Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3Rabelais, François
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Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3
Rabelais, François
Fantasy fiction, French -- Translations into English; Gargantua (Legendary character) -- Fiction; Giants -- Fiction
You serve me here, I confess, with fine graphides and diatyposes,
descriptions and figures, which truly please me very well. But let me tell
you, if you will represent unto your fancy an impudent blustering bully and
an importunate borrower, entering afresh and newly into a town already
advertised of his manners, you shall find that at his ingress the citizens
will be more hideously affrighted and amazed, and in a greater terror and
fear, dread, and trembling, than if the pest itself should step into it in
the very same garb and accoutrement wherein the Tyanean philosopher found
it within the city of Ephesus. And I am fully confirmed in the opinion,
that the Persians erred not when they said that the second vice was to lie,
the first being that of owing money. For, in very truth, debts and lying
are ordinarily joined together. I will nevertheless not from hence infer
that none must owe anything or lend anything. For who so rich can be that
sometimes may not owe, or who can be so poor that sometimes may not lend?
Let the occasion, notwithstanding, in that case, as Plato very wisely
sayeth and ordaineth in his laws, be such that none be permitted to draw
any water out of his neighbour's well until first they by continual digging
and delving into their own proper ground shall have hit upon a kind of
potter's earth, which is called ceramite, and there had found no source or
drop of water; for that sort of earth, by reason of its substance, which is
fat, strong, firm, and close, so retaineth its humidity, that it doth not
easily evaporate it by any outward excursion or evaporation.
In good sooth, it is a great shame to choose rather to be still borrowing
in all places from everyone, than to work and win. Then only in my
judgment should one lend, when the diligent, toiling, and industrious
person is no longer able by his labour to make any purchase unto himself,
or otherwise, when by mischance he hath suddenly fallen into an unexpected
loss of his goods.
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