Produced by Clare Graham in memory of Marc D'Hooghe
THREE GOOD GIANTS
WHOSE FAMOUS DEEDS ARE RECORDED IN THE ANCIENT CHRONICLES
OF
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS
COMPILED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
JOHN DIMITRY, A.M.
Illustrated by Gustave Doré and A. Robida
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1887
BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: GARGANTUA ON THE TOWER OF NÔTRE DÂME.]
AN EXPLANATION BY WAY OF PREFACE.
[Illustration: Portrait of François Rabelais]
I freely admit what all the world knows about FRANÇOIS RABELAIS.
Long before the day when Fielding and Smollett began to be read on the
sly, and before the comic Muse of Congreve and Wycherly began to be
looked at askance, that English moral sentiment, over which Macaulay
was to philosophize more than a century later, had solidified in
ignoring Rabelais. Nothing is to be said against the sentiment itself.
This has always been fairly righteous, if just a bit undiscriminating.
A great humorist, showing himself content to grovel in the dirt, is,
beyond question, deserving of black looks and shut doors. But more
than most old masters of a type, strong, albeit coarse, Rabelais--from
the distinctly marked physical attributes of his chief personages--may
claim certain good points which, drawn out and grouped together, ought
to fall within the circle of those tales which interest children.
I have read Rabelais twice in my life. Each time, I have read him
in that old French, which has no master quite so great as he; and
each time in Auguste Desrez's edition, which, in its careful _Table
des Matières_, learned glossary, quaint notes, Gallicized Latin and
Greek words, and a complete _Rabelaisiana_, shows the devotion of
the rare editor, who does not distort, because he understands, the
Master whom he edits. When I first peeped into his pages I was a lad,
altogether too young to be tainted by profanity, while I skipped,
true boy-fashion, whole pages to pick out the wondrous story of his
Giants. When I came back to him, after many years, I was both older
and, I hope, wiser. Being older, I had learned to gauge him better,
both in his strength and in his weakness. I had come to see wherein an
old prejudice was too just to be safely resisted; and, on the other
hand, wherein it had got to be so deeply set that it had hardened to
injustice. As I went on, it did not take me long to discover that
it was quite possible for my purpose--following, indeed, the path
unconsciously taken in my boyhood--to divide Rabelais sharply into
incident and philosophy. That this had not been thought of before
surprised, but did not daunt me. I said to myself: I shall limit
the incident strictly to his three Giants; I shall hold these, from
grandfather to grandson, well together; keep all that is sound in
them; cut away the impurity which is not so much _of_ as _around_
them; chisel them out as a sculptor might, and leave his philosophy
with face to the wall. This done, I turned the scouring hose, full and
strong, upon the incidents themselves, clearing out both dialectics and
profanity thoroughly. I did not stop until I had left the famous trio,
GRANDGOUSIER, GARGANTUA, and PANTAGRUEL where I had, from the first,
hoped to place them,--high and dry above the scum which had so long
clogged their rare good-fellowship, and which had made men of judgment
blind to the genuine worth that was in them.
In this way I believed that I saw the chance to free Rabelais' Giants,
so long kept in bonds, from a captivity which has dishonored them.
To do this was clearly running against that good old law which has
invariably made all Giants--far back from fairy-time--thunder-voiced,
great-toothed, rude-handed, hard-hearted, bloody-minded creatures
and truculent captors, never, on any account, pitiful captives. But,
to such, the Rabelaisian Giants are none of kin. No more are they of
blood to that Giant that Jack slew, or that Giant Despair, in whose
garden-court Bunyan dreamt that he saw the white bones of slaughtered
pilgrims.
Public sentiment has hitherto illogically retched at the name of
Rabelais, while it swallows without qualm "Tristram Shandy" and
"Gulliver's Travels." Shall it always retch? The time, I think, is
practically taking the answer into its own hands. Rabelais, through
some cotemporaneous influence, rising subtly in his favor among men
who are neither afraid nor ashamed to judge for themselves, is, in one
sense, slowly becoming a naturalized citizen of our modern Literary
Republic. Literature and Art are joining hands in his rehabilitation.
