Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 5Rabelais, François
Science
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 5
Rabelais, François
Fantasy fiction, French -- Translations into English; Gargantua (Legendary character) -- Fiction; Giants -- Fiction
He then acquainted us with the occasion of their coming. This next to us,
said he, looks so wistfully upon you to see whether he may not find among
your company a stately gaudy kind of huge dreadful birds of prey, which yet
are so untoward that they ne'er could be brought to the lure nor to perch
on the glove. They tell us that there are such in your world, and that
some of them have goodly garters below the knee with an inscription about
them which condemns him (qui mal y pense) who shall think ill of it to be
berayed and conskited. Others are said to wear the devil in a string
before their paunches; and others a ram's skin. All that's true enough,
good Master Aedituus, quoth Panurge; but we have not the honour to be
acquainted with their knightships.
Come on, cried Aedituus in a merry mood, we have had chat enough o'
conscience! let's e'en go drink. And eat, quoth Panurge. Eat, replied
Aedituus, and drink bravely, old boy; twist like plough-jobbers and swill
like tinkers. Pull away and save tide, for nothing is so dear and precious
as time; therefore we will be sure to put it to a good use.
He would fain have carried us first to bathe in the bagnios of the
cardin-hawks, which are goodly delicious places, and have us licked over
with precious ointments by the alyptes, alias rubbers, as soon as we should
come out of the bath. But Pantagruel told him that he could drink but too
much without that. He then led us into a spacious delicate refectory, or
fratery-room, and told us: Braguibus the hermit made you fast four days
together; now, contrariwise, I'll make you eat and drink of the best four
days through stitch before you budge from this place. But hark ye me, cried
Panurge, may not we take a nap in the mean time? Ay, ay, answered Aedituus;
that is as you shall think good; for he that sleeps, drinks. Good Lord! how
we lived! what good bub! what dainty cheer! O what a honest cod was this
same Aedituus!
Chapter 5.VI.
How the birds are crammed in the Ringing Island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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