Don’t you know that formerly the Amycleans worshipped the noble Bacchus above all other gods, and gave him the name of Psila, which in the Doric dialect signifies wings; for, as the birds raise themselves by a towering flight with their wings above the clouds, so, with the help of soaring Bacchus, the powerful juice of the grape, our spirits are exalted to a pitch above themselves, our bodies are more sprightly, and their earthly parts become soft and pliant.
Chapter 66
How, by Pantagruel’s order, the Muses were saluted near the isle of Ganabim.
This fair wind and as fine talk brought us in sight of a high land, which Pantagruel discovering afar off, showed it Xenomanes, and asked him, Do you see yonder to the leeward a high rock with two tops, much like Mount Parnassus in Phocis? I do plainly, answered Xenomanes; ’tis the isle of Ganabim. Have you a mind to go ashore there? No, returned Pantagruel. You do well, indeed, said Xenomanes; for there is nothing worth seeing in the place. The people are all thieves; yet there is the finest fountain in the world, and a very large forest towards the right top of the mountain. Your fleet may take in wood and water there.
He that spoke last, spoke well, quoth Panurge; let us not by any means be so mad as to go among a parcel of thieves and sharpers. You may take my word for’t, this place is just such another as, to my knowledge, formerly were the islands of Sark and Herm, between the smaller and the greater Britain; such as was the Poneropolis of Philip in Thrace; islands of thieves, banditti, picaroons, robbers, ruffians, and murderers, worse than raw-head and bloody-bones, and full as honest as the senior fellows of the college of iniquity, the very outcasts of the county gaol’s common-side. As you love yourself, do not go among ‘em. If you go you’ll come off but bluely, if you come off at all. If you will not believe me, at least believe what the good and wise Xenomanes tells you; for may I never stir if they are not worse than the very cannibals; they would certainly eat us alive. Do not go among ‘em, I pray you; it were safer to take a journey to hell. Hark! by Cod’s body, I hear ‘em ringing the alarm-bell most dreadfully, as the Gascons about Bordeaux used formerly to do against the commissaries and officers for the tax on salt, or my ears tingle. Let’s sheer off.
Believe me, sir, said Friar John, let’s rather land; we will rid the world of that vermin, and inn there for nothing. Old Nick go with thee for me, quoth Panurge. This rash hairbrained devil of a friar fears nothing, but ventures and runs on like a mad devil as he is, and cares not a rush what becomes of others; as if everyone was a monk, like his friarship. A pox on grinning honour, say I. Go to, returned the friar, thou mangy noddy-peak! thou forlorn druggle-headed sneaksby! and may a million of black devils anatomize thy cockle brain. The hen-hearted rascal is so cowardly that he berays himself for fear every day. If thou art so afraid, dunghill, do not go; stay here and be hanged; or go and hide thy loggerhead under Madam Proserpine’s petticoat.
Panurge hearing this, his breech began to make buttons; so he slunk in in an instant, and went to hide his head down in the bread-room among the musty biscuits and the orts and scraps of broken bread.
Pantagruel in the meantime said to the rest: I feel a pressing retraction in my soul, which like a voice admonishes me not to land there. Whenever I have felt such a motion within me I have found myself happy in avoiding what it directed me to shun, or in undertaking what it prompted me to do; and I never had occasion to repent following its dictates.
As much, said Epistemon, is related of the daemon of Socrates, so celebrated among the Academics. Well then, sir, said Friar John, while the ship’s crew water have you a mind to have good sport? Panurge is got down somewhere in the hold, where he is crept into some corner, and lurks like a mouse in a cranny. Let ‘em give the word for the gunner to fire yon gun over the round-house on the poop; this will serve to salute the Muses of this Anti-parnassus; besides, the powder does but decay in it. You are in the right, said Pantagruel; here, give the word for the gunner.
The gunner immediately came, and was ordered by Pantagruel to fire that gun, and then charge it with fresh powder, which was soon done. The gunners of the other ships, frigates, galleons, and galleys of the fleet, hearing us fire, gave every one a gun to the island; which made such a horrid noise that you would have sworn heaven had been tumbling about out ears.