Mr. Walter Besant, a novelist, has been so good as to write his life;
to say bright words about him; and to quote clean things from him.
Mrs. Oliphant, a purist, has consented to admit him into her "Foreign
Classics for English Readers." Three years ago M. Emile Hébert's bronze
statue of him was unveiled at that Chinon, his birthplace, which he
lovingly calls "the most ancient city of the world." And, to crown
all, as the latest expression of a tardy recognition, his bust by M.
Truphème was, only the other day, uncovered at that Meudon of which he
was, for a time, the famous, if not always orthodox, Curé.
Rabelais himself never, it is clear, appreciated his Giants save for
the contrasted jollity which they lent to his satires.
"_Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre,_
_Pour ce que rire est le propre de lhomme,_"
was his maxim. But this maxim never rose to a creed. His Giants seem,
almost against his will, to stride beyond the territory of mere
burlesque. They are as easily free from theology as from science.
They have never been of La Bâmette. They are as far from Montpellier.
To these colossal creations, heroes fashioned in ridicule of the old
fantastico-chivalric deeds of their age, as they come down more and
more from the clouds, are more and more given the feelings common to
this earth's creatures. All three bear, from their birth, a sturdy
human sympathy not natural to their kind, as mediæval superstition
classed it. Two of them, in being brought to the level of humanity,
join with this a simple Christian manliness and a childlike faith under
all emergencies, not set on their own massive strength, but fixed on
God, whom they had been taught to know, and honor, and serve--and all
this by whom? Forsooth, by the same François Rabelais, laugher, mocker,
and "insensate reviler." From Grandgousier, the good-hearted guzzler,
through Gargantua, with his heady youth and wise old age, to "the noble
Pantagruel," the gain in purity and Christian manhood is steady. The
royal race of Chalbroth follows no track beaten down by other kingly
lines known to history. While their line descends from father to son,
it ascends in virtue.
One charge--a legacy from the narrow times when run-mad commentators
spied a plot in every folio--has followed, to this day, Rabelais and
his work. Wise men have, to their own satisfaction, proved the latter
to be an enigma filled with hidden meanings, dangerous to state and
morals; with mad attacks directed, from every chapter, against ordered
society; with satiric thrusts lurking, in every sentence, against
Pope, and King, and nobles; in brief, a Malay-muck run with a pen,
instead of a knife, against the moral foundations of the world. All
these, if not true, are certainly "like, very like" the Rabelais as
he is painted by purists in the gallery of great authors. If true,
they have wrought more subtly than all else in the forging of those
heavy chains which have been bound, coil upon coil, around his hapless
big men. It is not to be wondered at that even their mighty number of
cubits should have been smothered under the fine, slow-settling dust
of three centuries. Happily, however, fair play has been, of old, the
standing boast of all English-speaking men. François Rabelais--never
once deigning to ask for it at home, when living--has, in penalty
therefor, been ferociously denied it abroad, when dead. To that
sentiment--moved, it may be, by a concurrent testimony given, in this
age, to the memory of the author himself--I appeal now in behalf of his
Giants. That they have fared badly through all these centuries, mostly
by reason of him, cannot be gainsaid. That of themselves, however, they
have in no wise merited such ostracism, is what I have ventured to
claim in this compilation. Freed alike from that prejudice which has
hunted them down, and from those formidable
"... points of ignorance
Pertaining thereunto,"
which have, so far, blocked every avenue to modern sympathy, I would
have them honored, among all stout lovers of fair play, as I leave them
in this "Explanation by way of Preface."
J. D.
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
How the First Giants came into the World.
CHAPTER II.
Gargantua is Born.
CHAPTER III.
Gargantua as a Baby.
CHAPTER IV.
The Royal Tailor's Bill for Gargantua's Suit.
