by Неизвестный
These words thus spoken, Pantagruel, vailing his cap and making a leg with such a majestic garb as became a person of his paramount degree and eminency, farewelled Trinquamelle, the president and master-speaker of that Mirelinguesian parliament, took his leave of the whole court, and went out of the chamber; at the door whereof finding Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John, and others, he forthwith, attended by them, walked to the outer gate, where all of them immediately took horse to return towards Gargantua. Pantagruel by the way related to them from point to point the manner of Bridlegoose's sententiating differences at law. Friar John said that he had seen Peter Dandin, and was acquainted with him at that time when he sojourned in the monastery of Fontaine le Comte, under the noble Abbot Ardillon. Gymnast likewise affirmed that he was in the tent of the grand Christian cavalier De Crissie, when the Gascon, after his sleep, made answer to the adventurer. Panurge was somewhat incredulous in the matter of believing that it was morally possible Bridlegoose should have been for such a long space of time so continually fortunate in that aleatory way of deciding law debates. Epistemon said to Pantagruel, Such another story, not much unlike to that in all the circumstances thereof, is vulgarly reported of the provost of Montlehery. In good sooth, such a perpetuity of good luck is to be wondered at. To have hit right twice or thrice in a judgment so given by haphazard might have fallen out well enough, especially in controversies that were ambiguous, intricate, abstruse, perplexed, and obscure.
Chapter 3.XLIV. How Pantagruel relateth a strange history of the perplexity of human judgment.
Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella, proconsul in Asia. The case was this.
A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece. He dying, she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to her second husband bore a boy called Effege. A pretty long time thereafter it happened, as you know the affection of stepfathers and stepdams is very rare towards the children of the first fathers and mothers deceased, that this husband, with the help of his son Effege, secretly, wittingly, willingly, and treacherously murdered Abece. The woman came no sooner to get information of the fact, but, that it might not go unpunished, she caused kill them both, to revenge the death of her first son. She was apprehended and carried before Cneius Dolabella, in whose presence she, without dissembling anything, confessed all that was laid to her charge; yet alleged that she had both right and reason on her side for the killing of them. Thus was the state of the question. He found the business so dubious and intricate, that he knew not what to determine therein, nor which of the parties to incline to. On the other hand, it was an execrable crime to cut off at once both her second husband and her son. On the other hand, the cause of the murder seemed to be so natural, as to be grounded upon the law of nations and the rational instinct of all the people of the world, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyed her first son; not that they had been in any manner of way wronged, outraged, or injured by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his inheritance. In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon, he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their advice and judgment. That judicious senate, very sagely perpending the reasons of his perplexity, sent him word to summon her personally to compear before him a precise hundred years thereafter, to answer to some interrogatories touching certain points which were not contained in the verbal defence. Which resolution of theirs did import that it was in their opinion a so difficult and inextricable matter that they knew not what to say or judge therein. Who had decided that plea by the chance and fortune of the dice, could not have erred nor awarded amiss on which side soever he had passed his casting and condemnatory sentence. If against the woman, she deserved punishment for usurping sovereign authority by taking that vengeance at her own hand, the inflicting whereof was only competent to the supreme power to administer justice in criminal cases. If for her, the just resentment of a so atrocious injury done unto her, in murdering her innocent son, did fully excuse and vindicate her of any trespass or offence about that particular committed by her. But this continuation of Bridlegoose for so many years still hitting the nail on the head, never missing the mark, and always judging aright, by the mere throwing of the dice and chance thereof, is that which most astonisheth and amazeth me.
To answer, quoth Pantagruel (Epistemon, says the English edition of 1694, following the reading of the modern French editions. Le Duchat has pointed out the mistake.--M.), categorically to that which you wonder at, I must ingeniously confess and avow that I cannot; yet, conjecturally to guess at the reason of it, I would refer the cause of that marvellously long- continued happy success in the judiciary results of his definitive sentences to the favourable aspect of the heavens and benignity of the intelligences; who, out of their love to goodness, after having contemplated the pure simplicity and sincere unfeignedness of Judge Bridlegoose in the acknowledgment of his inabilities, did regulate that for him by chance which by the profoundest act of his maturest deliberation he was not able to reach unto. That, likewise, which possibly made him to diffide in his own skill and capacity, notwithstanding his being an expert and understanding lawyer, for anything that I know to the contrary, was the knowledge and experience which he had of the antinomies, contrarieties, antilogies, contradictions, traversings, and thwartings of laws, customs, edicts, statutes, orders, and ordinances, in which dangerous opposition, equity and justice being structured and founded on either of the opposite terms, and a gap being thereby opened for the ushering in of injustice and iniquity through the various interpretations of self-ended lawyers, being assuredly persuaded that the infernal calumniator, who frequently transformeth himself into the likeness of a messenger or angel of light, maketh use of these cross glosses and expositions in the mouths and pens of his ministers and servants, the perverse advocates, bribing judges, law- monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-like law- wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black to white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply. For the more expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleading parties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is well known that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find an advocate to patrocinate and defend it,--else would there be no process in the world, no suits at law, nor pleadings at the bar. He did in these extremities, as I conceive, most humbly recommend the direction of his judicial proceedings to the upright judge of judges, God Almighty; did submit himself to the conduct and guideship of the blessed Spirit in the hazard and perplexity of the definitive sentence, and, by this aleatory lot, did as it were implore and explore the divine decree of his goodwill and pleasure, instead of that which we call the final judgment of a court. To this effect, to the better attaining to his purpose, which was to judge righteously, he did, in my opinion, throw and turn the dice, to the end that by the providence aforesaid the best chance might fall to him whose action was uprightest, and backed with greatest reason. In doing whereof he did not stray from the sense of Talmudists, who say that there is so little harm in that manner of searching the truth, that in the anxiety and perplexedness of human wits God oftentimes manifesteth the secret pleasure of his divine will.
