How Pantagruel, being at sea, heard various unfrozen words.
When we were at sea, junketting, tippling, discoursing, and telling
stories, Pantagruel rose and stood up to look out; then asked us, Do you
hear nothing, gentlemen? Methinks I hear some people talking in the air,
yet I can see nobody. Hark! According to his command we listened, and
with full ears sucked in the air as some of you suck oysters, to find if we
could hear some sound scattered through the sky; and to lose none of it,
like the Emperor Antoninus some of us laid their hands hollow next to their
ears; but all this would not do, nor could we hear any voice. Yet
Pantagruel continued to assure us he heard various voices in the air, some
of men, and some of women.
At last we began to fancy that we also heard something, or at least that
our ears tingled; and the more we listened, the plainer we discerned the
voices, so as to distinguish articulate sounds. This mightily frightened
us, and not without cause; since we could see nothing, yet heard such
various sounds and voices of men, women, children, horses, &c., insomuch
that Panurge cried out, Cods-belly, there is no fooling with the devil; we
are all beshit, let’s fly. There is some ambuscado hereabouts. Friar
John, art thou here my love? I pray thee, stay by me, old boy. Hast thou
got thy swindging tool? See that it do not stick in thy scabbard; thou
never scourest it half as it should be. We are undone. Hark! They are
guns, gad judge me. Let’s fly, I do not say with hands and feet, as Brutus
said at the battle of Pharsalia; I say, with sails and oars. Let’s whip it
away. I never find myself to have a bit of courage at sea; in cellars and
elsewhere I have more than enough. Let’s fly and save our bacon. I do not
say this for any fear that I have; for I dread nothing but danger, that I
don’t; I always say it that shouldn’t. The free archer of Baignolet said
as much. Let us hazard nothing, therefore, I say, lest we come off bluely.
Tack about, helm a-lee, thou son of a bachelor. Would I were now well in
Quinquenais, though I were never to marry. Haste away, let’s make all the
sail we can. They’ll be too hard for us; we are not able to cope with
them; they are ten to our one, I’ll warrant you. Nay, and they are on
their dunghill, while we do not know the country. They will be the death
of us. We’ll lose no honour by flying. Demosthenes saith that the man
that runs away may fight another day. At least let us retreat to the
leeward. Helm a-lee; bring the main-tack aboard, haul the bowlines, hoist
the top-gallants. We are all dead men; get off, in the devil’s name, get
off.
Pantagruel, hearing the sad outcry which Panurge made, said, Who talks of
flying? Let’s first see who they are; perhaps they may be friends. I can
discover nobody yet, though I can see a hundred miles round me. But let’s
consider a little. I have read that a philosopher named Petron was of
opinion that there were several worlds that touched each other in an
equilateral triangle; in whose centre, he said, was the dwelling of truth;
and that the words, ideas, copies, and images of all things past and to
come resided there; round which was the age; and that with success of time
part of them used to fall on mankind like rheums and mildews, just as the
dew fell on Gideon’s fleece, till the age was fulfilled.
I also remember, continued he, that Aristotle affirms Homer’s words to be
flying, moving, and consequently animated. Besides, Antiphanes said that
Plato’s philosophy was like words which, being spoken in some country
during a hard winter, are immediately congealed, frozen up, and not heard;
for what Plato taught young lads could hardly be understood by them when
they were grown old. Now, continued he, we should philosophize and search
whether this be not the place where those words are thawed.
You would wonder very much should this be the head and lyre of Orpheus.
When the Thracian women had torn him to pieces they threw his head and lyre
into the river Hebrus, down which they floated to the Euxine sea as far as
the island of Lesbos; the head continually uttering a doleful song, as it
were lamenting the death of Orpheus, and the lyre, with the wind’s impulse
moving its strings and harmoniously accompanying the voice. Let’s see if
we cannot discover them hereabouts.