a-pie to the teeth, and mounted like St. George, yet sneaked off, and played least in sight during the engagement. Blood and oons, answered Breton, I was there, and can prove it easily; nay, even where you, my lord, dared not have been. The duke began to resent this as too rash and saucy; but Breton easily appeased him, and set them all a-laughing. Egad, my lord, quoth he, I kept out of harm’s way; I was all the while with your page Jack, skulking in a certain place where you had not dared hide your head as I did. Thus discoursing, they got to their ships, and left the island of Chely.
Chapter 4.XII.—How Pantagruel passed by the land of Pettifogging, and of the strange way of living among the Catchpoles.
Steering our course forwards the next day, we passed through Pettifogging, a country all blurred and blotted, so that I could hardly tell what to make on’t. There we saw some pettifoggers and catchpoles, rogues that will hang their father for a groat. They neither invited us to eat or drink; but, with a multiplied train of scrapes and cringes, said they were all at our service for the Legem pone.
One of our droggermen related to Pantagruel their strange way of living, diametrically opposed to that of our modern Romans; for at Rome a world of folks get an honest livelihood by poisoning, drubbing, lambasting, stabbing, and murthering; but the catchpoles earn theirs by being thrashed; so that if they were long without a tight lambasting, the poor dogs with their wives and children would be starved. This is just, quoth Panurge, like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towards the equinoctial circle unless they are soundly flogged. By St. Patrick’s slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting me right, throw me off the saddle, in the devil’s name.
The way is this, said the interpreter. When a monk, levite, close-fisted usurer, or lawyer owes a grudge to some neighbouring gentleman, he sends to him one of those catchpoles or apparitors, who nabs, or at least cites him, serves a writ or warrant upon him, thumps, abuses, and affronts him impudently by natural instinct, and according to his pious instructions; insomuch, that if the gentleman hath but any guts in his brains, and is not more stupid than a gyrin frog, he will find himself obliged either to apply a faggot-stick or his sword to the rascal’s jobbernowl, give him the gentle lash, or make him cut a caper out at the window, by way of correction. This done, Catchpole is rich for four months at least, as if bastinadoes were his real harvest; for the monk, levite, usurer, or lawyer will reward him roundly; and my gentleman must pay him such swingeing damages that his acres must bleed for it, and he be in danger of miserably rotting within a stone doublet, as if he had struck the king.
Quoth Panurge, I know an excellent remedy against this used by the Lord of Basche. What is it? said Pantagruel. The Lord of Basche, said Panurge, was a brave, honest, noble-spirited gentleman, who, at his return from the long war in which the Duke of Ferrara, with the help of the French, bravely defended himself against the fury of Pope Julius the Second, was every day cited, warned, and prosecuted at the suit and for the sport and fancy of the fat prior of St. Louant.
One morning, as he was at breakfast with some of his domestics (for he loved to be sometimes among them) he sent for one Loire, his baker, and his spouse, and for one Oudart, the vicar of his parish, who was also his butler, as the custom was then in France; then said to them before his gentlemen and other servants: You all see how I am daily plagued with these rascally catchpoles. Truly, if you do not lend me your helping hand, I am finally resolved to leave the country, and go fight for the sultan, or the devil, rather than be thus eternally teased. Therefore, to be rid of their damned visits, hereafter, when any of them come here, be ready, you baker and your wife, to make your personal appearance in my great hall, in your wedding clothes, as if you were going to be affianced. Here, take these ducats, which I give you to keep you in a fitting garb. As for you, Sir Oudart, be sure you make your personal appearance there in your fine surplice and stole, not forgetting your holy water, as if you were to wed them. Be you there also, Trudon, said he to his drummer, with your pipe and tabor. The form of matrimony must be read, and the bride kissed; then all of you, as the witnesses used to do in this country, shall give one another the remembrance of the wedding, which you know is to be a blow with your fist, bidding the party struck remember the nuptials by that token. This will but make you have the better stomach to your supper; but when you come to the catchpole’s turn, thrash him thrice and threefold, as you would a sheaf of green corn; do not spare him; maul him, drub him, lambast him, swinge him off, I pray you. Here, take these steel gauntlets, covered with kid. Head, back, belly, and sides, give him blows innumerable; he that gives him most shall be my best friend. Fear not to be called to an account about it; I will stand by you; for the blows must seem to be given in jest, as it is customary among us at all weddings.