Furthermore, I will neither think nor say, nor can I believe, that the unstraightness is so irregular, or the corruption so evident, of those of the parliament of Mirelingois in Mirelingues, before whom Bridlegoose was arraigned for prevarication, that they will maintain it to be a worse practice to have the decision of a suit at law referred to the chance and hazard of a throw of the dice, hab nab, or luck as it will, than to have it remitted to and passed by the determination of those whose hands are full of blood and hearts of wry affections. Besides that, their principal direction in all law matters comes to their hands from one Tribonian, a wicked, miscreant, barbarous, faithless and perfidious knave, so pernicious, unju
st, avaricious, and perverse in his ways, that it was his ordinary custom to sell laws, edicts, declarations, constitutions, and ordinances, as at an outroop or putsale, to him who offered most for them. Thus did he shape measures for the pleaders, and cut their morsels to them by and out of these little parcels, fragments, bits, scantlings, and shreds of the law now in use, altogether concealing, suppressing, disannulling, and abolishing the remainder, which did make for the total law; fearing that, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge of such as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctors of the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts, his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the public notice of the world. Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that is to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical case should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination of what is their right to such unhallowed sentences and horrible decrees; as Cato in his time wished and advised that every judiciary court should be paved with caltrops.
Chapter 3.XLV. How Panurge taketh advice of Triboulet.
On the sixth day thereafter Pantagruel was returned home at the very same hour that Triboulet was by water come from Blois. Panurge, at his arrival, gave him a hog's bladder puffed up with wind, and resounding because of the hard peas that were within it. Moreover he did present him with a gilt wooden sword, a hollow budget made of a tortoise shell, an osier-wattled wicker-bottle full of Breton wine, and five-and-twenty apples of the orchard of Blandureau.
If he be such a fool, quoth Carpalin, as to be won with apples, there is no more wit in his pate than in the head of an ordinary cabbage. Triboulet girded the sword and scrip to his side, took the bladder in his hand, ate some few of the apples, and drunk up all the wine. Panurge very wistly and heedfully looking upon him said, I never yet saw a fool, and I have seen ten thousand francs worth of that kind of cattle, who did not love to drink heartily, and by good long draughts. When Triboulet had done with his drinking, Panurge laid out before him and exposed the sum of the business wherein he was to require his advice, in eloquent and choicely-sorted terms, adorned with flourishes of rhetoric. But, before he had altogether done, Triboulet with his fist gave him a bouncing whirret between the shoulders, rendered back into his hand again the empty bottle, fillipped and flirted him in the nose with the hog's bladder, and lastly, for a final resolution, shaking and wagging his head strongly and disorderly, he answered nothing else but this, By God, God, mad fool, beware the monk, Buzansay hornpipe! These words thus finished, he slipped himself out of the company, went aside, and, rattling the bladder, took a huge delight in the melody of the rickling crackling noise of the peas. After which time it lay not in the power of them all to draw out of his chaps the articulate sound of one syllable, insomuch that, when Panurge went about to interrogate him further, Triboulet drew his wooden sword, and would have stuck him therewith. I have fished fair now, quoth Panurge, and brought my pigs to a fine market. Have I not got a brave determination of all my doubts, and a response in all things agreeable to the oracle that gave it? He is a great fool, that is not to be denied, yet is he a greater fool who brought him hither to me,--That bolt, quoth Carpalin, levels point-blank at me,--but of the three I am the greatest fool, who did impart the secret of my thoughts to such an idiot ass and native ninny.
