The works of Rabelais / faithfully translated from the French with variorum notes and numerous illustrations by Gustave Doré.

  • François Rabelais
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Rabelais / faithfully translated from the French with variorum notes and numerous illustrations by Gustave Doré. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    44/780 page 8
    From the Macedonians to the Romans; From tlie Romans to the Greeks; From the Greeks to the Franks. And to give you some hints concerning myself, who speak unto you : I cannot think but I am come of the race of some rich king or prince in former times; for never yet saw you any man that had a greater desire to be a king, and to be rich, than 1 have ; and to the end only, that I may make good cheer, do nothing, nor care for anything, and plentifully enrich my friends, and all honest and learned men : but herein do I comfort myself, that in the othei world I shall be all this : yea, and greater too than at this present I dare wish : As for you, with the same or a better conceit, enjoy yourselves in your distresses, and drink fresh if you can come by it. But to our matter again ;* I say, that by the especial care of Heaven, the antiquity and genealogy of Gargantua hath been reserved for our use, more full and perfect than any other except that of the Messias, whereof I mean not to speak; for it belongs not unto my province ; and the devils (that is to say) the fa/se accusers, and hypocritical church vermin, would be upon my jacket. This genealogy was found by John Andeau in a meadow, which he had near the pole-arch, under the Olive tree, as you go to Narsoy. Where, as they were casting up some ditches, the diggers, with their mattocks, struck against a great brazen tomb, immeasurably long, for they could never find the end thereof, by reason that it entered too far within the sluices of Vienne. Opening this tomb, in a certain place thereof, sealed on the top with the mark of a goblet, about which was written in Hetrurian Letters HW BIBITUR, they found nine flaggons set in such order as they use to rank their skittles in Gascony ; of which that which was placed in the middle, had under it a big, greasy, great, grey, jolly, small, mouldy little pamphlet, smelling stronger, but no better than roses. In that book, the said genealogy was found written all at length, in a Chancery hand, not in paper, not in parchment, nor in wax, but in the bark of an elm tree ; yet so worn with the long tract of time, that hardly could three letters together be there perfectly discerned. I, though unworthy, was sent for thither, and with much help of those spectacles, whereby the art of reading dim writings, and letters that do not clearly appear to the sight, is practised, as Aristotle teaches it; did translate the book, as you may see in your Pantagruclising, that is to say, in drinking stiffly to your own heart's desire ; and reading the dreadful and horrific acts * But to our matter again.] It is in the French, a noz Moulons : strictly to our mutton again; a proverb taken from the old French play of Patelin, where a woollen draper is brought in, who, pleading against his shepherd, concerning some sheep the shepherd had stole from him, would ever and anou digress from the point, to speak of a pier e of cloth which his antagonist's attorney had likewise robbed him of, which made the judge call out to the draper, and bid him return to his muttons.
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