in the melody of the rickling crackling noise of the
peas. After which time it lay not in the power
of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate
sound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge
went about to interrogate him further, Triboulet drew
his wooden sword, and would have stuck him therewith.
I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought
my pigs to a fine market. Have I not got a brave
determination of all my doubts, and a response in
all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it?
He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is
he a greater fool who brought him hither to me,—That
bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at me,—but
of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart
the secret of my thoughts to such an idiot ass and
native ninny.
Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in
the least, quoth Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously
consider and perpend the gestures and speech which
he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably,
quoth he, have I remarked and observed some excellent
and notable mysteries; yea, of such important worth
and weight, that I shall never henceforth be astonished,
nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal
of worship and reverence honour and respect natural
fools equally with their primest doctors, muftis,
divines, and prophets. Did not you take heed,
quoth he, a little before he opened his mouth to speak,
what a shogging, shaking, and wagging his head did
keep? By the approved doctrine of the ancient
philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most
expert magicians, and the received opinions of the
learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitation and
moving should by us all be judged to proceed from,
and be quickened and suscitated by the coming and
inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical spirit,
which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow
receptacle of a debile substance (for, as you know,
and as the proverb shows it, a little head containeth
not much brains), was the cause of that commotion.
This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful
physicians, when they affirm that shakings and tremblings
fall upon the members of a human body, partly because
of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden
and load that is carried, and, other part, by reason
of the weakness and imbecility that is in the virtue
of the bearing organ. A manifest example whereof
appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry
to their head a great goblet full of wine without
a trembling and a shaking in the hand that holds it.
This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mystical
pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always,
before the uttering of a response from the oracle,
to shake a branch of her domestic laurel. Lampridius
also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to
acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer,
did, on several holy days of prime solemnnity, in
the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the head
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