LITMIR.BIZ

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finished the edition in Picard’s blue library, in little volumes, each book quite distinct. It was M. Jannet who in our days first restored the pure and exact text of Rabelais, not only without retouching it, but without making additions or insertions, or juxtaposition of things that were not formerly found together. For each of the books he has followed the last edition issued by Rabelais, and all the earlier differences he gives as variations. It is astonishing that a thing so simple and so fitting should not have been done before, and the result is that this absolutely exact fidelity has restored a lucidity which was not wanting in Rabelais’s time, but which had since been obscured. All who have come after Jannet have followed in his path, and there is no reason for straying from it.

FRANCIS RABELAIS.

       Table of Contents

      THE FIRST BOOK.

      To the Honoured, Noble Translator of Rabelais.

      Rabelais, whose wit prodigiously was made,

      All men, professions, actions to invade,

      With so much furious vigour, as if it

      Had lived o’er each of them, and each had quit,

      Yet with such happy sleight and careless skill,

      As, like the serpent, doth with laughter kill,

      So that although his noble leaves appear

      Antic and Gottish, and dull souls forbear

      To turn them o’er, lest they should only find

      Nothing but savage monsters of a mind—

      No shapen beauteous thoughts; yet when the wise

      Seriously strip him of his wild disguise,

      Melt down his dross, refine his massy ore,

      And polish that which seem’d rough-cast before,

      Search his deep sense, unveil his hidden mirth,

      And make that fiery which before seem’d earth

      (Conquering those things of highest consequence,

      What’s difficult of language or of sense),

      He will appear some noble table writ

      In the old Egyptian hieroglyphic wit;

      Where, though you monsters and grotescoes see,

      You meet all mysteries of philosophy.

      For he was wise and sovereignly bred

      To know what mankind is, how ‘t may be led:

      He stoop’d unto them, like that wise man, who

      Rid on a stick, when ‘s children would do so.

      For we are easy sullen things, and must

      Be laugh’d aright, and cheated into trust;

      Whilst a black piece of phlegm, that lays about

      Dull menaces, and terrifies the rout,

      And cajoles it, with all its peevish strength

      Piteously stretch’d and botch’d up into length,

      Whilst the tired rabble sleepily obey

      Such opiate talk, and snore away the day,

      By all his noise as much their minds relieves,

      As caterwauling of wild cats frights thieves.

      But Rabelais was another thing, a man

      Made up of all that art and nature can

      Form from a fiery genius—he was one

      Whose soul so universally was thrown

      Through all the arts of life, who understood

      Each stratagem by which we stray from good;

      So that he best might solid virtue teach,

      As some ’gainst sins of their own bosoms preach:

      He from wise choice did the true means prefer,

      In the fool’s coat acting th’ philosopher.

      Thus hoary Aesop’s beasts did mildly tame

      Fierce man, and moralize him into shame;

      Thus brave romances, while they seem to lay

      Great trains of lust, platonic love display;

      Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chance

      Show’d a drunk slave, teach children temperance;

      Thus did the later poets nobly bring

      The scene to height, making the fool the king.

      And, noble sir, you vigorously have trod

      In this hard path, unknown, un-understood

      By its own countrymen, ’tis you appear

      Our full enjoyment which was our despair,

      Scattering his mists, cheering his cynic frowns

      (For radiant brightness now dark Rabelais crowns),

      Leaving your brave heroic cares, which must

      Make better mankind and embalm your dust,

      So undeceiving us, that now we see

      All wit in Gascon and in Cromarty,

      Besides that Rabelais is convey’d to us,

      And that our Scotland is not barbarous.

      J. De la Salle.

      Rablophila.

      The First Decade.

      The Commendation.

      Musa! canas nostrorum in testimonium Amorum,

      Et Gargantueas perpetuato faces,

      Utque homini tali resultet nobilis Eccho:

      Quicquid Fama canit, Pantagruelis erit.

      The Argument.

      Here I intend mysteriously to sing

      With a pen pluck’d from Fame’s own wing,

      Of Gargantua that learn’d breech-wiping king.

      Decade the First.

      I.

      Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blaze

      Benumbs me! I must sound the praise

      Of him hath turn’d this crabbed work in such heroic phrase.

      II.

      What wit would not court martyrdom to hold

      Upon his head a laurel of gold,

      Where for each rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told:

      III.

      And such a one is this, art’s masterpiece,

      A thing ne’er equall’d by old Greece:

      A thing ne’er match’d as yet, a real Golden Fleece.

      IV.

      Vice is a soldier fights against mankind;

      Which you may look but never find:

      For ’tis an envious thing, with cunning interlined.

      V.

      And thus he rails at drinking all before ’em,

      And for lewd women does be-whore ’em,

      And brings their painted faces and black patches to th’ quorum.

      VI.

      To drink he was a furious enemy

      Contented with a six-penny—

      (with diamond hatband, silver spurs, six horses.) pie—

      VII.

      And

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