Ay, but how shall we know the catchpole? said the man of God. All sorts of people daily resort to this castle. I have taken care of that, replied the lord. When some fellow, either on foot, or on a scurvy jade, with a large broad silver ring on his thumb, comes to the door, he is certainly a catchpole; the porter having civilly let him in, shall ring the bell; then be all ready, and come into the hall, to act the tragi-comedy whose plot I have now laid for you.
That numerical day, as chance would have it, came an old fat ruddy catchpole. Having knocked at the gate, and then pissed, as most men will do, the porter soon found him out, by his large greasy spatterdashes, his jaded hollow-flanked mare, his bagful of writs and informations dangling at his girdle, but, above all, by the large silver hoop on his left thumb.
The porter was civil to him, admitted him in kindly, and rung the bell briskly. As soon as the baker and his wife heard it, they clapped on their best clothes, and made their personal appearance in the hall, keeping their gravities like a new-made judge. The dominie put on his surplice and stole, and as he came out of his office, met the catchpole, had him in there, and made him suck his face a good while, while the gauntlets were drawing on all hands; and then told him, You are come just in pudding-time; my lord is in his right cue. We shall feast like kings anon; here is to be swingeing doings; we have a wedding in the house; here, drink and cheer up; pull away.
While these two were at it hand-to-fist, Basche, seeing all his people in the hall in their proper equipage, sends for the vicar. Oudart comes with the holy-water pot, followed by the catchpole, who, as he came into the hall, did not forget to make good store of awkward cringes, and then served Basche with a writ. Basche gave him grimace for grimace, slipped an angel into his mutton-fist, and prayed him to assist at the contract and ceremony; which he did. When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began to fly about among the assistants; but when it came to the catchpole’s turn, they all laid on him so unmercifully with their gauntlets that they at last settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one of his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, his omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces; and all this in jest, and no harm done. God wot how the levite belaboured him, hiding within the long sleeve of his canonical shirt his huge steel gauntlet lined with ermine; for he was a strong-built ball, and an old dog at fisticuffs. The catchpole, all of a bloody tiger-like stripe, with much ado crawled home to L’Isle Bouchart, well pleased and edified, however, with Basche’s kind reception; and, with the help of the good surgeons of the place, lived as long as you would have him. From that time to this, not a word of the business; the memory of it was lost with the sound of the bells that rung with joy at his funeral.
Chapter 4.XIII.—How, like Master Francis Villon, the Lord of Basche commended his servants.
The catchpole being packed off on blind Sorrel—so he called his one-eyed mare—Basche sent for his lady, her women, and all his servants, into the arbour of his garden; had wine brought, attended with good store of pasties, hams, fruit, and other table-ammunition, for a nunchion; drank with them joyfully, and then told them this story:
Master Francis Villon in his old age retired to St. Maxent in Poitou, under the patronage of a good honest abbot of the place. There to make sport for the mob, he undertook to get the Passion acted, after the way, and in the dialect of the country. The parts being distributed, the play having been rehearsed, and the stage prepared, he told the mayor and aldermen that the mystery might be ready after Niort fair, and that there only wanted properties and necessaries, but chiefly clothes fit for the parts; so the mayor and his brethren took care to get them.
Villon, to dress an old clownish father greybeard, who was to represent God the father, begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole. Tickletoby refused him, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously forbidden to give or lend anything to players. Villon replied that the statute reached no farther than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games, and that he asked no more than what he had seen allowed at Brussels and other places. Tickletoby notwithstanding peremptorily bid him provide himself elsewhere if he would, and not to hope for anything out of his monastical wardrobe. Villon gave an account of this to the players, as of a most abominable action; adding, that God would shortly revenge himself, and make an example of Tickletoby.
