Gargantua and Pantagruel. Francois Rabelais

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СКАЧАТЬ the tired rabble sleepily obey

      Such opiate talk, and snore away the day,

      By all his noise as much their minds relieves,

      As caterwauling of wild cats frights thieves.

      But Rabelais was another thing, a man

      Made up of all that art and nature can

      Form from a fiery genius—he was one

      Whose soul so universally was thrown

      Through all the arts of life, who understood

      Each stratagem by which we stray from good;

      So that he best might solid virtue teach,

      As some ’gainst sins of their own bosoms preach:

      He from wise choice did the true means prefer,

      In the fool’s coat acting th’ philosopher.

      Thus hoary Aesop’s beasts did mildly tame

      Fierce man, and moralize him into shame;

      Thus brave romances, while they seem to lay

      Great trains of lust, platonic love display;

      Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chance

      Show’d a drunk slave, teach children temperance;

      Thus did the later poets nobly bring

      The scene to height, making the fool the king.

      And, noble sir, you vigorously have trod

      In this hard path, unknown, un-understood

      By its own countrymen, ’tis you appear

      Our full enjoyment which was our despair,

      Scattering his mists, cheering his cynic frowns

      (For radiant brightness now dark Rabelais crowns),

      Leaving your brave heroic cares, which must

      Make better mankind and embalm your dust,

      So undeceiving us, that now we see

      All wit in Gascon and in Cromarty,

      Besides that Rabelais is convey’d to us,

      And that our Scotland is not barbarous.

      J. De la Salle.

      Rablophila.

      The First Decade.

      The Commendation.

      Musa! canas nostrorum in testimonium Amorum,

      Et Gargantueas perpetuato faces,

      Utque homini tali resultet nobilis Eccho:

      Quicquid Fama canit, Pantagruelis erit.

      The Argument.

      Here I intend mysteriously to sing

      With a pen pluck’d from Fame’s own wing,

      Of Gargantua that learn’d breech-wiping king.

      Decade the First.

      I.

      Help me, propitious stars; a mighty blaze

      Benumbs me! I must sound the praise

      Of him hath turn’d this crabbed work in such heroic phrase.

      II.

      What wit would not court martyrdom to hold

      Upon his head a laurel of gold,

      Where for each rich conceit a Pumpion-pearl is told:

      III.

      And such a one is this, art’s masterpiece,

      A thing ne’er equall’d by old Greece:

      A thing ne’er match’d as yet, a real Golden Fleece.

      IV.

      Vice is a soldier fights against mankind;

      Which you may look but never find:

      For ’tis an envious thing, with cunning interlined.

      V.

      And thus he rails at drinking all before ’em,

      And for lewd women does be-whore ’em,

      And brings their painted faces and black patches to th’ quorum.

      VI.

      To drink he was a furious enemy

      Contented with a six-penny—

      (with diamond hatband, silver spurs, six horses.) pie—

      VII.

      And for tobacco’s pate-rotunding smoke,

      Much had he said, and much more spoke,

      But ’twas not then found out, so the design was broke.

      VIII.

      Muse! Fancy! Faith! come now arise aloud,

      Assembled in a blue-vein’d cloud,

      And this tall infant in angelic arms now shroud.

      IX.

      To praise it further I would now begin

      Were ‘t now a thoroughfare and inn,

      It harbours vice, though ‘t be to catch it in a gin.

      X.

      Therefore, my Muse, draw up thy flowing sail,

      And acclamate a gentle hail

      With all thy art and metaphors, which must prevail.

      Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri.

      Imparibus restat danda secunda modis.

      Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam,

      Cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais.

      Malevolus.

      (Reader, the Errata, which in this book are not a few, are casually lost; and therefore the Translator, not having leisure to collect them again, craves thy pardon for such as thou may’st meet with.)

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