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
furnished with tinder, matches, stones to strike fire, and all other
tackling necessary for it. In another, two or three burning glasses,
wherewith he made both men and women sometimes mad, and in the church put
them quite out of countenance; for he said that there was but an
antistrophe, or little more difference than of a literal inversion, between
a woman folle a la messe and molle a la fesse, that is, foolish at the mass
and of a pliant buttock.
In another, he had a good deal of needles and thread, wherewith he did a
thousand little devilish pranks. One time, at the entry of the palace unto
the great hall, where a certain grey friar or cordelier was to say mass to
the counsellors, he did help to apparel him and put on his vestments, but
in the accoutring of him he sewed on his alb, surplice, or stole, to his
gown and shirt, and then withdrew himself when the said lords of the court
or counsellors came to hear the said mass; but when it came to the Ite,
missa est, that the poor frater would have laid by his stole or surplice,
as the fashion then was, he plucked off withal both his frock and shirt,
which were well sewed together, and thereby stripping himself up to the
very shoulders showed his bel vedere to all the world, together with his
Don Cypriano, which was no small one, as you may imagine. And the friar
still kept haling, but so much the more did he discover himself and lay
open his back parts, till one of the lords of the court said, How now!
what's the matter? Will this fair father make us here an offering of his
tail to kiss it? Nay, St. Anthony's fire kiss it for us! From thenceforth
it was ordained that the poor fathers should never disrobe themselves any
more before the world, but in their vestry-room, or sextry, as they call
it; especially in the presence of women, lest it should tempt them to the
sin of longing and disordinate desire. The people then asked why it was
the friars had so long and large genitories? The said Panurge resolved the
problem very neatly, saying, That which makes asses to have such great ears
is that their dams did put no biggins on their heads, as Alliaco mentioneth
in his Suppositions. By the like reason, that which makes the genitories
or generation-tools of those so fair fraters so long is, for that they wear
no bottomed breeches, and therefore their jolly member, having no
impediment, hangeth dangling at liberty as far as it can reach, with a
wiggle-waggle down to their knees, as women carry their paternoster beads.
and the cause wherefore they have it so correspondently great is, that in
this constant wig-wagging the humours of the body descend into the said
member. For, according to the Legists, agitation and continual motion is
cause of attraction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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