As the number of the combatants lessened, the pleasure of the spectators increased; for the stratagems and motions of the remaining forces were more singular. I shall only add that this pleasing entertainment charmed us to such a degree that our minds were ravished with admiration and delight, and the martial harmony moved our souls so powerfully that we easily believed what is said of Ismenias’s having excited Alexander to rise from table and run to his arms, with such a warlike melody. At last the golden king remained master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, Queen Whims vanished, so that we saw her no more from that day to this.
Then Geber’s michelots conducted us, and we were set down among her abstractors, as her queenship had commanded. After that we returned to the port of Mateotechny, and thence straight aboard our ships; for the wind was fair, and had we not hoisted out of hand, we could hardly have got off in three quarters of a moon in the wane.
Chapter 26
How we came to the island of Odes, where the ways go up and down.
We sailed before the wind, between a pair of courses, and in two days made the island of Odes, at which place we saw a very strange thing. The ways there are animals; so true is Aristotle’s saying, that all self-moving things are animals. Now the ways walk there. Ergo, they are then animals. Some of them are strange unknown ways, like those of the planets; others are highways, crossways, and byways. I perceived that the travellers and inhabitants of that country asked, Whither does this way go? Whither does that way go? Some answered, Between Midy and Fevrolles, to the parish church, to the city, to the river, and so forth. Being thus in their right way, they used to reach their journey’s end without any further trouble, just like those who go by water from Lyons to Avignon or Arles.
Now, as you know that nothing is perfect here below, we heard there was a sort of people whom they called highwaymen, waybeaters, and makers of inroads in roads; and that the poor ways were sadly afraid of them, and shunned them as you do robbers. For these used to waylay them, as people lay trains for wolves, and set gins for woodcocks. I saw one who was taken up with a lord chief justice’s warrant for having unjustly, and in spite of Pallas, taken the schoolway, which is the longest. Another boasted that he had fairly taken his shortest, and that doing so he first compassed his design. Thus, Carpalin, meeting once Epistemon looking upon a wall with his fiddle-diddle, or live urinal, in his hand, to make a little maid’s water, cried that he did not wonder now how the other came to be still the first at Pantagruel’s levee, since he held his shortest and least used.
I found Bourges highway among these. It went with the deliberation of an abbot, but was made to scamper at the approach of some waggoners, who threatened to have it trampled under their horses’ feet, and make their waggons run over it, as Tullia’s chariot did over her father’s body.
I also espied there the old way between Peronne and St. Quentin, which seemed to me a very good, honest, plain way, as smooth as a carpet, and as good as ever was trod upon by shoe of leather.
Among the rocks I knew again the good old way to La Ferrare, mounted on a huge bear. This at a distance would have put me in mind of St. Jerome’s picture, had but the bear been a lion; for the poor way was all mortified, and wore a long hoary beard uncombed and entangled, which looked like the picture of winter, or at least like a white-frosted bush.
On that way were store of beads or rosaries, coarsely made of wild pine-tree; and it seemed kneeling, not standing, nor lying flat; but its sides and middle were beaten with huge stones, insomuch that it proved to us at once an object of fear and pity.
While we were examining it, a runner, bachelor of the place, took us aside, and showing us a white smooth way, somewhat filled with straw, said, Henceforth, gentlemen, do not reject the opinion of Thales the Milesian, who said that water is the beginning of all things, nor that of Homer, who tells us that all things derive their original from the ocean; for this same way which you see here had its beginning from water, and is to return whence she came before two months come to an end; now carts are driven here where boats used to rowed.
Truly, said Pantagruel, you tell us no news; we see five hundred such changes, and more, every year, in our world. Then reflecting on the different manner of going of those moving ways, he told us he believed that Philolaus and Aristarchus had philosophized in this island, and that Seleucus [Motteux reads —’that some, indeed, were of opinion.’], indeed, was of opinion the earth turns round about its poles, and not the heavens, whatever we may think to the contrary; as, when we are on the river Loire, we think the trees and the shore moves, though this is only an effect of our boat’s motion.
As we went back to our ships, we saw three waylayers, who, having been taken in ambuscado, were going to be broken on the wheel; and a huge fornicator was burned with a lingering fire for beating a way and breaking one of its sides; we were told it was the way of the banks of the Nile in Egypt.
Chapter 27
How we came to the island of Sandals; and of the order of Semiquaver Friars.
Thence we went to the island of Sandals, whose inhabitants live on nothing but ling-broth. However, we were very kindly received and entertained by Benius the Third, king of the island, who, after he had made us drink, took us with him to show us a spick-and-span new monastery which he had contrived for the Semiquaver Friars; so he called the religious men whom he had there. For he said that on t’other side the water lived friars who styled themselves her sweet ladyship’s most humble servants. Item, the goodly Friar-minors, who are semibreves of bulls; the smoked-herring tribe of Minim Friars; then the Crotchet Friars. So that these diminutives could be no more than Semiquavers. By the statutes, bulls, and patents of Queen Whims, they were all dressed like so many house-burners, except that, as in Anjou your bricklayers use to quilt their knees when they tile houses, so these holy friars had usually quilted bellies, and thick quilted paunches were among them in much repute. Their codpieces were cut slipper-fashion, and every monk among them wore two — one sewed before and another behind — reporting that some certain dreadful mysteries were duly represented by this duplicity of codpieces.
They wore shoes as round as basins, in imitation of those who inhabit the sandy sea. Their chins were close-shaved, and their feet iron-shod; and to show they did not value fortune, Benius made them shave and poll the hind part of their polls as bare as a bird’s arse, from the crown to the shoulder-blades; but they had leave to let their hair grow before, from the two triangular bones in the upper part of the skull.
Thus did they not value fortune a button, and cared no more for the goods of this world than you or I do for hanging. And to show how much they defied that blind jilt, all of them wore, not in their hands like her, but at their waist, instead of beads, sharp razors, which they used to new-grind twice a day and set thrice a night.
Each of them had a round ball on their feet, because Fortune is said to have one under hers.
The flap of their cowls hanged forward, and not backwards, like those of others. Thus none could see their noses, and they laughed without fear both at fortune and the fortunate; neither more nor less than our ladies laugh at barefaced trulls when they have those mufflers on which they call masks, and which were formerly much more properly called charity, because they cover a multitude of sins.