Pantagruel’s discourse of the decease of heroic souls; and of the dreadful
prodigies that happened before the death of the late Lord de Langey.
I would not, continued Pantagruel, have missed the storm that hath thus
disordered us, were I also to have missed the relation of these things told
us by this good Macrobius. Neither am I unwilling to believe what he said
of a comet that appears in the sky some days before such a decease. For
some of those souls are so noble, so precious, and so heroic that heaven
gives us notice of their departing some days before it happens. And as a
prudent physician, seeing by some symptoms that his patient draws towards
his end, some days before gives notice of it to his wife, children,
kindred, and friends, that, in that little time he hath yet to live, they
may admonish him to settle all things in his family, to tutor and instruct
his children as much as he can, recommend his relict to his friends in her
widowhood, and declare what he knows to be necessary about a provision for
the orphans; that he may not be surprised by death without making his will,
and may take care of his soul and family; in the same manner the heavens,
as it were joyful for the approaching reception of those blessed souls,
seem to make bonfires by those comets and blazing meteors, which they at
the same time kindly design should prognosticate to us here that in a few
days one of those venerable souls is to leave her body and this terrestrial
globe. Not altogether unlike this was what was formerly done at Athens by
the judges of the Areopagus. For when they gave their verdict to cast or
clear the culprits that were tried before them, they used certain notes
according to the substance of the sentences; by Theta signifying
condemnation to death; by T, absolution; by A, ampliation or a demur, when
the case was not sufficiently examined. Thus having publicly set up those
letters, they eased the relations and friends of the prisoners, and such
others as desired to know their doom, of their doubts. Likewise by these
comets, as in ethereal characters, the heavens silently say to us, Make
haste, mortals, if you would know or learn of the blessed souls anything
concerning the public good or your private interest; for their catastrophe
is near, which being past, you will vainly wish for them afterwards.
The good-natured heavens still do more; and that mankind may be declared
unworthy of the enjoyment of those renowned souls, they fright and astonish
us with prodigies, monsters, and other foreboding signs that thwart the
order of nature.
Of this we had an instance several days before the decease of the heroic
soul of the learned and valiant Chevalier de Langey, of whom you have
already spoken. I remember it, said Epistemon; and my heart still trembles
within me when I think on the many dreadful prodigies that we saw five or
six days before he died. For the Lords D’Assier, Chemant, one-eyed Mailly,
St. Ayl, Villeneufue-la-Guyart, Master Gabriel, physician of Savillan,
Rabelais, Cohuau, Massuau, Majorici, Bullou, Cercu, alias Bourgmaistre,
Francis Proust, Ferron, Charles Girard, Francis Bourre, and many other
friends and servants to the deceased, all dismayed, gazed on each other
without uttering one word; yet not without foreseeing that France would in
a short time be deprived of a knight so accomplished and necessary for its
glory and protection, and that heaven claimed him again as its due. By the
tufted tip of my cowl, cried Friar John, I am e’en resolved to become a
scholar before I die. I have a pretty good headpiece of my own, you must
own. Now pray give me leave to ask you a civil question. Can these same
heroes or demigods you talk of die? May I never be damned if I was not so
much a lobcock as to believe they had been immortal, like so many fine
angels. Heaven forgive me! but this most reverend father, Macroby, tells
us they die at last. Not all, returned Pantagruel.
The Stoics held them all to be mortal, except one, who alone is immortal,
impassible, invisible. Pindar plainly saith that there is no more thread,
that is to say, no more life, spun from the distaff and flax of the
hard-hearted Fates for the goddesses Hamadryades than there is for those
trees that are preserved by them, which are good, sturdy, downright oaks;
whence they derived their original, according to the opinion of Callimachus
and Pausanias in Phoci. With whom concurs Martianus Capella. As for the
demigods, fauns, satyrs, sylvans, hobgoblins, aegipanes, nymphs, heroes, and
demons, several men have, from the total sum, which is the result of the
divers ages calculated by Hesiod, reckoned their life to be 9720 years; that
sum consisting of four special numbers orderly arising from one, the same
added together and multiplied by four every way amounts to forty; these
forties, being reduced into triangles by five times, make up the total of
the aforesaid number. See Plutarch, in his book about the Cessation of
Oracles.
This, said Friar John, is not matter of breviary; I may believe as little
or as much of it as you and I please. I believe, said Pantagruel, that all
intellectual souls are exempted from Atropos’s scissors. They are all
immortal, whether they be of angels, or demons, or human; yet I will tell
you a story concerning this that is very strange, but is written and
affirmed by several learned historians.