The Saturday following he had notice given him that Tickletoby, upon the filly of the convent—so they call a young mare that was never leaped yet —was gone a-mumping to St. Ligarius, and would be back about two in the afternoon. Knowing this, he made a cavalcade of his devils of the Passion through the town. They were all rigged with wolves’, calves’, and rams’ skins, laced and trimmed with sheep’s heads, bull’s feathers, and large kitchen tenterhooks, girt with broad leathern girdles, whereat hanged dangling huge cow-bells and horse-bells, which made a horrid din. Some held in their claws black sticks full of squibs and crackers; others had long lighted pieces of wood, upon which, at the corner of every street, they flung whole handfuls of rosin-dust, that made a terrible fire and smoke. Having thus led them about, to the great diversion of the mob and the dreadful fear of little children, he finally carried them to an entertainment at a summer-house without the gate that leads to St. Ligarius.
As they came near to the place, he espied Tickletoby afar off, coming home from mumping, and told them in macaronic verse:
Hic est de patria, natus, de gente belistra,
Qui solet antiqua bribas portare bisacco. (Motteux reads:
'Hic est mumpator natus de gente Cucowli,
Qui solet antiquo Scrappas portare bisacco.’)
A plague on his friarship, said the devils then; the lousy beggar would not lend a poor cope to the fatherly father; let us fright him. Well said, cried Villon; but let us hide ourselves till he comes by, and then charge him home briskly with your squibs and burning sticks. Tickletoby being come to the place, they all rushed on a sudden into the road to meet him, and in a frightful manner threw fire from all sides upon him and his filly foal, ringing and tingling their bells, and howling like so many real devils, Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrou, rrou, rrourrs, rrrourrs, hoo, hou, hou hho, hho, hhoi. Friar Stephen, don’t we play the devils rarely? The filly was soon scared out of her seven senses, and began to start, to funk it, to squirt it, to trot it, to fart it, to bound it, to gallop it, to kick it, to spurn it, to calcitrate it, to wince it, to frisk it, to leap it, to curvet it, with double jerks, and bum-motions; insomuch that she threw down Tickletoby, though he held fast by the tree of the pack-saddle with might and main. Now his straps and stirrups were of cord; and on the right side his sandals were so entangled and twisted that he could not for the heart’s blood of him get out his foot. Thus he was dragged about by the filly through the road, scratching his bare breech all the way; she still multiplying her kicks against him, and straying for fear over hedge and ditch, insomuch that she trepanned his thick skull so that his cockle brains were dashed out near the Osanna or high-cross. Then his arms fell to pieces, one this way and the other that way; and even so were his legs served at the same time. Then she made a bloody havoc with his puddings; and being got to the convent, brought back only his right foot and twisted sandal, leaving them to guess what was become of the rest.
Villon, seeing that things had succeeded as he intended, said to his devils, You will act rarely, gentlemen devils, you will act rarely; I dare engage you’ll top your parts. I defy the devils of Saumur, Douay, Montmorillon, Langez, St. Espain, Angers; nay, by gad, even those of Poictiers, for all their bragging and vapouring, to match you.
Thus, friends, said Basche, I foresee that hereafter you will act rarely this tragical farce, since the very first time you have so skilfully hampered, bethwacked, belammed, and bebumped the catchpole. From this day I double your wages. As for you, my dear, said he to his lady, make your gratifications as you please; you are my treasurer, you know. For my part, first and foremost, I drink to you all. Come on, box it about; it is good and cool. In the second place, you, Mr. Steward, take this silver basin; I give it you freely. Then you, my gentlemen of the horse, take these two silver-gilt cups, and let not the pages be horsewhipped these three months. My dear, let them have my best white plumes of feathers, with the gold buckles to them. Sir Oudart, this silver flagon falls to your share; this other I give to the cooks. To the valets de chambre I give this silver basket; to the grooms, this silver-gilt boat; to the porter, these two plates; to the hostlers, these ten porringers. Trudon, take you these silver spoons and this sugar-box. You, footman, take this large salt. Serve me well, and I will remember you. For, on the word of a gentleman, I had rather bear in war one hundred blows on my helmet in the service of my country than be once cited by these knavish catchpoles merely to humour this same gorbellied prior.
Chapter 4.XIV.—A further account of catchpoles who were drubbed at Basche’s house.