CHAPTER V.
The Year Gargantua had Wooden Horses, and what Use he made of them.
CHAPTER VI.
How Gargantua was taught Latin.
CHAPTER VII.
The new Master found for Gargantua.
CHAPTER VIII.
Gargantua goes to Paris, and the Big Mare that takes him there.
CHAPTER IX.
The Parisians laugh at Gargantua. He takes his Revenge by stealing the
Great Bells of Nôtre Dâme.
CHAPTER X.
Ponocrates, the new Teacher, desires Gargantua to show him how he used
to study with old Master Holofernes.
CHAPTER XI.
The Two Hundred and Fifteen Games of Cards Gargantua knew how to play.
What it was he said after he had gone through the List, and what it was
Ponocrates remarked.
CHAPTER XII.
Gargantua is dosed by Ponocrates, and forgets all that Holofernes had
taught him.
CHAPTER XIII.
How Gargantua was made not to lose one Hour of the Day.
CHAPTER XIV.
How the Awful War between the Bunmakers of Lerne and Gargantua's
Country was begun.
CHAPTER XV.
How old King Grandgousier received the News.
CHAPTER XVI.
How Grandgousier tried to buy Peace with Five Cart-loads of Buns.
CHAPTER XVII.
How Gargantua, with a Big Tree, broke down a Castle, and passed the
Ford of Vede.
CHAPTER XVIII.
How Gargantua combed Cannon-Balls out of his Hair, and how he ate Six
Pilgrims in a Salad before Supper.
CHAPTER XIX.
How Friar John comes to the Feast, and how King Grandgousier had
recruited his Army.
CHAPTER XX.
Gargantua's Mare scores a Victory.
CHAPTER XXI.
Showing what Gargantua did after the Battle, and how Grandgousier
welcomed him Home.
CHAPTER XXII.
Grandgousier's Death. Gargantua's Marriage. Pantagruel is Born.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Strange Things Pantagruel did as a Baby.
CHAPTER XXIV.
After studying at several Universities, Pantagruel goes to Paris.
CHAPTER XXV.
Pantagruel finds Panurge, whom he loves all his life.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Pantagruel beats the Sorbonne in Argument, and Panurge proves that an
Englishman's fingers are not so nimble as a Frenchman's.
CHAPTER XXVII.
What sort of Man Panurge was, and the many Tricks he knew.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Showing why the Leagues are so much shorter in France than in Germany.
CHAPTER XXIX.
How the Cunning of Panurge, with the Aid of Eusthenes and Carpalim,
discomfited Six Hundred and Sixty Horsemen.
CHAPTER XXX.
How Carpalim went hunting for Fresh Meat, and how a Trophy was set up.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Strange Way in which Pantagruel obtained a Victory over the Thirsty
People.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Wonderful Way in which Pantagruel disposed of the Giant Loupgarou
and his Two Hundred and Ninety-Nine Giants.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
How Pantagruel finally conquers the Thirsty People, and the strange
business Panurge finds for King Anarchus.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Gargantua comes back from Fairy-land, after which Pantagruel prepares
for another Trip.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Pantagruel starts on his Travels, and lands at the Island of Pictures.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Panurge bargains with Dindeno for a Ram, and throws his Ram overboard.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Island of Alliances.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
How Pantagruel came to the Islands of Tohu and Bohu. The Strange Death
of Widenostrils, the Swallower of Windmills.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A Great Storm, in which Panurge plays the Coward.
CHAPTER XL.
The Island of the Macreons and its Forest, in which the Heroes who are
tempted by Demons die.
CHAPTER XLI.
Pantagruel touches at the Wonderful Island of Ruach, where Giant
Widenostrils had found the Cocks and Hens which killed him. How the
People lived by Wind.
CHAPTER XLII.
Pantagruel, with his Darts, kills a Monster which Cannon-Balls could
not hurt. The Power of the Sign of the Cross.
