by Неизвестный
Yet neither by natural equity, by the law of nations, nor by any imperial law whatsoever, hath there been found so much as one rubric, paragraph, point, or tittle, by the which any kind of chastisement or correction hath been adjudged due to be inflicted upon any for their delinquency in that kind. Reason opposeth, and nature is repugnant. For there is no virtuous man in the world who both naturally and with good reason will not be more hugely troubled in mind, hearing of the news of the rapt, disgrace, ignominy, and dishonour of his daughter, than of her death. Now any man, finding in hot blood one who with a forethought felony hath murdered his daughter, may, without tying himself to the formalities and circumstances of a legal proceeding, kill him on a sudden and out of hand without incurring any hazard of being attainted and apprehended by the officers of justice for so doing. What wonder is it then? Or how little strange should it appear to any rational man, if a lechering rogue, together with his mole-catching abettor, be entrapped in the flagrant act of suborning his daughter, and stealing her out of his house, though herself consent thereto, that the father in such a case of stain and infamy by them brought upon his family, should put them both to a shameful death, and cast their carcasses upon dunghills to be devoured and eaten up by dogs and swine, or otherwise fling them a little further off to the direption, tearing, and rending asunder of their joints and members by the wild beasts of the field (as unworthy to receive the gentle, the desired, the last kind embraces of the great Alma Mater, the earth, commonly called burial).
Dearly beloved son, have an especial care that after my decease none of these laws be received in any of your kingdoms; for whilst I breathe, by the grace and assistance of God, I shall give good order. Seeing, therefore, you have totally referred unto my discretion the disposure of you in marriage, I am fully of an opinion that I shall provide sufficiently well for you in that point. Make ready and prepare yourself for Panurge's voyage. Take along with you Epistemon, Friar John, and such others as you will choose. Do with my treasures what unto yourself shall seem most expedient. None of your actions, I promise you, can in my manner of way displease me. Take out of my arsenal Thalasse whatsoever equipage, furniture, or provision you please, together with such pilots, mariners, and truchmen as you have a mind to, and with the first fair and favourable wind set sail and make out to sea in the name of God our Saviour. In the meanwhile, during your absence, I shall not be neglective of providing a wife for you, nor of those preparations which are requisite to be made for the more sumptuous solemnizing of your nuptials with a most splendid feast, if ever there was any in the world, since the days of Ahasuerus.
Chapter 3.XLIX. How Pantagruel did put himself in a readiness to go to sea; and of the herb named Pantagruelion.
Within very few days after that Pantagruel had taken his leave of the good Gargantua, who devoutly prayed for his son's happy voyage, he arrived at the seaport, near to Sammalo, accompanied with Panurge, Epistemon, Friar John of the Funnels, Abbot of Theleme, and others of the royal house, especially with Xenomanes the great traveller and thwarter of dangerous ways, who was come at the bidding and appointment of Panurge, of whose castlewick of Salmigondin he did hold some petty inheritance by the tenure of a mesne fee. Pantagruel, being come thither, prepared and made ready for launching a fleet of ships, to the number of those which Ajax of Salamine had of old equipped in convoy of the Grecian soldiery against the Trojan state. He likewise picked out for his use so many mariners, pilots, sailors, interpreters, artificers, officers, and soldiers, as he thought fitting, and therewithal made provision of so much victuals of all sorts, artillery, munition of divers kinds, clothes, moneys, and other such luggage, stuff, baggage, chaffer, and furniture, as he deemed needful for carrying on the design of a so tedious, long, and perilous voyage. Amongst other things, it was observed how he caused some of his vessels to be fraught and loaded with a great quantity of an herb of his called Pantagruelion, not only of the green and raw sort of it, but of the confected also, and of that which was notably well befitted for present use after the fashion of conserves. The herb Pantagruelion hath a little root somewhat hard and rough, roundish, terminating in an obtuse and very blunt point, and having some of its veins, strings, or filaments coloured with some spots of white, never fixeth itself into the ground above the profoundness almost of a cubit, or foot and a half. From the root thereof proceedeth the only stalk, orbicular, cane-like, green without, whitish within, and hollow like the stem of smyrnium, olus atrum, beans, and gentian, full of long threads, straight, easy to be broken, jagged, snipped, nicked, and notched a little after the manner of pillars and columns, slightly furrowed, chamfered, guttered, and channelled, and full of fibres, or hairs like strings, in which consisteth the chief value and dignity of the herb, especially in that part thereof which is termed mesa, as he would say the mean, and in that other, which hath got the denomination of milasea. Its height is commonly of five or six foot. Yet sometimes it is of such a tall growth as doth surpass the length of a lance, but that is only when it meeteth with a sweet, easy, warm, wet, and well-soaked soil--as is the ground of the territory of Olone, and that of Rasea, near to Preneste in Sabinia--and that it want not for rain enough about the season of the fishers' holidays and the estival solstice. There are many trees whose height is by it very far exceeded, and you might call it dendromalache by the authority of Theophrastus. The plant every year perisheth,--the tree neither in the trunk, root, bark, or boughs being durable.