Four days after another young, long-shanked, raw-boned catchpole coming to serve Basche with a writ at the fat prior’s request, was no sooner at the gate but the porter smelt him out and rung the bell; at whose second pull all the family understood the mystery. Loire was kneading his dough; his wife was sifting meal; Oudart was toping in his office; the gentlemen were playing at tennis; the Lord Basche at in-and-out with my lady; the waiting-men and gentle-women at push-pin; the officers at lanterloo, and the pages at hot-cockles, giving one another smart bangs. They were all immediately informed that a catchpole was housed.
Upon this Oudart put on his sacerdotal, and Loire and his wife their nuptial badges; Trudon piped it, and then tabored it like mad; all made haste to get ready, not forgetting the gauntlets. Basche went into the outward yard; there the catchpole meeting him fell on his marrow-bones, begged of him not to take it ill if he served him with a writ at the suit of the fat prior; and in a pathetic speech let him know that he was a public person, a servant to the monking tribe, apparitor to the abbatial mitre, ready to do as much for him, nay, for the least of his servants, whensoever he would employ and use him.
Nay, truly, said the lord, you shall not serve your writ till you have tasted some of my good Quinquenays wine, and been a witness to a wedding which we are to have this very minute. Let him drink and refresh himself, added he, turning towards the levitical butler, and then bring him into the hall. After which, Catchpole, well stuffed and moistened, came with Oudart to the place where all the actors in the farce stood ready to begin. The sight of their game set them a-laughing, and the messenger of mischief grinned also for company’s sake. Then the mysterious words were muttered to and by the couple, their hands joined, the bride bussed, and all besprinkled with holy water. While they were bringing wine and kickshaws, thumps began to trot about by dozens. The catchpole gave the levite several blows. Oudart, who had his gauntlet hid under his canonical shirt, draws it on like a mitten, and then, with his clenched fist, souse he fell on the catchpole and mauled him like a devil; the junior gauntlets dropped on him likewise like so many battering rams. Remember the wedding by this, by that, by these blows, said they. In short, they stroked him so to the purpose that he pissed blood out at mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, and was bruised, thwacked, battered, bebumped, and crippled at the back, neck, breast, arms, and so forth. Never did the bachelors at Avignon in carnival time play more melodiously at raphe than was then played on the catchpole’s microcosm. At last down he fell.
They threw a great deal of wine on his snout, tied round the sleeve of his doublet a fine yellow and green favour, and got him upon his snotty beast, and God knows how he got to L’Isle Bouchart; where I cannot truly tell you whether he was dressed and looked after or no, both by his spouse and the able doctors of the country; for the thing never came to my ears.
The next day they had a third part to the same tune, because it did not appear by the lean catchpole’s bag that he had served his writ. So the fat prior sent a new catchpole, at the head of a brace of bums for his garde du corps, to summon my lord. The porter ringing the bell, the whole family was overjoyed, knowing that it was another rogue. Basche was at dinner with his lady and the gentlemen; so he sent for the catchpole, made him sit by him, and the bums by the women, and made them eat till their bellies cracked with their breeches unbuttoned. The fruit being served, the catchpole arose from table, and before the bums cited Basche. Basche kindly asked him for a copy of the warrant, which the other had got ready; he then takes witness and a copy of the summons. To the catchpole and his bums he ordered four ducats for civility money. In the meantime all were withdrawn for the farce. So Trudon gave the alarm with his tabor. Basche desired the catchpole to stay and see one of his servants married, and witness the contract of marriage, paying him his fee. The catchpole slapdash was ready, took out his inkhorn, got paper immediately, and his bums by him.
Then Loire came into the hall at one door, and his wife with the gentlewomen at another, in nuptial accoutrements. Oudart, in pontificalibus, takes them both by their hands, asketh them their will, giveth them the matrimonial blessing, and was very liberal of holy water. The contract written, signed, and registered, on one side was brought wine and comfits; on the other, white and orange-tawny-coloured favours were distributed; on another, gauntlets privately handed about.
Chapter 4.XV.—How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.