CHAPTER XLIII.
Which tells of several Islands, and the Wonderful People who dwell in
them.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
GARGANTUA ON THE TOWER OF NÔTRE DÂME.
FRIAR JOHN ATTACKS THE BUNMAKERS.
GARGANTUA DESTROYS THE CASTLE.
THE DEFEAT OF PICROCHOLE.
PANTAGRUEL ENTERS PARIS.
THE DISPUTATION.
THE DEATH OF LOUPGAROU.
PANTAGRUEL IN THE GRAVEYARD.
THE ISLE OF GANABIM.
THE QUEEN OF LANTERNS.
ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT.
PORTRAIT OF FRANÇOIS RABELAIS.
CASTLE GRANDGOUSIER.
THE GIANT CHALBROTH.
THE GIANT HURTALI ON THE ARK.
INITIAL K.
KING GRANDGOUSIER KEEPS OPEN HOUSE.
THE KING AND QUEEN LOVE TRIPES.
INITIAL W.
THE QUEEN LOOKED AT HER BABY.
AN UNCOMMON BABY CARRIAGE.
THE SERVANTS GOT TO BE SAD TOPERS.
INITIAL W.
MAKING GARGANTUA'S SUIT.
MEASURING GARGANTUA FOR HIS SUIT.
GARGANTUA AT PLAY.
GARGANTUA'S HORSE.
GARGANTUA'S RIDING LESSONS.
A NOBLE LORD CAME ON A VISIT.
"ONLY THREE LITTLE STEPS."
INITIAL O.
TUBAL HOLOFERNES.
THE FRIEND WHO KNEW LATIN.
FLIGHT OF THE TUTOR.
INITIAL W.
EUDEMON.
INITIAL T.
GARGANTUA'S MARE.
PONOCRATES.
INITIAL T.
GARGANTUA ENTERS PARIS.
THE CITY WAS EXCITED.
INITIAL G.
GARGANTUA GETS UP.
GARGANTUA BREAKFASTS.
GARGANTUA GOES TO CHURCH.
INITIAL T.
GARGANTUA LOOKS INTO THE KITCHEN.
INITIAL W.
PONOCRATES DOSES GARGANTUA.
GARGANTUA AT HIS LESSONS.
INITIAL E.
GARGANTUA LEARNS TO SHOOT.
GARGANTUA LEARNS TO CLIMB.
GARGANTUA STUDIES ASTRONOMY.
INITIAL W.
THE BUNMAKERS OF LERNE.
THE ANGER OF PICROCHOLE.
CAPTAIN SWILLWIND'S CAVALRY.
SPOILING THE MONKS.
FRIAR JOHN TO THE RESCUE.
INITIAL W.
PICROCHOLE'S ARMY.
GRANDGOUSIER WRITES TO GARGANTUA.
INITIAL K.
GRANDGOUSIER'S EMBASSY.
INITIAL G.
GARGANTUA HURRIES HOME.
GYMNASTE WARMS HIMSELF.
THE CASTLE OF ROCHE-CLERMAUD.
CANNONADING GARGANTUA.
INITIAL G.
GARGANTUA COMBS HIS HAIR.
AND SUCH A SUPPER!
THE PILGRIMS IN THE GARDEN.
INITIAL I.
FRIAR JOHN ARRIVES.
THE ADVANCE-GUARD STARTS.
GRANDGOUSIER'S ARMY.
INITIAL T.
MOUNTING FOR THE FRAY.
THE ASSAULT.
PICROCHOLE DEFENDS THE CASTLE.
THE FLIGHT OF PICROCHOLE.
INITIAL W.
GARGANTUA'S CAPTIVES.
GARGANTUA REWARDING THE ARMY.
THE WONDERFUL WINDING STAIRWAY.
INITIAL A.
THE DREADFUL DROUGHT.
INITIAL G.
THE FUNERAL OF QUEEN BADEBEC.
PANTAGRUEL'S PORRINGER.
