How Bacbuc explained the word of the Goddess-Bottle.
Bacbuc having thrown I don’t know what into the fountain, straight the
water ceased to boil; and then she took Panurge into the greater temple, in
the central place, where there was the enlivening fountain.
There she took out a hugeous silver book, in the shape of a half-tierce, or
hogshead, of sentences, and, having filled it at the fountain, said to him,
The philosophers, preachers, and doctors of your world feed you up with
fine words and cant at the ears; now, here we really incorporate our
precepts at the mouth. Therefore I’ll not say to you, read this chapter,
see this gloss; no, I say to you, taste me this fine chapter, swallow me
this rare gloss. Formerly an ancient prophet of the Jewish nation ate a
book and became a clerk even to the very teeth! Now will I have you drink
one, that you may be a clerk to your very liver. Here, open your
mandibules.
Panurge gaping as wide as his jaws would stretch, Bacbuc took the silver
book--at least we took it for a real book, for it looked just for the world
like a breviary--but in truth it was a breviary, a flask of right Falernian
wine as it came from the grape, which she made him swallow every drop.
By Bacchus, quoth Panurge, this was a notable chapter, a most authentic
gloss, o’ my word. Is this all that the trismegistian Bottle’s word means?
I’ troth, I like it extremely; it went down like mother’s milk. Nothing
more, returned Bacbuc; for Trinc is a panomphean word, that is, a word
understood, used and celebrated by all nations, and signifies drink.
Some say in your world that sack is a word used in all tongues, and justly
admitted in the same sense among all nations; for, as Aesop’s fable hath
it, all men are born with a sack at the neck, naturally needy and begging
of each other; neither can the most powerful king be without the help of
other men, or can anyone that’s poor subsist without the rich, though he be
never so proud and insolent; as, for example, Hippias the philosopher, who
boasted he could do everything. Much less can anyone make shift without
drink than without a sack. Therefore here we hold not that laughing, but
that drinking is the distinguishing character of man. I don’t say
drinking, taking that word singly and absolutely in the strictest sense;
no, beasts then might put in for a share; I mean drinking cool delicious
wine. For you must know, my beloved, that by wine we become divine;
neither can there be a surer argument or a less deceitful divination. Your
[‘Varro.’--Motteux) academics assert the same when they make the etymology
of wine, which the Greeks call OINOS, to be from vis, strength, virtue,
and power; for ‘tis in its power to fill the soul with all truth, learning,
and philosophy.
If you observe what is written in Ionic letters on the temple gate, you may
have understood that truth is in wine. The Goddess-Bottle therefore
directs you to that divine liquor; be yourself the expounder of your
undertaking.
It is impossible, said Pantagruel to Panurge, to speak more to the purpose
than does this true priestess; you may remember I told you as much when you
first spoke to me about it.
Trinc then: what says your heart, elevated by Bacchic enthusiasm?
With this quoth Panurge:
Trinc, trinc; by Bacchus, let us tope,
And tope again; for, now I hope
To see some brawny, juicy rump
Well tickled with my carnal stump.
Ere long, my friends, I shall be wedded,
Sure as my trap-stick has a red-head;
And my sweet wife shall hold the combat
Long as my baws can on her bum beat.
O what a battle of a-- fighting
Will there be, which I much delight in!
What pleasing pains then shall I take
To keep myself and spouse awake!
All heart and juice, I’ll up and ride,
And make a duchess of my bride.
Sing Io paean! loudly sing
To Hymen, who all joys will bring.
Well, Friar John, I’ll take my oath,
This oracle is full of troth;
Intelligible truth it bears,
More certain than the sieve and shears.