The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of Breton wine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean? You do not give one another the memento of the wedding. By St. Joseph’s wooden shoe, all good customs are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is scampered; and the nest, but the birds are flown. There are no true friends nowadays. You see how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling on account of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, is come to nothing. The world is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Now come on; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this. This he said, striking Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite. Then the tabor beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty; insomuch that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine places. One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other his upper jaw-bone or mandibule dislocated so that it hid half his chin, with a denudation of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory, and canine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were carefully hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of the company. So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpole and his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell, complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincornifistibulated his nether shoulder-blade. Nevertheless, he scorned to be thought a flincher, and made shift to tope to him on the square.
The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by signs begged his pardon; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom made his moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with his shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was grown quite esperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no small loss of mistress bride.
But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with his kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were not satisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, and morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my poor eyes, but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed are commonly beaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but drummers are well entertained and never beaten. Now let Beelzebub e’en take the drum, to make his devilship a nightcap. Brother, said the lame catchpole, never fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine, large, old patent, which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum, and for Madame St. Ann’s sake I pray thee forgive us. By Our Lady of Riviere, the blessed dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn. One of the equerries, who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limping Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the pouting jaw, and told him: What, Mr. Manhound, was it not enough thus to have morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our upper members with your botched mittens, but you must also apply such morderegripippiatabirofreluchamburelurecaquelurintimpaniments on our shinbones with the hard tops and extremities of your cobbled shoes. Do you call this children’s play? By the mass, ‘tis no jest. The bum, wringing his hands, seemed to beg his pardon, muttering with his tongue, Mon, mon, mon, vrelon, von, von, like a dumb man. The bride crying laughed, and laughing cried, because the catchpole was not satisfied with drubbing her without choice or distinction of members, but had also rudely roused and toused her, pulled off her topping, and not having the fear of her husband before his eyes, treacherously trepignemanpenillorifrizonoufresterfumbled tumbled and squeezed her lower parts. The devil go with it, said Basche; there was much need indeed that this same Master King (this was the catchpole’s name) should thus break my wife’s back; however, I forgive him now; these are little nuptial caresses. But this I plainly perceive, that he cited me like an angel, and drubbed me like a devil. He had something in him of Friar Thumpwell. Come, for all this, I must drink to him, and to you likewise, his trusty esquires. But, said his lady, why hath he been so very liberal of his manual kindness to me, without the least provocation? I assure you, I by no means like it; but this I dare say for him, that he hath the hardest knuckles that ever I felt on my shoulders. The steward held his left arm in a scarf, as if it had been rent and torn in twain. I think it was the devil, said he, that moved me to assist at these nuptials; shame on ill luck; I must needs be meddling with a pox, and now see what I have got by the bargain, both my arms are wretchedly engoulevezinemassed and bruised. Do you call this a wedding? By St. Bridget’s tooth, I had rather be at that of a Tom T—d-man. This is, o’ my word, even just such another feast as was that of the Lapithae, described by the philosopher of Samosata. One of the bums had lost his tongue. The other two, tho’ they had more need to complain, made their excuse as well as they could, protesting that they had no ill design in this dumbfounding; begging that, for goodness sake, they would forgive them; and so, tho’ they could hardly budge a foot, or wag along, away they crawled. About a mile from Basche’s seat, the catchpole found himself somewhat out of sorts. The bums got to L’Isle Bouchart, publicly saying that since they were born they had never seen an honester gentleman than the Lord of Basche, or civiller people than his, and that they had never been at the like wedding (which I verily believe); but that it was their own faults if they had been tickled off, and tossed about from post to pillar, since themselves had began the beating. So they lived I cannot exactly tell you how many days after this. But from that time to this it was held for a certain truth that Basche’s money was more pestilential, mortal, and pernicious to the catchpoles and bums than were formerly the aurum Tholosanum and the Sejan horse to those that possessed them. Ever since this he lived quietly, and Basche’s wedding grew into a common proverb.
Chapter 4.XVI.—How Friar John made trial of the nature of the catchpoles.
