Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3Rabelais, François
General
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3
Rabelais, François
Fantasy fiction, French -- Translations into English; Gargantua (Legendary character) -- Fiction; Giants -- Fiction
storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies, murmuring of
stock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of
beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats,
guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkeys, pioling of pelicans, quacking of
ducks, yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying of
elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was much
more troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair of
Fontenay or Niort. Just so is it with those who are tormented with the
grievous pangs of hunger. The stomach begins to gnaw, and bark, as it were,
the eyes to look dim, and the veins, by greedily sucking some refection to
themselves from the proper substance of all the members of a fleshy
consistence, violently pull down and draw back that vagrant, roaming spirit,
careless and neglecting of his nurse and natural host, which is the body; as
when a hawk upon the fist, willing to take her flight by a soaring aloft in
the open spacious air, is on a sudden drawn back by a leash tied to her
feet.
To this purpose also did he allege unto us the authority of Homer, the
father of all philosophy, who said that the Grecians did not put an end to
their mournful mood for the death of Patroclus, the most intimate friend of
Achilles, till hunger in a rage declared herself, and their bellies
protested to furnish no more tears unto their grief. For from bodies
emptied and macerated by long fasting there could not be such supply of
moisture and brackish drops as might be proper on that occasion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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