Gargantua & Pantagruel (French Literature Classic). Francois Rabelais

is the four fingers and the thumb. For his preceptor said that to comb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat, was to lose time in this world. Then he dunged, pissed, spewed, belched, cracked, yawned, spitted, coughed, yexed, sneezed and snotted himself like an archdeacon, and, to suppress the dew and bad air, went to breakfast, having some good fried tripes, fair rashers on the coals, excellent gammons of bacon, store of fine minced meat, and a great deal of sippet brewis, made up of the fat of the beef-pot, laid upon bread, cheese, and chopped parsley strewed together. Ponocrates showed him that he ought not to eat so soon after rising out of his bed, unless he had performed some exercise beforehand. Gargantua answered, What! have not I sufficiently well exercised myself? I have wallowed and rolled myself six or seven turns in my bed before I rose. Is not that enough? Pope Alexander did so, by the advice of a Jew his physician, and lived till his dying day in despite of his enemies. My first masters have used me to it, saying that to breakfast made a good memory, and therefore they drank first. I am very well after it, and dine but the better. And Master Tubal, who was the first licenciate at Paris, told me that it was not enough to run apace, but to set forth betimes: so doth not the total welfare of our humanity depend upon perpetual drinking in a ribble rabble, like ducks, but on drinking early in the morning; unde versus,

      To rise betimes is no good hour,

      To drink betimes is better sure.

      After that he had thoroughly broke his fast, he went to church, and they carried to him, in a great basket, a huge impantoufled or thick-covered breviary, weighing, what in grease, clasps, parchment and cover, little more or less than eleven hundred and six pounds. There he heard six-and-twenty or thirty masses. This while, to the same place came his orison-mutterer impaletocked, or lapped up about the chin like a tufted whoop, and his breath pretty well antidoted with store of the vine-tree-syrup. With him he mumbled all his kiriels and dunsical breborions, which he so curiously thumbed and fingered, that there fell not so much as one grain to the ground. As he went from the church, they brought him, upon a dray drawn with oxen, a confused heap of paternosters and aves of St. Claude, every one of them being of the bigness of a hat-block; and thus walking through the cloisters, galleries, or garden, he said more in turning them over than sixteen hermits would have done. Then did he study some paltry half-hour with his eyes fixed upon his book; but, as the comic saith, his mind was in the kitchen. Pissing then a full urinal, he sat down at table; and because he was naturally phlegmatic, he began his meal with some dozens of gammons, dried neat’s tongues, hard roes of mullet, called botargos, andouilles or sausages, and such other forerunners of wine. In the meanwhile, four of his folks did cast into his mouth one after another continually mustard by whole shovelfuls. Immediately after that, he drank a horrible draught of white wine for the ease of his kidneys. When that was done, he ate according to the season meat agreeable to his appetite, and then left off eating when his belly began to strout, and was like to crack for fulness. As for his drinking, he had in that neither end nor rule. For he was wont to say, That the limits and bounds of drinking were, when the cork of the shoes of him that drinketh swelleth up half a foot high.

Chapter 1.XXII.—The games of Gargantua.

       Table of Contents

      Then blockishly mumbling with a set on countenance a piece of scurvy grace, he washed his hands in fresh wine, picked his teeth with the foot of a hog, and talked jovially with his attendants. Then the carpet being spread, they brought plenty of cards, many dice, with great store and abundance of chequers and chessboards.

      There he played.

      At flush. At love.

      At primero. At the chess.

      At the beast. At Reynard the fox.

      At the rifle. At the squares.

      At trump. At the cows.

      At the prick and spare not. At the lottery.

      At the hundred. At the chance or mumchance.

      At the peeny. At three dice or maniest bleaks.

      At the unfortunate woman. At the tables.

      At the fib. At nivinivinack.

      At the pass ten. At the lurch.

      At one-and-thirty. At doublets or queen’s game.

      At post and pair, or even and At the faily.

      sequence. At the French trictrac.

      At three hundred. At the long tables or ferkeering.

      At the unlucky man. At feldown.

      At the last couple in hell. At tod’s body.

      At the hock. At needs must.

      At the surly. At the dames or draughts.

      At the lansquenet. At bob and mow.

      At the cuckoo. At primus secundus.

      At puff, or let him speak that At mark-knife.

      hath it. At the keys.

      At take nothing and throw out. At span-counter.

      At the marriage. At even or odd.

      At the frolic or jackdaw. At cross or pile.

      At the opinion. At ball and huckle-bones.

      At who doth the one, doth the At ivory balls.

      other. At the billiards.

      At the sequences. At bob and hit.

      At the ivory bundles. At the owl.

      At the tarots. At the charming of the hare.

      At losing load him. At pull yet a little.

      At he’s gulled and esto. At trudgepig.

      At the torture. At the magatapies.

      At the handruff. At the horn.

      At the click. At the flowered or Shrovetide ox.

      At honours. At the madge-owlet.

      At pinch without laughing. At tilt at weeky.

      At prickle me tickle me. At ninepins.

      At the unshoeing of the ass. At the cock quintin.

      At the cocksess. At tip and hurl.

      At hari hohi. At the flat bowls.

      At I set me down. At the veer and turn.

      At earl beardy. At rogue and ruffian.

      At the old mode. At bumbatch touch.

      At draw the spit. At the mysterious trough.

      At put out. At the short bowls.

      At gossip lend me your sack. At the dapple-grey.

      At the ramcod ball. At cock and crank it.

      At thrust out the harlot. At break-pot.

      At Marseilles figs. At my desire.

      At nicknamry. At twirly whirlytrill.

      At stick and hole. At the rush bundles.

      At boke or him, or flaying the fox. At the short staff.

      At the branching it. At the whirling gig.

      At trill madam, or grapple my lady. At hide and seek, or are you all

      At the cat selling. hid?

      At blow the coal. At the picket.

      At the re-wedding. At the blank.

      At the quick and dead judge. At the pilferers.

      At unoven the iron. At the caveson.

      At the false clown. At prison bars.

      At the flints, or at the nine stones.At have at the nuts.

      At to the crutch hulch back. At cherry-pit.

      At the Sanct is found. At rub and rice.

      At hinch, pinch and laugh not. At whiptop.

      At the leek. At the casting top.

      At