This story would seem pleasant enough, said Pantagruel, were we not to have always the fear of God before our eyes. It had been better, said Epistemon, if those gauntlets had fallen upon the fat prior. Since he took a pleasure in spending his money partly to vex Basche, partly to see those catchpoles banged, good lusty thumps would have done well on his shaved crown, considering the horrid concussions nowadays among those puny judges. What harm had done those poor devils the catchpoles? This puts me in mind, said Pantagruel, of an ancient Roman named L. Neratius. He was of noble blood, and for some time was rich; but had this tyrannical inclination, that whenever he went out of doors he caused his servants to fill their pockets with gold and silver, and meeting in the street your spruce gallants and better sort of beaux, without the least provocation, for his fancy, he used to strike them hard on the face with his fist; and immediately after that, to appease them and hinder them from complaining to the magistrates, he would give them as much money as satisfied them according to the law of the twelve tables. Thus he used to spend his revenue, beating people for the price of his money. By St. Bennet’s sacred boot, quoth Friar John, I will know the truth of it presently.
This said, he went on shore, put his hand in his fob, and took out twenty ducats; then said with a loud voice, in the hearing of a shoal of the nation of catchpoles, Who will earn twenty ducats for being beaten like the devil? Io, Io, Io, said they all; you will cripple us for ever, sir, that is most certain; but the money is tempting. With this they were all thronging who should be first to be thus preciously beaten. Friar John singled him out of the whole knot of these rogues in grain, a red-snouted catchpole, who upon his right thumb wore a thick broad silver hoop, wherein was set a good large toadstone. He had no sooner picked him out from the rest, but I perceived that they all muttered and grumbled; and I heard a young thin-jawed catchpole, a notable scholar, a pretty fellow at his pen, and, according to public report, much cried up for his honesty at Doctors’ Commons, making his complaint and muttering because this same crimson phiz carried away all the practice, and that if there were but a score and a half of bastinadoes to be got, he would certainly run away with eight and twenty of them. But all this was looked upon to be nothing but mere envy.
Friar John so unmercifully thrashed, thumped, and belaboured Red-snout, back and belly, sides, legs, and arms, head, feet, and so forth, with the home and frequently repeated application of one of the best members of a faggot, that I took him to be a dead man; then he gave him the twenty ducats, which made the dog get on his legs, pleased like a little king or two. The rest were saying to Friar John, Sir, sir, brother devil, if it please you to do us the favour to beat some of us for less money, we are all at your devilship’s command, bags, papers, pens, and all. Red-snout cried out against them, saying, with a loud voice, Body of me, you little prigs, will you offer to take the bread out of my mouth? will you take my bargain over my head? would you draw and inveigle from me my clients and customers? Take notice, I summon you before the official this day sevennight; I will law and claw you like any old devil of Vauverd, that I will—Then turning himself towards Friar John, with a smiling and joyful look, he said to him, Reverend father in the devil, if you have found me a good hide, and have a mind to divert yourself once more by beating your humble servant, I will bate you half in half this time rather than lose your custom; do not spare me, I beseech you; I am all, and more than all, yours, good Mr. Devil; head, lungs, tripes, guts, and garbage; and that at a pennyworth, I’ll assure you. Friar John never heeded his proffers, but even left them. The other catchpoles were making addresses to Panurge, Epistemon, Gymnast, and others, entreating them charitably to bestow upon their carcasses a small beating, for otherwise they were in danger of keeping a long fast; but none of them had a stomach to it. Some time after, seeking fresh water for the ship’s company, we met a couple of old female catchpoles of the place, miserably howling and weeping in concert. Pantagruel had kept on board, and already had caused a retreat to be sounded. Thinking that they might be related to the catchpole that was bastinadoed, we asked them the occasion of their grief. They replied that they had too much cause to weep; for that very hour, from an exalted triple tree, two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cut a caper on nothing. Cut a caper on nothing, said Gymnast; my pages use to cut capers on the ground; to cut a caper on nothing should be hanging and choking, or I am out. Ay, ay, said Friar John; you speak of it like St. John de la Palisse.
We asked them why they treated these worthy persons with such a choking hempen salad. They told us they had only borrowed, alias stolen, the tools of the mass and hid them under the handle of the parish. This is a very allegorical way of speaking, said Epistemon.
Chapter 4.XVII.—How Pantagruel came to the islands of Tohu and Bohu; and of the strange death of Wide-nostrils, the swallower of windmills.