Without putting ourselves to any stir or trouble in the least, quoth Pantagruel, let us maturely and seriously consider and perpend the gestures and speech which he hath made and uttered. In them, veritably, quoth he, have I remarked and observed some excellent and notable mysteries; yea, of such important worth and weight, that I shall never henceforth be astonished, nor think strange, why the Turks with a great deal of worship and reverence honour and respect natural fools equally with their primest doctors, muftis, divines, and prophets. Did not you take heed, quoth he, a little before he opened his mouth to speak, what a shogging, shaking, and wagging his head did keep? By the approved doctrine of the ancient philosophers, the customary ceremonies of the most expert magicians, and the received opinions of the learnedest lawyers, such a brangling agitation and moving should by us all be judged to proceed from, and be quickened and suscitated by the coming and inspiration of the prophetizing and fatidical spirit, which, entering briskly and on a sudden into a shallow receptacle of a debile substance (for, as you know, and as the proverb shows it, a little head containeth not much brains), was the cause of that commotion. This is conform to what is avouched by the most skilful physicians, when they affirm that shakings and tremblings fall upon the members of a human body, partly because of the heaviness and violent impetuosity of the burden and load that is carried, and, other part, by reason of the weakness and imbecility that is in the virtue of the bearing organ. A manifest example whereof appeareth in those who, fasting, are not able to carry to their head a great goblet full of wine without a trembling and a shaking in the hand that holds it. This of old was accounted a prefiguration and mystical pointing out of the Pythian divineress, who used always, before the uttering of a response from the oracle, to shake a branch of her domestic laurel. Lampridius also testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holy days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the head of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake. Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoever he walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furious lolling and mad-like shaking of his head, that he commonly affrighted those who casually met with him in his way. The said author in another place, showing a reason why Charmides shook and brangled his head, assevered that he was transported and in an ecstasy. Catullus after the same manner maketh mention, in his Berecynthia and Atys, of the place wherein the Menades, Bacchical women, she-priests of the Lyaean god, and demented prophetesses, carrying ivy boughs in their hands, did shake their heads. As in the like case, amongst the Galli, the gelded priests of Cybele were wont to do in the celebrating of their festivals. Whence, too, according to the sense of the ancient theologues, she herself has her denomination, for (Greek) signifieth to turn round, whirl about, shake the head, and play the part of one that is wry-necked.
Semblably Titus Livius writeth that, in the solemnization time of the Bacchanalian holidays at Rome, both men and women seemed to prophetize and vaticinate, because of an affected kind of wagging of the head, shrugging of the shoulders, and jectigation of the whole body, which they used then most punctually. For the common voice of the philosophers, together with the opinion of the people, asserteth for an irrefragable truth that vaticination is seldom by the heavens bestowed on any without the concomitancy of a little frenzy and a head-shaking, not only when the said presaging virtue is infused, but when the person also therewith inspired declareth and manifesteth it unto others. The learned lawyer Julian, being asked on a time if that slave might be truly esteemed to be healthful and in a good plight who had not only conversed with some furious, maniac, and enraged people, but in their company had also prophesied, yet without a noddle-shaking concussion, answered that, seeing there was no head-wagging at the time of his predictions, he might be held for sound and compotent enough. Is it not daily seen how schoolmasters, teachers, tutors, and instructors of children shake the heads of their disciples, as one would do a pot in holding it by the lugs, that by this erection, vellication, stretching, and pulling their ears, which, according to the doctrine of the sage Egyptians, is a member consecrated to the memory, they may stir them up to recollect their scattered thoughts, bring home those fancies of theirs which perhaps have been extravagantly roaming abroad upon strange and uncouth objects, and totally range their judgments, which possibly by disordinate affections have been made wild, to the rule and pattern of a wise, discreet, virtuous, and philosophical discipline. All which Virgil acknowledgeth to be true, in the branglement of Apollo Cynthius.
Chapter 3.XLVI. How Pa
ntagruel and Panurge diversely interpret the words of Triboulet.
He says you are a fool. And what kind of fool? A mad fool, who in your old age would enslave yourself to the bondage of matrimony, and shut your pleasures up within a wedlock whose key some ruffian carries in his codpiece. He says furthermore, Beware of the monk. Upon mine honour, it gives me in my mind that you will be cuckolded by a monk. Nay, I will engage mine honour, which is the most precious pawn I could have in my possession although I were sole and peaceable dominator over all Europe, Asia, and Africa, that, if you marry, you will surely be one of the horned brotherhood of Vulcan. Hereby may you perceive how much I do attribute to the wise foolery of our morosoph Triboulet. The other oracles and responses did in the general prognosticate you a cuckold, without descending so near to the point of a particular determination as to pitch upon what vocation amongst the several sorts of men he should profess who is to be the copesmate of your wife and hornifier of your proper self. Thus noble Triboulet tells it us plainly, from whose words we may gather with all ease imaginable that your cuckoldry is to be infamous, and so much the more scandalous that your conjugal bed will be incestuously contaminated with the filthiness of a monkery lecher. Moreover, he says that you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned, hornified, and cornuted. And, as Triboulet's uncle asked from Louis the Twelfth, for a younger brother of his own who lived at Blois, the hornpipes of Buzansay, for the organ pipes, through the mistake of one word for another, even so, whilst you think to marry a wise, humble, calm, discreet, and honest wife, you shall unhappily stumble upon one witless, proud, loud, obstreperous, bawling, clamorous, and more unpleasant than any Buzansay hornpipe. Consider withal how he flirted you on the nose with the bladder, and gave you a sound thumping blow with his fist upon the ridge of the back. This denotates and presageth that you shall be banged, beaten, and fillipped by her, and that also she will steal of your goods from you, as you stole the hog's bladder from the little boys of Vaubreton.
