Gargantua and Pantagruel Read Online
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MASTER FRANCIS RABELAIS
FIVE BOOKS OF THE LIVES,
HEROIC DEEDS AND SAYINGS OF
GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL
BOOK I.
He Did Cry Like a Cow--frontispiece
Titlepage
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.
Rabelais Dissecting Society--portrait2
CONTENTS.
Chapter 1.I.—Of the Genealogy and Antiquity of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.III.—How Gargantua was carried eleven months in his mother's belly.
Chapter 1.IV.—-How Gargamelle, being great with Gargantua, did eat a huge deal of tripes.
Chapter 1.V.—The Discourse of the Drinkers.
Chapter 1.VI.—How Gargantua was born in a strange manner.
Chapter 1.VIII.—How they apparelled Gargantua.
Chapter 1.IX.—The colours and liveries of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.X.—Of that which is signified by the colours white and blue.
Chapter 1.XI.—Of the youthful age of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.XII.—Of Gargantua's wooden horses.
Chapter 1.XIV.—How Gargantua was taught Latin by a Sophister.
Chapter 1.XV.—How Gargantua was put under other schoolmasters.
Chapter 1.XVIII.—How Janotus de Bragmardo was sent to Gargantua to recover the great bells.
Chapter 1.XIX.—The oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo for recovery of the bells.
Chapter 1.XXII.—The games of Gargantua.
Chapter 1.XXIV.—How Gargantua spent his time in rainy weather.
Chapter 1.XXIX.—The tenour of the letter which Grangousier wrote to his son Gargantua.
Chapter 1.XXX.—How Ulric Gallet was sent unto Picrochole.
Chapter 1.XXXI.—The speech made by Gallet to Picrochole.
Chapter 1.XXXII.—How Grangousier, to buy peace, caused the cakes to be restored.
Chapter 1.XXXVIII.—How Gargantua did eat up six pilgrims in a salad.
Chapter 1.XLI.—How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
Chapter 1.XLII.—How the Monk encouraged his fellow-champions, and how he hanged upon a tree.
Chapter 1.XLVI.—How Grangousier did very kindly entertain Touchfaucet his prisoner.
Chapter 1.L.—Gargantua's speech to the vanquished.
Chapter 1.LI.—How the victorious Gargantuists were recompensed after the battle.
Chapter 1.LII.—How Gargantua caused to be built for the Monk the Abbey of Theleme.
Chapter 1.LIII.—How the abbey of the Thelemites was built and endowed.
Chapter 1.LIV.—The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme.
Chapter 1.LV.—What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had.
Chapter 1.LVI.—How the men and women of the religious order of Theleme were apparelled.
Chapter 1.LVII.—How the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living.
Chapter 1.LVIII.—A prophetical Riddle.
List of Illustrations
Francois Rabelais--portrait
Introduction.
Had Rabelais never written his strange and marvellous romance, no one would ever have imagined the possibility of its production. It stands outside other things—a mixture of mad mirth and gravity, of folly and reason, of childishness and grandeur, of the commonplace and the out-of-the-way, of popular verve and polished humanism, of mother-wit and learning, of baseness and nobility, of personalities and broad generalization, of the comic and the serious, of the impossible and the familiar. Throughout the whole there is such a force of life and thought, such a power of good sense, a kind of assurance so authoritative, that he takes rank with the greatest; and his peers are not many. You may like him or not, may attack him or sing his praises, but you cannot ignore him. He is of those that die hard. Be as fastidious as you will; make up your mind to recognize only those who are, without any manner of doubt, beyond and above all others; however few the names you keep, Rabelais' will always remain.
We may know his work, may know it well, and admire it more every time we read it. After being amused by it, after having enjoyed it, we may return again to study it and to enter more fully into its meaning. Yet there is no possibility of knowing his own life in the same fashion. In spite of all the efforts, often successful, that have been made to throw light on it, to bring forward a fresh document, or some obscure mention in a forgotten book, to add some little fact, to fix a date more precisely, it remains nevertheless full of uncertainty and of gaps. Besides, it has been burdened and sullied by all kinds of wearisome stories and foolish anecdotes, so that really there is more to weed out than to add.
This injustice, at first wilful, had its rise in the sixteenth century, in the furious attacks of a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, who seems to have drawn his conclusions concerning the author from the book, and, more especially, in the regrettable satirical epitaph of Ronsard, piqued, it is said, that the Guises had given him only a little pavillon in the Forest of Meudon, whereas the presbytery was close to the chateau. From that time legend has fastened on Rabelais, has completely travestied him, till, bit by bit, it has made of him a buffoon, a veritable clown, a vagrant, a glutton, and a drunkard.
The likeness of his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He has been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an incorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always laughing. The picture would have surprised his friends no less than himself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen many such. They are all of the seventeenth century, and the greater number are conceived in this jovial and popular style.
As a matter of fact there is only one portrait of him that counts, that has more than the merest chance of being authentic, the one in the Chronologie collee or coupee. Under this double name is known and cited a large sheet divided by lines and cross lines into little squares, containing about a hundred heads of illustrious Frenchmen. This sheet was stuck on pasteboard for hanging on the wall, and was cut in little pieces, so that the portraits might be sold separately. The majority of the portraits are of known persons and can therefore be verified. Now it can be seen that these have been selected with care, and taken from the most authentic sources; from statues, busts, medals, even stained glass, for the persons of most distinction, from earlier engravings for the others. Moreover, those of which no other copies exist, and which are therefore the most valuable, have each an individuality very distinct, in the features, the hair, the beard, as well as in the costume. Not one of them is like another.
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