Three good giants

by Franqois Rabelais

  MEASURING GAKGANTUA FOR HIS SUIT.

  GARGANTUA AT PLAT.

  CHAPTER V.

  THE YEAR GARGANTUA HAD WOODEN HORSES, AND WHAT USE HE MADE OF THEM.

  FROM the time he was three years old to the time he had grown to be a boy of five, Gargantua was brought up, by the strict command of his father, just like all the other children of the Kingdom. His education was very simple. It was :

  Drinking, eating, and sleeping ; Eating, sleeping, and drinking ; Sleeping, drinking, and eating.

  If he loved any one thing more than to play in the mud, that was to roll and wallow about in the mire. He would go home with his shoes all run down at the heels, and his face and clothes well streaked with dirt. Gargantua, therefore, was not more favored than the other little boys of the kingdom who were not so rich as he was ; but there was one advantage which he did have. From his earliest babyhood he saw so many horses in the Royal Stables that he got to know a fine horse almost as well as his father did. Whenever he saw a horse he would clap his fat hands together, and shout at the top of his lungs. It was thought that — being a Prince who was, in time, to become a King — he should be taught to ride well. So they made him, when he was a little fellow of four years, so fine, so strong, and so wonderful a, wooden horse that there had never been seen its like up to that date, and there never has been found in any young prince's play-house or toy-shop since.

  This surprising horse must have been a piece of rare workmanship, because, whenever its young master wanted it to do anything, it was bound to do it. He could make it leap forward, jump backward, rear skyward, and waltz, all at one time. He could make it trot, gallop, rack, pace, gambol, and amble, just as the humor took him. But this was only half of what that horse could do. Grargantua, at a word, could make it change the color of its hair. One day its hide would be milk-white ; the next day, bay ; the next, black; the next, sorrel; the next, dapple-gray ; the next, mouse-color ; the next, piebald ; the next, a soft brown deer-color.

  But this was not all.

  Gargantua learned to be so skilful that he thought that he might

  GARGANTUA S HORSE.

  just as well make a horse to suit himself as to have a horse bought for him. So he sat knitting his great eyebrows till he finally found how he could make a hunting-nag out of a big post; one for every day, out of the beam of a wine-press; one with housings for his room, out of a great oak-tree ; and, out of different kinds of wood in his father's kingdom, he made ten or twelve spare horses, and had seven for the mail.

  GARGANTUA'S RIDING-LESSONS.

  It was a rare sight to see all these wooden horses — bigger toys than had ever been made before—lying piled up, side by side, near Gargantua's bed, and the young Giant sleeping in their midst.

  One day, Gargantua had a fine chance for having some sport of his own making.

  It was on the day a noble lord came on a visit to his old friend, King Grandgousier. The Eoyal Stables proved rather small for such a number of horses as came with the noble lord. The Chief Equerry of the Lord of Breadinbag — which was the name of the great nobleman — was bothered out of his head because he could not find stable-room for all the horses brought with them. By good luck he and the Grand Steward happened to meet Gargantua at the foot of the great staircase.

  "Hello, youngster, what is thy name?" " Prince Gargantua."

  " Is that so ? " they cried. '' Then say, little Giant, tell us where we are to put our horses. The stables of thy Royal Father are all full."

  'Yes, I know they are," said Gargantua, slily; "all you have to do is to follow me, and I will show you a beautiful stable, where there are bigger horses than ever yours can grow to be. Where have you left your horses ? "

  " Out in the court-yard, little Giant."

  "Follow me, then, and I will show you the stables." The Chief Equerry and

  " A NOBLE LORD CAME ON A VISIT.

  the Grand Steward went after him, up the great staircase of the palace, through the second hall, into a great stone gallery, by which they entered into a huge stone tower, the steps to which they mounted, along with the Prince, but breathing very heavily indeed.

  " I am afraid ing at us," whis-ard, behind his Equerry. "No-

  "ONLY THREE LITTLE STEPS."

  that big child is laugh-pered the Grand Stew-hand, to the Chief body ever puts a stable at the top of a house." f You are wrong there," whispered back the Chief Equerry; " because I happen to know of places, in Lyons and elsewhere, where there are stables in the attic. But, to make sure, let us ask him again."

