Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2Rabelais, François
General
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2
Rabelais, François
Fantasy fiction, French -- Translations into English; Gargantua (Legendary character) -- Fiction; Giants -- Fiction
How Pantagruel came to Paris, and of the choice books of the Library of St.
Victor.
After that Pantagruel had studied very well at Orleans, he resolved to see
the great University at Paris; but, before his departure, he was informed
that there was a huge big bell at St. Anian in the said town of Orleans,
under the ground, which had been there above two hundred and fourteen
years, for it was so great that they could not by any device get it so much
as above the ground, although they used all the means that are found in
Vitruvius de Architectura, Albertus de Re Aedificatoria, Euclid, Theon,
Archimedes, and Hero de Ingeniis; for all that was to no purpose.
Wherefore, condescending heartily to the humble request of the citizens and
inhabitants of the said town, he determined to remove it to the tower that
was erected for it. With that he came to the place where it was, and
lifted it out of the ground with his little finger as easily as you would
have done a hawk's bell or bellwether's tingle-tangle; but, before he would
carry it to the foresaid tower or steeple appointed for it, he would needs
make some music with it about the town, and ring it alongst all the streets
as he carried it in his hand, wherewith all the people were very glad. But
there happened one great inconveniency, for with carrying it so, and
ringing it about the streets, all the good Orleans wine turned instantly,
waxed flat and was spoiled, which nobody there did perceive till the night
following; for every man found himself so altered and a-dry with drinking
these flat wines, that they did nothing but spit, and that as white as
Malta cotton, saying, We have of the Pantagruel, and our very throats are
salted. This done, he came to Paris with his retinue. And at his entry
everyone came out to see him--as you know well enough that the people of
Paris is sottish by nature, by B flat and B sharp--and beheld him with
great astonishment, mixed with no less fear that he would carry away the
palace into some other country, a remotis, and far from them, as his father
formerly had done the great peal of bells at Our Lady's Church to tie about
his mare's neck. Now after he had stayed there a pretty space, and studied
very well in all the seven liberal arts, he said it was a good town to live
in, but not to die; for that the grave-digging rogues of St. Innocent used
in frosty nights to warm their bums with dead men's bones. In his abode
there he found the library of St. Victor a very stately and magnific one,
especially in some books which were there, of which followeth the Repertory
and Catalogue, Et primo,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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