is not to be uxorious, play the coward, and be lazy about her, and not for her sake to distain the lustre of that affection which man owes to God, or yet for her to leave those offices and duties which he owes unto his country, unto his friends and kindred, or for her to abandon and forsake his precious studies, and other businesses of account, to wait still on her will, her beck, and her buttocks.  If we be pleased in this sense to take having and not having of a wife, we shall indeed find no repugnancy nor contradiction in the terms at all.

Chapter 3.XXXVI.

A continuation of the answer of the Ephectic and Pyrrhonian philosopher Trouillogan.

You speak wisely, quoth Panurge, if the moon were green cheese.  Such a tale once pissed my goose.  I do not think but that I am let down into that dark pit in the lowermost bottom whereof the truth was hid, according to the saying of Heraclitus.  I see no whit at all, I hear nothing, understand as little, my senses are altogether dulled and blunted; truly I do very shrewdly suspect that I am enchanted.  I will now alter the former style of my discourse, and talk to him in another strain.  Our trusty friend, stir not, nor imburse any; but let us vary the chance, and speak without disjunctives.  I see already that these loose and ill-joined members of an enunciation do vex, trouble, and perplex you.

  Now go on, in the name of God!  Should I marry?

  Trouillogan.  There is some likelihood therein.

  Panurge.  But if I do not marry?

  Trouil.  I see in that no inconvenience.

  Pan.  You do not?

  Trouil.  None, truly, if my eyes deceive me not.

  Pan.  Yea, but I find more than five hundred.

  Trouil.  Reckon them.

Pan.  This is an impropriety of speech, I confess; for I do no more thereby but take a certain for an uncertain number, and posit the determinate term for what is indeterminate.  When I say, therefore, five hundred, my meaning is many.

  Trouil.  I hear you.

Pan.  Is it possible for me to live without a wife, in the name of all the subterranean devils?

  Trouil.  Away with these filthy beasts.

Pan.  Let it be, then, in the name of God; for my Salmigondinish people use to say, To lie alone, without a wife, is certainly a brutish life.  And such a life also was it assevered to be by Dido in her lamentations.

  Trouil.  At your command.

Pan.  By the pody cody, I have fished fair; where are we now?  But will you tell me?  Shall I marry?

  Trouil.  Perhaps.

  Pan.  Shall I thrive or speed well withal?

  Trouil.  According to the encounter.

Pan.  But if in my adventure I encounter aright, as I hope I will, shall I be fortunate?

  Trouil.  Enough.

Pan.  Let us turn the clean contrary way, and brush our former words against the wool:  what if I encounter ill?