Chapter 67
How Panurge berayed himself for fear; and of the huge cat Rodilardus, which he took for a puny devil.
Panurge, like a wild, addle-pated, giddy-goat, sallies out of the bread-room in his shirt, with nothing else about him but one of his stockings, half on, half off, about his heel, like a rough-footed pigeon; his hair and beard all bepowdered with crumbs of bread in which he had been over head and ears, and a huge and mighty puss partly wrapped up in his other stocking. In this equipage, his chaps moving like a monkey’s who’s a-louse-hunting, his eyes staring like a dead pig’s, his teeth chattering, and his bum quivering, the poor dog fled to Friar John, who was then sitting by the chain-wales of the starboard side of the ship, and prayed him heartily to take pity on him and keep him in the safeguard of his trusty bilbo; swearing, by his share of Papimany, that he had seen all hell broke loose.
Woe is me, my Jacky, cried he, my dear Johnny, my old crony, my brother, my ghostly father! all the devils keep holiday, all the devils keep their feast to-day, man. Pork and peas choke me if ever thou sawest preparations in thy life for an infernal feast. Dost thou see the smoke of hell’s kitchens? (This he said, showing him the smoke of the gunpowder above the ships.) Thou never sawest so many damned souls since thou wast born; and so fair, so bewitching they seem, that one would swear they are Stygian ambrosia. I thought at first, God forgive me! that they had been English souls; and I don’t know but that this morning the isle of Horses, near Scotland, was sacked, with all the English who had surprised it, by the lords of Termes and Essay.
Friar John, at the approach of Panurge, was entertained with a kind of smell that was not like that of gunpowder, nor altogether so sweet as musk; which made him turn Panurge about, and then he saw that his shirt was dismally bepawed and berayed with fresh sir-reverence. The retentive faculty of the nerve which restrains the muscle called sphincter (’tis the arse-hole, an it please you) was relaxated by the violence of the fear which he had been in during his fantastic visions. Add to this the thundering noise of the shooting, which seems more dreadful between decks than above. Nor ought you to wonder at such a mishap; for one of the symptoms and accidents of fear is, that it often opens the wicket of the cupboard wherein second-hand meat is kept for a time. Let’s illustrate this noble theme with some examples.
Messer Pantolfe de la Cassina of Siena, riding post from Rome, came to Chambery, and alighting at honest Vinet’s took one of the pitchforks in the stable; then turning to the innkeeper, said to him, Da Roma in qua io non son andato del corpo. Di gratia piglia in mano questa forcha, et fa mi paura. (I have not had a stool since I left Rome. I pray thee take this pitchfork and fright me.) Vinet took it, and made several offers as if he would in good earnest have hit the signor, but all in vain; so the Sienese said to him, Si tu non fai altramente, tu non fai nulla; pero sforzati di adoperarli piu guagliardamente. (If thou dost not go another way to work, thou hadst as good do nothing; therefore try to bestir thyself more briskly.) With this, Vinet lent him such a swinging stoater with the pitchfork souse between the neck and the collar of his jerkin, that down fell signor on the ground arsyversy, with his spindle shanks wide straggling over his poll. Then mine host sputtering, with a full-mouthed laugh, said to his guest, By Beelzebub’s bumgut, much good may it do you, Signore Italiano. Take notice this is datum Camberiaci, given at Chambery. ’Twas well the Sienese had untrussed his points and let down his drawers; for this physic worked with him as soon as he took it, and as copious was the evacuation as that of nine buffaloes and fourteen missificating arch-lubbers. Which operation being over, the mannerly Sienese courteously gave mine host a whole bushel of thanks, saying to him, Io ti ringratio, bel messere; cosi facendo tu m’ ai esparmiata la speza d’un servitiale. (I thank thee, good landlord; by this thou hast e’en saved me the expense of a clyster.)