in face of the Arrian (Artitian) sophisters, where
I was ordained to pay the charges, by reason of some
clause mistaken in the relation of the sergeant.
Another time I framed a complaint to the court against
the mules of the presidents, counsellors, and others,
tending to this purpose, that, when in the lower court
of the palace they left them to champ on their bridles,
some bibs were made for them (by the counsellors’
wives), that with their drivelling they might not spoil
the pavement; to the end that the pages of the palace
what play upon it with their dice, or at the game
of coxbody, at their own ease, without spoiling their
breeches at the knees. And for this I had a
fair decree, but it cost me dear. Now reckon
up what expense I was at in little banquets which from
day to day I made to the pages of the palace.
And to what end? said I. My friend, said he, thou
hast no pastime at all in this world. I have
more than the king, and if thou wilt join thyself
with me, we will do the devil together. No,
no, said I; by St. Adauras, that will I not, for thou
wilt be hanged one time or another. And thou,
said he, wilt be interred some time or other.
Now which is most honourable, the air or the earth?
Ho, grosse pecore!
Whilst the pages are at their banqueting, I keep their
mules, and to someone I cut the stirrup-leather of
the mounting side till it hang but by a thin strap
or thread, that when the great puffguts of the counsellor
or some other hath taken his swing to get up, he may
fall flat on his side like a pork, and so furnish
the spectators with more than a hundred francs’
worth of laughter. But I laugh yet further to
think how at his home-coming the master-page is to
be whipped like green rye, which makes me not to repent
what I have bestowed in feasting them. In brief,
he had, as I said before, three score and three ways
to acquire money, but he had two hundred and fourteen
to spend it, besides his drinking.
How a great scholar of England would have argued against
Pantagruel, and was overcome by Panurge.
In that same time a certain learned man named Thaumast,
hearing the fame and renown of Pantagruel’s
incomparable knowledge, came out of his own country
of England with an intent only to see him, to try thereby
and prove whether his knowledge in effect was so great
as it was reported to be. In this resolution
being arrived at Paris, he went forthwith unto the
house of the said Pantagruel, who was lodged in the
palace of St. Denis, and was then walking in the garden
thereof with Panurge, philosophizing after the fashion
of the Peripatetics. At his first entrance he
startled, and was almost out of his wits for fear,
seeing him so great and so tall. Then did he
salute him courteously as the manner is, and said unto
him, Very true it is, saith Plato the prince of philosophers,
that if the image and knowledge of wisdom were corporeal