  Turning to Gar-gantua, he said : —

  "My little Prince, art thou sure thou art taking us right ? " "Haven't I already told you? Isn't this my father's palace, and don't I know the way to the stables of my big horses? Don't gasp, so much, gentlemen. Only three little steps and we are there ! "

  Once up the steps, which made the Chief Equerry and the Grand Steward blow worse than ever, and passing through another great hall, the mischievous Prince, opening wide a door, —that of his own room,, — cried, triumphantly : —

  "Here are the finest horses, gentlemen, in the world. This one next the door is my favorite riding-horse. That one near the fireplace is my pacer,— a good one, I assure you. Now, just look at that one leaning against yonder window. I rode it rather hard yesterday, and it is tired. That's my hunting-nag. I had it at a great price from Frankfort; but I am willing to make you a present of it. Don't refuse me, I beg. Once on it, you can bag all the partridges and hares you may come across for the whole winter. Now, choose ; which of you will ride my hunting-nag ? "

  The Chief Equerry and the Grand Steward, knowing that all these fine names of "riding-horse," and "pacer," and "hunting-nag," were for mere blocks of wood, were, for a moment, stupefied. They looked at each other slily, and half ashamed ; but the joke was too good when they thought of the long stairs they had toiled up, and of their horses below waiting all this time to be stabled and fed. They couldn't help it ; it was too rich ; so they laughed till they were tired, and then began to laugh again till they were tired again.

  " A rare bird is this young scamp," panted the Chief Equerry, as he lifted one end of the great beam which Gargantua called his hunting-nag.

  "A prime joker is this young rogue, if he is a Prince," panted the Grand Steward, in echo, as he stumbled along with the other end into the hall.

  There was no use in being mad at the trick young Gargantua had played on them. So they left him stroking the fastest horses in the world, while they went laughing all the way across the first hall, down the small steps, across the other halls, along the corridors, past the stone gallery, down the long stairway as far as the great arch, where they let the famous hunting-nag roll to the bottom.

  When they at last reached the great dining-room, where all their friends were gathered, they made everybody laugh like a swarm of flies at the trick played on them by the little Prince with his wooden horses.

  CHAPTER VI.

  HOW GARGANTUA WAS TAUGHT LATIN.

  Father Grandgousier had a very large body of his own; and, after the fashion of all good-natured giants that have ever lived, when he was pleased he was hugely pleased. So it happened that, when his friends caine around him to drink his good wine, and eat his rich dinners, and to tell him how bright his boy was, he shook all over with mighty laughter. "Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! " he shouted, till the big strong bottles that stood on his table jingled, and the very rafters of the dining-hall seemed to laugh with them.

  'You say that my little Gargantua is quick? Ho! ho! Now, my good lords, Philip of Macedon had a son who was quick too. Yes, they said that he was as quick as that," snapping his fingers together so that they went cric-crac like a pistol shot. T You have heard of the lad, and that wild Bucephalus of his ? Bah ! I am sure my little brigand upstairs would never have waited to turn the head of Bucephalus to the sun before riding him, but would have mounted and ridden him before all the people, with his tail turned straight to the sun, and his sh
adow thrown plain before him ! You have decided me, my friends. Gargantua is already five years old. He is only a baby ; but he is a Giant's child with more wit than age, —that makes a difference. I have been thinking seriously lately; and it is high time that I should give my youngster to some wise man to make him wise according to his capacity."

  And this Father Grandgousier began to do at once. He called, the very next day, upon one of his subjects, worthy Master Tubal Holofernes, a man famed for wisdom the country round, to teach Gar-gantua his A B C's. I am sorry to say that Master Holofernes seemed, from the first hour, to be just a little afraid of his small pupil, who, although only a baby, could easily have studied his alphabet on his teacher's bald pate, and had to bend his head even to do that. But Father

  Grandgousier was, on the whole, well satisfied w r ith his son. Gar-gantua could, after five years and three months, actually recite his alphabet from A to Z ; then from Z to A; then catch it sharply up in the middle, bunching M and N together; naming the letters in fours, in eights, and in twelves, as quickly as you can think, forward and back again, and again, till all the old friends — whose noses, from good living, had become very red, and whose paunches were very big — swore, over their wine, that he was the smartest child often years they ever had seen. Of course, Father Grandgousier thought all this something wonderful. He ho-ho'ed and he ha-ha'ed ! with great swelling laughter, after the fashion of Giants, until he was all out of breath, and his friends had to beg him to stop for fear of choking.

