Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize and vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shrugging of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used then most punctually. For the common voice of the philosophers, together with the opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth that vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without the concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the said presaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspired declareth and manifesteth it unto others. The learned lawyer Julian, being asked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful and in a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, and enraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without a noddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging at the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent enough. Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and instructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do a pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication, stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the sage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strange and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly by disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of a wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All which Virgil acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo Cynthius.
Chapter 46
How Pantagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in your old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his codpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk. Upon mine honour, it gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk. Nay, I will engage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in my possession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe, Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the horned brotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute to the wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles and responses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, without descending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitch upon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess who is to be the copesmate of your wife and hornifier of your proper self. Thus noble Triboulet tells it us plainly, from whose words we may gather with all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much the more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously contaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he says that you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned, hornified, and cornuted. And, as Triboulet’s uncle asked from Louis the Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet, and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud, obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder, and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the back. This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, and fillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, as you stole the hog’s bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton.
Flat contrary, quoth Panurge; — not that I would impudently exempt myself from being a vassal in the territory of folly. I hold of that jurisdiction, and am subject thereto, I confess it. And why should I not? For the whole world is foolish. In the old Lorraine language, fou for tou, all and fool, were the same thing. Besides, it is avouched by Solomon that infinite is the number of fools. From an infinity nothing can be deducted or abated, nor yet, by the testimony of Aristotle, can anything thereto be added or subjoined. Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I should not hold myself a fool. After the same manner of speaking, we may aver the number of the mad and enraged folks to be infinite. Avicenna maketh no bones to assert that the several kinds of madness are infinite. Though this much of Triboulet’s words tend little to my advantage, howbeit the prejudice which I sustain thereby be common with me to all other men, yet the rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me. He said to my wife, Be wary of the monkey; that is as much as if she should be cheery, and take as much delight in a monkey as ever did the Lesbia of Catullus in her sparrow; who will for his recreation pass his time no less joyfully at the exercise of snatching flies than heretofore did the merciless fly-catcher Domitian. Withal he meant, by another part of his discourse, that she should be of a jovial country-like humour, as gay and pleasing as a harmonious hornpipe of Saulieau or Buzansay. The veridical Triboulet did therein hint at what I liked well, as perfectly knowing the inclinations and propensions of my mind, my natural disposition, and the bias of my interior passions and affections. For you may be assured that my humour is much better satisfied and contented with the pretty, frolic, rural, dishevelled shepherdesses, whose bums through their coarse canvas smocks smell of the clover grass of the field, than with those great ladies in magnific courts, with their flandan top-knots and sultanas, their polvil, pastillos, and cosmetics. The homely sound, likewise, of a rustical hornpipe is more agreeable to my ears than the curious warbling and musical quavering of lutes, theorbos, viols, rebecs, and violins. He gave me a lusty rapping thwack on my back — what then? Let it pass, in the name and for the love of God, as an abatement of and deduction from so much of my future pains in purgatory. He did it not out of any evil intent. He thought, belike, to have hit some of the pages. He is an honest fool, and an innocent changeling. It is a sin to harbour in the heart any bad conceit of him. As for myself, I heartily pardon him. He flirted me on the nose. In that there is no harm; for it importeth nothing else but that betwixt my wife and me there will occur some toyish wanton tricks which usually happen to all new-married folks.
Chapter 47
How Pantagruel and Panurge resolved to make a visit to the oracle of the holy bottle.
There is as yet another point, quoth Panurge, which you have not at all considered on, although it be the chief and principal head of the matter. He put the bottle in my hand and restored it me again. How interpret you that passage? What is the meaning of that? He possibly, quoth Pantagruel, signifieth thereby that your wife will be such a drunkard as shall daily take in her liquor kindly, and ply the pots and bottles apace. Quite otherwise, quoth Panurge; for the bottle was empty. I swear to you, by the prickling brambly thorn of St. Fiacre in Brie, that our unique morosoph, whom I formerly termed the lunatic Triboulet, referreth me, for attaining to the final resolution of my scruple, to the response-giving bottle. Therefore do I renew afresh the first vow which I made, and here in your presence protest and make oath, by Styx and Acheron, to carry still spectacles in my cap, and never to wear a codpiece in my breeches, until upon the enterprise in hand of my nuptial undertaking I shall have obtained an answer from the holy bottle. I am acquainted with a prudent, understanding, and discreet gentleman, and besides a very good friend of mine, who knoweth the land, country, and place where its temple and oracle is built and posited. He will guide and conduct us thither sure and safely. Let us go thither, I beseech you. Deny me not, and say not nay; reject not the suit I make unto you, I entreat you. I will be to you an Achates, a Damis, and heartily accompany you all along in the whole voyage, both in your going forth and coming back. I have of a long time known you to be a great lover of peregrination, desirous still to learn new things, and still to see what you had never seen before.