Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2Rabelais, François
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Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2
Rabelais, François
Fantasy fiction, French -- Translations into English; Gargantua (Legendary character) -- Fiction; Giants -- Fiction
In the meantime the lady was not very well content with the want of her
paternosters, for they were one of her implements to keep her countenance
by in the church; then thought with herself, This bold flouting roister is
some giddy, fantastical, light-headed fool of a strange country. I shall
never recover my paternosters again. What will my husband say? He will no
doubt be angry with me. But I will tell him that a thief hath cut them off
from my hands in the church, which he will easily believe, seeing the end
of the ribbon left at my girdle. After dinner Panurge went to see her,
carrying in his sleeve a great purse full of palace-crowns, called
counters, and began to say unto her, Which of us two loveth other best, you
me, or I you? Whereunto she answered, As for me, I do not hate you; for,
as God commands, I love all the world. But to the purpose, said he; are
not you in love with me? I have, said she, told you so many times already
that you should talk so no more to me, and if you speak of it again I will
teach you that I am not one to be talked unto dishonestly. Get you hence
packing, and deliver me my paternosters, that my husband may not ask me for
them.
How now, madam, said he, your paternosters? Nay, by mine oath, I will not
do so, but I will give you others. Had you rather have them of gold well
enamelled in great round knobs, or after the manner of love-knots, or,
otherwise, all massive, like great ingots, or if you had rather have them
of ebony, of jacinth, or of grained gold, with the marks of fine
turquoises, or of fair topazes, marked with fine sapphires, or of baleu
rubies, with great marks of diamonds of eight and twenty squares? No, no,
all this is too little. I know a fair bracelet of fine emeralds, marked
with spotted ambergris, and at the buckle a Persian pearl as big as an
orange. It will not cost above five and twenty thousand ducats. I will
make you a present of it, for I have ready coin enough,--and withal he made
a noise with his counters, as if they had been French crowns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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