  But Father Grandgousier could not rest here. He declared that

  TUBAL HOLOFERNES.

  Gargantua must now learn Latin. The young Giant was made, not only to study Latin, but to write, besides that, his own books of study in Gothic letters, there being no printing-presses in those days.

  To learn all this took him thirteen years, six months, and two weeks.

  Bythistime, Garantua had grown so tall tnat » when called to recite » ne could not make his answer heard

  by Master Holofernes, who was rather deaf, unless by bending down and whispering it, because his voice was so strong that his ordinary tone would have, at that close distance, broken the drums of the old man's ears. What he thought he needed, therefore, was a writing-desk. It was very hard to find a desk quite suited to him for writing down what he had to say. They hunted near and far for one. At last one was found in the possession of a stunted old giant, living in a cave near by, who all his life had been hoping to grow as tall as King Grandgousier himself. This poor giant had, however, been thrown into despair because he had suddenly stopped growing, and still lacked a dozen feet or so of being as tall as he wanted to be. He gave up the desk he had used so long, with a great sob that shook the mountain in the caves of which he lived. Gargantua, although not full-grown, did not find a desk of seven hundred thousand pounds' weight at all in his way, for it was just suited to his size.

  His ink-horn, weighing as much as a ton of merchandise, swung by heavy iron chains from the side of the desk. From it Gargantua, with a pen-holder as large as the great Pillar of Enay, used to write his Latin exercises. Master Holofernes kept him at all this for eighteen years and eleven months, and so thorough did he become that he could recite his Latin exercises by heart, backwards. He went on studying after this some of the harder books for sixteen years and two months, when he had the misfortune of losing his old teacher very suddenly.

  One day, unexpectedly, Father Grandgousier called his friends around him, — who had, by this time, gained redder noses and bigger paunches than ever, - to see how strong his son was in Latin. He also invited a friend of his who, he was sure, did know Latin.

  Then he shouted out, " Come, my little one, and show these friends of thy father what thou hast learned of Latin. See, here is a gentleman who knows it as he does his breviary. He shall examine thee, and tell us how much thou hast learned under faithful Master Holofernes, whom we all honor."

  And the learned friend began on poor Gargantua, and poured on him question after question for six mortal hours. Father Grandgousier, who, by the way, had understood not one word of it all, turned to him at the end triumphantly: —

  "Now, good sir, art thou not convinced that my boy knows his Latin ? "

  Then, that learned friend, although just a little trembling, to be sure, answered quietly enough : —

  " With my Liege's permission, Prince Gargantua does not know any more Latin than Your own Gracious Majesty."

  What!

  WHAT !!

  WHAT!!!

  FLIGHT OF THE TUTOR.

  roared Father Grandgousier, each time making that very short word longer and louder and fiercer, and jumping to his feet he fairly kicked learned Master Ilolofernes out of the palace ; meanwhile, rolling his eyes around in his rage, and gnashing his teeth in so horrible a way that the noses of his old friends who had sat at his table for sixty years, and more, turned pale for once, through fright; and there were those of the household who said that, as they fled from the dining-room, in terror, even the paunches of these old friends seemed, somehow, to have grown as flat as the royal pancakes they had just been eating.

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE NEW MASTER FOUND FOR GARGANTUA.

  THAT ! not know thy Latin ! After forty-eight years, seven months, and two days ! Then, my little rogue, it is to Paris thou must go."

