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
Then did he say thus unto Pantagruel: Sir, were it not expedient for my
purpose to put a branch or two of curious laurel betwixt the quilt and
bolster of my bed, under the pillow on which my head must lean? There is
no need at all of that, quoth Pantagruel; for, besides that it is a thing
very superstitious, the cheat thereof hath been at large discovered unto us
in the writings of Serapion, Ascalonites, Antiphon, Philochorus, Artemon,
and Fulgentius Planciades. I could say as much to you of the left shoulder
of a crocodile, as also of a chameleon, without prejudice be it spoken to
the credit which is due to the opinion of old Democritus; and likewise of
the stone of the Bactrians, called Eumetrides, and of the Ammonian horn;
for so by the Aethiopians is termed a certain precious stone, coloured like
gold, and in the fashion, shape, form, and proportion of a ram's horn, as
the horn of Jupiter Ammon is reported to have been: they over and above
assuredly affirming that the dreams of those who carry it about them are no
less veritable and infallible than the truth of the divine oracles. Nor is
this much unlike to what Homer and Virgil wrote of these two gates of
sleep, to which you have been pleased to recommend the management of what
you have in hand. The one is of ivory, which letteth in confused,
doubtful, and uncertain dreams; for through ivory, how small and slender
soever it be, we can see nothing, the density, opacity, and close
compactedness of its material parts hindering the penetration of the visual
rays and the reception of the specieses of such things as are visible. The
other is of horn, at which an entry is made to sure and certain dreams,
even as through horn, by reason of the diaphanous splendour and bright
transparency thereof, the species of all objects of the sight distinctly
pass, and so without confusion appear, that they are clearly seen. Your
meaning is, and you would thereby infer, quoth Friar John, that the dreams
of all horned cuckolds, of which number Panurge, by the help of God and his
future wife, is without controversy to be one, are always true and
infallible.
Chapter 3.XIV.
Panurge's dream, with the interpretation thereof.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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