How Pantagruel arrived at the island of Sharping.
We left the island of Tools to pursue our voyage, and the next day stood in
for the island of Sharping, the true image of Fontainebleau, for the land
is so very lean that the bones, that is, the rocks, shoot through its skin.
Besides, ‘tis sandy, barren, unhealthy, and unpleasant. Our pilot showed
us there two little square rocks which had eight equal points in the shape
of a cube. They were so white that I might have mistaken them for
alabaster or snow, had he not assured us they were made of bone.
He told us that twenty chance devils very much feared in our country dwelt
there in six different storeys, and that the biggest twins or braces of
them were called sixes, and the smallest ambs-ace; the rest cinques,
quatres, treys, and deuces. When they were conjured up, otherwise coupled,
they were called either sice cinque, sice quatre, sice trey, sice deuce,
and sice ace; or cinque quatre, cinque trey, and so forth. I made there a
shrewd observation. Would you know what ‘tis, gamesters? ‘Tis that there
are very few of you in the world but what call upon and invoke the devils.
For the dice are no sooner thrown on the board, and the greedy gazing
sparks have hardly said, Two sixes, Frank; but Six devils damn it! cry as
many of them. If ambs-ace; then, A brace of devils broil me! will they
say. Quatre-deuce, Tom; The deuce take it! cries another. And so on to
the end of the chapter. Nay, they don’t forget sometimes to call the black
cloven-footed gentlemen by their Christian names and surnames; and what is
stranger yet, they use them as their greatest cronies, and make them so
often the executors of their wills, not only giving themselves, but
everybody and everything, to the devil, that there’s no doubt but he takes
care to seize, soon or late, what’s so zealously bequeathed him. Indeed,
‘tis true Lucifer does not always immediately appear by his lawful
attorneys; but, alas! ‘tis not for want of goodwill; he is really to be
excused for his delay; for what the devil would you have a devil do? He
and his black guards are then at some other places, according to the
priority of the persons that call on them; therefore, pray let none be so
venturesome as to think that the devils are deaf and blind.
He then told us that more wrecks had happened about those square rocks, and
a greater loss of body and goods, than about all the Syrtes, Scyllas and
Charybdes, Sirens, Strophades, and gulfs in the universe. I had not much
ado to believe it, remembering that formerly, among the wise Egyptians,
Neptune was described in hieroglyphics for the first cube, Apollo by an
ace, Diana by a deuce, Minerva by seven, and so forth.
He also told us that there was a phial of sanc-greal, a most divine thing,
and known to a few. Panurge did so sweeten up the syndics of the place
that they blessed us with the sight of ‘t; but it was with three times more
pother and ado, with more formalities and antic tricks, than they show the
pandects of Justinian at Florence, or the holy Veronica at Rome. I never
saw such a sight of flambeaux, torches, and hagios, sanctified tapers,
rush-lights, and farthing candles in my whole life. After all, that which
was shown us was only the ill-faced countenance of a roasted coney.
All that we saw there worth speaking of was a good face set upon an ill
game, and the shells of the two eggs formerly laid up and hatched by Leda,
out of which came Castor and Pollux, fair Helen’s brothers. These same
syndics sold us a piece of ‘em for a song, I mean, for a morsel of bread.
Before we went we bought a parcel of hats and caps of the manufacture of
the place, which, I fear, will turn to no very good account; nor are those
who shall take ‘em off our hands more likely to commend their wearing.