  This is what Grandgousier said to Gargantua just one week after that luckless dinner. I will tell you how it all happened. The first thing the old Kino- did the next morning was to send, post-haste, to his good friend, Don Philip of the Marshes, Viceroy of Papeligosse, who knew Latin, and who had told him, years and years before, that poor Master

  Holofernes was nothing but a bit of an old humbug (humbug was not quite the word used at that time, but the meaning was all the same). "Come to me, my friend," he wrote, "thou art always prating of thy Latin scholars. Xow bring one of thy wonders along with thee."

  So Don Philip came in great state, as befitted a visit to his King, accompanied by the prettiest, the jauntiest, the sharpest, the politest, the sweetest-voiced little fellow ever seen. Don Philip introduced the curled darling as Master Eudemon, his page.

  "Your Majesty sees this child ? " he asked. " He is not yet twelve years old; yet I dare promise that he will prove to Your Majesty, if it be your pleasure, what difference there really is between the old dreamers of the past and the lads of the present."

  " So be it," cried the old Giant, gaily, as he put on his glasses, to see the better.

  When his eyes first fell on the young page, he swore under his breath — which sounded for all the world like stifled thunder — that he resembled rather "a little angel than a human child." As soon as Eudemon was called to show what he knew, he rose with youthful modesty, and bowed with charming grace to the King, then to his master, and then to Gargantua, who was frowning at him, and wondering within himself what all those pretty ways meant. Then the young page opened in a Latin so good, so pure, and so musical that what he said sounded rather like a speech made by a Gracchus, or a Cicero, or an Emilius, in the old days of Roman glory, than one made by a youth of that day. After a little, Eudemon — cunning rogue that he was ! — began to praise Gargantua to the skies. He spoke first of his young Prince's virtue and good manners; secondly, of his knowledge; thirdly, of his noble birth; fourthly, of his personal beauty ; and fifthly, the little fellow exhorted him so movingly to revere his great father in all things that Gar-gautua was so ashamed at not understanding a word of what he was saying, and at not being able to Latin away as he did, forgetting that a dwarf had no business whatever to criticise a young Giant, that he began to moo-moo like a cow, and to hide his face in his cap without having ever a word to say for himself.

  Here it was that Father Grandgousier grew really angry. He praised Eudemon and scolded Gargantua by turns, until at last he fell asleep among all the big bottles that had been emptied during the pretty tale of the learned little angel, which nobody around the table understood but Do
n Philip of the Marshes and the pretty little angel

  himself. It is a bold thing at all times to awake a King without his own orders ; but when that King is a Giant, it is a bolder thing to do than ever. No one dares, for his head, disturb him, and yet, he has to be waked, or else the next morning his sneezes will make all the houses around tumble down, as Giant's colds in the head are just about as big as their bodies. Now, Gargantua being a young Giant himself, was the only one who could venture upon the liberty of waking his Father, and I have already said what he got for his pains : —

  "What ! not know thy Latin ! After forty-eight years, seven months, and two days, too ! Then, my little rogue, it is to Paris thou shalt go."

  CHAPTER VIII.

  GARGANTUA GOES TO PARIS, AND THE BIG MARE THAT TAKES HIM THERE.

  THE trip to Paris being settled, the first thing to be agreed on was a horse large enough to carry Gargantua at his ease. There was no trouble here ; for, by good luck, it happened that there had arrived, only a few days before, the most gigantic Mare that had ever eaten hay in the Royal Stables. She had come all the way from Africa, a present from Fay-olles, the fourth king of Numidia. When Father Grandgousier went to look at the Mare, he found her a marvellous animal, indeed. She was as big as six elephants, with her hoofs split into toes. Her ears hung downward like the great ears of the goats of Languedoc. The mare was not alone in her split toes, because history tells us that the steed of Julius Csesar had the self-same toes if he hadn't the ears. But she was alone in her tail! Oh, how mighty that tail was ! It was as big as the Pillar of Saint-Mars near Langes, and just as square. If the boys and girls who are reading this are surprised, they will only have to think of what they have already read of the tails of those Scythian rams which weighed more than thirty pounds each; and of the sheep of Syria, the tails of which were so long and so heavy that they had to be rested on a cart to be carried in comfort. The Mare, in short, was so extraordinary a creature that, on seeing her for the first time, Father Grandgousier could only whistle beneath his breath.