Cheer up, cried out Pantagruel; cheer up, my boys; let us be ourselves again. Do you see yonder, close by our ship, two barks, three sloops, five ships, eight pinks, four yawls, and six frigates making towards us, sent by the good people of the neighbouring island to our relief? But who is this Ucalegon below, that cries and makes such a sad moan? Were it not that I hold the mast firmly with both my hands, and keep it straighter than two hundred tacklings — I would — It is, said Friar John, that poor devil Panurge, who is troubled with a calf’s ague; he quakes for fear when his belly’s full. If, said Pantagruel, he hath been afraid during this dreadful hurricane and dangerous storm, provided (waiving that) he hath done his part like a man, I do not value him a jot the less for it. For as to fear in all encounters is the mark of a heavy and cowardly heart, as Agamemnon did, who for that reason is ignominiously taxed by Achilles with having dog’s eyes and a stag’s heart; so, not to fear when the case is evidently dreadful is a sign of want or smallness of judgment. Now, if anything ought to be feared in this life, next to offending God, I will not say it is death. I will not meddle with the disputes of Socrates and the academics, that death of itself is neither bad nor to be feared, but I will affirm that this kind of shipwreck is to be feared, or nothing is. For, as Homer saith, it is a grievous, dreadful, and unnatural thing to perish at sea. And indeed Aeneas, in the storm that took his fleet near Sicily, was grieved that he had not died by the hand of the brave Diomedes, and said that those were three, nay four times happy, who perished in the conflagration at Troy. No man here hath lost his life, the Lord our Saviour be eternally praised for it! but in truth here is a ship sadly out of order. Well, we must take care to have the damage repaired. Take heed we do not run aground and bulge her.
Chapter 23
How Panurge played the good fellow when the storm was over.
What cheer, ho, fore and aft? quoth Panurge. Oh ho! all is well, the storm is over. I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is sent on shore; for I would by all means a little untruss a point. Shall I help you still? Here, let me see, I will coil this rope; I have plenty of courage, and of fear as little as may be. Give it me yonder, honest tar. No, no, I have not a bit of fear. Indeed, that same decumane wave that took us fore and aft somewhat altered my pulse. Down with your sails; well said. How now, Friar John? you do nothing. Is it time for us to drink now? Who can tell but St. Martin’s running footman Belzebuth may still be hatching us some further mischief? Shall I come and help you again? Pork and peas choke me, if I do heartily repent, though too late, not having followed the doctrine of the good philosopher who tells us that to walk by the sea and to navigate by the shore are very safe and pleasant things; just as ’tis to go on foot when we hold our horse by the bridle. Ha! ha! ha! by G — all goes well. Shall I help you here too? Let me see, I will do this as it should be, or the devil’s in’t.
Epistemon, who had the inside of one of his hands all flayed and bloody, having held a tackling with might and main, hearing what Pantagruel had said, told him: You may believe, my lord, I had my share of fear as well as Panurge; yet I spared no pains in lending my helping hand. I considered that, since by fatal and unavoidable necessity we must all die, it is the blessed will of God that we die this or that hour, and this or that kind of death. Nevertheless, we ought to implore, invoke, pray, beseech, and supplicate him; but we must not stop there; it behoveth us also to use our endeavours on our side, and, as the holy writ saith, to co-operate with him.
You know what C. Flaminius, the consul, said when by Hannibal’s policy he was penned up near the lake of Peruse, alias Thrasymene. Friends, said he to his soldiers, you must not hope to get out of this place barely by vows or prayers to the gods; no, ’tis by fortitude and strength we must escape and cut ourselves a way with the edge of our swords through the midst of our enemies.
Sallust likewise makes M. Portius Cato say this: The help of the gods is not obtained by idle vows and womanish complaints; ’tis by vigilance, labour, and repeated endeavours that all things succeed according to our wishes and designs. If a man in time of need and danger is negligent, heartless, and lazy, in vain he implores the gods; they are then justly angry and incensed against him. The devil take me, said Friar John — I’ll go his halves, quoth Panurge — if the close of Seville had not been all gathered, vintaged, gleaned, and destroyed, if I had only sung contra hostium insidias (matter of breviary) like all the rest of the monking devils, and had not bestirred myself to save the vineyard as I did, despatching the truant picaroons of Lerne with the staff of the cross.
Let her sink or swim a God’s name, said Panurge, all’s one to Friar John; he doth nothing; his name is Friar John Do-little; for all he sees me here a-sweating and puffing to help with all my might this honest tar, first of the name. — Hark you me, dear soul, a word with you; but pray be not angry. How thick do you judge the planks of our ship to be? Some two good inches and upwards, returned the pilot; don’t fear. Ods-kilderkins, said Panurge, it seems then we are within two fingers’ breadth of damnation.
Is this one of the nine comforts of matrimony? Ah, dear soul, you do well to measure the danger by the yard of fear. For my part, I have none on’t; my name is William Dreadnought. As for heart, I have more than enough on’t. I mean none of your sheep’s heart; but of wolf’s heart — the courage of a bravo. By the pavilion of Mars, I fear nothing but danger.
Chapter 24
How Panurge was said to have been afraid without reason during the storm.
Good morrow, gentlemen, said Panurge; good morrow to you all; you are in very good health, thanks to heaven and yourselves; you are all heartily welcome, and in good time. Let us go on shore. — Here, coxswain, get the ladder over the gunnel; man the sides; man the pinnace, and get her by the ship’s side. Shall I lend you a hand here? I am stark mad for want of business, and would work like any two yokes of oxen. Truly this is a fine place, and these look like a very good people. Children, do you want me still in anything? do not spare the sweat of my body, for God’s sake. Adam — that is, man — was made to labour and work, as the birds were made to fly. Our Lord’s will is that we get our bread with the sweat of our brows, not idling and doing nothing, like this tatterdemalion of a monk here, this Friar Jack, who is fain to drink to hearten himself up, and dies for fear.--Rare weather. — I now find the answer of Anacharsis, the noble philosopher, very proper. Being asked what ship he reckoned the safest, he replied: That which is in the harbour. He made a yet better repartee, said Pantagruel, when somebody inquiring which is greater, the number of the living or that of the dead, he asked them amongst which of the two they reckoned those that are at sea, ingeniously implying that they are continually in danger of death, dying alive, and living die. Portius Cato also said that there were but three things of which he would repent: if ever he had trusted his wife with his secret, if he had idled away a day, and if he had ever gone by sea to a place which he could visit by land. By this dignified frock of mine, said Friar John to Panurge, friend, thou hast been afraid during the storm without cause or reason; for thou wert not born to be drowned, but rather to be hanged and exalted in the air, or to be roasted in the midst of a jolly bonfire. My lord, would you have a good cloak for the rain; leave me off your wolf and badger-skin mantle; let Panurge but be flayed, and cover yourself with his hide. But do not come near the fire, nor near your blacksmith’s forges, a God’s name; for in a moment you will see it in ashes. Yet be as long as you please in the rain, snow, hail, nay, by the devil’s maker, throw yourself or dive down to the very bottom of the water, I’ll engage you’ll not be wet at all. Have some winter boots made of it, they’ll never take in a drop of water; make bladders of it to lay under boys to teach them to swim, instead of corks, and they will learn without the least danger. His skin, then, said Pantagruel, should be like the herb called true maiden’s hair, which never takes wet nor moistness, but still keeps dry, though you lay it at the bottom of the water as long as you please; and for that reason is called Adiantos.