The other cause of my being averse from consulting with dumb women is, that to our signs they would make no answer at all, but suddenly fall backwards in a divarication posture, to intimate thereby unto us the reality of their consent to the supposed motion of our tacit demands. Or if they should chance to make any countersigns responsory to our propositions, they would prove so foolish, impertinent, and ridiculous, that by them ourselves should easily judge their thoughts to have no excursion beyond the duffling academy. You know very well how at Brignoles, when the religious nun, Sister Fatbum, was made big with child by the young Stiffly-stand-to’t, her pregnancy came to be known, and she cited by the abbess, and, in a full convention of the convent, accused of incest. Her excuse was that she did not consent thereto, but that it was done by the violence and impetuous force of the Friar Stiffly-stand-to’t. Hereto the abbess very austerely replying, Thou naughty wicked girl, why didst thou not cry, A rape, a rape! then should all of us have run to thy succour. Her answer was that the rape was committed in the dortour, where she durst not cry because it was a place of sempiternal silence. But, quoth the abbess, thou roguish wench, why didst not thou then make some sign to those that were in the next chamber beside thee? To this she answered that with her buttocks she made a sign unto them as vigorously as she could, yet never one of them did so much as offer to come to her help and assistance. But, quoth the abbess, thou scurvy baggage, why didst thou not tell it me immediately after the perpetration of the fact, that so we might orderly, regularly, and canonically have accused him? I would have done so, had the case been mine, for the clearer manifestation of mine innocency. I truly, madam, would have done the like with all my heart and soul, quoth Sister Fatbum, but that fearing I should remain in sin, and in the hazard of eternal damnation, if prevented by a sudden death, I did confess myself to the father friar before he went out of the room, who, for my penance, enjoined me not to tell it, or reveal the matter unto any. It were a most enormous and horrid offence, detestable before God and the angels, to reveal a confession. Such an abominable wickedness would have possibly brought down fire from heaven, wherewith to have burnt the whole nunnery, and sent us all headlong to the bottomless pit, to bear company with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
You will not, quoth Pantagruel, with all your jesting, make me laugh. I know that all the monks, friars, and nuns had rather violate and infringe the highest of the commandments of God than break the least of their provincial statutes. Take you therefore Goatsnose, a man very fit for your present purpose; for he is, and hath been, both dumb and deaf from the very remotest infancy of his childhood.
Chapter 20
How Goatsnose by signs maketh answer to Panurge.
Goatsnose being sent for, came the day thereafter to Pantagruel’s court; at his arrival to which Panurge gave him a fat calf, the half of a hog, two puncheons of wine, one load of corn, and thirty francs of small money; then, having brought him before Pantagruel, in presence of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber he made this sign unto him. He yawned a long time, and in yawning made without his mouth with the thumb of his right hand the figure of the Greek letter Tau by frequent reiterations. Afterwards he lifted up his eyes to heavenwards, then turned them in his head like a she-goat in the painful fit of an absolute birth, in doing whereof he did cough and sigh exceeding heavily. This done, after that he had made demonstration of the want of his codpiece, he from under his shirt took his placket-racket in a full grip, making it therewithal clack very melodiously betwixt his thighs; then, no sooner had he with his body stooped a little forwards, and bowed his left knee, but that immediately thereupon holding both his arms on his breast, in a loose faint-like posture, the one over the other, he paused awhile. Goatsnose looked wistly upon him, and having heedfully enough viewed him all over, he lifted up into the air his left hand, the whole fingers whereof he retained fistwise close together, except the thumb and the forefinger, whose nails he softly joined and coupled to one another. I understand, quoth Pantagruel, what he meaneth by that sign. It denotes marriage, and withal the number thirty, according to the profession of the Pythagoreans. You will be married. Thanks to you, quoth Panurge, in turning himself towards Goatsnose, my little sewer, pretty master’s mate, dainty bailie, curious sergeant-marshal, and jolly catchpole-leader. Then did he lift higher up than before his said left hand, stretching out all the five fingers thereof, and severing them as wide from one another as he possibly could get done. Here, says Pantagruel, doth he more amply and fully insinuate unto us, by the token which he showeth forth of the quinary number, that you shall be married. Yea, that you shall not only be affianced, betrothed, wedded, and married, but that you shall furthermore cohabit and live jollily and merrily with your wife; for Pythagoras called five the nuptial number, which, together with marriage, signifieth the consummation of matrimony, because it is composed of a ternary, the first of the odd, and binary, the first of the even numbers, as of a male and female knit and united together. In very deed it was the fashion of old in the city of Rome at marriage festivals to light five wax tapers; nor was it permitted to kindle any more at the magnific nuptials of the most potent and wealthy, nor yet any fewer at the penurious weddings of the poorest and most abject of the world. Moreover, in times past, the heathen or paynims implored the assistance of five deities, or of one helpful, at least, in five several good offices to those that were to be married. Of this sort were the nuptial Jove, Juno, president of the feast, the fair Venus, Pitho, the goddess of eloquence and persuasion, and Diana, whose aid and succour was required to the labour of child-bearing. Then shouted Panurge, O the gentle Goatsnose, I will give him a farm near Cinais, and a windmill hard by Mirebalais! Hereupon the dumb fellow sneezeth with an impetuous vehemency and huge concussion of the spirits of the whole body, withdrawing himself in so doing with a jerking turn towards the left hand. By the body of a fox new slain, quoth Pantagruel, what is that? This maketh nothing for your advantage; for he betokeneth thereby that your marriage will be inauspicious and unfortunate. This sneezing, according to the doctrine of Terpsion, is the Socratic demon. If done towards the right side, it imports and portendeth that boldly and with all assurance one may go whither he will and do what he listeth, according to what deliberation he shall be pleased to have thereupon taken; his entries in the beginning, progress in his proceedings, and success in the events and issues will be all lucky, good, and happy. The quite contrary thereto is thereby implied and presaged if it be done towards the left. You, quoth Panurge, do take always the matter at the worst, and continually, like another Davus, casteth in new disturbances and obstructions; nor ever yet did I know this old paltry Terpsion worthy of citation but in points only of cosenage and imposture. Nevertheless, quoth Pantagruel, Cicero hath written I know not what to the same purpose in his Second Book of Divination.