PANTAGRUEL CARRIES HIS CRADLE.
INITIAL S.
THE GREAT CROSS-BOW OF CHANTELLE.
THE GREAT RAISED STONE.
PANTAGRUEL VISITS HIS ANCESTOR'S TOMB.
PANTAGRUEL SETTLES AT ORLEANS.
PANTAGRUEL IN THE LIBRARY.
INITIAL O.
PANTAGRUEL MEETS PANURGE.
INITIAL W.
AT THE GATES OF SORBONNE.
THAUMASTES VISITS PANTAGRUEL.
THE GREAT COLLEGE WAS PACKED.
PANURGE REPLIES.
INITIAL T.
PANURGE GETS MONEY.
PANURGE AND THE DIRT-CARTS.
PANURGE'S FUN.
INITIAL A.
PANTAGRUEL MARCHES TO ROUEN.
INITIAL S.
THE VOYAGE BEGINS.
PANURGE DISCOMFITS THE HORSEMEN.
INITIAL W.
CARPALIM CATCHES SOME FRESH MEAT.
THE TROPHY.
INITIAL W.
THE KING OF THE THIRSTY PEOPLE.
THE SOLDIERS TRY PANTAGRUEL'S PASTE.
INITIAL A.
THE FIGHT WITH LOUPGAROU.
INITIAL A.
WELCOME TO PANTAGRUEL.
GRANDER AND MIGHTIER THAN EVER.
PANTAGRUEL RETURNS.
INITIAL O.
INITIAL A.
PANTAGRUEL PICKS HIS SHIPS.
PANTAGRUEL SETS SAIL.
LANDING AT THE ISLE OF PICTURES.
PANTAGRUEL BUYS SOME STRANGE ANIMALS.
THE LAND OF SATIN.
INITIAL F.
PANURGE WANTS A SHEEP.
PANURGE BUYS A RAM.
PANURGE THROWS HIS RAM OVERBOARD.
THE SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS DROWN.
INITIAL A.
THE ACE-OF-CLUBS NOSES.
INITIAL P.
GIANT WIDENOSTRILS, THE SWALLOWER OF WINDMILLS.
INITIAL T.
A STORM COMES ON.
PANTAGRUEL HOLDS THE MAST.
A SEA BREAKS OVER PANURGE.
LAND IN SIGHT.
IT WAS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON.
INITIAL T.
PANURGE REVIVES.
THE DARK AND GLOOMY FOREST.
THE DEMONS AND THE HEROES.
"WE HAD LOST ANOTHER GOOD HERO."
INITIAL A.
THE LAND OF WIND.
"WITHOUT WIND WE MUST DIE."
INITIAL A.
PANTAGRUEL SPIES A MONSTER.
SHOOTING AT THE WHALE.
PANTAGRUEL TRIES HIS HAND.
DEATH OF THE MONSTER.
LANDING THE MONSTER.
ON WILD ISLAND.
INITIAL N.
THE HOSPITABLE FOLK OF PAPIMANY.
THE MAYOR RODE UP.
ENTERING THE FROZEN SEA.
A SHOWER OF FROZEN WORDS.
LANDING ON THE ROCKS.
MASTER GASTER.
SHARP ISLAND.
THE SHORES OF LANTERNLAND.
THREE GOOD GIANTS.
[Illustration: CASTLE GRANDGOUSIER.]
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE FIRST GIANTS CAME INTO THE WORLD.
At the beginning of the world the pure blood of Abel, shed by his
wicked brother Cain, made the soil very rich. Every fruit seemed
to grow that year to a dozen times its usual size. But the fruit
that seemed to thrive best, and to taste most toothsome, and to be
most eaten, was the medlar. So much of that fruit was eaten at that
particular time that the year came to be called the "Year of Medlars."
Now, in this "Year of Medlars," the good men and women who lived then
happened to eat a little too much of this fine fruit. It was all very
nice while it was being eaten; but, somehow, after a little time it was
found that terrible swellings, but not all in the same place, came out
on those who had shown themselves too fond of the fruit.
Some grew big and twisted in their shoulders, and became what were
afterwards called Hunch-backs.
Some found themselves with longer legs than others, which, being quite
as thin and bony as they were long, made malicious people, who had not
eaten of the fruit, shout, "Crane! Crane! Long-legged Crane!" whenever
one of the poor people showed himself.
Some there were who could boast of a nose as red as it was long and
knotty, which made evil-tongued men say they had been more among the
grapes than among the medlars. But this was, after all, the fault of
the medlars. There was no doubt of that.
Others, having a special love for picking out everybody's secrets,
found their medlars running into big ears, which grew so long that they
soon hung down to their breasts. And those who once had the Big Ear
lost, after that, all desire for other people's secrets, because their
ears were so large they caught everything bad their neighbors were
always saying about them.
Others--and now, listen--grew long in legs, but not longer in legs than
they grew stout in body, and it was from these people that the Giants
sprang. When those who grew so long in legs and so stout in body began
to walk on the earth, the neighbors did their best to please them. You
may be sure there was no talk about medlars then.
The first who became known as a giant was called CHALBROTH.
[Illustration: THE GIANT CHALBROTH.]
CHALBROTH was the father of all the Giants, and the great-grandfather
of Hurtali, who reigned in the time of the Deluge, and who was lucky
enough not to be drowned in the deep waters.
Doubtless, the eyes of some of my young readers are twinkling, and they
are ready to cry out very positively: "Oh, no! There was no Giant in
Noah's Ark, you know. How could there be? Only Noah and his family were
in the Ark. The Bible says that!"
There was one Wise Man, however, who lived a long time after the first
Giant had appeared, and after many great ones had been noticed, and who
had seen some with his own eyes. This Wise Man had thought, in a quiet
way, a great deal about the Big People, and, through much study, had
found out why it was they were not all drowned.
This Wise Man makes himself very clear on this point. He says that
Hurtali--the great-grandson of Chalbroth, the first Giant--escaped the
Deluge, not by getting _into_ the Ark,--it was altogether too small for
that,--but by getting _outside_ of it. In other words, he used it as
a man strides a horse, riding on top of it, with one huge leg hanging
over the right side and the other over the left. If Hurtali was very
heavy, the Blessed Ark was very stout. He got so used to his seat after
a while, that, being on the outside, and able to see everything around
him, he made his long legs do for the Ark just what the rudder of a
ship does for her. He must have saved it from many and many a rough
shock against jutting mountains and sharp rocks as the waters were
rising, and as, after covering the earth, they began to sink lower
and lower; but it may be relied on--since the Wise Man says so--that,
during the forty days and nights, Giant Hurtali was on the best of
terms with Noah and all his family. This might look strange; but it
appears that there was on the top of the Ark a chimney, and it was
through this chimney that Hurtali could always, for the asking, have
his share of his favorite pottage handed up to him.
[Illustration: THE GIANT HURTALI ON THE ARK.]
It would really be of no use to tell the names of all the Giants who
came between Hurtali and our merry old King Grandgousier. Some of
them you already know. Long after Hurtali came Goliath, the Giant,
whom young David slew with his sling and stone; Briareus, the Greek
Giant of a hundred hands; King Porus, the Indian Giant, who fought
with Alexander, and was defeated by him; and the famous Giant Bruyer,
slain by Ogier the Dane, Peer of France. There are so many of them
that I would soon grow tired of giving, and you of hearing, even their
names. All that we care about knowing is that, in a straight line from
Hurtali, the Giant who rode on the Blessed Ark, the fifty-fourth was
GRANDGOUSIER, who was the father of GARGANTUA, who, in his turn, was
the father of PANTAGRUEL.
These are the three Giants whose story I am about to tell, two of whom
will prove more wonderful heroes than are to be read of either in
ancient or modern history.