Part One: How Gargantua Learned His Latin
Of all the giants that ever lived, the fattest and the jolliest was good old King Grangousier. From morning till night, and around again from night till morning, there was nothing but one continual banquet at his palace. Whenever you might happen in, there were always pigs roasting, puddings steaming, spits turning, pies baking, chickens broiling, jellies hardening, cakes frying, cooks stirring, butlers pouring, and pages running to and fro with platters. There was always, in fact, such a cloud of savory odors streaming out of the palace that the people for miles around did nothing but eat the air.
In the midst of all the bustle sat King Grangousier at the head of his table, singing and laughing, and letting out his belt at the end of each course. And the best of it was that there was no one so rich and no one so poor that he was not invited to sit down too and eat and drink and laugh and sing as much as he was able. Prince and pauper, beggar and baron, all flocked together about Grangousier’s board.
“Eat, eat, my good people,” Grangousier would cry, beaming down at his small guests. “Here, boy, bring puddings, pheasants, capons,—and chitterlings for the lady. Fill up the glasses. Fall to, comrades! Eat before you’re hungry; drink before you’re thirsty,—that’s the palace rule.”
And it must be said for Grangousier that he followed his own rule very well. Every day he grew broader and rounder and bulgier; and as for his chins, some said there were nine, and some that there were ten, but anyway there was a cascade of them that fell down over the royal shirt frills.
And so, when one day the hearty old king was blessed with a son, no one was in the least surprised that the youngster was the biggest, lustiest, thirstiest baby that ever was born. His baby carriage was a great wooden cart as big as a house, drawn by a hundred oxen. And it took seven thousand, nine hundred and thirteen cows to supply him with milk.
The very moment he was born, in fact, instead of crying, “Mie, mie, mie!” like other babies, he shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Drink, drink, drink!”
When father Grangousier heard that, his joy nearly choked him so that he could just gasp out in his queer old French, “Que grand tu as!”—by which he meant, “What a big throat you have!”
And all the lords and neighbors who were feasting with him, clapped their flagons on the table and vowed that the baby could not have a better name.