How the birds of the Ringing Island were all passengers.
Since you have told us, said Pantagruel, how the pope-hawk is begot by the
cardin-hawks, the cardin-hawks by the bish-hawks, and the bish-hawks by the
priest-hawks, and the priest-hawks by the clerg-hawks, I would gladly know
whence you have these same clerg-hawks. They are all of them passengers,
or travelling birds, returned Aedituus, and come hither from t’other world;
part out of a vast country called Want-o’-bread, the rest out of another
toward the west, which they style Too-many-of-’em. From these two
countries flock hither, every year, whole legions of these clerg-hawks,
leaving their fathers, mothers, friends, and relations.
This happens when there are too many children, whether male or female, in
some good family of the latter country; insomuch that the house would come
to nothing if the paternal estate were shared among them all (as reason
requires, nature directs, and God commands). For this cause parents use to
rid themselves of that inconveniency by packing off the younger fry, and
forcing them to seek their fortune in this isle Bossart (Crooked Island).
I suppose he means L’Isle Bouchart, near Chinon, cried Panurge. No,
replied t’other, I mean Bossart (Crooked), for there is not one in ten
among them but is either crooked, crippled, blinking, limping,
ill-favoured, deformed, or an unprofitable load to the earth.
‘Twas quite otherwise among the heathens, said Pantagruel, when they used
to receive a maiden among the number of vestals; for Leo Antistius affirms
that it was absolutely forbidden to admit a virgin into that order if she
had any vice in her soul or defect in her body, though it were but the
smallest spot on any part of it. I can hardly believe, continued Aedituus,
that their dams on t’other side the water go nine months with them; for
they cannot endure them nine years, nay, scarce seven sometimes, in the
house, but by putting only a shirt over the other clothes of the young
urchins, and lopping off I don’t well know how many hairs from their
crowns, mumbling certain apostrophized and expiatory words, they visibly,
openly, and plainly, by a Pythagorical metempsychosis, without the least
hurt, transmogrify them into such birds as you now see; much after the
fashion of the Egyptian heathens, who used to constitute their isiacs by
shaving them and making them put on certain linostoles, or surplices.
However, I don’t know, my good friends, but that these she-things, whether
clerg-kites, monk-kites, and abbess-kites, instead of singing pleasant
verses and charisteres, such as used to be sung to Oromasis by Zoroaster’s
institution, may be bellowing out such catarates and scythropys (cursed
lamentable and wretched imprecations) as were usually offered to the
Arimanian demon; being thus in devotion for their kind friends and
relations that transformed them into birds, whether when they were maids,
or thornbacks, in their prime, or at their last prayers.
But the greatest numbers of our birds came out of Want-o’-bread, which,
though a barren country, where the days are of a most tedious lingering
length, overstocks this whole island with the lower class of birds. For
hither fly the asapheis that inhabit that land, either when they are in
danger of passing their time scurvily for want of belly-timber, being
unable, or, what’s more likely, unwilling to take heart of grace and follow
some honest lawful calling, or too proud-hearted and lazy to go to service
in some sober family. The same is done by your frantic inamoradoes, who,
when crossed in their wild desires, grow stark staring mad, and choose this
life suggested to them by their despair, too cowardly to make them swing,
like their brother Iphis of doleful memory. There is another sort, that
is, your gaol-birds, who, having done some rogue’s trick or other heinous
villainy, and being sought up and down to be trussed up and made to ride
the two or three-legged mare that groans for them, warily scour off and
come here to save their bacon; because all these sorts of birds are here
provided for, and grow in an instant as fat as hogs, though they came as
lean as rakes; for having the benefit of the clergy, they are as safe as
thieves in a mill within this sanctuary.
But, asked Pantagruel, do these birds never return to the world where they
were hatched? Some do, answered Aedituus; formerly very few, very seldom,
very late, and very unwillingly; however, since some certain eclipses, by
the virtue of the celestial constellations, a great crowd of them fled back
to the world. Nor do we fret or vex ourselves a jot about it; for those
that stay wisely sing, The fewer the better cheer; and all those that fly
away, first cast off their feathers here among these nettles and briars.
Accordingly we found some thrown by there; and as we looked up and down, we
chanced to light on what some people will hardly thank us for having
discovered; and thereby hangs a tale.