That day Pantagruel came to the two islands of Tohu and Bohu, where the devil a bit we could find anything to fry with. For one Wide-nostrils, a huge giant, had swallowed every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-pan, dripping-pan, and brass and iron pot in the land, for want of windmills, which were his daily food. Whence it happened that somewhat before day, about the hour of his digestion, the greedy churl was taken very ill with a kind of a surfeit, or crudity of stomach, occasioned, as the physicians said, by the weakness of the concocting faculty of his stomach, naturally disposed to digest whole windmills at a gust, yet unable to consume perfectly the pans and skillets; though it had indeed pretty well digested the kettles and pots, as they said they knew by the hypostases and eneoremes of four tubs of second-hand drink which he had evacuated at two different times that morning. They made use of divers remedies, according to art, to give him ease; but all would not do; the distemper prevailed over the remedies; insomuch that the famous Wide-nostrils died that morning of so strange a death that I think you ought no longer to wonder at that of the poet Aeschylus. It had been foretold him by the soothsayers that he would die on a certain day by the ruin of something that should fall on him. The fatal day being come in its turn, he removed himself out of town, far from all houses, trees, (rocks,) or any other things that can fall and endanger by their ruin; and strayed in a large field, trusting himself to the open sky; there very secure, as he thought, unless indeed the sky should happen to fall, which he held to be impossible. Yet they say that the larks are much afraid of it; for if it should fall, they must all be taken.
The Celts that once lived near the Rhine—they are our noble valiant French—in ancient times were also afraid of the sky’s falling; for being asked by Alexander the Great what they feared most in this world, hoping well they would say that they feared none but him, considering his great achievements, they made answer that they feared nothing but the sky’s falling; however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy with so brave a king, if you believe Strabo, lib. 7, and Arrian, lib. I.
Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears on the body of the moon, speaks of one Phenaces, who very much feared the moon should fall on the earth, and pitied those that live under that planet, as the Aethiopians and Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever happened to fall on them, and would have feared the like of heaven and earth had they not been duly propped up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the ancients believed, according to Aristotle’s testimony, lib. 5, Metaphys. Notwithstanding all this, poor Aeschylus was killed by the fall of the shell of a tortoise, which falling from betwixt the claws of an eagle high in the air, just on his head, dashed out his brains.
Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another poet, I mean old jolly Anacreon, who was choked with a grape-stone. Nor at that of Fabius the Roman praetor, who was choked with a single goat’s hair as he was supping up a porringer of milk. Nor at the death of that bashful fool, who by holding in his wind, and for want of letting out a bum-gunshot, died suddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius. Nor at that of the Italian buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who in his epitaph complains that the bite of a she-puss on his little finger was the cause of his death. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small a prick with a needle on his left thumb that it could hardly be discerned. Nor of Quenelault, a Norman physician, who died suddenly at Montpellier, merely for having sideways took a worm out of his hand with a penknife. Nor of Philomenes, whose servant having got him some new figs for the first course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung ass got into the house, and seeing the figs on the table, without further invitation soberly fell to. Philomenes coming into the room and nicely observing with what gravity the ass ate its dinner, said to the man, who was come back, Since thou hast set figs here for this reverend guest of ours to eat, methinks it is but reason thou also give him some of this wine to drink. He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively pleased, and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter, that the use of his spleen took that of his breath utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor of Spurius Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled egg as he came out of a bath. Nor of him who, as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking his grinders with a sage-stalk. Nor of Phillipot Placut, who being brisk and hale, fell dead as he was paying an old debt; which causes, perhaps, many not to pay theirs, for fear of the like accident. Nor of the painter Zeuxis, who killed himself with laughing at the sight of the antique jobbernowl of an old hag drawn by him. Nor, in short, of a thousand more of which authors write, as Varrius, Pliny, Valerius, J. Baptista Fulgosus, and Bacabery the elder. In short, Gaffer Wide-nostrils choked himself with eating a huge lump of fresh butter at the mouth of a hot oven by the advice of physicians.
They likewise told us there that the King of Cullan in Bohu had routed the grandees of King Mecloth, and made sad work with the fortresses of Belima.
After this, we sailed by the islands of Nargues and Zargues; also by the islands of Teleniabin and Geleniabin, very fine and fruitful in ingredients for clysters; and then by the islands of Enig and Evig, on whose account formerly the Landgrave of Hesse was swinged off with a vengeance.