Table-talk in praise of the decretals.
Now, topers, pray observe that while Homenas was saying his dry mass, three
collectors, or licensed beggars of the church, each of them with a large
basin, went round among the people, with a loud voice: Pray remember the
blessed men who have seen his face. As we came out of the temple they
brought their basins brimful of Papimany chink to Homenas, who told us that
it was plentifully to feast with; and that, of this contribution and
voluntary tax, one part should be laid out in good drinking, another in
good eating, and the remainder in both, according to an admirable
exposition hidden in a corner of their holy decretals; which was performed
to a T, and that at a noted tavern not much unlike that of Will’s at
Amiens. Believe me, we tickled it off there with copious cramming and
numerous swilling.
I made two notable observations at that dinner: the one, that there was
not one dish served up, whether of cabrittas, capons, hogs (of which latter
there is great plenty in Papimany), pigeons, coneys, leverets, turkeys, or
others, without abundance of magistral stuff; the other, that every course,
and the fruit also, were served up by unmarried females of the place, tight
lasses, I’ll assure you, waggish, fair, good-conditioned, and comely,
spruce, and fit for business. They were all clad in fine long white albs,
with two girts; their hair interwoven with narrow tape and purple ribbon,
stuck with roses, gillyflowers, marjoram, daffadowndillies, thyme, and
other sweet flowers.
At every cadence they invited us to drink and bang it about, dropping us
neat and genteel courtesies; nor was the sight of them unwelcome to all the
company; and as for Friar John, he leered on them sideways, like a cur that
steals a capon. When the first course was taken off, the females
melodiously sung us an epode in the praise of the sacrosanct decretals; and
then the second course being served up, Homenas, joyful and cheery, said to
one of the she-butlers, Light here, Clerica. Immediately one of the girls
brought him a tall-boy brimful of extravagant wine. He took fast hold of
it, and fetching a deep sigh, said to Pantagruel, My lord, and you, my good
friends, here’s t’ye, with all my heart; you are all very welcome. When he
had tipped that off, and given the tall-boy to the pretty creature, he
lifted up his voice and said, O most holy decretals, how good is good wine
found through your means! This is the best jest we have had yet, observed
Panurge. But it would still be a better, said Pantagruel, if they could
turn bad wine into good.
O seraphic Sextum! continued Homenas, how necessary are you not to the
salvation of poor mortals! O cherubic Clementinae! how perfectly the
perfect institution of a true Christian is contained and described in you!
O angelical Extravagantes! how many poor souls that wander up and down in
mortal bodies through this vale of misery would perish were it not for you!
When, ah! when shall this special gift of grace be bestowed on mankind, as
to lay aside all other studies and concerns, to use you, to peruse you, to
understand you, to know you by heart, to practise you, to incorporate you,
to turn you into blood, and incentre you into the deepest ventricles of
their brains, the inmost marrow of their bones, and most intricate
labyrinth of their arteries? Then, ah! then, and no sooner than then, nor
otherwise than thus, shall the world be happy! While the old man was thus
running on, Epistemon rose and softly said to Panurge: For want of a
close-stool, I must even leave you for a moment or two; this stuff has
unbunged the orifice of my mustard-barrel; but I’ll not tarry long.
Then, ah! then, continued Homenas, no hail, frost, ice, snow, overflowing,
or vis major; then plenty of all earthly goods here below. Then
uninterrupted and eternal peace through the universe, an end of all wars,
plunderings, drudgeries, robbing, assassinates, unless it be to destroy
these cursed rebels the heretics. Oh! then, rejoicing, cheerfulness,
jollity, solace, sports, and delicious pleasures, over the face of the
earth. Oh! what great learning, inestimable erudition, and god-like
precepts are knit, linked, rivetted, and mortised in the divine chapters of
these eternal decretals!
Oh! how wonderfully, if you read but one demi-canon, short paragraph, or
single observation of these sacrosanct decretals, how wonderfully, I say,
do you not perceive to kindle in your hearts a furnace of divine love,
charity towards your neighbour (provided he be no heretic), bold contempt
of all casual and sublunary things, firm content in all your affections,
and ecstatic elevation of soul even to the third heaven.