Everybody knows that Giants are very queer people and require a great deal of care, even when they are the mildest, and Gargantua was such a Giant that the measures of all the Tailors of Paris at that time couldn't have told him how tall he was, and all the weights known in his day couldn't possibly have balanced his big body.
Master Ponocrates, who had no idea of making the Prince's mind strong at the expense of his body,—being too good a teacher for that,—arranged it in such a way that, every day after the Latin lesson, Gargantua was allowed, after changing his clothes, to leave his hotel with his Squire Gymnaste, who had been chosen specially to teach him the noble art of horsemanship. Once on horseback, Gargantua would first give his steed full rein; then make him leap high in air; then jump a ditch; then scale a fence; then turn quickly in one half of a circle, and back again around the other half, before one could count thirty seconds. Then calling for a lance—the keenest, the sharpest, and the strongest that could be had—he would ride full-tilt against the heaviest door or the stoutest oak, piercing the one through and through, or uprooting the other by sheer force with as much ease as a common man would tear up a sapling. As for the flourishes on horseback, no one could compete with Gargantua. The great acrobat of Ferrara was only a monkey in comparison with him. Gargantua was taught to leap from one horse to another while both were at full gallop, without touching the ground, or, with lance at rest, mounting each horse without stirrup or bridle, and guiding it as he pleased. As Ponocrates said, "all these things help to make a good soldier."
Yet this was only a trifle. Every fine day the Prince would go hunting. He would shine as brightly there as he had done in horsemanship. He would always be the first when the chasing the deer, the doe, the boar, the partridge, the pheasant, and the bustard.
Next to hunting came swimming. Gargantua, being so bulky, never would strike a stroke unless he was in deep waters. He would play such tricks in the water as only good swimmers know—swimming on his back, or sideways, or with all his body, or sometimes with his feet only. He laughed at the idea of crossing the Seine. It was his daily pastime, holding a book with one hand high above the water, to reach the other side without wetting a single page of it. One day, Gargantua, being praised for all this, was asked if he had any model. All he said was:—
"Perhaps, Julius Cæsar used to do something of the same kind."
GARGANTUA LEARNS TO SHOOT.
On coming out of the water, he would of course feel chilled through, and then to get well warmed he would run up a hill, and then rush down, taking the trees on the way, up which he would dart like a cat, leaping from one branch to the other like a squirrel, and breaking down great limbs to the right and left like Milo of old. He would next pay his attention to the houses which, with the aid of two steel poniards, he would climb, jumping down from them without ever being the worse for it. After this he would exercise with the bow, often strongest bows in drawing, shooting at targets from below upwards, from above downwards, sideways, and at last behind him, like the Parthians.
