Suddenly Epistemon began to breathe, then opened his eyes, yawned, sneezed, and afterwards let a great household fart. Whereupon Panurge said, Now, certainly, he is healed — and therefore gave him to drink a large full glass of strong white wine, with a sugared toast. In this fashion was Epistemon finely healed, only that he was somewhat hoarse for above three weeks together, and had a dry cough of which he could not be rid but by the force of continual drinking. And now he began to speak, and said that he had seen the devil, had spoken with Lucifer familiarly, and had been very merry in hell and in the Elysian fields, affirming very seriously before them all that the devils were boon companions and merry fellows. But, in respect of the damned, he said he was very sorry that Panurge had so soon called him back into this world again; for, said he, I took wonderful delight to see them. How so? said Pantagruel. Because they do not use them there, said Epistemon, so badly as you think they do. Their estate and condition of living is but only changed after a very strange manner; for I saw Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts upon old breeches and stockings, whereby he got but a very poor living.
Xerxes was a crier of mustard.
Romulus, a salter and patcher of pattens.
Numa, a nailsmith.
Tarquin, a porter.
Piso, a clownish swain.
Sylla, a ferryman.
Cyrus, a cowherd.
Themistocles, a glass-maker.
Epaminondas, a maker of mirrors or looking-glasses.
Brutus and Cassius, surveyors or measurers of land.
Demosthenes, a vine-dresser.
Cicero, a fire-kindler.
Fabius, a threader of beads.
Artaxerxes, a rope-maker.
Aeneas, a miller.
Achilles was a scaldpated maker of hay-bundles.
Agamemnon, a lick-box.
Ulysses, a hay-mower.
Nestor, a door-keeper or forester.
Darius, a gold-finder or jakes-farmer.
Ancus Martius, a ship-trimmer.
Camillus, a foot-post.
Marcellus, a sheller of beans.
Drusus, a taker of money at the doors of playhouses.
Scipio Africanus, a crier of lee in a wooden slipper.
Asdrubal, a lantern-maker.
Hannibal, a kettlemaker and seller of eggshells.
Priamus, a seller of old clouts.
Lancelot of the Lake was a flayer of dead horses.
All the Knights of the Round Table were poor day-labourers, employed to row over the rivers of Cocytus, Phlegeton, Styx, Acheron, and Lethe, when my lords the devils had a mind to recreate themselves upon the water, as in the like occasion are hired the boatmen at Lyons, the gondoliers of Venice, and oars at London. But with this difference, that these poor knights have only for their fare a bob or flirt on the nose, and in the evening a morsel of coarse mouldy bread.
Trajan was a fisher of frogs.
Antoninus, a lackey.
Commodus, a jet-maker.
Pertinax, a peeler of walnuts.
Lucullus, a maker of rattles and hawks’-bells.
Justinian, a pedlar.
Hector, a snap-sauce scullion.
Paris was a poor beggar.
Cambyses, a mule-driver.
Nero, a base blind fiddler, or player on that instrument which is called a windbroach. Fierabras was his serving-man, who did him a thousand mischievous tricks, and would make him eat of the brown bread and drink of the turned wine when himself did both eat and drink of the best.
Julius Caesar and Pompey were boat-wrights and tighters of ships.
Valentine and Orson did serve in the stoves of hell, and were sweat-rubbers in hot houses.
Giglan and Govian (Gauvin) were poor swineherds.
Geoffrey with the great tooth was a tinder-maker and seller of matches.
Godfrey de Bouillon, a hood-maker.
Jason was a bracelet-maker.
Don Pietro de Castille, a carrier of indulgences.
Morgan, a beer-brewer.
Huon of Bordeaux, a hooper of barrels.
Pyrrhus, a kitchen-scullion.
Antiochus, a chimney-sweeper.
Octavian, a scraper of parchment.
Nerva, a mariner.
Pope Julius was a crier of pudding-pies, but he left off wearing there his great buggerly beard.
John of Paris was a greaser of boots.
Arthur of Britain, an ungreaser of caps.
Perce-Forest, a carrier of faggots.
Pope Boniface the Eighth, a scummer of pots.
Pope Nicholas the Third, a maker of paper.
Pope Alexander, a ratcatcher.
Pope Sixtus, an anointer of those that have the pox.
What, said Pantagruel, have they the pox there too? Surely, said Epistemon, I never saw so many: there are there, I think, above a hundred millions; for believe, that those who have not had the pox in this world must have it in the other.
Cotsbody, said Panurge, then I am free; for I have been as far as the hole of Gibraltar, reached unto the outmost bounds of Hercules, and gathered of the ripest.
Ogier the Dane was a furbisher of armour.
The King Tigranes, a mender of thatched houses.
Galien Restored, a taker of moldwarps.
The four sons of Aymon were all toothdrawers.
Pope Calixtus was a barber of a woman’s sine qua non.
Pope Urban, a bacon-picker.
Melusina was a kitchen drudge-wench.
Matabrune, a laundress.
Cleopatra, a crier of onions.
Helen, a broker for chambermaids.
Semiramis, the beggars’ lice-killer.
Dido did sell mushrooms.
Penthesilea sold cresses.
Lucretia was an alehouse-keeper.
Hortensia, a spinstress.
Livia, a grater of verdigris.
After this manner, those that had been great lords and ladies here, got but a poor scurvy wretched living there below. And, on the contrary, the philosophers and others, who in this world had been altogether indigent and wanting, were great lords there in their turn. I saw Diogenes there strut it out most pompously, and in great magnificence, with a rich purple gown on him, and a golden sceptre in his right hand. And, which is more, he would now and then make Alexander the Great mad, so enormously would he abuse him when he had not well patched his breeches; for he used to pay his skin with sound bastinadoes. I saw Epictetus there, most gallantly apparelled after the French fashion, sitting under a pleasant arbour, with store of handsome gentlewomen, frolicking, drinking, dancing, and making good cheer, with abundance of crowns of the sun. Above the lattice were written these verses for his device: