The conclusion of this present book, and the excuse of the author.
Now, my masters, you have heard a beginning of the horrific history of my
lord and master Pantagruel. Here will I make an end of the first book. My
head aches a little, and I perceive that the registers of my brain are
somewhat jumbled and disordered with this Septembral juice. You shall have
the rest of the history at Frankfort mart next coming, and there shall you
see how Panurge was married and made a cuckold within a month after his
wedding; how Pantagruel found out the philosopher’s stone, the manner how
he found it, and the way how to use it; how he passed over the Caspian
mountains, and how he sailed through the Atlantic sea, defeated the
Cannibals, and conquered the isles of Pearls; how he married the daughter
of the King of India, called Presthan; how he fought against the devil and
burnt up five chambers of hell, ransacked the great black chamber, threw
Proserpina into the fire, broke five teeth to Lucifer, and the horn that
was in his arse; how he visited the regions of the moon to know whether
indeed the moon were not entire and whole, or if the women had three
quarters of it in their heads, and a thousand other little merriments all
veritable. These are brave things truly. Good night, gentlemen.
Perdonate mi, and think not so much upon my faults that you forget your
own.
If you say to me, Master, it would seem that you were not very wise in
writing to us these flimflam stories and pleasant fooleries; I answer you,
that you are not much wiser to spend your time in reading them.
Nevertheless, if you read them to make yourselves merry, as in manner of
pastime I wrote them, you and I both are far more worthy of pardon than a
great rabble of squint-minded fellows, dissembling and counterfeit saints,
demure lookers, hypocrites, pretended zealots, tough friars, buskin-monks,
and other such sects of men, who disguise themselves like masquers to
deceive the world. For, whilst they give the common people to understand
that they are busied about nothing but contemplation and devotion in
fastings and maceration of their sensuality--and that only to sustain and
aliment the small frailty of their humanity--it is so far otherwise that,
on the contrary, God knows what cheer they make; Et Curios simulant, sed
Bacchanalia vivunt. You may read it in great letters in the colouring of
their red snouts, and gulching bellies as big as a tun, unless it be when
they perfume themselves with sulphur. As for their study, it is wholly
taken up in reading of Pantagruelian books, not so much to pass the time
merrily as to hurt someone or other mischievously, to wit, in articling,
sole-articling, wry-neckifying, buttock-stirring, ballocking, and
diabliculating, that is, calumniating. Wherein they are like unto the poor
rogues of a village that are busy in stirring up and scraping in the ordure
and filth of little children, in the season of cherries and guinds, and
that only to find the kernels, that they may sell them to the druggists to
make thereof pomander oil. Fly from these men, abhor and hate them as much
as I do, and upon my faith you will find yourselves the better for it. And
if you desire to be good Pantagruelists, that is to say, to live in peace,
joy, health, making yourselves always merry, never trust those men that
always peep out at one hole.
End of Book II.