From the stalk of this Pantagruelian plant there issue forth several large and great branches, whose leaves have thrice as much length as breadth, always green, roughish, and rugged like the orcanet, or Spanish bugloss, hardish, slit round about like unto a sickle, or as the saxifragum, betony, and finally ending as it were in the points of a Macedonian spear, or of such a lancet as surgeons commonly make use of in their phlebotomizing tiltings. The figure and shape of the leaves thereof is not much different from that of those of the ash-tree, or of agrimony; the herb itself being so like the Eupatorian plant that many skilful herbalists have called it the Domestic Eupator, and the Eupator the Wild Pantagruelion. These leaves are in equal and parallel distances spread around the stalk by the number in every rank either of five or seven, nature having so highly favoured and cherished this plant that she hath richly adorned it with these two odd, divine, and mysterious numbers. The smell thereof is somewhat strong, and not very pleasing to nice, tender, and delicate noses. The seed enclosed therein mounteth up to the very top of its stalk, and a little above it.
This is a numerous herb; for there is no less abundance of it than of any other whatsoever. Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid, and some of an oblong shape, and all of those either black, bright-coloured, or tawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a quickly-blasted-away coat, yet such a one as is of a delicious taste and savour to all shrill and sweetly- singing birds, such as linnets, goldfinches, larks, canary birds, yellow- hammers, and others of that airy chirping choir; but it would quite extinguish the natural heat and procreative virtue of the semence of any man who would eat much and often of it. And although that of old amongst the Greeks there was certain kinds of fritters and pancakes, buns and tarts, made thereof, which commonly for a liquorish daintiness were presented on the table after supper to delight the palate and make the wine relish the better; yet is it of a difficult concoction, and offensive to the stomach. For it engendereth bad and unwholesome blood, and with its exorbitant heat woundeth them with grievous, hurtful, smart, and noisome vapours. And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male and female, which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, the daffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine, pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even so in this herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is very copious of and abundant in seed. There is likewise in it a female, which hath great store and plenty of whitish flowers, serviceable to little or no purpose, nor doth it carry in it seed of any wo
rth at all, at least comparable to that of the male. It hath also a larger leaf, and much softer than that of the male, nor doth it altogether grow to so great a height. This Pantagruelion is to be sown at the first coming of the swallows, and is to be plucked out of the ground when the grasshoppers begin to be a little hoarse.
Chapter 3.L. How the famous Pantagruelion ought to be prepared and wrought.
The herb Pantagruelion, in September, under the autumnal equinox, is dressed and prepared several ways, according to the various fancies of the people and diversity of the climates wherein it groweth. The first instruction which Pantagruel gave concerning it was to divest and despoil the stalk and stem thereof of all its flowers and seeds, to macerate and mortify it in pond, pool, or lake water, which is to be made run a little for five days together (Properly--'lake water, which is to be made stagnant, not current, for five days together.'--M.) if the season be dry and the water hot, or for full nine or twelve days if the weather be cloudish and the water cold. Then must it be parched before the sun till it be drained of its moisture. After this it is in the shadow, where the sun shines not, to be peeled and its rind pulled off. Then are the fibres and strings thereof to be parted, wherein, as we have already said, consisteth its prime virtue, price, and efficacy, and severed from the woody part thereof, which is unprofitable, and serveth hardly to any other use than to make a clear and glistering blaze, to kindle the fire, and for the play, pastime, and disport of little children, to blow up hogs' bladders and make them rattle. Many times some use is made thereof by tippling sweet-lipped bibbers, who out of it frame quills and pipes, through which they with their liquor-attractive breath suck up the new dainty wine from the bung of the barrel. Some modern Pantagruelists, to shun and avoid that manual labour which such a separating and partitional work would of necessity require, employ certain cataractic instruments, composed and formed after the same manner that the froward, pettish, and angry Juno did hold the fingers of both her hands interwovenly clenched together when she would have hindered the childbirth delivery of Alcmena at the nativity of Hercules; and athwart those cataracts they break and bruise to very trash the woody parcels, thereby to preserve the better the fibres, which are the precious and excellent parts. In and with this sole operation do these acquiesce and are contented, who, contrary to the received opinion of the whole earth, and in a manner paradoxical to all philosophers, gain their livelihoods backwards, and by recoiling. But those that love to hold it at a higher rate, and prize it according to its value, for their own greater profit do the very same which is told us of the recreation of the three fatal sister Parcae, or of the nocturnal exercise of the noble Circe, or yet of the excuse which Penelope made to her fond wooing youngsters and effeminate courtiers during the long absence of her husband Ulysses.
By these means is this herb put into a way to display its inestimable virtues, whereof I will discover a part; for to relate all is a thing impossible to do. I have already interpreted and exposed before you the denomination thereof. I find that plants have their names given and bestowed upon them after several ways. Some got the name of him who first found them out, knew them, sowed them, improved them by culture, qualified them to tractability, and appropriated them to the uses and subserviences they were fit for, as the Mercuriale from Mercury; Panacea from Panace, the daughter of Aesculapius; Armois from Artemis, who is Diana; Eupatoria from the king Eupator; Telephion from Telephus; Euphorbium from Euphorbus, King Juba's physician; Clymenos from Clymenus; Alcibiadium from Alcibiades; Gentiane from Gentius, King of Sclavonia, and so forth, through a great many other herbs or plants. Truly, in ancient times this prerogative of imposing the inventor's name upon an herb found out by him was held in a so great account and estimation, that, as a controversy arose betwixt Neptune and Pallas from which of them two that land should receive its denomination which had been equally found out by them both together--though thereafter it was called and had the appellation of Athens, from Athene, which is Minerva--just so would Lynceus, King of Scythia, have treacherously slain the young Triptolemus, whom Ceres had sent to show unto mankind the invention of corn, which until then had been utterly unknown, to the end that, after the murder of the messenger, whose death he made account to have kept secret, he might, by imposing, with the less suspicion of false dealing, his own name upon the said found out seed, acquire unto himself an immortal honour and glory for having been the inventor of a grain so profitable and necessary to and for the use of human life. For the wickedness of which treasonable attempt he was by Ceres transformed into that wild beast which by some is called a lynx and by others an ounce. Such also was the ambition of others upon the like occasion, as appeareth by that very sharp wars and of a long continuance have been made of old betwixt some residentiary kings in Cappadocia upon this only debate, of whose name a certain herb should have the appellation; by reason of which difference, so troublesome and expensive to them all, it was by them called Polemonion, and by us for the same cause termed Make-bate.
Other herbs and plants there are which retain the names of the countries from whence they were transported, as the Median apples from Media, where they first grew; Punic apples from Punicia, that is to say, Carthage; Ligusticum, which we call lovage, from Liguria, the coast of Genoa; Rhubarb from a flood in Barbary, as Ammianus attesteth, called Ru; Santonica from a region of that name; Fenugreek from Greece; Gastanes from a country so called; Persicaria from Persia; Sabine from a territory of that appellation; Staechas from the Staechad Islands; Spica Celtica from the land of the Celtic Gauls, and so throughout a great many other, which were tedious to enumerate. Some others, again, have obtained their denominations by way of antiphrasis, or contrariety; as Absinth, because it is contrary to (Greek), for it is bitter to the taste in drinking; Holosteon, as if it were all bones, whilst, on the contrary, there is no frailer, tenderer, nor brittler herb in the whole production of nature than it.
There are some other sorts of herbs which have got their names from their virtues and operations, as Aristolochia, because it helpeth women in childbirth; Lichen, for that it cureth the disease of that name; Mallow, because it mollifieth; Callithricum, because it maketh the hair of a bright colour; Alyssum, Ephemerum, Bechium, Nasturtium, Aneban (Henbane), and so forth through many more.
Other some there are which have obtained their names from the admirable qualities that are found to be in them, as Heliotropium, which is the marigold, because it followeth the sun, so that at the sun rising it displayeth and spreads itself out, at his ascending it mounteth, at his declining it waneth, and when he is set it is close shut; Adianton, because, although it grow near unto watery places, and albeit you should let it lie in water a long time, it will nevertheless retain no moisture nor humidity; Hierachia, Eringium, and so throughout a great many more. There are also a great many herbs and plants which have retained the very same names of the men and women who have been metamorphosed and transformed in them, as from Daphne the laurel is called also Daphne; Myrrh from Myrrha, the daughter of Cinarus; Pythis from Pythis; Cinara, which is the artichoke, from one of that name; Narcissus, with Saffron, Smilax, and divers others.
Many herbs likewise have got their names of those things which they seem to have some resemblance to; as Hippuris, because it hath the likeness of a horse's tail; Alopecuris, because it representeth in similitude the tail of a fox; Psyllion, from a flea which it resembleth; Delphinium, for that it is like a dolphin fish; Bugloss is so called because it is an herb like an ox's tongue; Iris, so called because in its flowers it hath some resemblance of the rainbow; Myosota, because it is like the ear of a mouse; Coronopus, for that it is of the likeness of a crow's foot. A great many other such there are, which here to recite were needless. Furthermore, as there are herbs and plants which have had their names from those of men, so by a reciprocal denomination have the surnames of many families taken their origin from them, as the Fabii, a fabis, beans; the Pisons, a pisis, peas; the Lentuli from lentils; the Cicerons; a ciceribus, vel ciceris, a sort of p
ulse called chickpease, and so forth. In some plants and herbs the resemblance or likeness hath been taken from a higher mark or object, as when we say Venus' navel, Venus' hair, Venus' tub, Jupiter's beard, Jupiter's eye, Mars' blood, the Hermodactyl or Mercury's fingers, which are all of them names of herbs, as there are a great many more of the like appellation. Others, again, have received their denomination from their forms, such as the Trefoil, because it is three-leaved; Pentaphylon, for having five leaves; Serpolet, because it creepeth along the ground; Helxine, Petast, Myrobalon, which the Arabians called Been, as if you would say an acorn, for it hath a kind of resemblance thereto, and withal is very oily.
